Born of Thunder

I did an event in N. Ireland a couple of weeks ago. I talked to a few small press people who asked how I built an audience online. I told them, and then I said they it probably wasn’t possible to do it that way because no one links to the comics they like any more.

The old web felt more about interconnected sites, and word of mouth, and giving a leg up to talent you liked - in webcomics, that usually meant just linking to someone on your front page. I think those lists of links were the first thing to get tossed when people started filling their pages with skyscraper ads.

Almost every gain I made in audience over the years was a trickle-down thing from bigger comics. My top referrers were always from other comics, bigger and smaller. And I tried to pay it forward. I still have a big list of comics I love on my front page. But it’s right at the bottom.

In monetising our webcomic sites, I think in some ways we damaged the ecosystem that helped one another’s sites stay healthy. Seeing an irregularly updated comic’s name on a site I liked meant that I checked it at least sporadically. If ad revenues are vanishing any time soon, if the web is going to get more and more walled off, it might be time to think about helping one another out as we used to as a matter of course. My referrers used to be all comics* - thousands of referrers over a week. It wasn’t viral, it was sustainable.

Those links lists were always somewhat political - I usually only knocked things off because they didn’t seem to need my help, or were just incompatible with my audience (NSFW comics usually). Feelings are inevitably hurt. But if enough people cover their allies, the people they respect, and the people they feel deserve their support, the blanket covers everyone.

At cons, people used to tell me they found my work through Questionable Content, or Penny Arcade, or some other august venture. I never hear that any more. And for fairly obvious, selfish reasons, I miss it. Those links of lists were curation by a trusted source, not an algorithm or chance. I miss that too.

Lauren Jordan: laurenjordan.net

Jade F. Lee: dumplingheart​

Robin Ha: robinha

Eric Colossal: ericcolossal

Jessi Zabarksy: hugbox

Tasty Comics

Saturday, 1:30-2:30pm, White Flint Auditorium

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