Here’s the deal: You send in your entry. I shortlist a few and all the readers vote on the best one.

Rules

1. It can be a photo with text, sketch with stick figures, really fine drawing, flash movie, video, anything.
2. Maximum width: 500 pixels
3. No language restrictions. But bad language is usually appreciated here.

Tools

If you’re not into the whole Photoshop/GIMP thing you can use Toondoo (or some other site). Another site Lunapic lets you add 90ish effects to images. If you want something really interesting try Xtranormal, which lets you make movies using 3D characters and text-to-speech. (The site is a little slow though).

Basically, use anything do anything.

Topic

There are no topics. If it’s funny, it’s fine. Not funny, still fine.

Deadlines and Prizes

Let’s say 13th August? That’s one week. 21st August?

Prize: Let me think on this. Previously the prizes have been prints of the comic along with fancy chocolates. See nothing wrong with this. Might change. Let’s see.

How to send?

Mail your comic image or HTML code to contact [at] flyyoufools [dot com]

Don’t forget to spam everyone in facebook share this with your close friends. You can use the share buttons below. Remember: It’s not spam if it’s between friends.

You must have seen the Eat Shoe, Tyrant! comic about the latest fad for the International Protester. I used my own shoe for the image, and shot the process of shooting the shoe.

Here are the two videos: First me shooting the shoe, and second, cleaning the shoe and making the webcomic.. A bit long I agree, and as for the background porn music… well those are the free tracks available on youtube’s audio swap.

I wanted to shoot the shoe with a seamless white background. I used some slightly reflective poster and put a slave flash (on the tripod) to shoot directly at the background. This helps in washing out the background. For lighting the shoe I used an external flash (on the camera) and the base of a lava lamp. The lava lamp bulb has a strong yellow color cast, and gives the shoe a dirty look.

I took a couple of shots, and finalized two. One whole shoe shot, one a close up for the caption. Step 2 below:

(This is a high resolution screen capture and you wont really see anything at this size. Visit this page on youtube, and click on HD on the video player bar there)

After importing the photos in Picasa, I used it to increase the highlights so that the background really washes away. Fixed sharpness etc and cropped the image. Then the exported photos go into photoshop. All these things CAN be done in photoshop, but picasa is a little faster. Rest is just plain old comic making…

Some day I’ll post a real time screen capture of how to convert a photo into a comic. In case you want to know something specific, feel free to add it in the comments.

I’ll do Indian webcomics in another post. Feel free to add your own review and favorite webcomics in the comments. (Links open in a new window)

Cyanide and Happiness

It’s dirty, non PC and sometimes so lame it’s totally funny. And unlike some webcomics, it updates nearly everyday.

Subnormality

“The weekly comic for people with undiagnosed brain injuries!” says the tagline. It’s occasionally funny. I like the illustration style. Although some comics have more text than a short story. A Wall of Text as it’s known in the comic world.

We the Robots

They’re robots, but face the same problems as humans. And they’re bored.

P.H.D. Comics

Piled Higher & Deeper: Life (or the lack thereof) in Academia – This one is quite popular. But I dont like it too much. So when I describe it as “Funny things that happen in the life of research students”, some may not be happy…

Savage Chickens

Cartoons on Sticky Notes by Doug Savage – This one is great! It’ll would have been great if there were humans in it, but since it has chickens, it’s even better

XKCD

Well XKCD is way too popular for me to be describing it. It’s a webcomic of romance and math humour. And it has stick figures.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

This one closed down. But it’s by far THE most weird, funny, sad and deep comic on the net. You’ve got to stop scrolling down. Head over to PBF and go through the archives. Then come back after an hour and resume.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Also great. Specially those ones which are in reverse. Check out the archives… you’ll know what I mean.

Wondermark

By David Malki! Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name. Wonderful concept and funny panels. Victorian people, modern talks… I like the whole thing. Inspires me to do a similar thing with Indian miniature paintings.

Penny Arcade

This one is also quite popular with on the internet. A video game comic… I think it’s OK. Don’t check it regularly. Maybe once a month I’ll go through the archives. Quite OK. Although if this was Digg, I would’ve been dugg down into oblivion by now.

See Mike Draw

The author kind of stopped and started a new webcomic (Urf (below)). But go through the archives… some of them are just great.

The Rut

Same guy(s) from See Mike Draw and Urf (still below). Also nice.

Basic Instructions

This comic is “Your all-inclusive guide to a life well-lived” and will tell you how to deal with stuff and life.

Hyper Death Babies

No babies are harmed in the making of this webcomic. Similar to Wondermark in execution. A few panels are really funny. Hasn’t been updated in some time (like a few other webcommics you may know).

Wulffmorgenthaler

Wulf what? It’s created by Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler. Get it? And if you thought only badly drawn comics deal with offensive topics, well here’s a nicely drawn one. Love the art.

Garfield minus Garfield

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle.

This is the best thing that ever came out of the whole Garfield franchise. Actually this did NOT come out of the whole Garfield franchise. But Jim Davis (author of Garfield) did not mind when this webcomic became popular and even agreed for a book.

Why the one star? I hate Garfield. And although He/She/It is gone, the memory remains. Did you watch the Garfield movies?

My Life In A Cube

“Daily Drawings on Office Supplies from my Work Cubicle”. We’ve all been there. In the cubicle, waiting for the clock to get to 6PM on a Friday. Some are fun, some are sad. All are drawn on experimental material.

Abstruse Goose

The poor man’s XKCD. Sometimes its about maths, sometimes romance and sometimes Higgs Boson particles. It’s cool and it also has stick figures. Server tends to die out pretty fast when dugg.

The PC Weenies

It’s a family of computer geeks. And proud of it. If you’re the kind of person who has his hard disk hanging out of your PC cabinet (I have) you would totally appreciate this. (I do).

The Joy of Tech

Apple fanboys. But a funny tech comic nevertheless.

Urf

The planet URF is a strange place. It’s inhabited by a Human like species. But some things are different. Very nice.

Us the Robots

Not to be confused with We The Robots. The species is the same, but Oh the artwork! Now I’m a great fan of stick figures running a webcomic and my own comic needs treated photos because of the lack of my drawing skills… but Us the Robots is a visual treat. Wonderful 3D robots.

Buttersafe

Don’t let the weird name fool you… the comic is even weirder. This guy has surely been smoking some of that good stuff… Four stars for weirdness.

Truck Bearing Kibble

Get it? Truck Bearing Kibble. Hehe. Nudge, nudge. Wink wink. Truck Bearin…. Ok, even I don’t get it. But the comics funny, and that’s a fact.

Married to the Sea

Another strange name, another comic which captions old illustrations. But does it nicely. Go through the archives. Hours of fun.

Superpoop

Instead of old illustrations, you have modern photos. Funny remains the same.

AmazingSuperPowers

I haven’t come across any super powers on this comic. But it’s funny and well drawn. That’s a good enough super power to have. Don’t miss this one.

Shoebox

Shoebox is nice. In between comics and news, you’ll get a robot with a different feature every time. And then comics again.

Monkey Fluids

No precious simian bodily fluids here. Only the best set of fucked up captions for old illustrations. This trend is really catching on. I must do that Mughal miniature comics now.

Maneggs

Recently discovered this one. Another twisted comic with random topics. I like.

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So those are some of the good webcomics on my list. Next time I’ll do Indian webcomics. Not very many, but we’re growing. If you are making an webcomic or would like to start, please join the Indian Webcomics Google group.

If I missed a good one, please add it in the comments. If you don’t agree with the micro-review, feel free to correct me.

Update: Got a few more from the comments people posted. Do check them out. I’ve uploaded an OPML file of most of the webcomics I’m subscribed to. You can download it and import it in your feed reader. It has some Indian webcomics also. Feel free to share your own OPML file. (WTF is OPML?)