24-Hour Comics Day is in a few weeks — October 5th, to be exact. Here’s what you need to know…
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Comics educator and author Scott McCloud calls them the “bulgy Edsels of comics iconography.” Indeed, cloud-like thought balloons are spurned by most comics artists.
Let’s talk about why that is… and whether it’s warranted or not.
In the early days of comic-book history, as artists and writers struggled to build the lexicon of a fledgling art form, it’s no question that the thought balloon was becoming a crutch. Instead of a glimpse into the thoughts of a character, it was a way of explaining action and plot that should have been illustrated instead.
There’s no doubt that the early Lee/Ditko Spider-Man comics were thought-balloon heavy.
In Panel One, the thought ballon “an electrically-activated mechanical bat” attempts to explain a plot feature that should have been conveyed through illustration instead. Panel Two also uses a thought balloon to do the job of the illustration. In fact, you can see it happening throughout the scene above.
As comics art matured, this overuse of expositional and explanatory thought balloons became frowned upon.
And although comics legend Jack Kirby famously used movies as inspiration for his visuals, the comics industry itself was soon regarding Hollywood as a competitor for consumer dollars as well. And comics artists were encouraged to go beyond inspiration, towards emulation.
Comics writer John Ostrander reported that he was forbidden from using thought balloons “because they didn’t have them in movies.”
Although it was a good idea to limit the overuse of thought balloons, the fact remained that conveying inner thoughts efficiently was a necessary part of some storytelling.
When writer/artist Frank Miller presented Elektra’s internal monologue in narration boxes, it quickly became adopted as a replacement for those exposition-heavy thought balloons.
Even today, narration boxes are greatly preferred for internal monologue, and thought balloons are given a weary side-eye. In fact, McCloud considers thought balloons to be patronizing in their very nature! (Somehow the pictogram thought balloons of Asterios Polyp are spared this scorn.)
I like thought balloons — used correctly. Those early craftspeople were right in rejecting the thought balloon used as a storytelling crutch. But criminalizing thought balloons entirely is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Comics writer Kurt Buseik may have put it best: “Eschewing thought balloons as a creative choice can result in interesting approaches. Eschewing them as a blanket formula, though, is just dumb.”
UPDATE: The USPS has negotiated a deal that enables them to stay in the Global Postal Union. From CNBC:
According to FreightWaves.com:
Barring an eleventh-hour agreement, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will leave the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on October 17, ending 144 years of U.S. involvement in the international body that governs the exchange of mail and postal parcels between countries, and perhaps fundamentally changing the landscape of global air shipping.
The piece goes on to quote Matthew White, a strategist for iDrive Logistics, in estimating a price increase of “at least 300%” for shipping internationally into the United States. Since the USPS will cancel negotiated service agreements (NSA) covering international shipments if the withdrawal takes place, U.S.-based international shippers will also pay more.
That means US-based independent creators shipping things like Kickstarter rewards to backers overseas may be paying much more in shipping costs. If you have a Kickstarter in the works — or if you’re offering physical merchandise to Patreon backers — this is going to impact your cost estimates significantly.
Shipping software provider released the following on Sept. 19:
Background
On Oct. 17, 2018, the White House announced the start of a one-year withdrawal process from the Universal Postal Union, a United Nations organization established in 1874 that regulates global mail delivery and rates among its 192 member countries. The primary concern of the White House is the subsidized rate set by the UPU for delivery of lightweight packages sent from countries such as China. That rate, which is much lower than the domestic delivery cost charged by the U.S. Postal Service to American shippers, puts US e-commerce businesses at a disadvantage.
In an effort to keep the United States in the organization, UPU members will vote for proposals to reform the terminal dues system at the UPU Extraordinary Congress scheduled for Sept. 24-25 in Switzerland. However, if the outcome is not satisfactory, the U.S. may leave the organization — a scenario that will create uncertainty and possible disruption of USPS international shipping.
New GlobalPost international shipping services
The newly introduced GlobalPost international services are not reliant on U.S. relationships with the UPU. Our network leverages partnerships with international postal operators as well as commercial carriers to offer worldwide delivery with quality postal services at extremely competitive rates.
Whether or not the United States withdraws from the UPU, GlobalPost will allow you to continue to ship internationally with similar transit times, customs clearances and competitive rates. Best of all, GlobalPost services include features not found in traditional international offerings, including:
For more information about GlobalPost, please visit our FAQ.
This episode of ComicLab is sponsored by Wacom! In this week’s show, the ComicLab guys discuss how converting to a digital workflow on Cintiqs improved their time management. Also, how do you balance storytelling tension in a longform comic? Next, the guys talk best practices in newsletters. Later, should you hire a proofreader? Dave Kellett shares an update on his ongoing Kickstarter, and finally, what are the must-have features for a book project?
BUT FIRST… Ensure killed my pappy!
QUESTIONS ASKED…
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Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the editor of Webcomics.com
Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive.
A student majoring in Comic Art at Minneapolis College of Art & Design, wrote to me asking if he could ask me some questions. I was happy to answer them, but since the questions seemed so universal, I asked permission to answer the questions in the form of a video so I could share it with others as well. This series will be in four parts — maybe more.
Today’s questions are:
1. Why did you choose to do webcomic instead of the traditional comic route?
2. Is there a big difference between the comic and webcomic industry?
3. Making it in the comic industry is like being drafted to play in the NBA, how do you get there? And how do you know you’ve made, especially if you self-publish or do webcomic?
4. When you first started how did you find an audience and get people to look at your stuff? And what do you recommend to newcomers now that the market is flooded with webcomics?
5. With such a busy schedule, especially for webcomic creator where you have to post daily, how do you recharge your batteries and find the time to do so?
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Everybody assumed libraries would just …disappear … in the age of the Internet. But they’re still around — and in many communities, they’re just as vibrant and indispensable as ever. And for a working artist, I think libraries are irreplaceable — for several reasons
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Inktober was launched by Jake Parker in 2009. He started Inktober as a way of challenging himself to improve his inking skills and as a way of developing positive drawing habits.
It has risen steadily in popularity, and it will surely be trending in your social-media feeds this October. If you’d like to participate, it’s really easy…
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One of the smartest things you can do as your webcomic starts to transition from hobby to business is to establish a new bank account for your burgeoning venture. Keeping comics finances separate from your household income has several benefits. Here’s what you need to know…
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Today we’re going to talk about a sentence that every last one of us have uttered:
I really feel like if I could get more people to see the comic they would actually like it…
There’s not a webcartoonist alive who doesn’t feel that way. Heck, I would imagine it applies to any creative profession. It’s one of our very few Universal Sentiments.
But it’s a mindset that misses an important point, and until you understand it, I think it’s going to hold you back.
What I think you’re missing is this: You’re already getting new readers. Every day. The question you should be asking yourself is whether you’re keeping the new readers you do get. And if that answer is no, you have to take a long, hard, objective look at why that is. If you think your comic is good — and if you’re not keeping new readers — then maybe it’s not as good as you think it is.
Think about it. Every day you’re getting new readers. If they like your comic, they’ll become regular readers. If they don’t like your comic, they won’t.
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Let’s say I gave you a magic wand. With one wave of the wand, you could get a million people to view your site on one given day. On that day — poof! — a million potential readers. If that comic’s not good enough, how many of them are going to stay? How many of them will come back tomorrow? Conventional Wisdom tells us that you’ll get a decent percentage — but for how long? If that next update isn’t very good, you’re going to lose some of those. And unless you’re able to Bring It — with frequency, consistency and significant — on a regular basis, you will have lost most (if not all) of those million in the span of a few months.
Now, what would you say if I told you that you already have that magic wand?
It’s called your Web site. And although it’s not going to deliver that million new readers on one single day, it will deliver them over the course of the next year or two. If you’ve been publishing for a while, it probably already has delivered that many. Maybe more.
Have you kept them? If not… is it the wand’s fault?
I can’t tell you if your comic is good or not… but your traffic will give you some clues. Look at your update days. A high ratio of new visitors coupled with a high bounce rate tells you that you brought new people in the door, and they didn’t find anything there to encourage them to read any further.
And you have to compare both stats. For example, if you have a high ratio of return visitors — coupled with a high bounce rate — that’s an indication that those readers aren’t diving into the archive because they’ve already read that content.
Everything after the quality of the comic itself is secondary. But the two top secondary concerns are Web-site retention and social media.
Take a moment and look at your site from the perspective of a first-time visitor. Now ask yourself:
Does your Web site retain readers?
Does your site load quickly?
Are you encouraging financial support in the form of sales, Patreon, and so forth?
Do you promote archive storylines?
Do you make it easy to navigate into the archive?
Can new readers find archived material based on their own interests?
Can a new reader easily figure out the concept behind your comic in an About page?
Does your site make it clear that there’s more going on than just that one comic they see?
Does your site make it clear that there are other ways to enjoy your content — books, eBooks, etc.?
In other words, what are you doing to make sure your new readers will come back tomorrow — or at least stick around for a little while longer and become increasingly interested in what you’re doing.
Now more than ever, reading habits are changing on the Web. That makes social-media outreach on the Web super-important. Readers rely less on bookmarks and RSS feeds — and more on social-media alerts. It’s just something we can’t ignore. I offer tons and tons and tons of tutorials and advice on this site to help members do their social media outreach better.
But as important as it is to have a healthy social-media presence, it’s absolutely crucial to make it easy for people to use social media to tell their friends about your comic. That’s why I always advocate having “share” buttons under the comic. Having buttons on your site that lead to your social-media pages isn’t nearly as important as having buttons on your site that enable readers to share your work.
If you’re not doing this, I think you’re making a very big mistake.
Message boards are becoming less and less important (from a promotions standpoint) and paid advertising…? You have to put an awful lot of time and energy into making this a worthwhile investment of time and energy. Otherwise, it’s a gamble. Now that we’ve passed the tipping point in the use of ad blockers, it’s a complete waste of time and energy.
And that’s just the problem. It’s not a question of installing one simple plug-in on your site. And it’s not a question of improving a single punchline or story beat. It’s doing all of that — plus social media, plus a whole lot more — and doing it tomorrow, too, and the day after that… It’s an ongoing struggle. Next chance you get, ask a creative pro who you think has “made it,” and ask him or her what they did to get to that point.
Nine-chances-out-of-ten, they’ll tell you that they’ll let you know as soon as they get there.
From the Graphic Artists Guild:
Washington, DC (September 11, 2019): The Graphic Artists Guild thanks the House Judiciary Committee for passing HR 2426, The CASE Act Amendment in Nature of a Substitute, out of committee by voice vote with no dissensions. The small copyright claims tribunal proposed by The CASE Act is a voluntary, affordable, expedited option that is balanced and fair to both copyright holders and copyright users.
The bill has already passed the Senate, so now it moves forward to be voted on by both chambers. According to Billboard.com, “Industry sources say they are hopeful it will come to a full vote in both legislative arms before the October recess.” Also from Billboard:
“The legislation would create the Copyright Claims Board at the U.S. Copyright office, who would hear and rule on small claims cases of copyright infringement where damages would be capped at $15,000 per claim and $30,000 in total, which means that smaller independents can file claims without taking on the added expense of an attorney.”
But the CASE Act does have its detractors. From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
“The CASE Act’s goal is to make it simple and fast for copyright holders to get paid for infringement claims. The method it employs is to create a quasi-judicial body in the Copyright Office called the “Copyright Claims Board,” which would be able to award damages as high as $30,000 per proceeding, while also strictly limiting the ability of parties to appeal the decisions. $30,000 judgments issued by people who are not judges but rather officers of the Copyright Office, who see copyright holders—not the general public—as their customers, are not “small claims”. These are judgments that could ruin the lives of regular people; people who are engaging in the things we all do when we’re online: sharing memes, sharing videos, and downloading images.”
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