Write what you know.

Write from experience.

These are two major tenets you'll hear spouted to you from a million million creative writing teachers, or from a thousand thousand famous writer/artist people when asked, "What should I draw/write about?".

I have a ruling reputation online as being outgoing and wacky. An online friend was once shocked to find out that my voice is not, in fact, at ALL chipmunky, despite the fact that I can yammer and pun and load on the sarcasm for paragraphs in chatrooms. But for some reason, around accomplished comic book people I'm a complete dimwit.

Our third community interview is with Jon Rosenberg, creator of Goats and Patent Pending (available on the Goats website with a subscription to Goats Premium). (We haven't forgotten about our second interview with Pete Abrams. We're negotiating with T-Shirt Guy Tom right now for Pete's answers.)

Jon published the first Goats strip on April 1, 1997 and is still going strong. Along with Phillip Karlsson, Jon has also carved out a niche as the creator of some truly funny website-parodies, including Brains4Zombies and Moistnap.

Making webcomics is a tricky process. There are lots of articles, discussions and advisors that offer information about the theories, processes and sheer practicalities involved in taking the phrase "I'm going to make a webcomic" all the way to fully-realized, charming cartoon characters galavanting within panels and trading clever quips on the glowing computer monitors of every internet-wired home on the globe. What doesn't get noted is that quitting a webcomic is also as nuanced and involved a business as starting one. Most people stumble backwards into it without a plan.

MegaTokyo blew up almost immediately when it appeared on the webcomics scene three years ago. Fred Gallagher, the creator behind the strip, goes by Piro, a nickname he took only temporarily. A former architect, he now lives on the spoils of the site's merchandise.


Comixpedia: How did you start doing MegaTokyo?

Fred Gallagher: Well, the roots of where MegaTokyo came from go back years before it actually started. My first webpages were actually anime websites about specific series.

An Electric Manga Mirror

Scouring the Internet comic scene, it’s easy to see how prevalent manga imagery and ideals are. Thousands of fan sites are dedicated to Japanese anime, comics and characters. It’s a cultural tidal wave that can easily wash away the uninitiated with way too many facts and trivia about the multitude of worlds that have been created by eastern artists. Whether you’re a fan or not, you can’t deny its influence on popular entertainment.

Japanese culture has so thoroughly melted into American culture that we can't always tell where one ends and the other begins. Speed Racer, Godzilla, Voltron, and Tranzor Z are nostalgic for millions of Americans, almost a part of "Americana." Weightlifters train by eating sushi. The Matrix seamlessly blends Japanese martial arts and Eastern philosophy into Western cyberpunk and American car chases. Japan makes our cars, our computer parts.

Nowhere does the Japanese voice speak more clearly than in the true avant-garde, the avant-garde of comics, the Web, and especially of webcomics.

Leigh Bader's Schism tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world, full of mysterious figures and shady dealings. Technology reached a high point, then crashed in an event known as the Schism, and now it’s in the rebuilding stage. Electronic communication is highly monitored to prevent another disaster.

But don’t worry -- there’re a lot of hot guys running around, which makes everything okay.

On a personal note...

When I began "Why Do Online Comics?" it was my intention, above everything else, to have it act as a spur.

Since Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is essentially a play about plays, it has a few things to say about how to set up a story. Eversummer Eve borrows a page from the Bard's tale, and its players make the story approachable – but it's Jones herself who pens an environment more elaborate than any of Shakespeare's stages.

Don't be fooled into thinking you've seen this before, however.