So it turns out I'm quite ill this week and I don't feel I have enough focus to finish up my “Writing Mental Illness” set of articles. I promise to do that next week.

For today I'd like to talk about planning, writing and drawing a webcomic ...

The buzz on the street is that mTV studios will be releasing a Daria reboot called Daria and Jodie along with other shows geared to an older audience like the animated Aeon Flux series. Daria was such a staple to watch in the late nineties and it helped teens in ...

Have you ever noticed that among the dead webcomics, a preponderance of them have “Hiatus” on their tombstone? That tombstone being, of course, the final page posted years and years ago with a promise they will be “right back” after a “short break”. There are of course a number of ...

I’m in the process of moving house and I took the opportunity to go through some childhood belongings. During my excavation I stumbled across the very first comic page I ever drew. This was quite the find as I had long believed that my first ever webcomic, with its ...

Giving Mythic Scale to your Stories



Dexter and the Trinity Killer - this may not look like an epic confrontation…but it sure as heck was!


The classic Star Wars trilogy was a phenomenon and a triumph on multiple levels. One of the things it's famous for is it's ...

A few months ago, I was linked to a video about original thinkers by organisational psychologist, Adam Grant. and the habits of people he calls originals. It’s a very interesting video and I highly recommend watching it, but one of the points that he makes is about embracing the ...

While walking down the street in San Diego’s gas lamp quarter I pass a tattoo shop and my friend says to me, “Let’s get tattoos! I already know what I want my next design to be.” I hesitated and walked on not because of my lack of interest ...

Writing a character with mental illness can be a very tricky thing. Writers usually go for the extremely rare, exotic and spectacular: multiple personality disorders, extreme manifestations of psychopathy or sociopathy, high functioning autism with that ever alluring ‘savant’ magic going for the character, bombastically spectacular schizophrenia… in many ways ...

In a nutshell, exposition is a big ole mound of information that the author wants the reader to know before they move on in the plot. It often gets a bad rap but that is usually due to it being used incorrectly. There is definitely a place for exposition so ...

Oh what a coincidence, that my newspost day should fall upon the date of my 15th year on this very site! So naturally, on this anniversary, I'd like to open up and reflect on how the Duck has left a major impact on my life and work.

Every year ...