4) Freelancing. Minna also occasionally work as an illustrator for various publications. This job is not directly related to the webcomic.
City of Hunger game
In her spare time, Minna would indulge herself in creating a game loosely based on the characters from SSSS, but not directly following the storyline. She would often post the updates on progression of the game on the dedicated website (www.hummingfluff.com) and related Twitter account. She would also post a beta version of her game for a free download in order to gain invaluable feedback from the members of her fan community. The exact role of the game in Minna’s businessplan is not confirmed as of yet.
Case A-2: Gregor Czaykowski
http://www.loadingartist.com/
Gregor Czaykowski graduated from Game Development major in Media Design School in Auckland, New Zealand. Originally aiming to become a 3D artist in the gaming industry, Gregor found his passions lie more towards designing a game’s interface and is currently employed in Gameloft, video game developing company (Media Design School, n.d.). Feeling a need to improve his skills, he
decided to start his personal website and called it “Loading Artist” as he believed he was “an artist in progress”:
I wanted to be a better artist and I figured I would stick with it better if I had the pressure of people watching my progress. So I decided to create an art blog where I would post my updates. (...) However it wasn’t too long after making the website that I thought hey you know what I should make a comic and practice my art inside of that. Two birds with one stone sort of thing. (“Loading Artist Creator Gregor Czaykowski On His Journey Into Webcomics”, 2018)
The comic launched at January 4 2011. According to Alexa, website ranks as no.
103,518 most popular site on the internet in pa st 90 days (as of July 19 2019;
“Loadingartist.com Competitive Analysis…”, n.d.).
Format
Loading Artist is a “gag-a-day” type of short comic. It follows adventures of an unnamed main character (possibly modeled after the author himself) and features a small number of recurring characters. On the main website it is described as being
“about many things, sometimes revolving around an artist who wants to become rich and famous” (“What’s this all about?”, n.d.). Thematically, the comic is usually inspired by approaching holidays, fears and insecurities, emotion, interpersonal relationships. Great majority of the comics are comedic in nature, with only a few being somewhat melancholic (such as “In my room”, 2018). Plenty of them utilise black humour.
Comic is supposed to be updated every week, but it can go on without updates for much longer, depending on Gregor’s schedule and inspiration (or lack thereof). He would post the info about the new gag on his social media (mainly Twitter). Each strip would contain the link to the author’s website. Below the
strip, Gregor would usually add one or two sentences describing the title, process of creating or advertise new activities, as well as a list of patrons, depicted individually by the specially prepared animations.
The easy to navigate website displays the comic link as well as blog posts.
Apart from the main page, the website consists of several sections: archives, store, introduction; it also provides very noticeable links to Gregor’s Twitch and Patreon.
The simple statistics showing the website traffic are as follows (Hypestat.com):
Table 4.2 “LoadingArtist.com” website statistics
Daily pageviews 39,652 Daily unique visitors 9,671
Alexa rank 103,797
Est. daily adv. revenue $202.35
Source: https://hypestat.com/info/loadingartist.com (2019.7.12)
Fan base
Gregor interacts extensively with his fans, through social media in both written and visual/audible form.
a) Comment section. The website utilises very simple commenting platform which can be accessed by scrolling down past the list of patrons. It’s relatively little active and does not contain many interactions between users, although it is definitely being in use. Main topic present in the comments is the location of a
spider, an “easter egg”-type element present in most Gregor’s strips. It has originated from the comic “Inspidered” from August 29 2012 (Czaykowski, 2012) and became a fan-favourite in 2015 (Czaykowski, 2019 [comment]).
b) Active usage of social media: Gregor is a very active user of Twitter and Twitch. He would usually post news and updates on Twitter, as well as repost fans’
tweets and react to them. Apart from Twitter, Gregors also makes use of his Instagram and Facebook, as well as often posts videos from Twitch on his Youtube channel.
c) Twitch: Gregor broadcasts his creative process, while keeping eyes on the chat and interacting with his fans. During the live drawing broadcast, Gregor would often discuss certain elements of the comic and draw inspiration from fans as to how to name the comic strip or what to include in the drawn panel (Czaykowski, 2016).
Generally streams are of various quality and are mainly used not to display author’s skills and proficiency, but mostly to interact with the audience and provide insight into his emotional state and everyday life. Broadcasts might also include comedic bits (i.e. lip-syncing to chosen songs; “Solo performance: Let It Go” [video]. n.d.), they might also touch upon different topics than webcomic;
gaming seem to be Gregor’s favourite past-time, beside drawing (“Sekiro:
Shadows Die Twice - Part 3” [video], n.d.).
d) Fan forum: originally created as a platform of communication for gamers, Discord is the main platform for Loading Artist fandom discussions. This special
channel (referred to simply as Loading Artist in the app search bar) was created by Gregor in order to allow his fans to interact with both him and each other. It is divided into few sections: announcements, fan chat, the special section dedicated to Gregor’s posting of especially drawn birthday cakes for his Patreon supporters and regulars, as well as “expose_yourself”: the platform for fans to display their own skills and advertise their Twitch channels.
Fan-created Reddit forum also exists, found under the tag “r/loadingartist”.
It’s a place for fans to discuss Gregor comic in more preserved way, as Discord posts may easily be lost. Gregor also provides subreddit with updates on new comic strips. Compared with more dynamic Discord channel, the forum is not very active though.
Monetising activities
1) Advertisements on the website. Website hosts some AdSense advertisements.
The RPM (revenue per mille, revenue per one thousand ad impressions) is used to measure ad revenue.
2) Merchandise. The official store of Loading Artist is accessible from the main website (https://store.loadingartist.com/). Merchandise include prints, clothing, mugs and pins. T-shirts with popular comic panels or quotes cost between $20-23, hoodies between $30-36. Mugs cost $15 and would be often drawn within the comic strips as a form of self-advertisement. Prints are either one-panel
illustrations or chosen comic-strips and go for various prices, starting from $15.
Metal pins are the newest addition to the merchandise (announced on April 17,
2019) and go for $10.
3) Patreon. Gregor heavily promotes the possibility of becoming his “patron” and help him create more comic in his spare time. He offers plenty of otherwise inaccessible content related to each of his webcomic: doodles, clean and HD files, alternative versions, special blog posts etc. The available options are divided into four tiers, according to the level of monthly support: $1 or more, $4 or more, $10 or more, and $30 or more (“VIP pass”). The most interesting feature is available in the last tier, after purchasing which, every comic posted under a patronage will get an individual custom drawn character, permanently posted under the strip. The hidden content available on Patreon serves as a “patron-only” secret blog. Patreon gets from 5% to 12% fee (depending on chosen program) and additional payment processing fee (Sawers, 2019).
4) Affiliation. HumbleBundle is the video and computer game store. Through its Humble Partner program, it allows chosen internet personalities to participate in the profits for the products supported by them (“Humble Partner Program FAQ”, n.d.). Through clicking on the special link, available on Gregor’s Patreon, one can be redirected to the online shop in which the special offers are prepared. The default profit includes 15% of the price of the product; additionally, Humble Partner would receive $10 for each new subscriber of Humble Monthly and 5% of Humble Store sales (only after using their affiliate link; “Humble Partner Program FAQ”, n.d.).
5) Fan meetings: Since 2012 (Czaykowski [blog post], 2012) Gregor would sometimes attend fan meetings and conventions, such as Chromacon (“6 Artist Picks for Chromacon 2015”, 2015). During the meeting Gregor would sell his merchandise and integrate with fans.
Gregor’s plans for undisclosed future would include publishing paper version of Loading Artist comic (Tucholski, 2012).
Table 4.3 Summary of Case A: Webcomic