Kris X wrote:
I just would like to take the time to thank all those who I've stopped along the way to ask for questions and advice. Had I been eft in the dark, I might have had my head explode or something like that from all the newbie anxieties. Now that the hardship of beginning is over, I'm glad to be a part of this group. You all have most likely helped me in some way.
So thanks for passing on the knowledge.
You see this is truly what makes being a Spacer worth it all. I defy anyone to find a more passionate, diverse and yet united community of webcomic artists anywhere on the internet. It can't be done.
The community on Keenspace is what's kept me here so long and even after Ghastly's Ghastly Comic has moved on to greener pastures, I'll still be using the ghastly.keenspace.com account to host some form of webcomic, probably sparatically and seldomly updated but something none-the less just to be part of this vibrant community (and something that can use the ***advertisement*** tag again too). I won't be the big dog anymore but I'll still be here.
I think because Keenspace is such an underdog organization that it brings us all closer together without any of the battle-of-egos that plague the more famous of communities. Nobody here cares about how has more pageviews and who has more readers. We're all seen as equals from the 15 year old kid who does his pencil doodled comic during math class to the cranky old man who draws tentacled beasties violating nubile young women in strange and wonderous ways. We share the joy of each other's triumphs and the sadness of each other's defeats equally. Nobody here is too big or too important to talk to anyone else and there is a general level of respect given one another reguardless of artistic skill or readership numbers. Not everyone on Keenspace bothers to become part of the community here (and they are truly missing out on one of the greatest assets Keenspace has to offer) but those who do come into it with open arms and pretenses left behind.
Someone once asked why we don't just create our own smaller communities without the need for the Keenspace association and in many ways many of us do. I'll cover more of that later in the post. But the strength of the Keenspace community lies in the common uniting factor that each of us are Keenspace comics. Though we are all vastly different in our talents and styles that one thing is the common tie which binds us all to this, our community. As long as there is a Keenspace (whatever it may be called) there will always exist the Keenspace community. Cherish it, for what we have is a rare gem amoungst the vast collective of internet communities.
As for smaller communites, gather around my friends for Uncle Ghastly is about to share with you one of the secrets of having a successful webcomic.
Make your webcomic into a community. This may seem obvious to some but to others it is a perplexing concept.
Make your webcomic more than just pictures with text balloons on them. Give your webcomic personality. Make it inviting to the type of people you'd like to invite. It's a much more tricky business than simply putting up a forum and hoping people join.
Community is one of the biggest strengths the internet has going for it and it is one of the reasons webcomics are superior to those things they print in the back of big paper things that people used to read their news in. You know those things I'm talking about. Kids on bikes used to throw them at your house.
On the internet the lines between artist and audience are blurred, you can practically erase them if you want. You have a level of communication with your readers that syndicated cartoonists can only dream about. You're not seen as an unapproachable celebrity, your readers feel you're just one of them that happens to be able to draw a comic. Don't be afraid to be personal with your readers. Now I don't mean sobbing to them about the angst of your lost highschool romance and pining for the fjords like you're on some sort of Weepjournal Blog, although you can certainly do that if angst is your thing. I mean just letting them know who you are. An "about the author" section is a very powerful tool. If you like race horses put that information there. Someone will undoubtedly do a websearch for information on race horses and stumble upon your page. They'll read you like race horses and see you do a comic. Hmmm, likes race horses, I like race horses, I bet I might like his comic too. Click click click.
If they like the comic they'll go back to their race horse communities and the'll tell their friends there "hey, I found this guy who likes race horses and he does a comic. It's pretty good, you should check it out even though the comic has nothing to do with race horses".
Now of course you don't want all this extra minutia about yourself to overshadow your comic. Your comic always has to be the main focus of your site. All the little side stuff should be cleverly designed to funnel those people who come into your comic from some non related search string into actually checking out your comic.
One of the things I used to really wrinkle my nose at when I first started a webcomic was the number of comics with rants. Rants always seemed rather self indulgent to me and one of the big problems that a lot of webcomic artists fall into is making their rant section overshadow the actual comic (no need to name names, I'm sure you can all easily name a few). But just the right amount of rantage on your site is a very valuable tool. For one thing it puts text on your site and text is going to be picked up by search engines. Looking through my stats I see lots of seach string results that have nothing to do with my comic but were a part of a sentance I used in one of my rants. The other thing is, it invites discussion. Your rant can be small and instead of ranting on for paragraphs about how you hate the fact that people not only don't know how to drive their cars but also not park them as well, you just type a simple sentance stating just that and imbed it as a link that goes to your forum (or livejournal or whatever your method of community communications is) where a more detailed rant about what particular jackass who doesn't know how to park did that pissed you off so much today. You'll get people posting their own jackass-who-can't-park stories too. They'll go off and spawn other communications as well.
Invitation is the key. Make your site inviting, informative, approachable, and most of all interesting. People don't even have to like you as long as they find you interesting you'll be able to build a community. Give your site identity. Give it something your readers can associate with.
One of the fatal flaws I see with a lot of unpopular webcomics is the site looks too generic. It's like it should have a UPC code on it that reads WEBCOMIC when you scan it. The comic may be good. The comic may be brilliant, but the site itself has no identity. It has nothing to invite the reader to look around once they've gotten their chuckle and nothing to invite them to return.
Never underestimate the power of building a community around your work. Just like the Keenspace community is one of Keen's greatest assets the community you build for your own webcomic can be one of your comic's greatest assets too.
Community: Love it! Live it! Be it!
Trust me on this one folks, Ol' Uncle Ghastly wouldn't streer you wrong.
of Space. I've been to a lot of message boards on a regular basis, and this place is the only one that has really prompted me to get in and communicate.