Professional, hell (okay, maybe if you mean regular updates).

Most of the crap on the comics page is bad…I only ever read it (when I had a paper) because it was there (freaking Family Circus…always ruining my day, and when I looked back and asked “why did the paper suck so bad today? Whose fault was it?” Keane’s comic would say “not me”).

Most of the stuff on the web is crap, too. I just don’t feel as compelled to read it, but when that happens, I don’t go to that URL (kind of like how I didn’t go to that crap opinion cartoon).

The good thing about the web (vs. print) is the word of mouth. When a cartoonist I like recommends another’s work, I look at it. If it’s crap, I don’t look at it anymore. I never had that option with the print medium, even when I heard about a good strip in another paper (oh, sure, I could write a letter to the editor, but I think Doonesbury is about as racy as my red state is willing to get). Example: my cousins’ paper had Foxtrot. I couldn’t just turn to a new comics page in the paper and start reading it.

The good thing about print is it allowed some of you people to make a living with doodles–often poorly done–instead of having to slave away in a cubicle. Yes, i criticize without creating, because I’m your freaking audience. I am the consumer with the money, so you please me or you piss off.

“That’s what’s next for the web: gatekeepers, editors, and payments. People want filters.”

Balogna…with the exception of coffee, water, and central heat and air, this hyperbole carries little mental content. Learn to google. If you’re typing in “webcomics” for your search, and hoping that you come up with something quality, then yes, you need a gatekeeper, editor, and payment, because you are too dumb to narrow your search terms. If I want to find a doctor in my town, I don’t type in “health” and hope that the first naturopath wacko site I come to just happens to be within driving distance.

I’ve read it elsewhere, and I think it’s pretty clear that there’s an answer. Word of mouth. I imagine you’ll build up about twenty or thirty regularly updating strips in no time, if you just find one or two webcomics you like and check their links. Then your regular comics page substitute will be tailored to you, not to your syndicate’s editor (or however that works…I’m not a cartoonist).

Now for another thing. All of you…e-cartoonists and print folks…need to get through your heads that you provide nothing of intrinsic value. It’s doodles (or if it’s an editorial cartoon, poop scratches) that you’re putting up there. The emotions that I feel toward said chickenscratch are my own, and if they are powerful enough, I buy your book, or your t-shirt. Otherwise, your comics page could burn tomorrow, or your server could crash, and the entire rest of the world would only miss you as long as it took them to find a new distraction.

That may be why “free” content has such a cult following; because it is what the audience wants, and it takes them relatively no effort to get it. One could say the same about newspapers, but that would be taking for granted the proposition that I want what’s in there. Also, I think we all know the hassles that newspapers bring to our lives (“Two Dollars”…Better Off Dead? Anyone?).

If you think enough people love your print comic enough to pay for it each day, you need to pull your head out of your hindparts. They love their newspaper, but it’s full of doom and gloom, so they turn to you to remember how happy the comics page made them as a child, and try to forget about how instead of Calvin and Hobbes, all they have is Non Sequitur.

If you think enough people love your webcomic enough to pay for it each day, you also need to remove the cranium from the anus. They love their computer, but youtube only occasionally has something worth their time, so they look for a clever way to kill eight hours (archives, anyone?).

Sometimes, the emotions your cartoons can inspire result in a purchase, but let’s be honest. All of you are just hocking a hobby that probably got you in trouble for doodling in the margins of your textbooks. Count your blessings. If it doesn’t pay enough, go dig a ditch or something.

I know this is mean and harsh and rant-y, but I just came across the forum debates on all of this crap on this site, and I can’t believe how much self-important ego-felation you people engage in. Everyone has it tough. So piss off with this entitlement crap that you seem to be into. Syndicates get you readers in the same way that torture gets you confessions…there’s not much of a choice there. Free content gets you sustainable economics in the same way inventing does. Most people don’t need the Sham-Wow, but every once in a while, you’ll bring us the wheel.

Buncha’ whiners. No wonder everyone calls you guys “starving artists”…it’s wishful thinking.

@Corey: No doubt you will get some sales from being associated with Topatoco. But just consider the numbers. If Topatoco is taking somewhere around 1/3 or your profit, that means you have to increase your sales by 50% to make up the loss of profit. There is no way the visibility of being on Topatoco is going to increase your sales like this.

@Shane: There have been some attempts to make lists of quality and/or popular comics. For example there are sites that use voting or traffic metrics to rate sites:

http://topwebcomics.com/
http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/profile.php?order=ranking
http://comicrank.com/

The top comics on these lists will be better than the average webcomics (which doesn’t say much). But you’ll probably notice many of the most popular webcomics (Achewood, PvP) don’t even bother with some of these sites. This is because, as I mentioned above, such metrics are useless for determining the success of a webcomic.

Webcomics have also formed collectives of comics, so that readers know that the group represents consistent quality. For example, check out

http://www.blanklabelcomics.com/

But even forming collectives like this has fallen out of favor in recent years. The audiences of various webcomics are just too diverse for such groupings to really be useful.

People don’t find quality webcomics by searching “webcomics” or something similar. That’s just too broad.

For example, most of the new traffic to my site comes from other people linking to it. People will post my comics on their blogs, or forums, or email them to their friends. In this way they are essentially saying, “I like this, and I think you may like it too.” This is the filter of the internet. And since most of the people who are actively reading webcomics are getting their material filtered this way, there is no incentive to pay some site to do the filtering for them.

You have two options. Either get your strip onto a popular site (instant audience) or market it yourself to gain an audience.

Jason, I haven’t looked at your comic or website so I am only speaking in generalities, and not specifically about you or your comic.

Marketing can only get you so far. Many webcomic sites and forums have the cavalier attitude of “you can sell anything”, as if marketing is some crackable code where upon reaching some critical mass of exposure, your comic becomes a money making phenomenon. I think its more important to invest time and energy into making a high quality and funny comic, especially in the first few years when you are building up an archive. The way internet fads and phenomenons REALLY spread is like a virus, a guy or gal thinks its funny and sends it to 5 friends, who sends it to 5 friends, etc. If a comic isn’t good (again not talking about you, didn’t even look at your work), it doesn’t matter how many ads or twitter posts or whatever you spread around the net, people won’t read it. Content is king.

I have no interest in making a self sustaining webcomic, so that’s just my two cents. Take it for what its worth.

That’s what’s next for the web: gatekeepers, editors, and payments. People want filters.

Corey – with you doing four comic strips, it must put a strain on your marketing and merchandising side of things. Perhaps you need to drop something and balance it out a bit? Just a thought.

As far as ‘who is the authority’ to decide which 50 or so are the best, isn’t that already happening anyway? That’s like asking ‘who does the Dallas Morning News think it is cherry picking the print comics it wants and disregarding others.”
It’s their paper. The have the right to decide, based on customer input, whose work goes into their paper.

All I’m saying is that if a website collected the very best of the web comics, wouldn’t they be doing the same thing a newspaper does? Which is why there would be more than one ‘accumulation’ site, I’m sure. One for more edgy comics maybe, one for more broad appeal comics, etc.

The fee would be charged to the readers and go to pay the cartoonists and support the site. And if fee based content is so outrageous, why is Roger Murdoch considering it for his news sites? He’s a better business man than both of us, I’m sure. Maybe people don’t mind paying if the service is appealing. I know I don’t mind.

Anyway, no webtoonist woulud HAVE to participate in such an idea as I was throwing out. It’s just an idea.

It just seems if you want to mainstream webcomics, putting several really good ones in one easy to find place makes sense.