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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Adding lettering to improve original art sales

Adding lettering to improve original art sales

Selling original art is an integral part of the business model of an independent cartoonist who works with traditional media...
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Reader retention

Reader retention

Let's face it. One of the biggest hurdles in growing a webcomic is reader retention. That's why I encourage you...
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Understanding Web traffic

We all obsess over our Web stats — even though we know we shouldn’t. But paying a little healthy attention to your Web stats is actually a good way to gauge your progress and tweak your site’s performance. The trick here is not to get hung up on the numbers, but to pay attention instead to trends.

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by on November 25, 2009
Posted In: Articles, Tech
14 Comments

Facebook Fan Pages

Since the topic of Facebook Fan Pages has sprouted in the forum, it might be a good idea to take a look around at a few thoughts about doing it well.

To set a Fan Page up, go to Facebook’s site for creating a fan page. At first, your Fan Page will be a glorified Facebook profile page — Wall, photos, news feed, list of fans, and so on. Of course, you don’t want to stop there.

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by on November 24, 2009
Posted In: Articles, Tech
25 Comments

Web Design Hot Seat: MOF Comic

John Bogenschutz offered MOF Comic for a Web site review. It’s a pretty well-done site, but I’m obsessed with getting as much on the first screen as possible, so I’m gonna really move stuff around. Tell me if you think it will work. Here’s the original site:

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by on November 20, 2009
Posted In: Articles, Tech
18 Comments

Web Design Hot Seat: Bunny Pandemic

The cartoonist who does Bunny Pandemic (who also doesn’t sign his or her e-mails nor includes a name on the site) offered the BP site for design review. Since it is an example of a square-shaped comic, it might be a good idea to see how it would best be laid out.

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by on November 19, 2009
Posted In: Articles, Tech
22 Comments

Web Design Hot Seat: Galactic Divine

Laurie of Galactic Divine has volunteered her site, Galactic Divine, for a Web site critique. She’s doing a long-form, full-page comic — which brings with it a number of specific challenges. Once again, this is what I see on the first screen (my resolution is 1152×870).

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by on November 18, 2009
Posted In: Articles, Tech
11 Comments

Web Design Hot Seat: Calamities of Nature

Tony Piro, of Calamities of Nature, has bravely volunteered his comic as a test subject for the Web design hot seat. Luckily, he’s got a pretty tight site design, but we’ll do out best to workshop it. For the record, what you see below is the “first screen” of the site as it loaded on my screen (1152 x 870).

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by on November 17, 2009
Posted In: Articles, Tech
15 Comments

Three Ways to Improve Your Web Design

Many webcomic sites fall into the same traps in designing a place that a new reader can easily navigate and assimilate. Tweaking your site in these three areas will make your site more navigatable to new readers — which will translate into greater reader-retention and higher pageviews.

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by on November 16, 2009
Posted In: Art, Tech
13 Comments

Keeping it plug-free

Just a quick reminder about a Webcomics.com posting guideline: No plugging.

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by on November 12, 2009
Posted In: Uncategorized