February To-Do List

Get out your calendar and start circling dates. It's time to do a little webcomics planning.

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Friday Archive Dive: Reading a Printer's Spec Sheet

Today's Friday Archive Dive is from May 19, 2009, when we discussed the intricacies of reading a printer's spec sheet. This is a detailed quote that you'd get from an offset printer like TransContinental, in preparing to do a large-scale book run.

So, you've decided to get a quote from and honest-to-goodness printer for your next book run. You've e-mailed a quote request, and you've gotten a prompt response. One that you cannot decipher for the life of you. Fear not, here's a quick guide based on an actual book quote:

QUANTITY: 500- 1,000- 1,500 (10 % overs/unders) SIZE: 8 1/2 X 11 finished, with bleedsCOVER: Printed 4/0, Process, offset printing. Gloss lamination. Supplied by customer: PDF files.Supplied by printer: Color proofs, 1 set, high resolution digital. TEXT: 60 lbs text House brand uncoated offset - Printed 1/1 (Black), offset printing. BINDING: Perfect bound. PACKING: In double wall cartons on skids. FREIGHT: F.O.B. Client: Philadelphia, PA 191** USA- Residential delivery with tailgate. Additional handling, freight or storage is extra TAXES: Applicable taxes extra. TERMS: To be determined - Subject to review. QUANTITY: 500       -      1,000     -    1,500 Total cost: $2119.00  -   $2749.00  -  $3369.00 Per-Unit: $4.238      -   $2.749     -    $2.246

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State of the Site Address

My fellow webcartoonists,

As we come to the end of the first month of the new Webcomics.com, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what has been an amazing four weeks.

Moving to the subscription model caused an uproar. People could not understand how we could possibly place our site behind a pay wall. The backlash was tremendous.

And so was the support. I can say, without exagerration, that our membership today easily exceeds where I'd expected it to be by a factor of three.

Looking back over the first four weeks

If you signed up during that time, you enjoyed the following benefits:

• The usual high-quality, timely posts you've come to expect from Webcomics.com
• An overview of Webcomics from an industry model perspective written by Robert Khoo -- who then engaged in a discussion with commenters.
• A frank and brisk discussion about webcomics with Scott Kurtz, who has been a consistent presence on the site.
• Discussion, both on the site and in the forum, among serious webcartoonists discussing issues at amuch higher level of discourse.
• Fantastic member-submitted content, such as Jeffery Stevenson's step-by-step method for maximizing his Project Wonderful ad campaigns and Marvel letterer/fellow webcartoonist Chris Eliopoulos' guide to hand-lettering.
• Excellent discussions in the Private Forum.
• An exclusive deal on a table at C2E2 that delivered a 200% return on your subscription -- when there's a waiting list of people trying to get into Artist's Alley. In other words, our members were able to get in when others couldn't -- and we paid the members for the privilege!

And it's only been four weeks.

Addressing the critics

Now, obviously, there have been detractors. There has been anger. And there has been a overwhelming amount of misinformation.

And, as you may have noticed, I've been pretty much absent from those discussions. This is for several reasons. First, as a general rule, I don't argue on other people's sites. Too often I find my participation merely brings additional eyes to the misunderstanding I'm trying to dispell. Secondly, I firmly believe in the "Show, Don't Tell" principal. If I spend all my time telling people what I'm trying to do with this site, I'm not spending enough time actually doing it. Incidentally, that's the third reason I've been absent from the discussion. I've put more effort into this site in the past four weeks than I've put into it in the preceeding four months.

The "How To Make Webcomics" Argument

So, let me take a few moments to share some thoughts about some of the common misconceptions I've seen out there. I can't keep trying to explain that the free-content "Webcomics Business Model" my co-authors and I champion in How To Make Webcomics doesn't apply to a site like this. I still operate four other webcomic sites -- all of which are free and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

But I can't monetize Webcomics.com by selling T-shirts. And this site will not be supported by ad revenue. These are concepts that people either have the intelligence to understand or they don't. If you don't get it, I can't be smarter for you.

The "Tribe" argument

For those of you who have indicated that I have abandoned the commnunity that I helped create -- that I was "a leader who left his tribe," I can only say that I would love to have been as influential or as powerful as you say. As a leader, I could have said "do this" or "do that" and you guys would have followed.

I'm clearly no leader. As soon as I said something that my "tribe" didn't want to hear, many of them abandoned me.

And that's OK. Because I never imagined myself to be a leader.

The announcement was handled poorly

I could have made the announcement three days prior and fielded the same volume of complaints -- but it wouldn't have changed the final outcome.

And then all of the people who thought they were offering valid suggestions ("Just put up a donation button") would have felt disenfranchised.

Which is worse? And does it matter? This is one thing that I couldn't change (even if I wanted to).

What happened Jan. 4

Webcomics.com (as it had come to be known) was finished on January 4 -- whether I'd have switched to a pay model or not.

If I hadn't switched, I would have left. And without my daily moderation, editing and posts, the site would have come to a slow halt -- or changed into something we would have been embarrassed by.

Webcomics.com had two parts -- the "site," or the main page, where all of the official Webcomics.com posts were featured and the "forum" where anyone could post a topic. With few exceptions, I wrote four posts a week for the "site" part of Webcomics.com. Guest submissions amounted to a small fraction of the site content (my estimate is close to 25%). All of the guest submissions were read, edited and, in some cases, enhanced by me. Forum posts, of course, were dominated by reader-generated content.

(The old forum, by the way, has been preserved as a readable, searchable archive. None of it requires a subscription.)

Without the site content, there's little reason to visit Webcomics.com on a regular basis.

The forum, of course, would continue, but part of what made the forum useful was that I moderated that forum. If someone posted something ill-informed or aggressive, I would either try to clarify the factualness of the post (or, in the case of the latter, quell any flame-ups before they started).

Without my daily involvement, Webcomics.com would have become, well, like almost any one of the many forum-based sites that have sprung up this month to fill the void -- spotty at best and, at worst, ill-informed peers spreading misinformation, sparse daily site-content of note, and ugly flame wars.

I liked Webcomics.com too much to see that happen.

Truthfully, it would have been closed down before things could have gotten to that point.

So, one way or the other, Webcomics.com -- the way it had come to be known -- was finished on January 4. Over.

I couldn't justify the expenditure of time any longer. I have a wife and two boys and darned-near-80 hours a week in professional commitments. Anything that cuts into my little bit of family time had to be justified in dollars and cents. Webcomics.com couldn't be justified in that way.

To continue working on Webcomics.com, it had to generate revenue. Now it does. And I can continue to pour my heart into a project that I have a passion for.

Other common comments

A few other comments about Webcomics.com that deserve to be clarified are:

It’s unlikely non-subscribers will be submitting articles, and less likely that subscribers will submit content

This is completely wrong. If anything, I've seen offers to submit content increase. And I have more offers coming in. One difference I can note is the quality of the submitted content is markedly better.

Why give away content for free to a site you’re already paying for?

Because a subscription to Webcomics.com is more than just paying for content. It's a community of serious webcartoonists. The subscription price has two effects: It funds the running of the site and it keeps the less-serious webcartoonists out. The result is an amazing community of serious professionals (and semi-pros). The submitted content is coming from people who understand what they're actually getting for their subscription. If you think you're paying for the content at Webcomics.com, you're only getting a fraction of the big picture.

Thus, the burden will be primarily on Brad (and Half-Pixel) to keep the great content coming. I hope he realizes the challenge he’s taken on here.

Webcomics.com is not a Halfpixel project. Although they are subscribers, Dave Kellett and Kris Straub are not involved in the running of the site.

Beyond that, little has changed. Again, disregarding the forum, I generated close to three-quarters of the content for the main Webcomics.com site. This is nothing new. People are still free to submit what they'd like to share, and as has been the case for the previous two years, I run the ones that I think are good enough. :)

Oh, and this has changed: We're able to offer more opportunities to our subscribers. Within our first two weeks, we've offered a deal that presented a 200% return on the subscription price for people who were able to take advantage of it. In other words, some of our members have made their money back and put and extra $30 in their pockets in the process. And they still get everything the site offers.

People will never pay for something they can get for free on the Web.

This is absolutely true.

And what we're providing at Webcomics.com -- columns by Robert Khoo and Scott Kurtz, exclusive deals, knowledge-share among dedicated webcomics pros and semi-pros -- can't be found anywhere else.

Addresses for press releases

Here's the master list I use to send press releases. Feel free to add to the list.

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Chris Eliopoulos' Guide to Lettering

When he's not working on his webcomic, Misery Loves Sherman, Chris Eliopoulos is a letterer for Marvel Comics. He has kindly provided for us this detailed guide to his hand-lettering process.

Hand-Lettering

With the advent of computer-lettering and the comic-style free and pay fonts, it’s become easier to letter comics quickly and with greater ability to edit. One of the skills that has slowly been pushed to the side is hand-lettering.

For years, almost all comics were hand lettered. Two examples that are obvious exceptions were MAD magazine and the delightful and uniqueBarnaby by Crocket Johnson. But one of the things about hand-lettering and even the choices made by Crocket Johnson or MAD magazine is that the lettering contributes to the overall look of a strip. If you look at strips like Peanuts or Pogo or even Cerebus, the lettering became an important part of the overall look. A font was created of Charles Schulz’s lettering and even if there is no art and you saw that lettering, you’d know who the author was.

There are many good reasons to use computer fonts and there are equally good reasons to hand-letter; with hand-lettering, your lettering will be unique. With these readily available fonts, you see them on every strip and there is no individuality. You can also better integrate the lettering and art. Sometimes it looks like computer fonts are just pasted on top of a strip. And, of course, when done, you have a whole strip on a board to frame or sell.

But, how does one get good at hand-lettering? Well, like most things, it takes time and practice to get good at. Just like you practice drawing hands or using a certain pen or brush, hand-lettering takes time.

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