Get your daily WebComics online for more fun!

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta

As interest in the Internet begins to plateau, some people are wondering what else they can do on the Internet apart from e- mailing, chatting and reading the news. After nearly five years since its introduction to the consumer market, the Internet now seems to be a tired medium, as people return to TV as their source of news and entertainment.

But one thing the Internet is still good for is to empower the little guy to create, market and sell his own products. Writers, designers, and photographers are just a few segments that have used the World Wide Web to broadcast their wares and to find a new audience. Another market is the WebComic industry.

Everyone, at some point or another, has read comics. Charlie Brown, Spider-Man, as well as Calvin and Hobbes are household names, yet few people are aware of the struggles of a comic-book artist. In order to sell their comics, they'd have to have a story, plus drawings and characters that are acceptable in the eyes of the newspaper editor, magazine publisher or syndicate tycoon. Just like struggling musicians, many good comics are never introduced to the general public because the men at the top have decreed that they are not good enough to see the light of day.

The Net changes that. Anyone with an idea and some drawing skills can create a comic for the whole world to see and judge. And many are quite good.

A few of the best are Player-vs-Player (pvponline.com), a comic about the antics of the editorial staff of a gaming magazine; RealLife (reallifecomics), the fictional adventures of real-ife people in California; Schlock Mercenary (schlockmercenary.com), a hilarious space opera featuring a band of space mercenaries in the 28th century and Sinfest (sinfest.net), the always nearly controversial, yet touching comic strip that features a dog, a cat, some friends, God, the Devil and a dragon.

All of these comics have one thing in common: they basically started off as a hobby. Greg Dean, the creator of RealLife, has a full-time job, as does Schlock Mercenary's Howard Tayler. But as time passes, and word of mouth via the internet spreads, their websites receive more and more visitors, following the adventures of their characters as they would with other "established" comics in other media.

But can these cartoonists earn a living with these sites? Scott Kurtz of PVP seems to think so. He quit his day job and focused on the site full time. The main website, along with its archives (four years-worth of daily comics) is free for users to browse, and is a boon for advertisers targeting young and Internet-inclined people. The readership of the website has also helped PVP onto the print media as it will soon be published by Image comics, one of America's top comic publishers.

But don't think that making a comic online is the path to riches and fame. There are many comics online today and very few are of the caliber of the ones mentioned in this article. The drawings should be crisp, the characters consistent, but most importantly, the story must be compelling. They must differentiate themselves from the Peanuts or Garfield wannabes on the Net.

And putting a comic online is not cheap either. Granted, there are a few sites such as Keenspot (keenspot.com) that can host web comics in exchange for advertising, but setting up a site for the world to watch can be a rather expensive proposition. If the comic becomes a cult favorite, more readers will flock to the site, thus raising the cost of the bandwidth of the website. The more the readers, the higher the bandwidth costs.

Advertising is a source of revenue, as is the print version of the comics (after reading two years-worth of Schlock Mercenary online, I just can't wait to get the paperback version). Cartoonists can also create mugs, mouse pads and other paraphernalia to sell toward supporting the site.

The Net has given fledgling cartoonist a new medium to showcase their art, bypassing the Mandarins of the publishing industry. It is a boon for us users and comic readers, bored with the daily depressing details of the news, to see an array of choices that gives us something fresh and funny to start the day. Had the Net not existed, we would never have been able to see so many unique characters and storylines that can help mold our outlook and future. We'd all be the poorer for it.