It may just be my impression, but usually when a story is set in a dystopian setting, the dystopia is played straight. However, when the characters encounter or start off in a utopian setting, they almost always will end up realizing that the utopia is actually a mirage, and in ...

On Utopias
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 26, 2025Books in the News
Gunwallace at 12:00AM, April 24, 2025
Now, the good Professor always follows up his “Good News, Everyone” with decidedly bad news. But for this week, that can wait. And I was going to spend the first part of this newspost looking at some of the more depressing stories about books from around the world, but end ...
FEATURED COMIC --> OLYMPIAN HEIGHTS
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, April 23, 2025
Super heroes are pretty amazing people with awesome powers and abilities beyond normal humans… but they are still normal humans actually, at least the ones in Olympian Heights. They have normal hopes and dreams, passions, crushes, moments of weakness and hesitation… and yet they try to make the right calls ...
Back from the Dead
Tantz_Aerine at 2:02AM, April 19, 2025
It's Resurrection Saturday today! What better occasion then than this to talk about the resurrection trope?
Usually, cancelling out a character's death is not a good thing to do in a story. It undermines the weight of the stakes involved and/or the sacrifice or seriousness of the ...
Lack of Research
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 12, 2025
As creators of stories, be they novels or graphic novels or comics, we all have heard the adage “write what you know”. It's been drummed into our minds to the point that its cold fingers have our impostor syndrome in a deathgrip every time we venture our to write ...
Happy Twenty-First Birthday to Shonen Punx by Teh Andeh!!!
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, April 7, 2025
Photo: “011 Happily Ever After?”. Shonen Punx created by Teh Andeh. (April 2025)
Teh Andeh writes:
“This year the first webcomic i ever did Shonen Punk!(2004-2019) turned 21! it’s finally drinking age! lol so of course that means it’s time for a reboot! LOLOL
I’ll be ...
Starting where the action is
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, April 5, 2025
Absolute Boyfriend: Volume 1
So, you’ve got this amazing story idea bouncing around in your head—yay, go you! But now comes the big question: how do you actually start the thing? You want that first page to blow your readers away, right? Let’s talk about one of ...
When Life's Too Crazy for Fiction
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, March 29, 2025
I generally avoid using current events in my articles about webcomics, but this time I can't help it. Signalgate has been living rent free in my mind ever since the editor in chief of the Atlantic broke the story.
There are many reasons for that, most of them not ...
Resentment
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, March 15, 2025
In designing a good villain character there's a wide range of paths one can follow. From the grandiose villains that want to take over the world and live in volcano islands, waiting for the hero to fall into their elaborate death trap to humanized villains with complex backstories that ...