Max Riffner
The Parlor
My weblog work journal. »Archives »Links
Webcomic Thinking
I’ve been thinking about webcomics lately, and after reading this discussion, I’m a little discouraged. Two things fans don’t like are:
- Once a week updates.
- Paying for webcomics.
Which I break with Quick Step and Golden Boy respectively. Granted, I had started to come around to the same conclusion with regards to pay webcomics after a few weeks in on Quick Step. Putting ads on the page has improved my AdSense profit slightly, but not enough to go buy beer, which is the ultimate monkey. But mostly, that discussion just confirms many of my suspicions. It is humbling to have all of your assumptions about a business get smashed to pieces like this. The important thing though is to learn from the mistakes and not give up. To be relentless.
I’ve also been doubting myself when it comes to format, and by that I mean comic strip format versus contained story format. I do graphic novels online basically (or short stories with Quick Step), but there is a definite beginning, middle, and end. The webcomics that are popular? Comic strips. Daily updates aren’t as hard with comic strips because you only have about three panels to draw in an easier style (although you have to come up with a good joke a day, that is the difficult part). This makes me wonder if I should write an epic 600 page tome and spread it out over a few years. Would that help anything, or just drive me bat shit insane trying to produce it?
In other news, Joey Manley launched WebcomicsNation.com this morning. Basically, it is nice feature-rich online business package for cartoonists. That is great for people who aren’t in the web development and design business, but for me? Unsure. I may give it a whirl just to see if there are any benefits from being a part of that network of creators. If I get a larger audience from it, then it will pay for itself. More importantly though, there is now a great system in place for people that want to be online but don’t know how to get online with their comics. I can’t see how anything but good can come out of that.
I think in the discussion on that forum, updating two to three times a week is acceptable to people.
MegaTokyo is… interesting; Websnark mirrors my opinions on it.
Diesel Sweeties and the rest of the Dumbrella sites are amazing, especially Scary Go Round because it is a great deal of art done daily for an update, and he does have storylines (as does Diesel Sweeties), but it never really ends. Not that this is bad, it is just isn’t what I want to do.
I don’t want to be Garfield. I don’t even want to be Calvin and Hobbes. I want to be an online graphic novelist. I am unsure how much of an audience is out there for that, but Derek Kirk Kim and Justine Shaw launched their careers off of their online graphic novels.
You can also browse through the Parlor archives.
Recent Articles
- November 12, 2008
- Totally Procrastinating on Drunk Elephant
- November 10, 2008
- Longform Webcomics: Family Man
- November 2, 2008
- 2008 Isotope Minicomics Award Winner: Ochre Ellipse
- September 23, 2008
- Longform Webcomics: Skin Deep
- September 8, 2008
- New Webcomic Launched: Drunk Elephant Comics
Search
Get the Emails
Grab My Site Feed
Stay up to date with my Feed in your favorite newsreader!
See Who's Linking Here
Check out who is linking to me with my Technorati Profile.
Jul 29, 12:45 PM
A lot of the great webcomics don’t involve a joke a day or even an update a day. Megatokyo has been around for something like 5 years now and Fred rarely makes all 3 updates a week. Applegeeks updates twice a week, but I think i’ve seen a total of 3 new strips in the past month. Neither of them regularly feature a joke, they’re more about the story.
But, DieselSweeties, on the other hand, updates daily and has a joke (or more) a day. He, however, basically uses a cookie-cutter for each sprite and just has to worry about writing and custom sprites.