Join Webcomics.com
Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 4:57PM Starting today, Webcomics.com will begin charging a $30-per-year subscription fee. That fee is going to be used to help support what this site has become -- and allow it to achieve its full potential.
Webcomics.com has established itself as a tremendous resource of practical information for webcartoonists. By joining today you will have access to:
- Frequent updates of news, advice, tutorials and strategies by webcomics veteran Brad Guigar.
- Monthly contributions by webcomics pioneer Scott Kurtz and Penny Arcade's Business Guy, Robert Khoo.
- Personalized features like a new e-mail-based organizer to help you plan for upcoming conventions.
- Feedback and guidance for your comic and the small business you'll create running it.
- A fully rounded, indexed repository of two year's worth of information that you can use to help improve your work.
- A moderated, passionate, supportive community of webcomics creators.
- Inside information on conventions, vendors and other entities that webcartoonists access to advance their businesses.
- Deals on merchandise.
For a low subscription of $30 per year, you will have access to all of this plus the entire Webcomics.com archives, one of the most helpful and supportive forums for creative people on the Web, and several members-only offers.
Webcomics.com Terms of Service.
FAQ
Most webcomics are based on the free-content model. The "How To Make Webcomics" book is built around it. Why is Webcomics.com becoming a pay site?
Simply put, Webcomics.com isn't entertainment; it's a valuable resource for webcartoonists. It would be difficult to continue offering this site for free in its current state -- and impossible, given the improvements we have planned.
Why not just run ads?
This will be very much a niche site. There will not be as much value for an advertiser as there will be for subscribers.
Why $30 per year?
It's an inexpensive buy-in that almost any webcartoonist can afford. It has an added benefit of keeping out people who may not be as serious about webcomics. It naturally weeds out comments from people who may be passing through, and results in distilling comments to those from people who are committed to improving their comics.
Reader Comments (272)
Yes. If anyone is still unsure about subscribing, please check on the site from time to time and see what we're learning.
It would be great to have more people involved, because at the end of the day, we all love webcomics and we really want to succeed and make a living doing something we love.
I agree with Scott. This has become tiresome and nothing new is being said. But if it's shut down, people will scream "censorship", so I wouldn't bother. However, my last trip.
By the way:
Brad: We can't keep giving you free milk. It's been fun, but without a revenue source, we can't do milk anymore. So if you want to join our collective, the milk will keep coming. It won't be free, but it's good milk. Obviously you think it's good milk, or else you wouldn't be this upset.
Certain Posters: How dare you! You gave us free milk! You are now obligated to keep giving everyone free milk. God will punish you.
And... I'm off to find my credit card. I've enjoyed the milk and am willing to pay to keep participating. It's good to see that those who get this unpleasant about the issue won't be joining us, I prefer a more civil message board.
Ryan,
"Oh, and for the record, your Milk analogy licks balls daddy-O"
Oh, but the one where I am equated with a race-baiter, that one works for you?!!!
Wow.
Yep. This thread is done.
Folks at Webcomic.com, I wish you the VERY, VERY best. I truly mean that! I hope you prove me wrong, and have a very prosperous future!
I will always voice my opinions, but I will also respect anyone's desire to make a buck. (Legally, of course.)
And, Scott? ...I dug the verbal sparring. Here's to crossing blades another day. All the best.
Last post for me too. I was not aware disagreement of any kind was suddenly taboo in a site's comments section; I'm sorry you feel that way. ;)
I really would love to be proven wrong that this will all pan out. $30 for what you say is to come, if it comes, really is a deal.
But like I already said, the level of disrespect during the transition speak volumes, and in time, maybe it won't be that way. For now, count me out.
@Scott Keep hearing from me? Dude, you're the one who stirred the pot with your toilet paper comment. Get it? "Pot"? Oh, never mind.
End Transmission.
I guess I'm opposed to the abruptness of the announcement and the amount I'd have to pay. I guess 30 for a year is kind of like a magazine subscription, but I don't necessarily want a year of content...
Nothing against you guys, but I don't see it as getting my money's worth. Maybe if there were more of a negotiation on the length of time vs money spent, I'd be more willing to part with my cash.
It seems the halfpixel guys want to refine their community they've built by making it paid access to that community. This is a totally acceptable business model to acquire more committed people.
It's very similar model to the ACCT (Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television) which is the Canadian version of the Oscars Academy. The ACCT has paid memberships at different levels and each level of membership opens access to peers in the industry and ways to network with each other, more resources, cheap deals, etc. Voting members pay more than non-voting members, and students get the cheapest membership fee but don't get access to the real networking opportunities. I pay for my ACCT membership, not for the people who run it to personally profit from it, but rather to support the community as a whole.
All I'm trying to say is, think of webcomics.com now as a type of academy of artists and less like a regular ol' blog. I mean, we've already been critiquing each others' work... that's what academies do.
Guys, we're all missing one very important point here.
We've got all these damn glasses of milk and no cookies. What the hell is up with that?!
This conversation is taking a hilarious turn...
This has clearly become why Scott turned off comments on his site. He just gets beat down like a dead horse.
I can understand now that the wheat must be separated from the chaff...
This site is always interesting to go to and read, but hardly any of the information on here is worth paying for. You're giving yourself way to much credit if you think this site is worth paying $30 a year for.
@Chris Cantrell
Some of us are lactose intolerant, you insensitive clod!
AND your damned cookies had better well be GLUTEN FREE!!!!
I believe that we have now proven that as a group we can not only beat a comment thread to death we can beat any analogy, metaphor, or simile so far beyond the point of hyperbole that it is like a seagull flying through a proverbial hurricane to get sucked through the jet engine of nonsense and come out the other end a walrus. With a tophat. And a candycane.
I might be in the minority on this issue. I think this decision was the wrong one and a bad longterm move for Half-Pixel, yet I've also already signed up as a subscriber to the new Webcomics.com.
My analysis of this decision was far more detailed than could or should be written in this thread, but you can read my full thoughts here.
Those without *!BLEEP!* and can't *!BLEEP!* comics, write critique articles.
For $30 I'll tell you the secret to drinking regular milk and eating these wonderful cookies.
I'm sure webcomics.com will become the ultimate guide to being a pro webcartoonist. These guys know their stuff, after all.
However, if any of you guys feel like contributing to a more general advice blog aimed to new, amateur and growing webcartoonists, I opened this today.
http://www.casualwebcartoonist.com/
It's very bare-bones because it's my first time using WordPress, but this is what's it about, right? Learning.
Feel free to drop by and comment, and mail me if you want to contribute.
Just getting ready to send over my $30. Glad to support a site I've just recently found (how did I miss it?!) to have some great info.
With the forums being moved back into the public space, I hereby take back a big portion of my complaint. Kudos.
I might make the exception for that, but nothing replaces the written word. THAT is what blogging is all about.
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