Whether it’s your first and only webcomic or one of many that you’re planning, preparing to launch a new comic can take a lot of thought! You’ll be thinking about things like organizational aspects (which is getting your art and story plans ready), technical aspects (which includes hosting that works for the scope of your comic), the timing and how you get the word out once you're finally ready to launch.

We’ve actually already talked about this way back in 2021, and there’s SO many episodes we’ve recorded since then deep-diving into all of those topics. But the field’s shifted a little bit! and we thought it would be good to take a fresher look for 2025.

How do you even know webcomics are right for you? What are the pros and cons?

How do you build the scaffolding behind a webcomic? What things do you consider when you’re organizing your comic, both mentally and practically?

(Format? Buffer? Schedule? Goals? Mindset? Making with Print in mind, Etc.)

Where do you post a webcomic? What are your options for that going into 2025?

When do you know you’re ready to launch?

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Episode Release Date: March 12, 2025

Episode Credits:

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Miranda Schwemmer (@mirandacakesart) - she/her, mirandacakes.art


Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

----

The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.

Transcription

This transcript is auto generated by our recording software.

00:02.16

Delphina

All right. Hello and welcome to Screen Tones where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're going to be talking about getting started with making your webcomic. I'm Delphina. I use she/her pronouns and I make the webcomic Sombulus.

00:18.74

Renie (Its a me)

And I'm Renie, I use she/they pronouns and I make the webcomic Aether Star.

00:23.77

Miranda

And I'm Miranda, I use she/her pronouns and I make the webcomic Into the Swell.

00:29.70

Delphina

All right. Now, whether it's your first and only webcomic or one of many that you're planning, preparing to launch a new comic can take a lot of thought. You'll be thinking about the organizational aspects, which is getting your art and story plans ready, and the technical aspects, which includes the hosting, um ah yeah something that works for the scope of your comic, and maybe also the timing and how you get the word out marketing-wise.

00:56.36

Delphina

um Now we've actually already talked about this way back in 2021, and there's so many episodes we've recorded since then deep diving into all of these topics, um but the field shifted a little bit and we thought it would be good to take a fresher look in 2025.

01:12.36

Delphina

As we said then, these are going to be basics to get you started, and there's all kinds of other episodes that you should explore. um But yeah, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about, so let's dive right in. um So how do you even know that webcomics are right for you? What are all the pros and cons for like that as a medium? Let's start with you, Renie.

01:33.97

Renie (Its a me)

So I know with wet with comics there's two real like tracks you could go with either web comics or traditional comics. So where with traditional comics, you have ah you you make your thing, you go to a publisher, and you shop it around, ah and you eventually get it published and printed for you. where The big thing that you have to do is make the thing. you have You'll probably have contracts to deal with. You would have different deadlines that you would have to follow and requirements to in order to get it printed. but

02:09.73

Renie (Its a me)

Generally speaking, that's what your role would be. With webcomics, you have a lot more freedom with what you can do with the medium, you what you can do with the plot, the story, but you have to do a lot more of the legwork yourself. You have to get yourself out there. You have to host the comic, design ah the site and all the assets, but make the comic.

02:33.36

Renie (Its a me)

and shop it around, and then if you wanted to go and sell it as a print form, you have to then do the post-processing, the publishing, and all that yourself, which is a big challenge, but it's very rewarding when you get to the end of it.

02:49.46

Renie (Its a me)

So the big thing for webcomics is that freedom of, you know say, yeah I want to tell a story that's Blurbo goes to Mars, but the the Blurbo goes to Mars isn't really hitting the demographics or hitting the algorithm. So you're going to have a little bit of a weight in the traditional ah ah comics publishing.

03:12.94

Renie (Its a me)

ah you know in order to see if someone's interested. Whereas webcomics, you can make Blorbo Goes to Mars right now and make it how you want it without anyone really telling you how to to do it. so

03:24.69

Delphina

But what if the blorbo has to go to Jupiter? I think the market says that Jupiter is more popular than Mars, so can we change it to that?

03:31.97

Miranda

I don't, I don't know. I think Mars is underrated.

03:36.35

Delphina

ah Yeah, which is why it's not a marketing thing.

03:36.46

Miranda

It's, I mean, but really I guess it's colors.

03:39.46

Renie (Its a me)

Yeah, but that's exactly it. It's, you know, you can sometimes with a lot of traditionally published comics, you know, you have sort of the big two of Marvel and DC and you have all the other, you know, smaller publishing houses. But in a lot of their works, even the works that sort of push the envelope, you can still see the hand of the editor in there, in the hand of the publisher, and they're saying, okay, well, this isn't going to fly with, you know, the general public. ah My favorite, ah or this will, or we what we think this is more marketable. My favorite example of that in traditional comics was pushing it with saga, where they kept trying to push, you know, push the envelope with image comics and all that.

04:24.41

Renie (Its a me)

but they had to sort of push really hard for what they wanted. Whereas, you know, web comics, you can just do it and you have a direct connection with your audience without that separation.

04:36.29

Miranda

I do really like that direct connection. I feel like for me, I came from more of a writing prose background before I jumped into webcomics. So when I'm debating if webcomics are right for me, that's what I'm comparing. A less of a traditional comic versus web um and more of a, do I want to write this into a novel or do I want to make it a web comic? And I feel like and so since I started my web comic journey years ago, I found that I tend to visualize stories a lot more than I used to. And I start coming up with scenes and I start like seeing exactly how I want it to happen um on paper.

05:20.55

Miranda

And so or in this case on the web, because that's what we're talking about. And um when I am debating like, OK, do I want to write this or do I want to draw it? It comes down to I want to be able to literally show what I'm picturing in my head and I don't want to sit and have to describe it in multiple paragraphs like it's.

05:43.75

Miranda

um And it's weird for me that I've started thinking that way because I was such a like writer-focused brain back in the day. And I'm like, I don't want to write this out. This is going to take forever to write out. I could just draw the scene and people will see exactly what is in my head.

06:00.89

Miranda

um so that's the the And when I'm planning, if I want to make the story a webcomic, that's what seals the deal for me. is i'm like I have this vision and I want to bring it to life and have others see it the way that I see it. So I opt for webcomics. And i I love that you can visually bring things to life like that.

06:25.09

Miranda

and I love the designing of characters and granted a lot of these things overlap between writing and like the art of webcomics but it's I like the end result that webcomics give me. I like using panel designs and layouts to kind of emphasize things and using the lettering to make sound effects and make the characters sound like they're sarcastic or whatever by using the lettering and making it a visual thing.

06:57.08

Miranda

Um, it's the cons is it takes a lot longer for me because I feel I'm a better writer than artists. So I can come up with the ideas faster than I can draw them. But I think the journey is a bit more rewarding to me. And another pro is that you don't have to have a completely finished story to start sharing it. Webcomics are like a very long process. You're releasing one page, one chapter.

07:25.84

Miranda

et cetera, at a time and you don't have to have it completely finished to start that process. You can start sharing as soon as you want. And we'll talk about that later, but it's for for someone like me who's like, Oh, I just want to get this out into the world. I need to share it. It's really good that you can just let it go before you have a finished and before you find a publisher before anything like that. Like you can just let it fly as soon as it's ready.

07:54.70

Delphina

I really like that balance um that because for me I'm kind of both ways with like, it's really nice that I can achieve what what I can do with a small team or no team to bring my writing to life.

08:09.76

Delphina

um And i I don't necessarily need a ah publisher or a team or like an animation sort of thing. I feel like a lot of people also are are thinking about, oh, I want to make an animated series of my thing.

08:23.19

Delphina

And like, boy, howdy, that's that's a long road. Best of luck to you. I could not do that. But webcomics feel achievable to me. um you know Obviously, much more

08:33.22

Miranda

Oh, definitely.

08:36.41

Delphina

intense than than writing to Miranda's point. But um but yeah, I feel like that's that's like the nice middle ground, right?

08:43.95

Miranda

Yeah. Agreed.

08:46.14

Delphina

yeah um but Yeah.

08:46.34

Miranda

Wholeheartedly.

08:49.45

Delphina

And and we definitely talk about the time aspect in webcomics. There's the downside that if you've got something with a story, if you're doing a long form webcomic, things are going to take a while to to get out there.

09:03.74

Miranda

Webcomic time!

09:06.42

Delphina

Yeah, yeah. But I want to talk about that as a plus too, because when I was starting out, I really liked how webcomics resembled some of my favorite TV or manga or game series that I was reading for years and years and years.

09:22.00

Delphina

um and Even though they took forever, you could really get to know the characters over a longer span of time. and that That felt really special to me and that felt something that I could also achieve with webcomics. I had control of whether it stopped or continued instead of a Netflix executive cutting the costs.

09:43.04

Delphina

right so so Yeah, so that's something that like, you know, we have we still do have TV shows. We still do have game series but Publishers control those and we've been seeing more and more that capitalism is making people like say um Actually, that's not a profitable way to tell a story. Mmm. Okay, so we're not gonna do that and ah Web comics to me are one of like the last guys standing like yeah, actually we are gonna do that because that's the story I want to tell okay

10:15.45

Delphina

So.

10:15.98

Renie (Its a me)

Webcomics are like the the zine scene to comic stores, mom andpa ah to to that sort of big, big two sort of set up in that regard, I think.

10:28.06

Delphina

who Yeah, absolutely.

10:29.44

Renie (Its a me)

Because it's like, you know, it's it's sort of a ah a a bit of a, still a bit of a Wild West where you can still get out there and tell your story without, you know, too many strings attached.

10:42.85

Delphina

And I think it's also worked out for me because it's a blend of a lot of things I enjoy, you know, we talk about the art and we talk about the writing aspect. But I also really like the side stuff like web development and online community building.

10:56.32

Delphina

um I think those are really special aspects of a webcomic that we don't always think about when we're first starting out like as as a thing of value. But over the years, gosh, they've been like, it's just been so nice, especially the community. um And I do meet people who don't really pursue community stuff or they see other creators as competition. um And one of the things I love that once you get into webcomics, it's really not what it's about. Like you're really missing out on some good stuff if you don't

11:29.76

Delphina

reach out to your peers and and figure out what's going on.

11:33.37

Miranda

Mm hmm.

11:33.78

Delphina

um But the fact that you even have that option in webcomics is so cool. um

11:38.97

Miranda

The community aspect is fantastic and and also motivating when you are approaching community with the right mindset. It's just like, everyone's just vibing about comics and you're like, Oh, yes, I need to work on this.

11:53.25

Miranda

And it it just pumps you up and everyone lifts each other up and it's chef's kiss.

12:01.05

Delphina

Absolutely.

12:01.32

Renie (Its a me)

So good.

12:02.48

Delphina

It's so good. um And i I do want to say, though, like, um if you're putting something out there and expecting something back quickly, whether that's money or lots of followers or clout or people and immediately obsessing and theorizing over your blurbos, like, um that might be tricky, and you might want to adjust your expectations.

12:27.11

Renie (Its a me)

Nothing in webcomics is quick.

12:29.43

Delphina

nothing is quick. I knew when I started, I was like, okay, I'm 12 pages in, I'm gonna do character polls about who people's favorite characters are, I'm gonna offer merch, I'm gonna have fan art.

12:37.69

Renie (Its a me)

yeah Oh my god, I feel that.

12:41.27

Delphina

um But like, and and the truth is, I was eventually able to do those things. But it took like, five, 10 years is before people were invested enough in the story to like, approach me with fan arts and things.

12:55.04

Delphina

So it's it's just like, ah You do have to kind of temper your expectations. You do kind of have to um keep in mind if you see other successful webcomic artists that like they've been working at it for years too, and it's not like an overnight system success sort of thing. um And I feel like one of the cons is that if if you're not careful with your mental state, you can go down some unhealthy paths.

13:23.75

Delphina

with that. So um so you know just something to keep in mind, definitely still pursue webcomics if that's a story that you're passionate about telling and you think it's a good medium for it. um but But there's some downsides too with the community in terms of sometimes it's it's hard to not compare yourself to other people and and um you know just kind of keep that in mind.

13:49.33

Miranda

Yeah, but I feel like that's a part of any um medium of storytelling is like whether even if you're writing a book, if you're ah making an animated series as your first thing, which kudos to you if that's where you decide to go.

13:49.67

Delphina

um

14:04.33

Miranda

um But you're you're going to inevitably compare yourself to others. And like, so really a lot of a lot of these pros and cons are just for many things, but I think it's, some of them tend to be amplified with webcomics because you are wearing all of the hats. You are the, in most cases, sole creator, marketer, advertiser, I guess that's the same thing, um designer, writer, everything all at once. So you are taking all of that feedback and fallout and, ah

14:41.74

Miranda

Like the good and the bad is all coming to you. um Whereas in a lot of other situations, you may have you may be working in more of a team.

14:45.68

Delphina

Yes.

14:51.59

Miranda

And so it's dispersed and it's not just directly piling on top of you and your many piles of hats that you're wearing.

14:58.81

Delphina

Yeah, so again, and that's something that community can help with a lot when you get um and into a community with your peers, because then you can kind of talk things out. And I always recommend finding a little space of people who are, you know, i doing the same things kinds of things you're doing and and just um being able to to vent when you need to or celebrate when you need to and just um because they know what you're going through. We all go through that. So yeah, I think it's I think it's a fun little endeavor for sure.

15:33.19

Delphina

um So once you decide that webcomics are right for you, how do you build the scaffolding behind a webcomic? What kinds of things do you do to plan and organize your comic both you know mentally and practically? What's that routine looks like look like?

15:54.34

Renie (Its a me)

Well, the big thing that you got to consider, I think, when you're getting started with getting everything together for your comic is you've got to know why you're making it. is because the end Because that sort of determines everything else. Are you making this web comic to try and sort of break into the comics ah know industry? Or are you doing it to make money off your comics? Or are you doing it as a side hobby to you sort of just tell your story as you want as you want to?

16:22.81

Renie (Its a me)

um Each of those different things has a sort of different tack that you would take with it. um For instance, i I would approach comics much differently ah if it was like day job material or like I'm doing this, you know, to support a budding art career.

16:39.40

Renie (Its a me)

I would then I would if it's, you know, I'm working a ah day job and then doing the comic at night. That's what I'm doing. But I think that's the those are two different approaches. So you have to sort of understand at the beginning, OK, what do I want to get out of this at the end? um And then you you look at that and say, OK, this is OK.

17:05.86

Renie (Its a me)

editor fixes.

17:07.63

Delphina

Oh boy.

17:08.92

Renie (Its a me)

um Yes, you have to know what your goals are for making it. and Because that sort of sets, you know, how often do you work on your comic? Is it a two hours every day sort of deal? Or is it a I set a couple days a week to set aside to work on the comic so that the other days can be used for your own spoons or for your day job or for it for family or for whatever.

17:36.17

Delphina

Yeah, I think that's a really healthy approach because I i feel like sometimes um is if it's just a hobby, you don't want it to to feel like work.

17:47.02

Delphina

You don't want it to necessarily um take up all of your free time and that that balance is really important to achieve. So um you can

17:57.08

Renie (Its a me)

Yeah, and it takes a lot of a lot of figuring out and and a lot of not getting it right, where you know you're going to be have a lot of... you're youre trying A webcomic is a big endeavor, um and you're going to feel that at at times, especially when it's you know you're getting too close to like a post to-date or you have an upload night. The amount of times I've uploaded, ah finished the page at 11 o'clock at night to hit upload at midnight,

18:24.12

Renie (Its a me)

While doing the the day job webcomic shuffle was you know so many people do that and that's you know It's a stressful way to live.

18:27.63

Delphina

Yep.

18:28.60

Miranda

Solidarity.

18:32.55

Renie (Its a me)

I wouldn't recommend it, but it's normal like that's and it's it's okay to understand that So I know for me, I'm currently in the pre-launch phase of ah my next webcomic. And I know for me, I've set it up. So okay, I'm going to do one chapter at a time in bulk when it's done. Note that the goal is three chapters a year.

18:56.17

Renie (Its a me)

And we post when it's done. And for me, with a balancing a challenging day job, but it helps manage the stress and the pressure of a weekly update. Whereas for a lot of people, the weekly update helps keep the train moving. And it's part of a well-oiled machine that gets tuned over the first couple chapters.

19:18.27

Renie (Its a me)

There's so many just different ways you can do it in that you can tailor how you want to upload and how you want to share it with the world based on how you want to manage the comic yourself.

19:20.28

Miranda

Mm hmm.

19:30.97

Miranda

Yeah. um and ah a lot of this type of stress is definitely something you have to consider and what buffers are for.

19:41.86

Miranda

I personally am terrible at garnering a buffer but it is so worth it when you have one because like especially if comics are your part-time gig if that like if they're part-time by definition you will have other full-time aspects of life that

19:47.38

Renie (Its a me)

It so is.

19:58.32

Miranda

are bound to get in the way. And just having a buffer allows, like even whether you're full-time comic-ing or not, it allows you to have room for life to happen without interrupting your comic. And so that's that's also something to consider. Do you want to take the time to build up a buffer before you start posting? How much of a buffer Um, you also want to kind of figure out the format of your comic and like once, once you have all this mindset things, then you get into the nitty gritty of, okay, what do I physically want my comic to be? Do I want it to be able to be printed in standard comic book form? Do I want to have it in a scroll format? So it kind of is easier to read on a mobile device, um, but harder to print down the line because you would have to potentially reformat it.

20:48.67

Miranda

um what type of like do you want to do black and white do you want to do colors i i feel like this is getting into like the fun aspects of figuring out the comic like figuring out the color palettes the the way you want to do the characters the art style all of that it's it's so fun that that's where i'm at in my comicking in my current comic development is figuring all of that out taking me forever but it's so fun um

21:09.68

Delphina

It is fun.

21:18.74

Miranda

But yeah, and I i think a big, big thing that we've kind of been reiterating is webcomics are a lot. So you need to find whatever method you're doing, you need to find something that fits your lifestyle. don't You don't have to post multiple times a week if it means that you're stressing and burning yourself out and end up quitting comics as a whole. It is good to post ah consistently and have a regular frequency if you can manage it, but it's not a necessity and it's more important that you take care of yourself and find something that you can maintain long-term. Whether it's posting in a batch like Renny plans to do or just posting once a month or once a week or every other week is a great thing. um Your readers will stay reading

22:13.74

Miranda

once you have them hooked on your story. like they They will keep coming back as long as the content keeps coming, regardless of how frequently it's there. um Obviously, in today's world of instant content and internet,

22:31.68

Miranda

People really like when they have everything immediately, one after the other, but you don't have to do that. And it's okay to not do that if it means that you're keeping yourself healthy and enjoying the process because you should be and enjoying and having a blast doing your webcomic. I feel like that carries over into the content you create and like people will be able to tell if you're loving what you're doing.

23:00.97

Miranda

or they'll also on the counterpoint, they'll be able to tell if you're just pushing it out to get it out and not having fun doing it, if that makes sense.

23:12.49

Delphina

Yeah.

23:12.71

Renie (Its a me)

Totally.

23:14.58

Delphina

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I feel like um I'm one of those people who does like a ah weekly schedule or um I post two pages a week um and it it helps keep me on track.

23:28.13

Delphina

um And it was something that I figured out was something that was sustainable for the time that I had. um And I also feel like Um, like having some plans together in terms of like the environment, the world, the rules of, of your world and stuff like that.

23:49.51

Delphina

Uh, that's also a really fun part to, to plan your, you get things down.

23:54.27

Miranda

world building.

23:54.59

Delphina

So yeah, even if you don't have like the plot, 100% hammered down, um, sometimes the world building stuff is, is really fun or the, the visual development for this is how this is going to look or these are these characters and stuff.

24:07.97

Miranda

Yes.

24:12.28

Delphina

um

24:12.54

Miranda

So great.

24:13.54

Delphina

Yeah, it is. um I do feel like there's a danger that sometimes folks can get stuck in the planning phase and the comic pages never happen, which isn't the worst hobby in the world, right?

24:24.84

Delphina

Like if this is your hobby, and and you just want to like,

24:26.79

Miranda

why Why are you calling me out like that?

24:29.21

Delphina

No, no, i I feel like it's, um you know, it's fun to to do that. um So, but for me, i I did need to like, kind of get things started and um acknowledge that You're going to learn a lot as you go. you know for For you guys, it's it's not your first webcomic. So it's i I feel like that's a thing that like maybe you get a little more sense of of what you want to do. But you're going to learn so much as you go. And just leaving room for that and leaving room to adjust to your process is a good thing.

25:07.35

Renie (Its a me)

on my uh first real attempt at a webcomic this was before i tried to make cape blast um the uh before i made cape blast yeah uh i spent like i think six maybe seven years trying to pick away at a story and i ended up scrapping it like three different times it was this big convoluted high fantasy thing and eventually it got to the point where I'm like, am I ever going to actually tell this?

25:37.78

Renie (Its a me)

And I ended up scrapping the whole thing and starting Cape last on a whim of all right, we just got to do the thing because, you know, we say this a million times, but the best way to learn to make comics is make comics.

25:38.78

Delphina

Yeah.

25:52.48

Renie (Its a me)

So you have to find a point where it's like, okay, this isn't perfect, but no comic is perfect.

25:52.40

Miranda

Mm-hmm.

25:59.13

Renie (Its a me)

So jump in and get started.

26:02.03

Delphina

Yeah, I guess that's a good question. When do you know you're ready to launch? do you like when When do you stop? When do you go?

26:12.86

Miranda

never. But if you're me, just kidding.

26:14.55

Renie (Its a me)

it

26:16.53

Miranda

I really am stuck in the... Well, not stuck. I have thumbnails, okay? I have thumbnails for my first chapter. So I at least have something more than the world building and the character design.

26:27.04

Renie (Its a me)

big handshake

26:30.50

Miranda

I'm making progress, slowly but surely. But honestly, like, you can start posting as soon as you have one page. I can't say I would recommend that, but you technically could if you really wanted to.

26:45.49

Miranda

um i I think a big thing people get stuck in, especially once you once do you have all the... So let's assume you have your world building, you have your character design, and you have a few pages.

26:52.56

Renie (Its a me)

Big handshake.

26:57.58

Miranda

um Like Renny said, um you the best way to learn comics is by doing comics. And given that, it is expected that you will improve and grow and change over the course of your webcomic. And if you're planning out a huge buffer before you post or whatever, you might end up getting stuck in what we like to call lovingly reboot hell, where you just keep going back to your first pages and keep refining them to try to make them perfect before you put them out in the world. And um you don't you don't have to do that. ah You don't have to have everything be perfect, be the most phenomenal art pieces in the world.

27:42.28

Miranda

The important thing is to get it out there and just press that start button. um And I think another thing is is because it's a launch, you're launching a webcomic, a lot of people have this concept that a launch needs to be this huge momentous event, like you're getting you're You're getting advertisements out like weeks in advance.

28:04.96

Miranda

You're like planning this huge celebration party. And then it gets to the day and you're posting a few pages. And that's ah that's all of your comic.

28:13.94

Delphina

Yeah.

28:15.43

Miranda

And that that's awesome. It's great to celebrate that. But like if you take a step back, you're doing all of this excitement for something that barely has enough content for a reader to start.

28:31.52

Miranda

really getting into your story and loving it the way you do. And I i think kind of taking that um perspective of a launch having to be a big thing and maybe moving it to like, oh, you're finishing up your chapter or you're getting to the like the exciting inciting incident or the climax of your story, like save your big, huge efforts of launch air quotes, launch moments, for the the parts of your story that people can relate to and actually like be as excited for as you are. And having like that perspective shift means you don't have to have your first page of your webcomic be this massive thing. And you're not going to have expectations that thousands of people will read your first page.

29:26.88

Miranda

and potentially not meet those expectations because it's one page. m Like, launching a webcomic doesn't have to be as big of a deal as we all make it out to be in our heads.

29:40.89

Renie (Its a me)

Absolutely and and I feel like that also like um people get hung up in is especially folks ah like myself who host on ah on ah on a custom site. yeah People can get hung up in the oh well I'm launching it has the site has to look no it doesn't.

29:58.29

Renie (Its a me)

ah yeah for For page one, the site doesn't have to look good. It just has to be readable. And just get the webcomic site working so that you can actually have your work out there. And then you can add in all the bells and whistles, like a nice cast page or a really cool lore dump page or other are other sites for fan art. Those can come later. But ah is set your web design for simple to start. And then you can grow from there. And that way,

30:27.58

Renie (Its a me)

you're putting less pressure on yourself and less work on yourself that might be holding you back from launching because you might feel, oh, well, I have to do this big thing in order to get it up.

30:39.16

Renie (Its a me)

ah Whereas what's more important to think be thinking about for your launch is things like, OK, once this is up, what what is my schedule going to look like to to be sustainable towards this?

30:39.39

Miranda

Bye.

30:51.07

Renie (Its a me)

Do I know what my character's motivations are? um Do I know a general plot, ABC, it doesn't have to be a detail, but do I ah have a general idea of the start, middle, and end? Those are things that if once you have a good idea, you can get started.

31:09.31

Renie (Its a me)

And I wouldn't get really get started too much unless you have that big framework. It doesn't have to be detailed.

31:15.31

Miranda

Mm hmm.

31:16.76

Renie (Its a me)

like You don't have to know, Blurpo moved his hair from left to right on chapter 19, page 37. You don't have to know that. You just have to know X does X at the end.

31:30.65

Renie (Its a me)

And you will at the beautiful thing about webcomic sign is, as long as you have a buffer that you feel comfortable with, you can then ah complete it as you go and finish it.

31:42.98

Miranda

yeah you This isn't like traditional publishing where you have to have your story and your pages complete from start to finish before you start posting. um and that is I think that's one reason all of us decided to do webcomics is because of that freedom and availability. and um i think it's a ah like Don't if you're starting at the very top of your quality of your abilities, you have nowhere to go. But down like if you're if your website is this flawless thing from the very beginning.

32:19.83

Miranda

That that's fantastic, but you don't have a lot of room to keep going on your journey and keep improving and if you whereas if you start when you're ready as Ready being like you have content you have enough buffer and you just want to start posting What regardless of how perfect your website if your website doesn't have everything or whatnot like Renny said You have you have so much more room to grow and I think that you can embrace that space that you have given yourself and embrace the journey that you're about to go on when you do start posting and sharing your webcomic.

33:01.29

Delphina

Yeah, I think to that point, it's um like, we have all these hats and we have the things. So when you're looking at everything together, are you looking at are you really, really far ahead in one category and not so much in the other? Like, have you not even crossed the start line? And planning your thing, but you've got this like amazing website, like, that might be an indicator that you're, you're more interested in being a web developer than a webcomic artist, which gosh, we need them.

33:32.76

Delphina

So please pursue that.

33:33.36

Renie (Its a me)

please please

33:34.64

Delphina

Yeah. Um, but, um, but yeah, just in terms of like, where, where are you putting your time?

33:36.67

Renie (Its a me)

but

33:41.24

Delphina

What do you, um, What does this look like? Is this sustainable? Or are you saying I'm I'll think about that later. I'll think about that later to like four different categories of things.

33:52.96

Delphina

Um, but, um, I also think since a lot of us come from art backgrounds, we do kind of put that emphasis on aesthetics, like, Oh, I have to, everything has to be fancy and perfect.

33:55.47

Renie (Its a me)

Please! Please!

34:05.55

Delphina

And I have to have some, some cool like intro video or, or, or, you know, mind blowing first page and, um,

34:15.06

Renie (Its a me)

Bump of chicken anime intro.

34:17.72

Delphina

Oh, gosh, no, it you don't, you really don't. I mean, I i get the AMV is playing in my head too. I promise you, um you don't have to have that. And you're gonna get um I find like, over time, I just got more stamina, like, even if if I was only spending, ah you know, an hour a day on a page or whatever like the more i practice the the more i could do in that hour the better the end result looked in that hour so um you really have all kinds of time um to miranda's point there's so many things that you can celebrate in terms of like where where the story is going and you don't have to have this huge launch plan like you might have to have for a kickstarter funding or something

35:08.08

Delphina

Um, so, so just, um, yeah absolutely celebrate the launch and can, you know, plan on continued celebrating because, um, people will pick up on that vibe but for sure. Um, and I know we talked a little bit about websites just now, um, which is like one of the more practical things. Like you need a place to post the webcomic, right? Like what, what kinds of things are you, um, what kind of places do you all.

35:36.41

Delphina

post your web comic, what do you have experience with and like, what are some good options for that um in this day and age?

35:43.71

Renie (Its a me)

I've always been a build your own site girly. I've taken like HTML classes since like middle school.

35:50.86

Delphina

Yes.

35:51.38

Renie (Its a me)

ah So I'm a big geek though. I stopped learning at about 2011 with ah cs CSS. So I am missing all of Web 2.0.

36:05.31

Renie (Its a me)

I'm a Web 1.0 girl. um but but

36:09.14

Delphina

I'm the same way, gosh.

36:09.69

Renie (Its a me)

ah Yeah, um but it's I like personally having that power because then it's. The only thing you're worrying about is alright is my server going to be up or not or and you can sort of do the design yourself you can.

36:27.19

Renie (Its a me)

make it look however you want, if provided you have you put in the time to learn the skills. You could even pay pay someone to build it for you. There's lots of people ah who really love building web comics for web web websites for webcomics. And ah you can do that and have a really professional-looking site. And the only things to really consider, though, with that is it can be a bit expensive depending on where you go.

36:57.01

Renie (Its a me)

and it does have an inherent sort of maintenance to aspect to it. Whereas if you're hosting on a different site that does that for you, where it's there doing the hosting, you don't have to worry about that, but you sacrifice some of the you know freedom.

37:15.09

Miranda

Mm hmm. A good a good balance if you're wanting kind of the full personal website aspect, but you're not ready to commit to like finding your own web host, um developing your own site from scratch. All of those big details that are required in having your own website is one of my personal favorites, a Comic Fury. They it's an amazing free site and You have free, it's hosted for free. You can post your comics. It essentially functions as a independent website. um And you have a lot of freedom. If you learn a little bit of CSS and HTML, you you can have a lot of wiggle room in designing your site and making it look the way you want. That's what I've used for my web comics, especially starting out. um Eventually, I would like to have my own website of all of my

38:13.62

Miranda

work and and such, but um I'm not quite there yet. ah So Comic Fury is a great free option for me and gives me enough of the freedom in design and aesthetics that I want and without um the commitment of and time consumption of designing my own website and having the hosting and everything myself.

38:40.21

Renie (Its a me)

And don't yeah I think with Comic Fury, you can if you want to spend like 10, 20 bucks a month, you can add you can buy a domain name and hook it up with your Comic Fury.

38:40.33

Miranda

so

38:50.98

Renie (Its a me)

So you can still have like blurbocomics.com, but it redirects to your to your Comic Fury. It's it's so cool.

38:57.64

Miranda

yeah Yeah, so you can even have and own your own domain. like it's there's There's a lot of possibility with it and potential, especially considering it's free. And the guy that runs it is great and very helpful, really 10 out of 10 experience for me.

39:15.52

Miranda

um So definitely recommend looking into them.

39:17.46

Renie (Its a me)

Not sponsored.

39:18.60

Miranda

Yeah, not not sponsored, I promise, but highly recommend them.

39:19.05

Renie (Its a me)

yeah

39:21.57

Renie (Its a me)

We just like them.

39:22.26

Miranda

Um, yeah.

39:24.14

Delphina

Yeah, they've been around for years.

39:24.06

Miranda

Uh, yeah.

39:25.66

Delphina

like I feel like the community there and and the websites and stuff, like they they really care about stuff. So I hear nothing but good things about them.

39:31.99

Miranda

Yeah. Yeah. And the, there's always new features being added in and really, it's a great, right.

39:42.37

Miranda

I really love them. Love that website so much.

39:44.99

Renie (Its a me)

It's really like, it really is a ah ah great place because you see so many people of like, do you know HTML and CSS?

39:47.36

Miranda

ah

39:53.95

Renie (Its a me)

Yes, they go to build a site. No immediate comic theory and you get and a nearly identical result.

39:58.66

Miranda

Mm-hmm Yeah

40:02.61

Renie (Its a me)

And so it's, you don't have to be this super techie code nerd ah to have a webcomic website these days.

40:10.09

Miranda

Yeah, yeah, it's it's great. But stepping away from the website aspect is there are other places you can post. um Some of the more popular ones are Tapas and Webtoon. You have less freedom in what you can post.

40:29.40

Miranda

um i kind of Mainly, you're just posting your pages. You don't have room to really do like ah cast pages and about this comic pages and things like that. You're really just putting your comic itself on there, um but it's hosted. And it's the nice thing about places like that is it kind of comes with a built in community and built in. I can't think of a better word, but then this. So I'm going to say advertising, like advertisement.

41:04.87

Miranda

in that people can browse and find your comic more than just like if you have your own website, people have to go to your website to see your comic. Whereas if you're using someplace like Webtoon or Tapas, if they're on Tapas and Webtoon already, it's possible they'll come across your comic as part of their wandering about in those apps and those websites.

41:29.52

Miranda

um So those are also free options and a great way to get your comic out there and have it available for readers across different platforms. um And it never hurts to do multiple of these options if you can manage them.

41:49.16

Delphina

Yeah, absolutely. And I do want to give a shout out that we have some really good guides on ScreenTonesCast.com for finding web hosting when you where if you want to put together your own site. And we also have ones about webcomic platforms um like Tappus and Webtoon, but there's some other stuff out there too. um There's like Dilly hub, there's some other things if you want to do like specific PDFs and they all have like different things going for them and and different audiences that they reach there's a lot of little ecosystems out there I want to say.

42:25.05

Miranda

Yeah, that's a good word for it.

42:25.33

Delphina

um Yeah, yeah. um The downside is they're pretty much all run by you know businesses or corporations. So if you're making not safe for work stuff or are things that might infringe on like the Apple Store rules of of things, then they might censor your content in a way you don't like. And and that's where the beauty of self-hosting kind of comes in because you never have to worry about the rules changing on you.

42:56.64

Delphina

um So that's a thing. um Regarding like web hosting stuff, um you do have to have like the host part of it. And then a content management system is is usually what people do.

43:14.14

Delphina

Grollex is one that um that we use a little bit. um There are WordPress comic themes like Too Cheeky or Comic Press.

43:21.92

Miranda

Mm hmm.

43:23.46

Delphina

um And there's also a rare bit, which is kind of an HTML template that you copy and paste. And um those are those are free um options, but they're all dependent on individual developers kind of maintaining them. So those options sort of change over time in terms of desirability, depending on what people are supporting. so um My best recommendation when you're starting out your webcomic is to get into a community and ask what people are using and what's being maintained right now um if you want to do that. um But I know one popular thing, if you're not really scared of code but you don't want to spend any money, um people are using neocities now with the rare bit template. um I'm going to sound a little techy right now but in that um the

44:19.06

Delphina

They don't they aren't database driven your space on on your cities is not database driven so you won't be able to use like a CMS that that references a database, but the rare bit.

44:32.48

Delphina

um template is basically you cut and paste the code and you you swap in different images and stuff. um So it is very hands on, do it yourself, learn the code, but it's free.

44:47.50

Delphina

So um and yeah, if if you're a tech girlie like me or any, that might be a cool thing to pursue. And I

44:55.05

Renie (Its a me)

Free is hard to fight.

44:56.71

Miranda

We love free.

44:57.87

Delphina

Yeah. Um, and again, community is your best friend. Like, please, please, please join a community, ask your website questions. We love to answer them because it's just, um, it's always exciting to be able to own your own site and and do things. And to Miranda's point, that isn't mutually exclusive from having a platform presence. So you can have both ways. Basically, I think, um,

45:24.51

Delphina

and And that's one of the nice things about, you know, you own your comic, you get to decide what to do with it. So yeah, it's, um you got so many options. And I don't know, I'm just excited. I i feel like i I've been established on my my own website for a while, but I feel like I want to, I don't know, I want to watch launch a new comic now. Oh, gosh.

45:52.21

Miranda

del Delphi, we have we have a episode for you called ending a webcomic.

45:57.72

Delphina

oh shots fired oh oh my gosh yeah okay that's fair though i i think that's fair okay well um i don't i don't know if we have anything else here i i think we could kind of wrap it up uh if we're all feeling good about this so everyone can stop listening and and work on their comics um

45:58.13

Renie (Its a me)

Oh no.

45:57.98

Miranda

You might want to listen to that.

46:02.31

Renie (Its a me)

Oh my gosh.

46:23.77

Renie (Its a me)

Yeah.

46:24.34

Miranda

Yes.

46:25.24

Delphina

Yes, for sure. um I have been Delfina and you can find my webcomic, Sombulus, at sombulus.com.

46:36.09

Renie (Its a me)

and I've been Renny, and you can find my work at aetherstarcomic.com.

46:41.17

Miranda

And I've been and will continue to be Miranda and you can find my work at MirandaCakes dot.art.

46:48.43

Delphina

All right, let's go make webcomics. Yay.

46:51.69

Renie (Its a me)

Yeah!

46:52.22

Miranda

Woo hoo!