I'm sorry if I somehow framed my OP as some sort of competition, I didn't intend that. I'm not trying to argue against penny-arcade, I'm just trying to figure things out.
What actually happened was, I stumbled across the youTube video of the xkcd guy giving a talk at Google. This got me to wondering just how popular is xkcd, overall? My expectation was that it would be maybe half as popular as Penny-Arcade. PA has been around for at least 3x as long, PA is widely acknowledged and looked up to as an industry leader in the web-comic space. PA is a company employing at least half a dozen individuals, and AFAIK, xkcd is just a guy and a webserver.
So, those graphs I linked to really challenged my pre-conceived notions.
Maybe the graphs are wrong. As Thinatos points out, it is difficult to say in any detail where the data for the graphs even comes from, let alone how accurate it is.
But, if they are right (and they all seem to show a similar trend, though not the same exact path), then the question that nags at me is, "how did he do it"? How, in such a crowded field, did xkcd reach the same heights as an industry leader in such a short time? And then the next question that occurs to me (from the other side of the coin, so to speak), is, "is this a demonstration of xkcd's success, or of Penny-Arcade's failure?" Has Penny-Arcade in some way failed to capitalize on their status and notability to climb to ever higher heights? Should Penny-Arcade really be 2x as high on those charts as xkcd but they've somehow failed to manage it?
I just really, really expect to see Penny-Arcade higher up on those charts. When my assumptions are proven wrong, I really, really like to know why. I've not been able to come up with an explanation that I'm happy with, on my own.
Well, one thing is that it really appeals to tech people. Those same tech people tend to spend a lot of time on the internet, and tend to run some of the larger sites. They also have a tendency to be big into social bookmarking types of sites.
XKCD has been linked on BoingBoing.net probably a dozen times now, and there were periods when pretty much every one was on the top page on reddit, digg or both.
So, in conclusion, if you want to get a lot of internet traffic, do something that nerds really like. The more nerds you appeal to, the better.
Heh, I must be super fucking busy as I barely get to keep up with either comic. xkcd has the dry with that I love though. It's like comparing Jerry Seinfeld to Eddie Murphy.
FoxTrot could have ruled them all...
PA is Eddie Murphy
No, I dislike seinfeld immensely but love xkcd. They are different genres of webcomics, but I prefer xkcd (I also don't keep up with gaming news much, so don't get quite a lot of PA stuff).
Im not a regular reader of xkcd, but upon reading the most recent 10, I feel only about two of them were bad - and those are like 4 back from the first.
Back when I first started reading PA (around October 2002 or so) I remember people complaining that it wasn't funny anymore.
I don't really see either one as being in a slump right now- although I do think XKCD makes more comics that aren't really intended to be funny, penny arcade can sometimes go a while without a new favorite popping up.
Call me shallow, but after looking over xkcd I can't get over the fact most of it's poorly drawn stick figure art. I know it's got some actual points in there, but they're lost when the visual presentation is lacking in delivering them properly.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Call me shallow, but after looking over xkcd I can't get over the fact most of it's poorly drawn stick figure art. I know it's got some actual points in there, but they're lost when the visual presentation is lacking in delivering them properly.
Long story short, I'm getting my chicken soup on, it's Sunday afternoon, and Gabe's reading some Preacher in the Den, which is also the living room, the bathroom, and the foyer. I am interacting with pasta dough in what I think is a stern way, when I hear him say that he might like the soup better if it were, in fact, carrot cake. It hits us, hits us both, simultaneously, like a semi made out of lightning which is also a professional boxer. Carrot Cake Soup. You cube the carrot cake, some pieces have frosting and some don't, and you put a handful of these chunks into a bowl full of milk. So let's go do it. We'll do it later this week, he says. But I know that's the same as not doing it. Why not now, I say? I know a store where we can get all the stuff. You can just buy it, the way you can buy stuff in the household cleaners section and make a bomb big enough to kill God. The stuff is just lying around there and nobody's doing anything with it. It's not a crime to buy them separately, and what we do at home isn't any of their fucking business.
I think someone might have been following us as we pulled into the parking lot, we walked toward the grocery store and tried to keep the conversation natural. We certainly didn't discuss carrot cake or the soup one might make by cutting it into cubes and swimming islands of it in cold milk, pleasure islands, like you'd see in a magazine. At the bakery counter, a woman asks if she can help me, and I'm so nervous that as I'm pointing to the carrot cake behind the glass, my finger starts to tap in Morse Code that reads:
I AM ABOUT TO COMMIT A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND MAN STOP
And where is Gabe with that Goddamn milk? There he is, in the self-checkout. Idiot. There's cameras all over that thing, it's like a Goddamn surveillance tree. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. A red light flashes on, and off in my mind. At another checkstand, I pay with untraceable cash, assuring the woman that I will eat the cake by myself, without assistance from cows. I smirk. This woman has no idea that she's just sold me the trigger to a flavor gun. Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out. It has an extraordinary power that oscillates between gentle and overwhelming, between light and dark, between pleasure and more pleasure. When it was over, I realized that I was panting. I was in possession of carnal knowledge. And I knew that, somehow, every taste beyond this point was in the service of the one that still lingered, waited, to remind me that nature has laws, and those that break them are criminals, and though they roam free enough the knowing will hold them, and keep them, until the last.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Now that I can enjoy, it may not be first rate art like penny arcade or ctrl+alt+del's current comics but it's a coherant visual attempt to convey a point. I harp on the whole stick figure thing because to me it seems like a lazy excuse to ignore the fact that the second word in web comic is comic, and that implies drawing to a certain level of artistic quality with regular consistency. Then again, I'm also one of those twelve people who hated napolean dynomite and most of anchorman, so maybe I just have bad taste.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Posts
http://xkcd.com/44/
I also have imaginary fight scenarios running in my head.
Well, one thing is that it really appeals to tech people. Those same tech people tend to spend a lot of time on the internet, and tend to run some of the larger sites. They also have a tendency to be big into social bookmarking types of sites.
XKCD has been linked on BoingBoing.net probably a dozen times now, and there were periods when pretty much every one was on the top page on reddit, digg or both.
So, in conclusion, if you want to get a lot of internet traffic, do something that nerds really like. The more nerds you appeal to, the better.
No, I dislike seinfeld immensely but love xkcd. They are different genres of webcomics, but I prefer xkcd (I also don't keep up with gaming news much, so don't get quite a lot of PA stuff).
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
This is the best xkcd comic.
And PA, just by dint of having two recognisable characters, allows you to identify, which is probably why there's a community connected to it.
Honestly, I can't ever remember a PA slump. They have had an off comic here and there, sure.
But then again. I am basically Tycho, and my best friend of over a decade is basically Gabe. So In a way I am the target market.
Iunno, maybe I was just imagining things.
I do not feel there is a slump.
sums up every Intelligent Design discussion
I don't really see either one as being in a slump right now- although I do think XKCD makes more comics that aren't really intended to be funny, penny arcade can sometimes go a while without a new favorite popping up.
its only an extra 30 seconds to look at the other
It's a little tough to keep up otherwise
Sometimes, this is an accurate perception. Other times, it seems largely imaginary.
Honestly at this point I think I've played enough videogames to understand what they are talking about, even if I haven't played the game in question.
That's... not a good sign for the future of the thing... or the writer...
He's just emo like that sometimes.
Do you also dislike Achewood because of the art?
http://xkcd.com/356/
My roommate had a problem just like that for an engineering class in college.
Also, I strongly dislike Tycho's writing style. He comes across as a college freshman who uses big words in his papers to impress his professors.
You would say that. God forbid someone enjoy writing.
Just PA has more interesting and enjoyable art.
His writing style mirrors his speaking style, so it's not like he actually sits there with a thesaurus.
:P
That's even worse.
It's just my personal taste though. I appreciate brevity and conciseness over verbosity.
Just like that fucking sentence right there.
Long story short, I'm getting my chicken soup on, it's Sunday afternoon, and Gabe's reading some Preacher in the Den, which is also the living room, the bathroom, and the foyer. I am interacting with pasta dough in what I think is a stern way, when I hear him say that he might like the soup better if it were, in fact, carrot cake. It hits us, hits us both, simultaneously, like a semi made out of lightning which is also a professional boxer. Carrot Cake Soup. You cube the carrot cake, some pieces have frosting and some don't, and you put a handful of these chunks into a bowl full of milk. So let's go do it. We'll do it later this week, he says. But I know that's the same as not doing it. Why not now, I say? I know a store where we can get all the stuff. You can just buy it, the way you can buy stuff in the household cleaners section and make a bomb big enough to kill God. The stuff is just lying around there and nobody's doing anything with it. It's not a crime to buy them separately, and what we do at home isn't any of their fucking business.
I think someone might have been following us as we pulled into the parking lot, we walked toward the grocery store and tried to keep the conversation natural. We certainly didn't discuss carrot cake or the soup one might make by cutting it into cubes and swimming islands of it in cold milk, pleasure islands, like you'd see in a magazine. At the bakery counter, a woman asks if she can help me, and I'm so nervous that as I'm pointing to the carrot cake behind the glass, my finger starts to tap in Morse Code that reads:
I AM ABOUT TO COMMIT A CRIME AGAINST GOD AND MAN STOP
And where is Gabe with that Goddamn milk? There he is, in the self-checkout. Idiot. There's cameras all over that thing, it's like a Goddamn surveillance tree. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. A red light flashes on, and off in my mind. At another checkstand, I pay with untraceable cash, assuring the woman that I will eat the cake by myself, without assistance from cows. I smirk. This woman has no idea that she's just sold me the trigger to a flavor gun. Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out. It has an extraordinary power that oscillates between gentle and overwhelming, between light and dark, between pleasure and more pleasure. When it was over, I realized that I was panting. I was in possession of carnal knowledge. And I knew that, somehow, every taste beyond this point was in the service of the one that still lingered, waited, to remind me that nature has laws, and those that break them are criminals, and though they roam free enough the knowing will hold them, and keep them, until the last.
I don't even know what that is, link please?
http://achewood.com/
But I don't like the recent arc. Start reading here:
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=01252006
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=02022007
I like those, too.
What the fuck dude.