ComicMix Poll: How should we display our comics?
We’ve been having an internal debate here at ComicMix, about possibly doing different things with the way we display comics– and we want your feedback, since, after all, you’re the people reading them.
Should we…
- Run one or two pages a day from all of our series?
- Run four to eight pages a week, alternating series daily?
- Run twenty to twenty-four pages a month, alternating series weekly?
- Run it however it works best for the story?
Please vote in the poll below, and feel free to discuss your thoughts on the matter in the comments. Your votes will help determine how we show our comics going forward. And thanks for taking the time to respond!
Your copy says 4 to 8 pages a week but your poll offers only 4 to 6 as a choice.
I'm of the opinion that whatever works best for the story is what will work best for the reader and eventually what will work best for ComicMix. Personally I don't mind the weekly comics giving us as few as 3 pages in a segment if that is where the STORY naturally wants to "take a breath." Conversely, I don't mind an "issue" that runs 10 or more pages, if that's how the scene plays out. Breaking up the story logically makes more sense to me than breaking it up numerically.Now, one of the most recent additions to ComicMix is "Frankenstein Mobster & Vampirella." This reads like a daily. Each page "breaths" like a daily. I think the readers, and ComicMix, would be better served if Dailies were presented … daily. You might even try to find some of the best Daily Web Comics and see if they wouldn't want some extra exposure here. You might even try TOONCASTING! Maybe that muddies the brand of "ComicMix." And maybe you are trying to sell ComicMix to more than just readers, you've got advertisers and investors to consider.
I think the number of pages run per installment is less of an issue than making the site easier to navigate. I'd rather see "homepages" for each feature when you click the Comics link, instead of the blogroll-style list of updates. It creates a much better sense of just how much material you have for a given feature. Check out ModernTales.com for an example of this approach.
I think it's tough to grab a reader's interest (especially a new reader's interest) with less than eight pages at a time.
If I had my stories on here, with somewhat more complex plot development, I would say two installments of 11 or 12 pages, bi-weekly.
I think a great question to ask here is – What are your current reading patterns at ComicMix? Do you read weekly as the pages are posted for a graphic novel? Or do you wait for larger chunks of pages to accumulate before you dig into reading? Have you come in late and found already complete graphic novels and are you then reading those in one sitting or as the mood hits you? I'm sure there are other variations and I'd be interesting to hear what those are.