A friend on my floor asked me last spring how you read one of these, and I realized nobody ever explains it. So, for her and for you:

1. Start at the beginning. Find the archive (every comic worth reading has one) and go to strip #1. The newest strip on the front page is the end of a conversation, and you want to hear it from the top. Kaitlin said it best on her PIZZA CAT page: don't read page 6 first, it ruins it.

2. Read the cast page. Five minutes there, and you'll know who the round green one is and why the clock looks like that.

3. Read the notes under the strips. They're the footnotes in a good edition: skip them and you miss half of what's going on. Robin's notes on UNDER CONSTRUCTION are half the comic.

4. Give it ten strips. The first few strips of any comic are a first draft. Most comics find their feet somewhere around strip #10, and the good ones keep getting better after that.

5. Learn the update schedule. A comic that updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday is not going to have a new strip on Tuesday, no matter how many times you hit Reload. I've checked.

6. Be patient with the archive. A lot of archives put every strip on one page, and on a modem that takes a minute. Go get a soda. It'll be there when you get back.

7. Write to the cartoonist. They draw these at night, after work or school, for nothing, and a letter is the only pay they get. Cory answers everything, Odessa writes back by hand, and Kaitlin reads every letter twice.

I'm an English major. Of course there's a glossary.

webcomic (n.)

A comic that comes out on the Web instead of in a newspaper. Also called an online comic.

strip (n.)

One installment of a comic, usually three or four panels in a row or four in a box. A single-panel cartoon counts, and so does a comic-book page. The number on it ("strip #47") is how everybody finds it again.

panel (n.)

One box in a strip. The space between panels is where your imagination does the work.

archive (n.)

Every strip so far, in order, on one page or a page apiece. The most important thing on a comic's site. A comic without an archive is a magazine that throws out its back issues.

update (n. and v.)

A new strip going up, or the putting of it there. "It updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday" is a promise, and readers will hold you to it.

bonus strip (n.)

An extra strip on a day that isn't on the schedule, for a special occasion. THE BUG put one up on 9/9/99, which only comes around once.

cast page (n.)

A page that introduces the characters, with a picture of each. Some cartoonists put themselves on it.

filler (n.)

Whatever goes up on an update day instead of the strip: a sketch, a drawing of the cast, a note that the strip is running late. A little filler is fine. A lot of it is a sign.

guest strip (n.)

A strip drawn by somebody else, usually a fan or another cartoonist, often while the regular cartoonist is sick or busy or on vacation. A nice way to say thank you, and to take a week off.

hiatus (n.)

From the Latin for a gap, or an opening. A break, announced in advance, with a promise to come back. Sometimes they do.

link button (n.)

A little picture, 88 pixels wide and 31 high, that you put on your links page to send people to a comic. They're all the same size so they line up nicely in rows.

I can't draw. I've tried. My cat came out looking like a loaf of bread with opinions. But I've read a lot of comic sites, and the good ones have these things in common:

1. Pick a schedule you can keep. Once a week is plenty. Odessa drew one a week for thirty-five years, and Robin does Mondays. Three times a week is heroic, and Cory is a hero, but don't promise what you can't draw.

2. Number and date every strip. "Strip #12, Monday, September 20" means people can find it, talk about it and send their friends to it.

3. Make an archive from day one, with an anchor or a page for every strip, oldest first, and FIRST and PREVIOUS links on the front page. Once it gets long, split it up, for the sake of everybody on a modem.

4. Make a cast page. A picture and two lines apiece are enough.

5. Keep the pictures small. 400 pixels wide fits on anybody's screen. Robin's strips come in between 11K and 15K, which Robin figures is about five seconds apiece on a 28.8.

6. Letter clearly. If I can't read the balloon, the joke is lost. Capitals, a plain typeface, white balloons, and a tail pointing at whoever's talking.

7. Write a note under the strip. Readers like knowing why you drew it. Readers like knowing you.

8. Make a link button, 88 by 31, and put the HTML right there for people to copy. Then other people's pages will send you readers.

9. Draw a few ahead, so that one bad week doesn't turn into a hiatus.

10. When you're up, write to me at [email protected]. I'll read it from strip #1.