I've noticed that a lot of people have.. "mirror" sites, I believe they're called? And I was considering doing that for my new comic, which I want to self-publish and all that. And so, should I create another web site for my comic? Anyone who has another site for their comic, aside from DD or Smackjeeves or the like, I'd be interested in your experiences, the pluses and minuses-- do you get more traffic that way?

Also, I'm sure there are some scam-sites out there, or at least ripoff ones, so how would I go about buying reasonably priced web space?

Just basically, anyone's advice/experience would be appreciated.

right now my site is under construction, it ran for about three months till i decided it wasn't good enough, so i'm remodeling it, as far as my short lived experience with it was, these are my thoughts:

Full-fledged site

Pros.
* Design Freedom, sure drunkduck offers some freedom in your page's design, but it is quite limited.
* Content Freedom, for not only comic content, but also any other kind of content
* An astounding number of applications for your website, from dedicated forums, blogs to ftp compatibility.
* Far more control over the page's preferences and status
* Dedicated email accounts (in most services)
* you can set you're own rules for advertising and use your space as you wish even more freely.

Cons
* It's complex nature makes more difficult to handle than a drunkduck account
* It requires the payment of certain fees whose price will clearly change depending on the services you're willing to pay, that is the hosting and the domain, you might also use your very own server to cut costs, but that decrease would be pretty "subjective" due to the money and effort you need to mantain your own server, and as me and most other webcomic sites owner's we put just so much time in our comics that we don't have more to deal with servers.
* if you lack (just like me) the skills needed for web design it might be a little time consuming and expensive getting someone to design it for you

Drunkduck

Pros.
* easy to use
* It's a big community, you really don't need as much advertising to be noticed as you would need in a dedicated web page.
* most basic features for the comic are already integrated in templates
* the forums, featuring and comunity news can help your comic to stand out, and also to get some more feedback.

Cons.
*Limited design capabilities, tough very extensive in their own
*Limited resource managing
*Limited individuality, that is for you as a comic artist and not meant in a bad way.

So as i see this, drunkduck it's a pretty good place to share your work, but if you wan't more control over your design and any other way you wan't to lead your comic a full fledged site would be best, it could be difficult at the beginning but trust me, you'll learn with time.

ohh i almost forgot,it's fine to have both, you can use the features you find good for your purposes in each one and link back both sites for some web synergy

Regarding those scams, i believe they would be as easy to spot as any other scam site (Huge colored fonts with the word FREE), the hosting could be any known company, altough i find their plans to be a little too much ... long, i believe there are just soo few hosting companies with short term plans, like, one or three months, my site is hosted at Hostgator and they've been pretty good at their customer service so far. you might also wan't to look for all hosting sites and find the one you think to be most appropriated, there are some sites with reviews for many hosts, find your way there.

and so is the same for the Domain, although unlike the hosting companies, the domain companies didn't seem to have any significant difference in their prices, you could try go-daddy or Namecheap.

interesting. It sounds like a lot of cons, though D :
And can you buy a domain name from somewhere, and hosting elsewhere? (how would that work? and how do you upload your website?)
edit: and how much space does one usually need for a functioning comic/other fun pages?

I'd just recommend you just host it here, and maybe buy a domain name if it bothers you that much.

I mean, with other non-comic hosting sites, you have to build everything yourself (layout, blah blah blah) but here, most of it is done for you (select from the pre-existing ones, or use one that someone has already done)

Technically, you could do it with another site, but it wouldn't look as good.

Plus, you can do just about anything with HTML here. I think Javascript, and all that works too.

Also, you can upload any amount of stuff you want (that was worded horribly XD)
For instance, say you have like, a bunch of pictures you want to use to make your layout really flashy, and stick out. You can do it. I think there may be some sort of upload limit....

Nope. I just checked.
But it helps to have smaller files, so it loads faster.
Nobody wants to sit there and wait for long periods of time just waiting for a few pictures to load. So yeaaaah.

As far as I know, domains apply across all hosts. You're buying the rights to the name essentially. The amount of space usually depends on traffic not content. You're paying for a certain amount of bandwidth to allow so many users onto the site at any one time.

Well once you get everything up and running all cons will look pretty small,
and yes, all domains can link to any hosting computer, they have a dns number you have to link into your hosting account, they will provide you with instructions once you sign up.

most domain's prices are about 10 dollars for a .com or .net domain, whereas a .info domain costs about 2 dollars, there plenty more options if you do wish to get a different suffix.

the hosting plans are certainly different among each company, hostgator for exapmle has three main plans, the last and most expensive plan offers unlimited space for storage and bandwith (the amount of data that can be transfered from and by your site) so if you are about to begin i recommend you to sign up for a small plan with a limited bandwith and storage capacity, and when you break the bandwith limit or feel that you need more space, you can then change your plan for one that suits you the most, that way you won't waste your money.

and about the uploading, there are multiple ways for this, you can make all of your updates online on a web editor which companies provide you in their hosting plans most of the time, although that would offer you a limited editing and creative capabilities, you can also write all of your html code and the upload it to the site (the hosting plans also offer a file manager and uploader for your site) and finally, you could design your page in some editor like microsoft frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver then use the Ftp compatibility to upload it to your site (many host plans nowadays include ftp support, but not all so be sure the check for it if you decide to make your page this way.

Panda did a great job at explaining the mechanics but i think the best thing about having your own domain is the respect it will get for doing that, some people actually look really down on drunkduck and smackjeeves because they believe your comic is in association with the sprite and yaoi comics on the site.

Hell no, just stay here where you'll be sure to get the ratings.

Skullbie
but i think the best thing about having your own domain is the respect it will get for doing that, some people actually look really down on drunkduck and smackjeeves because they believe your comic is in association with the sprite and yaoi comics on the site.

I Totally agree with you, it may not sound pleasing to some, but in the end, individuality makes people stand out.

Wow, this is so much information... thanks guys, especially Pandafilando, for all your advice & such.
I actually want to get better at web design, and find making websites a lot of fun, actually. It would be way beyond my skill level to actually make a site that's as good as DD, but of course I can improve.
That's interesting, Skullbie, about the respect part... almost reason enough to build my own site.
So I imagine pageviews for non DD comics are probably a lot smaller?

Skullbie
Panda did a great job at explaining the mechanics but i think the best thing about having your own domain is the respect it will get for doing that, some people actually look really down on drunkduck and smackjeeves because they believe your comic is in association with the sprite and yaoi comics on the site.

This.

A lot of people will make assumptions about your comic based on where it is hosted. I know a lot of people who won't even click on a link from Drunkduck/Smackjeeves/Comic Genesis/etc etc.

But I'll say don't get a domain name right off the bat. It'd most likely be best to just start your comic let it build up for a while then re-evaluate on if you are serious enough on this endeavour to warrant spending some cash on it.

I'm pondering the option of getting a domain and the cheapest hosting possible and then just have it open the comic (comics in the future) in a frame/tab?

There's a saying 'Cheap hosting can cost you' and this is so true if you pick a crap host it could put you off trying to get your own domain forever.

A comic friendly host is Dreamhost and it's around 10$ a month, which if you skim one 10$ item out of the groceries it's not that bad. It sets up wordpress and a bunch of other stuff for you should you want it, and they send you helpful e-mails about your new add-ons.
use smackjeeves promotional code if you want 50$ off the yearly price.
(My only beef is their control panel takes longer than DD to load ugh -_- You wont be using it much after you set everything up tho )

Aurora Borealis
I'm pondering the option of getting a domain and the cheapest hosting possible and then just have it open the comic (comics in the future) in a frame/tab?

Have it open in a tab or use the lightbox flash effect for showing a comic. Don't use frames. They never display accurately across platforms or browsers and are quickly on the way to being phased out.

Oh, ok. No frames, got it.

There's also a Comicpress template from WordPress that is popular and free. You can modify that from there (that's what I use on my site).

Another option is to get the domain and forward it to your strip here. Then you get the benefits of both while at the same time being able to build a site on the side.

Skullbie
some people actually look really down on drunkduck and smackjeeves because they believe your comic is in association with the sprite and yaoi comics on the site.

That's one of the reasons I stay with DD actually :)
I have my own domains etc, the skills and money to make and host my own stuff, but I just like the community and the people here.

I don't care too much about an audience too fickle to like something because of the hosting.

---I do host my stuff elsewhere, and on my own sites, but I just stopped updating them ages ago. Just couldn't be bothered anymore... I have to get back to that, but DD is my main comic home :)

---------
The one biggest complaint I know of from non-DD viewers of the site is the ads.
That's the biggest bug-bear. Early on Plat shot DD in the bum with some bad advertising choices - big, annoying, non-comic-reader targeted flash ads, and going with very bad choices in ad hosts: the kind that use the spammiest ads that are usually associated with the crappiest sites, and ad hosts that would frequently deliberately abuse their contract with Plat by having evil Java code, pop-ups, pop-unders, ads for adult sites, gaming sites ect.

We worked hard with Plat to keep that to a minimum and stamp it out and the good Plat people were always very hard working, cooperative and helpful in fixing the problems, but for a lot of casual viewers, DD people and non-DD people, the damage was done and we got a bit of a bad rep from that. It stuck :(

ozoneocean
The one biggest complaint I know of from non-DD viewers of the site is the ads.
That's the biggest bug-bear. Early on Plat shot DD in the bum with some bad advertising choices - big, annoying, non-comic-reader targeted flash ads, and going with very bad choices in ad hosts: the kind that use the spammiest ads that are usually associated with the crappiest sites, and ad hosts that would frequently deliberately abuse their contract with Plat by having evil Java code, pop-ups, pop-unders, ads for adult sites, gaming sites ect.

We worked hard with Plat to keep that to a minimum and stamp it out and the good Plat people were always very hard working, cooperative and helpful in fixing the problems, but for a lot of casual viewers, DD people and non-DD people, the damage was done and we got a bit of a bad rep from that. It stuck :(

Yeah, I've seen some weird ads on my comic. There was a political one for like, some senator from Idaho or something-- (couldn't vote for him even if I wanted to) and at the top of my new comic a few weeks ago, it had one of those flashing banner ads that said, "CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE THE 1,000,000th VISITOR!" and I was like... *check stats* nope, no I am not even close.

We should have ads for comic-related things only. it makes more sense. Any advertiser knows you have to put your ads in a smart place. You don't put an antidepressant ad in a scientologist magazine, for instance.