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13 | The Sustainability of : Learning from Webcomics

Raphaël Plamondon, School of Information Studies

The majority of webcomics are available for free to everyone, yet some of the most popular webcomic creators are able to make their work a full-time job. This paper explores how they can afford to do so using alternative sources of income and marketing. While the money made from these doesn’t compare to what traditional make, as a -person operation, they reap all of the profits, and the unique content of their webcomic allows them to have a dedicated audience. This model is becoming prevalent in the digital economy, and traditional creative could learn from it.

Keywords: webcomics, comics, free content, self-, digital content.

Introduction

As digital technologies and the evolved, so too did the mindset of the general population. The majority of content on the web is freely available to anyone with a connection. Digital games and songs are available for less than their physical counterparts, and even then, people find plenty of ways to access them for free, some of which are even more convenient than buying the product. This has led to a shared belief that web content should be free and that charging more than a couple dollars for content is considered overpricing. What is often overlooked in this line of argument is the livelihood of the content-creator: if people who create content want to make it a full-time job without having to also work a separate job to sustain themselves, they need their work to be profitable. Which begs the question: how are they supposed to earn anything from free content? This idea might have seemed absurd a couple decades ago, but the

Copyright © 2018 Plamondon. Learning from Webcomics 120 rise of digital technologies has also made it a viable and crucial question today, and it touches on a number of creative domains, including webcomics. After defining the term, this chapter will explore in depth the roles of their creators, what their income is constituted of as well as their target audience. Webcomics show that it is possible, in fact, to profit from free content, maybe even more so than by charging for digital content.

What are Webcomics?

Webcomics are, in its simplest terms, comics that are created and published on the web. They “are not a . They are a medium… They’re everything you loved about long-form comics, short-form comics, sequential strips and single panels – transposed to a new means of distribution” (Guigar, Kellet, Kurtz, & Straub, 2008, p.13). However, this alternative medium does mean that there are a few differences between them and physical comics. Unlike most traditional comics, they are not managed and disseminated through a publisher; rather, they are posted by their creators on either such as Tumblr and DeviantArt, specialized webcomic platforms such as or Taptastic, or through a created by the author. Furthermore, as they are self-published work, they are not required to go through a process or a process, which makes the process of creating them accessible to almost anyone with an internet connection and a drive to create. While the illustration process and construction of a narrative is similar to traditional comics, the medium of webcomics is generally more diverse, both in illustrations and narrative, than traditional ones, where the genre dominates the medium.

Webcomic Business Model

Creators of webcomics are, first and foremost, persistent. The majority of popular full-time webcomics authors started posting their webcomic as a hobby, and a lot of them did not expect to make it a sustainable career out of it until later on. Even assuming that their creation is instantly popular at the start,

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 121

webcomics that are able to attract a following usually have to wait years before they’re financially stable. Bloggers and webcomic artists frequently develop and maintain their as side projects while working full time in another job. If the website becomes profitable, then it might turn into a full-time job. But building a large audience usually takes a while (Liming, 2012, p. 21).

In order to get to that point, creators of these comics need to be willing to post regularly with little to no reward from their work other than praise from their followers and the self-satisfaction that comes with the completion of a project. Secondly, these webcomics artists tend to engage more with their audience than traditional creators, cultivating a community through their work (Walter, 2009) and are more open to criticism from their fans. By posting their comics online, one or a few pages at a time, they get instant feedback on their work, which lets them improve and adjust the direction of their comic and what is presented. Engaging with their audience is crucial in the world of webcomics, as word-of-mouth is their main and often only source of advertising in the medium. It is also crucial if the artist considers making their comic a full-time job and therefore needs ways of supporting themselves through their readers. Finally, in the event that these creators do become full-time artists, it’s important to be entrepreneurial. As the comic remains free to read, artists need to be creative in finding ways to profit from their work. For example, John Allison, a webcomic artist in the UK, the person behind webcomics such as Scary Go Round and Bad Machinery, “emphasizes the individual effort of the web and implies, in suggesting that a cartoonist must be ‘Marks and Spencer’, that to succeed a lone cartoonist must become a one-person corporation” (Johnston, 2015, p. 9). A webcomic creator must be an artist, but also a publisher, an advertiser and a merchandise creator and distributor all at once in order to make his work marketable. Being a full time webcomic artist requires more business skills than artistic skills, as it is comparable to starting their own business. They have the freedom to do anything they want with their comic, but they are also responsible for everything concerning their success. Individuals who go in that industry need to be willing to put in the work necessary to make their comic first successful, then profitable, as well as being able to connect to their audience in order to advertise their sources of income.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 122

While there exists some webcomics that require a subscription fee to access them and are therefore profitable on their own, the general rule in the medium is that webcomics are available in their entirety to everyone who knows where to find them for free. So how can full-time webcomic artists support themselves on free content? The answer is that there are a few alternative ways to earn their income, such as:

• Donations • Advertising; • Commissioned work, and; • Merchandising (Johnston 2015).

Advertising is one of the most commonly used as it is relatively easy to initiate; but in recent years, it has quickly become unsustainable as a mean to make money from webcomics. More and more users, tired of the overabundance of ads present on the web, navigate with an adblocker extension. If someone with an activated adblocker reads a webcomic on a webpage that is normally supposed to show ads, the artist makes no money from their visit. As such, the artist has to create their own source of revenue.

Commissions and merchandising have become viable options for webcomic creators. Commissions are increasingly becoming an avenue for generating income, where an artist receives personal request from fans to create a specific artwork for a fee. This method can quickly become overwhelming however, as the artist has to draw these requests on top of making art for their free comic. Then there's merchandising, where the artist sells various objects such as keychains, mugs and the like with designs or logos related to their comic. This also includes physical editions of specific parts of the webcomic, much like traditional comics. The creator of , for example, has developed shirt designs that the characters in his comic wear, then creates actual shirts from these designs that readers can purchase online. While this type of approach relies heavily on branding and marketing skills, the process itself is simple once the artist is familiar with the process, and can make most of their earnings through it. The person behind the comic Cat & Girl, Dorothy Gambrell, reported making around seventy to seventy- five percent of her income from her comic merchandise (Kleefeld, 2010). Then there are fan

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 123 donations. Nowadays, when a webcomic creator wants to profit from their work, one of the first things they will do is set up a , or some other donation service, to accept fan donations. A popular webcomic such as Ava’s Demon, which makes around two thousand US dollars a month through its Patreon, can support the artist full time by itself (Farley 2017), even for webcomics with smaller audiences. While the creator can entice people to donate with rewards such as commissions or early access to the newest pages, donations are usually made by people who genuinely want to support the comic, and it is completely optional, as all other options covered. But does the majority of the fanbase actually support the comic in one shape or another? According to Lovell, journalist and consultant, “the majority of consumers of content given away will be, in his terminology, ‘freeloaders,’ who never pay, while the ‘superfans’ at the top of the graph will be responsible for the vast majority of money that a creator receives from selling his or her content” (as cited in Johnston, 2015, p. 6). Therefore, in order to make a sustainable profit, these artists have to gather a very wide audience, accounting for the fact that the majority of a webcomic’s audience will not support the comic. While that kind of business model may seem unsustainable on paper, it’s important to keep in mind that webcomic creators are a one-man operation. “In doing this, they can remove the middleman, and instead of sharing any money made with others, they reap 100% of the revenue” (Volo, 2011, p. 12).

Building a Readership

While it may seem at first that traditional comics have a bigger audience and reach more people than webcomics, that couldn't be farther from the truth. First of all, simply by being digital, a webcomic reaches far more people across the globe than its physical counterpart could, since there is an unlimited amount of copies available to everyone who has an internet connection. Even when accounting for the fact that many traditional comics are also available digitally, the price of a webcomic cannot be beat. Furthermore, webcomic are not just more accessible due to their format or price, but also in terms of content. As traditional comics need to make a lot more money than the average webcomic to be profitable and are limited in the audience they can reach, they will seek to appeal to the majority and what is considered popular. This results in a market full of comics resembling one another and covering the same themes, with an

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 124 overabundance of . Webcomics, on the other hand, aren't limited by these factors, and as a result are very diverse and unique from one another. According to Volo (2011):

They are stories of everyday life, fantasy, gamming, etc... Webcomics cater to comic readers looking for something different, and there are as many webcomics as there are interests. There are webcomics for every niche comic consumer online (p. 12).

In addition, webcomics do not suffer from the that traditional comics do, and therefore are free to cover risqué themes and ideas. “The webcomic revenue market was a creation of the modern era of web sales, a market that caters to a niche of readers and enthusiasts” (Volo, 2011, p. 11), otherwise known as the “long-tail” effect. In other words, according to the S.R. Ranganathan’s (1931) principles of library science, every webcomic has an audience, and there is an audience for every webcomic. However, what really gives webcomic creators power in reaching an audience is that they can have significantly more interactions with their readers than traditional comic creators can have. By default, people will usually be able to comment on each webcomic page posted, giving feedback to the author and starting discussions on the story. “Some authors even involve their audience in the comic writing process. Tim Buckley enjoys getting reader feedback intermittently in a create-your-own-adventure-style storyline, as readers vote on plot changes” (Walters 2009). Another approach is the creation of separate forums. As Maria Walters (2009) points out,

[s]ome authors prefer to have discussions between readers take place on forums, which allows for greater continuity in discussions. Another effect of these forums is the relationships formed between readers. Forums allow users to introduce conversations that are not directly related to any particular comic, which is vital to the formation of a true community (p. 1-2).

As such, webcomics allows not only for a better author-reader relationship, but also for a stronger sense of community between readers.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 125 Conclusions

In this digital economy, webcomics strive because of the mindset of their creators, their business model and the audience they target. It can be said that, in the context of both the comic industry and the digital products industries in general, they push their way through with a model that, while not perfect, allows them to strive and shine in an economy where other traditional media struggle to adapt. In my opinion, those traditional media could learn a lot from the webcomic medium, which is adapted to big currents in the information field such as the "long-tail" model, self-publication and . More on how to adapt this business model to the comic industry and other industries needs to be done in order for them to embrace the digital economy.

References Farley, A. (2017, July 2017). How profitable are webcomics? [Msg 4] Message posted to quora.com. Guigar, B., Kellett, D., Kurtz, S., & Straub, K. (2008). How to make webcomics. Berkeley. CA: Image Comics, Inc. Johnston, P. (2015). Bad Machinery and the economics of free comics: a webcomic case study. Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 8(4). Kleefeld, S. (2010, April 15). How much a real webcomic creator earns. Retrieved from Kleefeld on Comics. Liming, D. (2012). Bloggers and webcomic artists: careers in online creativity. Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 56(3), 16-21. Ranganathan, S. R. (1931). The five of library science. Madras Library Association (Madras, ) and Edward Goldston (London, UK). Volo, K. (2011). Webcomic distribution: distribution methods, monetization and niche markets (Doctoral dissertation). Walters, M. (2009). What's up with webcomics?: author-reader relationships and finances. Interface: The Journal of , Community and Values, 9(4).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)