Bill Day responds to plagiarism claims

As you may remember, shortly after reaching his IndieGoGo goal to fund his editorial cartooning, Bill Day was levied with accusations of plagiarizing images and slef-plagiarizing his own work.

Bill Day has written a column at Cagle.com to present his side of the story. In the introduction, he describes the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) by comparing it to "high school... cliques of popular kids [that] would make fun and put down others, capitalize on mistakes and faux pas of the social outsiders and then take turns backstabbing each other." He blames much of his troubles on being one of those "social outsiders."

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Saturday Deep Dive: Improving Your Google PageRank

Today's dive into the deep archives of Webcomics.com takes us back to April 11, 2010 when I shared some good advice on improving your PageRank with Google.

Your Google PageRank is used by Google to gauge the quality and popularity -- and that helps determines how near the top your site appears during a search for pertinent keywords. (The exact formula is Google's trade secret.) If you want to be near the top in as many keywords as possible, it's a good idea to maximize your PageRank. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and what we'll discuss here is the tip of the iceberg.

First, a couple easy hits: Don't fall for the spam that promises to submit your site to a truckload of search engines.

Google recommends installing its Toolbar to check your PageRank. You can also find a number of free sites that offer the same thing. For my own use, I haven't installed the Toolbar.

Read the entire post and comment there.

Slashdot: WordPress sites under attack

Passed along my alert member JJ Sandee:

A news site is reporting WordPress sites under a widescale attack...

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Friday Archive Dive: Prepping for Comic Con International

Today's Archive Dive is from April 18, 2012, when I answered a Mailbag question about preparing for Comic Con International.

Q: So this year will be my first time at San Diego Comic Con, both as an attendee and exhibitor. I've exhibited at some other small-to-midsized cons, but I've never done anything near SDCC. 
So I'm having a heck of a time figuring out how much product to bring! I've got books, buttons, posters, and single comic issues, and I can guess the general ratio they'll probably sell at from previous cons, but the actual numbers are a mystery!

So should I play it safe and just bring a bit more than I usually have at a show, or am I almost guaranteed to sell way more product than a mid-sized show like ECCC or Baltimore?

SDCC's still a ways off but I figure it couldn't hurt to start getting everything in order for this crazy monster!

Thanks,
Mary

Read the answer and comment at the Original Post.

Webcomics.com poll: pageviews and income

We did this last year, and it touched off a great discussion. Let's try it again. Remember, your answers are anonymous. Please enter only numbers -- and not ranges (15,000 - 20,000 is not helpful, for example). This isn't a chest-beating contest. These are the kinds of things we all wish we knew about each other, but everyone is either too afraid to ask or pretty sure the other person is stretching the truth about.

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