stream-of-consciousness rambling on webcomic distribution below
recently i’ve been thinking about different ways of distributing comics that don’t rely on social media for getting people to engage with it. part of it came from a conversation with friends about rss the other day, but it also comes from ongoing thoughts about work that is or was serialized in magazines, etc (that is to say i picked up some copies of Heavy Metal at a flea market and am fascinated by its existence). i like a comic that feels like it is part of a bigger Thing, but don’t know exactly how i’d want or be able to create that experience now slash in an independent format. newsletter-style thing seems interesting, but i’m just not sure i’ve got The Juice for the other sort of things that i’d want to include, whatever those are (non-comics writing? opinions? reviews? idk).
i’m also like, i want people to read the thing but i don’t want them to have to do it on social media, so i made the website and set up an rss feed. neat! but what about the comments? do i want a comments section? do i want a discord? do i feel like i could moderate either? is there a way email could factor into this? maybe, but then it’s a one-way communication between me and the reader; maybe a letter column? would that be interesting, or just for my own sake? and once other people are reading it, again, how do they talk to other other people about it?
ultimately i feel like what i’m craving is a local alt-weekly i could slot my stuff into or something so it’s part of a bigger thing without me having to build the scaffolding. that’d be neat. wait am i just wanting to be part of “the funny pages”
