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Image by samk, via Flickr
Money continues to be pretty tight around here, post-tax-paying, but whatever! This project must go on.
I’m stepping a little out of the crafty realm with my Free support this month. K and I attended one of our favorite events of the year over the weekend, the Stumptown Comics Fest. Portland is blessed with a rich comics culture, and this festival a hub of amazing artists and writers.
(Wanna watch me nerd out on a previous year’s Festival, while wearing an awkward growing-out hairdo? You’re in luck!)
Image by SerenityRose, via Flickr
Anyway. It struck me that what so many comics artists are doing is similar to what many craft bloggers are doing: putting out high-quality free content online and hoping for sales/donations. And, just as in the online craft community, it can be challenging to gain widespread enough support from readers to compensate the hours you spend making that Free.
Making a story-based (as opposed to a single-joke-based) comic involves hundreds (or thousands) of hours of work, but your readers can read it in a few seconds if they want to – so it can be easy for them to forget those long hours of effort.
Image by badlyricpolice, via Flickr
..And yet, it’s effort well worth supporting. Comics have mind-blowing potential to communicate, to teach, and to transform. They’re also one of the most vibrant branches of indie publishing.
So, this month, in addition to supporting a few favorite comic-makers directly at the show, I made a donation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund – an organization that provides legal support to comics creators, publishers, librarians and readers, seeking to protect all these groups’ First Amendment rights.
Do you read any web comics? Which ones? Do any of them have a donation button somewhere?
I don’t read comics, but my brother is a huge fan. As someone who is always looking at the ways we transmit information and how different people respond to different types, I’m all for them. I have a post-in-progress about a couple that have been made for trafficking awareness purposes. I would love more comics, or comic style teaching tools in all areas of learning – so many people are visual learners.
Absolutely agree – teaching is my primary comics interest, and I’m thrilled to hear that anti-trafficking comics exist. The immediacy of words and images is incredible for education. There are some really cool math and science textbooks out there in comics form.
Girl Genius has a donate button that I used once, but mostly I buy their books (both graphic and text novels) when they come out.
XKCD has no button that I’ve noticed, but I bought the one book that I’ve seen, plus bunches of t-shirts.
A Distant Soil has a donate button. They also have an Amazon affiliate link that I’ll use when I’m randomly buying books, plus as above I buy the books.
I adore comics about education, as well. :) I remember reading them when I was a kid and I still love them as an adult.
Even thought I don’t like to accumulate things or “collect” them (my green fiber, here!), I still enjoy to buy comics and encourage the artists when I like their work. And, the best part about comics that is not mentionned very often, is that you can read them over and over again. :) I never grow tired of a good comic!
Here are some webcomics I read:
Namesake a webcomic about fairytales, mysteries and murders! Made by friends of mine. :)
Boumeries
A “comic strip”/autobiographical genre of comic.
Stop paying attention by Lucy Knisley
Love her line work. Another genre that’s autobiographical.
Could go on and on with this. :)
These sound great! Thanks for the links, Fanie – I’ll check them out. I also love Family Man, by Dylan Meconis – a web comic about scholars and vampires, with a historical bent. http://www.lutherlevy.com/
Hi Sister Diane – Just wanted to let you know I’ve been very inspired by this series and am giving my own version a go this year (finally!) after many months of mulling it over and wondering how to articulate it to my readers. It’s a little outside the normal scope of my blog but it has been incredibly energizing.
If you’d like, you can read my intro post here:
http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html
…and my first ‘report’ here:
http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/how-i-paid-it-forward-nov-april.html
One especially rewarding result was hearing back from two of the founders of a business I supported back in the fall. They were genuinely excited and grateful – it was really cool to connect with them beyond simply becoming a paying customer. Thank you again for your example!