Smack talk and that sort of thing...

[troybuddha]

I've decided this might be the best way to get traffic to my site...

Now Ctrl Alt Del and PvP are in a pissing match! I think I?ve decided that all this controversy is just a way to generate traffic! Since it works for the big boys?

Penny Arcade is drawn by 5 year olds and written by a chimp.

Scott McCloud is a crackpot.

Cat Garza? is just plain fucked up.

Scott Kurtz is not god?s gift to cartooning.

Ctrl Alt Del just needs to move on with it?s plotline? oh wait that would require a plotline.

Questionable Content needs to stop focusing on Faye?s ass so much.

Now I?ll just sit back and let those controversial statements bring in hundreds of thousands of visitors?

heck who knows....

[Eric F Myers]

Ha! I had the same thought. I need my own nemesis to bitch and moan about. Maybe I'll pick a fight with William G. All of the big names have done it.

[troybuddha]

Damn I knew I forget to add someone to that rant! hmmmm what could I say about William G. ...
The Bastard lives in Korea? no that's not really insulting... Hey William G. you want to help me out here?

[troybuddha]

I had another idea what if a bunch of lesser/unknown webcartoonists started a flame war... then when things start to get heated up one or two of them could either remove or change their inflammatory posts!
Now that would be fun!!
I think we could be on to something here. Is this the lesson we should be learning from the big boys about how to be a successful webcartoonist?

[William G]

Hey William G. you want to help me out here?

Would you like me to pass on the emails I've gotten from DJ Coffman? He's surpassed anyone I've run into on the web as far as willingness to take it to extremes is concerned*. He's like a buddha of abuse. We could all learn a lot from him.

Really though, the best you can ever hope for is to siphon off some of the traffic from a bigger site than yours. Word of mouth does work occasionally, but you may as well ask for a chicken that lays $1000 bills while you're at it. The field is far too crowded for everyone to get a shot at the top now.

Unless you start tossing the advertising dollars around. Things are relatively cheap as far as advertising on webcomic sites goes (Last I looked anyway), but you'll just be advertising towards the same group of people who are spending their time focused on the "big boys" anyway.

I say, if some collective scraped the cash together to advertise on CNN.com, and they had a product easily accessible to the general public, those people may stand a good chance of cleaning up.

Of course, this is all theory. I certainly dont have the cash to spend on a month of Salon.com.

*(well there was this one psycho here in Korea named Darryl who started hunting down the home addresses and phone numbers of his online "enemies" and posting them up on his blog. As well as issuing physical threats towards them. He was reported to Blogger who told him to take them down. He refused so they wiped out his account.

Shortly afterwards he was ejected from Korea for taking a dump in his coworker's door... and threatening his boss, the kids, and I think also the cuckoos circling around his head. And I think the lawsuit sent his way from the threats he made in his blog may have helped send him out of the country.

He's become a bit of an expat legend.)

[djcoffman]

It's good to see Willy G. can't stop talking about us. WE'RE IN HIS MIND!!! I love being called a "buddah of abuse" -- that's awesome!

Seriously though, Troy... if you want to be a player, you have to do more than just talk about big comics and call people names. You actually have to have a GOOD comic too... not to criticize your comics, your art looks great, and I DID actually follow the trail from the WebVsWeb post you made, but when I went to the link, I only saw text-- and links to the comics.. which lead me here... because I'm bored. NOW, to give it a fair shake, i went back and checked your comic links to check em out... while the art could use some polishing, it's not bad at all, like most webcomics... BUT, I can't read your friggin comics. The lettering is too messy, or just plain not legible at all.

You want your comics to be one of the first things to hit people when they come in. I know you're just playing about this topic-- but seriously, usually when someone, like myself, shoots his mouth off and calls someone a name, then they check my link and see I have a decent comic they tend to go "This guy is good, what the heck is his probleM?" and they incesently check you out over and over to see what you're saying. Sort of ... a ... Howard Stern effect???--
Willy G. Tried awfuly hard to use the same thing, but failed miserably. But only because he IS Willy G. --- Anyways, keep up the work, and keep fine tuning your strips.... other folks will just come in and go away and never come back. If you want people to read your comics, make them READABLE!!! DAMMIT!!!!

I just felt like adding the DAMMIT.



Keep on Webcomicking!

[William G]

...

[troybuddha]

I've been working on the readablity of the comics I think 52 Weeks is fairly good in that regard, Also I think the CT Faire Comic is pretty readable. The Webcartoonist is way too erratic in font size I think. Yes there are lots and lots of words on the main page... Google loves words, google does not like images as much. What I'm planning on doing is posting a weekly comic (or at least an image link ) and then having a blog entry below it, there by combining the best of both worlds... well if not the best at least the best that I can offer.
As for the art I think my work is getting better as i keep working on new things the thing that always blows me away in other peoples work is their color is just so right for the work. The colors in Questionable Content for instance are great, it's a nice balance between muted and bright it works so well for that comic.

Anyway thanks for the insight ( with no abuse even )