Comments on: Not Really Mainstream Media

By: Fleen: Written by bitter, haggard wordbeasts » Webcomics In Review: 2006

Fleen: Written by bitter, haggard wordbeasts » Webcomics In Review: 2006 — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 19:57:11 +0000

[...] The wider world became a bit more aware of us this year, between established publishers like Platinum and Viper deciding to get in on the game, and Gene Yang getting a National Book Award nomination, and Scott Kurtz becoming an Eisner laureate/being named a Guest of Honor at San Diego. And this year’s Child’s Play has raised in excess of $963,000 as of today, with final accounting still to be done. [...]

By: Fleen: Written by bitter, haggard wordbeasts » Fleen Book Corner: BLC Times Three

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 17:44:20 +0000

[...] His analysis of “movers” and “shakers” in the early days, his dissection of business models, his insight into the nature of collectives (Blank Label Comics: [Y]ou do exactly what every other collective did, except you issue a press release saying you were the first.), and his recognition of significant milestones in webcomics (up to September 2006, and the acquisition of Drunk Duck by Platinum Studios) are all neatly formatted and contain a minimum of spelling errors. [...]

By: Alex Neuscheler

Alex Neuscheler — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 01:38:17 +0000

Hear, Hear.

However, it is harder than you think to start a collective. I am a founding member of the Chameleon Collective, a “nice and friendly low to mid-level webcomic collective” that you mentioned in a recent blog. Unless you are looking for minimal involvement and growth in the collective as a whole, then it becomes very demanding. When it starts growing, it gets even more demanding, especially if you want to stand out and do something different. Starting and maintaining a collective is hard work, and often times it is more than the members can bear.

Of course, you could argue that if you aren’t up to putting in the work to maintain a collective then you might not want success badly enough, or deserve it. But most people out there with webcomics either have school or work as well as a personal life. For them, doing a webcomic is taxing enough and putting a collective on top of that is too much.

So if you’re going to start a collective, you should know that it will take a lot of work to make it even simply worth your while.

By: Jeff Lowrey

Jeff Lowrey — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:36:08 +0000

Fleen has written about collectives before.

But really, the best way to get into a nice and friendly low-to-mid-level webcomic collective that’s currently seeking new comics to absorb…

is to START one.

It only takes TWO comics to be a collective…

By: Shishio

Shishio — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:54:05 +0000

There’s a list of collectives on [url=http://www.comixpedia.com]Comixpedia[/url].

By: marc

marc — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 05:36:48 +0000

I wish that some wonderful webcomic related blog would write an article about some of the nice and friendly low to mid-level webcomic collectives that are lurking out there in the wilds of the internet.Especially ones that are currently seeking new comics to absorb…(as this kind of information is surprisingly hard to stumble upon.)

By: iamnotachicken

iamnotachicken — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 03:48:56 +0000

I agree with the emphasis on collectives. It seems really hard to predict who will get mainstream attention (Diesel Sweeties being in papers before PvP or other newspaper suitable strips like Joe and Monkey), so it makes sense to be part of a group in order to help market yourself.

This has converted me from thinking collectives were kind of an OK idea to seeing how much they are awesome.