So!  In lieu of my idea to do some kind of separate blog feature, I’ve more or less decided just to attach such posts to comic updates.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, (mixed in with some music and audiobooks) as some of my “day-job” work is somewhat isolated.  I’m in the process of trudging through archives of most of them, but there are a couple that I think I can more or less recommend to any comics folks.  Although, to be honest, I think I’m probably a bit late in coming to them; you might already have checked them out.

I’ll start with a double-recommendation by way of introducing Webcomics Weekly, which you can find at webcomics.com or by searching iTunes.  Four guys get together to talk about webcomics round-table style, with varying sound-quality issues and some long tangents.  Sounds like your pretty typical podcast on just about any subject.  But all four of these guys have managed to make a full living out of their particular webcomics (which alone makes them far more successful than most), and their work is pretty darn well-known in the world of webcomics: Scott Kurtz (PvP), Dave Kellett (Sheldon), Brad Guigar (Evil, Inc.) and Kris Straub (Starslip) manage not only this excellent podcast, but webcomics.com and have written the book How to Make Webcomics (available from Amazon or any of their strip websites).

How to Make Webcomics does what any great how-to book does: It walks you through each aspect of the subject, highlighting each significant decision with advice from the experience of the writers (“experts”), while ultimately encouraging the reader to do their research and make their own way.  These guys have all, I believe, been at this for over a decade, and their views are not only well-reasoned but the writing is very open to let you know how and why they came to their conclusions.  It’s also targeted at the practical; they’d rather set you on the right path of thinking out your first steps to publishing or giving you tips on growing and marketing your property than steer your character designs and writing toward a particular formula or archetype.  If you have any interest in making a webcomic, my opinion is that you cannot possibly go wrong by reading this book, and reading it before you start your comics can only give you a headstart.

I explained about the book not only because it’s great but by way of introduction.  Webcomics Weekly is more of the same.  The guys steer their knowledgeable, reasoned and practical conversations according to pertinent or timely webcomics topics, or (more often) by fielding listener questions.

But where this podcasts sets itself apart (to me) is in its tangents and “rat-holes.”  Like many podcasts I’ve come across, the tangents and unrelated material accounts for a good third to half of the content.  Unlike most other podcasts, they are a telling insight into the mind of a cartoonist.  The four guys crack each other up with jokes and stories, often each riffing on a theme for a few minutes and “Plus-ing” (“plussing”?) each other’s ideas.  I’m not sure I can explain it, but if you’ve spent any time crafting humor and jokes, you’ll immediately be able to see that process at work in live, verbal form on the podcast as each one works in their own personal humor style, complementing each other perfectly.  I laugh out loud listening to this podcast more often than I do reading any comic strip.

The podcast does contain occasional cursing and the humor is definitely “by grown-ups, for grown-ups.”  (This also goes for the comic strips; only Sheldon goes to any lengths to be kid-friendly).  But if you can handle that caveat, and have any interest in the business or craft of webcomics, self-published print comics or to some extent any independent, “do-it-yourself” creativity, there are worse places to go than Webcomics Weekly.