I’m trying something new at Pro Blog Design today; a web comic. It will be my attempt at humour, based on design and blogging.
Depending on you, we’ll either keep it up, or get rid of it. Please vote in the poll below, or leave a comment, to let me know your thoughts.
So without further ado, here’s issue 1, WordPress vs Movable Type.
The images are licensed under Creative Commons, so feel free to republish, provided you link back. And a big thanks to the artist, mcoy. Much better, even at drawing stickmen, than I’ll ever be.
PS – If you didn’t know, the name is a play on the awesome XKCD comic. By far, the best comic on the web!
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Chris Jones (1 comments)5 April 08
That’s hilarious
Timo Zimmermann (8 comments)5 April 08
maybe a subdomain or at least a separate RSS feed and another name would be a good idea -
my vote is definitely “keep it up”
Dream (5 comments)5 April 08
That’s terrible.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t see why you couldn’t create a successful webcomic on the topic of blogging, I just think you’re going down the wrong road.
XKCD is fantastic, but that doesn’t mean you need to base your comic on it right down to incorporating its name in your own.
I don’t think the joke you made was particularly funny either, or at least could have been presented a little better, but I’m sure that would improve over time.
Anyway, I wouldn’t read your comic in its current form. I think if you tried something different and experimented with another form – not a poor attempt at XKCD – things could go much better and I would be interested.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)5 April 08
Chris,
Glad you liked it.
Timo,
Separate feeds is a really good idea. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Things may well end up that way.
Dream,
Thanks for being honest. XKCD is awesome, and you’re right, I could never get close to that level. (Who could??)
But the style of it is the only style I would use for a comic. Aside from Freelance Freedom, it’s the only comic I read.
This is why I made the poll. There is no way that I could write a comic that would appeal to everyone’s sense of humor here. It’s a shame, but we all do find different things funny.
If enough people like it, I will try to keep it up. But I think I’ll use Timo’s idea, and give it a separate feed. That way, those who don’t like it won’t be annoyed by it.
Dream (5 comments)5 April 08
Martin,
personally I’m happy if you create a different feed for the comic so those of us that don’t want to read it don’t have too. That’s cool.
However, what you’re saying still doesn’t make much sense. If someone told you that yours was the only blog they read, but they were going to start their own called ‘Pro Blog Designers’ and write about designing Wordpress templates would you think they were onto a winner?
Even if you opt to keep the comic in its current style, I still think you could make a huge difference by giving up on the hero worship and picking your own, unique name.
Anyway, good luck. Even if I don’t end up a fan of the comic, I hope it goes well for you and those who enjoy reading it.
Michael Martin (1285 comments)5 April 08
Dream,
No, but if someone wrote to me telling me that they were going to write articles in the same way/rate etc. that I do, I’d be pretty chuffed.
This comic isn’t on the same topic as XKCD, so it’s not plagarism like that.
And webcomics are different to blogs. Every webcomic has its own style, which is blatantly obvious.
The style I want here is something very simple, with stickmen. And for those that know me, they’ll know that I was completely inspired by XKCD. There’s no point in trying to hide where my inspiration came from.
Naming this after it may have been a bit far, but it was supposed to be another little joke.
Vinh Le (4 comments)5 April 08
Hey Michael,
I thought the comic was interesting. But it could use a little more story and punch to it. I suggest checking out the other popular comics besides the two you read in order to get a better feel of things. I think your comic idea could work if you keep at it. Good luck!
Brian Purkiss (24 comments)6 April 08
I liked it!
It’d be a nice supplement to your articles!
I’d love to keep reading ‘em!
Although…
Are you sure you can do a whole series on just Wordpress vs MovableType?
You may want to broaden it a tad… but if you think you can do it – go for it!
Michael Martin (1285 comments)6 April 08
Vinh,
I suppose I could make it more complex, but I would need to write a more complex joke then. Or spin things out a bit more? I’ll have to think about it.
Brian,
Thanks. The series won’t just be WP vs MT though. I agree that that would get dull, fast.
It will be blogging and design in general.
Vinh Le (4 comments)6 April 08
Hey Michael,
I got a great idea. Why don’t you draw up a sketch of your joke real quick, then send it to about 10-20 people you know that would represent typical visitors to your blog in order to test your material before you post it on your blog. It lets you tweak and make it better. That is what the pros do for comedy shows. It is just an idea and if you need an opinion, feel free to send it to my stumble account.
kristarella (141 comments)6 April 08
For a sec I thought you were republishing an XKCD comic and wondered why I hadn’t seen that one, but then I noticed that your drawing is different and read the rest of what your wrote.
I like it, thought it was funny. Sometimes I have a very short attention span for reading – I love short comics!
I do feel slightly uncomfortable about obvious “inspiration” of name and style, even though the subject matter is different. I would feel better if I knew you had Randall’s blessing on those fronts – of course no one has monopoly over stick figures.
Jonathan (4 comments)6 April 08
Love the idea— you just got yourself a new regular reader!
xkcd is awesome yes, but Blaugh (www.blaugh.com) is worth checking out too!
Adam_Y (1 comments)6 April 08
Is this your first attempt at making a webcomic? If so it’s pterry admirable. I’m all for people giving it a go.
The one thing I noticed though is that I think you are a better artist than you are giving yourself credit for… I mean the style of the building in the first and the clipboard in the last panel show that you’ve got a bit of style… try and make a bit more of it.
But that’s more of a point of encouragement than a criticism… keep it up.
AJ (6 comments)6 April 08
I don’t see the humor >.<
Michael Martin (1285 comments)6 April 08
Vinh,
That’s a good idea. There may be an easier way of getting feedback though. I’m going to move the comic over to a separate feed, so after a few weeks, I’ll see who is subscribed to that feed, and ask for feedback in the comments.
Once I have feedback on a few issues, I’ll be able to work out how things are going.
Kristarella,
I think you’re right about the name being over the top. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but not anymore. I’ll have to come up with something different for the next issue.
Jonathan,
Thanks, and thanks for sharing the link. I’ll check it out now.
Adam,
Yep, this was my first attempt. I didn’t actually draw it though; I just wrote it. The drawing was done by mcoy. The simplicity of the drawing is because I made him do it that way. He can draw more complex designs when he wants. The style is all thanks to him.
Also, I loved your blog. Clearly I haven’t had enough of a sampling of good webcomics!
AJ,
Sorry, not everyone will have my sense of humor. It’s just a joke at the fact that WordPress skipped out version 2.4 and went straight from 2.3 to 2.5.
redwall_hp (134 comments)6 April 08
That was funny. Keep it up.
I agree that you should put it on a subdomain, and have different RSS feed for it though. Comic.problogdesign.com, maybe?
It may be a good idea to give it a name other than “XKCDesign” too. The XKCD guys might not like you hijacking their name…
Michael Martin (1285 comments)6 April 08
Redwall,
Another vote to change the name? Okay, definitely going to do that one.
A subdomain would separate it well, but then it’s one more thing to do add to the sidebar.
I could just keep it in the main blog, but exclude the posts from the main feed?
I’m wondering which would be less confusing for readers.
redwall_hp (134 comments)6 April 08
You could do it that way, or there may be another solution. It may take some thinking though.
I think excluding them from the feed might work though. It seems to work well for sideblogs.
BradBlogging.com - Increase Website Traffic With Easy To Follow Steps (5 comments)7 April 08
It took me a while to realize that actual joke xD
I think that your articles are the reason that I subscribed to your blog… if you catch my drift.
Anyways thats just my 2 cents. Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next (This just totally caught me off guard!!)
Michael Martin (1285 comments)7 April 08
Redwall,
Guess I’ll have to think about it.
Brad,
).
I think you’ve summed it up well there, and that was my original thought as well (Hence the poll
A webcomic is a little too different to just throw in with the feed. I’ll have to keep it separate.
Timo Zimmermann (8 comments)9 April 08
if you think about a subdomain you can e.x. check how AppleGeeks[1] manages their “lite”[2] comics
[1] http://applegeeks.com/
[2] http://applegeeks.com/lite/
Michael Martin (1285 comments)10 April 08
Timo,
(And another fun comic to read!)
Thanks for sharing. They seem to have a good setup there
rjleaman (5 comments)11 April 08
Not every comic can be a winner, but there’s a lot of promise in this (and I gave a chuckle) – split off a separate feed and/or sideblog, yes, so the core value of the articles isn’t diluted, then go ahead and syndicate with gusto!
Andrea_R (19 comments)16 April 08
I think it’s hysterical. I thought the name was funny too.
kuldeep (10 comments)23 April 08
Keep it up! Nice one! I liked the idea
DazzleCat (8 comments)8 May 08
hahah!! very funny stuff !
jobbank (4 comments)18 May 08
Between these two, I would go for Wordpress then. I think it is better than MovableType..
blisters (3 comments)20 May 08
I can’t tell you how much I laughed reading that comic. It’s hillarious! I’m definately keeping it, and forwarding it all to my WordPress using buddies.
Zinni (1 comments)8 June 08
Mildly humorous, but I would send the concept to an illustrator. I think a little better production value couldn’t hurt.
Adam (18 comments)11 June 08
Great comic, I’d personally change the name but I found it really funny. Keep it up.