How to Manage an Online Comic

Several options are available for the webcomic artist when it comes to making your comic available to the masses. While it may not make much of a difference to your readers how you get your comic on the web, it will make a great deal of difference to you if your method of choice takes more time than making the comic in the first place. This choice is, ultimately, a personal one but knowing your own level of tech-savvy, style and time limitations will help you choose your best management option. I urge you to try out as many of these options as possible before formally launching your online comic to get a feel for what each method entails. As your skills progress you may want to take over more of the behind-the-scenes operations. As your time becomes more scarce, you can change to a more automated format. Or, if your readership grows and you need help wrangling your fans a more robust system, like a CMS with a built-in forum, may become a better idea.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Text editor
• FTP Program
• Webhosting account
• Blog account with image hosting capabilities
• Web hosting account with the necessary server-side programs
• FTP program
• Account with a comics webhost

Code Your Own

1. By creating your site completely from the ground up, you retain total control of what appears on the site but you also take on all of the maintenance requirements. Your site can be as simple or as complex as you are willing to make it, but adding features like comment boxes--which are great for receiving readers' feedback--may take advanced skills.
2. Implement Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will make whole-site style changes simple by changing only one master file. This file (usually style.css) will have all of your default formatting options. If you decide you want to change your background color or title image all you should have to do is change the appropriate lines in the style.css file and any page that references that file will change automatically. It's a beautiful thing, and very Web 2.0!
3. Create your archives as you update by renaming your current index page with a number or date structure (/yyyy-mm-dd.html works very well).

Blog Your Comic

4. There are a number of blog providers available, and many are free or only charge a nominal fee per month. Almost no coding experience is required and many features, such as navigation and archives, are automatic.
5. Customize your template or choose one of the provided options to better reflect the style and tone of your comic.
6. Either upload your comic image using their built-in script or use links to an online image host (preferably one that does not need a password to view photos) embedded in your blog posts.
7. Use the ubiquitous 'About' page to give any information about the comic, it's update schedule, characters as well as yourself.

Install a Content Management System (CMS)

8. A CMS is a substantial workhorse of a program used for managing large amounts of information and users. Many are available for download free of charge thanks to the open-source movement.
9. Check with your webhost to see if the server you are on is running Apache and PHP (these are the two most common requirements for most of the CMS platforms I've encountered) and has database space available (usually MySQL).
10. After installing the CMS software you will need to spend a little time getting used to the administration panel and setting up your preferences and style options, as well as user permissions.

Have Someone Else Host It

11. If you think you might want something more automatic than do-it-yourself code, less involved than a CMS and more tailored to comics than a standard blog: enter the Comic Hosting Services. Most use their own CMS, but have simplified the user interface for you.
12. By affiliating your comic with a site specifically geared towards webcomics, you gain the benefit of being among like minds and, possibly, gaining readership from other online comics being hosted by the same company.
13. Administering your comic through one of these services works much like the blog hosts and CMS systems: you will generally use a built-in upload function and have and administration panel to handle different aspects of the site.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure to include navigation tools on your pages or a master list of links to your archived comics so that a reader can catch up on any strips he missed.
• Free bits of code are available online to automate some of your processes.
• Check for tutorials written by other users on how to customize your blog templates.
• Some blog hosts have content and/or bandwidth restrictions that may impact what you can and cannot say, or how often you can say it! Make sure to read any Terms of Service carefully.
• CMS systems will either come with a forum as part of the package or can have one easily integrated if you routinely get a lot of comments or emails about the comic. A forum is extra work, but devoted readers will sometimes offer to help administer it.