I have polled this one before, bit it bears repeating.

Do you think it is better to post a full comic page, twice a week, or, post tiers of the page as a strip, on a daily schedule?

I was daily for quite a while, and noticed (Mainly at Drunk Duck), a great drop in my readership due to only updating twice a week.

I have been updating Mondays with extra background info and Wed and Fri with pages. I was toying with the idea of splitting my pages and posting them M-F or even M-S. I look to strips like Sluggy and AVP who go daily and have great readership.

I can't seem to get off the fence.

Thanks

Barry

I like webcomics that update daily more, or at least 3 times a week. When they update less than that it just seems like the story goes very slowly.

Did somebody say strip? Take it off!

anyway, I prefer pages. Even if it's half or a third as frequent.

I say do both in a way:
Posts your strips on time for current readers,
Then go back and put them into full-page so it doesn't irritate new readers.


I'm not a fan of strip comics- because two of the things I noticed with 'story strips' is that they move really slow because of the format, and i have to click the next button after 10 seconds of reading-get's irritating when they can just be compacted.

If it's a story comic, I like to see a page. Few of those work as strips, and creative page/panel layouts can be more effective in representing the flow of action and dialogue (and keep things interesting). Plus the more content in each update, the easier the story is to follow -- for me anyway.

Strips are nice for gag-a-day stuff. That format doesn't tend to work for deeper/serious stories as much, imo.

Less updates mean less page views, of course. Most people will view each update only once. If more hits is your goal, then update more often. If not, then use the format that best suits you and your comic, and stop worrying about page views.

It really depends on the flow and timing of the pages/strips themselves. Do they work better as full pages, or as little strips? That's the question you should be asking.

It obviously depends on the comic but I tend to think that - with a story-led comic - readers need to feel the story has moved from one instalment to the next.

If you're going to post a story-led comic (like Phineas) in a daily strip format, I'd say you'd probably need for each day's strip to feel "complete" in some way. For example, I think you'd need to ensure you had a punchline of some sort at the end of each strip rather than just at the end of each page. If you can do that (and you're happy it doesn't break the overall "flow" of the story) then fine. Otherwise I think you'd be better to stick with full pages even if that means less frequent updates (and therefore fewer page views).

As a general rule, I'd say any comic should be posted in the manner that best matches the way it's supposed to be read. If you adopt an unsuitable posting schedule just to chase pageviews, you might be risking the readers you have.

But that's just my view and there are always exceptions. Side Chicks at Graphic Smash updates only weekly and posts only one or two panels at a time. For me, it does spoil the story having to read it that way but the artwork is so slick, I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the more successful titles on there.

It depends on what kind of comic you're doing. Personally, I like full page, although a strip comic is good if it's designed that way.

As for readership, I used to update Warriors of the Night three times a week and I get even more readership these days even though I only update once or twice a week now. Could be becuase I advertise more though, so I don't really know.

There's one factor you might not be taking into account with your web comic's readership: Batch Readers. When your comic doesn't update that frequently, some people will wait until a fair amount of comics have built up and then read them all at once. So you might not have lost too many readers, but they just switched to 'batch mode'. If you see losses on same days, but heavy spikes in views on others, that might be the reason for it.

I personally prefer to use a two tier strip layout just because I like for my pages to open up and to be able to be read without scrolling down or left or right. As long as you use each page to advance the story with controlled pacing then the flow of the story should move along smoothly.

I prefer full pages rather than just a strip at a time :3. But that's only cuz i'm a comiholic ^^;. Comics that update more often are attractive to me as well. I also find that I enjoy graphic novel comics more because they tend to be full paged :3.

I update at the very least 5 times a week, sometimes 6 times a week with full pages. It's hard xD. I have to make full pages for my comic because if i did a strip at a time, the story wouldn't be finished until like 3 years from now, because it's long :p I have gotten past the halfway mark of my comic within 2 years because i do full pages ^^;.

I'd love to post more often than I do, but even when my computer was working, I could only update three times a week because of my schedule.

Daily comics that are serious (like Devon Legacy, more often than not, and Used Books) are amazing to me in that they are quality works and full-page -- but they are the exception. I don't read too many dailies, because it's dizzying to catch up, if you miss a week (or a month). Also, if they're gag a day, I start getting this dragging feeling after a while, like why am I reading this?

I suppose the daily humor strips, when I read them in the newspaper, being collected all on one page, were easier to digest. But online, there can sometimes be an unintentional disconnect. And while that's probably not exactly fair to the artists and writers who work their tail off to do a daily comic, that's how it often comes across to me...

Personally, I'd prefer the full page twice a week, if the story you're telling needs a full page to be coherent - that way, I get more to read each time, and it builds up anticipation.

Also, splitting something up into several strips when it works better as a whole page only hurts your comic, since it breaks up your storytelling in an awkward way.

I'm with Frostflowers on this, I tend to prefer reading a full page, either twice a week or more.

I really like full pages in general. There is so much that can be done with the frames and the backgrounds. That is not to say I don't read strip comics, I definitely do (like Super Temps! love that one).

I like art work more than 3 panels with a gag, so I tend to gravitate to the page comics, even if they don't update as often.

I personally do a full page comic and it takes a lot out of me each week, therefore I can only really do one per week. I know it hurts page views, but I work 40 hour weeks doing other stuff, and I'm married and my wife does like to see me from time to time. :D