Comics have always had a special hold on people’s imaginations, with stories immersing readers in fantasy worlds where literally anything is possible. And, unlike books, comics combine the power of words and pictures. The skills of the artist mean that those worlds and other phenomena are there for all ...

I read webcomics backwards, and maybe you should too. You might be aghast about spoilers, but trust me– almost every reader who happens upon your comic does this too.

I should specify–I don't read the entire archive backwards. It depends on the comic but typically I read back ...

With Valentine's day just behind us and a lot of talk of love, I thought I'd take a look on the exact opposite of love and affection- how do we write and display hatred in characters? How do characters hate, and what's the difference from rage?

In ...

Romance

I don't know much about the Romance Genre. I've never read a romance novel. Not that I recall, anyway.

Of course, I've seen a fair number of romance-focussed movies, and have consumed HUNDREDS of stories with a love subplot. Love is still the most common subplot ...

Having discussed a general approach to writing characters with mental disorders (with a lot of thoughtful comments by you further enriching what I had to say!) it's only right that we wrap up this very quick analysis with an example of a story that properly portrays them.

I chose ...

Dialogue is a vital part of a comic, book or movie.

Well - usually it is. There are surely some comics out there who have none. There's prose, such as many children's stories or fables that are all or mostly action and description - and since the rise of sound ...

Beatrice has been experiencing the same disturbing dream for the last 8 years. Sometimes she can barely wake from them. She always sees a woman with yellow eyes. THIS time the woman spoke to her… “Let me out”. What does it mean? Is it more than just a dream? Is ...

What is a character? A miserable little pile of traits! Except no, there is more to a character than a collection of likes and dislikes. There are varying opinions on the importance of character versus plot, with some authors viewing all characters as a mere tool to drive plot forward ...

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 ...

Over the holidays I watched a couple of programs that made me think of “non-traditional heroes”

We've talked about antiheroes multiple times around theduckwebcomics.com of course.

One of the programs was a series called ‘Happy!’ and the other was the movie “Inside Llewyn Davis” by the Coen Brothers ...