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graphics program and add the bubbles.

If you want to draw a traditional looking comic on the computer, you may like to use vector graphics (e.g. with Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Flash or Inkscape, the last one being free). These remember pictures as shapes, lines text etc. rather than pixels. Therefore editing is easier than with bitmaps. You can fill shapes with any colors (or gradients and pattens), or not and have them outlined with any color and thickness of line (or dotted lines etc.) or not (although if you don't have a fill or an outline, you won't be able to see your shape). Normally vector graphics pictures look more like drawings or diagrams but you can make them look more realistic with transparency, gradients and filters (and not using outlines). You can also convert them to bitmaps and add filters etc. in your bitmap program (or include bitmaps in your vector graphics images). It's possible to upload vector graphics to the Internet as SWF or SVG images which can have animation, sound and interactivity.

3D graphics programs (e.g. Maya, Brice, 3D Studio Max, Poser and Blender, the last being free but not at all user friendly) are very complicated but if you can figure out how to use them, you can produce bitmap images that look like photographs (but you can easily have explosions, monsters, space ships etc. in them). To some extent you can re-use your models (for the same characters or repeatedly using the same locations, space ships etc.), which will save time. This will give you a very realistic looking comic. 3D graphics programs can also produce animations. It's possible to upload 3D graphics as X3D or VRML but I've never seen it done.

Don't think that doing your comic with photographs or entirely with computer software means that you don't need artistic talent. You still need to know how to compose a picture that conveys the feeling and information you need.

DESIGNING THE WEB SITE

Again there are lots of ways of doing this. As many of the pages are going to be similar, you could use CGI or PHP to generate them. It may be worth consulting your hosting company about this. The pages that display your images should have links to the first and last page as well as to the archive and main page. (Some comics have the images displayed alone without being on pages.) Remember to use alt attributes (which are officially required for img elements anyway) with descriptions of the comic in them. This will make your comic more accessible for the visually impaired,

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