Do you think webcomics are declining in popularity at all? In both the general number of new creators and readership?

I'm not sure if it's that 2008 was a busy year or if my perception has just changed since not being so involved in them (and my previous source of comics DD and Onlinecomics going downhill) What do you think? And if so what's the cause?

I cant see any reason that quality or quantity would have declined.
There still seem to be vast numbers out there.
Since making all the different web comics out there dont have any connection between them asside from the inter net, I cant see how any world event could have that much of an effect on them.
Many the global recession has made people spend more time looking for work and less being creative?
I'm getting more hits now then I used too, so clearly the trend is not that bad.

well, theres always the "after honeymoon" drop off in EVERY big thing. webcomis got a surge of popularity, people are all over it, then they forget and go back to what they did before. some stay, some dont. nothing new.

but you have to remember, new artists are coming up with comics and looking for a way to show them off. webcomics allows that so easily, it will never truly die out. personally i havent seen a decline, but thats just me.

I'm of the mind that, simply, there are more comics. Actually, of greater consequence is probably the fact that there are more GOOD comics. It's not quite so bad as comic books, where people only have so much money, but still, there's a limit on how many comics people are willing to read on a regular basis. I know that there are a few comics I've simply stopped reading over time, and quite a few comics that I've always meant to read but never got around to. People can only spread themselves so thin, and the toast that is webcomics is too large for a single serving of butter (the butter in this analogy is your attention span).

So all I can say is that I think webcomics as a whole are doing fine, probably better than before, but it's getting harder to really notice a "standout" comic.

Heck, with all the newspapers dying, more and more people are starting to read comics on the web. Sure, most of them are reading the same comics they were reading in the papers, just online, but others have gone out looking to see if there are other comics to read, too.

I haven't noticed any decrease at all.

i support webcomics because they are themselves indie and amateur.

an amateur person can be defined as unskilled by todays standard, but the true meaning of an amateur is to love something albeit art or sport. it's for pleasure rather than for monetary means. it's not a job, it's for personal satisfaction.

for the love of graphic story telling is why i support and do webcomics.

indie comics rock because you answer to no one. editors or big companies, the character and stories can evolve without any restrictions.

subcultured
indie comics rock because you answer to no one. editors or big companies, the character and stories can evolve without any restrictions.

On the other side of the coin however, it means that all of the creators flaws and bad habits don't get caught out and removed.

i keep wondering if shakespear, Beethoven, michealangelo or da vince had editors.

Custard Trout

subcultured
indie comics rock because you answer to no one. editors or big companies, the character and stories can evolve without any restrictions.

On the other side of the coin however, it means that all of the creators flaws and bad habits don't get caught out and removed.

This can be true but it's easy to forget that it's just as true of the big name professional creators, too. Once you reach the status of a Grant Morrison or a Warren Ellis or an Alan Moore (and others, I should add - I'm not singling these writers out as being any worse than any one else!), you can produce the most pretentious, self-indulgent yawn-fest ever to grace a comic book and no editor is powerful enough to tell you it's substandard and needs to be changed.

Back to webcomics ... I don't think webcomics as a whole are becoming less popular. I believe there are just so many more of them that everyone is getting a smaller slice of the pie.

The comics that have been around for decades continue to grow because, for new readers, they will see those names quoted time and time again (even if most of them have long since ceased to be funny or interesting!) Newer comics, however, will find it increasingly difficult to establish a similar kind of following because - with the huge number of comics out there - it's just so much harder to grab someone's attention.

This difficulty in winning readership will get worse, I suspect, now that big names like Warren Ellis are putting work on the web and companies like DC, Image and Marvel are pushing their own outlets like Zuda. As subcultured said, webcomics have been the de facto indie sector for some time now, and creators in that sector will always face an up-hill struggle to be noticed when they have to compete with the marketing power and name recognition of the big guns.

There's more of them out there, that's for sure.

Shakespeare, Beethoven, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci did not have editors per se, but they had patrons that also asked for very speciphic things that sometimes overrode the artist's personal vision. These patrons did corrections, asked for changes and also most of the time expected deadlines to be met, so it is not like these great artists were completely free to create as they saw fit. They were making a living out of their art, and it was as hard a battle as it is today. However, some of these patrons were indeed very soft and understanding of the artists' mood swings and mental blocks. But i believe if leonardo had an editor he would have finished a bit more of all the stuff he began, and perhaps he wouldn't have used such a lousy paint on the Last Supper.

By the way, what do you mean DD going downhill?

I think webcomics are doing fine. There are far, far, far more of them these days than there were a coupld of years ago. That's a certainty. The sheer volume of comics on the web may be diluting the readership.

That doesn't mean that the popularity of webcomics has crested.

As long as there are people bored at work there will always be silly distractions for them to look at on the internet.

editors made the spiderman clone saga.

Editors also made the three non terrible Star Wars films.

subcultured
editors made the spiderman clone saga.

but it wasnt the same editors who started on the clone saga.

Well, people liked the Clone Saga when it started. They only began to hate it once it kept going on for two years without end.

This is mostly the fault of Marvel's accountants. Keep in mind that the Clone Saga occured just before Marvel filed for Chapter 11. The strong sales of the Clone Saga encouraged Marvel to extend the length of the storyline.

However, we are getting a little off topic here...

Let's see... Have the webcomics or DD gone downhill?

I don't think so. The hits and traffic has been going great here.

Skullbie, perhaps it's because there hasn't been any huge controversy on DD like the years before?

Remember the crazyness when Platinum first came, the CC boob war, DJ's leave, The Civil War, the increase in quality drawn comics like PT and Platinum comics and Amelius' rants?

2009 just hasn't had that much weird stuff happening on DD. We have reached an equilibrium.

Maybe interesting events will come such as the 2009 DD awards to break this DD blandness.

hits for MAG-ISA are way down.

I guess its my lack of updates and maybe I'm kinda out-growing webcomics.

Admit it, guys. You're out-growing webcomics. lol!

For me personally, I haven't been as caught up on reading other people's webcomics since I started my own. A lot of time goes into our comic and I forget to read other comics.

On a site with several people who draw webcomics, I would imagine there being a lot of people more concerned with their own comics than with others.

But hits for Splash Damage are down a lot and they have been for a couple weeks now.

-Darrel

I think I read somewhere that your average number of hits is going to go down in the summertime.

Mainly due to nice weather (Unless you live in RI) and more people taking vacations and spending less time in front of the computer.

I haven't noticed much of a drop. But I think people focus a bit too much on pageviews. Everyone wants to be popular, but a bunch of popular stuff I also find to be complete garbage.

I think people should focus more creating a great and interesting webcomic where they are free from the restrictions of editors, rather than try to make some mainstream unoriginal trash, that may be popular. But I could also find in my local newspaper.

I dunno, I always found it funny that webcomics have no restrictions, yet most of them follow the same formula that originated in newspapers.

Oh well. My mini rant is over. I'm also probably guilty of some of the stuff I mentioned, so I'm not out to pick on anyone in particular. Just putting in my 2 cents.