Where Have All The Comic Artists Gone?
Webcomics seemed like a natural fit for the world of Steemit. Seriously, generate crypto for someone just liking your artwork, or your compelling storytelling? Sign me up.
But most of the webcomic creators I've met here have faded away.
Granted, the Steemit engine isn't the greatest for browsing comics... the way it crams your artwork into a narrow column with those fixed borders that smash together a horizontal webcomic format that normally is perfectly ideal for something the size of say... a computer monitor.
It's also not the greatest at going through archives. The search feature here can't even accurately list my comics by date. Seriously, search for "Kickman" and try to organize it by date.
And it's a pain in the ass that you can't monetize your last three years worth of strips when a brand new person finds your webcomic for the first time and binge-reads-and-upvotes 150 pages and you get .01 Steem for the most recent page only. It's like the opposite of a beloved television program going out for syndication... where the writers and actors get a royalty check each time some station in Hong Kong plays reruns of your show. Here, it's more like live theater. Where we webcomic artists conceptualize, write, pencil, ink, and color an entire page then only those people that find it in the first week are allowed to pay for the ticket to watch the show, then everyone else gets to see it free forever after that and we don't get a dime.
Actually I think I answered my own question.
So, if any comic folks are still here, besides the two that I know of. What can we do to make the platform more webcomic-friendly? Ideally I'd like to see someone create a Steem-powered dApp for webcomics that makes it more enjoyable to just browse through pages like a traditional webcomic or kindle. Steemit is terrible for viewing, browsing and archiving. I also remember reading somewhere that someone was working on a way to generate steem for older posts (by creating a comment by the original poster which could then be upvoted by the person, script or whatever). That would be awesome to get some comic artists to stick around for a while and generate a fan base.
Ultimately, I would like to see a comics Steemverse. Where artists and writers collaborate on a shared comic universe to stick it to Marvel and DC who won't return my calls.
Is there anybody out there?
I'm out here! This is always on my mind too, but currently I'm just biding my time, too involved with other projects, or lazy! Perhaps someday when/if the crypto markets surge again, I'd be able to hire a developer to build the customized front end we'd need for such a community. I've also thought about reaching out to current webcomic sites, or the developer behind ComicPress and put a bug in their ear about integrating Steem. I think latching on to an existing tool or community could be the best approach in the long run.
I know you are still here, you are one of the two I was talking about. :D I think I'll reach out to the Collective of Heroes and see if there's any interest in gathering forces and putting together some kind of Steem-powered platform. Anyone have a one-page primer about "What is Steem?" so I can pitch an idea.
I feel that STEEM created the worst possible way to build a block-chain if you are trying to search for something.
And i have been trying to tell the people at steemit, for a VERY long time, that the most important thing they need to develop is a search tool. However, it took them almost two years to be able to filter the resteems from the feed.
When looking at a person's posts, you should be able to sort by a tag cloud and date. But, although this is programatically simple, this seems the hardest thing for STEEM and steemit to do.
Basically, you have to read EVERY block, EVERY time you would do this search.
And, i have no idea how to allow for future votes for old art.
All you can say is please vote for my latest blog post.
If you made a dapp, you could make an almost blank blog post to accept the votes on older stuff.
You can create forward/back buttons if you are very specific with your title/naming schemes.
I had navigation buttons for a while. Also, when steempress came around, I threw together a mirror site to post my comics from just to get the extra upvote and curation from steempress. But when I did that it became a pain to code in the navigation buttons when posting from outside of steemit, so I stopped bothering.
If the interest was there it's now possible to create your own community through steem-engine the same way as weedcash has done. A site specific for steem comics and writers. to put all the talent in one place and set up advertising revenue and a comic token. You would need a good few people to make it work though.
I could use some advice in that regard. I don't really understand how tokens work. They seem like steem "sub units" which all vary in value based on... something? I'm not sure how creating additional currencies is of any benefit. Do you know of an article or video that explains how tokens work. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
@aggroed is the main person behind the project. He has a post here about weedcash which is the first separate community to be built.
https://steempeak.com/scotbot/@aggroed/a-new-era-for-steem-scotbot-powered-custom-website-up-and-running-welcome-https-www-weedcash-network
and this is the first post on the subject.
https://steempeak.com/steem-engine/@aggroed/scotbot-launch-time-to-make-your-own-custom-token-powered-by-proof-of-brain-on-steem
It's an interesting concept but it's not free so anybody doing it will need to have people that will produce content and traffic that will create ad revenue to make some profit.
Thanks for the info!
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Many Artists do not wish to give away their craft, with little fanfare there are diminishing numbers of Artists. I hope you can rally more.
I don't think I can do much, I don't have much of a social presence here or elsewhere. And steemit is a difficult enough platform to use (especially for newcomers) that I have a hard time recruiting them here.
Sup Dork?!? Enjoy the Upvote!!!
This is why I think that BitTube's new social network will be better for comic creators. Its reward system is based on viewing time and does not rely on upvotes. And it's evergreen, unlike Steemit's severely limited 7 day window of earning potential. To be clear, BitTube does not count views. Instead it measures the amount of time (AirTime) someone spends looking at or reading your content which is a far better compensation model, in my opinion.
The platform will be in Beta in July but you can already use BitTube's browser extension and get rewarded for surfing the web. You can also use it to connect your YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc accounts.
Never heard of this. Sounds interesting, but then again, it might encourage quantity of content over quality. For example, I hate searching for recipes online because every recipe bloggerchef thinks that we need to hear all of their personal anecdotes about life and culinary experience with their 3 kids that they assume we know by name. I don't need all that, just the content I need. Or to view this another way, prior to Google, every other major search engine used to try to drag out the search process as long as possible in order to run the user through layers of spam and ads. I'd hate to see that become a thing again.
Some valid points.
Regarding your first example, if that's the case and you don't enjoy reading about the author's life story, then you simply would not continue reading it and move on to somebody else's content that is worthy of your time. Readers would soon tire of quantity over quality. Those producing quality hold a readers attention for a longer period of time and would be rewarded accordingly..
As for ads, the BitTube extension is an ad blocker. I haven't seen an ad in months since I began using it and I'm getting paid for it.