The best time to start a web comic is when you don't need or want to start one. When you feel like you have something urgent to say - or worse, when you think a web comic will make you rich - you're probably not going to think things through as much as you should. One of the biggest mistakes I made with my motion comic was trying to learn both the artistic and technical processes at the same time. That, ultimately, led to my downfall. It became overwhelming, I burned out, and I lost interest.

That was not going to happen with Robot Friday.

My plan was to fully develop my concept and characters, then create an entire year's worth of strips before posting anything online. I actually stuck to that for about a year until impatience got the best of me. To my credit, I did spend a lot of time noodling out concept art for Thomas, Gary, and Michele. I built their world, thought about what I wanted to achieve with the comic, and even mapped out business plans, marketing tactics, and target audiences. I followed all the classic advice from Business 101.

And about 95% of it didn't matter at all.

The 5% that did matter? Comedy.

I did some research on humor and discovered that I had a natural wit, a gift really, that most people lack. And if I wanted to leave my mark on the world, I would need to bless the masses with my comedic genius.

Of course, that's all nonsense.

The only thing that makes something funny is surprise. That's it. Every comedy lecture, seminar, and book boils down to two words: "Surprise people." What I just handed you in two minutes of reading (one and a half if you were a gold-star kid) took me a year to figure out while trying to crack the code of web comic success.

And then, after all that research and planning, I made my smartest move yet: I ignored everything I'd learned and just started making comics.

At the end of the day, the only thing that actually matters in making comics is... making comics.

All the research, the gurus, the perfectly crafted scripts and jokes? Jack squat. Until you draw a picture and slap a word balloon on it none of it means a thing.

Draw three panels? Boom, you've got a comic.

Draw four and throw in a fart joke? Congratulations, you've got Robot Friday!

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