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I put together a collection of sites that have games which let you make your own comics along with a huge guide to online cartoon making. I went to resources on the list and made a toon based on a cat or dog joke I found online. Hopefully this will help you to see what comic strip maker will be the best for you to draw free cartoons. I do a daily comic strip called Adventures of Danogo that I use all these for so I can create something new and funny each time. This is a strip I made with StripGenerator.com:
While doing my own comic I started out by searching the Web to learn where an independent artist can publish comix other than in the newspaper and books. I found a great community of websites, conventions and artists. I learned alot about online comics that I’ll summarize here as a guide for you.
About Webcomics
Webcomics, also called online comics and internet comics, are just comics that you can read on the Internet. Many are only published online, while some are published in print but also have a website. With the Internet’s easy access to an audience, webcomics can be traditional cartoon strips or complete graphic novels and may cover many different genres and topics. Webcomics are like self-published print comics in that almost anyone can create their own webcomic and publish it on the Web. There are over 18,000 webcomics currently online!
With webcomics, artists can take advantage of the web’s new ways to display graphics and animation. Scott McCloud, one of the first makers of webcomics, started the idea of the “infinite canvas”, where, rather than being confined print, artists are free to spread out in any direction with their comics, like demian5 does with his scrolling When I Am King. Other comic artists, such as Mark Fiore with his Flash-based editorial cartoons, have experimented by incorporating interactivity and animation.
For instance on Digital Films you can make your own cartoon movie online!
Types of Online Comic Strips
Still, many if not most webcomics take traditional forms. Some, such as Scott Kurtz’s PvP, look like black-and-white newspaper comic strips. This strip of the day format allows for quicker, more frequent updates, potentially allowing an artist to build up an audience quickly. Other webcomics are presented in the same manner as traditional comic books, manga and graphic novels. These comics, such as Fred Gallagher’s Megatokyo and Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese, come in a page form rather than a strip form and tend to focus more on a story than jokes.
Several self-published comic books, like Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder and Phil & Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius, have stopped publishing individual print comics and instead just make webcomics, in an effort to reach a larger audience. On the other hand, Webcomics which have built up alot of comics will often publish collections of strips in books.
Make Your Own Online
Now there are also many websites that offer software to make your own comic right online. Popular and recommended sites include ToonDoo, Piki Strips and Comic Strip Generator. You can also check out Witty Comics, Make Belief Comix and Read Write Think which was made for students. Here is a sample from ToonDoo.com:
Comic Art is Changing
Webcomics that are independently published are not subject to the content restrictions of publishers or comic syndicates, enjoying an artistic freedom similar to underground and alternative comics. Some webcomics stretch the boundaries of taste, taking advantage of the fact that Internet censorship is virtually nonexistent.
Some webcomic artists publish comics that do not use traditional artwork. Sprite comics use copied and pasted video game sprites for characters. Similarly, some webcomics are created using clip art, found art and fumetti or photo-comics. Joey Comeau and Emily Horne’s A Softer World, for example, is made by photography overlaid with strips of typewriter-style text. Artistic expression in these ready-made comics is funneled primarily into writing.
Some artists, such as Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics, have taken copy-pasting of art to an extreme, with every daily strip having identical art, with only the text changing. Pixel art, such as that created by Richard Stevens of Diesel Sweeties, is similar to that of sprite comics but instead uses original low-resolution work created by the artist. There has also been experimentation with 3D art in webcomics, most notably with the use of figures and models using the 3D rendering program Poser. Poser is awesome, you should really check out the incredible 3D anime and manga cartoons you can make with it.
The Webcomic Community
The growth of webcomics has also resulted in the growth of online communities around webcomics. There are fanbases that artists foster through the use of forums, fan sections and blogs, and many artists maintain close relationships with their fans. The artists themselves also create communities through the exchanges of emails, links, forum posts as well as art in the form of guest filler strips and cross-overs, and band together in collectives. There are also webcomic communities emerging through the general webcomic sites that cover the medium through news and articles such as Comixtalk and the blog Fleen. Sites providing hosting and other services, e.g. Comic Genesis, Drunk Duck or buzzComix, also tend to bring fans and artists together.
Making Money From Internet Comix
Many artists make a living from doing Webcomics. There are different ways for webcomic artists to earn money, such as donations, advertising, and merchandising. Some use tip jars (through PayPal, for instance) or ask for donations. Some sell merchandise featuring their artwork, or sell their artwork directly, sometimes under commission. If a webcomic has enough traffic, advertising and/or subscription revenue can also be generated. Some successful webcomics have subsequently been reprinted in compilations, often self-published. Examples of webcomics in print include PvP, Penny Arcade, Sluggy Freelance, and Megatokyo, as well as many others.
Awards
A number of comic awards have added categories for comics published on the web. The Eagle Awards established a Favourite Web-based Comic category in 2000, and the Ignatz Awards followed the next year by introducing an Outstanding Online Comic category in 2001. After having nominated webcomics in several of their tradition print-comics categories, the Eisner Awards began awarding comics in the Best Digital Comic category in 2005. In 2006 the Harvey Awards established a Best Online Comics Work category, and in 2007 the Shuster Awards began an Outstanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award.The Web Cartoonist’s Choice Awards consists of a number of awards that have been handed out annually since 2001. The award has an online award ceremony which is essentially a series of comics depicting the “ceremony” by a variety of artists. The 2007 awards also had a real-life awards ceremony at Megacon.
Good luck and have fun with comics!
