I had fun last night at #webcomicchat , as always thanks for participating. Search #hashtag #webcomicschat if you want to join in on twitter or use a website like TweetChat to keep track of the conversation. Usually I try to join the chat on Wednesday nights 6PM PST / 9PM EST. Feel free to post your own discussions at other times and I’ll try to make it as well. Click here to follow me on Twitter.

This week I started out talking process and we finished up getting our digital geek-freak on. I took the opportunity to describe some of my art process and asked for others to chime in with their techniques. Personally I do all my penciling and inking by hand and then scan the art for cleanup, lettering and layout. Others explained that they go straight digital. I’ve heard people like Kris Straub say that they use Flash for their comics. Using Flash mystifies me, I’ve got plenty of experience with both Flash and Illustrator and I see no reason why anyone would want to draw in Flash. I can’t think of anything that Flash can do better than Illustrator. With that being said, perhaps it’s a preference thing, but if you were asking me, vector drawing in illustrator is far superior than Flash.

My favorite drawing and painting programs are Painter and Illustrator. I still use a simple Intuos3 tablet. I prefer a smaller tablet because it seems more forgiving with the way I move and position my hand while I’m drawing. Some cartoonists out there are lucky enough to use a Cintiq. I’ve tried them before and love them. I will have one eventually but for now I can only drool. It’s easy to see how intuitive a drawing tablet could be if anyone would bother to really design one. I’ve seen tablet computers and they seem to work pretty well, but I don’t want a PC. Can you imagine how cool an iPad would be if it came with a stylus and Painter? Can you? Apple, *tap* *tap* Apple are you listening? Before we ended our chat some suggestions were made for iPhone stylii (what’s the plural of stylus?) One in particular was called Pogo, ironic considering the cartooning history of the name Pogo. The stylus looks cool but it looks like it is fairly large with a blunt end, I’ll have to try before I buy that one. If you have any other suggestions post them here: