Axe’s Musings
November 2024
You Need a Website
The title says it all.
But really, we need to stop giving our "content" (I hate that word), to these platforms. Ask my buddy Crom, I’ve been saying this for years now. Use Social to push people to your HUB that you control.
Right now I’m building out a page on this site for Live Streaming. YouTube is too huge and it sickens me to think I’m going to be pushing people to that site – even for video. I get how people might think that’s incompressible, but imagine if you could direct someone to YourSite.com/live instead of YT. Think of all the things on that Live page you could expose them to that is not just more YT widgets (chat, recomended videos, comment, subscribe button – jeez, even the JOIN button). You could be doing all that on your own website. Now imagine that everything the visitor sees is tailored to your content, your comic, your world building, etc.
Yeah, I get that it’s not easy to build out a site with all these features, but you gotta ask yourself, how important is the reader to you? Today people want community, connection, and something to really care about. If you think through what you could offer readers, and how to serve that up to them, you’re going to well-ahead of the other guy that just has a YT channel.
Indie Comics on Fire
Lately the world of indie comics has been ablaze with drama and infighting. Many believed they came to a deep well of backers only to find that, for them and their comic book crowdfunding campaign, there was very little water.
Entitlement and jealousy are at a fever pitch and those whom are embittered try to make any epithet stick to anyone seeing success. People who were in various networks or factions are turning on one-another or taking their ball and going home.
If you’re a comic creator I wouldn’t care much about this sort of thing, just focus on your readers. Readers. This is what you’ll see me talking a lot about over the coming years. All these networks/factions/groups etc., they’re fine to get involved on the periphery, but never structure your business with these relationships at its core. It’s the readers that should be your core.
October 2024
Natural Media
There’s considerable discussion about AI recently, heightened by the film “Where the Robots Grow” on YouTube. Engaging in endless debates about AI’s merits might not be productive, but it has reinforced my decision to focus on traditional art using natural media. This approach seems crucial for artists to retain their societal status, and the film has merely accelerated my timeline.