An interesting thing about Bill Holbrooks, of Safe Haven, Kevin & Kell, and On The Fastrack, on how he updates his webcomic K&K, while maintaining his other two:
How does Bill manage to run three daily strips at once?
Bill says that he works on a three-week cycle. On the first week he completes 18 Fastrack dailies and three Fastrack Sundays while writing three weeks of material for Safe Havens. On the following week he draws 18 Safe Havens dailies and writes three weeks of material for Kevin & Kell. On Week Three he draws 18 Kevin & Kell dailies and three Kevin and Kell Sundays while writing three weeks of material for material for Fastrack, and then the cycle starts again. He tries to keep about two months ahead of publication.
So it's like this: How should we update our webcomics? Should we follow Bill's example? My plan to update my (future, not-yet-realised) webcomic is like this: My comic would be a finite series, in which like a tv show, has seasons. Each season, has a story arc of it's own, and there'll be breaks between seasons. Every week, readers should be treated to at least 30-pages worth episodes. In the meantime, a few months is used to complete the whole season of a story arc (or two), and published a month later; that same month can be used to do the former, and the cycle begins again.
Face it, the Megatokyo model of updating, that one-page strip thrice a week, is too frustrating for readers. Readers want their comics on the spot, right in front of their eyes. Bill Holbrooks' model of updating should be looked up to, emulated & understood. Also My updating model is slightly inspired by manga, where an episode is published weekly instead of monthly in America.
I can't quite guarantee whether my updating model may work or not, until I got your opinions on this. Is there a flaw in this model? If I insist on using this model, what should I improve on? If not, do you have better ideas?
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Emulating Bill Holbrooks: Updating webcomics model
An interesting thing about Bill Holbrooks, of Safe Haven, Kevin & Kell, and On The Fastrack, on how he updates his webcomic K&K, while maintaining his other two:
How does Bill manage to run three daily strips at once?
Bill says that he works on a three-week cycle. On the first week he completes 18 Fastrack dailies and three Fastrack Sundays while writing three weeks of material for Safe Havens. On the following week he draws 18 Safe Havens dailies and writes three weeks of material for Kevin & Kell. On Week Three he draws 18 Kevin & Kell dailies and three Kevin and Kell Sundays while writing three weeks of material for material for Fastrack, and then the cycle starts again. He tries to keep about two months ahead of publication.
So it's like this: How should we update our webcomics? Should we follow Bill's example? My plan to update my (future, not-yet-realised) webcomic is like this: My comic would be a finite series, in which like a tv show, has seasons. Each season, has a story arc of it's own, and there'll be breaks between seasons. Every week, readers should be treated to at least 30-pages worth episodes. In the meantime, a few months is used to complete the whole season of a story arc (or two), and published a month later; that same month can be used to do the former, and the cycle begins again.
Face it, the Megatokyo model of updating, that one-page strip thrice a week, is too frustrating for readers. Readers want their comics on the spot, right in front of their eyes. Bill Holbrooks' model of updating should be looked up to, emulated & understood. Also My updating model is slightly inspired by manga, where an episode is published weekly instead of monthly in America.
I can't quite guarantee whether my updating model may work or not, until I got your opinions on this. Is there a flaw in this model? If I insist on using this model, what should I improve on? If not, do you have better ideas?
I don't know, I think it really depends on how you want to present your comic. You say that the MT method is "frustrating", but it hasn't hurt their popularity any. You can get more of an immersive mood in a full page than in 3/4 panel strips. I usually prefer the full-page reads (as long as I don't have to scroll through each page while reading through the archive -- that's just bad design, I think) to the strips. Demonology 101 did the whole batch update where Faith would post several pages in a "scene" all at once. Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki does the same thing.
Another good example of this is the 10k Commotion, Yukon takes a while to do a "stage" and then posts it at once.
personally, I think that you should do what makes you feel comfortable, especially if you are just doing it for fun (sorry dudes, but people who just do webcomics with the aim of becoming as popular as some webcomics are out there now makes my blood boil)
In short, you do what fits in with YOU. Noone else. Hell try other methods however th efeeling of what I got is that the "standard" being that everyone should do as you say with the put out a "season" at a time.
No, that is not on. Hell I do mine two hours before I post em.
I spend 6 days drinking, then whip one off on the 6th night just in time to update on the 7th day.
Works great for me.
I prefer to procrastinate for days, or even weeks at a time before updating. Then I complain about how I hardly have any readers.
It varies with the needs of the story and the preferences of the cartoonist. Certainly a continuity strip needs to be planned ahead more than a daily gag panel needs it; and certainly the security of a plan is nothing to sneeze at.
I'm a daily gag man myself, and I like spontaneity. There's absolutely nothing that compares to the thrill of updating on deadline with a gag you hadn't yet written when you woke up in the morning.
Paul Gadzikowski,
http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com New cartoons daily.