But the most important and stunning discovery I made at Chouinard, one that has been shared by every artist, cartoonist, painter in history … was the ability to live by the single line — that single honest delineation of the artist’s intent. No shading, no multiple lines, no cross-hatching, no subterfuge. Just that line…. That is rule 1 of all great drawing. There is no rule 2.
— Chuck Jones, Chuck Amuck

There is nothing you should pay more attention to than line. How thick? How thin? Long continuous swoops, little sketchy bits, how black to make it? All of these are important, and any of them can serve the artistic vision, but keep in mind that your line will probably affect the overall look and feel of your strip than anything else. Pick a line and commit to it, keeping in mind that all those characteristics of your line are working for you or against you.

If the line is overly sketchy, disconnected, or too light, it causes a sort of cognitive dissonance. Something deep down in our brains (probably something to do with hunting antelope on the open veldt) keys in on breaks from regular patterns. Sketchy, incomplete lines make your brain stop and go, “Wha?” If that’s what you wanted to accomplish within your story structure, great. Check out Alex Robinson’s Tricked for a good example of this; no, it’s not a webcomic. Read it anyway. But if the line isn’t intended to convey that “Wha?” moment, it just makes things tough on the eyes.
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Go to a place where they sell magazines, and pick up Wired for January 2006 (issue 14.01, with the cyborg Einstein on the cover).

Flip to page 50 (or just click here).

Revel in the Rowland.

That is all.

Update: Jeff’s fame spreads to MSNBC, with links to both the toon and the TopatoCo boutique.

So your New Year’s resolution is to start a webcomic. Congratulations! Be sure to send a link, and we’ll take a look. But before you get started, there’s something that you ought to pay attention to if you want anybody to read it: you have to make it easy to read. Just like legible handwriting used to be the gatekeeper for reading prose, legible art is the gatekeeper for a comic project.

There are lots of elements to an art style, all of which are outside the scope of what we’re going to be discussing here; go read Comics and Sequential Art or Understanding Comics if you want to work on the mechanics and fundamentals (in fact, everybody reading this should go read them anyway). We also won’t be looking at color (I’ve been reliably informed that my sense of color is such that I shouldn’t be allowed to dress myself), or strip design where the art isn’t a main focus. If your goal is to be the next Ryan North, you’ll have other stuff to work on.

We will discuss certain design choices that make it easy for your reader to tell what’s happening on the screen. Along the way, we’ll have some examples from current and past strips; we will make no judgment if the strip is good or bad. The only question is, does that particular panel demonstrate some characteristic that makes it easy to scan visually?
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Here’s that comment that Jeff avoided so assiduously: we’re pleased to review PvP Alive!, the first of a promised series of animated interludes. Hey, remember the original Spider-Man cartoons? Strip out the color from that bad boy, add in a few frame transitions, involve fewer Canadians in the creation, and that’s a pretty good approximation of Kristopher Straub’s “Blamimation”. The story (Skull can’t sleep so he bugs Brent; alternately wacky and sexy hijinks follow) is also arguably better than what came out of my TV when I was a wee sprat.

But this is the thing: in college, I was part of the creative team of a weekly comedy show at the campus radio station. Forget being able to pace a visual gag (something Kurtz and Straub know a little bit about) … writing funny for the radio is hard. The best you can hope for is that you come up with some in-jokes between friends and not too many people call up the request line to tell you that you suck. From their voices, it’s clear that Kurtz and Straub are having a good time (and if you drink as many beers before watching PvP Alive! as SK & KS did before recording it, you’ll enjoy it too). Really, that’s the only criteria that you can use to judge this little venture — they’re enjoying themselves, and if they keep up with the threatened further episodes, they’ll likely get better. If they get better enough, they might make Tim Buckley reconsider his price points. Now that would be funny.

Enough with the reflection, let’s look forward a bit! One of the very best, most joyful all-ages webcomics is making a return from hiatus this Sunday (SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY), and you should be marking browser tabs now in anticipation. Ladies and gentlement: Chris Baldwin’s Little Dee.

“All-ages” is a term that you have to be careful with. As applied to, say, syndicated newspaper comics, you end up with tripe that’s only suited to six-year-olds. It offends nobody, it really pleases nobody, it takes up valuable space. As applied to Baldwin’s work, you end up with a strip that can be appreciated by that six-year-old, and her older brother, and their parents, and the slightly disreputable (but very fun) uncle that they don’t get to see enough. To write something that a kid can appreciate on one level, and an older reader on a completely different level is a rare gift. Check out the last strip on this page; “Easier than landing a baby in a playpen from twenty feet”? That’s horrible. And funny. Skating that edge between kid-friendly and adult-cynical is what puts Baldwin in the company of Bill Watterson, Chuck Jones, and Jeff Smith.

The lines are clean and clear, the characters are bursting with, uh, character, the flights are fanciful, and the humor is gentle. But even with all the goofy animal gags, there are two undercurrents that reveal Baldwin to be a real storyteller: Firstly, all of the funny stuff may start from an absurd situation, but it moves on because of who the characters are (especially Vachel). Secondly, the humor is tinged with a bit of sadness; Dee is living with animals because she’s lost. Someday, she’ll find her way back home, and it will be joyful and heartbreaking all at once. We can feel that anticipation of loss and reunion beneath each punchline. It’s an awful big burden for such a little girl to bear.

That Baldwin is not in 2000 papers worldwide, with a new book on the shelves every year, is emblematic of everything that’s wrong with the newspaper syndication model. That the internet affords him a way to bring this strip to us is our very good fortune. So go catch up on the archives, and ask yourself honestly, “Did I discover a better webcomic than Little Dee this year?” ‘Cause on the off chance that you did, we want to hear about it.

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: Kean Soo is a creative powerhouse. He’s the assistant editor of Flight, does the disarmingly charming Jellaby over at The Secret Friend Society (which holds slot number three on the Why The Hell Aren’t You Reading This? list), had previously done a journal comic, and contributed to volume 1 of You Ain’t No Dancer. But today we’re going to talk about exitmusic.

It’s a series of autobiographical stories, which is always dangerous ground; done wrong it comes off as lame, and done right you end up exposing parts of yourself to the world. Secondly, it’s set to music clips, which is also risky — a reader that disagrees with your musical interpretations or taste can come away with the wrong message from the work. It’s also tough to reprint it later. And yet, he’s managed to make both of these risks pay off.

Soo’s art is expressive, especially as he draws himself; the character design is simplified to the point that the reader can’t help but to identify. Two-arms-two-legs-one head-glasses could be that Kean guy, sure. It could also be me. Or you. Secondly, even if the musical choices didn’t perfectly fit the mood of each story, the art is strong enough to stand on its own (in fact, one of the stories is an excerpt of his Flight 2 contribution). But forget all that, because there’s something else here that’s most interesting about this work: silence.

That’s an odd thing to say about a series that’s using music as an integral part of the experience, but take a careful look at how few words show up in these stories. In the language of comics, silence is when the reader loses out on cues in the story and has to participate actively. Silence carries an emotional resonance beyond the most profound words (especially when the stories deal with loss and leaving). Check out the simple pleasures of drivin’ to LAX with your hand out the window, or the heartbreak of saying goodbye for the very last time.

Even with the soundtrack, it’s the dialogue that tells us how long a scene is supposed to play out; take that away, and the reader can get lost in the moment. The scene plays exactly as long as you think it needs to in order to convey that emotional payload direct into your brain. Not my brain, or anybody else’s: yours. This is storytelling that’s customized to you and you alone. The littlest details here (a fast-food sign, a dog to scratch behind the ears, a musical chord) invite you to reflect, relive moments of your own life, and shift into a non-causal experience of the story. It’s the sort of thing that professors of literature like to bullshit about when they read Proust, which is a ballsy trick for any classically-trained student of literature to attempt.

So how incredibly ballsy is it if you’re not a student of literature? Soo trained as an electrical engineer and has the Iron Ring to prove it. I’ve got a similar degree and ring, and if this didn’t predispose me to like him, there’s this: I went to nerd school. I immersed myself in the world of electrical engineering and engineers. Yeah, sure, everybody’s unique, hidden propensities, blah blah blah … engineers are not an artistically creative people, as a rule. Just trust me on this one. We compromise, improvise, design, test, and make things work in the most direct manner possible; little bits of silence and elegance were not part of the curriculum. That Soo is able to make this aspect such a central part of his art is more than refreshing — it’s astonishing. Now go revel in the silences.

If an animator started out with cartoons and crossed over to live-action later, does that count? Especially if it was often said that he directed cartoons as if they were live-action, and people as if they were cartoons? Frank Tashlin was a bit of an odd duck … fitting, since he did direct some classic Warner Brothers shorts, including the brilliant Elmer/Daffy team-up, The Stupid Cupid (and he would work with Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer, several times in live-action film). So let’s call Tashlin an animator who, most of the time, happened to be animating people (people like Tony Randall, Martin & Lewis, and Bob Hope). He’s the most famous director that you’ve never heard of.

Tashlin specialized in a certain kind of humor that comes from a situation where somebody knows that there’s a correct course of action — a polite, proper response to an obstacle — and proceeds to utterly ignore it in favor of a scheme that will absolutely fix everything. No, really it will. In Tashlin’s hands, it leads to milquetoast dudes pretending to be badass gunfighters, disabled military men playing housewife to active-duty spouses, and ad execs masquerading as the lovers of powerful clients. In bad ’70s sitcoms, this model leads inevitably to the line, “Gee, Larry, that’s a wacky idea … but it just might work!” In John Allison’s hands, it leads to Scary Go Round.

What makes John Allison’s work on Scary Go Round (and, earlier, Bobbins) of a piece with Tashlin’s work is this notion of things spiralling out of control because somebody has a plan, a cunning plan (SGR is also reminiscent in this way of the various Blackadder series). It’s perfectly clear that although the world has some odd notes (like ninjas in the garden), there’s a still a set of social norms you should follow: don’t let naked men drink that last of the milk, because your flatmate will move out. Don’t try to jam up a rival with a biker gang, because you’ll end up in service to the devil. Don’t make up lies about a van-eating monster, because you’ll get karmic retribution in the form of hot pie. Don’t forget to tip your porter, or you’ll find out that vampires are biting danger. Just don’t, because that wacky plan has consequences.

Consequences that will be expressed in Allison’s trademark lilting, playful, not-quite-punning way with language. SGR is a place where peace is the new hitting people with wooden spoons, impending doom always comes at bloodbath o’clock, and not flossing leads to Mouth-O-Geddon. Nobody talks like this … except in Tashlin movies.

Sidney: Santy Claus don’t drink.
Gloomy Willie: Oh, no? Well, how come he’s always falling down chimleys?

Chimleys? I think that’s where the skellingtons and demonds hang out in Tackleford, eatin’ their sammiches.

This may go down as the year of Webcomics: The Next Generation. Since the start of the year, webcomics luminaries such as Chris Onstaad, Phillip Karlsson, Jerry “Tycho” Holkins, and Bernie Hou have all had kids. Or, to be more precise, they were all very emotionally supportive and likely got slapped around while their wives gave birth to small human beings (in Hou’s case, twins). Maritza Campos, being made of sterner stuff, cut out the middleman and gave birth herself.

If we add in Mike “Gabe” Krahulik’s son last year, and John Kovalic’s forthcoming adoption, and Sean “Squidi” Howard’s daughter, we have a webcomickers baby boomlet. And if you’re a webcomics creator that had a child this year and I missed you, please be assured that it wasn’t intentional, and that your baby is the smartest, cutest, best baby ever.

This is a good thing, for several reasons. Comics still pretty much use an artisinal production model: a solo craftsman (or perhaps partners) labor in solitude to produce the art/craft. Artisans need children or apprentices to pass their skills on to. We’re all well familiar with how print comic strip creators end up passing their characters and syndication contracts onto their kids. Unfortunately, in many cases the children turn out to be no-talent hacks (check out the comics page of your local paper and look for the name “Browne” if you need proof). But the alternative is to have a fully industrial production model (c.f.: Garfield), which also sucks. So why is it a good thing that there are webcomics replicants?

Because webcomickers know that the newspaper comics page sucks. Many of them have been through the syndication attempts, or have actively attempted to subvert it. I can promise you, at no time did Tom Wilson ever tell Tom II, “Hey, I’m glad you’re helping me now, and when I hand Ziggy entirely off to you, you can stop writing the damn thing for 6 year olds and let your artistic sensibilities decide where to take it.” And I can also promise you, at no time will Chris Onstaad ever tell the baby, “Hey, when I’m gone be sure to keep drawing Achewood, but repeat the same three jokes over and over, and Ray can’t ever refer to his dick again.”

Because there aren’t syndication contracts that would lock a webcomic into a state of perpetual suck, it won’t be a case of the grown-up podlings merely continuing the work of the old; the creators can keep or walk away from their projects as they like, and the kids will have to make their own way creatively … but they may grow up their entire lives seeing their parents make a living from comics (or nearly their entire lives: Howard Tayler, being a plan-ahead, keep-a-buffer kind of guy, had the children all lined up before going full-time on the webcomic). That gives them something to think about when they’re growing up — comics are an actual job you can have, if you’re good enough! Ever wonder why being a cop or a firefighter runs in certain families? I may not live to see it, but I think some day there will be families of webcomics creators (or whatever the hell the medium will be in decades yet to come). And hey, if they all end up living in Northampton, some suitably mad scientist can set up a controlled cross-breeding experiment. Science!

This is the first is what will likely become a semi-regular series of looks at webcomics that no longer update. Some of them will be finished stories; some of them will be early projects that inform later, more well-known work; some will be on permanent hiatus. All of them will be worth your while to investigate.

Vera Brosgol is the best webcomicker not presently doing a webcomic; big words, let’s back them up. For a couple years there, she did a webcomic that never finished, has done some primo spot art, contributed to both Flight anthologies, and has made her way into the more-than-indy-not-quite-major print comics world via Oni Press. Quite a lot for somebody who’s not yet 22 years old.

Most people initially noticed “Verabee” through her webcomic, Return to Sender. The first thing to catch you is the art: there’s a looseness that reminds you of Chynna Clugston-Major’s work on Hopeless Savages (especially with Vera’s use of in-panel margin notes), with a wash of blue-grey that provides shadows, contrast, highlighting, and depth to wonderfully expressive faces. Ah, the faces. Check out the look of shock on Our Hero (his name’s Often — the only question is exactly how many times he got beat up in grade school) in that bottom panel as he hears the collision of car and pedestrian. Oh, wait, he’s just reacting to the no-longer-skipping CD playing too loud. Hmm. Well, that’s just … just….

Just hilarious, actually. That sweetly vicious sense of humor becomes quickly apparent as we follow a bizarre chain of events that culminates in a little girl getting hit in the head by a rock from outer space; the entire reaction from Often’s friend Colette when watching the news consists of, “Did you see me? I looked GOOD.” Colette’s casual brutality towards life (in general) and Often (in particular) continues with a game of “Made You Look!” when Often’s attempts to buy Girl Scout cookies, goes spectacularly wrong. When messing with his head isn’t enough, she’ll consider messing with his internal organs, too.

But that’s just life when the magic mail slot in your apartment starts spitting out instructions that lead to those dead little girls, spooked pigeons and hobo fights. It’s that mail slot that all the monsters apparently want to get their hands (or whatever) on, whether or not they’re invited in. So where does the magic mail slot come from? What’s the reason for following the instructions, other than the fact that Often gets killer nosebleeds when he doesn’t?

Well, kids, sometimes webcomics get interrupted because of school, work, a shift in artistic desire, whatever … and that’s why when you’re done reading the RtS archives, you should keep it on your “check it once a week in case it resumes” list of bookmarks. After all, it had delays before, and this could be just another one. But just to be sure, one of these days I’m going to bribe one of those sick Make-A-Wish kids to ask Vera how it ends. Until then, we’ll just have to wonder. By the way, when a story intrigues you so much that you’re willing to exploit a dying child, that’s how you know that you’re dealing with a master storyteller. There’s an enormously wide set of possible directions for the story, and in your gut you know that she could make any of them work.

But before you get mad at not knowing how it ends, consider what Vera’s been up to since: a new website, some brutally funny animated shorts, eight pages of a Hopeless Savages one-shot, a college degree, and lots of art that makes you smile. There’s big things on the horizon, and every reason to expect that seeing Vera’s name on the cover or masthead is reason enough to plunk down money for that comic or trade. She’s going to be crazy huge one day (probably much sooner than we all think), and there’s still just enough time to get in on the ground floor of loving her work. Get reading, and stay away from the hobos.

New York, the city where … no, wait, let’s start over.

NEW YORK! The city where anything is possible. Where your co-workers are an Orthodox rabbi, a secular Muslim, a half-Columbian half-Dominican future supermodel, and a Liverpudlian former electrician who managed to marry into an old-money New England dynasty. Your neighbors come from every ethnic group and subdivision you can think of, your block is defined by the local bodega and homeless guy, and the transplant from upstate that lives below you hates the bridge-and-tunnel dicks more than any native-born Manhattanite ever could. The city has nurtured generations of industrialists, writers, geniuses, and crooks. Now it’s a seething powderkeg of differences, class frictions, and resentments, overrun by rats with wings, hipsters, high-glamour drag queens, Paris Hiltons in training, token Republicans, society matrons, and performance artists who, in a reasonable world, would be hunted for their pelts. Here, their shtick is met with acclaim, or at least small-c celebrity in the form of a local-access cable show.

So where else would an Alien and a Predator share a walk-up? Every week, Bernie Hou brings us a slice of New York in the form of Alien Loves Predator, as Abe (the Alien) and Preston (the Predator) try to get by. They should hate each other. A decade of comic books and movies and video games has taught us that they should be trying to kill each other and everyone around them. Sure, they don’t like each other much, but eh. You know how hard it is to find a roomie you can tolerate? Besides, the apartment’s probably rent-controlled and they have other things on their minds: is a mutual acquaintance doing Abe’s Ma? Is that really hot girl you hit it off with a psycho just because she’s a Mets fan? And like all New Yorkers, Abe and Preston understand it’s not really that other person over there that’s pissing you off, it’s just New York.

And that’s the great secret of ALP: not Abe, not Preston, not the supporting cast … New York. It’s lovingly photographed in detail, and our actors (in the form of action figures) are composited onto the backdrops. Sure, the little visual gags (like Preston being the only near-sighted Predator, and having to wear glasses) are funny even without the context of the city. And the interior scenes can set up some great gags, but they lack that little extra something. Check out Abe and Preston wondering what to get sometimes-roommate Jesus for His birthday; it’s the sort of bizarre philosophical discussion — it’s bad enough if your birthday falls on Christmas because you get cheated out of a present, but when your birthday is by definition Christmas? That’s gotta suck — that works perfectly on a stroll through Bryant Park.

Whether it’s Central Park, the subways and stations, Times Square, or Washington Square Park the location is critical to the gag. It also lets Hou get topical on occasion. And even when the action takes place elsewhere, New York is still the lens that Abe and Preston see life through. With almost zero exceptions, the fact that our heroes are an Alien and Predator is completely irrelevant; the title could be Bridget Loves Bernie or Joanie Loves Chachi (okay, maybe not), and the edge would still be there. Because it’s New York, and that grim cheerfulness that New Yorkers exhibit in the face of the city trying to grind them down? That’s goddamn hilarious.