AndyL
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Most style guides will say either Quotes(AP Style) or Italics (Chicago Style). (Style guides from the old typewriter days might say underline.)
… but those kinds of style guides aren’t written for comics or hand-lettering, they’re based on what’s easy to read in a giant block of newspaper print.
When the question is “Should I register a domain?”, the answer is usually “yes”.
Even if you only use it as a redirect that brings readers to a folder on your main site, you will want the domain name.
They only cost ten bucks, and if someone else gets it before you do, you’ll feel like an idiot.
Along these lines, do any of you guys swap in 2xDPI or “Retina” version of your comics for devices that want them?
I think last time we discussed this people were worried it would slow load times, is that still the standard wisdom?
You can turn on the setting in analytics that blocks “known bots and spiders”, but I’ve found this does very little.
You can block specific domains, but that’s just whack-a-mole, because by the time you’ve seen them, they’ve done their job and probably won’t be back.
I think the monitor will be the tough part.
I don’t have one, but I think the Surface Pro needs a 12v charger? (As opposed to 5v usb charger). They’re a little tough to find, but you can absolutely get 12v power banks. They sometimes sell them for camping.
Check out This Reddit thread.
– If it were me, I’d ditch the first twelve seconds. (Including “Oh Hey, how’s it going?”) and just start with “I’m John Vogel!”. But maybe that’s just me being impatient.
– I like the “There’s lot’s of extra content already waiting for you” part. Anyone who’s read a webcomic knows how satisfying it can be to have a backlog of material to look at.
– I like the gimmick of the strips flying from your tablet. It’s well done.
You may just wind up confusing yourself and the supporters if you try to do a quarterly reward for a monthly subscription.
Presumably you’d have to be a subscriber for four consecutive months to get the reward? So the rewards you were shipping this month would be completely unobtainable for new subscribers. New subscribers will have to wait a quarter until the next one? That’s kind of weak sauce.
Is Twitter Analytics detailed enough to show you which Hashtags give you a farther reach?
Not directly, no. That’s why I advocate experimentation.
Try one hashtag, measure the results, try another. Repeat until you have enough data to draw conclusions. Scientific method, you know.
Your best bet here is to experiment over the course of a couple weeks and measure the results with Twitter Analytics. Figure out what works best for you.
I notice that both #comics and #webcomics are used a lot … but to me, “webcomics” feels like trade jargon, less likely to connect with readers, but that’s just a guess. The analytics numbers will tell the real story.
John, have you ever used Comic Rocket to read comics? (Or InkOutbreak, when they’re working?)
They don’t pull the comic from the RSS. The user is viewing your actual website.
Firstly, did you apply those keywords to the files that are actually on your site? Because it’s not appearing in the EXIF data. Did WordPress strip them out?
Assuming you get that working, I’d be really surprised if that level of keywording was damaging. It seems relatively standard, and not loaded with conspicuously high-value keywords. (Like pharmaceuticals, or porn terminology.)
… but I don’t think it’s worth doing.
It looks like Google probably uses the geotag in the EXIF data, but it’s not clear they use the keywords or description fields. A lot of people have tried putting a “googlewack” phrase in the description, then searching for it. Most of them report it doesn’t work. For instance this guy put a code in the metadata in for that boy-yelling image. Searching for that code does not find that image.
A lot of “Top Ten SEO Tricks” posts mention putting keywords in the metadata, but it looks like that’s probably a myth that everyone keeps passing back and forth.
My only real gripes are that Google’s ranking is swayed by…
Older search engines like Altavista ignored those things and they were terrible. Imagine Google, but starting with whatever random stuff is on google’s 14th page of results. Not pretty. Finding stuff was a real chore. Incoming links might not be the best measure of desirability, but you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better one.
With that in mind, My strategy has always been to concentrate on the aspects of my site that have the least competition. No matter how many meta tags I use, nobody is going to find my blog on a search for “Cat pictures”.
Does that work? I think so, but who knows? There’s no realistic way for me to experimentally test my technique to be sure it’s helping.
Looks like Twitter’s CEO has made a strangely specific denial of this rumor.
“I want you all to know we’re always listening. We never planned to reorder timelines next week.”
Depending on the type of art, you might get better results with .png.
Especially if you’re doing black/white.
I’ll say that the website was the largest stumbling block for me.
I read about four of them, but quit because it was a hassle. Then I felt guilty for giving up so soon, so I read about a dozen more.
Generally I like the art, and the humor, and if they’d been in an easier to access format I’d have read more of them.Since I only read about 16 comics, I’ll keep my criticism to two bullet points :
– A lot of the comics are funny, but end on a line that isn’t funny. So I come away feeling like it wasn’t funny. For instance on this strip, the visual is a better punch-line than either of the two final lines. I get the joke, smile, then read two not-funny lines.
– I find some of the black-and-white strips hard to parse visually. Not sure why? Line weight? I’ll let someone with a better sense of art explain the “why” of it, but it stood out to me.
