A Webcomic

Idea: Launch a webcomic. Get readers. Someday work full time on it.

How It Works: For us, we start by getting some hosting, a domain, and a means of designing our site. Then we try really, really hard to be funny, week after week, until the need to constantly construct jokes eats away at whatever we have that passes for a personality. We work together to write scripts which Greg will draw, and eventually post the comics on the site.

Eventually, we'd like to get some ads up, at least so the thing pays for itself. We're probably going to go with Project Wonderful ads for this project. Then, way down the line, we'd like to start selling merch.

For you, it works by visiting the site and reading the comic. You can do this in much the same way you would any traditional, or "print," comic. Instead of a newspaper, though, the comic will be posted on what's known as a "website."

Like many webcomics, this will be a Monday-Wednesday-Friday affair, so you can check then and expect new content three times a week. Ideally, the link from here will even tell you when it's updated, in case for some reason you check here more often than there.

The address is www.twostepsbackcomic.com. It launched November 1st, so you can go read it whenever you're ready. No rush.

Why It's a Terrible Idea: Did you know we had a comic in college that ran in the school newspaper? Most people don't. Which is why it doesn't really make sense to make this comic, based loosely on our lives, a spinoff of that one. But here we are.

Also, we lived together two years ago. That would have been the perfect time for a project like this, when we were a) living a life that we could chronicle in our comic, and b) in a position to work closely and collaboratively on something. It's been over a year since we've lived less than an hour apart, so the reality that the comic is going to be "based on" might not be one we'll all recognize. It will also be difficult for us to get together to work on it.

But we'll need to work on it a lot, and sometimes travel to visit one another. It would be really great if we didn't have real jobs filling our days, but, sadly, we do. The pathetic truth is that we work enough to make adding a webcomic to our routine the equivalent of canceling any social plans we might have, ever. So that's fun.

Under those conditions, it's hard to be funny. Really, though, are we all that funny to begin with? We're funny to ourselves, definitely. And to our close friends. But can we base a webcomic on that? Can we come up with halfway coherent jokes three times a week?

Finally, as always, there's the issue of regular updates. All I'll say is that you should check how often this blog updates, and also compare the date of this update to the comic's launch date. Suffice it to say, we're not so good at regular updates.

Actually, I think this project has more ways to fail than any we've yet undertaken. It's a new record!