Narbonic Joins the WebComicsNation
by Shaenon
San Francisco, CA.—On July 31, 2000, the first installment of Shaenon K. Garrity’s online comic strip Narbonic was launched upon an unsuspecting populace. The daily comic strip featuring the misadventures of computer-science major Dave Davenport, unabashedly evil intern Mell Kelly and their boss, internationally renowned mad scientist Helen Narbon, quickly gained in popularity and increased its readership to nearly 20,000 readers by the end of 2001.
In 2002, Garrity was one of the first cartoonists to join entrepreneur Joey Manley’s subscription-based online comics anthology Modern Tales (www.moderntales.com). “My initial editorial strategy was to pick the best of the best from all the genres of comics that were popular, or showed promise, at the time,†says Manley. “Shaenon is our breakout star, I’d say, and she always has been.†As she gears up for the strip’s planned conclusion at the end of 2006, Garrity has one final change in store for Narbonic.
On July 1, 2006, Narbonic is leaving the Modern Tales roster, but Garrity will continue her association with the group affectionately known as “The Joey Manley Empire.†The entire six-year archive of Narbonic, currently accessible only to paid subscribers of the Modern Tales website, will be made available free of charge for the first time since 2002. It becomes a part of Manley’s most recent online endeavor, WebComics Nation, for the final six months of the strip. Readers will have unrestricted access to more than 1,800 daily comics at Garrity’s new website, which can be found at this URL: www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic
“Over the past four years, Modern Tales has been a great home for Narbonic,†says Garrity. “But with the strip nearing the end of its run, I’ve decided to move it to its own site where the archives will be freely available to all readers.â€
Narbonic joins two other features scripted by Garrity, Trunktown (www.webcomicsnation.com/tomhart/trunktownarchive), a collaboration with indie-comics superstar Tom Hart, and Smithson (www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/smithson), a collegiate slice-of-life/superhero adventure illustrated by Robert Stevenson, Brian Moore and Roger Langridge, on the WebComics Nation site. Garrity’s other webcomic, Li’l Mell, will remain on another of Manley’s subscription-based sites, Girlamatic (www.girlamatic.com).
July will also mark the release of third print collection of Narbonic, published by BlueShift Studios and available exclusively through Garrity’s website, www.narbonic.com. NarboniCon, the fourth annual mini-convention devoted to the comic, will be held in St. Paul, Minnesota from August 4-6, 2006. For reservations and ticketing information, please contact Andrew Farago at andrewfarago@hotmail.com
Among her many accolades, Ms. Garrity was a 2001 nominee for comic advocacy group Friends of Lulu’s Kimberly Yale Award for Best New Talent, and is the 2005 winner of their prestigious Lulu of the Year Award. Garrity was also recognized with the WebCartoonists’ Choice Award (WCCA) for Best Writing in 2005.
For news, updates and Shaenon K. Garrity’s daily online comic strip, please visit www.narbonic.com.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:21 am
Wow. Modern Tales won’t be the same to me without Narbonic.
June 13th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Well, it’s ending at the end of the year anyway, so this is just coming 6 months early.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
So Narbonic was MT’s most successful strip and now it’s gone. Where does this leave MT?? Is the subscription model even viable any more? What kind of value is the upcoming MT Free going to add to strips? Who’s going to be part of it and when is it going to happen??
June 13th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
I wouldn’t call it “gone” so much as “moved over to another part of the house.”
But, yeah, the subscriptions business. Those are good questions, Chuck (Chuck?). They don’t have specific answers at the moment.
MT still has a lot of subscribers. Some of them will stay with us (as I roll out new subscription features) and some won’t. That’s fine.
I’ll be rebuilding both sides of MT (free and pay) significantly after the relaunch (which will happen when I’m finished with the codebase), and generally restructuring that business so that it’s easier and more efficient to run.
Some won’t believe me, but it wasn’t the viability (or lack thereof) of subscriptions itself (as much as that’s the most controversial aspect of the site) that has been the struggle MT has been going through over the past year and a half, two years,, but the insanely complex way that revenue shares were tracked and allocated, for so many artists (up to 200 artists at the height of Longplay, all of whom were making a percentage of a percentage that had to be recalculated constantly), that has forced this restructuring. The business was just too complicated for one person to run, the way it was set up.
As for what the new, leaner, meaner, more efficient MT will offer cartoonists — over and above, say, what they could get at WCN — that’s something that can only be answered by the cartoonists themselves. Some will see value in being part of MT, some will not. Others will prefer to go to WCN (all MT alumni get free WCN accounts). Yet others will (shudder) leave the Joey Manley empire altogether. I’ll certainly try my best to make the new MT worthwhile, and continue to make WCN even more worthwhile than it already is — and, really, I do still have a few tricks up my sleeve on both fronts!
Yes, Narbonic moving over to WCN does signify the end of an era — but not the end of the world! For every thing, there is a season, turn, turn, turn — that sort of vibe. Nothing predicts failure on the web more perfectly than an inability to shift and change and innovate as business models and business trends rise and fall. And sometimes change can be uncomfortable and bumpy. But it will be worth it!
Joey
http://www.webcomicsnation.com
June 13th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
When I say MT won’t be the same to me, that doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. As Joey says, Narbonic’s departure marks the end of an era, but I’m still excited about MT’s future!
June 13th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Since I sent out that press release, the NarboniCon website has gone live. If you’re interested in seeing what all the fuss is about, go to http://vhost1.itasca.net/~rusty/narbonicon4/ for all the details.
As far as Shaenon’s decision to leave Modern Tales at this point, like Joey said, she’s still in the building, but she’s moving to another part of the house.
When Shaenon joined Modern Tales in the first place, Narbonic was actually costing her more than $100 a month in bandwith fees. The strip was popular enough that her ISP wanted more money from her for their hosting services, but not yet popular enough that she could make much income off of a strip that had no books or merchandise available. In those dark days before WebComics Nation, unexpected popularity could kill a strip pretty easily.
With Modern Tales, Shaenon actually makes good money off of the strip itself–not books, not toys, not t-shirts, but the actual strip, which is pretty rare, especially with thousands of other webcomics out there, too. Leaving Modern Taless now is just as much of a risk for her as joining it was in the first place, and she’d been debating the move for more than six months before finally taking the plunge.
Shaenon wants to get as many readers as possible for the last storyline, and with a new book on sale and multiple WCCA nominations for the past year’s work, it seemed like a good time to bring some attention to the strip and pull in as many new readers as possible for the final storyline. And if she can draw attention to WebComics Nation and get a few more people to sign up for Joey’s new service, that’s great, too.
–Andrew Farago, Narbonic PR guy
June 14th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
My main concern about ModernTales of late has been it’s lack of direction and focus. I think a lot of this is down to Joey’s hands-off editorial policy, and I have had high hopes for Eric Burns’ tenure. It seems to me that the sister sites (Girlamatic, Serializer Graphic Smash) really do succeed in adding value to strips by giving readers a clear reason to go to that particular site to read the comics. They stand not only for quality (as MT does) but also for a distinct editorial direction. Lately there have been many departures from ModernTales, and the site seems to have become rather stagnant, I’m really not expecting to find anything new or startling there these days. I realize that much of this is due the anticipated roll out of the new MT, and I know that Joey’s is right to want to get it right. I’m sure when it does launch it will provide some renewed buzz.
I think that ModernTales should retain it’s diversity and role as the ‘flagship’ of the manly Manley empire, but it needs more freshness and vitality. I think there needs to be more strips updating everyday, and less archived stuff. The whole ‘lifetime tenure’ concept should be more or less abandoned – older works can be archived on WCN sites which are given free to the creators. There could be a MT ‘alumni’ page that links to them all. I know I would be happy enough with this arrangement. Likewise strips that are not pulling in the readers/gernerating buzz/exciting the editor should also be retired – a free WCN site and permanent link from MT ought to be an acceptable ‘golden handshake’. I’m not talking ruthless dismissal here, perhaps strips could be contracted for a certain term or story-arc or whatever, but the biggest problem with newspaper & newsstand comics these days is the lack of change and innovation. MT could be presented as a kind of showcase for the best WebcomicsNation strips, an attention getting site that outsite would world can look at and say “Hey I get it, this stuff is great”. I think it’s hard for an ousider coming to WCN at the moment to really understand what it’s all about, or to choose what to read first. That is all fine and dandy for WCN itself, but there is no doubt that there is now a vest pool of great talent on WCN to choose from and ModerTales should serve as its face to the world.
There also ought to be some strong diversificwebcimicificatiosm going on too. ModernTales branded shirts etc available, with cool/witty slogans and great art – you know things taht people might actually want to buy. There ought to be some sort of open submissions process for this and share in revenue for anyone coming up with great ideas. Not so much a profit center (WCN is the cash cow) as a branding excercise.
Anyway, that’s my free business advice for the week, and you can stick your credentials where the sun don’t shine!
June 14th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
chuck–
These are all good ideas, and I generally wish to move in the directions you’ve laid out.
Joey
http://www.webcomicsnation.com
June 11th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
[...] On July 1, 2006, Narbonic moves to WebComicsNation and the archives become free. [...]