Webcomic artists get asked a lot of questions, anything from what materials they use to where in the world they get their ideas. It's easier to answer the former, because the materials you use to create are fact. The latter however is less clear cut.

So where do ideas come from exactly? Well the bad news is that there is no magic wellspring where you can dip your cup and drink in a refreshing story. Nor are there any comic gods to pray to for inspiration, but the good news is that comic material is all around you, it exists in your everyday life and is ripe for the picking. There is a trick however, and that is that you first need to recognize material when you see it, then you need to weed out the good from the bad and finally you need to figure out how to combine it with other ideas to create a coherent story.

So first things first, let's get this straight, the chances of you finding a complete story idea in one go is like 0.00001%. Stories don't generally come that way, they start as individual seeds of ideas and eventually blossom into a garden. What seeds you combine determine what kind of story garden you get. WIth that out of the way, let's start collecting some ideas to build a story.

The other day I was watching a Discovery Channel program on the ancient Egyptians. It was mostly about power struggles for the throne between family members. I remember thinking to myself, boy wouldn't it feel terrible to actually be in a position of power, but yet have to watch out for your backstabbing family when it seems it should be your family supporting you. This right here, just from watching TV we can come up with the beginning of what could be an interesting character, perhaps she is a young queen who has X amount of siblings all trying to get her throne, and she doesn't know who to trust. We don't have to keep her in a ancient Egyptian setting either, we can take this idea and put her in a space colony, a fantasy world, or in a mega-corporation in present day Tokyo. Just this on it's own isn't enough however, because still your heroine is 2-dimensional, and what about a hero, supporting cast, a further defined setting, overall plot and etc.... This is where you need to go out and find more ideas to work with your initial idea so you can make a story.

Besides television programs you can also get a great deal of inspiration through reading books. I particularly like to go into Half Price Books and browse art, architecture, history, foreign language and other random sections. One of my more useful books I found was an architecture book on the royal palaces of Europe. It had history snippets in it and a bevy of beautiful images of palace interiors and exteriors which can be used for settings and backgrounds in comics. Sometimes the historical information can also give you some character or plot ideas.

Now besides my nerd reading, I do check out the manga and I pick up my share of fiction novels in a variety of genre, but remember whereas reading these things can really help you better understand writing and drawing technique to improve your own works, it's not the best of fodder for ideas. Why is this you may wonder, well to begin with those ideas are all secondhand and have already been filtered and reformulated to fit another artist's heart. You don't want secondhand ideas, you want something that comes from your own heart, because readers will definitely pick up the connection you have with your own story and characters. This isn't to say that reading other fiction can't be inspiring, but you have to understand that inspiration and ideas are two different things. Inspiration is what commands you to create and the idea is that which you create. Basically inspiration is fuel, and the idea is the food you put on that fire to cook it.

So I mentioned books and television, but there are lots of other places to find ideas too. You can daydream while listening to music, or even take inspiration from your own life. Let's say you had a really successful date, or you cut your finger while slicing an apple and the friend who took you to get stitches couldn't handle the sight of your blood. All of these things can present you with ideas even if it's just an idea for a single scene. Sometimes what seems to be the most mundane of things can become seeds for ideas for your story garden.

So now that you are out there collecting ideas and gathering inspiration, please, please, please, don't forget to write it all down! I usually keep a small notebook with me at all times so I can jot down any random ideas that come to mind. I also have several files on my computer full of anything from a list of random ideas to ideas that are in the process of becoming a story. Write these ideas down, roll them over in your head, and if nothing comes, put that idea away and come back to it later, or combine it with something else until you find something workable. Just don't force anything, because nothing good comes from trying to force a story into existence.

So, as I said, there is no clear cut idea for where ideas come from, and what I talk about is just how my mind processes what I find into story ideas. You may do things a little differently than I do, but in essentials it all comes down to the same thing. Ideas are all around you out there, but it takes a lot of work and dedication to turn an idea into an interesting story for a webcomic.