Well, I thought I'd make a topic here in the forum about all the things I have learned throughout my journey so far in comic-making.
Anybody else can post theirs, it's just for people that are just starting to, so they can get some help :)

*I hope this is in the right place and whatnot. If not, please tell me. :)*

Anyway, let's get started, shall we?

Alright. First of all, you're going to hear this a lot, but...

Practice. That is key. And something else that helps, is depending on which style of comic you are doing *Manga, an American Comic Book, etc* you'll want to study those types to help you.

Another thing, is to have a set idea in your head of what you want to do, inspiration is also good, grab ideas from everyday life, movies, music, videogames can all help.

Decide how you want to do your comic, Colored pencils, just pencils, just inked, Photoshopped, it's all up to you, the artist. That's what makes comics, especially web-comics so great! There's so much variety, it's incredible.

After all that, you'll probably want to grab some materials, Computer printer paper is fine, a ruler, pencils *mechanical is good as well :)*, and any other things you may find necessary. It's usually different for everybody. Like me, I use a .05 Mechanical pencil, a ruler, computer printer paper, and Staedtler pens, along with some sharpies, and Photoshop CS2. So I suppose it's how you want to do it.

THEN, if you want, you can write a script, some people do, some people just go with it. As for me, I don't write a script for the beginning, then I start a script. Somehow, it's easier for me.

After all of this is completed, grab a piece of paper, a pencil, and be on your way!

If you didn't make a script for the beginning
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Like me, if you read this, most likely you don't like making scripts. SO, to start off the story, think of your characters, and the plot, you should make it somehow lead to what the plot is going to be. Such as, let's say my character, Ryu, has to go defuse a bomb. The beginning should be something like,
*If he didn't defuse it, everybody he cared about would die..., and show Ryu going through all these obstacles to get to the bomb and whatnot*
Well, you get the point. Don't get to the plot too fast! Unless that's what your trying to do, because if you *not* on-purposely do, then chances are, your readers will be mad. But sometimes, luck has a weird way of working. So whatever.

If you did make a script for the beginning
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Chances are, if you are reading this, you are a smart, organized person. Not necessarily though. :P I just felt like saying that. Anyway, just read over your script and draw accordingly. Not much else to say here.

Another big tip for making comics is...
MAKE THE PANELS FIRST
Panels are one of the most important part about comics. There's so much that can be done with them.

You could make them straight, and exact, kind of like a Marvel comic, or maybe start out straight, and if you ink, go a little crazy. Which makes for a cool effect.

And chances are, if you are a beginning artist, you have no idea what to do for the panels. Well, you'll want different ones, instead of the just 6 panel page, like when you draw a line through the vertical middle of the paper, then 2 times horizontally.

At the end of this, I'll post some links to things I find helpful, and even a few examples, like how I started out.

Anyway, like I said, you probably don't know what to do for panels,

Big wide panels - Like the top one here
Are usually used for crowds, a big scene, or something with action.

Small Panels - Like the one on the left side, one up from the bottom
Usually are to show dialogue, or small action scenes.

Medium Sized Panels- All of these are pretty much medium sized.

To make a comic really good, you'll want to use a combination of these, and even make your own. Making unique pages and borders will really help get you more readers, and make your comic even better.

So, now that you've got the panels, use your imagination, and draw away!!!
And practice, practice, practice! Soon you'll get it!

*Oh, I also lied about how I was going to post how I started, it's too horrible to show*

what I think is the coolest part about comics is that you can abrubtly ignore everyone's advice....

I personally start with a notebook and a story idea. I just start from the begining and draw. I used what ever stub of pencil I can find. I've takne no art classes, no design or anything like that. I just draw a "Better stick man" in whatever pose I want, then I flesh it out until it looks good enough.
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I scannify it useing (gasp) a scanner, then open up the GIMP to compy-ink my lines.

I add details and fiddly bits as needed. and I color it

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Then I add background and text stuff.
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I scale to the width of the day (I like 750) and post em.

and thats how mattwandcow rolls

Edit: lets try showing all the steps and not number 1 twice!

Three things come to mind:

1) Plan Your Pages

Don't plan and conceptualize to the point where you get lost in it and never get to the finished product (I did this... for years, literally), but don't rush to finish either. Whether you're working from a detailed script or a rough plot outline (I prefer scripts with panel-by-panel breakdowns, but not everyone works this way), draw up a rough sketch of your page first. Where do the panels go? What goes where in the panels? How does it all fit together? Does the movement in the panels aid the readers' eye movement across the page? Does anything get cut off in an unsightly way? Where will the word balloons and captions go?
There are a TON of things to pay attention to here, and it really is the most important step in creating comics.

2) Line Weight Variation

I think lack of line weight variation in inking is the single most common weakness I've seen in webcomics. If you ink your stuff, seriously, at least draw outlines around your characters that are thicker than the detailing. This will instantly improve the appearance of your art by 100%. I'm not kidding. Do it. No, thicker than that. Don't be shy.

3) Lettering Matters

At least make sure your word balloons don't look totally hideous. Make sure they wrap around the text nicely. Rule of thumb: the word balloon should look like you could roll the letter "O" around the text in it. And don't make your font too big, it'll only take up too much space.

Don't put a comic online until already done at least 25 pages of it. Then you'll have a feel for what your doing and know if you really have the time to spend on a comic.

Don't have your first comic being some high-minded epic storyline with no set ending that could theoretically keep going forever, or is so long it would take years to complete. Start with a few comic stories that are thirty pages or so. If you do HAVE to do some longwinded neverending story do it after you've had some esperience with something smaller and more managable.

Work to your ability level. If you can't draw people don't do a comic about people. Go through your doodles, or just spend time doodling, find a simple fun character to draw and build the art around that. Your art will improve as you practice. If your eyes are too big for your stomach it's just going to look crappy.

Draw big, edit big, finish small. It's much, much easier to work with bigger drawings if you're going for detail. Have you ever tried fitting detail on a tiny character? It doesn't look good. You can also cover up any small errors you make when you shrink your comic down to its final size.

Finishing small... just try and resize your *nearly-finished* comic so that it doesn't require a lot of browser scrolling. Readers don't mind having to scroll either horizontally or vertically, but they won't want to do both.

kingofsnake
Don't have your first comic being some high-minded epic storyline with no set ending that could theoretically keep going forever, or is so long it would take years to complete. Start with a few comic stories that are thirty pages or so. If you do HAVE to do some longwinded neverending story do it after you've had some esperience with something smaller and more managable.

Sound advice. I think a lot of people don't realize how much work goes into every single page until they've actually done a few, and they aim too high at the beginning, only to become frustrated when they've been working for hours and hours and their hero hasn't even finished lacing up his boots before his 5000-page epic quest. Heh.

This isn't meant to discourage anybody, but yeah, start with a manageable idea, and don't blow your best idea on your first comic because you'll make every possible mistake at first anyway. Everyone does.

Work to your ability level. If you can't draw people don't do a comic about people.

I'd be careful with this one. I think it's better to find a balance between working in your comfort zone and attempting new things on a regular basis. If you only ever stick to drawing things you know you're good at, you'll never get better. And ideally, as a comic artist, you should be able to draw everything. Don't be afraid to leave your comfort zone and try new things, but if you know you suck at drawing horses and cowboy hats, you probably shouldn't be doing a Western comic because you'll have to draw one or both on every single page.

Oh yeah, another thing: write what you like to draw. This may sound like a copout for people who don't want to work hard, but I don't think it is. You'll be spending a lot of time drawing the stuff you wrote, and if it's all things you have no interest in drawing, it will quickly become a very painful exercise, and frankly, if an artist isn't enjoying his or her work, I find it usually shows in the end result. Or you lose motivation and never finish it altogether because this is webcomics and no editor is breathing down your neck to make your deadlines.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I have a lot of scripts and plot outlines that never turned into comics because while they were stories I wanted to tell, they weren't stories I wanted to draw.

In addition to planning your pages - plan your story. Write out the script, think about what happens not only on the next page, but in the next chapter, or the next story arc if you don't work with chapters - thinking ahead helps keep you from writing yourself into a corner, and the story flows smoother.

Spend some time thinking about character voices. The dialogue of your hot-shot teenaged protagonist should sound very different from the dialogue of the sixty-five year old genius scientist, and so on. It's such a little thing, but it impacts the realism of the comic so very, very much.

Of course, it all comes down to practise. The more you draw, the better an artist you become. The more you write, the better a writer you become.

During my newb days I would draw the comics on a line paper. lol I remember that for some reason I'd fit 20 panels in one notebook page. And most of them are all drawing the face with the occasional side view and only from one camera angle.

I know this has been said in the previous posts but I'd like to stress this:

GO WHEREVER YOUR HEART LEADS YOU. WHATEVER IS MOST INTERESTING TO YOU AT THE MOMENT. DONT CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK. You shouldnt be doing it for the sake of getting attention and for filling in demand. Just because its what everyone else wanna see. No it doesnt work that way. All that matters is what YOU think is the best kind of comic to make.

Thats the only way you can manage to crank out alot of pages.

In my experience, when I was working on KATROPA, which is a fantasy type of comic, I got easily tired of it. End of chapter 2... BOOM! I got bored of it because I'm not really too much into that imaginary world kind of MMORPG like stuff.

So I shifted to doing Brood Knight, which has religious themes to it. Because religious themes are my interest.

Then again I got tired of it because I felt something is lacking in it.

So i shifted again to doing MAG-ISA which fills in (for now) the lacking things in Brood Knight.

Listen to critics, not matter how nasty they be seem/actually be, because if they think something is wrong with your work, then it's likely that there's something wrong with it.

Never, ever make excuses for your faults. That's the worst thing you can do.

Custard Trout
Listen to critics, not matter how nasty they be seem/actually be, because if they think something is wrong with your work, then it's likely that there's something wrong with it.

However, don't listen to people on line who can't do better. I am very well aware that what I drew above is total crap, because I drew it in about 3 minutes, start to finsh. I know its bad, but I think few people could draw a good sample of their work start to finish that quick, maybe a good sketch, but eh.

Don't EVER listen to the crap-audience of the internets who say hurtful things just to be talking(okay, typing).

Custard Trout
Never, ever make excuses for your faults. That's the worst thing you can do.

Especially if you're late. Until you get cash from your stuff, Its up to you if you want to do a page on time or not. Its nice if you do, but don't get so obsessed about apologising that you lose site of the idea behind webcomics. They're fun!

Also, for more infomation on everything, there's a lot of professionals who talk about this stuff. Webcomics weekly (podcast) is a good one.