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Part 9: Attracting Visitors
Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide
Part 10: Fans and Community

Now that you've got your comic, your web site, and your audience you're probably thinking that there isn't much left to do besides produce a steady stream of updates. And you're mostly right, but there's a bit more to a good comic than just putting out new strips, you've also got to touch base with your fans from time to time. After all, they're the ones taking time to read your comic. There's many different wants to communicate with your fans, whether you just want to exchange a few comments or form an entire community. Here are a few popular methods.

News Posts
Nearly every web comic artist has a place on their site to post news updates. There's a lot of different things you can use your news posts for. You can write about your comic, your life, your hobbies, etc. You can write long detailed posts or just a couple of lines. While it's "customary" to put up a new news post every time your comic updates, there are a lot of web comic artists who do so far less frequently. The one thing I highly recommend is that, if at all possible, you post a notice whenever you're going to miss a comic update so your fans know what's going on. I always find it really annoying when a comic I read doesn't update for days or even weeks at a time without explanation.

E-Mail
If you'd like to hear directly from your fans, putting an e-mail address on your site doesn't hurt. Fair warning, any e-mail address you stick on a web site is likely to get a lot of spam, at least at times, so you may not want to use your primary account. If you can find the time, responding to the people who write you is a nice gesture.

Comment Boxes
Some comics have comment boxes so readers can post short comments on the latest strip and/or news post. This makes for a simple way to build a community and get some quick feedback on your comic. The downside is that they tend to attract spam and flamers. What's worse is that any undesirable posts are likely to remain there for a while (anywhere from hours to days) before you see and remove them.

Forums
Forums are a great way to build community. Not only can fans discuss your comic in depth, they've also go room to talk about their other interests, play some games, run RPs, and the like. I recommend taking a hands on approach and being an active member of your own forums. I've met a lot of great people through the Pebble Version Forums and had a lot of fun. At this point, I really can't imagine doing the comic without them. But if you don't have the time or interest, you can always find other people to run things.
If you can host your own forums, there's some free forum software such as phpBB that's pretty easy to setup and use. If you're not able to install your own forums, you can go with a forum host like Proboards.

General Tips
Here's a few things to keep in mind when talking with your fans, whether it's via e-mail, forums, or some other method.

1. Be polite. You don't want to antagonize your fans, especially those that take the time to write to you. Even if some people come across as kind of dumb or rude, you should be nice and respectful.
2. Don't get involved in flame wars. They don't accomplish anything other than wasting a whole lot of time. A polite response, or simply ignoring the flamer, tends to end them far faster than anything else.
3. Don't ignore constructive criticism. If someone provides a negative yet thoughtful critique of your comic, don't disregard it right off the bat. Give it some thought. Your fan may have a point and if you learn from it and improve your comic, all the better.
4. Take all criticism with a grain of salt. Everyone has different tastes and some people just like to complain. While you shouldn't immediately disregard criticism and negative comments, you shouldn't take them all to heart either.
5. Have fun! You never know who you'll meet and you may even make some new friends.

Conclusion:
While talking to your fans and forming a community isn't an absolutely essential part of running a web comic, it's a great way to get some feedback and meet new people. Not to mention increase interest in your comic.

Think you're done now? This isn't the end so much as the beginning. Making a comic can be a whole lot of fun and, in the end, that's what really matters so keep those updates coming and have fun with your new comic!

Part 9: Attracting Visitors
Pokemon and all related images and trademarks are copyrighted by Nintendo, one of my favorite games companies who would certainly never waste their time by trying to sue me. Especially since I'm protected under the Fair Use Rule of the United States Copyright Act of 1976. Aside from that the actual site content is copyrighted by me, Josiah Lebowitz 2003.