Comments on: Barking Up The Wrong Tree

By: Fleen: Written by bitter, haggard wordbeasts » Building The Perfect Webcomic

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:32:41 +0000

[...] So, something PJ wrote got me to thinking about what makes for a good webcomic — archives that you can easily (and freely) navigate are the key advantage of webcomics over their print brethren, despite certain business models to the contrary. Jeff once remarked on the importance of infrastructure, including navigation, forum, and blurb space. And I’ve written about the importance of legibility in artwork. But what else is necessary for a really good webcomic? [...]

By: Fenmere, the Worm

Fenmere, the Worm — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 00:22:10 +0000

It might be more accurate to say that “you shouldn’t publish your comic in myspace, LiveJournal and other social networking or personal journal services if you want people outside those communities to read your work.”

I’d even go so far as to put an “only” in there.

I know of several comics published only in LiveJournal that are taken quite seriously by myself and my friends. And they are very good comics. And the LiveJournal community is nothing to sneeze at, it’s big, and they like it when you publish your comics there.

It all depends on who you want your readership to be.

And it’s a good way to supliment a more generic, home grown or more “credible” site.

If it’s good enough for “Too Much Coffee Man” it’s good enough for me, anyhoo.

By: Nich

Nich — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 21:04:07 +0000

Another helpful navigation tip is that if you’re going to have titled archives, then title the strips so that it’s clear which one is which. A counterexample is QC (sorry Jeph! I love QC in all other ways) which usually uses the title as an extension of the joke or a metacomment, making it hard to find exactly the strip or storyline you want.

By: Matt Buchwald

Matt Buchwald — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 12:30:32 +0000

I applaud this. So many people don’t seem to grasp the concept of next and previous buttons and that confounds me. I think a good general rule of thumb after that is to have as many [different] ways of accessing content as is possible, without cluttering up the interface. That’s why I’ve got the first/last, archive, and calendar, and drop list (I don’t think it works out to being too cluttered). Heck, when going through my own archives to find a link to a specific comic, sometimes that calendar is a godsend.

As far as accidentally slicking a first/last… I never have a problem with it except when a) the first/last aren’t very distiguishable from the next/prev or b) they aren’t centered with the comic. For example, Evil Inc constantly makes me hit Today instead of Next because the next is in the dead center, instead of to the left of center like I’m used to. And that’s eeeeevil.

By: Jeff Lowrey

Jeff Lowrey — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:57:12 +0000

Nick – I find that when I’ve hit the “Last” button, and meant to hit the “Next” button… that the “Back” button on my browser is a big help.

By: Jeff Lowrey

Jeff Lowrey — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:56:17 +0000

Jeph – I was guessing on relative scales of page views… Not intended to slight you (or Mr. Allison) at all. And the rest of your comments are right on.

Also, toot your own horn. You deserve it. But maybe, not in front of the children.

And Superunit500 – I don’t see the referrer logs. So I’m pretty sure I wasn’t talking about you in particular.

By: lucastds

lucastds — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 07:28:21 +0000

another word: cheapest is not always better.

By: j.jacques

j.jacques — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 02:57:41 +0000

Dude not to toot my own horn (seriously) but QC does over a TB of bandwidth every month and we get something like 100,000 user sessions per day lately. I hell of need good infrastructure. Fortunately I’ve got it, but yeah.

I think it’s important for *any* webcomic to have good infrastructure, “good” meaning “more robust than they actually need”. Nothing sucks more than getting that Big Link from [Popular Webcomic X] only to have it kill your site. This doesn’t mean you need to shell out $120/month for some crazy-ass hosting plan, just that you should give your site room for growth and redundancy in case of disaster/massive influx of readers.

Of course, the hard part about this is finding a hosting/colocation/whatever company that doesn’t suck ass. Word of mouth always seems to be the best indicator when you’re shopping around

By: Nick Sonneveld

Nick Sonneveld — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:52:03 +0000

I would say that mixing the next/previous buttons with the first/last buttons is a mistake. I can’t say how many times I’ve hit first when I meant to hit previous.

If you think about how often you use next/previous compared to first/last, perhaps you should move them to another area, like under the calendar or in the archives.

- Nick

By: SuperUnit5000

SuperUnit5000 — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:50:17 +0000

This sounds like your talking about me, because I always come to your blog from mine, and it would show up in your server log that way. But hopefully I’m not the one singled out. I just got paid hosting yesterday.