Seem to get broken. But we write them down anyway just in case someone decides to follow them. Basically...

1. Roughly one "page" in length. So does that mean like a comic book sized page at 72dpi? Or something that will fit on a 1280x1024 monitor? Or something that sits comfortably in a Husi page? The answer is yes.
2. Filesize limit: however many bytes it takes to save your final image. Just don't be an asshole.
3. Does it have to be funny? Does it have to have a punchline? Does it have to be a complete idea? Only in the sense that people tend to respond favourably to those sorts of things.
4. I can't think of any other useful rules.

The Tools:

I think most people are aware of free image tools like The Gimp and Inkscape. As a matter of fact, I think those are the two pieces of sofware I'll use for my entry.

On the other hand, there are successful comic authors who don't even bother to ever change their clip art, let alone learn to draw. So I don't think anyone should feel artwork is any kind of barrier for entry. As with film, the writer is God. Good art with bad writing is still painful to look at. In fact, good writing with bad art is often better than good writing with good art.

If you're looking for web tools, there's the heavily-used, but still working South Park Studio, a Flash Garfield Comic Creator, the KABAM Comic Creator, and a semi-usable educational tool that could potentially be used for darker purposes here. There's some free trial version of a commercial Comics creation & clipart package. A Google search for comic clip art turns up links to sites like this and many more.

If you spend some time with Google, I'm sure you can find more tools or clip art.

For those that decide to draw their own art, here are a few tips: (If you find this patronizing, just skip to the next section.)

• If you want to draw it on paper, be sure to make your lines dark enough for a camera or scanner to pick up. If you're using a camera, shoot it outdoors during the day for best, most even lighting.
• If you scan or shoot your work, try adjusting the levels to make your blacks black and your whites white.
• If you want to try colourizing a black & white drawing in a paint program, use a layer setting of "multiply" for the line work, and then fill in your colours in layers underneath.

The Upload Site:

http://256k.org/cfc2

256 is generous enough to host again.

The Deadline:

How about... August 1st, end of day. That gives us about 3 weeks, with (for some of us) a long weekend at the end of it.