Webcomics Reviews & Interviews

- Season 1

(2018)

Curious how to write for a webcomic, or even a comic in general? This podcast covers the writing, marketing, and even how to get money from your webcomic. The writing looks at plot, character, and setting development. Marketing looks at SEO tricks, building a fan base, and how to get noticed. Profit looks at merchandise, advertising, and even selling your trade paperback. So if you want to know how to run a webcomic and make money from it.

When it comes to a webcomic defining a genre can be a tricky thing. This podcast explores the various genres and subgenres, and the advantages of picking a genre or even, better yet, combining several genres into one to better market your webcomic.

Interview with Miles Greb, of Clovis and After the Goldrush. His various comics are discussed, as well as his success with Kickstarter. How to find an artist, marketing a comic, and how to run a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding are all covered.

The description of a webcomic can be almost harder to write than the webcomic itself. You need a short synopsis of your webcomic, and not all synopses fit into an easy 50-word description. This podcast shows you how to create a short yet brief description of your webcomic, and shows you that it can be relatively painless.

While some hate critics they can be a necessary part of the success of your webcomic. A good review can boost your fan base while a bad review can help you make the webcomic better. Regardless, it is necessary to at least debate the use of reviews in order to help your webcomic get better and bigger.

In order to run a webcomic you need to speak at least some legalese, and this podcast is an introduction to that. This podcast will cover how to create and define partnerships in terms of who does what and what each gets if the partnership splits up; the Fair use Doctrine and what it actually entails; and the basics of copyright and trademarks as well as why the Poor Man's Copyright doesn't protect you.

Every show in Hollywood has a bible, that reference work that helps keep the show running. This podcast explores setting up your own bible for your comic, looking at how you need pictures, history, and general information on each strip, and how it helps keep you organized. Better yet, it shows you how it can help inspire you as well as better market your comic, making it a very useful document.

Too many people are worried about merchandise and what to sell. This podcast will show you which products work the best, warnings about other products, and how to use merchandise in how to build a fan base. The advantages of using a print-on-demand site will also be covered, and how to use one to eliminate your worries about having to store product.

The biggest problem with writing a webcomic is the plotting. I look at A-plots (main plots) B-plots (subplots), and c-plots (running gags), the three-act structure, and even some great sources for writing scripts. For those curious how to organize the plots of your stories, this is how you do it.

Theme adds depth and adds something to the comic, while conflict keeps the interest up. We explore themes and how they make life easier, as well as how to make conflicts that much better. For those curious what theme is and how it can help you, this is for you.

Sometimes it can only help to look at other disciplines to improve art. When it comes to webcomics it may not hurt to look at some basic cinematography techniques to work into the webcomic. There are reasons that the techniques have made films classics, and it can only help you to use them when you draw.

Webcomics, like other genres, have their own rules. It may help your art to know what the basics of the webcomic genre are, and they may help make your webcomic better as well generally improve your art. Let's just Scott McCloud would be proud.

Webcomic artists suck at promoting at their own stuff, and so they need help promoting themselves. Creating posters, calendars and other promotional art can be fun, but it requires some sort of plan, and this podcast may help you make some incredible promotional art that you can use to sell for some additional profit as well as getting the word out.

There are a lot of basic art mistakes that we're all guilty of at one time or another. While there are obviously too many ever be part of the same podcast, here are ten of the worst, ranging from basic composition to how to avoid staying the same. Learn even some of these and you should see some serious improvements in your art.

Horror has its own tropes. When those tropes work, they work well, but in less capable hands they become cliches. This podcast explores why those tropes work from an in-universe perspective, that is, how they work in the universe where they happen. Topics covered: Killers, Final Girls, Teen Victims, Older Investigators, Signature Weapons, Deserted Locations, Limited Tech, Limited Weapons, Splitting Up, and Why There Are No Animals.

Science Fiction has its own tropes. When those tropes work, they work well, but in less capable hands they become cliches. This podcast explores why those tropes work from an in-universe perspective, that is, how they work in the universe where they happen. This podcast covers crystals, humanoids, pretty women/men, powerful aliens, why everyone can fight/fix things/physically developed, why everyone is related, one-world governments, and the bar.

The Fantasy Genre is full of tropes that are almost mandatory. However, in less capable hands they become boring cliches; as such it may be worth exploring those tropes and why they work in the actual universe, that is, the basis on which they work in-universe. Topics Covered: Multiple Races, Wizard Towers, Limited Magic, Limited Tech, Why People Adventure, Why Adventures Are Important, Prophecies, Extremes in Combat Training, Giant Monsters, and The Bar.

The Super-Hero Genre is full of tropes that are almost mandatory. However, in less capable hands they become boring cliches; as such it may be worth exploring those tropes and why they work in the actual universe, that is, the basis on which they work in-universe. Topics Covered: Super Groups, Villain Groups, Law Enforcement Organizations, What Makes A Hero, What Makes A Villain, Why Sidekicks, Weaknesses, Super-Bases, Why Earth is a Focus, Why So Little Super-Science In General.

Every genre has those tropes that, if not handled correctly, turn into deadly cliches. As such it may be worth looking at some of the tropes of genres in order to see why those tropes work so well. This podcast looks at sentai, those super teens and their mechs. Topics Covered: Why Teams, Why Recruit Teens, Limited Skills, Secret of the Colors, Limited City Damage, Why Big Guns Not Used First, Why Bases Not Attacked, Why Mechs Not Stolen, Why Not Attacked in Secret IDs, How They Manage Jobs.

Every genre has hose groups that we know are pretty universal but don't generally get much acknowledgment. These are the construction crews that rebuild cities after monster attacks, the insurance people, emergency services, PR guys, lawyers, those who match government agencies with their freelancers, the costumers, the trainers, and even those who match heroes and sidekicks. This is their podcast.

A lot of writers forget that they need to have some sort of world to place their comic in; it helps the artists get ideas on what to draw, inspires the writer later on, and gives the readers something solid to keep their interest. This podcast should help you build up your cities organically and give you areas to play with as well as organizations to help populate your world and give it some conflict.

Few people like politics but it's something you need to worry about. This is not necessarily how to use them but some basics on how NOT to write politics and religion, as well some of the basic structures to use. If you're starting to debate using them in your comics, here are the basics.

Some people like detailing their world to a nicely ridiculous extreme, and that involves time. This looks at defining how time is measured, seasons and their effects, and how to create holidays. How language can be used to build cultures and characters is also looked at.