So I’ve been thinking a lot about web comics and web design and how the to are married together in a way that is normally only reserved for Alabama cousins. Really a web comic is as much about the site as it is about the comic and web comics creators need to embrace this fact like your fat aunt embraces you at Thanksgiving. OK, that’s two creepy family references, thereby meeting my opening paragraph quota.

Assuming that no one is going to argue with me that how your site looks is actually important (although if you don’t feel that way, please let me know if the comments) let’s chat about a simple thing that not enough comic are doing to make their comic’s site and over all web presence that much better.

Everyone fire up your browser of choice and head over to PVP. Look in the top of your tab there, what do you see? Why it’s everyone favorite blue troll, Skull looking out to say hello. Now schlep on over to Sinfest. Look who’s there to greet you when you do, it’s Slick. I could send you to a bunch of other sites, all of which take advantage of favicons.

For those who don’t know, favicons are a little 16 by 16 pixel picture that you can tie to a web site. That doesn’t sound like much but it is a powerful tool for branding purposes. Here are three of the reasons why that came to my mind first.

One: Favicons make the browser part of your page. One of the biggest limitations of working on the web is the nature of the browser. No matter what kind of experience you’re trying to present to your visitors, it has to be accomplished within the confines of the browser. It’s not your giving them this wonderful free entertainment, it’s IE, or Chrome or whatever they use. A favicon lets you claim just a little bit of the browser as yours, and present a more unified comic delivery format.

Two: Favicons brand your page, even when readers aren’t there. In most browsers, the favicon also becomes he image next to the link name in the links list. This means every time a user who has book marked your page scrolls through their links, they’re going to get a more impactful reminder of your site if there is a unique image that you created rather than the blank page icon.

Three: Favicons let you flex your best muscle, your creativity. Most people would say that you can’t do much with the small size constraints that a favicon gives you. But web comics creators aren’t most people. Web comics creators do more creative things on their way to the bathroom than most people do all day. Take those 16 by 16 pixels and you make them do thing most people never thought possible, do you hear me?!?

I know this whole article is a little hypocritical since we are a web site and we lack a favicon. Knowing how useful they can be, I keep telling myself to make one, but now that I’ve called myself out on it, it would be a little lame. So if anyone out there (and yes Midnight, you count as out there) wants to get me a cool, DS themed 16 by 16 image, I’ll do what I can to insert it.

That’s a lot more than I thought I’d be able to write about a tiny picture, 600 words in fact. See what you can do kids, when you put your mind to it!

Sean Kleefeld has a very good, very thoughtful post on the Zuda interface and its faults. It comes down to a couple of basic philosophical questions that the Zuda folks chose the wrong answers to: Their webcomic model pulls people in, rather than pushing content to viewers (as, say, an RSS feed or an embeddable video does), and many of the things users like to do, such as share content or link to a particular page, are blocked by the viewer. I’ll add another complaint: When I write about a Zuda comic, it’s hard to show samples of the art because I can’t pull it out of the comic. Sarah Jaffe adds some thoughts of her own at Blog@Newsarama.

Ada Price talks to creators and editors about webcomics that go to print at Publishers Weekly Comics Week.

Girlamatic has a new podcast to go with the site relaunch, and episode 2 includes interviews with creators of their two new webcomics, Lisa Gilbert and Terry Blauer of Godseeker and Monique McNaughton of The Continentals. It is hosted by webcomicker Lynn Lau.

Brad Guigar has some suggestions for making the most of this month at Webcomics.com.

CBR has a preview of the Spider-Woman motion comic. Meanwhile, Johanna Draper Carlson notes that Eagle One is also doing motion comics, these ones based on comics based on an anime and a video game. So the circle is completed.

New comic recommendation: The Watson’s, a slice-of-life one-page gag comic with nice, tight art and slightly offbeat humor. Only four strips up so far, but it’s looking good. That apostrophe seems misplaced, though. (Via Fleen.)

The Archie folks announce that Archie Freshman Year #1 is the most downloaded comic on iTunes. As I observed at Robot 6 a while ago, it’s a nice comic that actually reads better on the iTunes screen than on paper. Still, Johanna Draper Carlson questions where they get those stats and how accurate they are. I don’t care, I just love the graphic that the Archie people came up with to celebrate, especially because there is no sign of an iPhone anywhere.

iVerse has launched its own comics app, the iVerse Comics app for iPhone/iPod Touch. Like comiXology, which launched a few weeks ago, it features an in-app store through which you can buy the comics, as well as features for organizing your collection. The cost is 99 cents, but that gets you 30 free comics.

Yaoi Press publisher Yamila Abraham has an interesting account of an avid customer who bought a Kindle to read her yaoi on. The problem? The customer is in Australia, and the Kindle doesn’t work there. Of course, this is a problem that is easily solved if you have friends overseas, but it raises some interesting issues, including the question of whether markets are being left untapped because of the regional restrictions.

Reviewer L. takes a look at the Kindle version of the Maximum Ride manga at The Book Bark!

Order of the Stick is back. It was only gone for month while creator Rich Burlew took a break to “recharge his batteries” Since we’ve gotten two excellent installments from him in as many days, I’ll say the wait has been worth it.

I tweeted about this earlier but I felt it deserved it’s own post for several reasons. One is Order of the Stick was one of the first Web comics I ever started reading when I discovered the medium six years ago and has remained one of my favorites for the whole time.

The second reason I wanted to push Jason’s Midnight’s last post off the front page, so that all Internet will know what a lazy fartknocker weiner he is (I don’t know how long I’ve been wanted to use the word fartknocker in a post, but it sure feels good).

Finally, I mention it because today’s strip leads into something that I really want to talk about. One of the reason Burlew has had the success he has is that he truly knows how to walk the line between new and old fans. Let me paint the picture for you. Order of the Stick has been around a long time. A really long time be Web comics standards. It’s 674 (as of today) strips long. And these aren’t gag-a-day strips. These are full pages that tell one continuous story.

One.

Continuous.

Story.

A lot has happened in this strip. Pretty much all of it has been good. But that means nothing to the new comer. A archive coming up on 700 strips looks really intimidating to some one who hasn’t already read through it a dozen times.

Still just about every strip that he’s put up has been one that I could show to someone who doesn’t read it without fear of them not enjoying it. They may not understand who these people are and why they’re fighting green-skinned ninjas but they get at least one of the jokes in the page and that makes them willing to read another, and then another and then another until one day they have a goldfish named Belkar. And it works. I know of at least two people who have started reading OotS because of a random link that I sent them.

There are a lot of long form story comics that don’t do this. Granted they usually have a lot fewer panels per page and therefore has less of a chance to do this sort of thing. But still, all it takes is a clever bit of dialog and you’ll be fine.

In an ideal world every page would have something for the new reader. A funny line, a cool turn of phrase, a panty-shot. Something. Anything, really, that will make my reading you most recent page an enjoyable experience. If have fun reading a random page, there is a much, much higher chance that I’ll hit that all important first button, and give your comic the chance it deserves.

That’s my rant for today. If you have any other examples of comics that do this well, ones that fail at it miserable or anything else you feel like saying, please use the comments section below. That’s what it’s there for.