VeryCuddlyCornpone wrote:These forums have been around for a while, though. I'm certain that a good number of the Big Name Webcomic Artists are already familiar with this place.
I think what we need instead of Big Names is more creators from all over the spectrum of e-fame. Particularly people who've been in the webcomic scene for a while but maybe don't have huge numbers in terms of popularity. And noobs who actually are going to stay with comicing, although that's not really a predictable factor.
Yeah, the forum was always filled more with people just below the line of recognition.
Uh, yeah, if that were the case, we wouldn't have a problem.
It is, actually. There's a few thousands of registered users who have zero posts, but sport spam link in their profiles. It's not a visible problem, but it can't be good for forum'a database.
Also, do you think if the CG forums had a lot more activity, maybe Keenspot would give a damn?
They didn't give much of a damn when we were quite popular. I think they always have own crises that occupy their time.
Oh, and another thing. I should mention that one of the reasons that got me into joining comicgenesis was because that I read that if your comic does really well on ComicGenesis, that you could be picked up by KeenSpot.
Eh good old times when people were starting to play guitar to woo girls, and starting to draw webcomics to woo Keenspot. But 'Spot's criteria was always an impenetrable mystery, I can't say if majority of accepted comics started on CG or not, but my personal impression is that numbers are leaning towards non-CG artists. And then there were some steadily popular CG comics that never got in. I guess the decision was on case-to-case basis, with consideration of other issues like copyright-safety, or the direction in which 'Spot wanted to go at a cartain moment. The only common ingredient was a certain level of built-in fanbase.
This isn't a bad idea. There's only one caveat: who would be interested in such a thing these days? It appears that a lot of webcomic artists are quite content to establish their own domain instead of forming groups (something the more popular comics do and seem to be successful with). Letters of challenge come to mind; however, most would recognize it as a blatant attempt at exposure from a dinosaur that most have already written off. The comic culture online just isn't what it was when these PR stunts were used successfully in years past. Cross promotion just doesn't work when someone can purchase an ad on Project Wonderful to achieve the same goal.
Still it's worth a try, eh? I think the main problem is keeping the thing going, cause it'd be depressing to start it and drag another forum into it, and then after a few pages people lose interest...
I've only been here since the end of 2008 (lurking and whatnot), so I can't talk too much about "the way things were." Maybe that's why I don't find the pace here to be too offputting, because I never saw what it was like before the decline. Though to be honest, when I first came here and was desperately hitting refresh constantly hoping new people would come online and post (yeah, my freshman year in college was pretty empty), I did backtrack and look through the archives of most of the forums here, so I do recognize some oldbies and some different community memes that I wasn't actually here for. Heh, I was really, really desperate to fit in, so I creeped the Wiki like it was my job- didn't want to be one of those uneducated noobs that comes in all "Heglo I'd like to make a comic where can I find a pencil."
To me, even during downtimes this was still a place familiar enough to check in and spend a few minutes. During most active periods I was spending hours here, during least active I was spending five minutes, so in any case time was proportionately well-spent. I'm not crazy about the idea of forums being as active as during the most active periods 'cause I'd need hours just to get through interesting threads, but I don't think we could get that now anyways, now that novelty of webcomics has worn off. Moderately active forum with ten or twenty active threads at any times is a good goal.
The worst times to me were actually times when I didn't manage to get on with the latest batch of newbies. That didn't happen often, dozens of batches of newbies passed through and I think I only had a real problem with them once or possibly twice, but those were actual situations when I contemplated leaving the forum.
On the other hand I think there are some quite cool people right now and the crew is not at all bad. Most of folks are still within five year range from me, which doesn't make me as old as I sometimes feel. I think this would be a good time as any for someone to peek in and decide to stay... well, if it wasn't for all the spam.
But I guess "forum age" makes me a bit worn off... I used to draw more for the forum or do other things that required more time, nowadays I'm content with just posting and looking at other people act. I guess what forum needs is a sustaining power, a critical mass of people who would jump in on any project and do
stiff stuff.
