One Word or Two?: NYCC 2007's "Web Comics" Panel

How come, asked Gary Tyrell, the organizers of the New York Comic-Con had put together a webcomics panel that, "featured no actual webcomics creators?"

New York 2007's webcomics panel was certainly like no other. Even the grammar in the panel's title-- "Web Comics" rather than "Webcomics"-- gave that away. The usual formula, repeated by many conventions over the last five years, has been to gather a group of writers, artists or writer-artists who speak to an audience of their fans. NYCC attempted, possibly for the first time, to represent a corporate perspective.

The results were hardly earth-shattering. No one had a dramatic change in business model to announce-- that would happen elsewhere at the con, later. (Marvel and Top Cow's initiatives, while still not earth-shattering, deserve pieces of their own and will get them in due course.) But the panel was an interesting look at a culture that has its eye trained on digital distribution, but shares almost nothing else with the independent cartoonists and commentators who often refer to themselves as "the webcomics community." Call it "the web comics community." If you like.

Continued on Broken Frontier.

"The Path To Blogging Nirvana."

It's funny because it's true. Which is sad.

"Meanwhile, at the crossroads..."

People who listen to podcasts and read this blog have probably noticed the severe decline in output from Meanwhile, The Comics Podcast, my talk show with Dave Belmore.

Funnily enough, Dave's interest seemed to begin to flag around September or so, which was, for Meanwhile, a period of great success. The New York Comic-Con had just offered our podcast a free table-- which would once have been a dream come true for Dave or me. We'd had some hits and some misses lately, but the period saw our best episode, the massive three-hour Neal Adams interview, "Strange Dumbness," and maybe our most enjoyable one, a nostalgia tour through cartoon themes. I was no longer living near Dave, but I'd just moved back into his time zone, which I figured would make things easier.

Sometimes, though, partners just grow apart. Dave and I always preferred distinctly different flavors of comics obsession. I'm Journalista, he's Previews. This still gave us a lot in common, of course, but it also meant we had to make a lot of compromises on subject matter. Of late, the differences between us seem to have grown more pronounced.

We've been doing Meanwhile for two years now, and I think we've hit most of the goals we had when we began, so we're going to go ahead and declare ourselves on "indefinite hiatus." Maybe we'll resurrect the show someday, maybe not.

If Dave tells me about his other plans, I'll announce 'em here. In the meantime, I ain't giving up on the podcasting space! Look for a new series announcement later this week!

Delays!

I hate to do this, y'all, but I'm delaying the panel write-up to tomorrow. Broken Frontier's had some technical difficulties of late and it looks like they'll be resolved then, so we'd prefer to post it there.

It's more of a long-term interest piece than BREAKING NEWS YOU MUST KNOW NOW!!!, otherwise I would've put it up on Friday.

NYCC Con Report, 2006: Just TOO Popular.

Got to the con in the absolute nick of time to cover the much-discussed "Web Comics Panel without webcartoonists." Writeup to follow shortly!

Divalicious' initial orders were a little too good. Borders snapped up the entire initial 4,000-copy print run, leaving me and Amy without any copies of the book to promote. But Amy soared to the rescue. You've already peeked at our convention exclusive minicomic, but I didn't know she was planning to put them in a signed goodie bag along with customized buttons and magnets.

Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised. Amy brings a Tina-like energy to the whole creative process. Taking in the Oscars with her and talking plot points over chicken and pork were loads of fun. The whole Tokyopop crew was good to spend the day with.

I alternated between the T-Pop booth, hustling for work elsewhere, and sitting in "Podcaster's Alley" (like a suburb of "Artist's Alley," but with people who podcast). All three were nice experiences, especially since I got to share space with the Digital Strips boys. But there was a complication to the Podcaster's Alley experience... which deserves its own post. Tomorrow.

Enough vagueries! Beginning promised writeup now!

Off to NYCC!

If you're going, you probably won't get this post until it's over-- but just in case: the best time to reach me is SUNDAY at table #150. Before that, I'll be doing a few things at the Tokyopop booth-- check the schedule.

If you're going, I hope I see you, and have fun!

If not, MESSAGE ENDS. RESUME YOUR LIFE.

Not So Fast!

I'm kind of flattered to see gossip columnist Rich Johnston digging through my old blog posts (I've considered deleting all the stuff from the older version of the blog, more than once), but he's made an error.

Tokyopop has not junked all its digital comics plans.

What that means depends on what you mean by "digital comics."

T-Pop's a pretty Web-aggressive publisher, and they post lots of their material online and via phones, but they do not publish anything digitally exclusively. The fact that they describe the samples of their print volumes as "online manga" does muddy the waters if you don't know what they mean.

All I was referring to was the fact that they had eliminated the online department, folding most of the related responsibilities into the promotional division. The online department never managed content because T-Pop doesn't publish anything digitally that it hasn't committed to publishing in print (not counting the user-generated content on its site). This was bad news for me as a job-seeker, because I could claim lots of online experience but not so terribly much promotional experience. But it doesn't seem to have slowed down T-Pop's online self.

Rich and I have talked occasionally and I don't remember all the conversations with perfect clarity. If I misled him on this, my apologies!

The Elephant Roadblock.

So, yesterday, as I was moving in? Had to take a five-minute break to let elephants pass.

Elephants! The circus was in town, and the elephants needed to walk past the intersection. They were followed by tiny ponies. Sorry, I didn't have my camera with me.

I think I'm going to like the new digs.

Clickwheel Acquired by Rebellion/2000 AD

Unsurprisingly, my man Tim Demeter has the press release.

I've been out of the loop with Clickwheel until recently, but based upon what I know, this is a great move for them. Congratulations to Tim and to William Simons.

WCCAs, Last Call...

I'm moving into the new place today and tomorrow, then going to the New York show on Friday, so posting will probably be light. A few more words on the WCCAs now that everybody's lost and won...

Although I wouldn't go as far in my criticism as Dirk Deppey (start here and go to the "digital comics" section) maybe it is time to retire the "cartoonists draw the awards ceremony" tradition. It was fun when it started, a nice little celebration of the awards' ambitions to be the Oscars of webcomics, and some cartoonists are still doing a good job with the "presentations"-- but do we really need to spend our energies imitating a ceremony that even the nation's most popular comedians often fail to make interesting?

Yes, I know it's a way for cartoonists to grab some visibility as they honor their fellows (Gisele and I did that last year). But it's not like there's a shortage of ways to promote your online comic, you know?

Most people on the Internet want access to information instantly, and scrolling through 25 pages to learn things that we could learn in one screen may be more frustration than it's worth. And the energy devoted to such a ceremony might be better spent clearing up administrative headaches.

Headaches like the delays in voting. Let's make this the last year this happens, hm? I'm prepared to put some time where my mouth is. No, I don't want to rejoin the committee, but I will be spending some time in the next few months looking for ways to make the administration of the awards easier.

Glad to see Lackadaisy honored so thoroughly-- for a young strip like this that really counts. The other big winners, Questionable Content, Dinosaur Comics and Perry Bible Fellowship, are on my RSS list. I would like to see more "awards turnover" every year but I'm not sure there should be.

The surprise of the year is a pair of absolutely stunning upsets: Order of the Stick for "Best Longform Comic" and "Best Gaming Comic," beating out Girl Genius, Inverloch, Gunnerkrigg Court, VG Cats, PvP and Penny Arcade. It's well-timed, because cartoonist Rich Burlew is at the top of his game. If you're not reading this one, it's better than you probably think it is.

Okay, gotta go!

"Can Google Hear Me?"

Dang, wish I'd thought of that.

"22" Vision.

Peter Venables has a new and interesting exercise based on Wally Wood's "22 Panels That Always Work." If you're an artist looking for an excuse to GET BETTER, this is a good one.

Divalicious: "Hangin' Chaddy"

Let's start your Monday off right. T-Pop's put the SECOND chapter of Divalicious online for yaz. Look below for a taste, then click the images for more...

Anna Nicole Smith: The Comic Strip.

Wow, that's like the definition of bad timing. I'd be interested to talk with the enigmatic Enigma about his (her?) experience working on this commissioned strip.

Ask Jimmy Wales A Question.

Webcomics and Wikipedia have had a stormy relationship of late, and I thought it would be nice to have a conversation about it with Wikipedia's foremost authority.

I will be interviewing Jimmy Wales for Broken Frontier. I have a few questions of my own, but if you want to suggest a question, this would be an excellent time. Use the comments line, or just e-mail me privately.

Broken Frontier (Update II)

I've learned the hard way not to trust anything until the contract is signed. Here are three examples.

I announced some time back that I had been brought on as a professional blogger. I had this on the word of the man who would have paid me. But shortly after that, my hiring was placed on indefinite hiatus, where it's now remained for months, and let's just say I no longer feel very professional about it.

Yesterday, I applied for a writing gig that I would absolutely love, and the hiring manager and I began talks. But I fret, because the job involves describing a city where I do not currently reside. Geography is still a factor for a writer; let no one tell you otherwise.

And I announced that I was going to be writing and editing for Broken Frontier after we were all in verbal agreement, but before the contracts were signed. I shouldn't have done that.

The contracts have been signed.

More soon.

Real-Life Problem:

What do you do when somebody dies whom nobody liked all that much?

You'll understand if I don't get specific.

New York Comic Con: The Webcomics Panel of the Year?

Gary Tyrell is puzzled at best by an announced announced webcomics panel at the New York Comic-Con, which features a set of names largely unfamiliar to those in the scene. Most of the commenters on his blog agree with his assessment. My own feelings were very different:

My first reaction to this was the same as Gary's, but the more I think about it the more intrigued I get. Frankly, the last couple of years' worth of conventions have featured what seems like the same panel over and over, with the same sorts of guys answering the same questions with the same answers (and I've felt that way no matter which side of the table I was on). I was planning to skip this one, but now I think I've probably got to attend.

Also, if [the recent webcomics Wikipedia controversy] has taught us anything, it's that one clique's unfamiliarity with someone should not be the definition of that person's "notability." Here's who these guys are:

Milton Griepp - ICv2 is one of the most frequently-cited news sources about comics. Its webcomics coverage has been rather cursory, but he's still a knowledgeable source.

Josh Blaylock - Pullboxonline is a serious attempt to apply the 99-cent iTunes model to comics, and it's targeting an audience that isn't used to getting its comics for free. I think it's facing long odds, but its business plan isn't idiotic.

Richard Bruning, Jeremy Ross - I have to be discreet here. I'll just say that I've heard these names frequently before, and that DC and Tokyopop choosing to join the webcomics discussion should be treated as news in itself.

Scott Rosenberg - I don't really need to tell you about this guy. Love him or... no, I can't complete that sentence. Be neutral about him or hate him, he's already affected the game.

Heewoon Chung - He may be a poor English speaker, he may be trying too hard to fit in with "America's traditional in-your-face marketing," but Netcomics really is successful in Korea, and money talks. It might be interesting to see how he does against DC, at least.

Regis Maher II - Extreme Holdings, Inc. is the only real "HUH?" on this list for me-- all Google tells me is that it seems to own an aircraft in Portland, Oregon (go here and scroll to the bottom). Portland is a major hub of comics culture-- and that's my only clue.

Maybe there should have been one or two of the Usual Suspects on this roster-- but then, if there were, maybe they would be about as discordant a presence as Chung was with the Blank Labelers.

I suspect that Maher and at least two others on this list are planning to use this panel to leak new plans for the coming year.

Are these YOUR NEW WEBCOMIC OVERLORDS? Doubtful. Will some of them seriously challenge the established order? Very possibly, especially in the short term.

They could all be heading into Vietnam, as Crossgen did before them. Certainly there's a lot of institutional thinking to overcome at big businesses, especially at DC. But American big business has demonstrated an ability to learn from small business, and I think it's naive to assume it will never do so in webcomics, just because it hasn't done so to date.

I think life just got a little more interesting.

Happy Valentine's Day

Random Idea: Rhymer?

I'm just gonna put this out, here.

Does anyone know where I can find a program that'll sort large blocks of text by rhyme?

I'm looking for the ability to do something like this, but using actual rhymes, not words that just end with the same couple of letters ("stopped" does not rhyme with "glared").

I'd be willing to pay for this, or pay to get it developed. Anyone know anything?

Today, My Only Business Is Business

I'll be spending most of the day writing up a profile of Marvel's financial picture for business class, with a quick break to bring my mattress into the new place. The warehouse where I got the mattress may have need of a webmaster, and since I currently own a lot more Internet real estate than I'm using, maybe we can work something out.

Yes, I know, this post is TOO exciting. If you've survived the thrill of reading it, stay tuned tomorrow.

CAPTCHA This!

Got a forum? Worried about spam attacks? Read on-- this may help...

Because Penny and Aggie has a discussion forum about teenagers, albeit fictional teenagers, we found especially vile spam on our PHPBB pages almost every day. It got so bad that I was considering restricting access to current members and people who e-mailed me personally. And that's no way to grow a community. So what could we do?

The default security on discussion forums is a "captcha." The most popular kind of captcha is shown at right. As you can imagine, the string of characters is computer-generated. But PHPBB is free software. Anyone has access to its program. Anyone can take it apart and see how it works. "Anyone" includes everyone who programs spambots for fun and profit. And no "randomizing" software is truly random-- take two copies and run them under the same conditions and they'll always come up with the same results.

Ah, but spambots can't anticipate human behavior! What if you modified the captcha so that forum owners could personalize the test, and create a version that applies only to one forum, ruining the "economy of scale" that makes forum spam profitable?

Torstein Hønsi asked this "what if," then made it happen. Thanks to him, Gisele and I can sleep soundly at night, knowing we will not have to delete "OMG RAPE STORIES" first thing in the morning.

I hereby declare this National Torstein Hønsi Day.

Divalicious: "Sake of the Children"

You know what makes my day better? Free comics make my day better. And right now, Tokyopop's website is showing the first story in Divalicious Volume 1, "Sake of the Children," absotively FREE. (Yes, you do have to sign up to get it all-- but I've been signed up with Tokyopop for a year and they haven't spammed me yet.)

What the hey, I'll get you started. Click the images to get to Tokyopop's Divalicious page, then click the link under "Read" to get the rest of it. And once you're done and still hungry for more, well, why not buy the book while you're there?

Divalicious: Into the Groove...

Work on Divalicious continues at a reasonable pace, all things considered. Wish I could tell you anything about the chapter I just finished without spoiling Volume 1.

Oh, what the hell! SPOILER WARNING: It was the FOURTH chapter.

Got my advance copy of Volume 1 yesterday, and OH IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL. How did I manage to trick Amy Mebberson into working with me, again?

Tomorrow: more freeviews.

The Dead Man's Coat.

No post yesterday! At least one make-up post this weekend. Sorry, but it was a busy day and most of it was offline.

I wrote about the departed Charlie Taylor a few days back, before I realized that I would be inheriting his coat. Unlike his son and wife, I have the build for it. There were still personal effects in its pockets, including a court summons, and, I believe, a dentist's appointment for today.

It's a very warm coat. The Taylors were quite kind to give it to me.

I imagine this superstitious feeling will fade with time.

We all miss you, Charlie.

Divalicious: An Auspicious Meeting

This is the other reason Amy and I were busy last week-- we had an important meeting to take.



Tina's ideas were... interesting, but Shaquille soon assured us that she had neither the time nor the inclination to be a truly "hands-on" editor. So that's a load off our minds as we scramble to get Divalicious: The New York Comic-Con Special ready for the show.

Yeah, just read that last sentence again. I kind of snuck it in there.

On PvP Animated.

The first episode is out, and we're starting to see talk about it. I still think they'll need three or four under their belts before I can really take this in, but since three or four months is an Internet millennium, a few thoughts:

1) PvP has a comedic range that includes media parody, gentle slice-of-life, screwball comedy, and prime-time sitcom. Most of this episode goes for the slice-of-life. It's a quiet affair. Scott and Kris show off their more thoughtful qualities as writers, which helps set PvP apart from most other "animated strips." (In fact, Francis' melancholy about the prospect of growing up feels kind of Peanuts.) But one of the big virtues of animation is that it can just pile on joke after joke after joke after joke without worrying about the space limitations of a strip. In future shows, the guys may want to go a bit more for the jugular.

2) Because of the way this animation is being sold, its primary audience, for now, is PvP fans. Any talk about how "accessible" the animation is has to take this into account. This crowd will get the panda joke, and they might get half a dozen more references to previous strips. But those kinds of in-jokes should generally be a light seasoning on the whole product-- otherwise you get stories that seem to congratulate the franchise just for existing, and we have superhero comics for that. I think the staff's priorities are in order on this.

3) I got lost in the story. I stopped analyzing and just watched and related. That's important.

4) It was a nice little excursion. It doesn't quite measure up to Scott's best work in long-form storytelling, which was probably the Christmas special and the Savage Dragon crossover-- real side-splitting, show-stopping efforts that played delightfully with our expectations. There's no joke that measures up to Kurtz's funniest gags either, like this fantastic sequence.

Comparing one episode of an animated series to the best of nearly ten years of a body of work is UNFAIR. But everybody will anyway.

One Simple Sunset.

Speaking of ways to address the conflict between ads and content and website aesthetics, One Simple Ad stopped taking ads last night. The final version of the site is now online, with good ol' Ryan North front and center.



Now Ryan gets to be the most important link in OSA for more than four-and-a-half years. He's a farsighted dude, that Ryan. What else has he done? ;-)

On Designing Webcomics Sites.

Last week's posts on the WCCAs turned up a few interesting responses, especially regarding design. Casting about for an example of a webcomic by a graphic designer which nevertheless sacrificed some aesthetics to commerce, and not wanting to go right to Gisele and me, I picked on my friend Brad Guigar, who gracefully replied that that compromise was the point. And he's right. If your goal is to find a balance between aesthetics and ads, Evil, Inc. is a pretty good role model.

That said, there is this conflict of interest. The reader wants her eyes to rest gently upon the site content, while the advertiser would really rather the readers' eyes rest on the ads. Things get more complicated when the content, like most webcomics, is a continually updated piece of a larger whole: to what degree should the site distract from the comic? I'm enough of a utopian to think that truly excellent design is that which gives the most happiness to the most people, and for me, that means "Shut up, website, and you shut up, too, advertiser, I'm trying to read."

But my standard is not the only standard. And market realities mean that if I want more free comics, I'd better be prepared to take ads with them. This is an ongoing conflict with no easy resolution. Such is life.

RIP Charles Vernon Taylor

A couple of duties conspired to keep me from moving to my new place last week-- one happy, one sad.

Charlie Taylor, 61, was a friend of the family. His health had not been good for the last ten years, but he was flanked by two energetic presences: his loving wife Kay, who recently helped me in the discovery of my new apartment, and his sometimes mischievous, always good-hearted son Wade, who seems to have inherited Charlie's wit in the face of adversity.

I did not know Charlie as well as I would have liked. At his funeral, I was surprised when they played Eternal Father, Strong to Save. I later learned from Marion, his stepmother, that the hymn was one of his favorites because his father was a seaman. If you want, you can listen to it yourself here.

Sail on, Charlie.

Google Checkout, No More

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER "AFTER"

We've checked out Google Checkout, and now it's time to check out.

It seemed like a good enough idea. Because GooCheckout is trying to beat Paypal, it's letting people use it without finance charges through 2007. So we could spend the year trying it out and come out with an extra 2-4% of our donations, which were at about $50 a week in December. By the end of the year, that adds up to about $50-$100, just for switching a little code around.

However-- stop me if this sounds familiar-- we underestimated users' reluctance to sign up with a new payment system. There were reasons to think Checkout would be better for us than Bitpass, reasons like the venerable Google brand and the wider range of payments.

This is not irrefutable evidence that Google Checkout is completely useless to everyone. Although I can't confirm this, I suspect that our audience has access to fewer credit cards per capita than the audiences of other webcomics, making a switch between payment systems more daunting. Other websites with extremely loyal donor bases might want to try putting Paypal and Checkout links side-by-side and see what results they get. Try a tagline like "Use Paypal OR... make sure EVEN MORE of your money reaches us!"

Bottom line, though: we went from getting about 97% of $50 to 100% of $0. Do the math.

WCCA Reactions Five (Snap!)

Rounding out my fixation of the week...

11. "Outstanding Use of the Medium" was a nice try at wording, better than "Outstanding Use of Flash," but voters still seem uncertain what this new category is really about. I'm pretty sure that a Flash interface for static art or a computery art style isn't what the staff had in mind. That leaves two real contenders, Halfpixel by Kristofer Straub and I Am A Rocket Builder by B. Shur, both of which are doing very interesting things with the Web. Just check 'em both out. And give this category another year, voters might figure it out.

12. Soooo mannnnnny caaaaaategories. Even the webcomics-obsessed like me start to feel their energies flag as they reach the bottom of the list. Parsing out the nominees over a week was an interesting idea to address this problem, but not enough. To some degree, it may be a necessary evil, as long as the goal is to recognize the field's diversity. But everybody has an unfavorite category.

I think it's a neat idea to have the voters nominate additional categories (cough MOVIE COMICS TEEN COMICS KID'S COMICS cough), but it'd also be neat if we could vote certain categories off the island.

I've wondered about Character Rendering, Character Design, Environment Design, Character Writing, Webpage Design, Anthropomorphic Comic (it's an artistic choice, but is it either a style or a genre, really?) and Dramatic Comic (it always seems to get split between straight-up fantasy, slice-of-life, and dramedy). If I had to pick one to cut, it'd be Character Writing, because it feels like affirmative action for an existing majority.

13. Congrats to the WCCA committee for another year's grueling, virtually thankless, blame-attracting, so-difficult-and-controversial-that-I-really-don't-know-why-it-hasn't-driven-them-to-suicide work. I regret having to leave the committee. But not too much.

One Simple Failure.

It is probably time to stick a fork in One Simple Ad.

I learned a lot from this project. The education has helped me and Gisele make considerably more cash from Penny and Aggie (though not enough to let her quit her day job, so buy those books, people!). The learning was great! And aside from the support of a few talented friends and some interesting artwork, the learning was about all I got.

Earnings for January were one cent. Or should that be "Earning for January was one cent?"

And you can see the audience share for yourself. But let me break that down for ya: on its best day, the site had 24 pageviews from 14 unique users. That is not a mere failure, that is a spectacular failure. Certainly my failingest failure to date. And I owe it all to you, and your complete lack of interest! :-)

I promised the site would continue to exist until October 11, 2011, and I have every intention of making good on that promise. But we will stop accepting new ads on midnight, Monday, February 5, and though one never says "never," I doubt we will start again. Meaning that if you want to get a permanent spot in the archives for the next five years or so... better place your bids now.

Hey, you never know.

Penny and Aggie: Celebrity Poker Showdown

I mentioned this indirectly before, but Penny and Aggie: Celebrity Poker Showdown is available for order now. I have my advance copy and it looks fabulous at full size, especially the back cover.

Pick it up and give it a read!

WCCA Reactions IV: A New Hopeful Questing Voyage Home For Peace

"Christ, he's still on that?"

And now for the gripes! Please do not read any of the below as an attack on the WCCAs. You can be a fan of democracy and still think another candidate should have won the vote.

7. Gary Tyrell has some good observations (but don't read the comments section-- seriously, you'll live longer). He notes that A Lesson Is Learned has been on hiatus for a lot of the year and only has a handful of 2006 strips; you can say the same about Copper. I've voiced concerns before about giving awards to small fragments of work, but Lesson and Copper are both episodic, so for me, that consideration doesn't really apply. And they are beautiful. Still, I think Between Two Worlds and Dresden Codak are more on their game this year.

8. It's Thin Slice, not Scott Kurtz, who deserves the award for "Outstanding Web Design." (Check the credits at the bottom of Scott's page.) And it's Thin Slice who could really use it. A new design company is always hungry for recognition from any relatively neutral third parties.

But it's the committee, not the winners, who is responsible for making corrections like that. There are almost always typos and glitches in the nomination phase, though. I expect they'll correct it when Thin Slice wins.

9. Because it has to win, right? Those other nominees... The Curious Adventures of Aldus Maycombe? You're kidding, right? It's got a few nice design ideas that might look good on smaller monitors, but Janine Harper needs to learn to design for hi-res, and nobody looks that good when the monitor is constantly chopping their artwork in half. (Scroll-click-scroll-click-scroll-click-scroll-click...)

Alpha Shade's a tossup-- I love that facing-page interface, not so crazy about the jumble on its homepage.

Last year I was prepared to give the nod to Kris Straub for the relatively clean Starslip Crisis design and the Flash linkbox Kris designed for the whole Blank Label crew. This year, SsC is the only strip still using that linkbox, and the linkbox doesn't include Kris' other project, Halfpixel, even though the latter strip's cited as a Blank Label project in a recent press release.

I guess Starslip Crisis' design is still okay, but it was sure a whole lot better before Kris added 8 billion sponsorship buttons and a big red Halfpixel ad. I'm not saying Kris doesn't have the right to make money off his strip-- hey, Penny and Aggie has lots of ads, too-- but it's silly to pretend that page design doesn't pay a price.

Bottom line, most webcomics' webpages are pretty ugly. If you want to support yourself with advertising, beef your traffic up with cross-linking, and build stickiness with a blog, ugliness is almost required. Even professional graphic designers struggle to balance design and commerce, and Thin Slice's design options would have been fewer if PvP couldn't afford to run fewer ads. I'd like to see more attention given to the websites which eschew such compromises altogether. They are out there.

Once more, for the record: I like these three strips, it's their webpage design that leaves me cold.

10. I second Gary's sentiment that xkcd is the non-nomination of the year. Yeah, I know it's not always a single-panel comic, but that's its default setting, and I'd seriously consider it for Outstanding Comic. Hopefully, it was not hampered by the fact that it is also a contender for Outstandingly Difficult To Spell.

Tomorrow: Are these cats dogs?

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