I hope you are all having a happy indulgent Christmas and at some point I imagine, like me, you’ll nip away from the festivities and catch up with a few of your favourite internet sites – at least those updating over the holidays. I hope that many of you come to our blog regularly – and looking at the stats we know you do – in fact we have never had more readers but strangely our blog is moving down, not up, in internet rankings this past 12 months. Some of that is due to the natural growth of the web, more sites mean more competition and some of those sites have decent ‘traction’ (I hate the word but…) and that has moved them up the rankings. We aren’t competitive as such, we have always sought just to plough a furrow we were comfortable with – not one that is based on gossip, speculation, ‘sell,sell,sell’ or general nastiness. We don’t cover the more populist aspects of comics, superheroes etc, very often, as so many sites are better equipped to do it than us. We focus our interests on the parts of comics most other English speaking sites don’t – we have lots of European and Worldwide coverage – we devote a massive amount of time and space to the small press, we’re generally more interested in the artist than the character they might be working on etc. Our viewing numbers attest to the fact that whilst this may not be the populist site we could be, it is something that a lot of people find valuable, informative and fun.
Running the blog isn’t a cheap endeavour for FPI – all in, costs are well in excess of £20K ($30K) and I’m coming to that point in the year, at our annual review in January, where I have to justify that expenditure to the rest of the FPI board, some of whom are sceptical to the value generated by the money spent. We will go through the same old arguments about “what do we get for our money”, “can’t you do more selling of product from it”, “why not cover it in advertising” etc that we do every year. All of those are good questions – we almost completely shy away from using the blog as a selling tool, or a place to turn into a bordello of flashing adverts selling you insurance and other services – but what are the answers? Until this year the answer was the prominence of the blog amongst its peers and generally (being picked 34th most influential blog in the UK back in 2008 being the unexpected high point). That it was reaching people who may or may not be paying customers, but that just the reaching of them was enough to make it worthwhile. Any reader potentially stores FPI away in their brain as somewhere they might at some point buy a comic.
So I have a request of you – it isn’t too onerous I don’t think – and it would make a difference to us and help us maintain our commitment to the blog and the excellent work that Joe, Richard , Wim and others put into it. What’s been most noticeable this past year is that whilst the number of unique readers has increased the comments and links generated by all readers has diminished quite sharply. It’s been noticeable that many links we give to other sites don’t generate reciprocal links. That stories which have originated on our blog are featured elsewhere and don’t link back to the source. That many people comment directly to myself or Joe or Richard rather than put their comment direct on the site. All of these things are seeing us miss linkages which would improve our standings and make the blog even more prominent. So all I’d ask of you is that if you have a comment you post it and perhaps we get a discussion going. That if we have featured your work you give a link back to us on your site, if you liked it, maybe stick us in your links or favourites list. If you quote material from one of our stories that you mention where it came from. We understand that people have lots to do with their lives and careers and that stuff like this just doesn’t always dawn on them or might slip their mind or get put off until they abandon it – believe me I do all 3 myself – but if you could see your way to doing some of those things in 2011, we will be very grateful.
Running pro’ blogs is something that fewer and fewer people are doing, most blogs aren’t held to the standards we try to hold ourselves too, although I’m sure there are times we fall short of that mark. The Comics Journal just laid off Dirk Deppey who has been Journalista for years now throwing doubt on whether it will continue, Heidi McDonald took her blog ‘The Beat‘ private after it was let go by Publisher Weekly. Others like Tom Spurgeon’s excellent ‘The Comics Reporter‘ continue to provide their best efforts and there is still a coherent little cadre of class reportage sites which I would include us amongst. If you could all find your way clear to give us this small bit of help in the New Year you would have our affection and gratitude. Right now, get back to the Turkey Twizzlers and Iceland party food like we’re doing in my house. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to come.
Kenny
December 25th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
A good point, Kenny. I’ll do my best to help the cause in 2011.
December 25th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Hi guys,
I read your blog everyday and I enjoy it very much. I’ve actually always been surprised that a big store like FPI supports a blog with such a non-commercial spirit. This blog is the best I know when it comes to comics. I can definitely say that your blog drew me to the London FP store, precisely because it’s not flashing everywhere with ads, but because it shows some love of comics. Of course I understand that the board might not very impressed by this testimonial, but you never know…
I thank you very warmly for the great content you give us daily, and I’ll do what I can to help you. I hope you can keep the blog running in its current and high quality format for a long time, and I wish you all the best for 2011.
Kim, a faitful reader
December 25th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Easily done. I love the work you guys do here.
December 26th, 2010 at 9:30 am
As a comic fan I stop here everyday, it’s always worthwhile. As a comic maker, I had work in my first book last year, four more since then and this blog has supported ALL of them in some way or another. Brilliant work (and thanks)
December 26th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Interesting piece on comic blogging from an excellent blog: http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/b.....m-all-men/
December 26th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
It’s Kenny Penman’s birthday and he would like to say a few words. http://tinyurl.com/353btaq
December 26th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
RT @DarrylToon: It’s Kenny Penman’s birthday and he would like to say a few words. http://tinyurl.com/353btaq
December 26th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
good points, its easy to forget and go for the instant response as the interweb interactive info flow changes & mutates. I hope to rebuild the Hi Ex site soon from scratch so plenty fresh links for lovely people then… when I get time to do it…
December 26th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
RT @kennypenman: RT @DarrylToon: It’s Kenny Penman’s birthday and he would like to say a few words. http://tinyurl.com/353btaq – thanks Darryl
December 26th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I stuck a link back to here on my blog, Kenny. Thanks for all the sterling work you and the rest of the team do.
December 26th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
RT @kennypenman: RT @DarrylToon: It’s Kenny Penman’s birthday and he would like to say a few words. http://tinyurl.com/353btaq – thanks Darryl
December 26th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
RT @DarrylToon: It’s Kenny Penman’s birthday and he would like to say a few words. http://tinyurl.com/353btaq
December 26th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Hey Kenny.
Ive tried commenting a lot over the last 6 months but 5 out of 6 times the comments never appeared. I got a bit fed up of typing stuff, doing the Captcha and then the comment never appearing. Anyone else been experienceing this glitch? Maybe that’s why the dip in comments.
December 26th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
David – Hi, Richard here.
Was the comment accepted? i.e did it say it was awaiting moderation?
All of the admins here look in on the comments regularly and will approve everything that isn’t obvious spam. So as long as it gets to moderation it will always be published.
If it happens again – to anyone – let us know through email, twitter, another comment – whatever.
Cheers
R
December 27th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Ah, I’ll do my best. Cheers, Kenny! This is such a fab website! Sometimes it’s the only one I use for recommendations just because of lack of time. A perfect first stop.
I wonder if you could move the shopping link on the right up a couple boxes; it took me awhile even to realise I could buy comics through FPI. I know that’s incredibly thick of me, but if I didn’t spot it, I bet a lot of other people miss that little link box.
Thanks for all your amazing work! :)
December 28th, 2010 at 10:51 am
As someone starting out as a comic maker, this blog has provided me with a platform that not only allows my comics to be reviewed, but also that spreads news, encouragement and features on the small-press scene. I think a great deal of us small-pressers owe a debt of gratitude to the FPI blog for helping sustain interest and vitality in self-publishing. I’m not sure about me, but a lot of today’s small-pressers are going to be tomorrow’s big names, and this resource helps that happen for folk – and that’s of benefit, even if you can’t quantify it in strictly commercial terms.
December 28th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Firstly, this blog is fantastic and I absolutely should link to it more.
Next, I have been noting many of the same phenomenon over at the Beat over the last year — people don’t really comment any more they like things on Facebook and so on. I took the comment decline as a personal failure as well but since I installed Facebook and Twitter links in every post, I’m more reassured e that people are reading and sharing in their own, era-appropriate ways.
Finally, a correction: moving the Beat to its own site was totally my own choice. The entire story is one that I feel is is some interest which I had hoped to ruin in the tween holiday time slot but sadly I don’t seem to have put it on the server and I’m stuck in England due to all the snow. Maybe this weekend.
Thanks for all you guys do here. You are definitely covering a key part of the industry with knowledge and love.
December 28th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Very thoughtful and interesting piece, Kenny.
Cheers
Matt
December 28th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Thanks for that Heidi. How are you enjoying the prolonged stay here in Blighty? Has FMB been showing you his old haunts? Or maybe taking you round all of the pubs he’s been barred from?
December 28th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Hi Heidi
many thanks for your input. I think we are already thinking we should be twittering and FB’ing every story – which we had never thought to do in the past – many thanks for that.
Also, sorry for my total ignorance re. the situation with ‘The Beat’ and it’s change of situation earlier in the year. I’m supposing I should have known that and I’m just a fool but I will be very interested to read the whole story when you get round to it.
Also, very glad to see it isn’t just us – I must keep the paranoia genes in check.
best for the rest of the hol’s here in the UK.
Kenny
December 29th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
I follow a number of comics related blogs and forums but the FPI blog is by far and away the most balanced blog on comics out there, it gives equal space to american mainstream, underground and small press along with UK comics, Japanese and other asian comics and European commics along with tv and movie news and just interesting semi comic illustration related pieces….it is really hard to find anywhere that covers all of these areas of comics let alone gives all equal space and there are a high number of comics sitting on my shelf that are there because of this blog. The FPI blog has also been very generous in promoting the growing Irish scene in the last number of years more so then a number of Irish based comics sites at times.
I check the blog every morning as part of my morning blog round up but will admit to being a poor commenter mainly down to having truely awful spelling but it will be something which I will try and improve upon as well as linking to the blog with more frequancy.
January 3rd, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Thanks to everyone who’s commented on this post of Kennys. Made us all feel warm and fuzzy. Here’s to a great 2011. Keep commenting, tweeting and facebooking anything that takes your fancy!
January 10th, 2011 at 10:34 am
Way to go guys! It is a great blog, not only because you say nice things about Knockabout but mainly because it is readable, informative and unbiased, even if it makes some readers shop at FP London
January 11th, 2011 at 6:21 am
Not sure it sends many people to FP London Tony – we never mention them – we do however direct them often towards GOSH! Josh can send the cheque now.
January 19th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
I really like FPI blog and I already have a link on my website…
keep going and happy 2011!!!!