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New Resource for Online Comic Artists

Posted by michael on from the don't-give-up-your-day-job dept.

gmezero writes "Ten on-line comic artists from strips such as Angst Technology, Lethal Doses, and Polymer-City Chronicles have banded together and launched Rocketbox Comics in an effort to help other comic creators improve their art and to promote the idea of keeping on-line comics free."

5 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Why Black and White? by Chris_Stankowitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is there a reason that most online comics are in Black and White? Is it a cost issue? A resource issue? I hope that a site like this will bring better quailty to the acutal art of on-line comics.

    1. Re:Why Black and White? by daeley · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I'm going to divide your paragraph into two, because I don't think you meant to say color = quality. At least I hope not. :) If you did, please do an Ansel Adams query on Google immediately.
      Is there a reason that most online comics are in Black and White? Is it a cost issue? A resource issue?

      More than anything, I would said it's a tradition issue. There is a long-standing Sunday-in-color, rest-of-the-week-B&W tradition in newspaper comics.

      While IANACA (...not a comics artist), how complicated color is to add would depend on how they produce the color work initially: manually or digitally. Coloring by hand takes a lot of time. Using a paintbucket in an illustration program doesn't take much at all.
      I hope that a site like this will bring better quailty to the acutal art of on-line comics.

      Same here, or at least brings more exposure to the quality comics out there. Witness PvP's announcement that their real-world books are going to be relaunched under the banner of Image Comics. Go Scott! :)

      Online comics (and I don't mean web versions of print comics) have a long way to go before reaching the same 'credibility' with the non-online world as their traditional counterparts. People like Scott Kurtz are pushing the boundaries for what influence an online comic can have offline. It might take a generation or two of people getting more news online than off for digital comics to reach the same mindshare as, say, a Cathy or Doonesbury.

      Slightly offtopic, I miss Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes more every day I open the newspaper.
      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  2. Black and white by mao+che+minh · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Two problems:

    1. Knowledge of how to make colored comics, scan them, and still make them look clean.

    2. The ability to efficiently use or lack the of quality graphics arts tools.

    Alot of people out there can make quality sketches. Alot of people out there are very witty and know how to pander to an audience. However, not many people have the resources or the knowledge to make color graphics look good on the web.

  3. Keeping on-line comics free by marcsiry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds like a good mission statement- I hope they have a plan to back up that goal.

    How do they intend to keep on-line comics free? By subsidizing the cartoonists? By supplying them with enough free stuff that it's worth putting up their comics with them? By posting to Slashdot so they get a zillion banner views? It's unclear to me.

    Comics artists gotta eat, too (and if you've been to a comics convention, you'd see that they gotta eat more than most- I'm talking about me here, too). In the end, there needs to be some correlation between putting content online and money appearing. Just aggregating content and hoping for the coolness to start generating dough sounds a lot like some dot-com business plans.

    In the comics project I'm peripherally involved with, the idea is that the online component serves as a marketing tool for the printed magazine (yes, those are still around- for a while, at least). Additionally, the hope is to sell related products via the web site and recoup some money there- I think that's the main business model for The Joy of Tech.

    If either of those fail, the online (free) stuff will go away. Thus, it's in the interest of people who like the stuff to buy a t-shirt once in a while, or even just donate some cash. Otherwise, the online comic will remain the province of the subsidized hobbyist who quits once they have a family to support.

    I'm not slamming these guys for banding together to promote the art form as a whole- anything anyone does to bolster the sagging comic industry is OK by me. I'm just hoping this is not another "Great idea, we'll put on a show!" concept that will run out of steam once people start wondering where the reward is.

    --
    Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
  4. And some apear to be doing just fine... by Obliterous · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For example, MegaTokyo.

    Hell, you've probably even seen His banner add here on slashdot.

    Piro Recently made the decision to got 100% FT on making His webcomic work, and has a dead tree version coming out this december. It seems to Me that He's doing reasonably well with making a free comic pay for itself, and possibly even put some money in His pocket....

    Not to piss on rocketbox, but Piro's doing good, and I dont see anything but vaporware promises from rocketbox yet...

    Dont get Me wrong, I read some of their comics daily, But this also means that I've been hearing about rocketBox for three months....