Earlier this month, the creator of the brilliant social-parody-disguised-as-modern-high-fantasy webcomic, Bruno the Bandit, mentioned that he was no longer working on the comic as a way to make a living. In Ian McDonald’s own words:
Right now, my motivations for doing the strip, not to mention my energy levels, are nearly at zero.
The reason is simple: I failed with Bruno. My ultimate goal was to make a living at this. But it didn’t work out that way. Yes, I kept telling myself that it doesn’t matter that I’m not making a living as a cartoonist, I enjoy doing this as a hobby. Which is not entirely untrue, either. But deep down, what I really wanted was to join the illustrious ranks of webcartoonists who are making a living by publishing their comics online. That ain’t gonna happen. I’m just not that good… either at cartooning, or self-promotion, or both.
Furthermore, my readership has been dropping steadily over the past few years, though I’ve nobody to blame but myself for that, due to all the “breaks” I’ve had to take. As well, feedback on the strip has been at an all-time low. I rarely get any e-mail from readers these days, and the Bruno the Bandit forum is all but dead. I can’t help but wonder if you the readers aren’t getting fed up with the strip. If so, I’m not sure I blame you. I can’t help but wonder if my lack of enthusiasm for working on the strip hasn’t affected its quality of late. Rather than plod along and churn out comics I’m not proud of, I figure I should take a break and recharge the ol’ batteries.
Is this the end of Bruno the Bandit? No. But from now on, when I create new comics, it’s because I feel like doing so, not because I feel compelled to put them out on a weekly schedule.
I’m a huge fan of the comic. Being a long-time reader means I’m pretty familiar with the ebbs of flows of the comic over the years. Which means, I have to agree with much of McDonald’s blog about why Bruno so far hasn’t been successful as a business, having seen things like the frequent hiatuses. And that’s where I’m going with this post.
When you get down to it, there’s a lot that can go wrong when it comes to webcomics. That’s hardly news. We’ve probably all seen creators who started out strong and raked in the donations, only to hit a writer’s block that killed the comic and alienated the fanbase. Or, say, creators who got in over their heads when it came to merchandising, spending so much time stressing over pre-orders and getting things shipped out that their core work, the comic itself, suffered. The two biggest wildcards in making a business out of webcomics are, of course, the creating artist(s) and the audience. An artist may have the best story idea in history, but if you can’t ensnare and hold your target audience with it, you’re screwed. Likewise, the best comic in history won’t stay on top if the artist repeatedly flakes out on updates, delivers empty promises to the fans, or just drives them away with bad behaviour outside the comic.
If you’re seeking to make webcomics a business, you have to be open to listening to your fans’ suggestions. As part of the audience, I’m-a gonna list some of the things that destroy my enthusiasm for any given webcomic and lead me to spend my money elsewhere. I won’t be naming names (though I might be linking links). As always, it’s just my opinion; your mileage probably widely varies.
Flaky updates and empty promises. – Look, it’s okay to have a comic that updates sporadically, but be clear about this point on your site. Don’t say “Updates every Monday!” if it’s more like every Tuesday or every other Wednesday, Thursday, Friday…or whenever you remember you’re supposed to be working on it. Don’t change the update schedule every few weeks. Don’t say “comic will be up tonight” if there’s a chance outside of power outage or family emergency that you can’t deliver. If you have a schedule, stick to it. If you can’t, change the schedule to something that you CAN stick to, even if it means your updates go from three times weekly to once monthly. Hell, even “Updates sporadically” is a legitimate schedule since it tells us not to expect an update every time we check the site. Flaking out on your promises makes you look like a sloppy businessman. If my mechanic doesn’t have my car ready at the appointed time because he never got around to looking at it, I’ll be Googling for a new repairman. Same for webcomics. If you can’t deliver what you promise, I’m not trusting you with my donations or merchandise orders. You’re unreliable.
Semi-relevant to the above: Don’t use your “issues” to be flaky if you want to succeed as a business. – You’re not a freak if you suffer from chronic depression or adult ADHD or any myriad of other mental, physical, and emotional ailments. And I’ll smack anyone who says you are. But if you want to be a strong business, you can’t repeatedly use your issues as an excuse for backing out on your promised delivery of goods. In the “real world,” you get fired if you continually call in sick, no matter how much your boss sympathizes with you. Online, the audience is to some extent your boss, if you’re working for profit. If you constantly disappear for three months and then say each time, “Sorry, my *insert ailment here* wouldn’t let me draw,” the sympathy we all feel for you at first gradually turns into frustration. Millions of people work every day, doing their best to compensate for and conquer their ailments. In order to succeed, you have to work even when you don’t feel like it. I realize this is a touchy subject, but far too often, I’ve seen a webcomic artist vanish for an extended period, only to blog, “I was too depressed to make any updates, but please keep donating!” Your ailments are an explanation, never an excuse. I say this as someone who’s worked hard to defeat my own issues.
This next one invokes Will Wheaton’s Law: “Don’t be a [rhymes with 'stick'].” – You guys might wanna watch your behaviour even when you’re not on your personal site. Whether you like it or not, people’s eyes are on you anywhere you go online, once you gain any sort of following. About four years ago, my favourite webcomic was this unique and well-drawn story about a boy summoned to save another world, only it turns out the boy has so many mental issues and voices in his head that he needs saving almost more than the world he’s supposed to protect. I was in love with this story and its world; I recommended the comic to everyone I knew. Then I noticed that I was on several unrelated forums with the comic’s creator. Then I noticed what a liar, hypocrite, and all-around trolling jerk said creator was, when he didn’t think any of his fans were around to notice. He would deliberately start trouble on these forums, get smacked down by the moderators, then go back to his comic’s forum and cry to his fans about how racist and closed-minded everyone else was, and how poor widdle him got in trouble for being a decent person surrounded by trolls. I lost respect for that person then, and the comic was soon replaced by another in my “favourite” status. Prior to that, I’d been chomping at the bit for the comic to be released in book form. Now the comic’s finally seen the release of its first book, and I don’t care anymore. My interest is gone; that comic isn’t getting my money. I still read it out of habit, but my love for the comic has waned (though that’s also partly because the story’s pacing is awful–almost nothing has happened to advance the plot in the past few years). Some people can separate the artist from the attitude, but I’m afraid my blind eye is only a little bit nearsighted. I’ve had similar issues with a now-idle sprite comic whose artist constantly insulted his own audience, and the writer for a comic in which two people on opposite sides of the world see each other’s lives when asleep. Long rant short: if I catch you being a jerk, you can forget seeing my cash.
Don’t air your dirty laundry to your fans. – For the past year and more, the creator of another comic I follow has been repeatedly begging for more donations, complaining of the financial crisis he, his wife, and their year-old son are in, already having lost one of his family’s properties and dealing with only sporadic employment on top of the bills for the baby. His most current blog posts have been mentions that the comic is only drawing in a fraction of the donations he needs to fund his expenses….Only, he recently blogged that he had the chance to buy the car he’s always wanted. (Note it’s not NEEDS; it’s WANTS.) And even used, this particular model doesn’t come cheaply. My research results averaged from $5,000 to $10,000. You’re probably having a similar reaction to the one I had: “How is it that someone who can barely afford to feed his family can buy a car he doesn’t even need?” I don’t have a problem with people in financial crisis making little splurges. Sometimes that’s all that keeps you sane. But THIS? Is not a little splurge. Many of us have things we’ve wanted to buy for years, but being an adult and providing for your family must come first, particularly if the money situation is as dire as you claim. I acknowledge maybe there’s some unwritten backstory that justifies him buying a car instead of saving for bills, but the situation is presented on his blog as I shared it here. It gets worse, though; the most recent blog post has him complaining that he’ll never be able to buy this car, and putting the blame for it on an unspecified party. His equally underemployed wife, who shares a blog column, posts at the same time that she’s upset that she’s being misunderstood and ignored. Neither one says who they’re talking about, but the timing? Hmmm….If they’re not talking about each other, a little blurb clarifying this would go such a long way. As it stands, right now I’m not donating to someone who appears to value a car over family financial needs, not even if his next post says the three of them are living in a cardboard box.
Now, what’s probably the most important sum-up point of my lengthy rantings–and this part comes from my previous experience with running Web-based enterprises: If you don’t run your webcomic like a business, you won’t succeed as a business. – Just putting up a donation link and three updates every week usually won’t float you. You gotta pimp yourself out more than a five-dollar hooker. A successful business has to advertise, network, merchandise, reinvest…all those things most people hate doing. Most webcomics can’t sustain themselves by selling just books, either–these books tend to be expensive small-run prints with little to no profit. Begging for donations usually doesn’t work either, except to recoup some expenses. Most fans want something more substantial in exchange for their money, like T-shirts, mugs, and plushies, just for starters. Just look at Penny Arcade. Those guys are the classic model for how to run a webcomic business correctly. They stick to their schedule. They offer varied merchandise in their stores. (And they know when to delegate responsibilities like merchandising and advertising so they’re not overwhelmed with projects and can focus on the comic.) They don’t usually talk about their issues, and when Gabe does, it’s not in a whinging way; it’s more educational. They keep their business and personal personas largely separate online (chances are, you’ve been on a forum with one of them in the past and never even knew it), or at least try to be neutral about talking of personal matters on their site blogs. I’m not saying that doing everything Penny Arcade does guarantees you success; after all, their comic has a more mainstream appeal than many others out there in the Interwebs. But learning how to be a businessman won’t hurt you, either.
As usual, this “little” rant got away from me, but it’s all done…for now. I must now go reinforce my pillow fort against angry artists, so ciao!
