House of Lief

Comic Resources

There's a lot of valuable resources out there for getting started making comics of all kinds, but it can be hard to find them, or to work through the pile to find what works for you. Here I've compiled a list of resources for things like drawing software, fonts, website templates, and more.

Some of the software and services here cost money. I am not sponsored by any companies listed here, I am simply trying to provide a list of resources that I think are useful to new cartoonists.

table of contents

drawing/design software

name description link
Anti-Subscription Catalogue A collection of free/open source/single payment software. https://www.a-s-c.org/
Affinity Suite A single-payment adobe suite alternative with design and publisher software. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

website help

name description link
Neocities A static site web hosting service. Supports html/css/js. Perfect for getting to customize code without having to worry about server architecture. https://neocities.org
W3Schools Coding lessons. A great resource to support you while developing your website as a beginner. https://www.w3schools.com/
Rarebit Webcomic Template An html/css/js template for starting a self-hosted webcomic. Plug in your pictures and style and go. https://rarebit.neocities.org/
Sadgrl Layout Builder Sadgrl.online was one of the biggest names on neocities in 2021 when I first made my site. While the webmaster has moved onto other projects, her resources are still online. https://goblin-heart.net/sadgrl/projects/layout-builder/
LayoutIt! This is the layout builder I used for the css on most of my site. It generates css and an html skeleton for you to use. https://grid.layoutit.com
BawkBox Widgets BawkBox provides prewritten widgets like contact forms that you can just copy and paste into the code of your website. https://bawkbox.com/

clubs and webrings

name description link
Comics Accountability Club CAC is a club dedicated to equiping cartoonists with the tools to self publish. https://www.instagram.com/comix.club/
Cartoonists Cooperative The Cartoonists Coop is a group dedicated to fighting for fair pay for comics industry workers. https://cartoonist.coop
Web/Comic/Ring This webring is hosted on Neocities and basically accepts any applicant, as long as they can add Javascript code to their website and they have an active or completed webcomic. https://webcomicring.org/
Smallweb Subway This webring is hosted by Gusbus.space, another neocities website. The Subway is actually several topical webrings for different kinds of content, all linked together. gusbus.space/smallweb-subway

Comics and Zine Fests

name description link
Online Comics & Zine Fair Webring Online/virtual zine fairs are a great, low-risk way to start getting your comics and zines out there. Check out this webring to see what options there are for virtual events. https://comicsfair.online
Columbus OH Comic Events If you're based in Columbus, OH, check out this page to learn about the local comics community. Comics in Columbus