When I started working on "Gordon and the Stareater," I quickly discovered that it's actually pretty hard to find good comics info on the web. Here's some of the stuff I did find, plus the sites of some of my very super-talented friends, to whom you should give your money.

The search is far from over, by the way. If you know of a link you think might go nicely on this list, please contact me and let me know about it!

Scott McCloud's Homepage

Scott McCloud is the nexus of all things comics on the web. If you want to know what's going on, like, pretty much everywhere, just pop into his news section. He wrote "Understanding Comics" and "Reinventing Comics," two amazing books that you should read. They're not just for comic geeks, either. I heard a story about a screenwriter and some movie mogul sitting next to each other on a plane and noticing, to their mutual amusement, that they had both brought "Understanding Comics" along to read during the flight. True story!

Jessica Abel's Homepage

Jessica Abel is neat. If you're fresh off the boat and on your first mission in the perilous jungle of comics creation, this site (and particularly this SUPER DIY section) can help you get your bearings and stay alive until you're a seasoned, two-month veteran like me.

Rejon.org

This is the home page of Jon Phillips, an excellent open-source programmer, teacher, lecturer, and artist. Also, he's an all-around nifty guy. He has the robot-like ability to concentrate on something for forty or fifty hours at a time, but he does get a little sketchy around hour sixty.

Sonambulo, by Rafael Navarro

This is just awesome, and he's done the whole thing by himself. Three words: Real Sonambulo Mask. I used to work with Rafael Navarro. It's hard to use any word but "cool" when describing him. When I was just out of high school, he encouraged me to put together a drawing sample and go to the San Diego ComiCon to show my stuff to prospective publishers. Did I do it? Yes. Did I spend one night on a six-page sample? Also, yes. Did the editor guy at Marvel audibly snicker when he saw it? Sure did. But when I showed it to Rafael, he said just what needed to be said to keep my fragile ego alive for the decade that that it took for me to come back to comics. Thanks, Rafael!

The Xeric Foundation

The Xeric Foundation gives financial assistance to self-publishing comic book artists. If you intend to go this route, a Xeric Grant is probably something you want to investigate. Rafael Navarro (mentioned above) won a Xeric Grant in 1996 for "Sonambulo: Sleep of the Just."

Long Playing Computer Graphics by Bradley Schenck

Brad Schenck is one of the digital art greats, and he's been doing it since 1987. Look at this, if you don't believe the "great" part. Brad was my first boss ever, and also my second boss ever. He wrote the recommendation that got me into art school, and then he got me my first video game job after school. He got me to start using layers in Photoshop after about a year of saying "you know, that mistake you just made would have been easily fixed had you used layers." Now I use layers like it's my job.

Bud Plant Comics

If you're gonna make a comic, you should probably read a few, first. You can find most of the good stuff at budplant.com. Actually, I can't find any Adrian Tomine books there. But that's probably a temporary problem.