The WeirdSpace Initiative
What?
The basics: Free advertising space.
The fine print: You have to help out a little. I'll be doing the hard part, but you need to help a little. There are three ways of doing this:
1: A link on the link pages. Send me a link, a couple of lines describing the site, and a country of origin for the site.
2: If you are a publisher, send me a logo, 150px wide, and a link to the site, and I'll put it on the list of randomly shown publishers.
3: Biographies. You get one web page per character you want to show, and on the page you get a link to your own site (if you've got one). The objective is to describe what the character and series is about, in order to provide information and an incentive to try reading the series. Comparing the character to other characters in terms of similarities and differences is encouraged in order to place the character in a larger context, and help readers find something they might enjoy reading. Ragging on other people's/publisher's characters is strictly forbidden.
Almost anything goes ranging from "The Raunchy Adventure of Ivana Humpalot" to "Celibate-Man, Hero of the Vatican". All publishers and creators are welcome. There are a few things that I won't do articles on due to ethical consideration (e.g. a series used to support racism, hate or war) and I'll put warning labels on pages where nudity or violence cannot be avoided and there is a point to showing it (off-hand I can't think of any series where it can't be avoided, but you never know). There may also be some other reasons that I haven't thought of yet.
Why?
I've been looking at some of the web comics and comics from small publishers, and it occurred to me, that while there were a lot of sites indirectly promoting the two major publishers by doing biographies and fan-sites, the small publishers and those with web-comics gets very little promotion or attention. That's too bad, because some of the stuff featured on sites like ComicSpace and webcomicsnation is really cool, and at the San Diego Comic Con in 2007 I found quite at lot of really enjoyable stuff, that I'd never heard about, even though I visit major comic book sites like Newsarama and Comicbookresources every day.
Reading comics is for the most part seen as nerdy and cute and childish in a slightly condescending way. Seriously, one of my former girlfriends gave me some plastic figures from a Happy Meal because since I liked comics, I had to be interested in collecting small fugly pieces of plastic resembling Disney characters. Oh, right... I like watching StarWars on DVD, so obviously I want to collect Teletubbies on VHS too! For some reason people don't realize that comics is a billion dollar entertainment industry as much as it is an art form. What I do here can't change the general perception of comics, but by treating the subject in the same professional manner as the polymer chemistry that is my livelihood, I can certainly make a serious dent in it.
Also, one of the things that really annoys me is so many going on about low sales, and no interest in comics and whatever other problems there may be. Much of this is very true. Getting people to try something new is difficult. Humans are creatures of habit, but it can be done. It just requires some effort, and by effort I don't mean an expensive commercial campaign running a few weeks, or some other feeble attempt. I mean continuous presence in the media picture. You don't make up for years of neglect in a few weeks. Make the characters look cool. Make cool avatars, pictures, screen savers, wall papers, etc. available. Comics may be the point of origin, but there are several other ways of using characters. There are some efforts being done out there, but it's way too little. Everyone in the comic book community that I've heard, agrees that someone ought to do something, but for the most part, people are just standing there fumbling a bit with their wedding tackle, doing nothing. Now that I have the page rank and some knowledge about what to do and how, this is me trying to do something.
After more than five years with WeirdSpace I have at least some ideas about what people want, an how to make a difference. The log files have shown quite clearly what has attracted readers. It wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, I can tell you that. Anyway, I'm working to improve the things that I know works, adjust the things I know doesn't work, and come up with new ideas to make people come here and try something new.
So what's in it for me? I get to make a difference. For me it's important to make a difference, and this is one of the ways of doing it, combining what I enjoy with what I'm good at. One man can't save the World, but (s)he can make a difference. I don't need to be famous, which is one of the reasons why the site and initiative isn't named after me. I'll take the credit and critique for what I do any day, but what I do isn't about me as a person. I like to make a difference, and take pride in trying to be being good at what I do, and this is one of the things I do.
Michael Pilgaard
Copenhagen, March 2009