[3.10] Message
Really, Kiro, you’d trust her with that?
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Hey all,
It’s been almost exactly a year since I drew the first page of this comic (two months before actually launching it), – I absolutely never expected to have made it this far. This is one of the biggest , most elaborate projects I’ve done in my life (and definitely the biggest art-related project), so I’m super glad I was able to reach every one of you readers.
There are many things I would have liked to change with this comic – a more creative/poetic/epic title, for instance, and the art in the first few dozen strips is really lacking – but if I had sat around trying to iron out those problems before launching, this would have never gotten off the ground. (I still don’t even have proper color/expression sheets for most of the characters…) So that’s my two cents for anyone who wants to start a comic, just go ahead and do it!
At the same time, I’d love to share my work with more people. But to this day I still have almost no social media presence, because admittedly, I don’t know how to use these things. At all. (I’m the worst millennial in existence.) Any suggestions on how/when/who/what/where to engage more with the online comics community? I’d really like to get started with that :3
–Alan
(That was a mouthful, but one last thing, I will be changing my user name to “sereneseal” from the hard-to-remember/pronounce/spell “kootenie”. There is a bit of history behind the old name, but that will be for another time…)
You’re at 234 on twc which is not a bad showing (the wonderful Suihira is at 260, for instance). I learn about some new webcomics there, but the best place is from the recommendations of other artists.
Are you in one of the artist collectives?
I’m not particularly familiar with collectives – do you mean places like Hiveworks? (I’ve definitely found a bunch of comics thru there.)
Also, Suihira is on my to-read list, which is getting way too long at this point.
I agree that the best way to get readers like me is recommendations from other authors (even through I got here by TWC). And don’t worry about being worst millenial for having trouble with social media, I’ve never even seen a facebook page in my life.
Congrats on a year. i can say that this is the most interesting webcomic I’ve found in quite some time.
As far as advertizing, I found Detox Camp through the ads on topwebcomics. probably about 2/3rds of the webcomics i find come from tv tropes so starting a tropes page might help.
Thanks 🙂 I have considered tvtropes, though I’ve avoided that site for a while since once I get on there, days pass without my realizing it…
Maybe it’s time to jump back in!
To be honest I’m a bit of a luddite when it comes to social media as well, however there *is* a comics community over at Deviant Art. I don’t know how helpful it’d be to you, but here are a few groups you might want to check out:
https://www.deviantart.com/manga-ka-exhibit
https://www.deviantart.com/comic-pitch
https://www.deviantart.com/manga-creators-club
Yes, thanks for the suggestions! 🙂 I’ve dabbled in DA in the past (have since deleted all my old stuff) so it’s probably a good time to start anew! Checking it out.
In my experience, what moves *me* to look up new comics is *fan art*.
Make a nice fan art for some other comic and you will lure some of the those readers over to your site. Tomorrow, the world!
Good point as well – I shall be participating in fan art contests this year as they come up. Always fun to draw other people’s characters.
Greetings, Sereneseal. I’d be happy to add my experience to the ones above (and, presumably, those to follow below).
I’ve found your webcomic around 2h ago via an add on http://www.egscomics.com – it’s one of the few (7, to be exact) comics I read regularly. EGS, in particular, I have read on a nearly daily basis (well, every 2-4 days or so) for the past 17 years (huh… I thought it was 15, but checking the dates… seems it’s been 17 years, actually… damn).
[Note if you decide to check out EGS: it’s currently in the middle of a Q&A – I’d advise reading an actual chapter instead, as the Q&A’s aren’t really that representative of the comic in more recent years.]
I’ve read through all of it since then and I’ll be sticking around here, methinks. I’m enjoying the way things are progressing and, if I’m not mistaken, the story/writing is starting to mature in some areas and I find that rather interesting to watch as it unfolds. Depending on how long you’ll be writing this, I might very well be here for years to come – though that is always subject to change… still, even if I drop a comic, I always have them bookmarks for later reading, if the mood strikes me years later. I’m looking forward to the experience, whichever way it unfolds.
I would also like to mention that I mostly stay quiet – I’m not one to require much socializing and commenting in general takes me far more time then it should, so I shy away from it most of the time, minus occasions such as this.
Speaking of occasions – thank you for the comic and the entertainment it has provided and shall provide.
To get back to the point (why, yes, there was such a thing!), I clicked on your add due to how similar the art style of your comic was to my beloved EGS – more precisely, the earlier years of its existence – and due to the humour evident in the line “starvation by consensus”. It was enough to get me to try it and I’m glad I did – this has potential.
Another note: I know the adds on EGS by heart and thus a new addition stood out immediately. You may want to consider doing more of such adds on relatively low-number add-cycle comics that are similar to your art style/humour, as those would have a high conversion rate compared to randomly putting it out there. That said, as others have already pointed out, twc is also a decent place to advertise.
PS: I agree the new name is easier to remember than ‘kootenie’, but it didn’t seem like an issue in the first place, given the odd names some web cartoonists go by and seem to be doing fine with. That said, it was slightly confusing to see both names used during the first postings, as your older comments still use ‘kootenie’, while the pages themselves all have ‘sereneseal’ as the author – I figured out pretty quickly what likely had happened, so that’s also no real issue.
Cheers,
Dark
Hey Dark, thanks so much for your extended thoughts! Really appreciate the time you took to share. I’m really happy you are enjoying the story; you actually showed up at a good time, a pretty major plot shift is about to take place that will change many things about this world. (No further spoilers haha)
In the past I used the Project Wonderful ad network to promote my comic, but ever since that shut down last year I’ve been mainly using Google ads, which actually isn’t a bad option. As you mentioned, I’ll be looking into more comics to run my banners on, and working on some new ones as well.
I recently started reading EGS as well, actually, though I probably won’t get through the archive for years at least… Out of curiosity what are some of the other comics you read? I’m always looking for recommendations!
FWIW: Demonology 101 did not do any advertising at all. Word of it spread by word of mouth through other comic artists who chanced upon it on keenspace (now comicgenesis), and it was a huge underground hit at the time.
“Social media” seems to be for market research, rather than advertising.
I came here from TWC, specifically from one of the I-am-a-human pictures. I kind of recognized it when I saw it though, probably from scrolling through the TWC list looking for something interesting. New vote incentives at the first of each month is a good way to get the most out of TWC, especially the first few hours after the reset when you can grab a first page spot relatively easy is an interesting time to watch for something to read.
Guest art on other webcomics is another way that I discover new webcomics. Artist recommendations go hand in hand with that one, I almost always read what the author has to say with each post, so whether or not you get a guest page isn’t crucial.
Reader recommendations in comments is a third one, maybe the best one. I think I will be spreading the word about this one when it seems appropriate 🙂
Also, I was wondering about kootenie / sereneseal up ’til this point, glad to have that cleared up.
“you must promise to keep this a secret” says the person who just shared a secret less than 24 hours after learning it
got here from an ad on Stand Still Stay Silent (amazing webcomic, probably my favorite). I’m not sure why I decided to check this comic out, but I like it so far!