Conventional Wisdom: Weekly Anime Comics UPDATE!

See? SEE? I TOLD you the Weekly Anime Comics were coming back! And they are! …eventually. In, like a month or so. I really need to focus on finishing the new website stuff over the course of this month, not to mention finally getting some of those Far Out There MadLib comics posted, or working out the finer details of just what the new Patreon tiers will actually look like. Oh? What’s that? Well, let’s talk:

First off, Far Out There’s reward tiers aren’t going to change, so don’t worry about that. All the usual stuff about the Jenna comic and the MadLib stuff still applies. This is all about Conventional Wisdom starting Weekly Anime Comics anew, and establishing some new rules for how the picking works, and who gets to do what.

In case you missed it all those other times I said it, doing those weekly Digimon comics made me realize that the old “everybody picks shows for me” model just wasn’t workable. I know I can do comics on a regular basis if they’re about shows I know I can get excited about. So the new plan is to put out a list of shows for people to choose from, and do a series of comics based on the winner. It’s not QUITE as democratic as the old set-up, but there’s much better odds of it being sustainable, and at least people get SOME kind of input this way.

Oh, and yes. That picture up there DOES spoil the choices for the coming vote. Patrons will be able to choose between Card Captor Sakura, the first season of Sailor Moon, the first season of Slayers, and Gundam Wing. I miiiiiiight throw a fifth candidate in there as well, but I think that’s enough options to work with at the start. I think this is a good combination of shows I’ve seen before and know I can get good material out of (hello CCS and Slayers!) and shows I’ve never actually sat down and watched all the way through but have always meant to. Yes, shameful as it is to admit, I’ve somehow never actually watched a whole season of Sailor Moon from beginning to end. Hey, now’s your chance to make that happen! And before you ask, I haven’t decided which if any of the losers will be back on the next vote. It all depends on how I’m feeling at the time. Don’t those options make you wanna pay me a few bucks?

Well, if so, we need to figure out how these new tiers are gonna work, and like I said before, I don’t quite have it all worked out yet. The basic “$1 lets you read comics” and “$2 lets you read comics and blogs” baseline will be the same, and having $5 be the standard voting level seems fine too. However, I’m thinking I’ll lower voting level to $2 for special occasions just to get more people involved (like, say the first round of voting).

Also, there’s the question of what to do with the higher levels. With the old queue system, I could give the $10 a month patrons a shortcut to the front of the list, but that doesn’t really work with voting. I guess I COULD try to work out a way of giving upper tier patrons a second vote, but that sounds like it’d be a real pain to work out. Another possibility is to come up with a whole second layer of voting separate from the main one. Like, between shows, or even if I need a break in the middle, I’d let the $10 and up crowd pick from a set of movies or OVAs and do one or two comics from that. Just as a little pallet cleanser or something. Like I said, I haven’t decided yet, so let me know if you’ve got any other thoughts.

And speaking of which, there’s the question of what to do with $20 and up level. Back when I first set up the tiers, I couldn’t imagine that anyone would ever spend $20 a month on some crappy webcomics and just left that level as kind of a joke. Sadly, well awesomely AND sadly, some people actually HAVE donated at that level, but it was always at times where I couldn’t work out something special for them. And now… now I STILL can’t think of something special. The closest I can come up with is letting anyone at that level really pick a show of their own once a year, with the understanding that I’d only be doing a pre-set number of comics based on it (like, five or less). Of course, then we have the “burned out over shows I’m not into” problem all over again. The next possibility is to give the $20 slot a Once A Year option to override the regular voting and picking the next show on the list. Of course, then the question is whether or not that can be done without leaving everyone else feeling screwed over. I mean, I dunno how long each of these runs of comics will take, so there might end up not being that many votes per year in the first place. If some money mark can swoop in and take over one of the few votes, then what’s even the point of being one of the lower patrons? And that’s not even getting into the fact that this is all Conventional Wisdom related. What if somebody starts donating $20 a month because they love Far Out There? Like I said, I don’t have this one figured out yet, and I’m gonna wait until I do before I officially change the tiers up. So if you’ve got any amazing ideas for what I could do with the $20 tier, especially if it’s something that would make YOU willing to pay for it, don’t hesitate to let me know!

And really, if you’ve got ANY feedback, now’s the time to let me hear it. I’ve let this whole Patreon thing run on autopilot for way too long, and I really want this to the the year when people start to get their money’s worth out of it. Is there something incredibly obvious that only an idiot like me could be missing? Point it out! Do you have a groundbreaking new idea that nobody else has thought of before? Lemme know! Heck, if you’re fine with everything and have nothing to add, just tell me that! I’ll take any feedback I can get here! I just wanna start off 2021 with something that people will actually like!