I’ve been in the webcomic biz for about three months, and one of the most frequent questions that comes up among my peers at Webcomics.com is just how do you build an audience. The folks at HalfPixel have a lot of good advice on that subject but the last time they started from zero readers on a comic was ten years ago, when many of the tools and mechanisms we use today simply didn’t exist. Things such as Topsites, Project Wonderful, Twitter and even Facebook wasn’t invented.
So with this in mind I decided to give Mike Lunsford a call and ask him to be interviewed about his experience. Mike, as creator of Supernormal Step, has built himself a decent readership of 2000 returning visitors per day in little more than a year. A freelance artist by day, Michael is happy to see his comic succeeding and growing online in this relatively short time. Here, he shares with me the work it took to get where he is today.
Read the full interview after the jump.
History of Supernormal Step
Dan: Could you tell me just a little about the genesis of Supernormal Step (SNS) and why you decided that was going to be The One. It isn’t your first webcomic right?
Mike: No, not at all. I’ve had quite a few beforehand. None of them got very far. I usually realized around page 30 to 50 that it wasn’t going anywhere and started over again.
Dan: I’m aware of one before SNS starring Jim.
Mike: Not really. It was basically the same thing as SNS only Jim was more of the focus. Fiona was still the main character but it was more about her following him. The adventures they’d go on because she was following him around. That was Stuffed Jim.
Dan: Are these still online?
Mike: There is a DeviantArt account with all the Stuffed Jim pages on it.
Dan: And there were others before that? Were they all different iterations of SNS‘ story?
Mike: Not really, but I’ve taken elements from each one of them and figured out what works and what doesn’t. The first one I ever did was Baby Lucky. It also had Jim in it. He was the element I took from that one. It was a very different Jim though, he didn’t wear clothes and didn’t turn into a human and was very smart, sort of cynical and was more of the straight man of the comic. He’s changed a lot since then. Fiona was in it too but was a very minor part. That was about a kid with crazy magic powers and was just completely random. I did it out of high school and I’m not proud of it. (Laughter)
Dan: So how long ago was that?
Mike: Oh, had to have been nine years ago.
Dan So you’re the overnight success that’s taken ten years?
Mike: Yeah. What else did I do? I did a comic called Freak. He might show up in SNS sometime I just have to figure out how to get him in there. That was a world where mutants were being persecuted, like X-men but they hadn’t grouped together at all. They were individuals on the run and there were various religious factions coming after them. It was really, really depressing.
Dan: So that was a very serious story.
Mike: Yeah. The first story was so depressing that I couldn’t keep doing it. There was nowhere to go from there. I could get some good parts after that but nothing would ever fix want happened in the first comic. So I had to stop. Then I did Stuffed Jim. Then I did Stuffed Jim again.
Dan: You rebooted Stuffed Jim?
Mike: Yeah I rewrote Stuffed Jim at least four times. I’m pretty sure more than that.
Dan: Wow.
Mike: Then I realized that nobody cared about Fiona, even though she’s the main character. So I had to rewrite it again, but completely change it.
Dan: So has Fiona always this meek badass?
Mike: No. That’s one of the reasons nobody cared about her. Because she was just meek. She wasn’t interesting at all. And so I had to find a way to make her more interesting, give her something.
Dan: So SNS basically is the next evolution of that story?
Mike: Yeah. I basically said I have to stop rewriting and make myself write the final version. And I did that by putting money into it and making the website and advertising it.
Audience Building Tools
Dan: And that’s a great gateway into the topic: building the audience. You’ve gotten a good size audience after about a year. Is there a particular tool you credit for that or was it a mix of everything?
Mike: I’d say Project Wonderful ads helped a lot. Possibly the most. I didn’t have any money when I started out except the money I put into the website, which was really cheap. I had some website design classes in high school and college so I built it myself.
Dan: So you started this by putting money into it so you can’t back out?
Mike: Yeah, if I put money into it I feel like I have to keep going.
Dan: And you do regular ad buys on Project Wonderful?
Mike: Yes. One of the great things about Project Wonderful was I was able to put ads on my site and then use that money to place ads on other sites. So I didn’t have to spend any money to advertise.
Dan: So you don’t have a budget for advertising?
Mike: No, not really.
Dan: Do you have a particular strategy for placing ads on Project Wonderful?
Mike: I try to advertise on comics that have the same type of humor and sense of adventure. Either one; not just humorous adventure comics. I try to advertise on both because that’s what SNS about. Fun.
Dan: Yeah it is fun!
Mike: Thank you.
Dan: You also use Topwebcomics. The gurus of Halfpixel generally frown on these types of sites, but you find them useful?
Mike: It gets me the most, free advertising from any source.
Dan: So you would recommend people to use them?
Mike: Yes. It’s probably not the best way to find good webcomics, but it does give me good advertising.
Dan: So was there a point where you could see SNS taking off? Or has it been a slow build?
Mike: It’s really been a slow build, but it is getting exponentially bigger. It’s a curve. Just at the beginning of the year I was starting to get in the thousands and now we’re in the two thousands already.
Dan: So the tough part is getting that first thousand.
Mike: I guess. It wasn’t really that tough, it happened. I just kept doing the same thing and eventually it got there.
Community Building
Dan: So you must feel you’re building a community around SNS.
Mike: I think I have. I try to keep in contact with my readers. I talk to them when I’m Livestreaming. I use Twitter a lot and make sure to reply to people if they have a question. I think it’s really helping me build an audience, making them stay.
Dan: You use a chatbox too. How has that worked?
Mike: It’s worked pretty well but some readers want to ask a lot of questions that I can’t answer, either because they’re spoilers or because there is no answer.
Dan: Are you a big blogger in addition to the comic?
Mike: Not really and I feel guilty about it. I should blog about the particular pages but I don’t know what to say. So I don’t say much on my website.
Dan: So your main voice is through Twitter?
Mike: Yeah. That and I talk to people through Livestream.
Dan: How many people do you get for your Livestreams now?
Mike: Depending on the night, five to ten.
Dan: Those are the hardcore fans.
Mike: Yup.
Sticking to an Update Schedule
Dan: Now, you’ve been updating pretty consistently since you started right?
Mike: I don’t think I’ve missed an update.
Dan: It was originally twice a week and now it’s three right?
Mike: Right.
Dan: What made you decide to go up to three?
Mike: It was odd. I found a program called Manga Studio. I started working with it and my work speed increased dramatically. It used to take me a long time to get two pages before and now with Manga Studio I can get a page done in a day if it’s not too complicated. And after I realized that, I’m like, “Hey I can update more,” and started doing it.
Dan: So what’s the actual time it takes you to do a page now?
Mike: One to two days if I’m feeling good.
Dan: So you were using Photoshop before? And what features of Manga Studio have sped up your process?
Mike: Yeah I used Photoshop. Manga Studio is a vector-based program that is design to get a traditional look. In Photoshop you have to be really careful to keep everything smooth.
Dan: It’s more like Illustrator?
Mike: Yeah but Manga Studio has features like how much do you want your line to be corrected, it’s also got tool specific for comic drawing like panel tools. My favorite thing is the digital ruler.
Dan: Digital ruler?
Mike: I can place a line on the screen as ruler and snap my line to one side so I can do perspective work with it.
On Professional Training
Dan: Okay cool. Next question, you went to school for art right?
Mike: Comic art specifically. I went to the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. That’s in New Jersey and it is run by really famous, old cartoonists and graphic artists. All the teachers are professional comic artists. It’s a 3 year school, but very intense. 5 days a week, six hours a day. It’s a like a high school schedule.
Dan: Then you go home and draw.
Mike: Yeah they say you draw about ten hours a day. It was really, really tough but I put the work in and it was worth it.
Dan: So you do comic work as a freelancer too?
Mike: Yeah sometimes. I used to do a comic called HorseMen. I did that right out of college, for a few years. It’s now online.
Future for Supernatural Step
Dan: You’ve been working on comics for nine years now. Has anything really surprised you with SNS?
Mike: I’m surprised how popular it’s getting. I didn’t let anything else get big enough to experience that.
Dan: This is the longest you’ve spent on one comic?
Mike: Yeah, twice over I think.
Dan: What’s really different about SNS compared to the others?
Mike: My art’s at the right place for it. And the same time, it’s had the chance to pick up readers.
Dan: Readers are a good thing. Have you been doing conventions at all?
Mike: No I haven’t. People keep saying that would be a good idea, but I haven’t done them. I haven’t had the money to do that sort of stuff yet.
Dan: You are going to do a book for SNS eventually right?
Mike: Yeah a couple people have asked for it and I plan on doing it eventually.
Dan: But not in the immediate future?
Mike: Not right now. I don’t think it would do well right now. Plus I stupidly didn’t save a bunch of the original pages.
Dan: Oh no!
Mike: I saved the black and white inks as a high-res file but I didn’t save the colors as a high-res file. So I’ve been going back and doing the coloring. Once I get that done then I can print it.
Dan: So because it’s color you don’t want to do a POD run. You want do to an offset printing?
Mike: Yeah.
Dan: Do you feel that color is essential for your style? Could it have been done in black and white?
Mike: In my style I don’t think black and white works. I really like color. I really like black and white in other people’s stuff sometimes, but I draw with the intent to color. I could have made it so it worked in black and white but people do like shiny things. You could make the debate that you have more readers if you have color. I’m not going to say it’s better artistically but you might attract more people with it.
Character & Story Design
Dan: You have this world that opens up all these possibilities to have some really interesting character designs. You seem to really like having people that are almost human but not quite. How much planning do you do for SNS.
Mike: Not a lot. I don’t like reading something and seeing character that looks interesting and knowing that he’s going to be a main character. I try to make people who aren’t important look interesting.
Dan: You put a lot of effort into your extras.
Mike: Kinda. There is one page with this guy who owns bunch of buildings. He’s just a businessman, but this is a really weird world so he can’t just be a businessman. So he’s got a weird haircut and a mechanical eye. In this world, I can’t let myself make just a boring person.
Dan: So you don’t have a world bible.
Mike: Nooooo. One of the ways I try to explain it to myself is that there are so many weird creatures and they’re not going to stick to their own species romantically. So that makes so many different combination that I can mess with.
Dan: The genetics of your world are a little screwy?
Mike: Yeah (Laughing) It’s fun.
Experience with Website Hosting
Dan: How has your experience been with the Rampage Network?
Mike: As a whole its been really nice. A lot nicer than when I was on Drunk Duck.
Dan: Did you originally had a Comicpress site?
Mike: No. When I first built the SNS website I wrote all the code myself. It wasn’t a pretty site but it work for what I needed it to do. When I joined Rampage, they helped me redesign the site in a way that worked better.
Dan: You’ve been with Rampage how long now?
Mike: Since July last year.
Dan: Were you recruited or did you apply?
Mike: I was looking for a place to put the comic. Since I had written all the code myself, I had to update and change the code every time I updated the comic.
Dan: Oooo, ouch.
Mike: It was really rough and I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed something that updates for me.
Advice on Art
Dan: Okay, so anything you want to say or advice you want to give?
Mike: I don’t know. I have something in mind, but it may be taken the wrong way though.
Dan: Lay it on me.
Mike: Make sure the art looks good or is pleasing to the eye in some way. It doesn’t have to be detailed or anything. People see the art first. They don’t read the story first. And that helps getting page views if that’s what you’re looking for. If you’re just doing it as a hobby and just want to write your story then do whatever you want. But if you want people to read the comic you have to have something there that attracts them. And the first thing people see is the art. I’m not saying art is more important than story, I’m just saying this is how you get page views.
Dan: The art is what gets their foot in the door. Then they fall in love with the story?
Mike: Yeah if your doing something that people don’t like the look of it’s, well, not bad, but different. It’s going to be harder. It’s not a bad thing but it’s going to be harder for you.
On When to End a Project
Dan: Okay, here’s a doozy. One thing new webcomic creators often ask when they get discouraged is how do you know if a project isn’t working and it’s time to try something different. It sounds like you haven’t been afraid to abandon a project that’s not working. How do you realize that?
Mike: Oh that’s tough. It’s really mean to abandon a comic that people are reading. I always felt bad about it when I did it in the past. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It’s more of a… I try look two steps ahead and see where the story is going, where the comic is going, what’s going to happen next. If I’m struggling too much to figure that out, then something has to change. At the same time with what I’m doing right now, I’m forcing myself to do that. It’s really not good to keep starting projects and abandoning them.
Dan: There has to be a balance?
Mike: Yeah, you have know when something isn’t working but you have to know when to stop doing that and just fix it and keep going with the same thing your doing.
Dan: Did you have a core group of fans from your old comics that you started SNS with.
Mike: No. I had a descent amount of people commenting on Stuffed Jim, not a great amount but a descent amount. Then I stopped doing it and I didn’t say I was going anywhere because I told them I have to rewrite all of this, it’s going to take awhile, I’m stopping. So my fans didn’t carry over. I did meet one person but they’re a comic creator too and they remember Baby Lucky. I said I’m sorry.
Dan: Yes, it seems everyone wants they’re first webcomics to be dead and buried.
Dan: So it’s been an interesting journey for you then. You’ve been doing comics for so long and it looks like SNS is finally going to be It if your growth continues.
Mike: Yeah, it’s looking pretty good, better than I thought. I originally wanted to make it a print comic but I realized I didn’t have the money to make it a print comic. I was really worried about putting it on the web and it not working. I’m happy.
Dan: Very Cool. I wish you great success with it.
Mike: Thank you.
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Did you enjoy the interview? We’re thinking about doing more. Please share your questions and comments. And don’t forget to go show Mike some love over at Supernormal Step. All images are (c) Mike Lunsford and used with permission. Edited to correct a quote.
