Slashdot Mirror
New Resource for Online Comic Artists
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."
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.
This is cool, but what online comics really need is hosting that doesn't whack them into oblivion with bandwith charges when they get popular. Preferably hosting that doesn't also put restrictions on them or make them charge for access to the archives.
/. Oh well...
My favorite online comics are User Friendly, Megatokyo and Circle Weave. At least two of these have a huge audience and equally huge bandwidth usage. For all I know the third one will also now that I gave its URL here on
Jack William Bell
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Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
When this is the #1 spot on a Top 10 list (the rest are empty), a site needs some help :)
im surprised no one's mentioned exploding dog or dieselsweeties. great comics with quality shit for sale.
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.
If you're really interested in learning more, a writer/artist by the name of Scott McCloud has probably done more for the medium and getting the message out than anybody else.
McCloud wrote an incredibly popular, well-written, and informative book a few years back called Understanding Comics, about the underlying principles that make comics as a whole work. He followed it up with Reinventing Comics, which was more about methods of distribution and why he thinks online comics are the future. But interesting reading nonetheless.
The first was great. I go to an art school, and the kids in the comic art program actually have to read it as a text book for several courses. In my opinion, though, the second book was less successful, and more opinion-based. I probably just don't agree with him on a few points.
Regardless, his site is worth checking out for those interested in the topic. He's probably online comics' biggest and best-known advocate.
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 ||
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....
Here's some online comics that might be worth checking out:
Sluggy - Students, aliens, ghosts, psychotic rabbits, evil kittens. One of the oldest and niftiest comics online. :) :)
User Friendly - Linux, geeks. You get the idea.
Megatokyo - An online manga following Piro and Largo whilst stranded in Tokyo.
Schlock Mercenary - Not too good art, but usually a very good and suitably sci-fi-ish plot.
Clan of the Cats - A modern-day witch cursed to change into a panther. Good artwork.
RPG World - Great art. A parody of almost any role playing game (the console variety) you'd care to play.
Ghost Cat - It's a cat! It's a ghost! It's ghost cat!
Elf Life - Elves, fairies, barbarians, time travel, romance, comedy, and very well drawn as well.
Exploitation Now! - An anime-ish comic with good art and an interesting, if sporadic, plot.
Real Life - It's real life. Except it's not. Reasonably funny.
Penny Arcade - The mother of all gaming comics. Very funny
Sephen - A relative newcomer, but wow! Great pencil-work!
8-bit Theater - The grandpappy of all sprite comics. I think. It's funny anyway. Go read
Demonology 101 - Fantastic art, fantastic plot! If only it came out more often! Ah well, the world isn't perfect.
Oh, and I can't really get away without mentioning my brother's sprite comic, Pixelated!. It really isn't bad. No, really! :)