Is Penny Arcade the most popular webcomic?

Loki 'Bubs' Seven · August 2004

It terms of traffic this sites gets everyday, does it outrank popularity to other well-known webcomics, such as 8-Bit Theater and MegaTokyo?

Paladin · August 2004

Yes, at least according to some chart somewhere.

apotheos · August 2004

Alexa says:

Traffic Rank for penny-arcade.com: 4,447
Traffic Rank for nuklearpower.com: 20,309
Traffic Rank for megatokyo.com: 26,113

(lower is better)

A duck! · August 2004

Go hog-wild:

http://alexa.com/

EDIT - Yeah, with top 4,500 (sometimes in the 3000s) I sincerely doubt any other webcomic beats it.

Loki 'Bubs' Seven · August 2004

Thanks! Any more trivial information would be appreciated.

futility · August 2004

wow I always thought this place was wildly more popular

A duck! · August 2004

futility wrote:

wow I always thought this place was wildly more popular

The 3000's is incredibly high.

EDIT - For instance, Somethingawful is 400 places worse than PA in the rankings.

EDIT 2 - 400 worse than what apo mentioned.

futility · August 2004

i guess the graphs seem to make no sense to me

Paladin · August 2004

I heard futility was at least a million on the charts

A duck! · August 2004

futility wrote:

i guess the graphs seem to make no sense to me

It's easy, it's inverse. Think of it as a ranking like in sports: it's best to be #1.

I'm pretty sure they did it that way to keep and potential graphs reasonable. I have a feeling that the differences between sites could skew the vertical axis.

sstair · August 2004

I was checking out a few site's rankings myself, here are the URLs.

Here's the comparison chart for the last month of some of those sites.

I've heard it said that Penny Arcade's numbers are skewed because users have to go to the news page, then click a link to see the comic, which means they get double the individual page views. I don't know enough about how Alexa calculates their rankings to know whether that's true or not.

A duck! · August 2004

That's partially correct. The rank is an average of their page view rank and the reach rank (reach is akin to share on TV in that it measures what percent of the internet checks a site during a certain timeframe).

If you just go with reach, Dilbert is rank 5,016, PA is 5,354, PvP is 10,549, User Friendly is 12,583, Sluggy is 27,340 and Megatokyo is 30,557.

So, there you go, only the nationally syndicated comic beats PA.

futility · August 2004

and yet megatokyo is in bookstores across the nation

A duck! · August 2004

futility wrote:

and yet megatokyo is in bookstores across the nation

What is that aimed at? My "national syndication" comment? Because if it is you might want to look up the phrase.

KungFu · August 2004

Hey may have just been talking about how they are last but are in bookstores all over.

Ramius · August 2004

I think each of the big-name webcomics are successful in their own way. PA may not have much in the way of published works circulating, but take a look at PAX, and even the Christmas charity thing they did. These are signs of their reach and influence, and thus of their success.

A duck! · August 2004

KungFu wrote:

Hey may have just been talking about how they are last but are in bookstores all over.

Yeah, their format is well suited to that, although I think it almost killed Piro.

Loki 'Bubs' Seven · August 2004

Has a Penny Arcade comicbook/artbook ever released yet for sale? And how the hell is Gabe and Tycho managing to live off Penny Arcade alone?

futility · August 2004

yeah they had a book of their year one stuff. but they had a hell of a time getting it out.

i think they make their money of ads, tshirts, and well I also asume those comics that go with the games.

Loki 'Bubs' Seven · August 2004

How about their donation box? Does anyone know the average it generates every day?

futility · August 2004

it doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for almost a year

Loki 'Bubs' Seven · August 2004

futility wrote:

it doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for almost a year

Why?

futility · August 2004

they just decided not to do it anymore. they were making enough money from other avenues that they didn't need ot accept donations

Loki 'Bubs' Seven · August 2004

Gotcha.

Target Practice · August 2004

Come to think of it, PA is probably the only truly popular webcomic that doesn't have printed comic collections. Well, PA and Something Positive.

Also, wouldn't the forum hits increase PA's traffic standing?

Pheezer · August 2004

Target Practice wrote:

Come to think of it, PA is probably the only truly popular webcomic that doesn't have printed comic collections. Well, PA and Something Positive.

Also, wouldn't the forum hits increase PA's traffic standing?

The forum bandwidth is only about 5% of the main site bandwidth, so it'd be almost negligible, but that aside, no, because it isn't counted.

And PA did do a printed collection, it was a first year retrospective. They've all but promised to never do it again because the publisher put them through hell.

That was over 2 years ago, though, and things do change, so maybe one day.

Szechuanosaurus · August 2004

pheezer wrote:

And PA did do a printed collection, it was a first year retrospective. They've all but promised to never do it again because the publisher put them through hell.

What kind of hell, if it isn't getting too of topic?

Pheezer · August 2004

I don't remember. I remember that the process took way longer and the book ended up costing more to produce than was promised or some other typical publishing nonsense.

Szechuanosaurus · August 2004

Does anybody have a copy to hand that could tell me the rough specs? Like, how many pages, what size, what sort of cover etc.?

Red Oktober · August 2004

I don't own a copy myself, but I think these are what you're looking for:

Price(s):
hard cover: $34.95 $19.95
soft cover: $24.95 $17.95
Format(s): Hard Cover / Softcover
Page count: 34
Illustrations:120+
ISBN: 1-931195-12-9

Copyright date: 2001
Publish date: April 2001
Publisher: KiwE Publishing, Ltd.
Category: Comics
LOC:

Ramius · August 2004

PixelSumorai wrote:

pheezer wrote:

And PA did do a printed collection, it was a first year retrospective. They've all but promised to never do it again because the publisher put them through hell.

What kind of hell, if it isn't getting too of topic?

Without going into any details, (don't ask for details because I will not give them), I believe this quote from Tycho from a couple weeks ago is directly related to the "publisher put them through hell" thing. AFAIK, it is still an open issue these several years later.

Tycho wrote:

You set something down that you liked a lot, and then all of the sudden important people are like "wow, that's some cool stuff you were doing," even though you'd been doing the fucking thing for months and it never seemed to warrant their attention before. When they gaze down from their golden throne, it will strike you how serendipitous, indeed, how melodramatic and apparently contrived your successes can be. I know that many cartoonists, web and otherwise, read Penny Arcade from time to time, and hopefully you are reading today because this fact might bolster you. You won't know it's coming. Corollary: It might already be en route.

Please learn from our lessons though, don't waste your time reading contracts yourself and imagine that you know what the fuck they're talking about - if you're serious about making a living by your creative work, then it's time to be serious about protecting it. We're lucky that we can afford a lawyer now to shoehorn us out of our youthful indiscretions, but honestly, I'd much rather that we had never been indiscreet.

incognito · August 2004

Target Practice wrote:

Come to think of it, PA is probably the only truly popular webcomic that doesn't have printed comic collections. Well, PA and Something Positive.

Also, wouldn't the forum hits increase PA's traffic standing?

Actually they do have a printed collection, but the publisher was shady or something and screwed them over. So they quit. I forget.

incognito · August 2004

I'll get you one day Remius!

Pheezer · August 2004

incognito wrote:

I'll get you one day Remius!

You missed nearly a dozen posts, of which Ramius made one.

locomotiveman · August 2004

Not only does PA beat the other webcomics, it beats the fbi and whitehouse sites as well.

Szechuanosaurus · August 2004

locomotiveman wrote:

Not only does PA beat the other webcomics, it beats the fbi and whitehouse sites as well.

Hardly suprising. Have you been to those sites recently? Hardly very exciting. Certainly not the sort of place you liked to waste the fifteen minutes lunch break your place of work grants you every day.

Garlic Bread · August 2004

pheezer wrote:

incognito wrote:

I'll get you one day Remius!

You missed nearly a dozen posts, of which Ramius made one.

Look at pheezer, correcting the spelling errors of an intentionally misspelled word!

Pheezer · August 2004

Keith wrote:

pheezer wrote:

incognito wrote:

I'll get you one day Remius!

You missed nearly a dozen posts, of which Ramius made one.

Look at pheezer, correcting the spelling errors of an intentionally misspelled word!

Look at Keith, still a cockmonger!

Garlic Bread · August 2004

pheezer wrote:

Keith wrote:

pheezer wrote:

incognito wrote:

I'll get you one day Remius!

You missed nearly a dozen posts, of which Ramius made one.

Look at pheezer, correcting the spelling errors of an intentionally misspelled word!

Look at Keith, still a cockmonger!

I'm selling cocks, yay!

Rohaq · August 2004

A duck! wrote:

KungFu wrote:

Hey may have just been talking about how they are last but are in bookstores all over.

Yeah, their format is well suited to that, although I think it almost killed Piro.

Yeah, and PA really doesn't suit being published simply due to the fact that a lot of the comics are based around current events in the gaming world. The latest comic would make very little sense in a year's time, especially if it lacks the supporting text.

Tarranon · August 2004

A duck! wrote:

KungFu wrote:

Hey may have just been talking about how they are last but are in bookstores all over.

Yeah, their format is well suited to that, although I think it almost killed Piro.

:?:

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