Friday, June 13, 2008

Web Comics Collectives Update

The addition of Lunchbox Funnies to the Psychedelic Treehouse Directory of Web Comic Collectives brings the number of known collectives to 33, though it seems likely that three are semi-functional at best.

Others are flourishing: Eye Skream is in great shape, having completed a site redesign, and is bold enough to announce a two month vacation starting June 1, which to my mind is weird. (It may be a Quebec thing.) Meanwhile, there are still signs of neglect at many sites -- a certain lack of polish. Even Blank Label, with the most traffic, lopes along in Beta with simple navigation buttons incomplete.

A lot of energy is going into Forums -- launching them, maintaining them, cleaning up the occasional mess. We're trying a forum at ours and I'm giving it my full support, but here at least I am a forum skeptic. People talk about the importance of a community, but I see well-intentioned innocents wasting time trying to water down the corrosive presence of morons. What I say here may not be read by a single person, but this blog helps me gather my thoughts and records what I've learned.  Best of all, no time is lost jockeying for position against some self-appointed messiah of anti-logic.

Tomgeeks stands out as another collective which is having a good year. They're getting their logo out, which is more than most collectives are managing -- you see it quite often. You may recall my review of member comic Roza last month.

I still maintain the big Directory of Collectives here. Some of the most recent additions: Monster and Robot Industries, Pens and Tales, SNAFU, Studio Anti Thesis, Teenbit, Comic of the Month and Broken Voice.

I wonder what would happen if we all held a convention? I'd like to see the roster on the welcome sign at the Holiday Inn.

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On another matter, it has been suggested that I ask if any readers have any questions or requests for topics to be covered. I tend to think you all will speak up if you do, as others have in the past, but perhaps there are some who think their participation would be an annoyance, and I wouldn't want that.