Don't Start Your Webcomic Without Reading This!

Only at my college could the following happen in the span of one day:

• One friend asked me (via facebook) about how to find an artist for their webcomic.
• Another one asked about how I started mine, since they already have some webspace and want to put it to use by also starting their own.
• Both of these people are not only reasonably intelligent, but female.

Hooray feminism! But that's beside the point.

The point I'm making today is that both of these girls have already made the same mistakes most creators make -- that is, that they've already decided to start their projects with certain limitations in mind. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging your own limitations or recognizing outside limitiations, but there's no reason to invent new ones out of whole cloth. Some limitations aren't really limitations -- you may have sunk some money into webspace or a domain name already, but that's not a limitation you have to live with since you can always buy new hosting or a new URL.

But deciding you already need an artist for your webcomic?

That's a big decision you'll have to live with in regards to your comic and its lifespan. That's not to say that artist/writer pairs are inherently bad or that pairing with somebody versus going alone will make or break you... but it IS saying that it's something that should require plenty of thought beyond "I can't draw, but I want to make a comic, therefore I need an artist!"

There's a lot of decisions that can be seen this way; the concept that webcomics must be like newspaper comics. That there's no room for anything but superheroes in "mainstream" comics, so you have to emulate them to get anywhere. That this genre is superior to that genre and you can't make a strip about this or else you'll get raided by 4chan or that the only webcomics that succeed are video game webcomics. What size and what format and what update frequency your comic will be. And yes, no matter what you do, in order to actually start you'll need to make a certain number of decisions before you post the first comic.

Ironically, deciding what your comic actually means usually isn't one of them. It should be.

7 Reasons you need to START YOUR COMIC ALREADY!

"So I've been working on this great new idea..."

Fewer things have induced so much groaning when they come from the right kind of people. And by "Right Kind of People" I mean "You know how rare it is for you to even finish a sentence?" The ones who have great ideas, and heck, they might even be some of the brightest folk you know, but for some reason, when it gets to actually doing it it either doesn't happen or it all gets forced into existence within the last 24 hours?

There's nothing wrong with having ideas. But there's a certain level of idea hoarding that's not productive to you or anyone else. Yeah, I'm guilty of doing it a little myself, but whether it's some great new merchandise I've been plotzing around with or a pack of half-written blog articles I have to force myself to go ahead and actually finish, At least I'm still getting a page a week up (which is also the only one with an actual deadline, which may be part of my laziness elsewhere). And for that alone, I have to say it:

Start. The. Comic.

There's no time like the present, and there are plenty of reasons why, if you've got a comic on the brain, you may as well get started right the heck now:

1. You Need a Big Archive.
   Very few comics receive attention and acclaim when they only have a few strips, unless they're doing something incredibly awesome or they're made by someone who already has some built-in star power behind them. Besides, the more you have whenever an eventual reader comes along, the more they'll have at their fingertips to hunt through so they can decide for themselves whether you're worth their time or not.
   
2. You Need the Name Recognition.
   I'm not talking about YOUR name -- unless, y'know, you're really good at propping up your own ego as is -- but the name of your comic and 2-3 of your main characters. It's not everything, sure, but when you're starting out, they can't very well make a decision about you if they don't know who you are. Sean Tevis gets it, and he's not even trying to make a name in webcomics!
   
3. You Need to Stop Sucking So Much.
   Okay, we get it, your art isn't what you want it to be. Making a strip per whatever timeframe you work in will force it to improve by sheer habit. Well, it'll improve if you're actually drawing every page instead of depending on clipart or Poser. The whole idea of your art improving is that there is some sort of new art being made, after all.
   
4. You Need to Stop Putting it Off.
   Nobody likes a "I'm not quite done yet." And as much as you shouldn't be thinking about your competiton, you're not getting anywhere while you're not finished, and everyone else out there IS. Unless there's some great payoff to waiting any longer (like, say, having X amount of comics already completed by launch), why wait?
   
5. You can always improve later.
   Heck, people EXPECT you to improve, practically. Take advantage of this. (Note that an improvement in art doesn't count if you do what Exiern did and claim improvement by hiring a new artist. It's one thing to START with an artist/writer combo, but hiring one later on makes it look more like a business transaction and interrupts the artistic flow of the comic to boot.)
   
6. You can always do more research later.
   Learning about Marketing is important when starting out, sure. Learning about Sales and merchandising? Not as much. Unless your entire plan hinges on shamelessly whoring your webcomic as a way to get people to buy into your high concept movie script (*cough*), odds are good you'll have a couple years to get things up to speed, which dovetails nicely with the idea that . . .
   
7. It's going to take you X number of years ANYWAY.
   Proof? Look at all the webcomics you already like. Look at when they started. If you start noticing that pretty much all of these comics took 5-7 years to get where they are... well, you're starting to get the idea. It's very unlikely that you can do a whole lot those first two years, so if you can spend the first couple years getting your kinks worked out while still gaining the additional archives and profile from that time . . . then good on you.

In short, there's no good reason why you shouldn't go ahead and get to work on that new comic, unless you just . . . really don't want to work on it. And it's not like there's anything wrong with that, except that if you keep telling yourself you're going to (and don't), it's just going to annoy the rest of us who either want to see some actual work or just want you to stop talking about it.

And for those of us that alreasy have a comic in some form, stop thinking that putting your magnum opus on hold is going to earn you any more bragging rights than the rest of us.

Get to work on it, monkey!

Who Else Wants Awesome Comic Merchandise?

Well, you can't have it. Not yet at least.

One of the things I'm trying to build up as I get further along on my comic is how I make money off of it -- which makes sense, if only because it's not only an easy way to track my progress, there's also something to be said for the feeling of "Holy crap, people are actually willing to PAY ME for this stuff?" And if working at conventions taught me anything, going to them is certainly worthwhile, once you have the right materials prepared.

"The Right Materials" includes merchandising.

Since I wasn't able to make AnthroCon like I hoped I would, I've been sitting on more things than I intended to have lying around, like the nice, shiny 1" buttons shown here. They're convention-only at the moment, but I'm showing them off anyway -- most of the bunch I have now are the four "Team" buttons in their various colors, alongside one of my older buttons (with the white background) for comparison.

Feedback appreciated, as always. ;)

I'd like to talk about some Damn Useful Books!

I like big books and I cannot lie, you other artists can't deny...

Cheesy misappropriation of Sir Mix-a-Lot aside, if there's is one thing I do huge amounts of, (besides having random spurts of art evolution you folks may have noticed if you try to take the archives in all at once), I read lots of art books.

No. Really.

(And this isn't even all of them -- some of the less useful ones are still packed up with the other college things.)

The point of all this?

1. I read way more books on webcomics, art, character design/development, and other core details than I have any business reading at this stage. Most of these are useful and typically meet some level of minimum competency, though obviously some are better than others.
2. Books are not cheap.
3. Selling books, however, is good business, and if I can make a little back showing you which books are useful enough to be worth your dollar, then by all means!
   

So guess who just decided to become Amazon's puppet in the name of sharing all this lovingly extracted wisdom with you!

Now, no promises on this one -- The comic is already guaranteed to be weekly, but eventually I'll run out of books to talk about, not to mention that not all books are created equal -- The Art of Animal Drawing, for example, is almost all pictures, which almost guarantees that its review will be shorter than anything I could say about Scott McCloud's books.

Disclaimer: A lot of these books have my genre slant in them -- the animal books (for the furry stuff, natch) and the manga books because, well, that's part of my general style. More realistic / "American" style artists might not be interested in some of these. If they don't suit you, they don't suit you, but this is why I may cover certain types of books more than others. I never said I was going to be a one-stop source for these things; these just happen to be the books I think are most useful to me, and hence should at least be of interest to you. Heck, we might even have some MARKETING BOOKS tossed in (Gasp! Shock! Horror!) just because -- guess what? -- they're useful too.

Don't be fooled; just because it doesn't have "Webcomics" on the cover doesn't mean it still can't be a damn useful book. If you aren't already subscribed to the blog, you'll want to be, just to make sure you don't miss these.

If you have a book in the stack shown above you'd like me to get to before the others, be sure to say so in the comments! (oh, and there are a few books not pictured here, so you may as well ask...)

List of Books Reviewed So Far:

• The Economics of Web Comics (2nd Edition)
• The Art of Animal Drawing
  

#77, And Summer Plans

Thanks to a few generous folks, we've had a bonus update this past week -- here it is again, just in case you missed it -- and after this current one, we'll be having another bonus update coming up Wednesday as well.

(Oh, and there's another $20 sitting around on top of that to count towards bonuses... Just, please, wait at least a week to give the buffer a chance to recharge.)

Thanks go out to those who've already offered suggestions on what else I should be working on this summer besides my buffer. If you're a little slow to reply, don't worry, I've not made any hard decisions yet.

The REAL hard one's already been made, anyway.

I've joked about it before in private conversations and otherwise, but summer's not vacation time for me so much as it is time for me to recharge the buffer. Quite literally, running this comic is a year-round job, and as such, I've found the best way to deal with it is to treat the summertime as my internship for the comic. And considering what this entails -- strip development, merchandising, advertising, and conventioneering -- it's no mystery why this stuff needs the extra attention. (Webcomics as a serious venture? Who'd have thought?)

For the long-term health of the comic (not to mention a real face-first lesson in running my own business, which let's face it, this is), it's something that I want to do. And if nothing else, it'll make my own plans for the future go a whole lot smoother.

Wish me luck.

The After-Convention "Time to Work Again" List

MomoCon and Outerz0ne both went exceedingly well, so I'm about where I ought to be. The nearest conventions to even worry about won't be for a while yet . . . which means it's time to get back to freaking work, or at least what semblance of work I can accomplish while I get back to my freaking schoolwork.

To give you an idea of what I have to "do" (or more precisely, what I delayed in favor of focusing on the past two conventions), here's a short list:

• New links page with links to all those great comic folks I've been delaying linking back to (which includes Pearls of Mer, Suicide for Hire, the fellow whose name/site I can't quite remember except that he drew a caricature of me pre-haircut at the MomoCon Webcomics Forum Panel . . . and of course DMFA, heh)
  
• New ads and link banners to go on that links page, as well as to replace the ads currently sitting around on Project Wonderful because quite frankly some of those have been on PW since Dragon*Con and I'd like to update what I'm doing.
• Order new swag - MomoCon cleaned me out! While this certainly isn't a bad situation to be in, short of making lots of random merchandise I'm not going to get very far without ordering a few new things. And as long as I'm reordering stuff, that gives me time to think up new ideas...
  
• Finish those two commissions - Okay, at least one of them should give me a huge boost once I finish it, but in the meantime that still means it needs to get done... and that means more work to finish before I get too far ahead of myself again. (then again, it's not like my buffer is going to last too far into the summer if I keep giving y'all bonus updates...) At least the freebies have been completed, so that much is good. :)
  
• More cast pictures! I've got this great image of Quinn in my head that needs to put to paper, not to mention a few other cast photos I'm interested in drawing. Plus, if I don't get to drawing more of that soon, it's going to look like an unfinished section of the site as opposed to an in-progress one.
  
• Redesigning the Blog of Last Resort. It's not bad, I just think it could be tightened significantly. This is a lower priority only because it's just improving it and not adding anything new per se, but as the saying goes, "The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on the list."
• Start considering some dead tree versions of the comic. This is another "back of the head" priority because I don't want to start getting visions of publishers in my head until I at least hit 80-100 pages on the website (which isn't going to happen until midsummer at the earliest) but at the same time I want to gauge what I need and more importantly who In want to do this. My instinct says to delay the first book or so as long as I can, but the number of folks asking if I had printed versions is making me wonder otherwise.
  

The list has shades of my rather haphazard list of 2008 resolutions, but unlike that list I have a better idea of what I'm after. And yes, this isn't a complete list, just the ones that stick out as stuff I ought to be working on.

This said... as far as cast pictures go, I need to decide who else deserves to have their pictures done next. Alice is a given, while Jason & White have already had their pictures completed, but not posted, but that's only three, and I'd like to update them four at a time. Any suggestions as to who the fourth player featured ought to be? Comments are always open...

Jigsaw's Convention Plans

Just a quick reminder that next week is in fact Momocon, and those who have oh-so-coincidental Spring Break time should consider checking out one of the most awesome conventions that you can attend for free. It's only for next Saturday and Sunday, though. I'll be somewhere in Artist's Alley, so feel free to stop by and keep an artist company.

And for those paying attention to the Twitter feed; there's another convention after this, and it's not what you'd expect; Outerz0ne is right on Momocon's heels, and the con head talked me into spending some time behind a table there as well! It's a security conference, so it's not the usual audience, but it wasn't like I didn't have plans to head there with a few of my friends anyway...

... although it helps that I'll pretty much be the entire Artist's Alley for that one. Really, how was I about to turn that down?

The Secret to Making People Actually READ your Webcomic.

You asked for it -- or at least searched for it! Since so many folk are (at least according to Google) searching for how to get people to read webcomics, who am I to argue? (Especially since writing articles based around webcomics is far more enjoyable than just writing about bloggers, no matter how similar they seem.)

There's a lot of different things people like in webcomics, if only because there are so many different types of webcomics. Make sure you at least have the basics down, though:

• Consistent Updates.
  New readers may be hooked, but if your comic's not updated regularly (or worse, defunct), they won't know when to return to get more. Quantity is one thing, but a properly addicted reader will want their regular fix.
  
• Some way to explain 'gaps' and inconsistencies.
  Confused readers don't read further. This can be countered with an especially large archive, as people start to see that the quality of the story and the art improves, but when you're starting out, the best way to counter this is with Archive Enhancements like cast pages, artist's commentary (especially on early pages), and even frequently asked questions.
  
• Enough archive to get them hooked.
  The minimum archive you need depends on the story you're trying to tell -- and admittedly in my case, is something that needs to be worked on pronto. 20-30 pages is sort of a bare minimum, and it's only when you start getting into the hundreds of pages that you have enough pages to be immersible. (and yes, I know Last Resort isn't there yet. It should be pretty close by the end of the year though.)
  
• Forums (or at least some clue they're not shouting into the void)
  Again, don't do this until you have something resembling a following already, but even a pair of die-hard fans can be enough to start a following. People attract more people, simply put.
• A halfway decent comic to begin with.
  Don't think good writing makes up for bad art, or vice versa. If you're not putting whatever effort you've got into this, it's not going to make up for itself, no matter how many strips, cast pages, or whatever else you've got. Yes, good writing can counter minimalist art. Not bad, minimalist. If you don't know the difference, your writing's not going to be good enough to make a difference.

And most importantly: Your webcomic (and its website!) is its own best advertisement. Take a good hard look at what your comic says about itself and about what you're willing to do for it. Get a friend to help redesign it if you need to. Switch hosting, lose the crappy ads, get better ads, do what you need to, but make it look like you actually take pride in what you do. You need to make sure you have the foundations laid down before you can expect a fandom to build off of it, after all.

Of course, these are only the basics... you'll want to subscribe to the rss feed to make sure you don't miss all the good tips that have to follow after this. Or maybe you want to go ahead and tell me if I missed one I need to include for later?

The Convention Checklist - Artists

Running tables at a convention may very well be an artist's dream, but it's not easy! There's a lt of merchandise to deal with, convention stress, the whole "You're sitting out here to make a spectacle of yourself" kind of problem... To say the least, artists (and wannabe-artists) have a special checklist the average congoer doesn't!

Only yesterday I managed to get my ducks in a row enough to feel like I can take on FWA, so in an attempt to assure myself I'm doing it right, Here's a good rudimentary checklist for anyone planning to work conventions who wants to know how to run an artist's table:

• Do you have multiple works to display?
  Not only does having more than one piece of work available make sense (in case any one work sells out), but multiple works allows people to develop a better sense of your style so in the case of commissions, they can go ahead and try to imagine what a piece done by you will turn out like!
  
  • Know what your table allows! If all your work is on the internet, you're going to be high and dry if the artist's alley doesn't allow for continuous power consumption, let alone an internet connection! Likewise, there may be restrictions on the rating of works visbile, so if you're drawing adult work, you better censor it before someone else censors it for you!
    
  • Is there a theme in your work? Theming helps create a cohesive identity to your work, which may be important if you're attempting to appeal to a particular segment (comic readers, anime fans, etc.). More importantly, it helps hook passersby into viewing more and more of your work. If you're doing a webcomic, you've already got this in spades - just print out a short storyline (or an excerpt of a longer one, as long as it's all contained) and you're good to go!
    
• Are you going to be able to create any art at the convention itself?
  This is a BIG thing to remember. Customers like Instant Gratification. You'll like not having to ship shit after the fact.
  
  • If you're going to make art on-site... have all your tools available for working. Your convention art shouldn't be lower quality just because you left your nice drawing paper at home.
    
  • If you plan on shipping commissions out later... have a form available before you even leave home for customers to fill out later so they can receive your work! Ideally you should have forms available for ALL your different commission types just to make sure you produce the right work, but make sure you have them especially for those that require shipping.
    
• Do you have a CONCRETE price list for your works?
  Even if you're willing to create a variety of work, people appreciate having a pricing list to look at so they can figure out which actions are worth what. Also, if you have a special commission type (such as conbadges or comic pages), specifying that you can do those things in addition to ordinary commissions may attract more business!
  
  • Are you making sure to specify what each commission type involves? Saying "Color Commissions $30" is fine, but you need to have the reader assume a certain level of complexity so you don't end up getting only $30 for drawing some 50-character 30-inch poster.
    
  • Do you have general 'add-ons' for the different commission types, so customers can mix and match for their specific orders?
    
• Do you have a contract / terms-of-service available for customers?
  Absolutely Important! You need this so when customers complain (and they will!) you have a concrete position you can negotiate / argue from. The more detailed and professional you are with this, the less likely protracted arguments will occur (not to mention if your unhappy customer decides to try and "summon the internet" against you, you can make your case all the more convincingly).
  
  • It doesn't have to be complicated. Obviously the more ironclad ones protect you better, but if you're afraid of scaring off potential customers, even a few disclaimers such as "I won't draw pornographic materials" can go a long way to dealing with pesky customers.
  • Make sure you have a general refund system available; if all else fails, you don't want to be accused of keeping people's money for nothing!
    

Now, even with all of this done (or at least in mind), you'd think we'd be done and dusted. But we're not, because we haven't even started talking about running the actual table yet!

Unfortunately, that one I can't talk so much about yet, because it's still before the convention. But if you're willing to find out how that turns out (and the advice therein), go ahead and subscribe to the feed to keep up a little better.

Have I forgotten anything that I need to know before I go to this convention? Comment, quick, before I take off for the weekend and make an ass of myself!

See How Easily You Can Get a Response out of People: Skribit Shows you How!

Wouldn't you just love it if people TOLD you what they wanted?

Okay, we get it. Forums require registration. Emails require firing up whatever program or website you use for emailing. Telling someone in person requires . . . well, being in person. Even commenting on a blog requires providing some personal information, going past a captcha, and who knows what else. When you don't feel like doing all of that, these are nothing more than communication hurdles.

Skribit takes a Howitzer to those hurdles.

Skribit is the little-known brainchild of Startup Weekend Atlanta (with people like Paul Stamatiou behind the wheel), and is a blog widget that sits in your sidebar. You can see mine if you look down and to the right a bit — assuming you're actually on the blog's page, of course.

What is it: It's a pain-free way for readers (like you) to suggest new topics for this blog. It supports anonymous posting, so no account is necessary, and once a topic is in there, other people can vote to support it. The more support something has, the more I know people want to see that topic. We're not talking excessively detailed suggestions though - a quick phrase or two is enough.

Why you need it: If people don't see a topic they like on your blog (or have a slightly different one in mind), they can suggest it for future discussion later. It's a great way to "read the reader's minds" and get a pulse for what people are really coming to hear. From a webcomic perspective, you can use it to suggest new gag-a-day's or get a feel for what readers want to see next!

How to use it:

• Click on "Click here to suggest a topic" to give a brief idea of what you want, and a 140-characters-or-less description of what it is.
  
• Click on an already-suggested topic to see more information about that topic.
  (it takes you away from the current page though...)
  
• Click on "Vote" if you like what you see.

You don't need to be registered with Skribit (though we dare say it helps).

How to get it: Go register over on Skribit, give them a little info about your blog, and plug the widget in, then wait to see what others suggest.

Gaming Project Wonderful: Fewer Ads, Bidding Nothing Makes You More Money

When Project Wonderful first came out and approached the webcomic communities, people thought the new "Infinite Auction" model would revolutionize advertising as we know it. Finally, everyone thought, people would get paid what they were worth! Of course, nobody realized what "they were worth" actually meant.

Make no mistake, Project Wonderful is a clever system, and it's certainly more entertaining (and easier) to become an advertiser on there than ever before. The problem is that (like most advertising media), Project Wonderful is working in the Advertiser's favor, so it's up to the publishers to do everything they can to make sure their properties make as much as they can. Fortunately, it's easy to be both, and there's only a few things that need to be done to get the best results possible, to beat Project Wonderful:

1. Comb the Freebies. Sometimes bids go for $0.00 (as in absolutely free), and believe it or not, these things will allow you to use completely free advertising. By bidding on these, you force paying customers to pony up (which does at least a little good for the people offering the space, as even 1 cent of profit is better than making absolutely nothing), and/or you get some free airtime, which drives new traffic to the site and improves your own statistics (see below). Remember, you can only make a zero bid for two days at a time, and even if someone else already had a $0 bid on the slot, that just means that you can either force them to pay, or you'll get the spot once their two days runs out.
   
   The best way to do this is to use Firefox to access PW, search for a specific size ad, and target the ads with a $0.00 current bid and no minimum; then open up a huge number of tabs to bid on those zero-spaces once you've pulled out a good number to bid on. At least 25% of those will likely result in immediate high bids. Even if they're on lousy sites, it's exposure nontheless, and it's also an easy way to test out similar ads against each other (which allows you to E.A.T. on your ads prior to actually laying out some cash!)
   
   
2. Don't Be Picky. Waiting for a publisher to accept your ad is a drag, and likewise, you're missing out on money from each and every ad you do accept, because you get credited every 30 minutes! Even if you like one ad over another, keep in mind that everyone else's bids drive up the price of the one getting the top slot right now, so being picky is in nobody's best interest.
   
   Why? Because EVERY BID BUILDS ON THE OTHERS. Here's a quick demonstration of a typical bidding scenario on a single ad space:
   
   
   • Bidder A is willing to pay $1 on the space, but nobody else wants it. Even though A could pay, it is an unconstested bid, so A gets the slot for free, and the publisher gets no money even though A is willing to pay $1.
     
   • Bidder B comes along with a $0.00 bid, since he's looking for free advertising. Suddenly there are more bidders than spaces available, so bidding begins to come into play. Even though B is freeloading, it's still an active bid, and so A is finally forced to pay (it's only a cent, sure, but that's better than nothing!).
     
   • Bidder C comes along and bids $0.05. Now A has to pay $0.06 in order to keep C from claiming the space.
     
     
   In other words, the only way you get A to actually pay $1 is if someone bids up to $0.90 on the same slot at the same time. This is great for advertisers because it ensures they never pay more than they want to, but the only way publishers (i.e. you) get to see these huge returns is if a bidding war actually starts. Also, it means you shouldn't discourage smaller bidders, because their presence forces bidding wars and gets higher-paying advertisers to shell out more money. Bidders will often pull out when they realize they're being outbid, which is a pain in the ass in and of itself when you're counting on certain bidders to keep your prices high, so don't help the process along unless there's something REALLY wrong with a higher-rated ad than you're comfortable with.
   
   The best way to encourage bidding wars is to keep the number of ads available at any given time down to begin with, and that means showing the largest ads you can for a given space. Larger ads pay better (Note how the Skyscraper ad on the blog tends to outperform the banner ads on Last Resort's front page, even though the blog receives only a fraction of the traffic), and the more spaces you have, the more people you need to even be interested in advertising there to make a single cent (once again, the ads only start paying off when you have more bidders than available slots!).
   
   
3. Expect Logarithmic Returns on Traffic. Put bluntly, there are a lot of sites with very little traffic, and very few sites that get a lot of traffic. As you accrue more traffic, you should receive exponentially higher bids for that traffic because you are now competing with fewer and fewer sites that have the same level of traffic.
   
   This gets back to the initial problem again of furthering your exposure, but it also means that when you start to see an improvement in ads, it also means you're getting more/better traffic as well.

Keep in mind that Project Wonderful should not be your only source of income; while more consistent than donations, it can be incredibly hard to see worthwhile returns when starting out. The good news is that Project Wonderful can run alongside Google Adsense (Google's restrictions apply only to content-based ads; Project Wonderful doesn't care about content!) , and it can provide a new set of statistics for you to keep track of, giving you a better sense of where to put your ads (and also how to further improve your advertising gain!)

And when you realize how easy that can be, it's just wonderful.

An Admission

Somewhere in between trying to glean some sort of clue from CopyBlogger, following GapingVoid, combing my stats on Google Analytics and trying to figure out how to make more than a few pennies a day on Project Wonderful, it hits me that I have no clue what I'm doing. This is a little more significant than it sounds, especially considering that I'm admitting it on a blog where I claim to talk about how to make a comic bigger, better, and God forbid, profitable.

The truth is, whether I care to admit it or not, is that if I had a clue what I was doing and wasn't merely just parroting what I've heard several times over from Blog A and Convention B, I might be doing a little better than I am now. The keyword is "might", as I have a better understanding for the amount of time one has to invest in a webcomic before people actually start reading, but at the same time I know this is a certain level of arrogance. It takes time, sure, but that doesn't mean there aren't short-circuits to the process. However naive I may be about my own chances of success, I know that merely "doing it for myself first" and other suicide notes of the starving artist are not enough.

The approach of the blog has been a little different than that of the comic, and perhaps that's a mistake. Reading my random thoughts aimed for someone who knows less than I do isn't interesting to the average reader of Last Resort, and believe me, I can tell. Just because I can figure out how to somehow make my blog read more like something I find on one of those "how to blog" blogs because I somehow think that because I like reading the things, that regurgitating it with a focus on webcomics somehow makes it more special doesn't necessarily mean it WORKS.

Sure, the idea is pretty straightforward — show how to run a webcomic with some of the tricks that bloggers have used for a while, sound halfway intelligent, and get some ancillary karma out of the deal — but the truth is that while I'm still learning a lot of this, anyone who already wants to think like this is either already going to the source or doing it better, and anyone who doesn't know better probably doesn't even know where to find this.

So . . . maybe it's time to change things up a little. I don't think I'll totally hold my tongue about stuff that sounds like good ideas, but I might hold my tongue on some of it, at least until I get the blogger-jargon taste out of my mouth for a couple days first.

5 Reasons you need to Leave Free Webcomic Hosting.

We know the sites thatget thrown in our faces week after week: ComicGenesis, SmackJeeves, DrunkDuck, WebcomicsNation... and yes, they have a place in the webcomics world, to encourage new people to post comics.

But if you're here, you're probably doing this seriously to begin with. That means it's time to ditch the womb.

1. It looks lame. Webcomics get knocked enough as is. If you want to be given any respect, you need your comic not to scream "Geocities Hosting". Sure, it's possible for your stuff to still look classy on free hosting, but not on those sites. Every tweenager is using those sites to impress the girl they're trying to get to second base with, and if you're not a tweenager, you don't need to be there. (And even if you are a tweenager, have a little class, okay?)
   
2. The URLs are ugly. A domain name is 'only' $10 a year. If you have any talent or desire to make your comic awesome, you should get one for the ego boost. And even if it's just a hobby, $10 a year isn't that much to spend; if you're like me, you'll waste far more on "How to draw better" books. I speak from experience on this; you can't expect people to take "lastresort.xepher.net" as seriously as they do "lastres0rt.com". They've already been conditioned into .com worship, so take advantage of that.
   
3. You should be doing this seriously. If you're not, just leave now. There's no reason to try and make your "I just draw on the weekends and post whatever looks good up" comic sound like it deserves the same respect Penny Arcade does. You want the respect, you put in the effort that deserves it, and that means finding hosting that doesn't suck. Deal?
   
4. Real business requires risk. No pain, no gain, as they say. Besides, spending money forces you to work harder at it in order to justify the money spent — it's called "World of Warcraft Syndrome". For something you're supposed to be working on like your webcomic, it's not a bad idea.
   
5. Don't, and you can kiss your Wikipedia notability goodbye. Comic conglomerates aren't powerful, let alone notable, and pretending that your comic will somehow 'elevate' the entire hosting system is ridiculous. I've seen it happen time and again where because the entire webcomic hosting site is only #X in the Alexa rankings, that your comic is also worse than #X (and thus worth deleting from Wikipedia), and quite frankly that's not going to get you respectability anytime soon.

Business has always required some type of expense involved in order to make profit; that's how business works. That your medium is the internet doesn't mean you can get away with 'no' expense; just significantly reduced expense. It's one thing to start on free hosting while you're just starting, but after a year (if not sooner), it's time to cut the cord.

Take some responsibility for your work, and it'll pay off later. Big time.

How to Decide if You Should Do a Webcomic

Let's face a few facts: Webcomics are new. A lot of people think webcomics suck. An enlightened subsection of those know better and assert that only the majority suck. This does not speak highly of the ones who actually want to get good at it. Granted, you could say the same things for a lot of internet groups, but let's assume you actually are looking to do something with webcomics, in spite of all this.

You SHOULD do a webcomic if:

• You have a story to tell (with some visual nature to it). If you find yourself cooing endlessly about the moons of the planet Mazz'zel'ta and the way they shine in the darkness, or other striking visual effects, go ahead and start drawing it.
• You want to expand your art portfolio. Know what's big in portfolios? Related Works. Pages in a story are as related as related works get, and are more likely to test your boundaries as an artist. As a bonus, it pretty much ensures that if someone on DeviantArt or elsewhere sees one page and likes it in the least, they'll probably read the other pages as well.
  
• You don't feel 'ready' to pitch your idea to the "Big Boys" yet. You'll probably never feel ready, but at least you can start working on it now and gaining fanbase instead of waiting for letters from them (rejection or otherwise).
• You want to start making money off of your art. It won't be much money, but if nothing else it should improve your work and expand your audience enough that you can eventually start taking commissions (and now people will actually want to buy them!).
• You feel there's a gap in the webcomics already out there. If an anime about baking bread can get taken seriously, anything can. As a bonus, think of all the new fans you'll get for covering a topic they care about. In the meantime, I'm just going to say this outright: I would LOVE to see a webcomic about crochet, or possibly knitting.
• People keep telling you to start a comic. Hey, you've already got a fanbase, why not? Motivated fans you can actually have a cup of coffee with are rare enough that even just one or two of them is reason enough to give it a try.
  
• You ever plan on doing a comic 'eventually'. Just start now. Seriously. Worst case scenario, you ditch working on it to start a new one.
  

You should NOT do a webcomic if:

• You expect to make LOTS of money off your art. It doesn't work that way. The only truly 'successful' comics I've seen have been at it for years, and when making just above the poverty line in donations alone is considered 'successful', that means you're probably not going to become a millionaire doing this.
  
• You think "I don't need ____! So-and-so did this, I can too!" Whoever you're holding in high regard did it better because they know what they're doing and how whatever rule they're breaking is meant to be broken. You don't. Don't try it until you do.
  
  • This goes double for people trying to imitate stick-figure comics. Yes, good writing can eclipse bad art. This, however, assumes good writing.
• The story you want to tell is fanfic. Come back when you have some originality and aren't a walking copyright violation. At the very least, tweak it until it passes the "I think _____ did it better" test.
  
• You plan on using Sprites / Screenshots / Other Game-Originating Material in Lieu of Art. No publisher will EVER touch these types of comics with a ten-foot pole. Besides, it's pretty limiting as far as visualizations go. If you insist on doing it, fine, but don't expect it to go beyond being a webcomic unless you can find a way to make the rest of the comic shine in comparison.
  
• You plan on hosting the comic at ComicGenesis, SmackJeeves, DrunkDuck, or any other "Webcomic Hosting Specialist" for the life of the comic. It screams "Ameteur wanted Free Space!" and is the webcomic equivalent of GeoCities. Starting out on free space isn't bad in and of itself, but the top Comic Repositories have bad enough reputations that you may be better off doing it yourself and avoiding the taint. For God's sake, if you're going to seriously start a comic, get a halfway decent webpage; if you have any readership at all, you can make the money from hosting back in ads alone. If you MUST be a cheapskate about it, go with ComicGenesis, as you have the most control there and the least-stupid name in the URL. Barring this, LiveJournal and Blogger work as well, provided you use an additional image host like Photobucket. DeviantArt and other Art repositories are also good.
  
• You're only making the comic to impress people. Don't. They're not. You probably won't become famous for doing this, and if you do, it'll be so many years from now that if this is the only reason you're doing it, you'll kill yourself before you ever get that far.
• You don't plan on drawing a comic for very long (and I mean in terms of updates, NOT time-per-page). Comics are a BIG time investment, and take years of updates and tons of strips to take off. If you don't have the time, do a short story, but starting a comic and then not being able to keep it up is terrible and pisses off whatever fans you've acquired.
  

There's other tutorials and tips for starting comics, but if you're still on the fence about this at all, look at this chart and figure out how many reasons from each list are your own reasons for wanting to do a comic, and decide if you lean more towards one list or the other. Having a few "Don't" reasons in your list isn't a bad thing, (delusions of grandeur can be useful for those rough spots) but if you're hitting all cylinders on the bad list and STILL think you should do a comic, you need to rethink your priorities.

5 Reasons to Love Web 2.0

A big thing I encourage when it comes to marketing tactics is to use the routes that your competition doesn't. This often gets confused for viral/guerrilla marketing, but mostly it's just inventing new ways to reach out to your audience. A lot of the time, this means using some of the new 'in' technologies of web 2.0, and here's why:

1. New utilities mean the Older competition won't use them.
   Well, why would they? They're already popular, and a contented brand doesn't push as hard as a new one struggling to get the word out. Of course, they get more bang for their effort, so it's a trade off, but at least that's a few less people you have to worry about for your competition.
   
2. New utilities are ravenous content-vores; at worst, it'll be digested quickly and forgotten faster.
   Unlike LiveJournal and other forum-type software where all your most embarrassing moments will remain displayed for eternity unless you make a concerted effort (or end up mistaken for a pedophile), bad content on 2.0 gets buried quickly under mounds of new content, if it shows up at all. Thankfully this means that unless you fail so hard it becomes infamous, you have a good chance to change your behavior and try again without much effort.
   
3. The best ones are also super-easy to update, which allows you to be more regular.
   Twitter's a prime example: 140-characters-or-less posts, doable by SMS, IM, or through your computer. Basically, when you're just standing in line somewhere, you now have time to fire off a quick post. I use mine for keeping people posted on my buffer, witty one-liners, or other things I might forget later.
   
4. They make you look more accessible, and accessibility is king.
   Artists tend to become more reclusive as they get bigger, which is fine for us since it means that the more accessible you are, the more likely they'll come to you even when you're not their favorite, but they still like you.
   
5. You're putting out lots and lots of content for later.
   The people who will be real fans of your work will want to swarm over every single detail you already have out there; yes, it's stalker-ish, but it's true. You may as well let them get lost in your own content so they remain enamoured longer (and also to keep them satiated before they start clamoring for more)

So go ahead and try some new technologies and sites. Worst case, you wasted a little time, but in the best case, you're tapping into a whole new market.

Stay Away from the "Real Artists"

When I'd first started the blog, I had a huge diatribe written out about DeviantArt and how while the site had useful features, the DeviantArt community itself was poisonous and essentially the MySpace of art sites, with the exception that you have to pay good money to DeviantArt to properly assault people's eyeballs. I deleted it for (among other reasons) believing that I was being heavy-handed to blast the place just because they made it too easy for everyone to get a page there; after all, making things easier is something any person starting out in a new field wants to encourage.

After roughly a week's worth of sitting on this, I realized the problem wasn't Sturgeon's Law; it was the presence of the "Professional Internet Artist", which falls in the same vein as the "Internet Tough Guy" but with minimally more marketable drawing skills. They might be big people in a certain corner of the community, or they might actually be pretty decent artists, but the main distinction is that they either:

• Still hang out too much online in certain communites, especially if they work in a digital medium. To be anything worthwhile, yes, becoming known in communities is important to becoming well-known, but at the same time, if you're there too much it's an admission that you've got nothing better to do (which, if you're starting out, is at least partly true) or you're a lazy artist. Being a Lazy Hacker is cool; being a lazy artist isn't.
• Seem to think they know exactly what's wrong with your attitude and your work, but at the same time aren't willing to help you do anything about it. The reason is that they have no incentive to give you any advice other than "go away and come back when you're better", but we'll get to that in a moment.
  

While it'd be all too easy to say they're just assholes for the sake of being assholes, we'll have better luck actually getting to the heart of the difference why (at least if you're going into a niche part of the art market like comics) it's best to just avoid these folk. Most of the rationale can be traced back to a key difference between a 'Professional' Artist versus a 'Professional' Blogger (and let's face it, I keep saying your comic's a blog for a reason): Professional Artists work on individual commission. Professional Bloggers work on collective effort.

As to why this makes a difference, look up to where I mentioned "having no incentive" to be nice to you and give you appropriate criticism. Artists work for money just like everyone else, but they work for only one person's money at a time. Until the artist gets to a level where more people are willing to pay than he's willing to work for, he has to make himself stand out as above the 90% crap line; there's a lot of ways to do this, but the favored method seems to be making everyone else look like crap through criticism.

Criticism can be a subtle form of trolling, in that any sort of response to it tends to make you look like an asshole for questioning it (unless it's really obvious they've overstepped a boundary), while for the person giving the crticism it gives them twofold benefit in making them look better than you are and either forcing you to accept the insult (thus proving them right) or reject it (which gives them an opportunity to label you with a bad attitude, giving them the high road). This isn't to say all criticism is bad, but "You forgot to draw Sonic's ears in" is far less likely to get a bad response than "Your anatomy is awful, I'd never commission someone of such low skill."

Depending on collective effort, meanwhile, is a necessity for comic artists and bloggers alike because there is far more strength banding together for them then there is in standing apart the way freelance artists do. The reasons are obvious: Bloggers depend on collective authority and the connections of the internet to maintain their positions of power, and likewise, comic artists working together can leverage conventions and other money-making opportunities that would otherwise be inaccessible singly.

Comic artists won't have nearly the same level of arrogance regarding their work because they realize that beyond the general skill involved in 'making art', comics require the ability to tell a story as well: this means skill in paneling, lettering, and other comic-specific traits that have to be balanced in along with the ability to make good artwork. Having 'great' artwork is now relative because it has to be balanced in with producing lots of it in a way that is interesting for the reader to follow, and of course, the more you work with other comic artists, the more likely they will draw new fans to you as well; some of the best artists work as parts of a comic collective that assist and support each other by association.

Ergo, comic artists have incentive to be as helpful as possible; a rising tide floats all boats, after all, and anyone who can get new readers into their comic can also bring new readers into everyone else's comic as well as their own. Since comic artists only require a little from everyone instead of depending on one person's commissions, working to get lots of new readers (of which a few will hopefully pay more to get something special!) is a key goal of their work.

So support your local comic artist. You'll be supporting everyone else's too.

Whatever Software You Use, Know How to Use It.

In previous examples of how I work on the comic, I've mentioned a plethora of programs used - Illustrator, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, etc. It's not that these programs are the best for what I want to do, but instead because I know a little of each and so it's useful to have such experience in a few different programs, enough that you can fake your way around others if necessary.

Encouraging people to experiment with different features and methods in these programs tends to work better when you're not in a hurry to get the results, which is all the more reason to build up a backlog. There's no secret to this one; a little bit of time will help you find the magic bullets, and it's best to learn on your own.

How else do you plan on remembering it?

Stop Starving Yourself, Stop Starving Yourself...

Starving yourself is bad, mmkay? And the cutting. And the booze. I realize that whatever a man, a woman, two dwarves and a parakeet get up into the privacy of their own home is their business, but for God's sake, man, making yourself feel like crap makes your work feel like crap too.

Whether you really want to admit it or not, your work is an extension of your well-being on top of everything else. Happy artists get work done. Not-so happy artists get work done too, but it probably won't be their best stuff. There's being able to convey certain emotions in your work, and then there's dragging yourself into these deep dark pits where you can't seem to do anything but sit in front of the TV watching The Price is Right and sucking down cheese. Or maybe that's the point in the creative process where you decide to get your character captured and raped by some psychopath. Either way it's not the place to be.

Sure, there's times where pain is acceptable, necessary, and even beneficial. Self-destructive behavior is none of the above. Don't fool yourself into thinking that this is limited to physical actions either: DeviantArt pissing you off because you're not getting enough hits/comments? Stop visiting. E-mail making you mad? Check it less. Troll getting on your case? Block his ass.

The simple matter is that drama, whining, bitching, and moaning in general are turn-offs. Sure, you can still be successful AND be completely emo, but don't expect it to get you further than the ones who look unflappable and know where to cut their losses. It's a reputation thing, and it's not that people won't sympathize with you... it's that if you bitch over everything they'll wonder when you'll start bitching about them instead.

If you don't want to look back on your posts and cringe, stop writing the posts in the first place and spend more time doing something about it.

A Painful Lesson in Hesitation

Yesterday I signed onto the Anime Weekend Atlanta Website to discover that tables in Artist's Alley had all filled up. I'd only found out about them opening on the 10th, so at some point between the three days it took me to decide to go for it, they'd sold out; a rather gut-wrenching reality check about how dangerous doubt actually is.

'Doubt' is fear. Fear causes good ideas to get tempered down into mediocre, presumably more palatable ones, and in the process changes the idea and turns it into garbage. Fear is what people go for in trying to hit a 'good' market, in second guessing themselves, in trying to listen to everyone when they tell you "Nobody likes [your genre], get a new one".

In short, I'm sick of fear.