BUT.

That statement needs clarification. Webcomic artists, writers and creators have all encountered the situation where someone, some anonymous internet asshat, says something mean about our comics.

Well, let’s draw some lines here. It’s the internet, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

These opinions may even be completely correct.

The problem about being correct is relativity. Contradictory arguments may both be correct. In artistic endeavors, it’s pretty rare in my experience that any opinion is absolute in correctness excepting in technique and craft (the how, not the why or the meaning).

For this article, I will define an asshat as an internet critic who refuses to concede the relativity of his or her argument. Asshats believe their opinions are the only “right” opinions out there.  Asshats believe you should be grateful for the hork that spews forth from their fingers on the keyboard.  Asshats crush, they don’t build up. They don’t merely point out a weak or crumbling or mis-hewn foundation stone of an “artistic building,” they take a bulldozer to it. Oh look, metaphor.

Artists (literary or visual) are often very sensitive, thoughtful  folks, whereas internet asshats are sensitive, antagonistic, folks.  They remind me of dogs, in the sense they often posture and act tough in the face of a threat, but the second you show aggression back, you are the bad guy. How dare the artist who puts their work online for the masses to see (and therefore, formulate an opinion) not agree with that opinion?! That asshat put a lot of time (~5 seconds) and effort (typing at work) and money (that internet connection is expensive!) into that opinion! Bite back, and that artist is rude. That artist doesn’t know how to accept criticism. Criticism is part of being an artist! You can’t improve without criticism! The asshat is trying to HELP you!

Bull fucking crap.

There seems to be confusion nowadays between what is justifiable criticism and what is assholery. Criticism is a valid opinion (yet still an opinion, refer to figure 2!). Criticism can be given by one whose experience or education gives him or her insight into the weaknesses or strengths of your work.  Criticism can be positive (“this is good, continue” or “this example might help with that area giving you problems”) or it can be negative (“this is does not work. The absence negative space detracts from the flow of your sculpture.”) Criticism is NOT the opinion of people who have no experience.  I like to call that “stupidity.” How about an example outside the artistic field:

How'd you get in here anyway?

Would anyone blame that doctor for having that man thrown out of his OR? No. Because you all know the doctor is right: Asshat Man (man, I should’ve put that hat on him…) is in fact, an idiot for saying something so stupid and negative. What is the basis of Asshat Man’s assessment anyway?  Sure, Asshat Man thinks from his relatively-correct position that he is right. He may be trying to help that surgeon. But since he has no experience in that field, he should know he should keep his mouth shut, and that his opinion is likely worthless. But it’s the internet, and everyone thinks their opinion is worth something, right (as I write this very opinionated article)?

I realize that some artists out there might be pulling out their hair. Artists are often taught to accept any and all criticism gracefully and never disagree. That’s how they roll in art school, or at least, how they did in my classes. Well, that’s insane.  We as humans have this wonderfully large organ scientists like to call a brain. Brains are capable of filtering information. We have internal bullshit-O-meters that tell us when someone is saying something worth listening to. We also have the right to tell someone if we want to that they are, in fact, an idiot. For the sake of [virtual]  interpersonal relationships however, there is just far less drama involved when you roll with that punch and don’t punch back.  If that’s what you choose, so be it. Always remember though that not everyone who gives you an opinion is worth listening to. Also remember that if someone punches back, no, they are not doing anything wrong. I have seen so many artists shot down by other artists for fighting back against the asshats, until they finally concede that “their behavior was unacceptable.” Well, folks, it is their right to defend their own work and when such a defense is done logically, rationally, and with an emotional distance, it is powerful indeed.

And that’s where we get to the crux of the matter.

Emotional distance.

Damn it hurts when an opinion comes hurtling our way, an opinion that agrees with that little voice deep down inside that has been telling you for ages, “you’re not good enough.” This article isn’t about how to come to terms with that little voice. On this subject, I will only say that the little voice can be right. And it can be wrong. See figure 2. In the face of that asshat inner voice though, I’m pretty sure no artists since the days of cave paintings have EVER been fully satisfied with their work. There is always a weakness. Always something that could have been done better.  We’re never going to attain perfection, and it just hurts to accept “good enough.”

But you know what cliches are? Stories that have been passed down in our folklore so often because humans LOVE that story. Because it resonates, it’s part of our cultural make up.

Who is Mary Sue? She’s that girl other girls WISH they were. She’s what we see ourselves transforming into.

You know what your painting looks like to someone with less experience than yourself? AWESOME.

There is nothing new under the sun.

There’s always someone better.

Don’t get held up on being so original or doing everything perfect, because that’s all you’ll get–HELD UP.

Rambling again, aren’t I?

Now, let’s look at our example again from another perspective.

"Thanks for the help even though you made me feel bad about my skills and myself...dick."

What I’m trying to say here is that there are some people worth listening to, worth thanking, no matter how they make you feel with their criticism. And there are people who are not in fact entitled to have their opinion heeded. It is up to you, the artist, to determine who that is. In short, it’s the person with experience, with skills to back it up or suitable education in that area. Anonymous internet asshats do not fit this bill.

When should you actually care what an asshat has to say? When that asshat is paying for a product. If that asshat is paying your bills, you had better listen well and be polite about it. We’ve all been there–the customer is always right, even if they are a jerkface.  Bend over and smile. But. If that asshat is directing his or her assholery toward your absolutely free webcomic that you spend all your free time working on; if that webcomic is your dream and it makes you happy and YOU YOU YOU like it just fine, tell that asshat the truth their parents or teachers or friends obviously never did: they are entitled to their opinion, it doesn’t mean they are correct or even that you have to listen to it.

When do you listen to people who know what they’re talking about? All the time. And it will hurt, and that person probably doesn’t even realize how much it hurt. That person probably actually tried to phrase the criticism in a happy, helpful, way. And it doesn’t even matter, because of that whole artist-perfectionist thing.  Criticism to us is synonymous with failure. Failure is nightmare fodder for us. But you are the only one who is capable of changing your attitude about this.  Criticism is NOT failure. Receiving criticism doesn’t mean your work is a failure. You know what it means? Someone out there disagrees with you. This person may have experience or degrees or skill to back up their opinion, but, ask yourself, is what you are doing WORKING regardless? Do you have a readership, and is that readership growing? Are the majority of the comments or feedback positive? Listen to the critic if you want to. Are you not getting any feedback other than negative kind? Well, something is not working, and that should be clue enough.

Not every story or comic is a gold mine. People whose work has a readership in the dozens envy those with the readership in the hundreds who in turn envy those with 1000′s and so on.  If you’ve got that comic you’ve been working on for Quite Some Time and are depressed because your readership isn’t growing, listen to the critics (but not the asshats).  Only when you walk into the arena of competition should you care enough to change what you’re doing even when you don’t want to, or if it’s a pain, or requires more work or study for you. If you are in this for yourself, for an artistic outlet, for fun, and don’t care about the “money or fame,” (hahahah whatevs) screw those fucking asshats.

Ending on a positive note, FTW.

But getting back to business, and in the same vein as my past webcomic networking articles, let’s talk about Twitter. First, if you don’t use it,  I want you to forget everything you’ve heard about it, or have read about it in the newspaper (or worse, in newspaper COMICS.) What is Twitter? Twitter is like a giant IM message board without the pressure of carrying on an extended conversation. It’s a forum where there is no such thing as tl;dr (too long; didn’t read, for the uninitiated) because each message must be 140 characters long or less. As you have most likely heard, Twitter is ALSO an instant newsfeed. From the latest messages from the revolution in Iran, to spacewalk updates from NASA, to status updates from your favorite comic creators, you can follow people, ask questions, or simply keep up with what the hell is going on in the world.

There are a bunch of affiliated sites and applications you use to expand the Twitter experience as well. Twitpic and Yfrog use your Twitter login to give you an instant photogallery (with comments) attached to your account. Apps like Tweetdeck and Twhirl let you “Tweet” from your desktop instead of the online interface. There are of course, many more applications, but I’m not going to list any more. It’s not too important.

Twitter also lets you send private messages (direct messages) as well as public directed messages to a specific person in the form of @username.  Profiles can be private or public. Topics can be marked with a hashtag in the form of #topic for easy searching. For example, a tweet may read, “my #webcomic just updated! http://warofwinds.com.”  A friend might then “retweet” my message, “RT @kezhound my #webcomic just updated! http://warofwinds.com.” (kezhound is my username there.) Other friends may also retweet. When a message is retweeted, not only does everyone who follows you see YOUR message, but everyone who follows the person who retweets you ALSO sees the message. Get it?

That, in a nutshell, is Twitter. Forget the fancy-schmancy “microblogging” bullshit. It can be as boring or as funny or as interesting as you want it.

Anyways, for the past couple months, ever since I caved to my buddy Canterrain’s repeated attempts to get me ON there (I was a doubter for damn sure), I’ve been on Twitter, using Twitter, and networking on Twitter to help get word about my webcomic out there. Here are my referring stats since I’ve started (click to enlarge):

Yes, there is an obvious trend. A very good trend. Twitter has surpassed DeviantART in my top 10 referrer list.

How to Network with Twitter:

I’m going to use the “d” word: diversify. Webcomic readers are still such a small audience compared to every other blasted thing on the internet that you CAN’T just cater to them and expect any kind of real result or new readers. I encourage people to use Twitter to introduce an entirely new audience to your work. You can do this by finding and “following” people with similar interests to you, and making friends. For example, I’m heavy into the martial arts, and there are tons of martial artists on Twitter. I follow a bunch of them. I don’t wave my comic in their face and ask them to retweet that. That’s small, petty, and will be ignored. Rather, I try to create a raport, and move on from there.

How do you find people with common interests? You can try a trending topic. In the search bar after you make an account, plug in a search term. For example, I might try “martial arts” or “#martialarts.” Another place to look is TwitR, a Twitter directory. You list yourself using the hastag method described above with 3 different descriptors. For example, #webcomics #martialarts #kayaker. This way, people can find you, and using their directory, you can also find others.

Since you are a comic creator though (at least, most likely you are, since you are reading this), you SHOULD definitely be posting about your work. For example, “Working on Monday’s comic. It’s a doozy! Here’s a preview!” Every time you update, post a link to your site. Every time a friend on Twitter updates, try to RT (retweet) them, because they will most likely RT you back.

Since Twitter allows only short messages, if you need to post a URL, use a URL shortening service like TinyURL. You plug in something long, and they give you something short that redirects to the original URL.

Twitter has a lot of spam/bot accounts, and they WILL follow you. This is nothing to be afraid of. For example, if I post something about…Ford Trucks…I WILL get Ford truck bots following me. If I don’t follow them back, I don’t see any messages they send. Twitter is working very hard to lessen the number of bots, and recently last week purged thousands.  Just try not to be annoyed or frighted of “all these strangers” following you. Sometimes people you DON’T know will follow you. You DO have the option to block them. Bottom line, like any social networking site, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your boss or mother to see.

Don’t tweet stupid, inane stuff. “Putting in a load of laundry. Almost out of detergent. There are 3 pairs of socks in my hamper. Life is boring.” Accounts full of this stuff give Twitter the horrible reputation it has.  Status updates are one thing, “Going to the beach with the dog and fam! Back in a few hours!”, but lists or trivial/boring-ass statements do not help you, especially if you are trying to introduce your comic to a new audience. The goal is to find people to follow you, who thereby see your messages when you post your links. No one follows boring people. They “unfollow” them. Be interesting. Be funny. Be snarky. Be friendly.  Be a character.

It’s not a contest. Put the rulers away, we’re not measuring here. Yes, people who have more followers have more people who follow their links back to their sites. Yes, people with tons of followers aren’t likely to follow some smallfry back. But remember, you’re there to spread the word about YOUR work.  Don’t comare yourself to other people, just keep pushing to get your work out there.It’s not about numbers.  It’s a free way to introduce more people to your comic.

Involve yourself. #Followfriday happens on Fridays. You’re supposed to post the profiles of people you think other people should follow. For example, I could tweet, “#followfriday @xyliatales @canterrain @Senshuu @godspack #webcomics.” #Webcomicwednesday is something I THINK I started a couple months back. I’m not too sure. Someone may have thought of it before me and it just didn’t catch on. Anyways, on Wednesdays, you could post, “#webcomicwednesday follow @xyliatales for latest updates from http://xyliatales.com.” See how I did that? An @ and a URL.  If you passively sit by on Twitter, tweeting just about yourself and never TRYING to ACTIVELY network, you won’t network. Networking is active. It requires legwork. It requires you making friends FIRST and taking the first step to help advertise someone else. They in turn may advertise you back. This goes for people outside of the webcomic community on Twitter as well. Remember that whole “diversify” thing?

Personalize your profile page. For the love of cacti, INCLUDE YOUR URL IN YOUR PROFILE AND MAKE A SHORT BIO.  This not only lets people click your name to find your site, but ALSO proves you are not just another spam account. You can even create a personal background image on the profile. Here’s mine (best viewed in 1280px-wide resolution, or wider).

———–

That’s about it from me! Please feel free to post your Twitter profile in the comments here. Use it to network. There are also threads in various forums specifically for passing around Twitter accounts.

First, the Corn Hill Arts Festival is an annual art event in Rochester, New York, USA. It’s outdoors, 2 days, from 10am to 5-6pm.  I applied for an Emerging Artists booth after stumbling upon a listing for that at Craigslist (completely by accident! I NEVER go on Craigslist!). Well, it was a complete SHOCKER that I got a booth, because let’s face it: comics are considered the black sheep of the art family. Even lawn ornament makers get higher esteem, not to knock them, because I like ornaments, but we are all aware that comics are looked down on by the majority of people on the planet…especially those who don’t even READ comics….but okay, I digress. Anyways, the booth was $15 compared to the normal $300. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for a poor graduate like myself, so I went for it and actually GOT it.

THEN, okay, get this, from a previous article I wrote about the festival here at WWS, the Corn Hill organizers noticed me (go you, WWS readers!). THEY contacted the Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester’s newspaper, who wanted to interview some of the emerging artists. And then, this happened:

You can read the full article here. This was Saturday morning’s paper, the first day of the festival. Okay, um, I had no flippin’ idea this was going to happen. I was expecting some sort of small itty blurb on the back page of something hidden between car dealership ads and dating service ads. Yes. Um. I fluctuated between D: and XD for the next 4 hours. But hot damn! Check out Ravar, front and center! How many comic characters can boast that?!

ANYWAYS…! My booth set ups, day 1 and day 2, respectively:

My sister Dien manning my booth <3

That's a genuine Indiana Jones replica fedora.

Notice the huge-ass 6×2 full-color vinyl banner. This was my frickin’ debut folks, and I didn’t hold back. If I recommend anything for anyone doing a convention or festival, a banner is my number 1 recommendation! It attracts eyes! It’s a purchase that pays for itself! For this banner, I paid $85.  Banners with 1-3 colors are FAR less expensive, if you care to design that way (cost is by the square foot, and by the number of color). Many businesses gave me quotes of $100-150, and that was quite a rip-off. Alex Heberling of Garanos says she got one for $50. If you are preparing for a convention, open those yellow pages, call everywhere, and get quotes. Make sure you have your specifics on hand so you don’t sound a moron either.

WHAT I WAS SELLING:

I’ll start with the shirts, since they were most popular items.  My T-shirts had absolutely NOTHING to do with my comic. I’m sorry folks, but anyone who thinks that slapping their logo or characters on a T-shirt works is in for case of broken piggy-bank and depression. Why would anyone buy merchandise with characters they didn’t recognize? If you are going to convention or festival to SELL things, it’s not about YOU. It’s about the people TO WHOM you are selling. This is not to say your characters CAN’T sell, just they need to be part of a design more easily accepted by people who don’t know your work.  I had 4 shirt designs, all with a different demographic in mind:

Zombie T-shirt (top left, first image): SOLD OUT, 10/10. Extremely popular. Targeted to males 16-30.  I bought each for $16 at a local printer (small run, more expensive, plus 2 colors and a set-up fee. Would be less the next run I do, since no set up fee, and a larger batch since I know it’s popular. The more you buy, the less expensive each is. Most stores have minimums orders of 12.) Sold each for $18, should have gone $20 probably. Made $180. I had people ask to reserve one the next time I printed it. That’s a good sign! I will be making more designs on this theme. I encourage you to capitalize on themes NOT ASSOCIATED with your comic. If you are attending a gaming/anime convention, come up with a gaming shirt that makes people laugh.  If you can make people laugh, they stop and talk with you, and you can convince them to buy the merchandise.  DO NOT INFRINGE ON COPYRIGHT. This means, to legally make money, don’t put a character you don’t own, or mention a trademarked name (Nintendo, etc) on the shirt. Guys, that’s illegal. More and more conventions are enforcing this rule.  Be aware of this.

Polymath T-shirt (last one folded on the table, large size here to read): sold 3/10. Targeted to 25-45 year-old men and women. I decided to print this shirt because it was the one with the most views in my online store.  I bought each shirt for $12.20 and sold them for $15. Made $45. This shirt had a lot of [meaningful] text on it. I hung it prominently so that people wanted to stop to read it when they saw it. This gave me time to engage them in conversation.  It was a strategy that I discovered accidently. Present some curiosity that makes people pause. If they pause, you can talk to them. If you can talk to them, they are much more likely to buy something.

Fighting is my Preferred Method of Meditation T-shirt (the only T-shirt I’ve ever sold multiple times through my cafepress store) Targeted to men 18-30 who watch or engage in fighting/MMA/UFC/martial arts.  At the same cost as the polymath T’s,  I sold 2 for $27 total (one of them had brushed up against some rust, so I took of $3 bucks). This is my oldest design, I hadn’t really expected it to sell all too great, but since it’s the only one that’s actually sold multiple times before, I decided to print it.

Ban Aerial Hunting T-shirt. This was one I did as a gamble. It was targeted to liberal women, 25-40. Okay, that’s about half the population of Rochester, but this design sold ZERO. Zilch. Nada. None. I don’t think I’ll attempt any politically-themed shirt again. I will however be sellings these on my site…in case anyone is interested…ahem.

While I’m still on the subject of shirts, SIZES are very important. I recommend this ratio (out of 10): 1 small, 2 medium, 4 large, 2 XL, 1XXL.  XXLs cost more than the rest, so if you can’t go for that, probably 3 mediums. Also, the more colors on the T-shirts, the more expensive they are. I changed a lot of my designs to single colors, except for the zombie shirt.

Not Alone Comic Books, printed by Ka-Blam: A LOT of people stopped by to pick these up and browse them. They by far were the most impressive part of my booth. Anybody can make a T-shirt, but few people have a book with their name on it.  I sold 18 books at $10 each for $180 total, and each book cost me $7.

Prints: prints and posters are what most people usually sell at conventions in my experience. At the festival, prints were NOT popular. The only prints I saw people buy were photography prints, or pop-culture (MJ tribute) posters. I’m unsure if the CONTENT of my posters is simply poor, if it’s just the wrong audience. Until I attempt to sell them to a comic-oriented audience, I won’t know. I sold only 2 11×17 prints for $10 each, for a total of $20. Each 11×17 cost me $2.50, so that was still a lot of profit on each.  I had 20 11×17 made, and 8 22×34 posters. The 22×34 posters were top qulaity AWESOME prints, and cost me $31 each. I had them marked at $35 to sell. I also made the posters a 4-image series in the attempt to sell multiple prints to one individual (with the mind-set that since it’s a series, you have to collect them all, a la pokemon!), but that did not work. I would encourage others to try something similar and let me know how it works though!

WHAT ELSE I HAD:

BUSINESS CARDS! I think the only thing I would recommend before a large banner for a convention is business cards. I handed out over 100. My business cards were so incredibly eye-catching, people wanted to take more than one. If nothing else, it was a totally memorable card, unlike something cheap on card stock, printed at home. That works, I guess, but I wanted to look professional. A good business card REALLY can give you an edge. I recommend print100.com, which was where I got mine done. You can add me as a referrer (warofwinds@gmail.com) and they give me credit there. Be awesome, go! Get cards!  Taka gave me one of his when he showed up. They have rounded corners and are awesome, by print100 also. I keep cards on me always! If someone mentions websites or characters in a conversation, I can pull one out and hand it to them.

Commission examples: these were popular, and I had tell people multiple times I could not sell them since they were other people’s original characters I had been commissioned to draw. The second day, I displayed these much more prominently than the first. Many more people took my card and said they would be in touch.  It was definitely a goal of mine to drum up some commission business. A couple people have already emailed me about jobs.

Aritsts Statement/biography/ “Who is KEZ”: I had a short biography of me, how I started comics, how I make comics, that kind of thing. It was a perfect conversation starter, especially when I was busy talking with one person and other people were at the booth. On the second day, I had this statement right above the newspaper article.  When people found out that I have a degree in Biology, not arts, well, that was a whole conversation right there!

EXTRA STUFF I BROUGHT THAT I’M REALLY GLAD I DID:

I am the kind of person who likes to be prepared. Prepared people don’t look like morons when they realize they have forgotten really important things more experienced people would have brought. I had what I call my “miscellaneous items box.” This box contained: clothesline, scissors, clothespins, paperclips, duct tape, masking tape, sharpie markers, pens, pencils, extra sheets of paper, T-shirt hangers and shopping bags. Having shopping bags was a great touch. A lot of booths didn’t have any, so people were just  tucking it uncomfortably under an arm. Saving a couple bags from your next grocery store run could really help you out. Also, a trash bag is nice to have for yourself.

The clothesline was perfect for hanging posters. I padded the clothespins with soft cloth to keep them from making indents in my posters as well. I used the clothesline to hang T-shirts too (Yay knot-tying skills! I swear, the most useful class I took in college was “Adventure Challenge.” David Berkey, you rock man). Hanging the T-shirts made people stop to look, and then they looked in the booth as well. We used TONS of tape. Bring that, definitely. I used paperclips on the second day to pin prices to the T-shirts as well. I hate bringing real pins with me. I drop them, lose them, prick myself…yeah. I stay away from pins.

I also brought boxes with me. The free kinds that you can pick up at BJ’s, Sams Club, Cost Co, etc. I used these as display boxes for items that I did not want to get ruffled. Look for the ones that can be folded inside out. It saves you the time of covering up annoying “Old Spice” logos.

I had packaging containers for the poster prints: cheap little tubes you can pick up at the post office for a buck or 2. This was my sister’s idea. Brilliant. I wish we could have gotten more use out of them though. If nothing else, I can sell the psots online and ship them now, no problem.

I brought chairs. THREE chairs. One each for me and my sister, and one extra, INVITING, empty, chair for other people to use. It got a lot of use.

Tables. At a convention, they usually provide these, but at festivals, they don’t. Luckily, we have a family friend that let me borrow his.  Speaking of tables, I brought a sheet to cover them. A sheet is less classy than snazzy black fabric, but far more classy than an uncovered table. Plus, you can put your packaging underneath the tables and it’s hidden.

Towels and plastic covering: important for any outdoor event, not so much for an indoor event unless you’ll need to transport items through the rain to your car or something.

A cooler full of snacks and bottled water. This saved our lives, because the food there sucked and made me want to hurl. Eww. My stomach just cringed thinking about it.

WHAT ELSE I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY:

I wanted merchandise I could sell for under $5:  stickers and bookmarks mainly, but I didn’t have the TIME. As a digital artist, I had to CRAM out everything in time for this festival.  IAt the next thing I do, I want to have shot-glasses for sale. Yeah, my awesome printer guys can print ANYTHING for me. Maybe fleece blankets and beer cozies. Maybe stationary. If you’re serious about getting stuff printed, real high-quality stuff, email me at warofwinds@gmail.com and I’ll tell you who does my stuff. They have my highest recommendation, and VERY fair prices.

More themed stuff. Guys, I really love discussing zombie scenarios, weapons, martial arts, etc. Next time, I’ll have more of that. Geeks like me love that kind of stuff, and geeks are all over comic conventions. There are also tons of geeks walking around art festivals, usually dragged there by their totally un-geeky counterpart who disapproves, but humors, that side of their significant other.

More examples of The War of Winds. Other than the banner and one comic page I had printed out, I did not have many examples of the style, which is MUCH different than the Not Alone style.  It’s hard to print that comic out, y’know? Infinite canvas is EXTREMELY annoying in print.

Cardboard cut-outs. Someone wanted to buy Ravar. Sorry guys, but my GREEN WARRIOR (those of you who follow me on Twitter will get that reference) is all mine. I think I might get my printer guys to do some cardboard cut outs though.

IN CONCLUSION:

I did not break even. Not even half even. About 1/4 even after taxes ($432 total, out of about $1200 spent). The crowds were far less than expected, mainly due to a big ‘ol storm that ruined the prime hours of the festival on Saturday. I couldn’t display anything for about 2.5 hours. And then it took people another hour to come back. 250k were expected. I would estimate that in those 2 days, in total, I saw about 4-5k in my area of the festival. Now, keep in mind, Corn Hill is a HUGE festival. The booths go on for miles. There were probably many people who simply never found the Emerging Artist area. Regardless, the experience was extremely positive. Because of that newspaper article, I had innumerable people stop by, some JUST to see me. I had a young girl up to me and show me her portfolio. I think she was ten or eleven. That was probably the highlight of the whole weekend right there. I had a man pitch a book adaptation/movie deal to me. A lot of friends stopped by and told me how proud they were of what I was doing, or how happy they were I had the opportunity, or just to show some support with their presence. My dad bought 10 copies of the paper to send to relatives. Everyone was extremely positive, and totally supportive—when I had expected the complete opposite!. At times, I had crowds of people, and I talked to them about comics–the ART of it, how I make it, what of skills it requires…it was wonderful. Remember, I did my college thesis on comics, so that kind of thing is important to me!

Now I know exactly what I’m going to do differently, what sells, what doesn’t, and frankly, just how to HAWK merchandise. If you are going to a convention, be out-going, dammit, not that introvert in the corner drawing in the sketchbook. When you are drawing, no one wants to interrupt you to talk with you!  Drawing on-the-spot commissions is different than drawing in the hopes that no one talks to you but buys your merchandise anyways. Smile, say hello to everyone. Be a CHARACTER.  I, for example, wear a fedora. I can pull that off. People remember the crazy comic-making girl in the fedora.  So many people at this festival looked depressed in the backs of their booths, avoided eye contact, and talked to only a handful of people when rivers of people passed by.  Each person is a prospective buyer. If you see them stopping to look across the way, invite them over. Make them feel comfortable. Show them the merchandise they are looking at. Tell them about your passions, it will make them connect to you and your work, and may help them make the decision to buy it.  When someone asks you that question they are GOING to ask you (“hey, what’s your comic about?”), BE ABLE TO CONDENSE IT INTO TEN SECONDS. When people ask you what your inspiration is, same thing! Ten seconds! If they have more questions, they will ask. A conversation is TWO sided, guys. You yack someone’s ear off describing the backstory of your world, and that person will nod and walk away REAL fast.

Don’t be shy or ashamed of anything. Be DAMN proud of your work, even if it’s nothing like the person’s next to you.  I had a problem with this. Not Alone, the comic I had for sale, is to me a pretty horribly-written story. I describe it as cotton-candy, while my other work, The War of Winds, is beef stew. But you know what? I was the only person in the history of the entire festival (that I’m aware of) that wrote, drew, designed and self-published a frickin’ BOOK.  I was the first comic creator PERIOD. And I was proud of that.

Phew, DA’END.  Oh wait. Yeah, I hope to attend a bunch of other festivals in the area. A couple people asked me if I’d be at the East End Fesitval, but it looks to be mainly about music, so I dunno. I’d really like to go a couple comic convetions in the area. I’d LOVE to go to Anime Weekend Atlanta with some comic buds. I have to see if I can make back the cost of a plane ticket, a room, and a weekend pass first.  I need a few days off to think about this stuff though. Anywho, those of you more experienced at cons and selling stuff, I don’t know how my strategy jives with yours. I admit to a shotgun approach in my merchandise. But I needed experience on what sells, and now I know.  Some of you will probably say my stuff was underpriced or over-priced. My goal was to keep everything under $20, since it’s mainly a cash-only festival. Oi. Ok, NOW the end.

]]> http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/corn-hill-festival-debriefing/feed/ 7 http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/my-experience-with-ka-blam/ http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/my-experience-with-ka-blam/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:10:58 +0000 KEZ http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/?p=358 In the tradition of Kez, who is often more honest than she should be, here is my review of Ka-blam…in partial story format.

So, firstly, there’s this long-time digital artist named Kez. Now, this Kez person, she has never really made anything for print. Her main comic cannot even BE printed, because she designed it that way, because it’s meant to be a webcomic only (infinite canvas and all that jazz!).  But, Kez wanted something to sell. How could she go to a comic convention, or in her case an arts festival, AS a comic artist, if she did not have comics to sell or show? (She couldn’t, because then she’d be a poser, and no one buys anything from posers, unless she had a mad-cool digital set up with a projector, which she can’t afford, so that doesn’t matter anyways.)

Well, Kez had this convenient little short-story with which to experiment in print called Not Alone. Not Alone capped out at 49 pages, with a 3 page epilogue. It was grayscale. It was a stand-alone comic that also was related to her other, longer, work, The War of Winds.

So, Kez headed over to Ka-Blam because she wanted an on-demand printing, no minimum. She wanted people who handled COMICS. On a regular basis. Kez got what she asked for!

Enough of the third person.  Overall, I had a very positive experience with Ka-Blam. There were a couple problems starting off though. First, there was some really ODD quirk on the order page. No matter what I ordered, it said I ordered something ELSE. After a day of biting my nails, “Holy heck, do they know what I want? Was I sent the wrong invoice, but they got the right one?” I grabbed hold of myself. Rule one of spending money: you have a right to have your fears allayed.

So I sent in an email asking what was up using their message center. I guess I was the first one to mention this problem, because they had me order everything AGAIN, asked again if I followed their instructions, and then finally they just let me SEND them a message for what I wanted. That whole process took about a week. Since I was on a tight schedule, I began to freak out a bit.  They want 4-5 weeks for normal printing costs, and all the sudden, I was down to THREE. And Kez realized this, and Kez spazzed.  So, if you’re considering your own print run, give yourself a good 6 weeks of room.  Good news, they get back to emails within a day, sometimes multiple times a day. That’s good service at a small company!

But the Ka-Blam folks realized this was their goof, and offered a rushed printing job at no cost to me. Which I appreciated, because I would have asked them if they had not offered. It wasn’t my fault, even if I should have given myself more time in case something went wrong. I assume they have since corrected this ordering goof.

Kez will now admit to some REALLY STUPID GOOFS she made in ordering. First, the order sheet at Ka-Blam. I went for the Trade Paperback, Standard Sized, Perfect Binding. Now, I’ve always had issues filling out paperwork. Ka-Blam was no different.

Okay, I swear I stared at that field for 10 full minutes. By 2-page increments, I took this to mean “sheets.” Okay, number of pages divided by 2= how many sheets of paper you are going to need. Keep in mind that the more paper you need, the more expensive the final order, obviously. But nooooooo. This means actual PAGES.  Numbered pages. Uh duh. The 2-page increment thing REALLY tripped me up (I don’t even want to think about how many emails were sent with me sounding like a dumbass about that!). I would suggest that be changed to an extremely simple “If each page, not counting the covers, were numbered, how many pages would you have?” Obviously if it’s an odd number, the back of that page will still be there, it’ll just be blank. Feel free to ignore me if I’m just being totally dense. Yes, I was one of those kids who always over-thought questions. It’s a habit I’m trying to break. The Ka-blam staff dealt with my idiocy however and refrained from yelling at me. I know they wanted to. I could feel it. I don’t feel too bad though, since I dropped a bucket-load of money off at their place. Dealing with customers, regardless of their intelligence, paranoia or neurotic tendencies, is part of the business. I deal with it myself on a daily basis. If one more person asks me how to insert a link into a post, I swear I will scream.

ANYWAYS.  So, I received my books today! I ordered them June 14, they arrived July 8th. I received a digital proof of the page order and set up on June 24. For 50 paperback books, 56 pages long, color cover with lamination, blank inside covers, Ka-Blam full page ad, and 70# glossy paper inside with grayscale comic pages, the price was $349.43 ($324.25 Printing Cost + $25.18 S&H -$20.00 in credits, I think for the ordering goof, but I’m not going to count that here since I don’t think anyone else would get the credits when they ordered), meaning each book cost me ~$7.00.  I actually had my math wrong before when I was calculating price per book (to sell) on my end. I was going to sell it for $10 even. I may go for $9 now, maybe even $8.50. Not sure!  I still don’t know myself how much people will spend on this little book of mine. I will have to sleep on it.

So how about the quality? It’s….good. Not top quality, but rather good. I’ve heard complaints that pages fall out on perfect bound books. I personally have not had that experience. I own another book from Ka-Blam, Kate Sweet’s Juathuur Vol 1 actually. It is 100+ pages, and all of the pages are in there quite solidly.  I even pulled on a couple to be sure. I could easily see volumes a couple of hundred pages long have that issue, however. I have paperback novels that do that, but only the big ones. Barb Jacobs mentioned that people are much more satisfied with their saddle-stitch comics (staples).

My biggest issue with Ka-Blam is their lamination on the covers. It comes off, starts to peel after a bit. I personally like to play with covers, fiddle with them as I read, so that does not help matters. On Kate  Sweet’s book that I own, the lamination also started to come up a bit around the spine.  This does not affect readability, but it greatly irks me as an artist. I think next time, I will go with hardcover. It is also important to note that upon closer inspection, not all books are the same size, and the trim area can differ between books by a margin of 1/8 inch. So, some books are taller than others, and some are wider. Make sure your bleed area is uniform, or at the very least, that you have no unfinished art IN the bleed area. Sometimes it can show up.

The box I received was also battered to hell. It was basically ROUND when it arrived. No more corners. The top 5 books in the pile all had their spines squished. I guess I’ll keep those as give-aways? However, the books were nicely packed in bubble wrap inside, with some extra shredded paper padding.  Care was obviously taken, though I would have greatly appreciated a sturdier box, or a “do not drop-kick me into an airplane” tag.

In conclusion, for the customer service and quality, Ka-Blam gets an 8/10. They held up their end of the deal, corrected and took responsibility for their goof, dealt with ME, and earned my respect as a great place for the beginner/self-publishing comic creator. I think they still have some real issues to work out with quality, but for their prices and exemplary service, I would highly recommend them.

Here’s a few more important things I learned doing this:

1) Design for print from the beginning if that is your goal. Frankly, I’m one of them “weirdos” who thinks the web has far more to offer a comic creator than print. I had never tailored my pages to print dimensions before.  I didn’t even decide to print Not Alone until I was more than half-way through. This meant I had to REFORMAT all the pages, which took 16 hours a day for 8 days straight. Now, imagine doing that with a longer work. It was quite horrible, and I don’t recommend that.

2) If printing in color, keep in mind the colors will be DARKER in print. Lighten them up a bit from what you see on your screen to get them the right lightness in print.

3) Work between 300-600 dpi. 150 dpi is the so-called minimum, but it will probably look horrible, especially if you’ve got color or gradients of any sort. Gradients look best at 600dpi or above in print or else you’ll get “stepping (visible bands).”

4) Get friends to proof read for you. Sarah Sawyer of The Gods’ Pack was the only one of three to catch a typo I missed myself–after reading the whole thing through about 50 times.

5) Give yourself PLENTY of time in case something goes wrong. If Ka-Blam wants 4-5 weeks, next time I want to be done with 6-8 weeks to spare. Keep in mind the second printing job goes faster if they already have your files though.

6) Read the technical specs VERY carefully to make sure you are doing everything right. Ka-Blam provides templates. Download them. They are invaluable. Pay special attention to the file format they want. Ka-Blam wants LZW-compressed TIFF files in RGB mode. Most places want PDFs in CMYK. Keep this mind!

I’ll be posting a video on youtube tonight that has a bit more about the books, as well as other stuff I’m doing to prepare for the festival. My youtube account is here. If you have any questions, let me know!

————-

Okay, a short follow-up here. I started sending out my books about a week ago, and have noticed a few issues/received a few complaints. First, I’ve found 2 misprints in my order of 50 books. If each book cost me $7, that $14 down the tube (and I WILL be asking for credits, as these misprints were not my fault).  This misprint was, for example, page 12, blank page, half of page 32 upside-down, blank page, blank page, page 13.  Second, it seems there is an issue with the perfect binding and pages falling out. One reader let me know that because of how he holds the books (thumb in the inside binding) it has caused some splitting. Because of these issues, I’m revising my score of Ka-Blam from 8/10 to 7/10, and highly recommending them for saddle-stitch binding, but only moderately recommending them for perfect binding.

Second, a VERY IMPORTANT TIP FOR PEOPLE AUTOGRAPHING THEIR BOOKS: Do NOT use gel pens. They smear and can ruin a copy. Use sharpies.

—————

A second follow-up (Dec 2009): I ordered a second batch of books from Ka-Blam, again with short notice, since I seem incapable of planning things out. I used the “reorder” option, and was flabbergasted to find the books were all on the wrong paper! I had to email to find out they could NO LONGER PRINT on the thicker paper stock that I loved in my original order. Not only did they not notify me of their inability to print on the paper that I wanted, but I had to notice this myself and ask for a refund on the price difference–which was sizable. I worry that I might never have received the refund if I had not asked. The Ka-Blam folks are VERY nice and helpful, but seemingly very disorganized. I do not think I will be ordering from them again. I do want to order more books if they can’t print on the right paper for my book.

“I don’t know, inner voice. People get ANGRY online when you try to make them buy comics!”

“Then we’re going to have to do this right, Kez. Let’s think about this some more.”

“Agreed, self.”

I mentioned all that stuff previously about the epilogue being a “mere” extra because it was important to my business model. I was afraid of perhaps alienating my audience by asking that the epilogue be bought (with real money), so I made sure it really WAS an extra. The last thing I wanted to do was be accused of “holding readers hostage,” as the saying goes: “Pay me or I won’t end it and you’ll never know what happens, neener neener neener.” That was something I wanted to steer WAY WIDE clear of. That is a quick way to lose your readers.

After one week, I’ve sold one dozen copies. That’s about a person or 2 per day, and I expect to sell probably about another dozen this week before it becomes a very sporadic trickle of purchases.  It’s pocket change definitely, but you know what? It’s money I didn’t have before. So here’s my thoughts on what I did, why, and what I would do differently.

1) What I was selling was at a higher quality than the free version. My normal Not Alone pages were done in grayscale. My epilogue pages were in color. This was an extra incentive to buy on TOP of it being a bridge.

2) What I was selling was for the fans, not for me. I big mistake I see when people sell stuff is that they sell what THEY like more than what the audience likes.  I found that I had the most comments and highest time spent per page on pages that were funny and touching (and also, colored), not ones that advanced only the plot, or revealed information about the fantasy world (the latter being my personal favorite. I hate the “gushy” ones and feel like puking when I draw them). The epilogue was written with that in mind, while still getting across what was important. Was this a sell-out to the audience? Ehhhhh….It really depends how you look at it. Not Alone was not canon. I made it up on the fly, and like a little road winding to the highway, I gave it a direction only and let it take the scenic route, because at the end, it would still get to where it had to be. Something to keep in mind is that if you making a comic to sell, as a PRODUCT, you are supposed to tailor to your consumer base. If you don’t, then your results trying to sell it won’t be as good compared to if you HAD considered your audience before yourself.  So, my rule: don’t try to sell a comic you are unwilling to change or tweak to please the reader. For me, that’s The War of Winds. It’s my baby, meant to please me first.  Not Alone was the opposite. I’m already planning my next work, with the goal of taking a Not Alone-like story to the next level, as a product. This is not to say that your own great passion for your work won’t attract the same kind of audience or numbers, if not more! Sometimes, I see the stupidest, cheaply-drawn comic on the face of the earth with tens of thousands of readers. That’s a comic that works, and probably makes money, even if makes the comicker inside me cringe and seethe and hiss. I also see wonderful works of passion and talent that don’t have nearly as many readers as they should. And sometimes, very rarely, I see a wonderful work of passion and talent that has tens of thousands of readers. But you know what? That last one is VERY rare online. Consider this when planning a comic to sell. Know your audience, and if you want to make money, create the comic suit the audience. Don’t try to create the audience to suit the work. If you don’t care about making money, then ignore this entire paragraph.

3) I sold it cheap. Too cheap. If I could go back, I would DEFINITELY up the price. I low-balled it out of fear, really. I had many excuses: “Oh man, I’ll look like a total HACK if no one buys this!”; “The economy sucks and half my readers are probably unemployed college students/grads like me!”; “Better to sell more at a lower price than less at a higher!”. Ok, the last one, for those of you who have taken economics, really depends on the revenue generated more than the prices or numbers. You need to find your sweet spot, where you can sell the MOST for the HIGHEST price to make the MOST money. I sold my epilogue for one dollar per page, + a miscalculated paypal fee charge, for a total of $3.12 (the paypal fee was 39 cents for USD, 49 cents for any non USD, and I think that is for any transaction under 5 dollars. Tried to look it up there, couldn’t find it).  For my readership, I would double that, and sell at $6.50. I will never sell anything on my site for less than 5 dollars, that is for freakin’ sure. I think 2.50 per page would be fair in this case. Some would say MORE than that is fair, but when you can go buy an entire comic floppy for 2.50, a lot of people will pass. It really depends on the audience, the quality of the comic, and the volume of materials.  For example, if I were going to sell an entire comic issue (22+ pages), it would be under $10. Probably more like 8 dollars. That means <$0.50  per page. I could never charge $55 (2.50×22) for that! That would be insane! So remember, it’s about how MANY you sell, and finding that sweet price.

4) I made something that has the potential to continue to sell for as long as The War of Winds (my main comic) continues. Not Alone is complete, but my main comic will still shunt readers over there since the stories are interconnected. When the Not Alone characters appear in the War of Winds, I expect readership to kick up a bit, and that means more sales of the epilogue, because the “bridge” will be in demand. I personally don’t have the audience to support a “teefury” or “rave popularity” model.  I wanted something that I could keep up for a long time, that could still sell next year, not something that would be very popular this day or week or month (ex, Obama inauguration shirts) but not next day/week/month.

5) Already mentioned, the epilogue was an extra. I did not hold readers hostage. I gave them a story, and then I made more. I did not keep the final 5 pages of the last chapter to myself and try to sell that. That would definitely alienate readers. Remember when Digger was a subscription comic? The archives, they were so great, and you read through them all…and then they wanted you to PAY to read the rest? Did you fork over that cash? Maybe 1/100 of you did. The other 99/100 left, griping about the whole ordeal and the waste of time.

6) I nipped any complaints in the bud. Straight out on the site I said I wasn’t going to take any flak for asking people to buy the epilogue. I explained myself and my reasoning.  I’ve seen readers start screaming on other sites about “buying worthless digital comics you can’t really ever own,” and I did not feel like putting up with it. So I didn’t.

7) For my next origin story, I’m considering selling cameo spots for 5 dollars each. Each cameo is guaranteed 2 or 3 recognizeable features in the story.  I’m going to poll my audience to see who might be interested, especially since I will be making this one for print from the very beginning (I didn’t decide to print Not Alone until nearly the end, and it was a TOTAL headache to reformat. Not making that mistake again!) Perhaps for 10 dollars, the cameo could become a one or 2-line role. I have tons of faceless characters in the script.  I will also be selling an epilogue to this next story, as I did for Not Alone. And I will be charging MORE.  Not much more. If someone has $3.12 lying about in their bank accounts, odds are they another $1.88 to go with it, if not more. Again, never charging less than  $5 for anything again. The chunk paypal takes just doesn’t make it worth it.

8) What about a donator-only comic? I’ve had requests for a spin-off to Not Alone, involving the Keyen (animal) characters. The Keyen were decidedly more popular than the human characters in the story. That’s the internet audience for you, and there’s nothing bad about that. But how can I USE that to my advantage? Should there be a system where every time there’s enough donations, say, $20, I put up a public page? Or maybe a 1-time fee to view a portion of the site inaccessible to non-donators? Should I charge for each page to be downloaded, as I did for the epilogue (um, no, but I wanted to say that and negate myself, because that model has “FAIL” written all over it)? These are questions I really haven’t answered myself yet.

So, to wrap this up, I had a positive experience in selling my first comic-related product. I’ve had no complaints, and if anything, requests to charge more (yes, I was told I was selling myself for cheap) and to do more things like this. Webcomics are internet entertainment, but that doesn’t mean they have to be free all the time. For anyone starting out selling something comic-related, as in a side-story or epilogue, I would greatly encourage them use their free webcomic as an audience-generator for whatever comic they are selling. I encourage that comic product to be interrelated to that free comic, but still stand-alone. I don’t see a comic completely unrelated to what originally brought a reader to the site in the first place selling well, especially when there are so many completely free comics out there.  For example, if I had tried to sell a comic that had totally NOTHING to do with either The War of Winds or Not Alone, even if I provided a 10-page preview, I could not see it selling well.  TWoW and NA brought the reader to my site, so the reader likes those kinds of comics specifically, and wants more of the same, not more of something not related.  I also want the reader to become emotionally invested in the free comic (That’s why I saw X-men 3, even though it sucked, the first 2 movies had me invested) so that buying the sequel/extra/epilogue is not a hard choice. That’s my logic, at least. I don’t want to create a subscription site, I want to sell stuff alongside what I offer for free.

That’s it from me! I hope my experience here helps anyone trying this for their first time.

You guys know  I’m not here to bash anyone for not doing something. I’m here to ENCOURAGE all you webcomic creators out there to help OTHER webcomic creators, without expecting anything back. Is it so hard to add a link to a links page? To a news post? To write a sentence about a new comic you’ve discovered that you think people should read? Do you think that if you send your audience to another site, they won’t come back? ‘Cause seriously, it doesn’t work like that! :D

I ran a short survey on my site about how people first discovered The War of Winds. 59% answered “a link from another comic.” So, MORE THAN HALFthe people who took the survey came because someone linked me on another site. This cost me nothing, as opposed to the 18% who selected “from a Project Wonderful advertisement.”  The other 20% came from places like TopWebComics and forums I frequent.

These numbers are important because what’s true for me is probably true for the majority of other webcomickers as well: people find your comic by a link from another comic, by a recommendation on the site of someone whose comic they enjoy, or by a blog post somewheres.

There are so many comics out there who deserve more readers than they have, just like Galaxion. We together already have the audiences, and while I doubt the cumulative effect of what was done for Galaxion will happen all too often, the numbers DO add up over time. So this is what I propose:

Add comics you read to your links page. You don’t have to get permission first (UNLESS!!!! you’re M-rated linking a G-rated site. Then get permission first please).  It’s the internet. Take the initiative and DO IT. No one except you will mind if your links page has tons of links. If you have to, because you have some OCD tendencies, organize links on separate pages (for example, I have a page for link exchanges, recommended reading and resources), that’s ok. Provide links to the other link pages on every links page.

Give a polite review in your news. You don’t have a shred their work, after all, you’re linking them because you want people to GO there. Try not to say anything bad at all!  Tell your readers what you like and appreciate about it.  Keep the link up as long as you can!

Stumble/Digg/Redit/etc them. Don’t ask for permission.  If you use those things (I personally love Stumble Upon, and it’s one of the few add-ons I have for Firefox), use them for more than just YOUR work! Ever see the movie Pay It Forward? Yeah. Like that.

Use social network sites. If you have a Live Journal or Deviant Art or Blogspot or Twitter account, post about the comics you read.  Especially you people on DA who have subscriptions and tons of followers. All it takes is one journal entry!

If you want to start your own campaign like Campaign: Galaxion, follow the fine example set by lonelyfetus, who started it. JUMP IN. Just do it. You’re in charge, and people ask YOU what they can do. Don’t start a thread asking for what you can do or who you should do it for [at an ambiguous time in the future] …because everyone will give you their opinions, or tell you what you’re doing wrong, and that means nothing will get done at all.  You can only have one driver in the car at a time; the car crashes otherwise.  [please insert appropriate colloquialism here that I could not remember.]

We as webcomic readers/creators have the ability to send our audience where we want. Use this power for good, but above all, USE IT.  The SpiderForest collective (I’m a member there) does this indirectly with our top rotating banner. Even being part of the network automatically means a member would recommend you, because you got in. If you have a collective, or are part of one, consider more cross-advertising possibilities.

If you’re a popular comic, getting 5k+ uniques a day, you would be far more loved by the webcomic community if you bothered to link the little guys. They would probably all link you back just to say thanks, even if you took down your link to them (for example, if it was just in the news).

Above all, just help each other grow. We’re all out here spending hours on a hobby that makes little to no money, and readers rarely take the initiative to FIND new comics themselves. Point the way, and they will go.

That’s it from me today. Webcomic website reviews are still coming. Those take a couple hours to write up, so I’m still looking for that time. Trying hard!

A lot of people when they are first starting out with their website, and find out how to navigate their first FTP, and change their site over and over with new images and new pages…often one day sign in an have NO IDEA where anything is. Their images are in the same folder as their webpages. The names of the images and the webpages are random and not indicative of the actual content.

As a person who has built too many sites, both for myself and for other people, here are the tricks I’ve learned to keep things organized and simple, so I’m not swearing at myself as I look for one file amid hundreds of ambiguously named files:

1) Have your webpages and images/other files in SEPARATE directories. It may be simpler to source images in the same directory as the page, but in the long run, you’ll just have a complete mess on your hands. For example, my webpages are in public_html (workspace/webpages, if you’re a ComicGenesis user) and my images are in an aptly-named “images” folder (workspace/images for a CG user.) Some people prefer to use “gfx” or “graphics” instead of images. The name doesn’t matter so long as it’s indicative of what is in there.

2) Use all lowercase for file designations. This is to make it easier for both you and someone checking out your site. For example, my images are “title.jpg” not “Title.JPG,” and my webpages, “not-alone.php” not “Not-Alone.php.” Both pairs are read as separate files (4 files total)! Capitals matter, unless you’ve managed some pretty fancy redirects, in which you probably don’t need to be reading this. Above all, be consistent!

3) Name the files exactly what they are. For example, my menu buttons are named by what it says on the button, e.g., “Home” is “home.jpg” and “Archive” is “archive.jpg.”  I take this one step further, since my site has had so many revisions, I name it “09_2_home.jpg.”  09_2_ is the year and month in which I made it. This means I have chronological AND alphabetical order in my FTP/hard drive.  It also means I don’t overwrite files that I may need later on. If I end up NOT needing an earlier version, for example,  08_6_home.jpg, I can safely erase it knowing all the 08_6′s are old, and NOT my current version.

4) Put your images in the directory “images/name-of-webpage-they-appear-on.” My images directory directly mirrors my webpage set up. All images that appear on my archive page are in “images/archive;” all images that appear on my world page are in “images/world.” My site is pretty big, and I have a LOT of images. Instead of shoving them ALL into one single images folder, I break it up. That way, if I’m looking for a specific image in my FTP, I know exactly where to start looking.  Don’t go overboard with this however, as it CAN lag a site (or at least, so has been my experience). For example, images/world/culture/character/heritage/talon.jpg. That’s just overkill! When that page is loading, it’s going through ALL those directories!

5) If there are spaces in your filename, use a hyphen (-)  or an underscore (_) instead, don’t keep it a space. Some browsers still have problems with spaces, so just circumvent that and don’t use them. If you do use them, you get that ugly “%20″  in place of the space, and that’s just fugly. Don’t use spaces.

6) Set up your FTP like your hard drive, or vice versa. This is especially important for Dreamweaver/WYSIWYG users.  People new to Dreamweaver keep asking me, “but why do all my images show up as broken?” either on their site, or worse, on their so-called visual editor.  I must restrain myself at this stage, because I remember doing exactly the same thing when I first started. I had my images located in a different directory on my harddrive than on my FTP. When building in DW, it sourced the image from that folder on my hard drive, so when I uploaded the page, the image was broken! Well, d’uh! The sources didn’t match up! If you’re sourcing images/world/map.jpg when building the webpage, that source needs to be exactly the same on your FTP!

7) Come up with your own naming Zen. Some files are just tricky to name, and you have bunches that are very close in topic.  On my gallery page, I name fan art in the following fashion: thumbnails as “(subject-of-fanart)_(who-made-it-for-me)_pic.jpg,” for example, “ravar_varethane_pic.jpg” and that links to “ravar_varethane.jpg.” Anything ending in “_pic” is a thumbnail.

I name banners in the following fashion: (width)x(height)_subject.ext. For example, “200x40_ravar.jpg.”  This keeps it separate for me from “436x60_ravar.jpg,” instead of naming them “banner32″ and “banner33″ or something. At a glance, without using a thumbnail view, I know exactly what it is. And you know where this file goes in my FTP? images/banners. Because it’s on my banners page. :D

Do I champion these specific designations? Pfft, hardly. I do champion you finding your OWN designations. It saves tons of headache as your site and comic grow.

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More as soon as I can get to it. Uggggg.

EDIT: I can has correct spelling? ugggg.

Here is what you need to design for as you go about creating your webcomic website:

1: TITLE

Preferably, this should be a graphic. Comics, whether on the web or not, are a graphical medium! A text title shouts “I’m boring and too lazy or inexperienced to make my own logo!”  While I may often use title graphic and logo synonymously, I should point out that they are NOT always the same thing. You can have your logo on TOP of a title graphic.  Your logo is either your comic’s title, with or without an accompanying image that is recognizable at large and small sizes, or a symbol that stands for your comc title. For example, Xyliatales, Wayfarer’s Moon, and No Need for Bushido. Your title graphic or banner may include that as WELL as more graphics.  For example in increasing size/complexity, Gunnerkrigg Court, Galaxion, Calling Home, LadyStar.

Well, how large or small should your title be? I’m not much keen on taking sides in the text vs. graphics web battles, especially since the internet is so bloody fast nowadays. Good webdesign puts the focus on where it needs to be (in this case, your comic) while ALSO focusing on fast loading and solid aesthetics, but at the same, as comic creators, we know we need to brand the site.  I usually see SMALL title/logo graphics when people want to have above the fold ad space. I usually see LARGE graphics when ads are not part of the site.  I see small graphics on image-lite sites with the “validated” text at the bottom. I see large graphics on sites made by beginners who haven’t yet learned how to get large impact out of a small area.  The bottom line: your title or logo needs to be LARGE enough it will be seen and recognized by new visitors, and small enough that more important content is readily visible without a scroll.

2: SITE NAVIGATION MENU

I’m going to make a quick distinction here between SITE navigation, and ARCHIVE navigation, so no one gets lost. Site navigation is your links to other webpages. Archive navigation deals only with the comics.  Either directly beside your title or underneath it, you need to have your site navigation menu. This menu can be horizontal or vertical, but it definitely must be above the fold, and given priority over other content (the comic, the comic navigation, buttons, other non-essential images). Your “Home” button/link needs to be FIRST in the list even if you are ordering the rest of the list alphabetically. All other page links should appear either in order of importance or alphabetically. I prefer to order buttons in order of importance, or really, which pages a new visitor would want to visit first: “Home, Archive, Cast …….. Links, About.” I have “about” as last because generally that link is always last, and that is where I am accustomed to seeing it.  Buttons/links on either end of the menu get seen more, which is generally how it works. Between cast and links is where my other pages go.

3: COMIC NAVIGATION MENU

I’m going to say this now: first, I already wrote an article on the necessity of having the FULL comic navigation menu, below AND above the comic if your comic extends below the fold. Second, I HATE ComicPress’ design of having comic navigation in the SITE navigation menu. It’s disorienting, and it means you most often DON’T have the 4 necessary links (first/prev/next/last) because there’s not enough room for all that crammed into your site menu.  I GUESS I understand the reasoning why it’s there (“navigation is navigation, right?” Wrong.), but they are two very separate systems! If you have CP and you have your comic navigation in the default place and you don’t have all four links, I strongly encourage you to change that!

Your comic navigation menu needs to be made using recognizable symbols, fonts and/or text titles. Don’t name these links as something inane and silly that only you understand! For example, a mega fail: “Baby Food, Granola Bars, Garbage Plate, Coronary.” As always, title things exactly what they are. Either first/beginning/start/etc; previous/prev/back/before/etc; next/tomorrow/after/etc; last/today/etc, or the appropriate symbols of double arrows and single arrows. Both together are good too.

4: YOUR COMIC

Please notice that your comic is FOURTH on this list. Not first, not second, not third. Your title and all navigation should appear above and/or left of your comic. However, as much as possible of your comic should appear above the fold. If your comic is on your front page and not immediately visible in a 1024×768  browser, you need to redesign your site, because you are only wasting room.  If your comic does not appear on the front page, then the links to the first page and most recent page must have prominence.

5a: BOTTOM COMIC NAVIGATION

(see section 3)

5b: NEWS/BLOG

It is very important that your blog or news area does NOT take precedence over your comic other more imporant comic elements.  There are ways to get around this using sidebars, twitter, or not blogging at all, but the safest place to have your blurbs is right below the comic AND bottom comic navigation. It is very annoying for some people to have to scroll through your news to find the “next” button/link, so don’t do that.  I already wrote an article about what should be posted here and when, so I’m not going to repeat myself.

6: FOOTER

Your footer is very important. It should not only contain a copyright block (copyright should also appear on your comic images), but also redundant “contact” information and other links of choice (for example, privacy policies).  It makes me very sad when I come to comic site that has no copyright block anywhere.  You may automatically own that copyright, but people online are thieving idiots. It’s best to explicitly and clearly state that “this”  is yours, and how to get in contact with you if people want to copy, use or redistribute. It won’t stop thieves from doing it anyways, but you do what you can.

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The above are my personal BARE MINIMUM recommended elements. Obviously, there is more you can include, but I do NOT recommend less.  Lastly, don’t forget to add alts and titles to your links and images! Webcomic sites OUGHT to be graphic-centered, in my opinion, but that means you need to do a little more to make your sites appear in search engines.

Next Up: Webcomic Website Review

When you are designing your webpage/site/element/what-have-you, never ever ever START designing in an HTML editor. You START in a graphics editor, such as Photoshop or GIMP. The biggest rookie mistake is starting a design in Notepad or DreamWeaver, uploading, testing, uploading, more testing, rinse and repeat 100 or so times before you finally *headdesk*. Good grief. I did that so many times when I first started out, and all my webpages looked like crap.

So, let’s start from the beginning. There are 2 basic phases for building a webpage: designing and coding.

Just as if you were drawing, you sketch first. You find the lines, decide where elements will go, and you make the lines thicker and more permanent.   You decide if you want to ink it, or paint it, etc, when all those lines are in the right place. All of that is the designing phase. Think of the coding phase as framing and matting that piece of art you just completed so that you can display it in a gallery (the internet).  You don’t start sketching on the wall of that gallery, because ONLY FINISHED PIECES are displayed in the gallery.  Still with me here?

Now, AS you design your webpage in your graphics editor, what you need to do is keep in mind your coding skills as you build.  THINK in the terms of the coding you will be doing, and don’t design past your skill set unless you are willing to do the research to find out how to do a certain thing, or can find someone to do it for you.  The easiest way to do this is to think in terms of square or rectangular shapes.  The more irregular your design, obviously the harder it will be.

But I’m getting a little off-track here. Lesson number one for you beginner webdesigners is always start in a graphics editor, not an HTML editor.

Firebug is a live debugger/source code reader, among other things. When you open it in your browser, you have the website in question above top, a window with the source code below left, and a window with the stylesheet below right. You can make LIVE EDITS (that are not permanent except on YOUR screen) to fix things, test things, muck around, etc.  If you hover on the source code area, that same area is highlighted on the website.  This allows you to SEE margins, padding, and table or div dimensions.

This add-on cannot be recommended enough for webcomickers.  Whether you’re using ComicPress or your own CMS, CSS or HTML, whether you’re a total coding amateur or even a professional, if you don’t have it, what are you waiting for? Work smart, not hard. ;)

Have a good weekend, folks! Thanks for reading.