I update twice a week and I was wondering if it would violate some DD netiquette if I added a third regular update day that is intentionally filler material, like concept art, sketches/drawings and (one day!) fan art. So, for example, I'd update the comic on Mondays and Fridays but Wednesdays would always be filler material. Would that be considered groovy or lame? Thanks in advance for the input.

If it is part of how you want to present your material to your audience, I think it should be just fine! After all, many comics do that. I think what usually puts off people are irregular filler updates, which imply the artist is not dedicated to regularly advancing their story.

I think that sounds like a great way to go.

If it feels odd to you, you could always start another comic - with a name like "Due East: behind the Scenes" just for that material.

But I think you can just post the filler pages. Cause in this case, they arent "filler" at all - they're just Bonus features - or perhaps, a kind of Appendix.

IMO you shouldn't place them in the middle of your story though. I (and others from what I have read) dislike it when the story is interrupted with lots of filler.

JustNoPoint
IMO you shouldn't place them in the middle of your story though. I (and others from what I have read) dislike it when the story is interrupted with lots of filler.

Yeah, I end up putting my 'pretty pictures' In between story arcs, or I simply add a link to extra pictures in my comment box whenever I have some bonus art I want to show off.

StaceyMontgomery
I think that sounds like a great way to go.

If it feels odd to you, you could always start another comic - with a name like "Due East: behind the Scenes" just for that material.

I think I like this idea the best so far! It wouldn't be a big deal to make a "DE: Behind The Scenes" comic and update it on Wednesdays. Then I could link it to Due East and vice -versa! I appreciate the feedback, it's been very encouraging and helpful.

Grog has something like that every Wednesday. I don't particularly like it and the author is thinking of getting rid of the idea, but she can somewhat get away with it because it's a comic strip rather than a comic book.

I still don't think it's a good idea. I throw my filler at the end of each chapter (All one of them...).

The idea of an additional comic sounds good, though.

Add me to the pile of people who don't like filler comics. When I see one that one of the comics I watch has been updated, I click on it with the expectation that I'm going to see an actual comic, and to be completely honest, if I see too many fillers popping up, I'll just stop reading the comic altogether. Although it might not be so bad if it's always on a particular day, it would still interrupt the flow of the story for those people that are new to the comic and trying to read through your archive.

Starting a new comic for it is a great idea.

And now, my friends, here is the culmination of this thread!

Behind The Scenes of Due East

Thanks for everyone's input! This is dangerously close to a plug but it does make sense in the context of this thread...so that makes it okay, right?

What an excellent idea. I had planned to start taking the filler out of Grog and putting it somewhere else, but all I could think of was making my own html page for it, and the thought of that with SO MANY pictures was... daunting.

This, though, is a great idea. Would you mind terribly if I followed your lead, Dueeast? :)

Eviltwinpixie
What an excellent idea. I had planned to start taking the filler out of Grog and putting it somewhere else, but all I could think of was making my own html page for it, and the thought of that with SO MANY pictures was... daunting.

This, though, is a great idea. Would you mind terribly if I followed your lead, Dueeast? :)

I don't mind at all, Eviltwinpixie! :) Maybe we can start a trend...

Ooh, FASHION LEADERS. ;)

Seems to solve my problem with horrid HTML, too. I think I'll do it too ;)

The behind the scenes extra comic is the way to go. Good idea.

No filler stuff ever. If you want an art page, that'd be awesome. Posting art on a regular basis isn't filler art.

What filler art is, when lazy webcomicers don't have an update on their scheduled day, they post crappy artwork instead of a page. To my credit, I've NEVER done that. I've done short pages, posted "re-runs" of stuff that was no longer online, or took time off, but I've never posted filler. I do my comic with pride everyday.

I'm thinking of taking a week off in august, but I may wait until November or December to do it. I don't really want to take time off, but I know I probably should to go out and have some crazy adventures to come back and write about. Right now I'm running on a full tank of material, but with the way gas prices are, I could find myself running out at any time.

I never understood drawing filler anyway. Seems like time one could have worked on their next page.

I am surprised I took the time to draw my avatar. Anytime I draw anything not a page I feel like I am wasting time.

Any artwork I would have to show would be pretty old =P

I'm always worried people think I'm posting filler in my comics. I only update on monday, but I upload tons of other content, concept art, maps, etc on other days. I still update on monday like I promise, so nothing changes except they're getting to see/read other stuff about the world, if they want to. Once the extra content is a page or two past, I move it between chapter, so if someone is reading old chapters, they don't get interupted with the random content until the end or begining of a chapter, so the flow is fine. I dunno. I'm still filling it out, and have only had a small handful of complaints, but I do notice that a lot of my other content gets less hits as well as less comments. I just get excited about world craft, and want to share all my 'behind the scenes' garbage. I just hope it doesn't hurt my comic in the process.