I usually just come up with a title and basic idea, get an artist or start making stick figures, and then go wildly from there.
That hasn't worked out so wonderful.
So I'm trying to plot out a new comic first. I'm good on getting some related ideas together and some of the character stuff thought up, but I can't seem to be able to come up with reasons or little details and connecting it all together right away.
Any general words of advice?
And for more specific advice and ideas, I suppose I should put out the few bits of plot I've managed to think up so far:

Hell in the Pipes
Ever joked about how you didn't know whether you should call the plumber or an exorcist? Well, these are the people you call. The Johns-Jones Holistic Plumbing Services!
Maxwell Johns – Plumber and exorcist in one. He’s a blue collar guy who likes to drink and smoke and watch football. He takes the paranormal aspect of his work in stride. He is calm and not easily flustered. He’s been there, done that, and bought the shirt and collector’s mug. Though he’s faced demons and devils, demigods and cosmic beings, he claims his only fear is his ex-wife. Before he took his current job he was an alligator wrestler in Florida. He’s a Catholic, occultist, and was once in a band.
Fortress Jones – Works part-time. He used to be an alligator wrestler in Florida with Maxwell Johns.
Kelly Jones – Co-founder with Maxwell and brother to Fortress. She loves Max, but he pretends not to know of her affections, unwilling to get in another relationship after his last one soured so badly.
Some Rookie Guy - New guy. I really have trouble thinking of info for him.

The first mission of the story deals with sewer gators and an Egyptian crocodile demon/god.

That's all I got. Any advice on ways I can figure out more plot and character stuff? Thanks!

Characters are a good place to start. What you need to do is work on an antagonist. Honestly, that's where your plot starts. Figure out who the bad guy is, what he or she wants, and how he or she is gonna get it. Then you can figure out how your heroes fit into things.

thoththegrey
Characters are a good place to start. What you need to do is work on an antagonist. Honestly, that's where your plot starts. Figure out who the bad guy is, what he or she wants, and how he or she is gonna get it. Then you can figure out how your heroes fit into things.

Heh, and I was just going to go with "random demon" for the first story arc. But I suppose even a demon needs its reasons...

the way i plot is....start with the end, and work backwards.

Now I know that you may come up with the beginning, or the middle, or just an action scene first, but you want to make sure you have an end in mind so that way you can avoid any needless dragging on of the story.

once you have your end in sight, everything else is just busywork, make sure the chain of events happens in a clear and unconfusing way, and you should be good to go.

Thanks. With these two things in mind, I've got this:
Villain - Tannin, a demon with Egyptian origins and reptilian connections. His motive is to bring an end to the Age of Man and create a new Age of Reptiles in order to become the god of a new religion with worshipers in his own image.
Plot Ending - Chapter one ends with the team clearing up the sewers of various animals and monsters. They don't know who was responsible, but they know someone was and they know why. Tannin used the sewers and monsters to help start a panic and to help him break into a building/safe and get vital information for his plan.
Chapter two ends with the team having blown up the Confederate submarine and the evil within.
Hopefully that doesn't give away two much information. Chapter three should probably start up a new story to take a break from the Tannin stuff. There's also a lot of surprises in there I don't want to type up yet that should be interesting surprises.

Any more advice? You've been very helpful!

Sounds like you're off to a good start.

I agree with Nick... you need to know where you're going when you start. You need to know the end.

A lot of times you have a cool concept or character or "what if he has to do this" and you start a story not knowing where its going. At which point, it can typically fizzle out in the middle. But if you know a definite end point, (or at least a major stop) then everything else is just figuring out how you get there.

When i START a story, a good idea is to establish the status quo and then quickly upset it-- this is true even if the status quo implies that something that has major has already happened (IE - the status quo could be a future after nuclear war where a mutant warlord rules the land). Then introduce an element that upsets it (IE - One of his minions escapes his lair with information that could be devastating to the warlord if it found its way to the serfs).

Another good plot device is the McGuffin. A McGuffin is just a "thing" that everyone in the story is after.. in the case of my example it would be the information that the minion escaped with. This is a pretty common device some examples could be the Death Star plans in Star Wars, the breif case (or whatever was in it... an orange light bulb) in Pulp Fiction, the diamond in Snatch... You can ditch them along the way, or create new ones, but they help people stay engaged cause they're concerned with whats going on with it.

hmmm....

that's all i got.

McGuffin...sounds like what you get when you cross MacGuyver(sp?) with a McMuffin.

Anyway, while you've planned the end for each chapter, if the story is going to have a definitive ending you'd better have that planned out as well. For my comic, I already know what the ending is going to be like, how the characters change by the end, and the big plot points in between. Know how they start, know how they'll end up, and it should be easy to fill in everything in the middle.

I tend to work things out by comming up with the key points that the plot has to express (both in order to complete this section of the story, and what I want to forbode for the future).
Once you have those key bits in mind it is just a matter of linking them up and thinking of events that can happen to get you from A to B to C.

I'm not famous for a rock-steady plot, but I can give you tips from someone who has kept the abundant plot holes in the leaky ship of Vile_Withering from sinking it for a almost a year now.
These are the main things that I had to learn the hard way:

Work on a Chapter-By-Chapter basis: at least for the details. Undoubtedly, you'll come up with much funnier, and much more brilliant ideas as the comic evolves, which adds uniqueness to our genre as a whole, so whatever basic schematic you have for the entire arc of the webcomic is going to change. A lot. So, don't pile on the details of a page until you're within a few updates of it, or you'll end up locking yourself into a course of action, which saps a good part of the fun from the creation of the comic. This is by no means to say that you shouldn't put in key details, but you don't have to type down every word.

Ask Yourself Why: Why does Character A hate Character B? Why do the barrels explode when you shoot them? Why is that guy's sword so big? Question every plot point you develop, and if you come up with "Just Because", it needs fleshing out. You don't have to describe it to the reader, but if you know the reasons behind why things happen, it definitely aids in the plot and characters coming to life.

Produce a Helluva Product: When you're writing a novel, and you write a mediocre segment, you can always backtrack and tweak it until it's on par with the rest of the book. You can't do that with Webcomics. If you produce some crap, it'll come back and bite you in a few updates. Don't slave for hours in photoshop trying to make the next Ctrl_Alt_Del, or Cru the Dwarf, or Order of the Stick, but don't let yourself get away with producing anything below what you're capable of- it's okay to streamline your work so you can have a life, but don't plaster some half-hearted crap up on Drunk Duck just to update.

Quit caring about your hits: Within reason, advertising is fine, selling out is not. Everybody wants attention, but desperate ploys to garner more hits is not the way to do it. If you enjoy making your comic, it will become progressively more "awesome" (if it isn't already), and by extension more famous, the longer you keep up with it. If you enjoy it, they will come.

So sayeth the Catburger. Take my advice to heart, or at least to your kidney somewhere where it can fester into an ulcer.

Well, I have the general plot set up, with only the major plot points, a lot of minor ideas, and an ending, so I'll have lot of wiggle room, and I have a Mcguffin. Story chapters should be (without giving anything away):
Ch. 1: Underground
Ch. 2: The Confederate Submarine
Ch. 3: The Bloodstopper
Ch. 4: Cipactli
Ch. 5: Crocodilopolis
Though depending on how things develop there might be one or two more chapters, these cover the gist of the story I want to tell. I still need to flesh out the characters though, major and minor. Currently they lack personality, except for two I haven't named yet (Rabbi C.F. Burns, and Howard Phillip Fort).
Thanks for all your help so far, the advice has been wonderful in figuring out how to structure a plot/story!