Thinking about starting up a webcomic? Has the thought ' Hey, if they can do it, so can I!' ever crossed your mind?

You've been reading my comic, haven't you?

Before you start looking around for a place to host a comic (or wondering what hosting is and if it requires deviled eggs) or thinking about what kind of comic you would like to do, there are some simple things you should be aware of. Proceed with caution, my friend, for the trip down into webcomic creation is a perilous path!! But avoid these pitfalls and you'll be fine.

I am going to do something very shocking for someone who writes about comics for a webcomic magazine and who creates comics herself. I am going to decry political cartoons.

Come Together

Which would you rather go see, a one-man band or an orchestra? Is a four-piece band just perfect? Was The Who so loud because they were overcompensating for only having three instruments? Is bigger really better? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth? (Should I throw in some more metaphors or get right to the, uh, meat of the matter?)

The point: Most online comics are done by just one person.

Not having grown up with comics, I still don't see the magic in Wednesdays that some people do.

I just moved to Canada and so I feel I'm qualified to be objective about American politics when I'm not running around and shouting "Commies! Pinkies!" at the natives here.

Webcomics are constantly being compared to comics made available in print mediums: pros and cons, webcomics breaking into print, print on the web, etc. Much of this discussion is generated from people who read and create webcomics, and is written in defence of webcomics. Oddly enough, it's not as if you hear the masses screaming that webcomics are inferior to print. Maybe it's simply inferred by everyone, the same way comic fans infer that their favorite medium is supposed to be inferior to prose or movies?

So maybe I'm just giving everyone a reason to argue their point when I say that right now, I consider webcomics to be not as good as other mediums.

Faith Erin Hicks' quietly built mountain of accomplishments should serve as a prime example of the value of doing your own thing. With over 700 full-sized comic book pages under the belt, Hicks' long-running webcomic epic, Demonology 101, is finally wrapping up what has turned out to be a 5-episode story arc, spanning across the last 5 years. D101 garnered two WCCA awards in 2003 – Oustanding Writing and Outstanding Black and White Art – while also being nominated for Outstanding Art, Outstanding Character Development, Outstanding Long Form Comic, and Outstanding Dramatic Comic.

In the interview that follows, Meaghan Quinn speaks with Hicks on the origins and the process of Demonology 101; she also speaks about future plans, and gets a few sneak preview details from Hicks about a Fanart and Fanfic contest being held to cap the series end.

Last November, Hard, author of Sexy Losers, asked in his comic's Livejournal why women read his comic. He was asking because he had so many women writing to him, and as he put it: "…sometimes they will add 'Yes, there are females that read your comic' as if I am suddenly shocked that there would actually be females that would find sex humour at all interesting…"

I'm sitting here listening to Jay Z's Black Album and wondering about classics.

With Return of the King still gallivanting in theaters, everyone knows J. R. R. Tolkien these days (except, evidently, my spell check). So it won't be big news to bring up why it was that the good professor wrote the books in the first place. He wrote a story that he himself wanted to read but had been unable to find.

Tolkien was not a writer of fiction by deliberation, but stumbled into it.