Dave Kellett pointed me towards this excellent list, compiled by Melanie Gillman.
http://pigeonbits.tumblr.com/post/148910645278/grants-fellowships-and-residencies-for
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This is a re-post from the Webcomics.com archive. If you’ve ever been curious about the kind of information, tutorials and advice that you’ll get as part of your subscription to Webcomics.com, this is a good example.
If you’d like to join the site, you can get a 12-month subscription for $30 — or you can get a one-month Trial for $5 … with no obligation after your 30 days expire. For less than three bucks a month, you can get a steady flow of information, tutorials and advice targeted towards your webcomic business — plus a private forum to discuss issues with other professionally minded cartoonists.
He stood in front of my table, after hearing my prices for convention sketches.
“No,” he said, “I don’t want a commission… I just want a doodle.”
Try telling a plumber that you don’t want your drain unclogged — instead, you’d like him to come over and just… tinker… with your pipes.
He’ll tell you to turn blue.
I think artists could learn a lot from plumbers.
I made a choice to charge for sketches at comic conventions a long time ago, and it was the right choice for me. For starters, I never had the hang-up that so many artists seem to face when it comes to accepting that their work has value. What I do takes a certain degree of skill — and I’ve worked for a long time to develop that skill — so it follows that it’s worth money. And then there’s the simple logistics. If I’m spending extra time doing free sketches, then I’m being prevented from the things that I came to the convention to do — selling and (secondarily) promoting.
So I set up a very simple commission fee structure.
• I’ll do a free headshot sketch inside any book you purchase.
• I’ll do a single-character illustration with limited/no background for $20
• I’ll do an illustration with multiple characters or a single character in a fully developed scene for $40
• As the request gets more complicated, the price gets higher.
This structure does exactly what I want it to do.
• It weeds out people who aren’t really interested in a sketch by me.
• It reimburses me for the time at my table that I’m not selling/promoting.
• It ensures that the longer I spend on an illustration, the more I’m being reimbursed.
Let’s not kid ourselves — convention space is expensive and it’s available for a finite period of time. If you’re not thinking about a convention appearance in terms of turning a profit during those limited hours, you’re simply not going to be in business very long.
So, let’s get back to this guy who stood in front of my table at a recent comic convention.
Him: “I don’t want a commission… I just want a doodle.”
Me: “I don’t do doodles. I do commissioned sketches starting at $20.”
Him: “But I bought a book!”
Me: “I already put a free sketch in the book — at your request!”
Him: “But, still… I’m a customer.”
Me: “You wanted $20 worth of book. I sold you $20 worth of book and added another $20 worth of sketch. That transaction is over, and you got your money’s worth and then some.”
He hands me his sketchbook: “Listen. I know you do commissioned sketches all day long — drawing what people tell you to draw. Here’s an opportunity to just have fun and draw whatever you want!”
Me: “I want to draw a commissioned sketch for $20.”
Him: “It’s not a sketch! It’s a doodle! Have fun!”
Me: “You’re asking me to put zero effort into a drawing. Create a shitty piece of art. And then put my name on it?! Dude, my reputation is partially based on how well I draw. And I didn’t earn that reputation by letting shitty art circulate with my signature underneath! Can’t you understand that?!”
He couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. We went back and forth for what seemed like a solid thirty minutes. It became clear that he was going to block my booth until I did something to get rid of him.
So I took the sketchbook and flipped through it.
It had some truly gorgeous illustrations in it. Either he had paid for those drawings or his “just doodle” bullshit actually worked on some poor schmucks.
I did what I can only describe as a scribble. With my left hand.
And I didn’t sign my name.
And he walked away. With any luck, for the last time.
That’s what my wife asked me.
My answer was simple. First of all, my skill is worth money. And the minute I let some hammerhead convince me otherwise, I head down a slippery slope filled with bad decisions. And secondly — and by no means less important — if I did an honest-to-goodness convention sketch under the guise of a free “doodle,” I would be cheating all of those people who had actually bought a sketch. Which fan do I want to keep — the one who realizes that my work has value or the one who doesn’t?
If this guy never comes back to my table, I’m honestly OK with that. He can go become a fan of someone else’s comic. That is an OK outcome.
I have an entire community of readers who are eager to support what I do. That’s the group that I need to concentrate on pleasing. I’ll happily lose that “doodle” guy to you.
What are you going to do with him?
last month, I alerted you to Blasty, an online tool that helps you thwart illegal downloading of your copyrighted content.
Although I have had an excellent experience with Blasty, I wanted to share with you the procedure for filing a DMCA takedown notice. DMCA refers to the “Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” passed by president Bill Clinton in 1998.
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I was pleased to have the opportunity to talk with Ryan Friant of Nerdarchy a few weeks ago. We talked about my history in comics and the future of webcomics in general. There’s a lot of great discussion there.
Here’s a breakdown of what we discussed:
0:30 — Introduction
2:00 — When D&D was satanic
3:19 — Berke Breathed (Bloom County) was my main inspiration
4:17 — The Print vs Web debate is over
5:39 — The young Turks of webcomics have become the “Get off My Lawn” old folks… and some of us are very afraid.
8:20 — The Webcomics Renaissance. There’s never been a better time to be a cartoonist.
9:30 — You can do amazing things with a small, passionate audience.
10:00 — The biggest kickstart to my career
12:00 — The history of Webcomics Weekly and How To Make Webcomics
16:15 — What mistake would I like to correct / the importance of failure
18:06 — How I came to NSFW comics through Patreon
19:05 — The origin of the skin-tight superhero costume
12:13 — There’s room in comics for everybody… from All-Ages to Adult
22:30 — What’s coming up from the Guigar studio
I think lettering is a crucial skill to master in comics — and there’s no shortcut to getting good lettering. Digital lettering comes with a plethora of pitfalls, and hand-lettering is a skill that takes a long time to master.
As with all Hot Seat Critiques, my comments are only the beginning of the discussion. Members are encouraged to add their perspectives and opinions to the mix.
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July was an excellent example of the tremendous value offered by a one-year subscription to Webcomics.com ($2.50 a month). My readers got early alerts on issues that would impact their businesses, helpful tutorials, insightful analysis, and meaningful feedback on their work.
If you’re curious about joining, we’ve made it easier than ever with a $5 trial membership. You’ll get full access to the site for thirty days so you can see what you’ve been missing. At the end of the trial, you can choose to re-subscribe ($30 for 12 months of access) or walk away with no strings attached. You will not be re-billed unless you choose to subscribe.
Maximizing Organic Reach from your Facebook PageFacebook’s announcement that they will begin downgrading content from Pages had a lot of people in webcomics wringing their hands. The view from Webcomics.com is the same it’s always been — if you’re affected by changes like this, you’re doing lazy, bland social media. This post tells you how you can easily maximize your reach — regardless of this new change.
I re-ran a piece from 2013 — and updated it with some new information. In short, my business has improved as I have decreased my comic-convention schedule.
Ever since 2010, I’ve posted here about how my attitude towards comic conventions have been changing. When we wrote the original “How To Make Webcomics” book, I wrote the chapter on comic conventions. I drew myself as a carnival barker, standing on top of a convention table, and most of the material in that chapter was very strongly geared towards using comic convention as a primary revenue source for webcomics.
But for years, I’ve been posting some very frank advice on the topic. In short, I don’t think you should go to a comic convention unless you have a very good chance of turning a profit.
Webcomics.com was the first to alert you that Patreon will once again be able to offer its users to use Paypal to pledge to NSFW creators is a huge victory for the crowdfunding service. There’s a vast amount of misunderstanding — and misinformation — surrounding the issue, so the post goes on to explaining the Patreon/Paypal backstory to further clarify the issue.
© Reine Brand, Greasyspacemonkeys.com
We wrapped up our “Hitch It / Ditch It” critique series and put out an Open Call for a new Hotseat — this one focuses solely on lettering.
I was recently interviewed for the Advance Your Art podcast, hosted by Yuri Cataldo, director of Business of Creative enterprises in the Department of Marketing Communication at Emerson College in Boston. Advance Your Art focuses on arts entrepreneurship, so it was right in the wheelhouse of what I discuss at comic conventions, books and here at Webcomics.com.
Reader surveys are an excellent way to get a better feel for your audience. Does your comic skew towards female reader? Do they tend to be younger or older? What are their other interests? would they support a Kickstarter for a new book? What rewards would make them Patreon backers?
In fact, we’ve posted a helpful DIY tutorial so you can ask all of the questions you need to ask — without paying for a potentially-expensive service like SurveyMonkey.
But what if you’re not getting a very healthy response from your readers? Should you seek out additional respondents? Advertise for more input? Solicit other cartoonists?
Be very careful, your quest for more information could result in your getting very, very bad information. And that’s downright dangerous.
Start planning holiday merchandise now!Merry Christmas — and Happy New Year!
Set down the sunblock, and step away from the pool. It’s time to start planning for December and January.
I know it’s hard to get into the spirit, but this is the time to start working on merchandise for the holiday shopping season. In recent years, webcartoonists have offered an increasing compliment of holiday goodies that have ranged from specialty T-shirts and mugs to holiday-themed greeting cards. And let’s not forget to add calendars to that list. Those will start appearing in stores by November — at the latest!
For the past year I’ve been helping to beta-test a new app that helps you protect your copyright over downloadable content. Blasty is simple, easy-to-use, and effective in stopping unapproved downloading of your work.
Recently, I saw a webcartoonist asking for advice on convention banners. Here’s my advice:
The primary purpose of a convention banner is to attract attention to your table. Therefore, you need to get everything as high as possible. Putting important information at the bottom of your banner is a mistake — especially if the banner is going to be placed on the floor behind your table. Think about it. No one sees anything below the middle of a vertical banner from the aisle.
Writing comedy is a challenge that is made even more daunting in the fact that humor itself is completely subjective and impossible to define.
In the “How To Make Webcomics” book, our chapter on writing outlined a few frameworks for comedy — tried-and-true constructs that can be used as a general funny-idea generator.
The results of the annual Webcomics.com Poll on income sources were jaw-dropping — and they reflect a sea change in the webcomics business model. The majority of respondents — 54% —reported crowdfunding newcomer Patreon as one of their primary sources of webcomics-related income.
We’ll talk about what this means and compare it to previous polls that asked the same question… 
The newest Webcomics.com Poll asks…
Loading ...I’ve been saying it for the better part of the year — if you’re still doing things the way you did three years ago, you’re making a big mistake. Here are five “traditional” approaches to webcomics that you need to re-think…today.
[This post was originally submitted by Scott Kurtz] I was talking to Kris Straub about this and expressing frustration in the response we often get during the Q&A portions of our frequent comicon panels. No matter how long we discuss the importance of putting the work first during the panel, one of the first questions asked is always about some specific form of monetization. “How many T-shirts do I make?”
Kris asked me if I ever heard about cargo cults. And I hadn’t so I looked it up…
Line Webtoons partners with PatreonFor the better part of a year, Webcomics.com has been posting articles discussing the end of the ad-supported webcomic. Here’s a significant indication of what we’ve been talking about for the last twelve months: Line Webtoons is partnering with Patreon. From the Mary Sue:
Today, LINE Webtoon announced that Patreon has been integrated into their Discover platform, so that readers can directly support the writers and artists they love by becoming Patrons, without having to leave their Discover page. Even better, LINE Webtoon is willing to put their money where their mouth is. According to their press release, LINE Webtoon “will make a monthly pledge to creators who publish at least two updates per month on Discover and who have more than 3,000 subscribers and 5,000 monthly page views per chapter in the U.S.”
In addition to that, if you’re already a web comic creator on Patreon, LINE Webtoon invites you to to join LINE Webtoon as either featured creators or as Discover creators who will participate in LINE Webtoon’s patronage investment program.
I’ve said it before: Webcomics are moving to a patron/subscription model. This is one of a long line of confirming indications, in my opinion. If you haven’t re-thought your digital publishing approach — and factored out the effect of advertising — you need to do so now.
The August Creator Newsletter from Patreon brought some terrific news for creators! Patreon is rolling out tags for its posts. It’s in beta right now, but the ability to group your posts by content is around the corner.
You don’t need a subscription to read today’s post!
This is a re-post from the Webcomics.com archive. If you’ve ever been curious about the kind of information, tutorials and advice that you’ll get as part of your subscription to Webcomics.com, this is a good example.
If you’d like to join the site, you can get a 12-month subscription for $30 — or you can get a one-month Trial for $5 … with no obligation after your 30 days expire. For less than three bucks a month, you can get a steady flow of information, tutorials and advice targeted towards your webcomic business — plus a private forum to discuss issues with other professionally minded cartoonists.
I’ve been writing for this site since 2009, and I see a lot of webcomics. I initiate critiques, I get asked to do portfolio reviews at conventions, and I do comic consulting. I do it because I like it. I love talking comics, and I like having the opportunity to pass along the things I’ve learned by doing this for so long. AND, as I often say — here and to my classes at Hussian School of Art — I’ve already made all the mistakes so you don’t have to.
In seeing all of those webcomics, I see a lot of the same mistakes pop up over and over again. So I want to isolate the top five — not in a “boy are you a loser” way. Rather, since many of these are so widespread, my hope is that we can take some big steps to eradicating these six.
Number one should be no big surprise…
CC BY-ND Brandi Redd
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you improve your lettering tonight, your readers will perceive you as 100% more professional tomorrow. There’s a lot of good information about lettering — both hand-lettering and digital — on this site. It’s worth your time to read through as many of those posts as you can. But here’s some bullet points:
• Don’t let your words touch the lines of the word balloon. Ever.
• Keep an equal margin inside the word balloon (between the text and the lines) — all the way around. If you have more space at the top and bottom than you have on the sides, your balloons will feel awkward.
• When word balloons get huge, chop them into smaller balloons.
• Never, ever cross word-balloon tails. Ever.
• The words inside balloons should look like units — not as separate lines of text. If they look like separate lines, tighten up that leading (the space between lines of type). This Hot Seat critique of House of Madness does a good job of explaining this.
• Don’t use Comic Sans. It’s not a very graceful lettering font. And, seriously, with the number of affordable (if not downright free) comic-lettering fonts on sites like Blambot.com and Comicraft.com, there’s just no excuse.
• Word balloons that span the width of a panel — especially if they’re only one or two lines of type — look awkward. Use them sparingly.
• If you use a funky font to denote an alien voice or an ancient text, that’s fine. As long as it’s legible. It may look exactly like Renaissance script, but if I can’t read it, it may as well be gibberish. Same goes for the old “use a weird voice for the alien/robot/’other’ character.” Try this instead — challenge yourself to describe that character’s “otherness” in the words and phrases the character chooses. It’s waaaaay more powerful than a funky font.
• If you’re hand-lettering use an Ames Lettering Guide. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s indispensable.
Write it. Put it away. Come back to it later. Re-write it.
Nothing is very good in its first draft. That’s why they’re called first drafts. If you’re not re-writing your material, chances are, you’re posting stuff that’s not very good. When you’re re-writing, look for stuff like…
• Spelling and grammar mistakes. I’ll point it out before anyone decides to “out” me. I’m as guilty on this one as anyone else. It doesn’t mean you can ignore this tip, though. It just means I need to pay attention to it just as badly as some of you do!
• Edit, edit, edit. This is comics, people. It’s all about quick, rewarding entertainment. If you can say it in fewer words, you will — nine chances out of ten — improve the reader’s experience. Usually that’s because saying it in fewer words means making better, more descriptive word choices. And that’s Good Writing.
• Remember the visual! We cartoonists have a secret storytelling weapon. We’re presenting images along with out words. Let the two word together. And if the visual is doing its job, get the words out of the way. In other words: show, don’t tell.
• For those of you doing humor: Don’t step on your punchline. Decide where the funniest part in the comic is, and after that — stop! If you write something after the punchline — and it’s not as funny or funnier than the punchline — you just ruined your joke.
With WordPress theme/plugin combos such as ComicsPress and Comic Easel, this stuff should be easy, but it’s not always.
• First screen appeal. We’ve discussed it a lot. Basically, it’s like this. First-timers aren’t likely to scroll down. And if you need to scroll down to read a comic, it’s going to have an adverse effect on how long someone is going to read through your archive. You need to get as much of your site onto the reader’s first-screen view as possible. And that means…
• Ditch that huge header graphic. I’ll be honest with you, the sites I think work the best have a logo to the left of a leaderboard ad across the top of the site. And, really, I don’t know that a comic needs much more than that for branding. After all, the comic itself is going to carry a lot of that responsibility.
• Put the navigation buttons as close as possible to the comic itself. Personally, I like to see them snug underneath the comic. I also prefer standardized arrows over text (a deficiency I keep meaning to address in my own site).
• The About page. Man, you’re missing out on an excellent opportunity to cement a possible new read if you don’t have this.
Yup, it’s part of webcomics. It’s a big part of how marketing and promotion are done. Not comfortable? Get comfortable.
Here’s the irony: It takes almost zero writing skill. People aren’t looking for the Great American Novel at 140 characters at a time. They want to know about you. What you’re thinking about. What you’re doing. How you feel about that. It doesn’t have to be deep or inspirational or funny — but those kinds of posts are extremely powerful when they come along. But 85% of it is simply sharing your life in bits and pieces.
We discussed this earlier this week. It’s definitely worth a read if you haven’t yet. In short, cargo-cult mentality involves mimicking the actions of successful people — without understanding why those people are doing what they do. If you’re planning your first T-shirt run before you’ve built a sizable audience with your comic, you might be someone who could fall into this category.
If you’re just starting out, you should be concentrating on making an awesome comic — and then doing it with frequency and consistency. Only after you’ve mastered that should you allow yourself diversions such as merchandise.
Hands down, this is the single most important concept to understand for webcartoonists. Nothing is as important as this.
Every day a certain number of people come to your site for the very first time. And they make their decision on whether they will read the comic based on the comic that is posted on that site on that day.
If that comic doesn’t…
• Make sense
• Have importance
• Make an impression
…those readers will leave. And they won’t come back.
“Hey, but what about my archive?”
Have you ever gotten into a disappointing experience and then felt the overwhelming urge to extend that experience?
Neither have I.
Neither will your readers.
They’ll only read your archive if today’s comic intrigues them into doing so.
If you’re doing a longform comic, that may mean that you have to rethink your publishing approach.
If you’re doing a strip, that means every day has to be fantastic. (Or as close to fantastic as you can possibly get.)
If you’re posting something that relies on knowledge of one (or worse — several) days of archived backstory, you will lose that first-time reader on that day.
And if you consistently miss the opportunities to convert those first-time readers, your site will fail to grow — and, potentially, wilt and eventually die.
The August Creator Newsletter from Patreon brought some terrific news for creators! Patreon is rolling out tags for its posts. It’s in beta right now, but the ability to group your posts by content is around the corner.
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
For the better part of a year, Webcomics.com has been posting articles discussing the end of the ad-supported webcomic. Here’s a significant indication of what we’ve been talking about for the last twelve months: Line Webtoons is partnering with Patreon. From the Mary Sue:
Today, LINE Webtoon announced that Patreon has been integrated into their Discover platform, so that readers can directly support the writers and artists they love by becoming Patrons, without having to leave their Discover page. Even better, LINE Webtoon is willing to put their money where their mouth is. According to their press release, LINE Webtoon “will make a monthly pledge to creators who publish at least two updates per month on Discover and who have more than 3,000 subscribers and 5,000 monthly page views per chapter in the U.S.”
In addition to that, if you’re already a web comic creator on Patreon, LINE Webtoon invites you to to join LINE Webtoon as either featured creators or as Discover creators who will participate in LINE Webtoon’s patronage investment program.
I’ve said it before: Webcomics are moving to a patron/subscription model. This is one of a long line of confirming indications, in my opinion. If you haven’t re-thought your digital publishing approach — and factored out the effect of advertising — you need to do so now.
We’re well into the second half of the year, believe it or not. Now’s a great time to start planning the rest of your 2016.
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