Did I Dream Up The Black Lung?
By Ken Drab on September 4th, 2009- Comic »
- Comic Strip »
- web comic »
- dream »
- Flushtered - Volume One »
- web comic »
- Webcomic
Sep 04
Happy Friday!!
If you’ve noticed the changes to the site, and you like them – drop me a comment. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I haven’t done much with the design aspect – most of what you see is ComicPress’ original template – and as a designer I have to say – it’s quite impressive. I’ll continue to be tweaking – or cartooning it up over the next couple of weeks, but I’m pretty happy with the way it looks now and the functionality is great. Special thanks for Phil (Frumph) from WebComicPlanet for helping me out of some tough spots (mostly me needing a well deserved smack upside the head! 
.
Moving on – I had a different kind of wake up call earlier this week. Many webcomic veterans out there – specifically the Webcomics Weekly guys: Scott Kurtz, Brad Guigar, Dave Kellett and Kris Straub have been railing against syndication – of any sort. As you probably already know, Amazon in conjunction with Andrews McMeel Universal (a traditional comics syndicate) announce Comic Strip Superstar. A competition of sorts where you would submit your comic and it would be reviewed and voted on – the winner getting a contract.
Having been on ComicsSherpa for a year and a half – and watching my pageviews steadily grow (without promotion), despite the selfless advice of the Webcomics Weekly guys I thought I’d consider entry. I was pretty aware what I would be giving up, but I thought in my opinion the pros outweighed the cons.
One of the cons are I give up a lot of my rights to this creation, and I could be missing out on potential opportunities as a result. Even if the comic goes nowhere, I lose it and the syndicate has the right to let it die a slow death.
A couple of the pros are that I would get opportunities that may not be afforded to me on my own – at least not as quickly as I’d like. I would get to meet people of influence in the comics industry. My career is put on a faster track than it currently is – even if it goes nowhere (I guess you’d be afforded the opportunity to get there faster).
I was seriously considering entering – my wife is a lawyer and I was half convinced that either there would be some sort of leverage point or my wife would be able to give me the final say on whether it was a risk worth taking (legally).
All this changed with one email. Confident in my growth in pageviews, I emailed someone at ComicsSherpa asking “what numbers they look at before they start to consider moving someone from the Sherpa site to the main UClick website”.
A quick bit of history – prior to the site redesign recently – getting to the “New Artists” section was – not easy. It’s still not easy to find my comic which is among a sea of links in the Sherpa listing.
So brave upon the belief that people that are coming to my page over there are REALLY looking for my comic, I awaited the response, which surprisingly came quick – even at 11pm on a Monday night. The “aide de sherpa” delivered a swift dose of reality.
“Creators asked fdor stats, and it seems a useful tool for you folks and we are glad to provide, but the traffic and readership are never a factor in our editorial decisions. I never even look at them. Our editorial decisions in pursuing a feature for online syndication are completely based on our own subjective opinions!”
That’s it. That’s verbatim – including the typo. Other than a quick greeting and his email signature – that was the email.
Traffic and readership mean nothing. Basically, they “just know”. Subjectively. 99% of the Internet relies on ‘traffic and readership’ and here you have a business that doesn’t even ‘factor in’ some of the most important elements to online success. The point is – they don’t get it. Regardless of the subjective aspect of their means of choosing comics – they really don’t get it!!! Perhaps this is the reason traditional comics are in trouble – it’s certainly a case for why syndicates may be destined, like newspapers, to fail.
Prior to that email, I was confident that if I could put out a quality product, I would have the opportunity to make a living. The reality now is, the comic will continue to get better and it will undoubtedly take longer. My motto for the last couple of weeks has been “Success only comes before Work in the dictionary”.
I should be happy now – and I am. My eyes are open a little wider – and I’m motivated even more. Ask my waistline what happens when I get motivated… Hopefully you’ll stick around for the journey.
Thanks for dropping by!
Ken
Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!
Rick the Stick is a webcomic – true that.
So the questions about what was a dream and what wasn’t still remain, but for now we can all rest a little easier knowing our beloved Caveman is truly back amongst the living.
Man, what a lousy response from Sherpa, they missed the ball big time. Any website, whether it be a business or a webcomic are built and designed to promote the product and to get viewers and followers based on the product. If you are waiting for promotion of your site it should be based on followers and not some snot nosed big wig’s opinion of what they deem promotable.
I know I speak for the rest of your readers and followers when I state “We are here for the long run. We’re drawn to Rick the Stick cause of the strip and the story. You’ve compelled us to come back day after day, week after week, and we’ll continue to promote the heck out of your product by word of mouth, email, and tweets. Will make sure that if RTS ever goes the way of the dodo bird it’s because of your artistic decision and not the decision of some companies opinion.”
Keep up the good work, cause it is really good work.
As always Todd, thanks for your support. Hmmm, dodo bird…interesting…
The site design- nice and clean! I don’t know how much trouble it would be, but I would suggest changing the colors of the mouseover buttons to match the glossy orange of the “Rick the Stick” header. Right now it’s red, as is the default, so some customization would be good there.
As for the Comic Strip Superstar contest, blech. In 5 years, newspapers are dying a slow death, and the comics page along with them. They want nothing new. Mark my words: The winner of this contest will be a comic about a family and/or talking pets. They don’t want anything original, as was told to me by the editor of the biggest syndicate who reviewed my multiple comic submissions.
Also, what is special about this contest? They do this every year- it’s called the standard submissions process. Now they’re just publicizing it for some reason. How is this any different from submitting a comic through the mail and having editors consider it for syndication any other time? I guess the main differences is the guest panel of judges, and the loss of more rights than through the standard process. I have some old submissions that the syndicates have already rejected, and I may throw them in the ring just to see what happens, since they’re just sitting there in a flash drive anyway collecting dust, but I wouldn’t put any effort in making a fresh submission just for this contest, and especially wouldn’t chance throwing away the rights to Edmund Finney’s Quest.
I think in a few years webcomics will overtake the comics page as the most-read daily comics.
Dan – thanks for the rollover idea – that will be done!! The biggest difference in the contest is the partnership with Amazon, which implies more importance I guess. But you’re right – they just basically slapped a new face on an old pig and are promoting the hell out of it.
Hmmmm soot . They say when you fall in your dream or get killed in your dream it can happening real life. Is it possible that RTS does have powers he can manifest his dreams into reality or atleast in some form. Yes I am a comic book super hero nerd and I’m proud of it. I use words like manifest his powers and I mean them. So rick go on with your BAD self. and Drab uhhh you too.
Liking the site design even if its yours
Ralonzo – I don’t want to reply because you gave me grief about it and I don’t want you to think that I’m patronizing you…dah who cares. I’ll patronize you – and give you the undercoating. If you want anything else, I’ll have to talk to my manager…
You may be on to something about the powers, but only time will tell.
Also, I wish I could take credit for the site – but other than the header and some colors, it’s pretty much lock, stock and barrel ComicPress – pretty, ain’t it?
Solid gag! I dig the pat on the back w/the “soot” cough. But the dream within dream mystery continues… also tied into the same gag, cool double meaning there.
Thanks Rob! I tried to come up with a pun for the title that included Soot – but everything revolved around “suit”. Well Sooted. Soot-able. Zoot Soot. Ugh…
Site good. Soot good. Nice pop-up Rick. Comic strip superstar – go for it.
Thanks “Michelle” if that’s your REAL name!