Hey gang-

Last night at the monthly MSCA dinner meeting our guest speaker was cartoonist Sam Ray, MSCA member and creator of the “Business As Usual” comic strip.

Sam discussed how he got into cartooning, writing for “Hagar The Horrible”, and sending cartoons to the syndicates and magazines.

After I saw the above cartoon in the Commercial Appeal (the newspaper here) this summer I told him I really dug it and said that if he ever wanted to sell the original to let me know. He said, “Heck, if you like it that much I’ll give it to you.” and he did last night at the meeting! I asked if I could at least buy him a beer. He said, “Ok, you twisted my arm.”

Sam’s one of the original MSCA members and a great guy to talk toons with. You can read more about Sam here.

Something else I wanted to talk about is “The 7th Son”. I found out about this story and it’s author J.C. Hutchins on a recent Comic Geek Speak episode (episode 739). The novel is available in print and as an audio book podcast you can download and listen to (which is what I’ve been doing). If you like sci-fi and/or a good thriller be sure to check out this book. I’ll post a review of it once I’ve finished listening. I’m up to chapter 12…

Oh, don’t forget that the 1st Annual Broad Avenue Holiday Art Walk is tonight here in Memphis from 6-9pm. Blues artist George Hunt will be showing some of his paintings at my day job West Memorials. I’m a big fan of his work! For more info click here.

Hope you have a great weekend- see ya back here on Monday.

Lin

Here’s the 10th installment of Denny’s writing blog

Denny’s favorite mantra-

“There is seldom any one absolutely, inarguable, unimpeachably right way to do anything.”

“There’s just the way, whatever it might be, that’s okay for here and now.”

A final observation from Denny: “Practice makes…well, not perfect, but maybe pretty good.”

Read more from Denny here.

I’ve got another Web Wednesday from Nicki for you, but I can’t find it on my computer. I’ll look again when I get home tonight. Stay “tooned”.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the latest episode (#3) of “The PKD Black Box” titled: “Roger Corman & The Memphis Mafia Battle Ninjas“. You can get it at http://pkdmedia.com, http://pkdmedia.com/thepkdblackbox, or via iTunes. Since we discussed so much Shawn Pryor split our conversation into two parts.

Lin

Well, sort of… PKD Media‘s Shawn Pryor and Memphian Jon Carroll (The Oblivion Bar blog) give me and Antone Wade (Jetta:Tales of the Toshigawa) a call to talk about self-publishing comics, distribution, this site, ninjas, M.C. Hammer pants and more!

The PKD Black Box Podcast

Episode 3: Roger Corman & the Memphis Mafia battle Ninjas.

Oh, don’t forget to check out LinWorkman.com to find out more info on the First Annual Broad Avenue Holiday Art Walk featuring artist George Hunt!

Type at ya later-

Lin

Hi, my name is Nicki Howe, the Dark Webmistress of the Sith for www.linworkman.com, www.comicwhore.com, www.memphisfanforce.com and www.midsouthcartoonists.com. I’m the person responsible for developing the websites,  and keeping them up and operational.

Almost a year ago, Lin mentioned that he’d love to have a website of his own.  I asked him why he didn’t have one, and he informed me that technology exceeding email, Photoshop or Microsoft Word made his head hurt.  He didn’t have a clue where to start.

I’m a tech geek at heart and have worked in or with IT departments most of my professional career.  My current employer is an e-commerce company, and our product is our website.  This means my paycheck (and my ability to pay my mortgage) is dependent upon our website.  Needless to say, my co-workers and I take that very seriously, and I knew that I could help Lin by applying some of the knowledge I have accumulated over the years.  So, I volunteered to build him a website, and the result is www.linworkman.com.  This site followed a few months later.

From time to time, I’ll offer tips, suggestions and tools to help you promote yourself and your work online.

Now that the introductions are out of the way, I’ll start off with providing general guidelines for developing your online presence.

The Plan Can (and Probably Will) Change, But Have a Plan

I’m a planner by nature and by profession.  I drive people nuts with my insistence upon having a plan, but a well-developed plan can save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Before you starting building websites, sit down and determine what you are looking for in a website.  What should the website look like?  Would you like to be able to post new sketches?  Would you like to sell your work online?  How much can you spend on creating and maintaining your website?

I had several conversations with Lin, who was the Vice-President, and Kevin Williams, the current President, before building the new Mid-South Cartoonists Association website to determine what they were looking for and what goals were they trying to achieve.  Kevin provided sketches of what he’d like the website to look like and a list of features he would like to see.  These conversations gave me the outline to work from in creating the website and saved me from re-work later.

Plans are wonderful things, but you also need to be flexible and adaptable.  Things will happen, some happy and some not-so-much, that will lead you down different paths.

You Don’t Have to Be a Tech Geek to Have a Website

There are a plethora of tools, many of them free, that makes building and running websites easier than ever before.  I’ll highlight many of these tools in future articles.

Websites Don’t Have to Be Expensive

What are the costs associated with running a website?  Well, that’s going to vary, based on your service providers.  I’m currently spending approximately $100/year to run Lin’s two websites and the Memphis FanForce site.  What comprises that cost?

• Domain Name – Your own, unique domain name (or web address) is crucial.  Keep it simple by purchasing www.yourname.com or www.yourcomicbookname.com.  Make it easy for people to remember the web address and associate it with you.  This is going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $10/year.

• Hosting Provider – I’m currently paying $6.99/month with GoDaddy, but that allows me to host multiple domains on one account.

You do not have to purchase your domain name from your hosting provider, but you often receive discounts by purchasing the domain and hosting in a bundled package.

For one domain and single site hosting, plan to spend approximately $70/year.  Again, your mileage will vary.  Please note, I’m assuming that you already are paying an Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as AOL, Comcast, AT& T, etc, for your Internet access.  Otherwise, how are you reading this and how do you expect to update a website regularly?

There are free blog alternatives available, such as WordPress.com, Blogger.com, etc.  There are also companies that offer free hosting of your website; however, these providers pay for offering you the hosting for free by placing ads on your site.  The free alternatives also lack the ability to heavily customize your site and install software.

Remember, you often get what you pay for.

Have questions?  Have a specific topic you’d like to see addressed in future articles?  Drop me a line at webmaster@linworkman.com.

- Nicki

Today I’m going to climb up on my soapbox for a bit and talk about something I think is vital to the comics industry and keeping it going.

New readers.

Now when I say new readers I mean just that- people who haven’t read comics before. They could be kids, adults, men, women, anyone who hasn’t read comics before. Each group or person can be introduced to comics in several ways. I’m going to talk about a few that I’ve witnessed and/or think will work. This week I’m going to start with younger readers.

How to get kids into reading comics? First, you have to show them that they exist. That’s what happened to me. Back in the mid-70’s when I lived out in Utah, a friend gave me a beat-up copy of Marvel Team-Up #4 that had Spidey and the X-Men fighting Morbius- The Living Vampire! It was pretty cool, even with the cover missing. We moved shortly there after back to Memphis, and I found a spinner rack at a nearby 7-11. That spinner rack had a copy of Amazing Spiderman #171 (which co-starred Nova). I bought that comic and have been buying comics ever since.

Now, this was back before just about every kid had a video game system, DVD’s, and personal computers. Heck, this was a year or two before I knew what Pong was. This was also a time before you had to tell kids to go outside and play for at least an hour a day.

For the most part, spinner racks are a thing of the past, and like kids reading comics they’re kinda rare these days. Still, I’ve seen kids in comic shops, shows, and conventions (mostly shopping with their parents)- and at cons usually while wearing a costume, kids and parents!

That I love to see. Parents and their kids enjoying comics together. And it doesn’t have to be parents. It could be grandparents like my buddy Dave’s who used to read him war comics. It could be an older sibling who passes down comics when they feel “too old” for them. It could be an aunt or uncle. I’d occasionally get to take my niece Lindsay with me to the local comic shop on a Saturday afternoon and let her pick out a comic. She’s now a big fan of manga. It could be a neighbor who gives out comics to trick-or-treaters at Halloween. Or it could be a friend who hands them that one comic that gets them hooked not only on comics, but reading.

There are a lot of great ways to introduce kids to comics these days. Free Comic Book Day in May, cartoon and movie or video game inspired comics, old classics like Archie, and more. Many comic shops have a designated shelf or area that’s usually a bit lower for shorter readers for kid friendly comics. Others may have an old fashioned spinner rack.

Some publishers are doing smaller digest sized comics- much like the Big-Little books my mom had as a kid. The Star Wars: Clone Wars, animated Batman, Archie, and Spiderman Adventures in this format seem to be very popular with kids, teens, and adults. It’s very much like many of the manga books being sold today. I’d snag up any of the digest sized books when I was a kid, the over sized treasury editions, and the comics that had a record you could listen to as you read along in the comic. Anything that was different was cool!

So, what are some of the problems with introducing kids to comics? First off, many parents are happy to let video games, the internet, and TV be babysitters for them. When the NFL has to run commercials reminding kids and their parents that children need to play for at least 60 minutes a day, something’s wrong.

Some that actually do feel like getting the kids off the couch feel comics are low-brow entertainment, too violent, or too adult. “Go read a real book!” Even decades after the comic witch trials some parents still feel comics are bad- and some might be. I remember picking Amazing Spiderman at the same time as The Electric Company’s Spidey Super Stories, Marvel Team Up, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spiderman, and Marvel Tales- which was a reprinting of classic Spiderman stories. There was violence, relationships, some drug use (which was shown to be bad), and Jonah chomping on a cigar, but nothing my 10 year old mind couldn’t handle. Not so sure all Spidey stories are kid-friendly these days. You still have to be a parent and watch what your kids read, even with comics.

Other parents just feel that comic books are way too expensive- which is what I tend to agree with.

I recently heard a shop owner in New Jersey say on a podcast that he felt kid targeted comics art printed on too nice of a paper stock and have too high of a cover price. Yeah, the brightly colored glossy shiny cover and interior art is going to get the kid’s attention, but that $3.99 cover price is going to have the parents say, “No way- you’ll tear that thing up in no time!” Why not print more “cheaper” comics? Comic books that are ok to roll up and put in your back pocket. Comics you can trade with your friends. Comics you don’t have to bag and board.

This brings us to another problem- some parents have a collector’s mentality. “Comics are for collecting. Don’t take it out of the bag. Don’t leave it out where sunlight can destroy it. And stay away from my collection!” If someone is that anal about their comics, they should start their kid his own collection and teach them how to collect and protect their comics. I would just hope they would teach them how to read the comics as well. It can be a fun hobby parents and their kids can enjoy together.

I still have that copy of Amazing Spiderman #171…

There was a time when comics were cheap entertainment. Many retailers want higher prices for comics and have said so to publishers. They make more profit off their shelf space (one of the reasons you don’t see comics on magazine racks much these days). The big two have pushed prices up and up to see just how far they could push them. I, like this NJ retailer, think that maybe if the comics were cheaper, you’d sell more- especially to kids. Heck, there are plenty of shops and shows with $1, $.50, $.25 comic bins to look through. Give the kid a couple bucks and point them towards a row of discounted long boxes. They are guaranteed to find some real treasures and not just the bag and board and never see again kind, but ones they’ll want to read over and over or trade with friends.

Kids love comics. I’ve seen fussy kids at cons become quiet intent readers when handed a comic. My friend and comics writer Josh Elder became a super-hero to a group of kids on a subway when he not only stopped their attacker, but gave comics to his fellow stabbing victims to calm them, and it worked! The kids stopped crying. Ask him about that story if you see him at a convention or signing- it’s amazing!

Speaking of Josh, he’s working to get more comics in schools and libraries with his Reading With Pictures non-profit initiative. Way to go Josh- you’re my hero, too!

I’ll be back next week to talk about other new readers- including girls! I know, it sounds crazy, but I have proof they exist and I’ll reveal it all to you next time.

Lin