Click to enlarge.
Here we go. This is the moment when I thought to myself, "I need to get this thing going!" I toyed with the idea of making this into two spreads but then the rest of my life flashed before my eyes. Drawing a 4000 page graphic novel is not what I wanted reMIND to turn into. So from here on it starts picking up. I think.
Since I've published my list of artist forums, I've learned of a few more. I need to look into them a bit more before I add them to the list but I'll let you know if I update it.
In starting reMINDblog.com, not only did I want to post my progress of reMIND, I also wanted a place where I could organize information and resources that I've found relating to making graphic novels. There's nothing more frustrating then digging through a website for an hour before noticing it's a ghost town. All the links are broken and information is just totally out of date and useless.
For instance, when I was looking for information about promoting a graphic novel online, I came across a fairly popular how-to site with articles claiming they had all the answers in a nice simple list. I started following the advice but as I read I couldn't help but wonder when the article was written because it had advice like "Join a WebRing." I've never heard of a webring before so I did an Internet search but everything I found seemed so primitive. Even worse, when I looked at comics in webrings, they were so crusty looking and rarely viewed that it made me question the rest of the points on this How-to list.
I ended up joining a webring when I had my Google blog just to test it out. Guess how much traffic it gave me. In four months I got a total of 4 hits from the webring all of whom stayed less then 4 seconds. Worthless.
I asked my IT guru friend about them shortly after and he said webring's are dead. They were popular in the 90's. So basically I wasted hours and hours of my free time following worthless outdated information from a legitimate website. I've come across tons of these by now. One of them had a list of 6 forums for comics creators. About 2 of those forums were still alive. One of them was completely spammed to the point of no return. It's like people start this stuff and then forget it's there.
Another site that drives me nuts is ComicSpace.com. I was all into ComicSpace back in 2006 when I was experimenting with publishing an old comic called Phobos. I had a number of friends on it and it was tons of fun. Well, time passed and I forgot about it for a few years. In early 2009, I tried to log back on to update some things and I misplaced my password so I had an automated new password sent to my email. Oh snap! I had changed my email address! No sweat. I'll just email the administrator, Josh, to get my new email and password fixed so I can login to update my account. That's what I thought anyway.
No response for 3 months.
I did it again, written nicely with a bit of humor this time…….. no response again for 2 months.
I tried new methods every few months for over a year!!
Nothing.
Finally I make a new account so I can IM whoever is running the show to ask them to cancel my old account. I send messages and never get a reply. It even says they never viewed my message. That was a few weeks ago. When I look at the updates on the site from Josh, the moderator, I notice he stopped posting anything in 2008.
On top of that, the site is really slow now so updating it is pathetic. I don't know what happened to Josh, but sites like this really bother me when their not maintained. Is anyone else in this same predicament with ComicSpace? Does anyone know what's happening over there?
Here's a funny thread I found about comicspace. Look how old it is too.
Recap: Don't join a WebRing. Don't join ComicSpace.
Sorry for giving you a bunch of worthless links this week. I did however start a DeviantArt account and I'm trying to learn how to use it. I'm not sure if it's right for me yet but at least it's being maintained nicely. Become my friend (or whatever you do there) and show me around the place a bit if you don't mind. Here's my page.
Funny you mention the ComicSpace thing – I'd heard about that being a bad scene but I was never actually part of it. Entrusting your work to someone else is always rather dodgy. When I set up my site I took the plunge and just started up on my own domain for that very reason. It costs me a little a month, but it's worth it to know that the reins are all in my hands. You never know what tensions and pressures will cause someone to leave you hanging. And the web can be kind of creepy like that – pages just stay around long after their originators have gone off to parts unknown. Always makes me think of Blade Runner for some reason.
I saw your stuff around the Flight forum, by the way, and it's consistently terriffic – glad to see it progressing so well!
–M
Hello again Mr. Average! Yeah I haven't logged into Flight forums is a few weeks. I need to straighten up some loose threads there that I accidentally messed up.
The ComicSpace thing is really frustrating to me as well as the endless unkept sites out there. I think you took the right approach in setting up your own site. I just switched over to my own system last month and I am very glad I did. It's a small price to pay for complete control over everything. What do you think about the DeviantArt scene? I'm still trying to figure out if I want to fully jump into that.
Hey, Jason!
It’s entertaining to read your finding about web forums. Forums were the one thing that tied me up to the internet 10 years ago and I could not imagine using the internet without them. I even started my own forum which today is the central digital art forum in german language, eventually supported by Wacom (www.digitalartforum.de). I’m quite happy that it’s a regional forum because that keeps it small and you have a more direct connections to the members. However, it’s important to be part of the big international communities in order to become recognized.
Deviantart is a peculiar thing. I knew it for a long time but I registered only few month ago. It’s hard to make heads and tales out of it. I’m still in the process of figuring out what exactly is happening there but one thing is for sure: it’s H U G E. Just go to the homepage and you’ll see dozens of artworks which were added to the gallery only in the last few seconds (!). Deviantart basically is a huge online gallery where people put illustrations, comics and photos to their personal pages. There are literally thousands of images added every hour. You’ve got the jackpot if you achieve an admin to award you with a “Daily Deviation” (DD in short). That means that your artwork will be featured for a full day on the front page and the exposure you’ll gain from that is insane. It happened to me that when I started my gallery page there, I was awarded a DD and there were 13000 hits to my gallery page. And I’m not talking about hollow stumbleupon-clicks that only screw up your web statistics but 13000 individuals of which over 500 even left comments on the page. However, the conversion rate to my own homepage was only 10%, meaning that around 1500 people visited my homepage after they had seen the Deviantart page. I’m talking about the traffic of 24 hours here. So, even if most of the exposure stays on deviantart, it’s a great way to gain exposure. A few things are important:
-The content should be good and you should put a lot of stuff into the gallery. Your artwork appears on the front page, directly when it is submitted. People will click and visit your gallery. A minute later, the front page is full of new submittted images and you are invisible again. So you should fill your gallery bit by bit to maximize your exposure on the front page.
-Add some personal stuff to your page like a journal entry. Your work can be awarded with a DD only if it is recommended to an admin by a user. People will connect more to your artwork when they see the personal dimension. DDs are normally given to very elaborate artwork with a high level of skill or to very emotional artwork. Comic pages are good material because they carry text AND art and are interesting to look at.
As described, when you get a DD, it’s jackpot. 24 hours exposure on the frontpage. People will run into you. If you get a DD frequently, you are officially an internet celebrity. :)
And on another thing:
You mentioned CGSociety. It looks a lot like a pure 3D and VFX site but there are a lot of 2D artists there, too. They have this “Portfolio” thing in the main menu. I recommend to start your own free portfolio page there. When you upload an image to your portfolio you can simultaniously enter it for consideration for a “CG Choice Award”. That means that the image will be added to a special section of the forum where people can vote on artwork. If you get enough votes you are awarded a CG Choice Award and you are featured on the front page. The rotation there is slow and your image will stay there for several days, even weeks. You gain a lot of exposure by that although it’s not easy to get to that point. I don’t think that individual pages will do the trick bur if you ever happen to create a promotional artwork (cover or character poses) it might be worth a try.
Ok, that was a lot stuff. I hope it helps a bit!
Daniel, Man this is great information! It's exactly the kind of thing I love to find and read. It's pretty amazing that you have a forum too. I'll have to look into it a bit and though I wont be able to read it I might add it to my list for any German subscribers.
CGSociety seems like a great forum too but, man, I am so swamped with forums and blogs and comics and work that I might just pass on that one. haha
Now as far as DeviantArt goes: from what you are saying, it really seems like a great place to promote your art. I'd love to try to get a DD one of these days like you said. I'll have to submit a bunch more artwork to my gallery there. I was planning on just posting one page a day until I am caught up to my blog but now I think I should just submit all my pages, one at a time (like you said) so I have a little collection of art there from the get go.
For some reason I love hearing about the numbers of it all. People are usually so vague with this or embarrassed about how few visitors they get or to big to act like they care. So it's nice to hear some specifics. People tell me not to worry about the numbers but I've worked in advertising enough to know that if you want to make any sort of living off what you love then you have to get it in front of people. If nobody knows our graphic novels exist then nobody will buy 'em either.
Anyway, Love the comment! And I hope your shoulder heals soon!
Man that is a great spread. Great layout , great drawings and once again great colors. The additional textures that you have in there are really nice too, give the machinery a nice authentic used feel.
S.M. Vidaurri – Thank you! I love this one too. It's one of my favorites.
Scheier – Thank you my friend!
Fantastic, as always man! Great colours!!
Thanks again man!
My favorite spread yet! just stunning!
Immensely enjoy your development, the layout of the different spreads. Your line work is always top-notch in combination with the "watercolor" coloration and pallet choices. I have recommended and passed your site address on to other, and will continue to follow your efforts. I am pushing NPR (Non-photorealistic rendering) on several forums for animation purposes, but hope to also push out "stills" that are re-worked in spreads someday. I broke down and bought two of the McCloud's books, stupid to have waited so o ooo long, I knew of his thoughts and work, but buying the books, so worth while, thanks for the nudge. If you haven't already watched "Les Triplettes de Belleville," by Silvain Chomet, jump on it. You use white space (effectively I might add!) far more than he does but his use of color and line are a similar benchmark for me. I just saw on ( forum) a reference to the pending release of "The Illusionist" which is mostly hand-drawn?? I believe.
Best to you and your fine work.
Paul
Paul, Thanks for sending the follow up email to this comment otherwise I probably would never have seen your comment. It was in my spam folder for some reason. Spam is a real crazy thing with these blogs. Anyway.
Thank you so much for passing along my site to friends. This means so much! Word of mouth is always so powerful.
It's interesting that you brought up NPR in animation. It's sad to me that most animation now days is trying to look photo real. Although it's impressive that we can pull it off, I always enjoy the more artistic and stylistic choices. I absolutely LOVE Triplettes of Belleville for these reasons. I had no idea he was working on another film. I will keep my eyes and ears open for the Illusionist. The still you sent me looks great. Thank you for that! I also love Miyazaki's works. He is a real big inspiration for me as well. His storytelling ability is nearly unmatched in animation.
I'm glad you enjoyed the McCloud books too. There's just something to be said about explaining everything within a comic about comics.
You are watched JASON BRUBAKER!! at DA that is..hehe!!..amazing page as usual…haven't visited recently..so i guess i have to sites from you that i have to keep tabs on huh!..well it's worth it..keep it up.
oops..that's *two* not *to* websites..sorry
Oh man, I need to make sure my spell-check is on since people are actually reading this now. ha