Geek Syndicate Issue 5 | Page 19

Geek Syndicate
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ... Webcomics
It’s a fact of modern life that the advent of the internet has meant that anyone can be a creator. All you need is an idea, the gumption to start something new, thick enough skin to brave possible criticism, and the ability to not worry about failure. The internet is the home of uncountable examples of fan-fiction stories, original stories, poetry, artworks. More recently, podcasting and video-creation has become a creative outlet for individuals. And of course, there are webcomics. As a comic reader, nothing on the internet fascinates me more than webcomics. It is a media that produces sequential art based stories in many forms. They can range from nothing but photos and text through three-panel strips to full coloured pages. Since there are so many webcomics on the vast place that is the internet, I thought I might share some of my favorites, and maybe a few words from some of their creators. Some you may have heard of, some you may have not, but either way, they’re worth a look. For the purpose of ease in this article, I’ll break the webcomics into three categories: • Strips - comics structured much like a newspaper strip and consisting of just a few panels; • Full Page - comics that are done much like a comic book with a full page of artwork; • Other - comics that don’t really fit into the other categories, like photo-comics. ly a “comic” in the traditional sense, this is the internet and it deserves your attention, and with about four and half years of daily updates in the archives, you can expect to enjoy the backlog for quite a while.

Other
First up, I’ll start with what is possibly my favourite webcomic on the internet: Surviving the World.
Image © Dante Shepherd

Full Page
Next is one of my more recent discoveries: Picture of You.
Image © Gibson Twist

Surviving The World by Dante Shepherd

Pictures of You by Gibson Twist

This is a photo-comic run by Dante Shepherd (@danteshepherd on twitter), a former government scientist and current college professor. The comic is set up much like a classroom where every day you, the reader, are treated to a new lesson on life/love/philosophy/science/politics or so much more. The original idea for Surviving The World started as a script that Shepherd had written. He eventually turned it into its current form. Everyone has had that cool professor or teaching assistant, and Dante is that person times ten. While not technical-

Creator Gibson Twist was kind enough to answer a few questions for me, and sums the comic up much better than I could: GS: Pretend we’ve never heard of Pictures of You. What’s your elevator pitch? GT: Archie, with booze, drugs, sex, and plot. Real life the way you wish you remembered it. The best friends you’ll ever lose. GS: Where did the original idea for the comic come from? GT: Pictures of You was in19