I’m putting this post up mainly as an excuse to update the ‘blog’ section of my site, which I haven’t touched in (cough) a long while. But I thought it good to duly note that I’ve been plugging away at this here webcomic thing for four years now! Four years, no buffer to speak of, and I only ever missed one update! That’s pretty good, I’d say.
I thought I’d mark the occasion by listing a few things I’ve learned over the years:
Making a webcomic is fun!
It really is, and it’s the readership that makes it so. Having you fine people look at and comment on my stuff is really the highlight of my week; it’s the reason I happily sacrifice a big chunk of my free time to the endeavour. So thanks for giving me the motivation to keep on going! If not for you, I’d probably just spend my limited free time playing video games. Badly.
Making webcomics is not a viable business model.
Word to the wise: on a work-to-profit ratio, making a webcomic is a terrible, terrible investment of your time. If you’re ever thinking of making a webcomic, I totally encourage you to do so … for personal satisfaction only. If you’re dreaming of dollar signs, start a Let’s Play channel on Youtube or something. Yes, there are a few highly successful webcomics out there that turn a decent profit (and by ‘decent profit’ I mean ‘barely living wage’) but there aren’t many of them. The market is small, the competition is fierce, and expenses are high. That said, it’s a fun hobby, and if we compare it to other fun hobbies like model trains, it’s a little better because it at least has the chance to potentially pay for itself.
I’m not really very good at what I do.
I don’t mean to be overly harsh; I just mean that the world of webcomics contains some amazing talent. There are people out there creating magnificent work, and they’re real people – not abstract pseudo-celebrities like Jim Lee. (Okay, I know Jim Lee is theoretically a real person, but we’re not really on the same plane.) It reinforces my own mediocrity more when someone says, “Hey, take a look at this seventeen year-old girl from Wyoming! She can draw circles around you and write jokes that people actually laugh at, and she’s not even out of high school!” Humbling, to say the least.
I’m not really that bad at what I do.
Again, I don’t mean to be overly harsh, but I’ve grown increasingly aware of the sheer quantity of absolute garbage out there on the internet. And I feel strongly that, at the very least, I can sleep at night knowing that my comic is not making the internet a worse place through its existence. I might not be making the internet much better, but at least Puck ain’t no Sonichu. Hell, I’ve made it to four years and I’m still not in the Bad Webcomics Wiki! That’s something to be proud of! Either that or it’s just an administrative oversight on the part of the BWW – though if they ever need an article about Puck, I really would like the chance to write it myself. I think tearing my own work apart would be an entertaining (and easy) exercise.
I think I’m game for another four years (at least).
Creating the comic has adversely affected my life in a number of ways; it’s added a lot of stress to my plate and caused a few sleepless nights, but it’s added a lot of good stuff to my life too. It’s given me an artistic sense of purpose, and a more definitive sense of identity. They’re intangible benefits, but they’re also invaluable. When push comes to shove, I can say this: the comic has always been worth it. I think that means I’m in for the long haul.
