D.J. Coffman – Sequential Artist, Thinker

I’ve spoken with several comic book creators and webcomic creators in the past few months who think it’s near impossible to host their own webcomics and feel they are “computer illiterate” or don’t know design. Some are afraid that places like DrunkDuck.com might go belly-up overnight and they’ll lose all their comics/data and the audience they’ve built there. I decided to write this step by step guide to show you how easy and affordable it is to leave your “free hosting” behind and take the next step to becoming master of your own domain! Keep in mind, this is just my opinion and advice on what to use to take the next step to getting serious about your online webcomics.

1.  Sign up at Dreamhost- Don’t ask questions, just sign up. I’m on the 9.99 a month plan, and i pay once a year, $119 bucks. This gives you MORE than you’ll need for hosting your comics. I host SEVERAL sites on my one account, including the Yirmumah comics, and a bunch of sites for the Flobots! — 9.99 a month is only about $2.50 a friggin week, anyone should be able to afford that, especially someone serious about publishing comics in any regard. So sign the heck up. — And if that’s not enough if you type in the coupon code DRAMA when you’re signing up, you’ll get 50 bucks off compliments OF ME.

2. Once you’re signed up with Dreamhost, you login to your control panel, and notice a section called GOODIES, and then ONE CLICK INSTALLS: (click image for larger image)

From there you can install a BUNCH of things with one click, including forums, shopping carts, but for this step-by-step, you want to select WORDPRESS blog and guide it through where to host it on your account. IMPORTANT NOTE! – Don’t click the “easy” method of  auto install, it won’t allow you to upload themes to your folder. Do the advanced complete install option and you should be good to go!

3. You’ll need FTP program (basically that means file transfering protocal, you’ll be uploading files to your space on the web from your computer) which will allow you to transfer files by dragging them and dropping them from your desktop onto your webspace. I use SmartFtp, but you can also use free FTP like Filezilla. You will use the password and username that Dreamhost emails to you after signing up for “FTP ACCESS” to your site. ANOTHER GREAT FREE FTP tip, if you’re using the Firefox Internet Browser, there is a free extenstion called FireFTP that once installed turns your browser into a FTP program where you can drag and drop files from. I’m currently using FireFtp for all my transfering needs! Download it here.

4. Go download the free COMICPRESS theme for wordpress it’s a powerful wordpress theme by cartoonist Tyler Martin which is being used by many of the top webcomics around (including PVP) – You’ll unzip the download so its a folder that will say “comicpress”– While you are on that download page, also download the PLUGIN called “Comicpress Manager” and unzip that file as well.

5. Open your FTP program and login to your site. Look for the folder called “wp-content”, open it and inside you will see a folder called “themes” – you want to drag and drop the “comicpress” theme folder into that “themes” folder and let it upload. — Also, go back to the “wp-content” folder and put the Comicpress Manager plugin you downloaded into the “plugins” folder. Here’s a look at what my FTP folder looks like when open. Notice the folders I’m talking about… (click for larger image)

6. Login to to your Wordpress admin page, and go to the DESIGN tab. Switch on the “Comicpress theme” there. Also, go over to th PLUGINS tab and swith on the “comicpress manager” plugin as well.

7. Using the Comicpress manager, which will say COMICPRESS in your main Wordpress menu (see above image)  if you have the plugin turned on, you can now upload comic pages or strips right from your desktop. It’s a BREEZE. All you do is name them by date like “2009-09-12-title-of-comic.jpg”, you can even upload them in Zipped file batches all at once too. Here’s what a general screenshot of that Comicpress tab opened looks like…

There are detailed tutorials and tweeks for Comicpress and how to enhance your site’s look and feel over on the Comicpress forum.

8. Kick the tires of everything and look around in your Dreamhost account, and in your installed Wordpress dashboard. There are several awesome plugins out there for wordpress that you simply drag and drop into the plugins folder, and turn on. And you can edit the entire website through the Design panel in wordpress without much fuss.

This is by no means a thorough tutorial on running a webcomic or totally tweeking out your themes in wordpress, and you don’t have to use dreamhost if you can install wordpress on your other hosting you might already have. I mention them because that’s what I use, and they have that nifty one-click install stuff which is great for people just starting out who want to get away from freehosting. Wordpress is just a very powerful tool for getting the word out there too, with tagging and keywords that are going to instantly beam your comics and topics out into the blogosphere and send good search engine traffic your way.

Here are some of the sites I’m running right now on Dreamhost or with Wordpress engines:

• yirmumah.com
• americawillbe.org
• flobots.org
• flobots.net
• djcoffman.com (this very blog!)

And there are many more too. Another sample I’d point to is the quick ACTIONWEBCOMICS.COM website that Jason Embury and myself put up in ONE DAY, as a submission for DC Comic’s editors. Jason is hosting that I do believe on Dreamhost and that’s a very simple Wordpress with Comicpress template there that we only added the header graphic to and changed background colors in the CSS stylesheet.

Hope that helps put some of my friends on the right path. Don’t feel intimidated by the software or technical sounding terms (like CSS STYLSHEET) if you can point and click and type, you can do all this. I often tell friends, it’s sort of like trial and error or flying the Millenium Falcon. Sometimes the hyperdrive goes bad, you just have to get in and tweek it around or hit with a wrench and you’re good to go. Take it slowly and learn just a little bit each day, it’s totally worth it!

I’m helping out some new friends with their comic project and I was asked to critique and give feedback, or pointers on using the Cintiq screen and Photoshop to draw comics. Instead of typing up a tutorial, I sat down this morning and filmed this 25 minute video which includes tips, techniques and a look at how I approach a comic book page. There is no guidebook on how to use this new tool, so over the past three years of creating comics on it, I’ve sort of come up with my own approach, and I hope it inspires others. The Wacom Cintiq people should pay me a commission for the amount of these things I’ve sold for them and they have no idea! That or send me some free swag, Wacom! hah! (call me!)

Drawing Comics with Cintiq from D.J. Coffman on Vimeo.

This past week I was sent a couple links of new or upcoming webcomic efforts by publishers, both of which were flash based viewers that zoomed and had fancy doo-dads. While these look good and pretty on the screen, it just doesn’t make sense for alot of reasons for companies to be using these. And unfortunately, there seems to be a “follow the leader” approach here where some smaller comic companies (zzComics?) who are getting out of traditional comic publishing seem to think they need a flash player to be taken seriously or work efficiently. This is definitely not the case.

#1 Load times aren’t optimized well. Let’s just use Shadow Line Webcomics as an example. To get to one webcomic from the main www.shadowlinecomics.com homepage I have to search for the link far up in the right hand corner, tucked away there where the eye patterns usually don’t flow online. Once you do open the player, even on my blazing fast cable connection the player is slow, and each page seems to take 3-5 seconds of the swirling “i” logo. Yeah, that’s a minor complaint, and i’m personally willing to let that slide when I’m enjoying comics, but it takes you out of the flow of a story and on the internet, 3-5 seconds between pages can take people out of the flow of a story. Then the browser seemed to lock up on me in the middle of a story. These things could be rectified with an image preloader loading the images in the background of the FLash File while you’re reading, but most of the flash comics I see online aren’t using them.

#2 – They’re missing out on pageviews and internet reach. When you open a flash file it might count as ONE pageview when I’ve been cruising Shadowline’s webcomics for 15 minutes. It doesn’t look like Shadowline is ad supported so it probably doesn’t matter revenue wise, BUT, the other thing about having an entry for each page with tagged topic lines is that you suddenly get sent out into the blogosphere to new readers who would have never found your work. This can’t happen with a Flash file.

#3- I can’t read it on my iphone. Yeah, that’s REALLY picky, I know, I know.. but the point is… why make a site that isn’t viewable on all browsers and devices? A Flash player is coming for the iphone, but even when it does come, the fact is the flash players, while “flashy” and pretty, don’t really have a POINT to them beyond that. There is no reason to use FLASH players for comic pages online at all.

I’m not picking on Shadowline, I just used them as an example off the top of my head of a recent one I was shown. There’s also Zuda Comics, who’s comic player is OK at full size, but sometimes the lettering is tough to read and the load times vary.

#4 If you HAVE to use a flash player, use it like Dark Horse Presents on Myspace does. Go there and notice how the main page loads and the first page of the issue is down ther already. By the time you hit the next button, the pages are already loaded and instantly pan to the next. No zooming, no special toolbars needed, they get right to the meat of the comics. As far as comicbook company to webcomics go, Dark Horse is doing it the best right now in my opinion.

#5 DON’T USE FLASH! – There’s still a whole bunch of people who don’t like reading comics on the screen and all the fancy doo-dads and toolbars and load times ain’t going to help them cross over or ease their pain. Want an example of someone doing it the right way with a big name in comics? Check out Freak Angels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield.

Here’s why Freak Angels and the Wordpress system works 1000 times better for comics and comic publishers big and small online…

#1- Freak Angels loads right up. Again, the content clearly where you can’t miss it. No clicking on cover graphics or wasting people’s time.

#2 – Everytime they post an update, the RSS gets beamed out to fans. If they wanted to with that setup, anything they put in the news postings there or chapter descriptions also gets fed out via tags to be gobbled up by search engine monsters and the blogosphere.

#3- Page views and reach. Freak Angels is not ad supported, and I don’t know what kind of pagviews they are bringing in, but the point is, a read through just their comic pages is going to get them about 160 pageviews per new reader who gets hooked, maybe more. With a flash comic, someone is going to load your page and not return because of the clunkyness, and even when they load it, it’s counting as ONE view.

#4 - It’s a destination. Much like appointment tv, you know when your favorite show is on and you’re sure to go back on Friday’s to read it. Or if a favorite comic of yours updates Daily, or M-W-F, etc. Those kinds of sites end up in people’s RSS feed readers like GoogleReader, and shared with friends… a clumsy flash file does not.

In summary and in conclusion, I am Tim Calhoun and I’m running for… (sorry, bad SNL joke)

In summary, every time I see a new “flashy” webcomic player, I cringe a little inside. It also makes me wonder who is consulting these companies as far as these things go? Or are they just looking up friends or graphic designers who know how to make a flash file? They need solid web consulting from experts. I guess the experts would be people that have been doing “webcomics” for ages now. If they don’t have money to pay an expert, they could probably email a successful webcomics guy or gal who’s been making a living off their comics without flash for sometime (someone like R. Stevens?) and show them two different site links, one flash, one not, and I bet they’d choose the non-flash one. Or they should just look and see the WHAT and WHYS of what’s been working for successful webcomics for over a decade now. And why the flash based player comics in flash mode aren’t generating links all over the place?

There’s no need to reinvent this wheel yet.

related: “How to Host your own Friggin’ Webcomic!”