[...] Doran is an ideal choice for the art, since she understands manga and can draw either that style or more American-comic-influenced teens. This, by the way, is the book she mentioned when I interviewed her last year. [...]

[...] Creators | Johanna Draper Carlson talks to Colleen Doran about the business of freelancing and self-publishing. [Comics Worth Reading] [...]

I would be curious to know if there was any negative blowback from her “101 things your publisher doesn’t want you to know” or “very bad publishers”. It seems like a lot of these artists and writers play it close to the vest much of the time. Even Waid has been very cagey about his “upcoming plans” for the industry (I wonder what Colleen has to say about that whole Harvey Awards thing). I read ADS when it first came out and now I’m reading it to my youngest daughter (my oldest hates comic books, sigh)

Anyways, thanks for this interview. Very entertaining.

“Almost every webcomics cartoonist strongly advised me to avoid interacting with the audience and to avoid blogging. Regardless, since I began the webcomic and new blog last year, my traffic has gone up tenfold.”

Every successful webcartoonist — which is to say financially self-sufficient from their comics — whom I’ve spoken with (and, in fact, every website marketing article I’ve ever seen) espouses the importance of turning your webcomic’s site into a community BY interacting with the audience and blogging.

The advice she was given just seems so counterintuitive, and Mr. Doran’s conclusion to be so obvious.