Tropes aren’t bad. In fact, they are a useful and, at times, necessary shorthand that creators, particularly in the webcomic field, can wield to enhance their work. J Hillis Miller posited a trope as, “… the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect.”

Every ...

After a quiet afternoon of reading Leo Tolstoy, Allie drifts to sleep and enters the realm of dreams. Upon grabbing hold of a mysterious orb, Allie is transported to Gtegra where its blue-skinned inhabitants can fly. This is a fish-out-of-water story that will whisk you away to a world beyond ...

So last time we had talked about the Javert trope, a category of character that is very compelling and makes for excellent drama, immense suspense and often gets their own following in fandom. (Just check out Saito Hajime's hero's journey as a prime example.)

The Javert character is ...

Inspiration is quite the rush. The mind is set alight with seemingly limitless possibilities and, in that moment, you want to experience them all. For a creator, inspiration is the high that we pursue. But eventually our creative significant other packs up their stuff and quietly disappears into the night ...

Niccea is now accepting For Your Consideration Pages. Please PQ or email them.

A couple of people that are new to the awards scene wanted some sample FYC pages.

Since the theme for the FYCs hasn't been done before I scrounged the archives of previous years FYCs and Extras ...

Javert is such a stellar and powerful character in Les Miserables that he has his very own trope.

He's the skilled, dogged, unwavering locomotive of a chaser that in the name of the law, the church, the state, the cause pursues and persecutes the hero of a story, and ...

As creators, we believe that we are the gods of our stories. The tales we weave are of our construct and the characters are subject to our petty whims…at first. When we begin to craft our worlds and populate them with, what we hope, are well rounded characters, we ...

When a toxic waste truck and a milk truck collide, the end result is creating a new super hero! This milk drinking action hero is now tainted with toxic ooze and a stretch costume with a 2% logo across the chest and his new call sign is “Super Cancer”. The ...

Usedbooks writes:

My side project, Strange Creatures, just passed 50 pages, so it's kinda legitimate now. It's more of an illustrated novel than a graphic novel. Anyone looking to check it out, I recommend starting at the beginning to avoid spoilers: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Strange_Creatures/5561567/

Oh ...

So I came across this new announcement of a reboot (?) due in 2019 of the nostalgic cartoon Thundercats that most of us grew up with (fine, ok, I'm only dating myself with this).

I have always been partial to Thundercats, but not overly possessive. I didn't mind the ...