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American Elf

Recommended Romances: A Quickie Poll

September 6, 2004 - 23:00 | T Campbell

"What's your favorite webcomics romance?"

T Campbell asked this question of many webcartoonists. The answers were revealing.

Nominees for Ignatz Awards at SPXPo

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 31, 2004 - 16:54

Nominees for this year's Ignatz Awards were announced. In Promising New Talent, Svetlana Chmakova of Chasing Rainbows (www.girlamatic.com, www.svetlania.com) grabbed a nomination.

In the Outstanding Online Comic category:

American Elf, James Kochalka, americanelf.com
Apocamon, Patrick Farley, e-sheep.com
Desert Rocks, J.J. Naas, dr.ungroup.net
The Pain … When Will it End?, Timothy Kreider, thepaincomics.com
Tailipoe, Craig Boldman, craigboldman.com

The Webcomicslist.com Generating Some Useful Readership Data for Webcomics

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on August 25, 2004 - 00:06

The Webcomiclist.com has added a number of graphs to the site, showing when webcomics update and how popular they are (example1, example2). There are also a number of graphs which can be found here; for example, it appears that Wednesday is the most popular day to update on.

Party With The American Elf

Submitted by Dedos on August 17, 2004 - 08:51

James Kochalka will be playing his guitar tonight for people attending the American Elf book release party. The hefty volume comes in at over 500 pages and is in stores now. To celebrate this milestone, everyone is invited to the Crow Bookshop in Burlington, VT.

How to Promote Your Webcomic by NOT Promoting Your Webcomic

August 15, 2004 - 23:00 | Alexander Danner

Here's a familiar problem: You write a webcomic that's not getting nearly as many readers as you think it deserves. You're already sending press releases to the newsmagazines, you're posting announcements in the webcomic forums, you've joined web rings, and you've slapped your logo on every product Café Press offers. Still, your readership is modest, at best. You need a more aggressive marketing plan.

One problem: like most of us, your entire marketing budget comes from between the cushions on your couch.

James Kochalka In AV Club

Submitted by Dedos on July 28, 2004 - 11:37

James Kochalka is interviewed in the current edition of The Onion AV Club. He talks about his current projects and goes into detail about American Elf, his comic web diary.

James Kochalka, Superstar indeed!

WCCA 2004 Finalists Posted

Submitted by Dedos on June 21, 2004 - 16:55

The finalists for the 2004 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards have been posted. With this milestone, the polls are now open for all registered web cartoonists (registration information can be found here) to determine this year's winners. The fight for Outstanding Newcomer looks very interesting with Count Your Sheep, Questionable Content, Skirting Danger, and Sore Thumbs all vying for the title.

(Full List of Nominees Below)

The American Elf Heads to Hollywood

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on April 26, 2004 - 10:28

James Kochalka reports that he is off to Los Angeles to pitch ideas for animated series.

The end of pay

Submitted by Anonymous on March 15, 2004 - 21:29

I figured it'd be a good idea to put this in the forum, seeing as the Keenspot Press Release is almost off of the main page. The release sparked an interesting question: is the success of free webcomics outweighing that of subscription-based ones? Pasted from the comments:

I think, if nothing else, this press release shows the enormously underestimated ability of free comics to turn a profit. This seriously brings into question the necessity of a pay-model for webcomics at all.

The only benefit of the pay-model, that I can see, is for comics that require a huge amount of KBs per page. The ad model still requires each page to have roughly less than 100K, but this limit is quickly disappearing. It makes me think that, rather than the "end of free," we shall soon be seeing "the end of pay." -Anonymous

I am inclined to agree, from the look of these current statistics. Keenspot's value as a company is steadily rising, and it is reaping the benefits of free comics with book/merchandise sales and advertising. Not to say subscription sites are failing - they have also enjoyed growth - but seemingly at the cost of potential readers/buyers.

What do you think?

Another Comic Watching Piece of Software - This Time for the Mac

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 15, 2004 - 11:45

Distribution of comics doesn't have to be through websites obviously but there is always a tension between readers and creators with these third party created distribution tools. Journalista! points us to The Comic Burrito which takes a look at Comictastic, a program that grabs webcomics automatically and as TCB notes, would easily allow one to build up a collection of a comic using the Modern Tales business model, like American Elf.