Gratz
Comic 1326 - New goatman here
Author Notes:
Also one of the things I am looking more at trying to grow Gratz. One of tips I've received is to try and understand what is it that people like about my work. So let me know what is it that draws you to Gratz so I can start trying to reach other people that my be interested in the same thing.
(next update 2-17-20)
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If only we had seen something similar BEFORE.
But even *that* was not on this level. This is evil writ large, with no consideration for how evil it is. Which brings me back to my suspected actors behind this. I feel that if the Bleatboys had always been capable of this they would have done it before now. I believe this is something new for them. Something they didn't think up themselves. Something...they were taught.
Which implies a teacher. An evil teacher. Someone who has no problems committing such acts, or turning others. Someone who might hold a grudge against Feur...or it's allies.
I know you love it when I post pages with old art, Lacking. It's one of the things I like about your work.... Seriously, I love the fact you have been doing this so long, that you do have a history of continued improvement in the art.
Several things drew me to GRATZ. Most generic, one personal. The first was WoW. That's the main, most immediate hook. It features characters that are easily identifiable as "belonging" in the WoW universe of Azeroth. But by your own words you're no longer telling Warcraft stories, and have struck out into your own world. This leads to the second this that has kept me around. You are weaving a long, complex, compelling story about characters who may be powerful, but are not perfect; who may have an edge of cruelty, but are not without compassion; and, who may feel in over their head, but are determined not to give up. This is why I could not stay away. I missed this big, heroic story.
And Arua is drop dead gorgeous. That's...*cough*...personal. . . . .
If you're looking to market Gratz to a wider audience, here's some thought food.
S & S: general Sword & Sorcery fantasy. This is a big field, which more sub-genres than you can shake a lamb's jiffy at. It's not just Morcock, it's Ursula Vernon. You have a S&S story with a strong female protagonist. Sell it.
Heroic Fantasy: There are elements of GRATZ that go beyond combat and magic. There is a sense of "ordinary people motivated to attempt the extraordinary" our of a sense that there is evil that should be countered. It's a harder sell, because I see so many stories that attempt this and fail because they don't strike the balance and end up god-modding in spite of themselves.
Furry: There's a real reason I put this last. It is a HUGE market. There's a strong desire for good stories in that community that feature identifiably "furry" characters. GRATZ qualifies, look at two of the main protagonists. But this is also a precarious market. In the past, the fandom has proved its own worst enemy. It has certain baggage that still causes negative perceptions to this day. For every publisher that welcomes/tolerates it, there are 3 who consider it the kiss of death. The fans are very passionate about what they like, which can sometimes prove to be it's own problem.
Now the bad news: at some point in order to appeal to a wider audience you're going to have to work on the spelling/usage issue. Those of us who have been reading for years are forgiving, arguably too forgiving. A brand new reader who looks at one page and sees two spelling errors, or incorrect usage, may lose all interest. This is me being brutally honest. It can happen to anyone, I've seen readers catch spelling errors on Mark Stanley's "Freefall" and he's been doing that comic going on 20 years. But those are so rare they are notable because of their rarity. At this point it's not going to make me quit reading. But, I can almost guarantee you that you're going to lose a potential new reader because of it. I can guarantee it, because I have tried to read other webcomics , and errors on the first page I read made me completely lose interest. I'm sorry to even have to bring this up again, but if you are really looking to grow the comic, this will need to become a self-improvement project.
But that does bring up a good question I should have asked long ago. What kind of Grammatical or spelling errors am I making most often? General misspelling of a word, a miss used spelling of a word or miss use of the word? Any pointers so I can start to focus in on those areas.
Next is what's a good social medium to reach those groups at, Facebook, reddit, twitter? Or do they have their own webpages I can start engaging with over there?
Thanks for the very strong feed back I appreciate the undoubtedly long time it took to write this very well thought out response.
As far as sociable media, I never frequent reddit, so can't say anything about it. I'm most familiar with Twitter, but how to promote stuff on it...not as much. I see the odd interesting thing on there when someone that I follow retweets it, and sometimes I follow someone based on that. The actual process of recruit/refer/retweet, that results in the interesting thing getting on my timeline is an arcane mystery. Now, if you had a Twitter account, and say you were to post a tweet saying on the order of: "New GRATZ comic up! <insert brief one sentence summary> [Include link]," then I would more than happily retweet that to 685ish followers, who may or may not be a fan of of the target genre. Some of them may retweet to their followers. Ultimately, it's a process of finding people who like the work and who follow you and promote it because they enjoy it.
Facebook, I'm only passingly familiar with the paid advertising side of it. You can try to join communities there who allow you to do self-promotion and go from there.
I don't remember what episode it was but as I was waiting through a ad just feeling really agitated about how long the ad and show where going to take when I realized I didn't want to watch it. So I turned it off and played video games instead and just never really felt the drive to go back to it. Which is funny because I actually made a RWBY reference back in one of the page names with Gratz.
But to go out on a ratifying note I do think the death of Monty was a huge loss for animation, the guy had a very strong understanding of how to make a fight have personality. For example have a flowing maneuverability then snap into a direct heavy impact on a opening. Monty knew his craft.