1) The self deprecating attitude of artists who feel that they don’t measure up to others who are being successful.
This has nothing to do with who you are or your art. This is about WHAT you do. The people who are successful work their asses of trying to be so. There is only a rare few that ever become successful through just sheer skill. Everyone practices their art, walks the pavement to promote them self. Experience is your teacher, learn from it and grow but never blame it on who you are.
2) The belief that you need to post more then one comic a day.
I don’t care if you want to throw an entire series up in one day, it’s wrong to believe you need to throw your content up all at one time. There is a reason for a buffer, it’s to have the strips available to our readership in a periodic schedule. If some emergency happens that you will not be able to write or draw for awhile you’re fans will still be there because you have the strips queued up and ready for them. If you feel you need to provide more content during the day, I have seen some great sites like myextralife.com provide extra blog posts during the day and it has worked quite well for them.
3) Certain CMS sucks because you don’t understand it.
They’re ALL good and have their uses. Some have more features, some are geared to the people who want to have something specific. What you should look at is who is going to support you with that CMS and how are they in reach. Belittling another CMS because of how it behaves does not solve anything. Saying it sucks because you do not know CSS to design your site makes you look foolish. All the CMS’s for comic’s utilize CSS to design their sites. Whichever you choose find out if the developer of it or community can support you if something goes wrong, if all is good and you like it, use it. Saying it sucks or linking other people who say it sucks or fabricate made up data proving one CMS is better then the other is like comparing penis sizes, figuratively of course.
4) Most authors are too damn nice.
There are quite a few of you out there that feel terrible if they ask for help on something. Knock it off, stop feeling that way. The thing about the community is that everyone genuinely wants to help and are waiting to be asked. Ask.
5) Inbred Readership
Readership and advertising your work is becoming dependent on other comics within the community. Advertise and get your name known by the genre of your work not on other peoples sites within the community. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do it all together just don’t think all of reader’s should come from inside the community. Get out there, the internet is huge, advertise on other places!
6) Inbred Facts
For years people are quoting books from authors that are in either the print comics or are famous for their work because they’re famous. These are passed down from one author to the next and some speak of it as gospel. Times change. Society changes with the time. Take it as a grain of salt and do the research yourself and work it out yourself for what would be the best way to get your work to the masses to read. There are so many infinite possibilities of success out there, read but do not believe for one second that the solution to you being successful is that one persons method.
7) The belief that you are doing what is right in your story and characters.
There has been a few conversations that I have had that authors stand behind their story, writing and characters with no fail. This is wrong simply because how are you going to grow or your characters, even cast if you are compliant with what they are all about. The real world works like this, it’s all about the money. If an editor finds something that will sell; they will put their money into it and make it sell, if they don’t they’re going to give you a rejection letter. Never believe your characters are solid, you grow; so should they. Even if they do sell they still need to grow as characters to sell more.
8] Using the Lesbian and Gay community to increase your readership.
I have read several comics that have jumped onto this bandwagon, some of them I simply adored and now hate. You had readers, the story was fantastic and now it’s like you don’t remember who read your comic to begin with. The new fans are overwhelming the old. Sure you found a way to get more success, but did you have to leave your old ones behind too? Sure, stand behind the growth card from #7, no.. not in this case. The reason I read a comic like that to begin with was the love story, that turned into a sort of typical feminists view of how men behave after having sex. Bull fucking shit. You know why chick flicks sell that have pretty much the same structure over and over, it’s because the dreamers out there who want the life of the people in the story want a happy ending, just like your characters were about to.
Simply put, ‘using’ the LBG community to grab a niche of readers from is not an excuse to abandon your current set of readers, there’s nothing wrong with ‘including’ the LBG community; but to completely abandon your reader base for it? SHAME ON YOU.
9) The stymga behind furry animal characters.
There is NOTHING wrong with having furry animal creatures, look at Disney’s Robin Hood and more. The problem is with a few individuals who have claimed to use it as a sexual perversion. Well get it straight, for everything in the world there is a perversion for it, someone out there is masturbating to the little drummer boy Christmas song right now. For every sexual based furry comic out there there are an abundant more non-furry based sexual comics out there, hell i’ve even seen one (unfortunately) based on alien poop creatures having some weird sort of sexual escapades. Knock it off, furry anthropomorphic animals are not the deviants, unless they are drawn that way. Claiming as a whole that creating your work like that is wrong is bad, mmmkay.
10) Building on your readers compassion, for income.
Using your situation to garnish funds from your readers whether it be sickness or financial loss is not appropriate. In quite a few cases it is true and that is definitely alright to ask for help. However, when you are not in that situation and ask for it, shame on you! Provide other methods for earning an income with your work, don’t lie for it and prey on your readers compassion.
11) Telling your readership that the comic will not continue unless they donate.
This irks me something bad. Telling readers that it’s their responsibility to pay for your work to be up. No, it’s YOUR responsibility to provide content for those readers to donate, not to keep it going but for the work you have provided already. If you can’t afford to keep your comic going then find a way to do it on your own and not rely on your readers to foot the bill.
12) I don’t blog so I’m not going to.
Up to you. Me? I dislike not getting to know the author. This was about what I don’t like in the webcomic community right?
13) Posting things before midnight, like a couple hours before midnight.
In today’s technological age it is more then likely that you have an RSS/ATOM feed. A few people utilize this to find out if you have updated. If you’re posting before the new day, people who check their feeds will find that it was a new comic for the previous day or not show that it was a new comic at all because they missed that two hour opportunity to find out if there was a new comic. Don’t just do it for yourself, do it for the feeds! Post after 12:01am, 23 hours 59 minutes of people being able to check their feeds for new content. (if their feed reader behaves that way).
14) Semi successful or successful authors making complete asses of them self.
You may not realize it but you are looked at as a leader in the community by thousands who have not achieved what you have accomplished, .. yet. You’re a role model, stop acting like a prick already. You want everyone to act like you? I don’t. Imagine the friends you could have and the people who could be in your life if you were not such a social blemish.
15) Saying you want your site designed like PVPOnline.
I wont even listen to what you have to say anymore. Get something that fits with your comic, his fits with his, find your own.
16) Thinking that I speak for everyone.
I don’t, this is posted under blog not articles, it’s how I feel and what I am thinking, nothing else nothing more.
– Phil
.. What do you not like in the community?
