Core Strength
Hey everybody, long time, no blog… (’cept the video I linked up the other day, but that doesn’t count)
The Apple of Discord is about 2 months shy of 2 years now, and while I’ve mostly enjoyed the experience, I’ve also identified the fact that I’m not making a great deal of traction in the world of webcomics.
I hate to say it, but… I need your help.
I never went into webcomics with incredibly high expectations. I am a devout hobbyist, as I affirmed in Wednesday’s comic, here for the love of making comics and interacting with friends and readers more than I am for any other reasons.
That does not, however, mean that I am completely blind to the other concerns. Before my daughter was born, I was capable of giving the comic 110% of my attention (in spite of that being a statistical imposibility) and felt I was ‘making a dent’, even if it meant that the fanbase and readership was growing at rate that I might eventually overtake Penny Arcade… if I had two or three hundred years and could pay someone to kill the guys from Penny Arcade.
During the initial first few months of parenthood, the comic went into a state of decline-to-decay. I thank all those who helped with art, comics of their own, motivation, and best wishes – but it does not change the fact that the readership did not react kindly to these changes. People come here for Discord, not Chaos, and Chaos is well where we were at.
In the last few months following my major lifestyle change, things have stabalized – we’re back to a firm update schedule, have been fulfilling our general “promise to the readers”, and have been trying to provide the wide variety of comical experiences that you’ve all come to know and appreciate. I admit I am not quite as “on my game” as I used to be. Pop culture and movie parody involve being aware and a part of pop culture and occasionally being able to go see a movie, none of which have come easily for me. Add the stress of being the head of a single-income household with a new baby in what is rapidly becoming a ghost town (Our White Castle shut down! The injustice of it all!) and it’s taken quite a lot of the fire out of me.
As you may have noticed, we’ve been running on hand-drawn comics for a while now. Over the holidays, the pen for my Wacom tablet broke, and we’ve been so strapped for cash that I’ve been unable to replace it. It’s given me a good chance to practice (and improve, hopefully) on my ability to do the ‘hand drawn’ scene – it’s also forced me to consider and alter my style somewhat, and it’s made direct reference-material-specific comics much harder to draw.
We’re also well into our first ongoing story – stories, really. AoD has always had an ongoing story of some sort running – the traces of the Apple of Chaos’s ultimate comedic invasion can be traced back months before it actually happened if you know where to look – but aside from the sporadically updated Hubris and The Lotus over the summer, this is the first real “push” at an actual story.
Judging by the numbers, it’s not working out so well.
I don’t blame you guys for not being accepting of this change - I tried something different, and obviously it wasn’t the right thing. I’m not nearly as practiced at the long-form storytelling, and that combined with my lack-of-working-equipment has certainly hampered things, but… well… excuses don’t make New Coke taste any better.
This brings me back to my original point – I’ve never had fantastic traction, but given the current state of the comic, I think I’m officially backsliding, possibly faster than ever. The comic is an expression of my artistic soul… and what my artistic soul wants is to make you (the readers) happy… so I’m officially asking.
What do you want?
I will (most likely) still be providing a mix of all the unique elements that make my comic what it is – this isn’t a “vote _______ off the island” sort of thing. What I’m looking for is a subjective opinion of what you, the readers, want the most.
Do you want to see (and help) me grow as a long form comic-maker, and are willing to stick with the continuing adventures of Art, Leaf, Horn, Hubris, and the others to see where they go and what happens to them next? Or should they slip back into the realm of ‘loose canon’, only appearing in self-contained and mostly disconnected strips?
Or should AoD ascend to the steps of webcomic parody, crossovers, and metafictional references with Gayzilla, The Archer, Sir Vivor, and the How NOT To Guy… the metafictional metawebcomical recurring characters? Would you like to see them more often?
And then there’s the pop-culture and parodies. Look, I’m not Robot Chicken. I can only do so many of these. I could focus more on them, but there are consequences. As I told someone the other day, “There are a finite number of Star Trek jokes in me.” Does that mean I’m going to run out soon? I don’t know… probably not, , but the ideas don’t always come fast and furious to me and when I’m phoning it in… it’s obvious.
I know which sort of comics are the most “popular”, based off of the number of hits, links, comments, all that stuff… but which ones do you actually “like”? Where is my core strength?