I just got a comment on my site which went something like this:
There used to be a link on this page to your other cartoon, are you not doing it any more?
I answered in the "ya sure" mode, saying there were big buttons at the top of each entry that zip you from ChuckleADuck to Nickyitis or from Nickyitis to ChuckleADuck (not to mention to Crowtoon Studios). I then got this followup:
Ah, I understand now. I'm running AdBlock on Chrome and the links get blocked.
Boy, did that give me pause. You see, I understand the concept of an ad blocker. Cut out the surrounding stuff and just see the meat But what I think many people forget (or just don't know) is how a web cartoonist makes money. They can hope for donations from fans (doesn't happen). They can hope fans will buy books, or clothing, or artwork (happens rarely). Or they can at least hope for some small dribble of revenue from ads. For many cartoonists (I won't say most because I don't have the hard data but it's most certainly the case for me), ads are their primary source of site revenue. Primary as in "none greater."
So what does that mean when someone has an ad blocker on while visiting a webcomic site? It means that person is ensuring the cartoonist will receive zero, not just a tiny dribble, but ZERO revenue.
Now, of course, there is absolutely nothing stopping viewers from watching anything they want to on the web. It's free (for now) and open access (for now). However, does that make it "a good thing?" Can driving a webcartoonist's revenue to zero possibly be desirable? I'm biased, of course, and I certainly feel the answer is "NO." Having ads blocked and withholding support in the way of merchandise purchases sends a pretty strong message, whether it's meant to or not. And that message is "Your stuff is worth absolutely zero to me. I'm willing to do support it to the tune of zippo and that's it."
Ugh. Not a pretty thought. Especially when, by definition, web viewers are people who LIKE the material. Because, unlike the funny pages in a newspaper, they aren't buying everything for one price, whether they like it all or not. On the web you visit the toons you truly enjoy; the ones that speak to you. The ones that, to you, have real worth.
And isn't that, well, worth something?
I just clicked on all your ads. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the kind words Carlos. I wasn’t aiming to motivate clicks, rather just a bit of information about webcomic realities. If an ad seems interesting, then sure, go ahead and investigate.
) and not slamming the doors on ads is one way to do it!
Interestingly, many of the ads are really for useful stuff. There’s one showing up now which shows a guy and says “Language professors hate him” (or words to that effect). I read the bottom and it’s for Pimsleur language lessons. I’ve actually used a lot of these. Three levels of German, two or three of French, and am about to do Italian. In spite of the cheesy ad, the products work superbly. Best language course I know. Of course, I haven’t tried Rosetta but that one requires you to be at a computer whereas the Pimsleur approach is purely listening and responding, so I can use them in the car or at the gym. Very convenient.
The point is, supporting your “local” cartoonist is always a great idea (
I just clicked on one of your ads.
I was already aware of the importance of ads, having some idea of their necessity for start-up blogs, so I agree that an ad-blocker, while convenient, seems kind of mean and thoughtless.
You should consider putting some sort of ad in your rss feed, considering how many of us read the comic through feed readers and would otherwise never ever SEE the ads on your site.
For some reason I’ve not been successful in implementing that. I’ve tried.
I just set AdBlock not to operate on your site, which doesn’t change much since I usually view through RSS, but I hope it helps.
The problem remains that Ad blockers cut out a lot of annoying junk. Even if your ads aren’t particularly annoying or junky, other sites can be awful, so I am not likely to stop using it entirely.
You could consider posting a small notice on your sidebar, “Chuckle-a-Duck is how I make my income: Please consider disabling your Ad Blocker on my this site.” I think a lot of people would respond positively.
Good suggestion, although now I’m wondering if that would be blocked as well!
Not if it’s just a text box, or even a simple image that you host yourself. For that matter, post your request in comic form, then you know everyone will see it.
BTW, I am now in the process of unblocking all my web-comics, which is quite a few. You should talk to fellow artists about a “Please Don’t Block Us” campaign. It’s a good cause, it’s simple to do, and it doesn’t cost anything. If there is a consistent effort to get the word out, everyone will benefit. You could even publish a Whitelist, which can be easily added to AdBlock.
Readers Alert: You don’t have to wait for the campaign. Go to your social networks, and ask your friends not to block web comics – like I just did.
I’ve often run across this problem – i whitelist a bunch of webcomics and indie sites that I want to support, but adblock is a necessity because I go on a bunch of sketchy sites to find… things only the internet can offer… and every time i reinstall, your comic is again, sadly, blocked.
I’ve always wondered – it would be a simple solution for someone to make a webcomic whitelist for adblock. perhaps there would be rules for advertising that isn’t abusive – no pop-unders, etc, and comic writers could email the list manager to get exemptions, if, say, they had 20-30 comics under their belt… or perhaps more?
then in one click, voila! all my webcomics are making money again, rather than forgetting once a year, and you losing money for a year…
wordpress has requested my email. if you are interested in this idea, know who I could contact to make this happen, but don’t want to do it yourself… email me? i would love to do this myself, but i’m not quite the most motivated individual… but i’d be glad to go somewhere with it.
Were it not for the fact that so many adverts these days are disgustingly and/or insultingly foolish, I’d not mind so much.
Throw that in with the resource-hogging of animated banner ads, pop-up or pop-under ads, and the other sneaky/irritating ways admen try to get our attention (sure – you get my attention. By then, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to WANT it anymore…) and I can see how adblockers have gained prevalence.
A static banner that I can look at or not is fine. Animations/videos are irritating. I don’t like having to mute my computer so I don’t to HEAR ads (which I don’t want to do,) because that usually means I can’t play things I DO want to hear.
Most irritating? These asinine adverts apparently DO work on some people, which is why the foolishment continues. It’s kinda like SPAM – if people would stop answering the messages (“If something seems too good to be true, it probably is…”) then it would dry up. If people would stop being influenced by the overt stupidity of Madison Avenue, they’d probably stop being so damned silly.
I understand that ad revenue is part of what keeps things “free” for us, but since when have admen decided that it’s necessary to insult the intellect of the public?
I have whitelisted the few webcomics I do follow (three from Crow, Phil Foglio, The Whiteboard, Chicken Wings, Air Force Blues, UserFriendly, Legend of Bil, Delta Bravo Sierra,) and I bear no animus against the artists. But, if advert writers don’t stop being so insulting, I may have to start insulting them in return.
This is why I flatly refuse to allow any advertising “service” to sign on to anything, as long as I have some control. If I did, one strict condition would be that I have approval of ALL adverts in rotation on my site BEFORE they go up – if they’re stupid, I kick them back for a rewrite.
The only ad campaign I’ve seen that’s worth a damn is for Dos Equis – it’s attention-getting, amusing, interesting, and doesn’t stoop to stupidity. Why can’t more ad campaigns do that? (Even though I won’t buy the beer – I can’t stand beer, I’ll stick to rum – I do enjoy the commercials.)
Thanks for doing the work of typing this up, it reflects my thoughts well. For me I respect the author’s complaint. I will no longer follow the comic since I am unwilling to pay with my irritation.
Speaking for nobody but myself (just another reader): Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.
I am also unwilling to “pay with my irritation,” which is why AdBlocker was written. And, to help support Crow, I’ve whitelisted his pages – and shall continue to do so until the adverts get overly irritating (overuse of animation, pop-up crap, audio that I have to start instead of stop, &c.)
I understand that advertising is what pays for the “free” broadcasting and media we have, but there is a limit to my tolerance of the stuff.
Cooky files? Third party cookys are blocked as a rule, and the first time ANY site wants to put up a cooky, my system asks me to set a rule. The rule is not always to allow – if it looks suspicious, it probably is, and I’ll set the rule to block instead.
Well, there shouldn’t ever be popups, audio, etc. If you’re getting that please let me know, as it means the filters I’ve assigned aren’t catching it and I’ll have to contact the ad suppliers.
You’d said, and it is appreciated! If you hadn’t filtered your adverts, I’d have rescinded whitelisting your site a while ago.
Interestingly, I just wrote about this very subject on my own blog – simply because I do understand that ad revenue is useful, but I also tend to object to the commercialisation of bloody EVERYTHING these days (it’s destroyed my Christmas spirit, for instance.)
And it seems that the ad engines don’t even do basic preparatory research – I’m currently seeing an advert for auto insurance in Spanish just below this window as I type this (I’m not irritated by the advert, but the presumption that I still speak/read/write other languages is irritating to me. I guess I’m just cranky.)
I do enjoy your comics – I don’t follow very many – and I’m perfectly willing to help keep you going! (The Foglios have a donation button on their site, and I try to chip in a few bucks once a month – but I’ve been following Phil Folgio since he was doing “What’s New?” in Dragon magazine in the 1980′s…) I’m an author myself (among other things,) and I understand what it can be like…
Ya, I just added a donation button yesterday (the YOU CAN SUPPORT CAD! pink button) when another reader commented on the lack.
Nice to be mentioned alongside Phil and Kaja! I just spent the last day going over the whole Girl Genius corpus, as a matter of fact. It took a goodly while, indeed.
Saw that – I just need to come up with some readies.
Yah, “What’s New?” got me interested in Phil Foglio’s work, “Xxxenophile” clinched it (I’ve always enjoyed the way Foglio renders women…) “Girl Genius” is a fun story, full of twists and turns – and it should be borne in mind that he’s also put the effort he did to serialise MythAdventures (Robert Aspirin) online, as well as the body of “What’s New?” and also his “Buck Godot” series – so he’s got plenty of fun stuff up for your perusal!
Zr Wolf is correct – making a nominal (“But not THAT nominal, sir…”) donation to help support our favourite comic artists is little different from buying a newspaper on a regular basis – or buying a comic book once a month (I’ve collected a few,) so it’s easy to justify. Whether there’s an “extra” or two offered (Air Force Blues has a “member’s section” with special comics, the Foglios have original wallpaper offerings for your desktop that changes roughly monthly, when they’re not horribly occupied with other things. Kids, y’know…) or it’s just to support the artists (like when I donate to Doc Nickel,) a few bucks a month kicked their way can help. And, if you get enough people doing it, it can add up (as they say in Washington, “A million here and a million there, and soon you’re talking about some REAL money.” Or is it “billion” these days?)
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work on my own books!
JDK
Yup, I’m aware of MythAdvent and BG as well. It’s interesting to see the evolution of Phil’s art.
And as one author to another – keep on writing!
I don’t block ads, unless they want to plant a “tattlecookie.” Then I zap them mercilessly and permanently. Advertisers take note!
I even altered the way I view this (and a few other sites) because an advertiser (same one for each site) set up a method that tried to take over my screen. Still see the ads but then I ONLY saw the ads until I fixed it.
Good for you! Ads like that are six kinds of terrible. I’ve got my own filters in place at the ad company but some of these advertisers are sneaky and try to get around them. There shouldn’t be ANY “take over” ads ever coming up. Nor annoying audio ads that start up on their own. If you do get something like that in the future please let me know, with as much info as possible, and I’ll send the info to the ad suppliers with a strong request to hunt down and terminate the offending party.
I really, truly wish I could find a way to generate, in an ad-free way, the revenue that now only comes via advertising. When the site is ad-free it loads super fast. I’ve experimented in the past with a pay site ($10 a year) with no ads and with very large and detailed images (much nicer than the smaller strip format) but the interest in it was nil. Another poster pointed me toward a micro-payment system that I’ve been looking into. But for the near future I don’t see a viable alternative to the ads.
Just thought I would come out of *lurk mode* to say that I have been following both of your comics for a while now & find them quite awesome! They are witty, entertaining & require an IQ higher than 2 to understand, which I love. Not that my IQ is all that stunning or anything, but it is higher than 2 & it’s nice to see comics that don’t presume I’m a brain damaged jellyfish who is only entertained by constant pop-culture references, excessive use of low-brow humor, or comics only designed to “target” a demographic…you know, like so many *mainstream* comics seem to do!
However as a chronic “ad blocker” (for the very reasons JKelly already explained) I once again find myself in a pickle, as while I loath & despise flashing/singing/dancing banner ads & the like, I also don’t want to screw anybody out of earning a living/supplemental income.
Now for what is likely a really stupid question (remember, I never said my IQ was much higher than 2!) : Do ads give you folks a little income every time they “play” or only when someone actually clicks on them?
I ask because in all honestly one of the main reasons that I personally block ads (aside from the fact that so many of them are horrifically invasive) is that I never saw one yet that I have ever wanted to click on. If I’m in the mood to buy a portable eyelash polisher then I will either go buy one at the local store or do a Google search & zip on over to a supplier, but I have yet to be in a situation where I was cruising the ‘net looking at puppy pictures & an animated dancing eyelash in a top hat suddenly appeared in the middle of my screen to tell me about the horrors of living with unpolished eyelashes which made me say “Holy cow! I gotta get me some of that!”
In other (less wordy) words, if it’s just a matter of letting a (noninvasive) ad play then I am more than happy to figure out how to let them do so on a site-by-site basis…but if it’s a matter of me needing to click on them, then it’s likely futile for me to unblock them.
As an aside, I actually do “support” two other comics I follow online (Candorville & Basic Instructions, the only two I follow to currently offer this option) via a miniscule monthly PayPal donation thingy & have no problem with such a voluntary arrangement when it’s offered, but that’s just me. I figure it’s not much different than paying for a newspaper back when they existed, so what the heck!
As an aside-aside, even though I am using an ad-blocker I have never had a problem on either of your sites with their links to each other not showing up, like your Chrome user mentioned was happening. (Maybe FireFox is less “blocky” by nature than Chrome?)
Anyway I’ve blathered enough, so I’ll sign off for now…and continue wrestling with my moral dilemma of “to block, or not to block”….
Thanks so much! I love what you say in your first paragraph because it’s exactly how I approach my two sites. If it’s funny to me I figure it’ll be funny to others as well.
After I read more of your post I realized that I never did put a “support the site” function up. So now there is one, located at http://chuckleaduck.com/heres-to-chuckleaduck/
It’s not a monthly micro pay avenue and but it’s something!
I’ll try to keep it short:
Your ads require JS –> Will not see the ads. Ever.
I have no ad blocker installed, and I will not install an ad blocker. I will happily look at ads and sometimes even click on them. But I will NOT disable the most basic security mitigations just because stupid people working for ads distributors are to lazy to learn how to display ads without the use of javascript. Not going to happen, sry.
No JS in Ads and no Plugins in Ads.
Otherwise no Ads in my Browser.
It is not up to me, it is up to those who want to get their ads displayed.
I admit to using Adblock. Just started using it a couple months ago. I was reluctant to for a long time, because I realize that’s how a lot of site make their living. But a small number of really disgusting careless advertisers have caused so much havoc I had little choice. There are those pop-up animated ads that nearly crash my browser, those very annoying ads on paypal and ebay for bill-me-later, and so on. Adblock was the only thing that would get rid of them. I think if every advertiser behaved themselves there would be very few people using ad blockers, and I sure wouldn’t be. But the sad fact is, the misbehaving advertisers have ruined it for the rest of us. However I’ve never had problems on your site, yet. So I’m white-listing it now. I don’t mind seeing the ads you publish, as you’ve been careful to be respectful to your users unlike some other sites. And I want to support your good work. Anyways, I hope you can see our point of view – it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we’ve been left with little choice by those few awfully obnoxious jerks.
Spammers (and I include those bad ads in the spam category) are one of modern life’s miseries, that’s for sure.
SPAM would be less irritating if we were allowed to track down SPAM generators and haul them out into the street for a proper beating.
Seriously. Weren’t “infomercials” bad enough?
Thanks for the Adblock reminder. I work at turning off AdBlock for all the cartoon sites I go to, but there’s a 3 strikes rule I have. An NSFW ad every so often can be tolerated, but some cartoon networks start running stuff that’s ok if you’re into hard core Hentai, but don’t really fit with the cartoon you’re viewing. Tittilating maybe, explicit, no… If it weren’t for those intrusions I would run with AdBlock off most of the time.