Member Benefit: Sandbox for Comic Easel

One of the most vexing problems I've faced in moving to a WordPress-based conent-management system (CMS) has been trying to administer design changes to my site using CSS.

So I was really thrilled to hear that Philip M. Hofer, creator of Comic Easel, has released a nifty Child Theme that enables the user to make text- and background-color changes in a simple push-button interface. 

You don't need to know CSS to make these changes. Simply select the element you'd like to tweak, choose a color, and click Apply. Easy peasy.

Hofer is making the Child Theme available as a digital download on his site for $15. (Click the link to learn more about how Sandbox works.)

But Webcomics.com members get it for free.

Fix your broken links!

If you want to improve your ad revenue, fix your broken links.

Broken links bring your Google PageRank down, and advertisers prefer sites with high PageRank scores. (And so do search engines.)

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Social Media Hot Seat: MeatShield, A La Mode and Johnny Saturn

For this round of Hot Seat critiques, I wanted to focus on social media. I attribute a huge portion of the success I had with my recent Kickstarter on the effect of social media. It's how information gets passed around, and I think it's worth spending a little time discussing.

So here's the three criteria I focused on:

• How easy was it to ascertain the social-media presence of the comic/creator?
• How easy was it was to share links to the content on social media.
• Did the main social-media feed of the creator feature a good ratio of content to commercial? 

I gave each a score on a five-star scale, five stars representing the best possible outcome.

As always, this is just the beginning of the discussion. Members are encouraged to take this as a jumping-off point to a deeper discussion of the topic.

MeatShield

A La Mode

Johnny Saturn

Saturday Deep Dive: Scraping Booth Barnacles

Today's dive into the deeper archive of Webcomics.com takes us to August 5, 2010, when we discussed how to handle a fan who stays a little too long at your table during a comic convention.

Yes, I coined the term in 2002. Consider it my linguistic gift to webcomics.

Booth Barnacle (barnaclous blahblahblahblus): A fan who stands in front of your booth for way too long. Sometimes they've bought some merchandise, and sometimes they won't buy a thing. Sometimes they're talking incessantly, and other times they're just... standing there. But they're making it impossible for you to do what you came to the convention to do.

I know what you're thinking: Clearly, these are the wizened musings of an aging comics curmudgeon. The poor, old fellow has had one too many exhibitor badges slung around his veiny neck, and he's finally hardened to the loving fan interaction that once brought him to webcomics.

First of all ... ouch ...

Read the entire post, and comment there.

Friday Archive Dive: Buy Local

Today's Archive Dive comes from Aug. 23, 2012, when I shared a tip about buying from local vendors:

Comment under the original post.