I am British, so Ted will have to make international news before I hear of his cartoons causing a fuss. Perhaps he’ll be the next Kurt Westergaard?

The only image I have of Ted is based on his conduct here. Using a blatant ‘straw man’ argument (inventing specious webcomic ‘commandments’ just so that he can criticise them) does not serve to make me think that he has a point.

The original post was an announcement that Scott will be talking about ‘what digital self-publishing means to creators and publishers, and how devices like the upcoming Apple Tablet could continue to tip the balance in favor of independent artists’, something that he has experience of. Ted’s original comment was apparently based on the misapprehension that Scott was instead going to talk about syndication, so either Ted misread the post, or was deliberately trolling.

I’m not saying that I think Ted is a good or bad cartoonist/journalist, nor do I agree or disagree with his political views. I’m certainly not saying because I think he’s either being an idiot or a jerk right here in this discussion, everything he’s ever done is null and void and of no merit. I just think he’s making an ass of himself with every post he makes, nothing more, nothing less.

I made the “Ted the Troll” comment (which I still think would be a cute stuffed animal).

I backed off because he is an extremely effective editorial cartoonist, if you look at his career objectively, and there is a lot of good stuff tucked inside of the exploitation.

I do sense, however, that Ted is sometimes taping his cartoons on the outside of the the Daily Cartoonist “building”, just like the old days in New York.

I’d like to congratulate Scott on his public engagements. It must be something to find that you are considered a leader in your field, not only by your peers but by professionals in other industries – especially when all you set out to do is what you wanted to do when you were a kid: draw funny pictures.

****Someone commented on the “wasteland” that is my PHPBB forum. Indeed, I had to give up on it because I get literally 100 spam attacks a day from Russian spambots. Is there a forum program that is immune to nonsense like this?

>>>>Update your software. So-called “captcha” (anti-spambot login stuff) improves with every iteration of phpbb. Also, more importantly, get yourself some loyal dedicated geeks to mod the forum.

That said, a forum is by no means necessary for a comic. And, all but the biggest comics tend to have very small desolate communities.

>>Also, hire/farm out to a community moderator. Even the best tools aren’t immune and can’t prevent everything.

A good online community needs a good online community moderator, someone who not only understands the audience, but also understands the topic.

and

Dave Stephens just turned this into a rap battle!

It’s like 8 mile now, awesome.

Personally… I don’t like subscription models. Donation models work better, especially if there are carrots given for donations (say exclusive content or the like). But putting up a subscription wall will exclude people who don’t want to pay it. Take the Wall Street Journal; there are many articles in it I see online through Google News I’d love to read. I hit that wall, I click the little “close tab” button, and I move to the next news story. In doing so I don’t bother with any of the online advertising or the like (though considering I’m using Firefox 3.5, a lot of the advertisers are blocked anyway to prevent malware intrusions; if they’d actually be reliable and ferret out those viruses, I’d not be blocking most of them).

The Internet has long been built on free content. This is the great bane for subscription models. Why should I pay for something when I can find something similar elsewhere for free? It might work if you have something tremendously valuable… but for a hobby such as webcomics? I don’t see it working for long.

Rob H.