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comment by Cruxen

    The rise of the internet brought us some of the first web-comics, syndicated by the internet. But how do you make money off of that? Well, they had to do a lot of trial and error, but there are now a growing number of people capable of maintaining a living (and doing it better than traditional syndication ever did)

I largely agree with the point you're making in the rest of your comment- But webcomics are not the best choice for a medium that's doing "well" profit wise. I mean, yes, you have comics like Questionable Content that are able to do it full time- but the vast majority of the time web comics are a profitless medium. It hasn't drained creativity from the medium of comics- but I would say the internet was bad for the profit margins of comics.





JonBanes  ·  4059 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The point was really that web comic people diversified. Look at penny-arcade, Scott Kurtz, randal Monroe, Ryan west (I mean North), the oatmeal, kris straub. Questionable content is almost traditional by their standards, making one product, one way and selling it. All the other talent in comics have branched out, using that art to make more diverse things than a formula driven 3-panel comic.

EDIT: Also, all those people do make a good living, heck, penny-arcade has a staff of like 7 people, a multi-million dollar charity and an international expo, they are doing pretty good. I can name more people living off web-comics than I ever could for syndication.

EDIT: Ryan North, Ha!

cov  ·  4056 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ryan North, for example, drummed up a lot of sales for his anthology Machine of Death, it's sequel, and his recent Hamlet book just because people are fans of his writing. He's got enough popularity that he's writing now for the Adventure Time print comic. Most of the time, people are interested in his stuff because, hey, it's by "the guy that writes Dinosaur Comics".

KC Green writes the Regular Show one. Kate Beaton did some work for Marvel. Anthony Clark has done covers for Marvel, and I'm sure there's a few more examples that are slipping my mind.

They've built themselves a loyal fanbase who will provide interest in their other endeavors.

JonBanes  ·  4056 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Zach Weinersmith also comes to mind, he's done everything, youtube skits, two comics, science podcast, interactive book.