karmic calamity

The rest of the month...

After, say, the third week in July, things started to turn a corner. We went to San Diego, kicked around Comicon, I covered a couple of the webcomics panels for comicon.com/pulse... which was interesting.

I can remember going to many of the same panels last year and came out of them thinking "those weren't incredibly informative"-- I dunno, it really didn't seem like I was walking out of those panels with any greater insight into what I needed to do than I had walked in with.

This year? Well, they were better attended, which told me that interest was higher than years previous... and in retrospect I guess they were more informative. Some of them infinitely more informative. I was turned away at the "Webcomics 101 - Getting Started" panel, along with about a hundred or so others who were interested in the same topic, so I can't really speak to how informative or useful that panel had been in comparison to last year's.

I was able to cover Webcomics 102 - Finding An Audience, and Webcomics 103 - How To Make Money, and I can say that there was some improvement in the actual nuts and bolts, useful information that was offered in those panels. I'm still not convinced that anyone's really got much to say on building or finding an audience. If the best advice being offered is to spend lots of time posting on message boards in hopes that people will check out your comic, and to rely on word of mouth-- I dunno, that seems like a huge investment of time with very little in the way of return on your investment. Sure it doesn't cost you anything, but time is a very valuable commodity.

Then again, what do I know? I have a very small audience. I have begun to test a few theories in the past week, but for now they're just theories. And the less said about those the better, for now.

Of course, if they work, I'll be screaming "I knew it" all over the place, but for now, I'll clam up and see what happens.

Webcomics 103 was a freaking cornucopia of ideas, facts and numbers, and was far and away more informative than the previous year's panel. Especially Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary. Incredibly informative. I've gone back and watched the video of that panel a few times now and, frankly, I wish that panel had been an hour longer-- god only knows what they could've gotten around to in that time.

I never know what I've gotten from Comicon until after I've gotten back home and had time to reflect on it. Looking back now, I think I got a much-needed recharge, a break from the grind of everyday life, and a relaxing week away from everything. I also seem to have come away from it with the realization that what I'm looking to do here with the comic and my art is to connect with people. I think that's the source of my angst, is that I don't feel like I've been doing a very good job of that.

Guess every journey starts with a first step. So here we go...

posted by Dale Ingram @ 3:26 PM