Making Christian Comics: Where to host your comics

Where to post your artwork so it gets seen?

Now, before we move on to making actual comics there is a few details we should go over for the beginning of your comic making adventure, lets start with “Where should I host my comic series?” because as I learned when I was getting started, this is VERY important.

The answer for this can fall into one of TWO answers as a whole with exceptions but it mostly depends on what your series is going to be; Are you goin to post a webcomic when you can, keep a loose schedule and do it for fun mostly? I recommend making a dedicated social media page to host it on. Social media profiles are easy to make, have high populations of people casually browsing them for things related to their interests and are generally low maintenance for you to work with until your ready to move up to more serious hosting.

PLATFORMS THAT MAY WORK FOR YOU

• Deviantart: This is where I got my start, its easy, looks good, built for sharing art and has tons of groups for people with the same interests as you where you can join and share your art for a traffic boost.
• Facebook: Odds are you already have a Facebook account, as do millions of people looking for something to see on there! To host here all you have to do is venture to the options on the left of your feed and find the “PAGES” option and from their you will easily find how to create a Facebook page for your comic.
• Twitter: Twitter is a heated place and home to a lot of drama these days but it is also home of millions of people and even more content, word travels fast and sharing interesting things is the nature of the little blue bird so perhaps it worth considering.
• GAB: A new but growing social media platform that as soon a big boom in new users in the last few months. GAB is the social media equivalent of the Wild West right now but from personal experience hosting here can be freeing if your not afraid of a place with loose posting guidelines that many content creators are finding to be a breath of fresh air.
• Pinterest: Pinterest is sort of a mash-up of Twitter and Deviantart, here people post and collect images onto “Boards” and it is easily one of, if not the most, used imagery related social media platforms today and while not as simple to get started with as Deviantart or Facebook it’s high focus on art and image related content makes it a valuable consideration for hosting your webcomics.

Or perhaps you are more serious about making comics into something MORE than a hobby, you want to focus on building a fanbase, having a consistent update schedule and trying to find a way to make a profit off your work be it commissions, Crowdfunding or ad revenue on your website.

If your looking to take your comic creating seriously then a simple social media platform won’t be enough, it will be important but your going to need something more. Your going to need to start building up your own website or blog to host and archive your works.

Creating is a website is a more time consuming, may require some money to get you going and will come with more responsibilities such as learning to track your stats, learn how to create a clean, easy to use design and experience for visitors and will require at least monthly maintenance to keep it running smoothly.

While a website is an investment and requires commitment it gives you more room to build your brand and heighten your reader’s experience with your works, so where is a good place to find hosting?

HOSTING THAT MAY WORK FOR YOU

• Wix: Is not the most beginner friendly webhosting site but it does allow for more creative and personalized designs, customization and content posting as well as allows for a wide range of useful programs that can help you grow your site.
• Weebly: A very user friendly and simple webhosting site that has a good range of themes, customize options and is great for simple webpage organization and makes for one of the better blog style site builders. (A word of caution, the build in stat tracker is not reliable and will require you to use a second party for more accurate numbers)
• WordPress: Widely considered the industry standard for webhosting WordPress offers a wide range of design options and website themes, a wide array of add-ons available and built in site stat tracking that is by far the best of the recommended sites. (Note: WordPress is not the most friendly in terms of images sizes so be very aware of how to format your pages when you upload to WordPress)
• Squarespace: Squarespace lands itself somewhere between Weebly and Wix in my opinion, it offers good design and freedom of creation but is not the most user friendly for some beginners and is a tad lacking compared to some other webhosting sites in my experience.

For hosting your works online these are your best options for a focused and strong start to building up your work online, finding a point of operation and building your work up from there is going to be the best first step you can plan when starting out.

So give it some thought and go explore these options to see if you can find a good place to start hosting comics, there is no wrong answer but it takes some time and exploration to find the BEST answer for you and your personal style. Deep roots in solid ground make for strong trees and strong trees often produce excellent fruit, so go find some promising ground and God bless Pact-Keepers!

Until next time!