[5.23] Frying Pan To Fire
The growling may or may not be his stomach.
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Thanks for reading everyone!
Looking for some tips here: for those of you that read a lot of comics, what are some good ways to make a comic website more friendly to new readers? I’m not sure if the current “landing page on most recent page” setup is the best way to go. I am planning to overhaul the site sometime in Q1 2020, and would love some feedback on this matter.
EDIT: Thank you all for the comments and advice! Judging from what’s been said I suppose the layout is reasonable for webcomics… in general I’ll probably keep the layout the same and focus on updating the visuals, since the site still looks like something from the 90s. I won’t be playing around with fancy things like cookies since frankly, I know nothing about such technical stuff (the fact that this site functions at all is something of a miracle). By the way, anyone having issues with page load time?
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5.23 Transcript
Mom: Sorry, kid, but you’re not allowed to have that.
For the landing page, perhaps the most flexible would be a cookie recording the last page seen. If it’s set, go to that page or the nex. If not (new readers) go to the first page. Obviously, that will only work for people who accept cookies.
Personally, I’ve never had a problem with comics that have the “landing page on most recent page setup.” In fact, at this point, so many comics use that same setup that it’s just what I automatically expect. That does mean a dedicated landing page might help your comic stand out to passersby, though I’m not sure what you’d put on it besides the links already on the top bar. On that note, if there isn’t really a justification for a dedicated landing page, it could end up being more annoying than helpful, since it would just be getting in the way of seeing the comic itself, so you should be careful of that.
I will say I think you already have the most important thing for drawing in new readers, which is an “about” page. I am always surprised how many webcomics (and, indeed, websites in general) miss something so small yet crucial. Reading a webcomic is a time investment, especially to a new reader, since they have to get caught up, and before I make such an investment, I like to have some idea of what the returns will be, so to speak. If I can’t get enough information about a webcomic before I start reading, I usually just won’t bother. The “Characters” and “FAQ” pages are also helpful, in this respect.
Long story short, what you’ve been doing is already pretty good. There is almost certainly still room for improvement, but I personally can’t think of anything specific.
When I check out a new comic, I tend to look at a few recent pages to check out the artwork and writing (and if it is active). If I like what I see, and if it is a story comic, I’d start at the beginning; you have a clearly visible “first” link, so that’s fine. That is probably what I did when I first discovered Detox Camp!
Any “new reader” page I have seen on other webcomics tends to become outdated easily, and anyway, the archive is right there to binge on!
Archive, about, standard nav buttons, I think you’ve nailed it. Navigational seals might not be for complete beginners, but if they can’t handle it, eh, will they read comic anyway?
The “landing page on most recent page” setup seems to be the most common setup for webcomics. I can only think of a couple of comics I read that don’t work that way, and I don’t really like their setups. Since your landing page also includes archive, character and about links, it seems reasonably new-reader friendly to me.
A few comics have a narrow strip (e.g. just above or under the links to About, Characters, etc) with text like: “New to Detox Camp? Start here…” with a link to the first comic. But as others have said, a dedicated landing page probably is not really necessary, except if the new reader happens to hit a page with some crucial spoiler. But there’s not much chance of that and not much you can do about it, although I’ve seen one case where a potentially disturbing page was hidden behind a “trigger warning” page.
I think the “New to …? Start here ->” is only relevant when a good starting point for newcomers is no longer the overall first page (e.g. Sam & Fuzzy). Certainly not the case for this comic.
I tend to intentionally not look at the landing page, I don’t like spoilers and I expect it to be the latest page, I just look for the “First” button and start from there. I had no problems doing that here.
I literally just found this comic today. As a new reader, I found it pretty easy to figure out what was what and make my way to the first page.
Personally, all I need is an Archive link and/or a First link that goes back to the very beginning. I don’t think a dedicated landing page in necessary at all.
You may also want to consider whether getting new readers is more important than keeping existing ones, and if not, ensuring you don’t change things so that they are worse for existing readers.
As an example, I believe it’s not uncommon for people to want their bookmark to always go to the latest page, so if you change the landing page to not show that, you may want to add some other page that does, and make it easily findable.
(I recommend against getting fancy with cookies or the like, as that sort of thing never works 100% of the time, and can get quite annoying when it doesn’t.)
Personally, I usually bookmark the last page I read, so I can resume from that point later (I can’t always keep up with every comic), so I don’t really mind either way as long as the page addresses still work (and changing them breaks a lot more than just bookmarks, hence why URLs were originally meant to be permanent).
(I’ve seen some sites implement something like that with save/load buttons on the page (I assume using cookies), but I’ve never understood the point, since bookmarks are easier, more direct, and more reliable. But that’s a separate rant.)
As for new-reader things, well, it’s been a while since I went looking for new ones (having too many already), but I don’t remember it ever being a problem to see the latest page first. Not having an obvious “first” button is, though. I’ve seen sites that forego next/prev buttons for clicking on the page image instead, but that has discoverability problems, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Similarly, using the arrow keys for navigation makes scrolling via keyboard difficult, and seems more likely to be discovered by accident (when unwanted) than on purpose. (…and I’m off on a tangent again, aren’t I.)
Oh well, while I’m on the subject of discoverability and accessibility… Keep in mind that people think in different ways. Some do better with clear icons, others with text, and so on, so if you want to make things easy for the widest possible audience, you may want to incorporate several different elements into your design.
Honestly, I think your current layout is pretty good.
I’ll second what’s been said — especially the part about wanting to check a handful of recent pages to get to know a new comic then looking for a “back to the beginning” button to start reading for real. I rarely check any other page options before becoming a fan, and the biggest turnoff is hitting extra layers or a quirky nav system while trying to do those two simple things.
What really jumps out is when the page has a tasteful visual theme styled to match the story. Gunnerkrigg’s a good example there — not fancy or flashy, but the shadowy 4-tone color scheme instantly sets the mood.
Yours already has a nice open outdoorsy feel (really refreshing when stuck at a computer) and a very welcoming author’s comments & open discussion layout. It’s one of my favorite setups in 20+ years of webcomics. (Nostalgia trip — anyone actually reading this comment and remember Avalon?)
Some other examples…
Bicycle Boy does a good job disguising itself — between the big, quality banner and the matched 5-tone color scheme, it’s immediately got you in its own visual world. You almost don’t notice the giant ads. It also has a nifty map button, though you have to scroll down to find it.
Ava’s Demon instantly sets a mood with its color scheme, plus some stylized nav buttons like yours and a custom frame around the comic panels (with a changed look at #1270-ish to mark a major turning point.) Her main page feels too spread out to me, so I bookmarked p1 of the story instead and have to click “latest” on every visit.
Tapas.io has an interesting default layout — really tidy & intuitive to make up for minimal customization, proving that you don’t necessarily have to kill all the whitespace to have an appealing page. Maybe their trick is using stable, colored frames along the top & left borders, giving you a comfortable anchor to hold onto while scrolling through the wide-open frontier below & to the right. It looks like some of their comics do continuous scrolling through all chapters, but I like discrete pages that interrupt the flow for author & reader comments (e.g. Sammy by rtstudio.)
“It belongs in a museum!”
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“Okay, let’s compromise. I get half, and the museum gets half.”
I read a fair bit of webcomics quite regularly. I found your comic today and have been binge reading it on my day off. So long as a new comic has an easy to find First button, as yours does, I’m good. It would be nice to have cookies set so that it saves the last place read, if the comic has a particularly deep archive. I started on your comic not too long ago and managed to get through this much already.
I love webcomics that make me laugh or at least smile, have lovely visual appeal, a good, compelling story, fun and quirky characters and interesting perspective. Any mix of those things is going to get me into the comic. I’ve read some in which the art is truly magical (sadly they were discontinued), some with quite simple art that make me chuckle, others have quite elaborate storylines.
Your art caught me, and in the ad I saw, it looked as though Kiro had wings, and I was intrigued. I was disappointed to see that she didn’t have any when i started reading, but your art and storyline will keep me here. Thanks for sharing your talent with us!