So today is my first wedding anniversary. My husband bought me an ad on Something Positive [somethingpositive.net] as a present, and it's great. ^_^ It's a very sweet thing.

Thing is, I was keeping an eye on my site meter, and I noticed that amongst all the hits coming in from Something Positive were just as many from Something Awful. Naturally I clicked the link, intending to follow it back and see what they were saying about me... but it costs $10 to see their forums.

So now I'm absolutely CONVINCED that they're in there saying mean things about my comic that I can't see. ;) I'm way too concerned about it.

Anyone else ever gotten publicity from somewhere that worried them?

All the time.

That sucks though...and on your anniversary. Congrats btw.

Is Something Awful affiliated with Something Positive? I'd ask them if so. As a paying customer I think it's within your rights. If they aren't then it might be worth $10.

I'm pretty sure they're not. After looking into it further, the link is to a specific page in my archive, which makes me wonder what exactly they're talking about. :)

And thanks for the congrats- The year's gone quickly. :)

They're making fun of your art. Don't mind them, one of their hobbies is to make fun of everything that isn't perfect.

The dastards!!!!
heh... Don't worry Eviltwinpixie, I'd hate to think of the way someone could make fun of my art, I've got some really horrendously liefeldian mistakes in a lot of it, but it'd be nice to know that people cared enough about it to actually do that though. :)

It's twisted logic, but bad publicity is good publicity in a way. (as they say)

ozoneocean
The dastards!!!!
heh... Don't worry Eviltwinpixie, I'd hate to think of the way someone could make fun of my art, I've got some really horrendously liefeldian mistakes in a lot of it, but it'd be nice to know that people cared enough about it to actually do that though. :)

It's twisted logic, but bad publicity is good publicity in a way. (as they say)

They've made fun of yours too :) (They hate DD in that thread)

skoolmunkee
They've made fun of yours too :) (They hate DD in that thread)

Awwww, That somehow makes my day! :)

-I can't say I don't deserve it.

Something Awful's a forum full of guys with less maturity than me. Their probably mocking or making a mockery of your comics. They hate web comics, but only cause we're just drama-lamas or "lols factories" for guys like something awful. They know by calling webcomics shitty, not only does that webcomics fans react, but the author usually shits bricks with hilarious results.

Controversy creates cash. All publicity is GOOD publicity, even if its negative, right? I've always had a lot of fun trying out different "angles" or "works" as I call them. Sometimes they're funny and end up generating enough heat for my website, other times they blow up in my face and make me look jackassy or stupid (even if they're posted in the spam sub-sections of forums, which is supposed to be nonsensical, its treated as canon. I laugh, but at the same time feel dissapointed in adminstration for not noting that big difference.) The main thing you've got to do is just keep on keeping on. If you give up, you're just like everybody else on the internet. If you miss an update or post filler art, whats the point? Especially if you're doing a "limited art" comic like mine. There should be NO excuses at all for not maintaining a consistent schedule.

Just hope they aren't planning to shitstorm your comments boxes or guestbook, thats usually what they do. If it turns up as an awful link of the day on there, prepare to be flooded with crap. I don't really hang out on SA anymore, so I don't know what they're doing.

It was a genius move making their forums pay to play and then banning people for minor infractions. Its like the greatest achievement in fascism since the 1930s, and certainly the biggest totalitarian society operating on the internet.

SA hates webcomics, so odds are, they're insulting your comic, and most likely everyone who's posting in this thread. I remember when they were insulting Scott Dewitt a while back. Since paying money to join a forum is retarded, I'd recommend ignoring them.

They can go to hell. All of them. I doubt they know what they're talking about if the hate on DD or any of our comics. And I'm -quite- sure if Nadya popped up on there, I'd be getting a lot more visitors, so I'm not too worried about the negative publicity.

History has proven them stupid and wrong.

In the early days of DD, we've been told by the credible reputable powers in comics reviews that all DD is, is a bunch of mediocre amateur webcomickers posting their crap and then patting each other on the back with 5's.

And the thing is, they had a point. Look at it a certain way and that really was what DD was.

So, if they're right, you'd expect DD to die with a whimper within a year, or implode like Impromanga did, or continue to wallow in dreck.

But look at it nowadays. Bought by Platinum Comics. "Real" comics come to post up their early issues as a form of promotion. DC Comics now wants to try their hand at it.

So who's wrong? Who's laughing now?

Meh, I don't care if they laugh. Good for them, gives them something to talk about on the net!
My work isn't anywhere near perfect anyway :P

Everyone finds something to laugh at. Some people think posting in a forum is a pretty dumb thing to do. Heh, some people would think posting in a forum you have to pay to see would be even lamer...

ozoneocean
Heh, some people would think posting in a forum you have to pay to see would be even lamer...

Lol. That's just what I was thinking when I read this. "What kind of losers pay money to post in a forum and badmouth sites that they then supply with ample hits?"

I think particular comics right here on Drunk Duck have proven that any publicity is good publicity, and it'll show in your hit count. Maybe they're saying bad things, but people are bound to visit the comic to see if they're true... and I'm sure they'll find it's really a good comic.

The real shame is that you're probably getting all sorts of legitimate critiques or at least insults that can be used as stepping stones to a better comic. That's what would be driving me nuts.

How are you tracking where your hits come from, anyway?

Now now, don't turn this into an SA hate thread either. :) The webcomic thread in question is actually a superthread (in its some-teenth incarnation) that has actually had a lot of useful discussion and technique, inbetween the random picking-on of comics that need improvement. A lot of the comics or things that they pick on 'deserve it' in the sense that yeah, they are flawed. No comic really is beyond critique in that thread, though there are some clear favorites. I've found some truly great webcomics through some reccommendations in that thread too.

Since someone mentioned Fanboys, I'll say that they were laying criticisms about his comic down, and to the guy's credit he got an account to see what people were saying. Once people knew he'd joined the thread they got MUCH more helpful, and then he took their advice to heart and made some positive improvements to his art and writing. That seems to happen in a lot of cases really.

As far as Marine's rant about SA, it's easy to NOT get banned, just don't be a jerk. :) and often they'll only probation you for some hours instead of ban you. I like the paid system- it keeps a lot of undesirables out. There's a lot that goes on at SA and you end up picking the forums you like and ignoring the rest. Though sadly GBS is a shadow of its former greatness. :(

Eh, I just fail to see how "badmouthing"/criticizing something can have any point or productivity if the creator can't see it and make constructive use of it. If it was an open/free forum -- at least to view, it would be entirely different. But a closed community for criticizing people who aren't members? Weird.

(On the other hand, if your comic is known/big enough to be bashed anonymously rather than *just* constructively criticized in your presence... you've made it big. Congratulations! ;) )

Ah, if all they're doing is talking and not planning to come and bug me then that's fine. Especially if they insulted OzoneOcean, too- when they're insulting the artists you admire most, it kind of doesn't mean anything any more. ;)

I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the extra hits, then. ;) It's DEFINITELY making an impact in my stats, even with a major ad running at the same time.

Though, like Hawk said, it's just curiosity that's driving me mad now. I want to know WHAT they're saying. ;)

And Hawk, I use (and love) http://www.sitemeter.com/ to tell where my hits come from. It always gives me a warm glow to see a link come in from someone googling "Grog drunk duck". They were LOOKING for me! :D

Eviltwinpixie
Though, like Hawk said, it's just curiosity that's driving me mad now. I want to know WHAT they're saying. ;)

I'll PQ you but it's nothing special.

usedbooks
Eh, I just fail to see how "badmouthing"/criticizing something can have any point or productivity if the creator can't see it and make constructive use of it. If it was an open/free forum -- at least to view, it would be entirely different. But a closed community for criticizing people who aren't members? Weird.

The thread isn't about criticising people, it's just about webcomics in general. A lot of webcomic-related discussion goes on there, and a lot of the thread participants do webcomics themselves. Inevitably webcomics come up as good and bad examples.

skoolmunkee
The thread isn't about criticising people, it's just about webcomics in general. A lot of webcomic-related discussion goes on there, and a lot of the thread participants do webcomics themselves. Inevitably webcomics come up as good and bad examples.

Thanks for clarifying. The site name makes them sound like a bunch of haters, and not being a member, there's no way to know any different... ;) (I'm weird, anyway, I have trouble finding the "bad" in most things and don't understand people who make a hobby of it. )

Something Awful provides a valueable service for the internet, I should know, I'm a goon as well as Skoolmunkee, and let's face it, most of the webcomics out there are just terrible and deserve to be mocked.

Something Awful isn't that bad though when it comes to criticism, they've actually been quite fair to people and if you go there as a webcomic author who they're critiquing and be mature about it, they're genuinely helpful.

If you guys want biting commentary, read 4chan's /co/board threads on webcomics which they hate even more than SA does, or just read "your webcomic is bad and you should feel bad ".

I have no problem with the fact they criticise things, but it's just that you can sit back and laugh at anything, literally anything in the world that someone creates or people tend to like. And maybe some of the things you'll say will even have merit. It's an enjoyable past time! I do it all the time about various things myself! We all do.

But I'm sorry, that doesn't mean it actually matters or means anything. For all the people that don't like webcomics in general or a few ones specifically, their's usually about 400 more that will. You can spend your life criticising and never produce a 100th of the value of someone that actually puts themselves out there and creates. ;)

As I say though, criticising things and laughing at them IS fun and I can see exactly why people like to do it, but it's a bit silly to try and justify it too much with some kind of artistic integrity. Face it, people like to get together and rag on stuff.

i too was recently linked from SA. i actually managed to see their boards by clicking a link from my tracker. it worked long enough for me to see what they were saying and in what context my comic was linked. i copied and pasted the posts relavant to my comic in my own forums.

http://www.drunkduck.com/community/view_topic.php?tid=32751&cid=1865&comic_id=11865

it appears they dont like my art. and that just means they dont get it. my comic is not about the art. it's about the story and entertainment. they go on and on bashing comic after comic for things as meaningless as font choice. all this bashing and not a single link to their comics. this means they are pretentious. they raise themselves up to webcomic experts but dont have one of their own or at least none they are sharing.

i did get a ton of hits from the site however they only looked at my home page. as far as i know no one actually read any comics.

How do I get a tracking stat counter like that? Is it for free? How do I insert it into my webcomics pages?

i use http://www.statcounter.com/ it's free for the basic package but doesn't keep records of anything but daily hits and page views. it collects all kinds of other data but unless you pay for it you dont get to keep it. there's a limited log size so when new stuff comes in old stuff gets bumped out. they give you code to insert into your HTML.

Now that I know the thread/context and what was posted, I'm fine with it. :) I've posted photos and stuff about my life on my comic page, however, and I was worried those might be what were being mocked. Since it's nothing personal, and no one's planning to bother me, I'm just gonna smile about the fact that I apparently got over 300 individual visitors from that site today, and my curiosity is sated. :D

Like Skool said, they were just mocking my art- two pieces in particular that I'm not very proud of anyway. I'd have agreed with most of what they said about my art anyway, had I been privy to the conversation. ;) (Though I'd have to disagree with the comments they made about the character design of one of the pictures- fanart of a character that's not mine.)

I know I'm not a natural artist, and I'm comfortable with that. But I am very interested to hear others' views on this sort of thing happening to them, etc.


Mlai- Sitemeter's basic accounts are totally free. I get to see where people came into my comic from (including what search terms they used if they came in from Google- that can be interesting ;) ), where they went out to (which is GREAT for me to check how active a link out from my comic is, or how effective an ad is), and all sorts of things like graphs of visit/pageview trends, and the number of clicks people make. I don't use it as much for pageview counts any more, as it tends to be TOTALLY different to the DD stats counter, and so I don't really know which one is more "true".

skoolmunkee
Now now, don't turn this into an SA hate thread either. :)

As far as Marine's rant about SA, it's easy to NOT get banned, just don't be a jerk. :)

Something Awful can go suck one. I got an accont, but I don't consider myself a goon at all. Its just the same as any other shitty comedy website like ytmnd or fark or newgrounds or other lame websites.

mlai
But look at it nowadays. Bought by Platinum Comics. "Real" comics come to post up their early issues as a form of promotion. DC Comics now wants to try their hand at it.

So who's wrong? Who's laughing now?

SA guys. Because the "real" comics don't include penis.

I've never heard of this SA site before, and I guess I really don't give a rats ass about it either, so I'm not sure why I'm commenting except to say this- what is the point of a critique site if people don't even know that they are beign critiqued but have to find out about it second hand? It seems like useless, cowardly, mud slinging in that case. "oo look at me making fun of stuff and they have no idea I'm doing it unless rumors start about it." Or worse yet, "if they want to know what shit I said about them, they have to pay me!" Am I getting this right?

If so, THAT is bullshit. Also known as seventh grade.
Jeesh, I'm too old for this crap.

~B

PS - Eviltwin, Happy Anniversary.

First of all - Happy anniversary.

Secondly, I had a discussion with a friend a long time ago on his PR theories. They are notorious for blasting other webcomics but in the same rank, they get insanely blasted by other people all over the net who, in turn, link the crap out of them. The masochistic side of the artist wants to know everything that's being said when in reality, you really don't need to. I know you're curious and that's fine - as long as you can keep that curiosity separate from your work. Otherwise, bask in the glory that these morons are only helping you climb higher in the ranks of DD. ;)

Why are we calling them morons for reviewing people's comics?

Isn't insulting them for insulting you the pot calling the kettle black?

This is why I avoid leaving critical comments on comics, while people may deserve them, you get five people throwing a fit at you for being honest.

hpkomic
Why are we calling them morons for reviewing people's comics?

No Hp. :)
No one is saying that at all. Not one single person here.

It seems to be that what almost everyone here is talking about is that joking and laughing at people's work doesn't impress them, but they all like intelligent criticism, especially when they get to read it. ;)