http://animalwardcomic.com/extras/wwlessonslearned/

Hopefully this will help somebody to come up to speed so they’re ready for the ‘master’s level’ content they must now pay $30 for.

This is a great review. The kind I wish I’d written, had I more time. See, I’m an amature Webcartoonist as well but for me, the $30 was just too much. It wasn’t a question of content – I loved what they had. But I’ve barely got enough time to write my scripts, let alone dwell on a community site. I loved occasionally dropping into webcomics.com to see what was new and join the discussion; but not enough to pay $30 for it. *sigh* So long, webcomics.com. So long.

While I was hardly the only person to discuss this move and challenge its execution, Brad has responded directly to several of my critiques, quoting the above piece directly.

I stand by everything I wrote in trying to explain both the reaction to the move and the potential pitfalls. At the same time, I respect Brad’s point of view, and wish him well in his endeavor.

Good luck Rob with the new site. I’m sure I’ll be by to check it out sooner or later.

http://www.webcomicscommunity.com

We are fairly set and open for business (in as much as everything is free or paid for by me) so please check us out. We want to gather as much of the community to our generous bosom as we can.

LOL

The more of us that come together, the better the site will be.

I think this is the most well-rounded piece I’ve seen about the subject. It’s either “Grr, fft, webcomics.com sucks!” or “I will follow Half Pixel to the ends of the Earth; I only wish I could pay them $100!”

I unfortunately fall into the former camp due to my previous frustration with the patented Half Pixel egotism. But that’s another matter… or is it?

The overall bottom-line is, you’re right, they didn’t give their “Tribe” enough credit. I personally think #3 (I call it “the hybrid option”) would have been the best. Give out regular tidbits for free, even still allow the forum, but the “serious” stuff goes 100% behind the pay-wall. The RSS-style article teaser method they’re using now, frankly doesn’t cut it to foster any real interest.

There was actually no reason to use the band-aid rip off technique that Brad says was the *only* option. Transparency with his audience would have been much better. I know a number of people who were genuinely intrigued by what the changeover would mean for the site and its services, but were put off by the abruptness of the change itself.

No matter how much Guigar, Kurtz, and others try to argue it away, it sent a very bad, and rather condescending message. Fortunately for them, enough people didn’t notice.

Here’s the main problem: Brad Guigar is a control freak. I don’t entirely mean that as an insult, but he clearly has problems with delegation and trust, and this has made for some frustrating habits on his part.

First up, I know deep down he means well, but that doesn’t make up for the way he treats those he sees as “beneath” him, which is basically anyone who hasn’t done comics as long as him and/or makes less than him while doing it.

He likes to help out the community, he likes to give people advice, he really is a good guy when it comes down to it. I truly believe he does all this with the best intentions. And for that, I honestly do respect him.

But… he has a gigantic ego.

He doesn’t see any of this as a two-way street. He’s “made it”. He knows everything. So, conversing with the fellow webcomickers visiting his site to come up with a good solution was out of the question, because he doesn’t see any of them a “fellow”, they’re merely underlings at worst, apprentices at best. Basically, people he’s allowed to kick around if the situation warrants it (or even not sometimes).

This is why option #1 wouldn’t happen. Brad doesn’t want the help. He talks big about how much time he spends moderating the forums, a key point even to the new pay-wall, yet, any other medium-to-large forum you go to has MORE THAN ONE moderator.

Why not take on someone else? Simply put, he doesn’t trust that anyone else is capable. And it’s not just moderating for trolls or dousing flamewars, it’s making sure people stay strictly on topic and to counteract anything he deems as “bad advice”.

Thing is, sometimes that “bad advice” is actually a matter of opinion, not fact, but he rarely distinguishs a difference. And has made a bad HABIT of initiating debates with anyone that tries to disagree, and then goes into passive-aggressive “this isn’t the place for this conversation” mode when they try make their case. I’d show examples, but alas, they’re behind the pay-wall now.

I recall one of the most recent was the Zingerding post. Anyone that tried to say that Brad was off-base with some of his “facts” was basically insulted by himself and his loyalists.

Ironically, Brad made several of the EXACT mistakes with the webcomics.com changeover that the Zingerding founders were lambasted for, and HE’S taking in actual, direct money.

This is also why #4 wouldn’t happen either. If he’s off to the side taking care of the premium content, someone needs to maintain the free stuff. So he can easily justify charging for his time, because, after all, if Brad Guigar doesn’t give the advice and keep things in check, then, by god, no one else possibly could.

And that’s why this new model is potentially dangerous for the community. Only those behind the pay-wall will know what’s going on. And anyone with a “dissenting” opinion runs the risk of being booted since there will be fewer members to support that person. That is, the folks that would do it actually know (or think they know), nearly as much (or even more) as Guigar himself, and thus, won’t pay him $30 to learn things they already know, or potentially know better.

Which leaves those left behind the wall learning a virtually unilateral viewpoint. Which, for something as ultimately arbitrary as comics, and ever changing as an internet business, is just dangerous. And the only balance will be Scott Kurtz? Um, does “no thank you” sum up my feelings on that? Reading through the comments on the announcement thread is VERY convincing that Kurtz is going to be a professional about this.

I realize Mr. Khoo will be involved as well, which is a major point in favor of “webcomics.com: paid edition” considering what he’s done for Penny Arcade, but it sounds like it will only be once a month, like Kurtz, and I doubt that will help balance out the Guigar influence.

And you might say, “But Brad has so much experience.” Yes, he does, but the point is he’s not the only one. In fact, he still has a day job last I heard, so he’s not even as big a success as, say, Kurtz.

Even with Big Guigar watching, webcomics.com still managed to be a melting pot of resourceful information. Now, it’s going to be even more of the Brad Guigar show than it already was.

I’m glad people like you, Tyler, will be on the inside. I wish I could too, but, 1) I don’t have $30 I can spend right now, and 2) even if I did, I wouldn’t spend it on the “privilege” of learning about comics 90% from a single viewpoint.

This comment got longer than I wanted, so I apologize for this, just had a lot of points to make.

And I know this looks like I hate Guigar or something, and I really don’t. I’m just frustrated my his increased ego-stroking habits since How to Make Webcomics came out and the subsequent pedestal others have put him on as a result.

He deserves our respect, yes. But our undying devotion? No.

To me, this move seems like a very blatant cash-in on the webcomics.com product. I agree that the Half Pixel guys should have had more transparency with their community before instituting this paywall model. However, there seem to be enough creators out there willing to shell out the money to keep this thing afloat, so I doubt HP will see too many negative effects. Moving to a paywall, especially so quickly, was a very risky decision, but it’ll probably pay off because they’re the Half Pixel guys and they’re capitalizing on their name and influence. Had this been done by someone equally as knowledgeable but half as famous, their site would have tanked, guaranteed.

I’ve been weighing whether or not I want to pay for this subscription as well to get advice from these guys, but I feel my answer is no. I already know to MAKE a webcomic and run a webcomics site. I’ve been doing so for years now. My problem is in marketing my product, but I don’t have faith that advice from the Half Pixel crew on marketing my product will work for me beyond very general pointers (pointers I could probably get from books like “Tribes”). These guys make gag-a-day comic strips. I make an action serial. For me, to get advice from Half Pixel on how to market my comic is like asking Disney advice on how to market condoms.

That said, I wish the Half Pixel crew the best of luck on their venture. Their products are obviously successful and I hope they continue that trend. I just wanted to voice the opinion of someone who isn’t doing a gag-a-day strip and might need advice eleswhere.

Additionally, some of Brad’s comments seem kind of disingenuous to me – marketing spin at best, deliberately misleading at worst:

The distinction drawn between webcomics (“entertainment”) and articles about making webcomics (“serious business”) feels more like an attempt to justify the sudden u-turn in attitude towards the subscription model. Both are forms of online content, both rely on building an enthusiastic and passionate community if they’re to thrive such that the content creator can start to monetise them. Throwing up a pay-wall around either kind of content throws a bucket of icy water over the community’s enthusiasm – especially if, as in this case, it comes as a total surprise.

I also found the “if you can’t scrape together $30 for a subscription then you’re obviously not serious about making webcomics” stuff, with the implied goal of keeping out the amateur riff-raff, to be pretty odious. Particularly given that I’d suspect that the greater proportion of Webcomics.com’s readership was exactly the kind of beginner webcomic creator new to the scene that they’re now seeking to exclude.

Overall, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head when you say that Halfpixel have let down their tribe. With books, podcasts and articles they’ve spent the last two years building up an enthusiastic tribe of followers, with themselves in the middle as the voices of experience – but have undone that hard work and alienated the vast majority of their tribe over the span of a few days.

I don’t really think that’s the kind of example I want to follow.

But I wanted to commend you on some of the suggestions for alternatives you made. Man, had ANY of those suggestions been made, I not only would have plunked down my $30 (or maybe even more) right away, but I would have gladly put on my cheerleading outfit and done the Half Pixel version of “Mickey” for them as well.

“Half Pixel, you’re so fine… you’re so fine you blow my mind! Hey Half Pixel…” – Know. It doesn’t quite have the same beat but you get the picture, I’m sure.

Personally, I’m still going to have a wait-and-see attitude about this. If I start to hear from other creators like yourself who are getting value for the subscription then that will completely change my mind.

I know THAT sounds contradictory as well but to me, it’s like a Mary Poppins kind of thing. This medicine is very hard to swallow but if I had a spoon full of sugar to go along with it, that would have made all the difference in the world to me.

-Chris