My Advice for Using EntreCard to Promote Web Comics

This image wasn't performing as well as a simple image 

for my other comic, so we decided to switch.

I'm trying a textless image for the

current Scratchin Post ad.

This is the post I promised for web comics joining EntreCard. They have a smoking "bonus point" offer going for the next 100 web comics that join, and I have agreed to help publicize it. I am not being paid -- this is for the benefit of the web comics community. (Note: to get the bonus you have to be referred by me, which means you need to drop me an email with your comic's URL when you join EntreCard.) 

EntreCard is a tool. Your results will depend on how you use it, and what you use it on.
Think of EntreCard as a game in which you drop your ad, or "business card," on other sites while they drop theirs on you. The more you drop, the more those people see you. But that is a minor point: the major point is that the more you drop, the more credits you get to buy advertising on other sites.

Because it is a tool to boost traffic, you need to be measuring your traffic. Google Analytics is essential, and I like the Feedjit Live Traffic Feed widget, visible near the bottom right of this page. Both are free. The Feedjit widget links to Feedjit.

EntreCard seems to perform well in exposing readers of one comic to another comic. Obviously, that's appealing, especially if your comic is not well known.

Web comics are new to EntreCard. Focus your advertising on other web comics and dabble with other categories, like pets or humor or kids. Highly removed topics, like blogging for money, technology and fashion seem to be poorer choices, though certain comics will fit into those slots. For some reason, I do well with a blog about blogging tips written in pirate talk, as in, "Argh, matey, that's a mighty fine blog!" Baffling.

You should understand the way the site is supposed to work before you decide to use only parts of it. Study the site. Visit every part, a few times. You'll catch on. You can ask questions on the forum there.

View a site before you advertise. Make sure it's not a lousy site, and make sure it loads at a normal rate, free of music and junk that disgusts people, like 300 widgets. When you are in the section where you buy ads, you can mouse over each one and click VIEW, among other things. Sites that place their EntreCard high up, so you don't have to scroll to reach it, are most desirable. Placing your ad high up on your site is wise. Review the content. If you comic is called Satan's Triumph, you might want to spare the people blogging on religion and the afterlife. It's just good manners.

I have yet to use the site forum, though it is said by some to be a good way to build relationships with other users.

I have two comics on EntreCard. Compare them. Scratchin Post is getting a modest boost from EntreCard, but Li'l Nyet is VERY hot. Decide for yourself whether this is due to differences in the comics or in the ads, because everything else is the same. We are going to switch the Scratchin Post ad today, as an experiment, so if there is no text, you are looking at the new ad, and the point is less notable.

A very major point: There are two main ways to drop cards on people. "Campaigning" allows you to drop sequentially from one member to the next until you hit one you have done or don't want. Then you start again. The other way starts on your second or third day, after you have dropped cards on others. Having noted your card in their "drops inbox" (part of your dashboard), they will drop a card on you. Go to your drops inbox, and toggle to see people you have not dropped on. You want to drop on all these people, minus any undesirable ones, every day. This is how you pile up credits quickly. Here's the walk-through: You click on one of the cards. That blog or comic opens in a new window. You spot the drop box and click it. If you click the ad next to it, you are imitating the sequential mode, discussed above. Instead, use your back button to return to your inbox and do another. If clicking your back button doesn't back you up, hold your mouse on the back arrow, making it act like a drop down menu. Select "inbox" and repeat. Unless you have a slow computer or hit a slow site, you can hit around six sites a minute. At that rate, about 20 minutes a day on EntreCard keeps you in nice shape. You'll have to decide if the time is worth it. As you develop a memory of where the most frequently seen sites place their boxes, you'll really fly, and be able to do your dropping while making phone calls or scratching your leg.

Minor points:

If a blog is slow to load, plays music, video or complex Flash animation, skip it. If you can't spot the EntreCard box, move on. Make a note, mental or written, of sites that drag.

It takes about two weeks to get a feel for which members' sites are fast and reliable, allowing you to cycle through a pile of them quickly.

I get far more bang advertising on comic sites than other sites, but a few sites with a "cartoony" flavor do well too.

Clicking on all the people who dropped their card on you can be viewed as a boring exercise or as a game. When you learn the tricks and get good, it's kind of fun, and I do enjoy pausing on some sites to see how good or how terrible they are.

View your statistics page to see what is working for you. The tables at the bottom are critical for deciding where to advertise.

This is probably not a good tool for people with dial-up connections, unless you can invest lots of time.

The more cards you drop, the more credits people must pay to advertise on your site. You get 25% of the ad fee, so this is a hidden bonus favoring heavy droppers.

I am interested in anything that expands publicity and revenue options for web comics, so if you have anything to report, drop me a line. For those who participate in EntreCard, thanks for joining the experiment, and I hope it works for you. Anyone who is so pleased with their experience that they wish to thank me for the numerous hours invested in research and bonus point distribution is encouraged to link to me by way of thanks.

Web Comic Folks: This is for You

Fate has given me the pleasurable chore of distributing coupons worth a hefty 3000 points to the next 100 web comics that join EntreCard, a free social networking site that has a new dedicated section for web comics.

Any established web comic (having at least three months of regular, frequent posts) is eligible. Blogs, humor sites and the like are not.

Before you rush off, know that you will need to dedicate a little time to learning the site to make it pay off for you. I will be posting a tips essay here in a day or two. Also, you should have Google Analytics installed before you become active on the EntreCard site. You can join right now, and should if you're interested, because after the first 100 web comics join, no more 3000 bonus points. Just don't start throwing your points around until you have analytics and read the tips.

FYI, playing around on EntreCard increased traffic to Floating Lightbulb 800%, to my Scratchin Post comic 433% and to my other comic, Li'l Nyet, which was starting from a low base from being new, 8000%. 

If you join, send me an email, and I will send you instructions to collect your 3000 points -- unless all 100 slots are taken by then. Include the name and URL of your comic!

I have no affiliation with EntreCard.  I only know the owner because I suggested he try applying his system to web comics and he took to it. There are articles on the web about EntreCard, pro and con, but most of the ones I've read are naive in major ways, so it's hard to offer you any assurance of results or anything. But, it's free, and I tried it before I agreed to do this, and while it's not for everyone it can be helpful or very helpful for some.

My email address is in the right hand column. Finding it is your first test.

If you try it and it works out for you, the best thank you is to link to my sites. Thanks.

"Ugly Girl" Reviewed

Ugly Girl meets her default lab partner. 

© Nanda

Instead of names, the teenagers in Nanda's Ugly Girl go by archetypes: Fatty, Spaz, Ugly Girl, Queerboy, Cynical Girl. They also start out as well-adorned line drawings, but as with many strips, the art takes off as the story develops.

All the wrong people like each other in Ugly Girl. This sets up incredible emotional longing, frustration and desperation -- exactly right for around ninth grade, when dating calculations were made by popularity, availability, and seating proximity. Every dance and double date is riddled with awkward pairings. When those who aren't stuck with the wrong companion find themselves momentarily alone with an unknown person, friendly conversations erupt to fill the vacuum usually filled by self-consciousness.

Ugly Girl is my kind of girl: I'm convinced she is a late bloomer who underestimates herself, and she makes incremental progress with boys over the several years the strip has appeared. She doesn't understand that her appeal is that she is not full of herself. She is a popularity virgin. The boys who do approach her can't quite articulate that this makes her enticing to the more discerning males. She demands answers, suspecting fraud, but they are too inexperienced to produce the truth.

This strip scores high on all the comic critic's criteria: plotting, pacing, characters, art, dialogue, believability. You'd have to be pretty hard inside not to fall for these characters, and Nanda's strip.

UglyGirl is part of the Teenbit Collective, which features comics about teenagers.

Best Web Comics Promotion Deal Anywhere?

In one marathon session, I have overhauled the Directory of Web Comic Collectives that resides at Psychedelic Treehouse.  

Logos are now partnered with their collective, and hyper-linked to their page. Layout has been improved (though expect more improvements).

Errors have been corrected, and, almost without a doubt, new ones inserted. If you are in a collective, I encourage you to visit and check your listing, including all links. Look also for completeness: this update did not include additions of your newest members.

A couple of collectives have no logo. That's fine with me if it's fine with you, but it seems a shame somehow when everyone else has cool ones. You're supposed to be artists, after all.

A few listings have logos that are not sized well for the listing. If you want to send me a bigger version, I will swap it out.

Remember: I like links, and you like links to me. Here's why. An average web comic can easily accumulate seven or more links by appearing in multiple sections of the site, some of which are automatic. You get one just for existing as a web comic, and others include having really quality merch, being in a collective, appearing in a review, appearing in an article, and so on.

Now, if someone finds Psychedelic Treehouse because of your link, and they publicize it in some way -- blogging, linking, podcasting, etc. you've dramatically increased the chances that a new visitor is going to find their way to you, because you multiply all your links times all the new visitors. It's a little more complicated that that because of likelihood of clicking on one link and not another, or visitors not clicking on anything at all, but we know you will get traffic from this site and, in the best deal in town, all we ask for is those back links. Not ads! Not banners! Not rights to your artwork! Just links!

Two nights ago I got a letter from a journalist because he couldn't believe he'd never discovered the site, and he wrote a piece talking it up, and this one too. Why should we make it hard to find our comics? You've made choices about hosting and being in a collective, why not make the easiest decision of all and link to the site made by comics fans and artists for comics fans and artists? Psychedelic Treehouse.

Now go link. And be sure to let me know, because I especially enjoy writing thoughtful reviews of comics that link. Not biased reviews, not guaranteed reviews, but if you help the effort, I'll always try to return the favor with coverage.

"Redmask" Reviewed

I like science fiction where there are fewer people, not more. Films like Omega Man, The Road Warrior and The Quiet Earth come to mind.

I can't take the claustrophobia of star ships with thousands of crew. Floating cities, forget it.

Malachi Sharlow's brilliant Red Mask takes place in and around a city, but the population is sparse. What's better, the entire population is a completely original anthropomorphic form consisting of a sack of protoplasm and an eerily tiny face -- or "mask" -- that floats above what might be called the head. No two creatures are exactly the same, and when a mob is needed, robot soldiers suffice.

Among a world of disparate body types, Ab Redmask stands out. His face and body are colors not seen on others, and his body is huge. His eyes glow red when he is inflamed, which is often. Redmask is the most irascible hero I have encountered since Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. He's a bastard, and if you get in his way he'll pop your face off.

He's also a man with a secret, and when hints of his past become known to the most powerful businessman in the city, we have a test of wills, high speed barge chases and plenty of body liquid spillage.

Redmask isn't the kind of silly action hero who holds an army at bay while bullets bounce off him. He is ruthless, cunning, immoral and indifferent. His emotions, when they appear, are volcanic. He is everything you want to be while you smash your enemies, and therefore a great hero.

Unlike most web comics, Redmask is created in the 3D rendering program Blender. Close-ups have a polished look, like a water-smoothed boulder you can't resist touching. Backgrounds, which tend to be cavernous, like in video games, are shades of charcoal and not ornamented. We're already about four chapters in, which looks to be the halfway mark, and the art has gone from adequate to smooth.

Redmask should appeal to science fiction, horror and game fans, and to anyone who likes a tense, gripping and original saga. I could see it as a film some day.

All Floating Lightbulb comic reviews are now archived on The Psychedelic Treehouse. You can look them up alphabetically and read them any time.

New Li'l Nyet

There are more posts in our other comic, Li'l Nyet.

New in the Produce Section

Top: Chloroville  © Victor Wong

Bottom: Ripeville © Joe Klopfer

Click to enlarge.

A charming strip about fruits and vegetables popped up on the internet last January, written and drawn by a Hong Kong immigrant who claims shaky English skills. An editor helps him with that, but editors don't think up the gags, or draw them, and Victor Wong makes that part look easy.

In Chloroville, (presumably from chlorophyll) the jokes get funnier as the characters develop, and it's still early in the strip. I have to acknowledge that some are a bit flat, but I sense potential, and I love the cute art. I've always savored those cornucopias of vegetables you see painted on the sides of produce trucks. The ones around here would be envious of Wong's renderings. Beanie Babies don't thrill me, Kitten Wars make my eyes glaze, but these guys are so adorable you want to lose control and wear them on boxer shorts or something. You know, 'cause chicks dig that kind of stuff. It's not just me...

Magic Ketchup, Victor's design studio, is attached to the comic site and supports my contention that he has a future in art. Look especially at the sophisticated 3D work on "Feng Shui of Object Placement." I just hope a talented young guy with a blossoming career will be able to maintain the time and heart required by web comics.

By chance I found Joe Kloepfer's Ripeville, another fruit and vegetable strip, only hours later. Since I'm old enough that my idea of gaming is chess, the gaming references threaten to push me out of the demographic. Samsom the Apple, Kiki the Grape, Stoner the Orange and friends are, for me, at their best when an off-beat story line is unfolding and the Mafia has to help overcome a flooded bathtub.

Like Wong, Kloepfer makes cute fruit, and the art never disappoints the story. Ripeville's writing, though,  moves in and out of territory that is not to my taste, though many others will not care. I don't go for wisecracks and put-downs as punch lines, gaming as thematic material, or really obscure puns, or battle-hardened war-between-the-sexes attitudes.  I dislike over-exposed pop culture references like Michael Jackson and Harry Potter. I like wit, quirkiness, plot twists, and consistency -- like sticking to a no-humans world. I don't want a fruit character sliced into snacks for the same reason characters don't discuss pork in my animal comic.

Ripeville feels to me like a comic that is exploring what it wants to be, and I don't regard that as a bad thing if the artist is consciously thinking and trying out ideas, and learning. A lot of times I can tell whether this is happening by the links supplied for other comics, because if they show diversity and sophistication in taste, it bodes well for the comic's development. Ripeville offers some "cute" titles -- and stuff like Overcompensating and Gunnerkrigg Court. That's the kind of balanced diet you want. 

One thing Ripeville does offer is a strip by strip archive, each with its own title. Readers of Perry Bible Fellowship will find it familiar, but don't mistake this for a comic that can be read in random order. There is plotting and character development. Start from the beginning. 

For me, this is a strip that would benefit from stronger, less topical punch lines and banishment of humans. Yet it must be acknowledged that pop culture gags have captured sizable audiences for other strips. My bias is toward the values of art and literature, though without the stuffiness. That isn't always what the majority of readers want.

I wonder whether Wong and Kloepfer are aware of each other, or will meet here. I think these guys will feel mutual respect and recognize an opportunity to hone their skills by playing with each other's techniques. Wong uses Simpsons eyes and Kloepfer's eyes are black. This leaves eye shape and borders as the main expressive techniques, and we lose the retina. I've been unwilling to give the center eye up in my own art, but it is fascinating to see two strips that have red fruit (an apple, a bell pepper) as lead characters make use of the differentiating styles they have chosen. I would love to see them become familiar with each other's work and attempt a team-up episode. (I'll print it here!)

Thank you Victor Wong and Joe Kloepfer for fun in the less traveled world of anthropomorphic produce.