Would it be a fair assessment to say that there are more webcomics creators out there than there are fans that do not have a comic? It's perfectly understandable that people that started thier own comics were fans that decided that they could become part of the genre. It seems that comics message boards are filled with creators , many of whom want traffic to thier sites. I think that webcomics have gotten to the point that the only people that read the comics are other creators.
Hmm...they could well be a dying breed...
To be honest, I wasn't even a webcomic reader before I started putting stuff up a few months ago...Now I read a few...less than ten, definitely...
We need to put them on a conservation list, I reckon.
Okay, you all brought up some great points and there ARE fans out there that aren't also creators. So, for you creators that have a number of these fans frequenting your comic; how did you draw them in? How do you reach a non-creator to let them them know that your webcomic exists and they should take a look without posting on a board crawling with only other creators?
The social club for web comic creators?
Damn, I'm in, let me get my smoking jacket and a manhattan...
Okay got 'em.
On the subject, I think pretty much all the points here are valid, except the whole 'no fans' thing. Before joinging GraphicSmash I ran Reckless Life off my personal site, and the forum was pretty dead, but the hits were damned good.
Now that I'm on GS, yeah I got alot of forum traffic from other creators, but that's a direct result of being part of an anthology site and more and more webcomicers seem to be joining forces, which is a good thing. Regardless, as a creator I like swaping one-liners and shooting the shinola with other people who are into this, almost as much as I enjoy having a fan glorify my ego. (And if it gives me something to do at work.)
I know also that when I was only a reader, message boards and the like scared the SHIT out of me. What was I gonna say? I had no idea. Nowadays I'm almost flippant with them, I dive in without a second thought; and I think a lot of that comes from now being a creator and feeling like I can do that. I figure there might be quite a lot of readers that look at webcomic creators as being quite unapproachable despite all the facilities we throw out. Other creators are more likely to get in touch because a) they probably want something and b) because they know you're just another idiot with a pencil.
Brief, bizarre case in point; I met a friend's girlfriend for the first time sometime last year, and the FIRST thing she said to me was "WHYDIDYOUSTOPDRAWINGYOURCOMIC?". I had forums, email, all the usual ways to get in touch before then. And yet her first contact with me was when she met me in person (and as a friend, it was hardly a cold call) and the first thing she said was blurted out in a way that reminded me of how I talk when I meet someone when I'm shitting myself. She said it before she'd even said hello. It was absolutely mad, and pretty uncomfortable for the both of us, I think. Definitely the last thing I expected; shit, I was terrified of her in the first place because I'd never met her before.
I'm not saying we're celebrities or anything. XD I'm just saying that we know this shit from the other side of the fence, but a lot of people don't, some people have no idea how we do what we do.
Another thing is, we tend to use forums now. Forums require registration (sometimes) and have this "community" aspect that can be quite intimidating. People might not WANT to get involved in a forum. Back in the days when I had a guestbook there used to be a much larger proportion of plain ol' readers signing it 'cos I figure there's no obligation there, you just leave your message and move on. With forums, you might have to be "interesting", or be aware of all the little rules, or have a conversation. The concept of just leaving a little note saying "like the comic, keep doing it" doesn't seem to work so well 'cos people are expected to discuss/ignore/flame it.
As another webcomic artist those aren't normally considerations 'cos you just go "nice comic bro". You can play the "peer" card. "Hey. I do what you do. I like what you do. Well done."
ANOTHER reason could be that we know how this shit works. Every bastard has a forum on their webcomic nowadays, it's pretty much expected. However, a reader (especially someone new to wbecomics) might not have even looked at it, and the thought might not even occur to them to even get in contact, they're there for the comic, not the conversation.
And yeah, the reason there's not many fans here and around Buzz is the same reason I like car racin' but don't really want to know how the engine works. We're the geeks of the geeks, man. :D It's like a grannie's knitting meet where we discuss what needles we use and whether "knit one, pearl one" is overrated or not.
But yeah, I reckon you could divide the readership into groups; creators, givemethecomicthankyouverymuch readers (undoubtably the highest proportion), the terrified fans (and DON'T pretend they don't exist, 'cos they do; how many times do you see in a forum "OMG! You replied! Thanksyou so much!"? Not too often... but probably 'cos the rest are too scared to post. XD I've seen it happen several times to toher creators, although not to me.) and the people that realise you're just a guy behind a keyboard (which are the readers that you end up talking to on your forum).
Not a scientific list, and don't hold me to it. XD But yeah. That's what I reckon.
EDIT: holy crap, that's a hell of a post. Sorry. O_o -chikin
I'm tempted to print that image out and make a motivational poster.
I've decided to say ta heck the community. I'm turning my webcomic into a cult instead. That way I get minions and tax exempt status.
DON'T JUST DRAW
THAT WEBCOMIC
DRAW THE HELL OUT OF IT
I'd say maybe 5% of my readers have ever stopped in my forum - the rest send me emails or don't make their presence known at all. Most of the forum-goers either have online comics or some other form of online presence (a well-read blog, etc).
So maybe some people are more comfortable baring themselves to the online community (in whatever fashion) than others.
I'd have to say that while I have a large number of webcomic artists reading my comic the vast majority of readers are not webcomic artists.
As people have mentioned Comixpedia is kind of an online social club for webcomic creators so that's why it seems like we're the only ones reading webcomics.
I think it would be more accurate to say that all webcomic creators are webcomic readers but not all webcomic readers are webcomic creators.
There is certainly a higher number of creator/readers than there is in print comics simply because anyone, regardless of skill or talent, can create and publish their own webcomic. When I was a kid, reading Spider-man comics, if I had the ability to publish and distribute my own comic books you can bet your last loonie that I'd have been doing so.
The web lets fans become creators. Hell, that's all I am, really. Sure my webcomic has a huge readership and all that but when it comes right down to it, I'm just a fanboy who never grew up. My artwork is passable at best (although slowly improving) and it's only the strength of my writing that has carried me this far. If it wasn't for the web's ability to allow fans to become creators let's face it, I and a good many other webcomic creators would not be making comics.
[quote:ded630f813="cm_evans"]I expected that these types of forums would be heavy ended towards creators, rather than people who just visit sites.
I agree with this in regards to locals like Comixpedia and TAC. It seems to me that a lot of the comics that I read (And draw for that matter) seem to be frequented by other artists more than the general public.
I guess most of havent figured out the fine art of pandering yet.
I sure doubt I'm a dying breed ;) Although it would make me unique :D
:P
There are plenty of webcomic fans, otherwise how would comics like Penny-Arcade and 8-bit theatre support their artists? I seriously doubt 50% of their paying audience is webcomic artists ;) Plus you look at comics like MysteriumHouse which has a very small audience, most of it is comprised of fans ;)
As for the amount of fans/ visitors question, I can say from my own experience & data of visitors to my site, that at this point most visitors to my webcomic are from outside sources. The biggest hits come from miscellaneous chatboards and forums in the hundreds and thousands -- often I have no idea how they found my site. It wasn't like that to begin with, obviously -- part of the difficulty in getting more people to visit is to overcome the gravity of your associates, friends, and like-minded peers to get into the "wider" audience space. That can be quite hard, for some reason. Possibly because there is so much data noise out there, and most of it is not very remarkable. Now -- I expected that these types of forums would be heavy ended towards creators, rather than people who just visit sites. Again, because of the amount of noise out there. My ten cents.
The boards that belong to specific comics aren't like that by a long shot. Comixpedia is, but come on, if you're reading a site about web comics in general, you're a total web comics dork and thus are wont to have your own comic.
Would it be a fair assessment to say that there are more webcomics creators out there than there are fans that do not have a comic? It's perfectly understandable that people that started thier own comics were fans that decided that they could become part of the genre. It seems that comics message boards are filled with creators , many of whom want traffic to thier sites. I think that webcomics have gotten to the point that the only people that read the comics are other creators.
marine here, and I'd have to agree, webcomics are hard to find by the general public. It seems most search engines gear towards sprite comics, if any comics... so yeah, thats a tad biased.
Google ranks according how many links your comic has going to it, last I understood. So, if you're running "Sprite X" comic and you have 100 people linking you, you will still appear lower in the Google search results than "Sprite Z" who has 10,000 links.
Anyway, here are the results for my punching in "Webcomic" into Google, Marine. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=webcomic&btnG=Search
I dont think Something Positive is a sprite comic.
I'm the number one result returned for a search on "Ghastly".
Woohoo!
Oooh! Number one for a search on "tentacle monsters" too!
[quote:9286a81b48="William_G"]Google ranks according how many links your comic has going to it, last I understood. So, if you're running "Sprite X" comic and you have 100 people linking you, you will still appear lower in the Google search results than "Sprite Z" who has 10,000 links.
Anyway, here are the results for my punching in "Webcomic" into Google, Marine. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=webcomic&btnG=Search
I dont think Something Positive is a sprite comic.
When I clicked on the link in your post, there were no sprite comics on the first page of results. Something Positive wasn't there either. These things may be more fluid than we realize.
[quote:9286a81b48="Ghastly"]I'm the number one result returned for a search on "Ghastly".
Woohoo!
Oooh! Number one for a search on "tentacle monsters" too!
On the first page of ten results for "gadzikowski", Arthur, King of Time and Space pages are listed third and fourth (there were none in the top ten the last time I looked, probably months ago) among pages from my eight-year-old fanfiction site, my site at the university where I work, and sites I've written or drawn cartoons for; and one hit with a Usenet post my wife made ten years ago.
"'king arthur'" brings up scholarly sites, pseudohistorical metaphysics sites, movie sites, and flour ads, but no pages of Arthur, King of Time and Space in the first fifty results "of about 1,750,000". "'king arthur' webcomic" brings up an Arthur-related page from my fanfiction site fourth and an Arthur, King of Time and Space page ninth.
At least it looks like I'm the first one doing something like this, as opposed to if I had gone with the plan to rework the King Arthur legends into a series of space opera novels.
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Who IS that handsome bastard with the pipe? ;)
Getting to the topic at hand, I actually liken the webcomics world a bit to the manga scene in Japan. A load of the hardcore manga fans also create their own comics, be they fanwork or original stories. Hell, there are entire conventions devoted solely to fan made work.
So yeah, maybe the majority of webcomic readers are now web comic creators.
But ya know, I just can't see that as a bad thang.
We finally live in an age where people can not only create whatever they want, but have the means to distribute it to a huge audience. No, there is no guarentee of popularity, and no, there isn't much profit to it. But man, do you know what the underground cartoonists of the 70's would think if they could have had the potential exposure web cartoonists have today? This a golden age for creativity in that we have an outlet our forefather cartoonists couldn't have dreamed of.
Saga of the Ram
Here's what I did. Not necessarily useful for everyone. I started out my internet career in 1996 writing DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER fanfiction on Usenet and archiving the stories on a personal website.
When the dialup age was on its last legs about 1999 (or so I seem to have thought then, since the reason I didn't draw webcartoons before then was loadtime issues) I started drawing my fanfiction instead of writing it. I've never tracked hits at that site.
Since last May when I started my conventional webcomic (read: "my webcomic derivative of no work under comeone else's copyright") it's been getting just under a thousand unique visitors every month, which is a lot better than I gather most freshman efforts get. I assume most of these readers are people who followed me from the other site; at least one is someone from the Arthurnet mailing list. No one who's emailed has specified any other means of discovering me. I guess the moral is: to generate a readership for your webcomic, first spend five to ten years cultivating those who share your special interests.
I'd like to put ads on Arthurian-interest sites, but they seem all to be university-sponsored or otherwise not the sort of sites that sell adspace.
Try more general interest comic message boards as opposed to webcomic-centric ones. There's a higher fan to creator ratio, and people often aren't aware all the kinds of webcomic out there.
[quote:3afc2439c1="Rampart66"]So, for you creators that have a number of these fans frequenting your comic; how did you draw them in? How do you reach a non-creator to let them them know that your webcomic exists and they should take a look without posting on a board crawling with only other creators?
Well, it's not like I have fans yet, no comic until the 11th :p... But I thought I'd just pass on how I'm going about advertising to the masses.
1. Word of mouth... doesn't do much until you have lots of mouths. But its not like you can't plug your stuff yourself.
2. Posters. Sounds silly but as soon as I hit 50 comics(or maybe 30.. not sure yet) I'm printing off posters and slappin them allover college and university campuses. I put emphasis on the word "free".
3. Forums that aren't comic related but are maybe related to the theme of your comic. Like, my comic is sci-fi to a certain extent so I'll just ad a nice lil banner to my sig in a few sci-fi forums and drop a few messages here and there without looking like I'm blatantly advertising(usually easier if you want to be a part of the community in the first place)
4. Someone told me to make a bumper sticker! Just turn my banner ad into one. Seems cool, dunno if I ca get away with it though. My girlfriend loves our car.
That's all I have... hope they're helpful
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