Webcomics and Charity

[Coyote Trax]

Lately, what with the Haiti earthquake and all, I've been looking into the topic of webcomics and charity. From a business standpoint, this can bring about excellent publicity for you and, simultaneously, you're helping a good cause. A current example of this would be Snowflakes teaming up with the American Heart Association.

If you've been following James Ashby's, Chris Jones' and Zach Weiner's 'Snowflakes' recently, you'd have noticed the CPR storyline. This is part of a collaboration with the American Heart Association's 'Be the Beat' campaign to raise cardiac awareness in older children and teens. Not only does this storyline incorporate vital knowledge of CPR basics, it's designed as a whimsical learning guide.

I want to know your thoughts on this and the general topic of webcomics and charity. And far be it from me to plug my own blog, you can read more about other charitable works in webcomics as this week's Friday Feature on Webcomics Critique. You know... If you're interested. It's not strictly relevant, but it adds local colour.

[JGray]

There was also the LGBT Webcomic Charity art auction last year, which auctioned off original art by Megan Rose Gedris, Paige Braddock, Tab Kimpton, and several others. That raised a little over 400 dollars. The proceeds went to benefit the Point Foundation (a scholarship organization). There was the Webcomic Hurricane Relief Telethon shortly after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. They raised around 28,000 dollars. There was also A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. That wasn't a charity thing but it was an amazing example of how comics (and webcomics) can be used to shine a light on something and, hopefully, encourage people to care about it.

[amanda]

And recently, some pretty big names joined up for The Comic Creators' Alliance to raise money to end human trafficking.

There's a lot of good work going on out there - this would be a cool topic to see covered.

[Rob]

Yep. Someone just has to volunteer to do it.  ;)

[amanda]

Hmm.  Reserve it for me, please!  I'll take until Monday to think of a good slant, and if I haven't, I'll put it back up for grabs. ^.^

[amanda]

Ah ha never mind! Looks like Coyote beat me to it =D

[Rob]

Hmmm. Coyote I'm not sure where you were going with this. I thought this was a suggested topic for an article here on this site and then you go and write one up for your blog.... and I'm guess I'm just a little confused.

Uh... yeah... I just don't understand the "suggestion" to write an article if you were already going to. Were you suggesting we write a different version of your article.... give our opinion on the same subject?

I think the mistake you might have made is that there are "people" here who can offer an opinion for the site. As if I could write an article on the subject and offer.... not my opinion perhaps but "the" opinion" of Webcomics Community.

But that's not what happens here. In fact I've specifically tried to stay away from writing articles from the site because I don't want this to be "Rob Tracy's Webcomics Community" the way Webcomics.com belongs to Brad Guigar. He can express his opinion and it becomes the opinion of the site. For me, I want everyone to participate and the less I shine a light on myself the happier I'll be. I have to do too much as it is (I feel) and I worry about people thinking that I'm "that guy" ... the guy running the show and making all the moves.

Because that's just not me. So when you say "I want to know your thoughts on the general topic of webcomics and charity" I have to say I can't tell you what Webcomics Community thinks of webcomics and charity because no such entity exists. I can tell you what I, Rob think about it. But it would be an awful short article.

It would go along the lines of "I think that if you have the extra money or time it's always good to help out the less fortunate whether it's a disaster or an everyday thing. You just have to remember that the "world in need" is a pretty big empty bucket and the most any one of us can probably do amounts to less than a drop. So remember not to try and fill it all by yourself because that's a path that leads to destruction. All you can do is what you can: sometimes you can't even do that much. You have to know when and how much of yourself you can give."

I will tell you this though. Since you seem to have already sort of written the article you suggested over at your site, if you would like, as a member of this community to have us republish what you already wrote over here on our front page I'd be happy to do that.

And Amanda if you come up with your own take on the subject I'll happily publish that too.

I take all comers here and as long as you have something to say that hasn't been said before and it's decently written (and I can help with that) and isn't insulting or will tarnish the site you will see it on our front page.  ;)

[Coyote Trax]

Yeah, Rob, I clearly put this in the wrong section. Please ignore that. :P My bad and eternal apologies, chief.

Originally, this was going to be an article for here, but then I wrote it for webcomics critique and... well, it was 1am. Thanks for the offer of publishing it, but I'll leave it just on Webcomics Critique. Next time, however, I'll get it right with an original article full of actual things! :D *promises*

And for the record, I didn't write this to plug my blog. I want to know what people think about marketing webcomics, and how they'd go about promoting it without coming off as self-serving tit-wads.

There was also the LGBT Webcomic Charity art auction last year, which auctioned off original art by Megan Rose Gedris, Paige Braddock, Tab Kimpton, and several others.

I saw that JGray (after I wrote the dang thing, of course) but I'm consistently astounded about the excellence and generosity of the webcomics community.   ;)

[Rob]

No problem Coyote. I get confused easily. Just trying to figure out what was going on.  ;D ???

[LegendWoodsman]

I want to know what people think about marketing webcomics [with charities], and how they'd go about promoting it without coming off as self-serving tit-wads.

I like to think that: if your comic raises awareness of the charity, good. If the charity raises awareness of your comic, tit-wad.

[raerae]

Raising money for charity for any reason is still benefiting the charity. Even if it's for promotion or to write it off.

(Although not coming off as a self-serving tit-wad would certainly help get more people to donate).

I've done charity commissions once, to help out a friend and his animals...I don't like asking for money in exchange for nothing, even when it's not money for me. I imagine if I did a charity run for one of my webcomics I'd put up incentives, probably better incentives than what I offer for money donated just to me.