November To-Do List

November To-Do List

It's time to get started on (*choke*) the penultimate month of 2024.If you plan to offer new merchandise for the...
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ComicLab Ep 359 — Should your readers be your writers?

ComicLab Ep 359 — Should your readers be your writers?

BlueSky is beginning to feel like Twitter did ten years ago! Engagement is up, conversations are genuine, and follower counts...
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Understanding social media

Understanding social media

Social media is among an independent artist's most frustrating elements. We struggle for engagement, wage constant battles with "The Algorithm,"...
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Writing humor

Writing humor

Writing comedy is a challenge that is made even more daunting by the fact that humor itself is completely subjective...
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CMYK vs RGB

CMYK vs RGB

If you're saving your comics in RGB mode, you may be making a potentially expensive mistake. The content you are...
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ComicLab Ep 358 — “Help! I’m not funny anymore!”

ComicLab Ep 358 — “Help! I’m not funny anymore!”

Cartoonists Dave and Brad share some thoughts with a young humor writer trying to find their Funny. Also: Is BlueSky...
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ISBN — a beginner’s guide

ISBN — a beginner’s guide

An ISBN is a 10- or 13-digit number used to identify a book from a specific publisher. Once your book...
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How to write a Halloween joke

How to write a Halloween joke

On Substack, a cartoonist was struggling with writing a Halloween joke. He was experiencing a common problem. He was stuck...
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Webcomics Confidential: Size doesn’t matter

Webcomics Confidential: Size doesn’t matter

when it comes to your audience, size doesn't matter. A small and engaged readership beats a huge, lukewarm audience every...
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ComicLab Ep 357 — Innovation fascination

ComicLab Ep 357 — Innovation fascination

Having wrapped up his 16th Kickstarter, cartoonist Dave Kellett shares some insights about setting realistic expectations, avoiding paid advertising, and...
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iPad Security at Cons

Brad has written some great articles about using Square to take credit card transactions during con season, and I can personally attest to how great a service Square truly is. But today I want to talk to you about the one hiccup I had this con season while using Square.The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on October 25, 2011
Posted In: Conventions
└ Tags: ,
5 Comments

Next “Hot Seat” critique… any suggestions?

Since starting the site, we’ve done several Hot Seat critiques. The Hitch It / Ditch It critique that we just wrapped up went over very well. But we’ve also held critiques that focused on a specific part of members’ webcomics — such as logo design, Web site functionality, writing, etc. — that were very popular as well.
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by on October 24, 2011
Posted In: Hot Seat critiques
26 Comments

Hitch it / Ditch it: Atomic Landromat, Guinea Something Good, You Say It First, Ends -N- Means

Atomic Laundromat

Hitch it: Clean, expressive, consistent art. Armando’s line and drawing style are both perfectly suited for this anime-inspired look. The characters are consistent from panel to panel and from update to update. And their expressiveness is really fantastic. I’d like to see some backgrounds in a few of those panels, but overall, the art is very enjoyable.
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by on October 20, 2011
Posted In: Hot Seat critiques, Lettering, Web site, Writing
└ Tags: , , , , ,
7 Comments

Using Firebug to thwart malicious advertisers

After the Facebinks ordeal from earlier this month, I’ve started taking a more active role in guarding against malicious ads on my site. In addition to my reader outreach — explaining what ads I allow and which should be considered malicious — I installed Firebug on my Firefox browser and suggested that my readers, if they’d like to help, do likewise. I also advocated using Fiddler, which can be used on practically any browser.
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by on October 19, 2011
Posted In: Advertising, Web site
└ Tags: , ,
4 Comments

NYCC: What I Learned — Adapting on the Fly

I learned an important lesson exhibiting at this year’s New York Comic Con: It’s important to gauge floor traffic early and adapt your display based on what you see.

This year, I exhibited in the Small Press area. To give you an idea of the general layout, I’ll use one of the promotional pieces from my site.
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by on October 17, 2011
Posted In: Conventions
└ Tags: 
10 Comments

Will Webcomics Accept a Photo-Comic?!

Do you think a photo comic can be taken seriously in the webcomic world?

I got that question via Twitter earlier this week. And it’s actually a lot more complex than it might seem on first glance.The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on October 13, 2011
Posted In: Mail Bag
8 Comments

Scott Kurtz: Critical Self-Examination

I wanted to share with you subscribers a part of my process today. Sometimes it’s called “second guessing” but I like to label it “critical self-examination” because that sounds better and much more noble a process.
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by on October 11, 2011
Posted In: Art
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24 Comments

Facebinks: What did we learn?

ContextWebs (now called PulsePoint) representatives contacted me Saturday evening to tell me that they believed they had successfully stopped the Facebinks invasion.

I was able to reproduce the Facebinks issue late this afternoon – and we believe we’ve found and paused the offending advertiser – on first glance it looks like they’ve been deliberately using either IP-filtering or referrer detection to spoof both our automatic and manual safeguards for malware – we’re tossing around some ideas on our end for how we might be able to introduce better checks in that regard.
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by on October 10, 2011
Posted In: Advertising
└ Tags: ,
3 Comments