Ive noticed teh same and it is a shame. my bookmarks are nothin but some really well made webcomics that have very lil or nothn to do with webcomics and ive seen very lil attention go their way. it even puts a damper on those of us tryin to make our own way through webcomic obscurity.

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I'm not a complete idiot... some parts are missing.

The answer is yes. You probably won't be as successful as Penny Arcade, but it can still be a success. It also depends on your idea of success. The reason why gaming comics tend to be more successful than others is because it has a wide core audience, and media that solely tackles that genre.

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I say, do what a webcomic about you know and love. I'm guessing since the gaming genre's already dominated by those big giants in the net industry anything new that fairly comes close to the same topic would be unfairly compared to those two resulting in another, altogether, different problem.

How about a webcomic about about cafés? Remember Kurtz and Krahulik/Holkins had network gaming to spread the word out about their comics. The local market is as yet untapped. So do something that will make your countrymen proud!

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~ Soli Deo gloria!

My idea of success is basically just generating decent readership that is reasonably enthusiastic about what I do... enthusiastic enough to actually care about the comic, the characters, and the story.

I know a lot of the responsibility for making an appealing comic falls on the creator, but I also believe that without an audience or an effective way to attract an audience, the incentive for continuing declines rapidly as time goes by.

Another reason I think gaming webcomics are so easily pulled into the mix of things is that their base is highly tech-savvy, and they tend to go out and actively seek out things moreso than the people who are more casual when it comes to technology and the Internet.

I don't know of any easy ways to market a webcomic to a non-gaming audience. The easiest way, by contrast, is to advertise on an established webcomic's site, but that costs a lot; and you won't be sure if that site's demographic will like what you do.

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I'm a writer now. Looking for a good cup of coffee in Metro Manila? Read up. CoffeeRev

Heh. You know that I do things out of love, but I don't love 'em enough to keep doing them. That, or I seriously need Prozac.

Well, so far, the only webcomic that I've encountered that has been unfavorably compared to PA is Tim Buckley's Ctrl-Alt-Del, but even that is debatable. No doubt, PA is a hard act to follow, but in the gaming webcomic niche competition seems to be quite welcome, as a lot of times the bigger players tend to link to the smaller ones they find well-made and entertaining. PA has done this a lot of times, as has VGCats; as a result, they send a ton of traffic to the linkee webcomics thus overloading their servers (latest victim as of this week: Awkward Zombie)!

I don't see the same kind of camaraderie between non-gaming webcomics. I just don't; if there is something remotely resembling a network of friends cross-promoting and such, it's not significant enough to become apparent to the casual surfer. There is just no such activity as of right now.

How about a webcomic about about cafés?

I was about to do one at the beginning of this year (heck, I even have the domain name already), but things kinda just didn't work out the way I wanted to.

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I'm a writer now. Looking for a good cup of coffee in Metro Manila? Read up. CoffeeRev

I agree. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt if you made pop cultural references once in a while. It does not have to be limited to gaming, just something a lot of people care about.

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Commissions | Store | Plurk | Blog

of course it can, but who other than video game nerds spend so much time on the computer?

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Your friendly neighborhood grammar Nazi
less-than-three