Episode 432 - How to get more readers
Jun 24, 2019
Just Banes and I for this one! Today we have 3 topics: 1. Being positive and how that really helps us in online communication and social networking, as well as giving a boost to those we talk to- very important in comic communities. 2. How to get more eyes looking at your work. We always need to build our audiences! 3. Updates for drunk duck to modernise the site… We're going to have to raise a lot of money for this! How is the best way?
Topics and Show Notes
-1. There's an old myth that “being positive” helps you get over diseases and makes you a happier person among other things. Well, it doesn't unfortunately, but what it DOES do is make you more popular and interesting to people as well as giving people a boost when you communicate with them. This is a great tip for good online communication: be positive and be sincere.
-2. How to get more eyes looking at your work? The trap everyone falls into is expecting ALL their traffic to come from the site they're being hosted on thorough its own internal mechanisms like the search and front page features on Theduckwebcomics.com . Of course that's silly, you're competing with all the other members of the website for that limited limited piece of the pie, and that's exactly the same for all webcomic hosts. To get more readers you have to jump the queue:
2a- Network: comment on the work of others, especially comics that you like so you can always be sincere, do fan art for people, collaborate.
2b- Make yourself visible, participate in discussion and things and have a link banner. On DD that would be in the forums or the newsposts.
2c- social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc.This takes time but it can work.
2d- Buy advertising. This is a great way to get a big boost very quickly! On DD we have the option of banner ads https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/jan/25/give-your-comic-a-boost-and-help-us-at-the-same-time/ which give you a big ad on every page of the website, or supporting us through Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5127951 Which gives you a link on the front page, links or ads in weekend newsposts, and a link ON the forums.
-3. It's time to think about getting fixes and a redesign for the site again! We have good plans for it already and know all sort of things we'd like to fix like good page organisation for creators, likes, threaded comments and comment notifications for a better social experience (we have SOME of that already but we need more), a nicer colour theme, a site that works better on mobile devices, translations of the site into other languages for Italians, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc
The trouble is that we need money to make that happen because these are fairly big changes. How would we get there?
Banes and I are thinking of a mix between direct donations to Paypal and a Kickstarter campaign - I hate Indiegogo, too may obstacles and it takes a really big cut.
Site redesign look and feel here: - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177679/?page=3
Suggestions for money making and new features here: - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/178185/
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Android Blues: Cold blue, ancient mechanisms, clicking and pulsing… springs contracting, gears turning, cams slipping, servos spinning, capacitors whining… the machine works perfectly and mysteriously.
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Ice Massacre - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/jun/18/featured-comic-ice-massacre/
Featured music:
Android Blues - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Android_Blues/, by Stahlberg, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 406 - Amateur Vs Pros Merry Christmas DD!
Dec 23, 2018
Merry Christmas one and all! And all that stuff. This year our release date falls exactly on the 25th! It was a busy year for us, lots happened. But in this Quackcast what we chat about is something rather different: the difference between pros and amateurs, specifically when it comes to comics. There's this common misconception that an amateur is a novice that will produce work of a lower quality, while a professional is an experienced person who knows what they're doing and will always produce things of the highest quality… The REAL story is more complex than that.
Episode 400 - Pros&cons of webcomic creation!
Nov 12, 2018
In this Quackcast DD members tell us about their history with us as well as the pros and cons of webcomicing. This is the 400th episode of the Quackcast! That means we've been doing these for over 8 years now. That's quite a milestone for a podcast. We have JustNoPoint over to help us out, he's a Patron at the $20 “Royal” level so he gets a few perks. JustNoPoint has been with us since 2006 with his comic The Devon Legacy. He managed the awards for many years and was crucial to us getting the site back online when we had our hard crash in August of 2013 that destroyed the site so thoroughly that it had to be rebuilt, a job which took us all TWO months!
Episode 396 - Amelius and Patreon
Oct 15, 2018
Amelius of the magnificent and eternal Charby The Vampirate returns to the Quackcast today! Amelius was the first person we every interviewed and Charby the Vampirate has been on Drunk Duck exactly as long as Pinky TA: since January 2004! Tantz and I chat to her about the new Patreon she has going for Charby and all the amazing bonus perks you can get on it. If you're a Charby fan you should definitely get in on that. Amelius has also agreed to join us on DD to do newsposts every week! So you will be seeing some cool content from her regularly. She has a LOT of comic making experience to impart.
Episode 395 - Fighting ladies
Oct 8, 2018
Fighting ladies, female bad-ass characters… There are a lot more of them around now, but once upon a time they were pretty thin on the ground. I love a good badarse lady, my own comic character Pinky TA exemplifies that character type. There's something about a tough lady who can kick butt with the best of them that's especially compelling. They evolved from something a little more exploitative, ladies fighting in bikinis basically, then we had ladies that were just the female version of a male character (Batwoman, Supergirl etc), which is something we're starting to see a little more of unfortunately, but on the good side of things we ARE actually getting fighting ladies who're their OWN women: Original characters. In this Quackcast we talk about some of our faves and some of the earlier incarnations of the character type, from Robert E Howard's Red Sonya and Valeria, to Catherine L Moore's Jirel of Joiry, to Wonder woman, then later characters like Red Sonja (from the comics), She-Hulk, Sarah Conner, Ripley, Buffy, Xena, Aeon Flux… What are some of YOUR faves? Mine are Tank Girl, Lara Croft, Motoko Kusanagi, Garnet and many more :) This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Dolphin Bros: Jump, jump, jump up and down to this mad dolphin party scene. It’s all over the place but all it wants you to do is MOVE!
Episode 394 - Nostalgia, creative fuel?
Oct 1, 2018
Nostalgia! - Where does it fit in the creative process? People are the product of their influences. For a lot of us the strongest influences happen when we're growing up and learning about the world and all the things IN it for the first time. As you get older the things you experience don't make as much impact, simply because your brain has already had most of its “first times” and it's already learned enough about the world to be fully functional and independent.
Episode 393 - Set the scene!
Sep 24, 2018
In THIS Quackcast we chat about shots! The kind you get from a camera… Long short, bird's eye view, worm's eye view, high angle, low angle, wide angle, fish eye, close up, ultra close up… You can use them to set the pace of the narrative, increase drama, reveal or conceal elements and so on. Shot types and angles are really important in story crafting. This was based on a newspost by Banes. I was actually IN Athens in Greece sitting next to Tantz Aerine for this Quackcast. It was cool to be in the same place with at least ONE of our fellow casters. Banes was still in Canada and Pit was in London, making a very brief cameo appearance at the very end.
Episode 388 - Coding for Men and women
Aug 15, 2018
In this Quackcast we discuss the artistic coding used to represent males and females in comic art in a simple, minimal way. Pitface joins us, along with Banes and Tantz Aerine! Much like an expert physicist is able to simplify enormously complex equations into something seemingly simple like E=MC2 a good comic artist simplifies the essence of what they're drawing into something that's immediately recognisable without a lot of complexity. We're mainly talking here in terms of drawing men and women. It sounds like the most basic, silly thing, but even pros with years of experience have trouble with it. Some of the art for the new She-Ra cartoon is a great example of that.
