Hiya, folks! Been a while since I’ve written in this rant space – feels weird, to be honest!
When the comic returned, I had to face some facts about the nature of the internet and how it’s changed since the days when I started doing Real Life. The fact of the matter is, the HUGE majority of people read content on their phone or tablet instead of their desktop, and media like comics just does much, much better on social media than it does on websites. I made a few decisions when I came back – one was to remove all advertising spaces from the website. I knew that I would be coming out as trans at some point, and I was expecting a fairly big blowback (which, to be honest, never materialized). I wanted the comic to stand on its own without being beholden to anyone, and as part of that, I decided to focus on social media for my primary comic distribution.
Largely, I think that’s been the right call. I was so focused on only driving people to the website, and aside from folks who want to read through the archives, that’s a silly plan. Once I dropped pageviews as a driving force, I no longer cared WHERE the comic was being seen, as long as it was being seen.
BECAUSE of that, though, I kinda let the website fall into… well, disrepair may be too strong of a term, but certainly disuse. I ignored sections like the characters page and this rant box – I didn’t see the point! But that’s silly – there’s only so much information you can get out in a social media post, so I’m going to try and start sharing news here, as well as commentary on certain comics. I can’t guarantee I’m going to do it WELL, because if there’s one thing we’ve learned about me it’s that guarantees are absolutely pointless, but I can at least TRY. :)
With that said – back to your regularly scheduled programming!