In this month's Essence of... Ping Teo comments on webcomic print labeling. With chickens.

Once upon a time, there was a webcomic called Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet and a funny thing happened: it was picked up for syndication and has been delighting readers in print for years now. Helen's creator, Peter Zale, talks about Helen and the strip's conversion from web to syndication, in the following interview.

Disclaimer

In this article, I am taking a look at the experiences of webcomics creators who have (or soon will) put portions of their archives into book collections. I'm using first person, because I will be including my own experiences as well.

This article is intended to tell a range of stories. It is not meant to be the definitive guide to putting your webcomic into book form. The creators I selected represent some, but not nearly all, of the most significant approaches and achievements in webcomics book publishing. You are especially invited to add your own experiences to the comment thread.

MoCCA – the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – holds an ART FEST every year and has since 2002.

This year the Fest was held on Saturday and Sunday, June 11th and 12th from 11am to 6pm each day.

Given that I live only about 4 to 5 hours north of New York City, where the Fest is held, I finally decided to actually get off my tuchus and attend the thing.

Juno of Star Cross'd Destiny has attracted attention with her tale of superhuman homeless misfits in a future New Orleans. In this interview she chronicles the story's history -- from unpublished novel, to attention-getting webcomic, to member of the Hot Bullet Press group, to her webcomic appearing in print.

This month, Welton Colbert takes a look at Squid and Ink, the upcoming monthly anthology featuring new comics from a number of extremely talented cartoonists. And Welton.

Hi, my name's Ben Thompson. I make the webcomic Townies and I recently printed my first collection, Townies - Book One. Much like when I began my webcomic, I knew some things before I actually got started, but I learned a lot in the process. I hope to share my story of seeing a book to print as well as make this a bit of a how-to for anyone considering making their own books. It's very gratifying seeing your work in dead tree format, but remember it takes a lot of work and dedication. Before I go into specifics, I should explain the different types of book printing out there right now.

We're discussing print this month, which is an interesting topic for webcomics. Once, it was the goal. Everyone who was doing the web had an eye to print -- the early successes, like User Friendly, Sluggy Freelance, and Kevin and Kell all moved into print collections as a matter of course. Plan 9 Publishing became the earliest resource for webcomics to bridge into dead trees, and it remains a vibrant publisher of comics and cartoons from both the web and print sides of the aisle. Derek Kirk Kim is perhaps the most successful example of a person who has bridged from the web to a print collection, with the clear and obvious exception of Megatokyo, which has transformed itself from a webcomic with collections available in print to a manga produced by Dark Horse that happens to put up teaser pages in sequential order on a website.

Think back to your favorite book from childhood, during a time when your books were equal parts art and written word. Books with lettering sized so big that they eclipsed the text found in large print books. Pages filled with bright and colorful illustrations, spines covered in gold foil. scratch and sniff stories, or tales where texture adhered to the pages let you feel the fur of a bunny, or the rough bark of a tree. These books were your first exposure to imaginative stories told with words and pictures.

This is Picture Story Theatre, in a nutshell.

Tim Demeter's Reckless Life has been one of the delights of Graphic Smash -- fast moving, stylized, and utterly and delightfully amoral. Tim was kind enough to grant us an interview.