The aim of this article is to bring out a good collection of web resources around the world of comic. Not only for professional artists but for amateur drawers or scriptwriters who wish to get deeper into their fields, there are many really useful websites to develop any of the the cartoons art aspects, from sketching to lettering, from the creation of stories and dialogues to the comic language and its various genres.

Education and information

Portal de la Historieta: a Wikipedia project  open to the participation of all the fans and professionals, with information about authors, schools, genres, etc.

Guía del Cómic, complete site founded in 2001 and divided into the following sections: graphic novel, superheroes, manga, humour, spanish artists and more comics. Their objectives are to offer a precise and rigorous information, to promote the comics reading, besides its leisure, educational and artistic potential.

Sobre Cómic: a website on the art of comic, with articles about artists, the best comic book covers and recent publications reviews.

Antonio Altarriba: in this comic scrpitwriter’s webpage you’ll find available for downloading the learning guide of “El arte de volar”  a work he published along with the artist Kim.  

Scott McCloud: this american artist is well-known for his illustrated books that explain the language and techniques of comic, such as “Understanding comics” and “Making comics”.

Comic is Art: blog devoted to, as it says in the homepage, “all the big artists of the history of the 9th art" , which go from Harold Foster to Jack Kirby or Will Eisner. All the entries show visual examples of the artists work.

Asociación Cultural Malavida: a simple comic course in pdf by this association form Zaragoza.  Basic notions for all ages about aspects as the characters expressiveness, the script, the cartoons and the balloons.

El Tinglado - El Cómic: Learning section about the art of comic  belonging to the collective blog El Tinglado, made by teachers. The fundamentals of the comic language throughout a series of related slides.

Manual de la historieta: Web manual that explores the graphic and narrative resources of the comic art, done by the graphic creator Rubén Garrido.

Taller de cómic de Jaime Martín: Personal webpage of this comic artist, where he classifies every step on the creation of a story, from documentation and script writing, to the first pencil sketches and later inking, colouring and lettering.

Las técnicas del cómic: Didactic document by the spanish Education Department to be used in class, in which they propose simple exercises and reflections about some cartoons.

Monográfico del cómic: by the teacher Ricardo Fernández Muñoz. A text document that analyzes the comic narrative and its learning potential , along with its capacity for enrich the communication and improve the reading skills within the students. Different school activities are suggested.

Funny Fish Fountain Comics: interesting site from Puerto Rico, with bright articles about the many dimensions of comic art, as the text balloons , or the use of colour.

Contests

Below you’ll find a relation of comic contests which closing dates expire within the next months.

XVI Concurso de Cómic y Manga para Autores Noveles - España  (until September 28 2012)

Muestra Joven de Cómic Marbella Crea 2012  (until October 5 2012)

Premio Ciudad de Palma de Cómic 2012 (until October 11 2012)

III Premio Internacional Ciudad de Badalona de Cómic (until October 15 2012)

VI Concurso Nacional de Creación de Historietas 2012(until October 25 2012)

XV Concurso de Cómic "Alcazul Tomelloso" 2012  (until October 26 2012)

VI Premio Internacional de Novela Gráfica FNAC-Sins Entido (until November 30 2012)

Schools and courses

The following are some of the art schools that offer comic graphic creation courses in the spanish territory.

Academia Carlos Díez (Madrid). Yearly, three-month and monthly courses of different graphic techniques, such as aerography and digital illustration.  

Escuela Superior de Dibujo Profesional  (Madrid). Illustration, animation and comic courses and workshops.

O Garaxe Hermético (Pontevedra). Professional school ruled by renowed galician comic artists.

Espacio Imaginarte  (Valencia). Fine arts studio with drawing, comic and printing courses. 

Animum 3D School  (Málaga). Education on 3D animation, graphic design, comic and illustration.

Escola Fem Art  (Barcelona). This centre offers courses on various artistic expression areas, such as portrait, caricature and characters design.

Comic generators

These generators are simple online apps that allow us to create comic stories in a few minutes by using a graphic resources library, and let us add our dialogues. Even though it can be seen as just entertainment, spending some time and putting a little talent we can reach to appealing results. Some examples:

Strip Generator  Nice app for creating comic strips in minutes using a gallery of characters and other elements.

Make beliefs comix  Other app for inventing basic comic strip stories that can be later sent by email.

Comic Master: this app has a higher level of difficulty, allowing the upload of previously created images.

Other interesting sites

Álvaro Arts

Álvaro Muñoz personal website, with valuable information about the necessary materials for the comic artist, from the right drawing board to the pencils and brushes and the recommended computer equipment.

Marcela Trujillo: This Chilean artist shows in her site some advice on the best materials for the graphic work on comic creation.

Graffix Multimedia: a webpage that offers non-free offers old comic book covers for downloading

Blambot: here you’ll find fonts for comic , some of them for free, organized by category (dialogues, onomatopoeias, titles, etc.)

Webcómics: non-profit community for the promotion of the webcomics in spanish language . With a stock of almost a thousand stories the users can link to, they also encourage users to join the community by uploading their works.