inkOUTBREAK.com

With a cup of coffee and a list of URLs in my head for about 7 webcomics, I would sit and read my comics for the day every day. I loved the comics I would read but I never seemed to venture off the beaten path. All the sites I would go to would direct me with bland text links to out of date comics. I would follow ads on other sites to sometimes broaden my choices. I would usually forget those URLs unless I was reading it every day. After a bit of blindly stomping around the webcomic world as a reader, I made ink. I added my favorite links, and some friends and users added theirs ( Now we are a signup only ). Some of the people we have attracted have never read comics online before, and are blown away by the quality of some of the work out there.

Inkoutbreak.com is basically the easy way to follow and discover comics. For a reader this allows them to follow your comic without a reader or bookmarks. Why wouldn’t they just have a RSS reader? Well some of us readers are reading a few comics while we sit at work and slack off for a few minutes. Or then you have the not so tech savvy that does not understand what that orange block is on your comic. I’m not saying I want to replace RSS, or anything like that. I just want to make it easy for a reader to stay up to date with your comic, and for you to gain more readers that constantly check out your updates.

The site itself is dynamic, your list…. is your list. When you follow comics they will go to the top of your page whenever they update. The following comics are based on your TAGS. As you read through your comics they will remove themselves from the main page, allowing you to step away and come back later. This helps for a great experience browsing comics. There is the ability to block comics as well so that you never have to see them again. Also we have added the ability for your to share your comic page with your friend. This is a great way for you to share the comics you follow with a friend, allowing them to get a jump start into the comic world.

The ink bar that you see at the top of comic pages is basically your guide through these comics, for the reader this allows you to quickly follow a new comic you have found and then click next to move on. There is also a block on this bar. Now keep in mind at anytime a reader can click the X icon and they will be moved to the current comics webpage.

We send readers to the comics website cause we feel the artist is the best person to present their work, sites like Ellie on Planet X is a perfect example. The colors enhance the comic and give you a much more artistic experience compared to reading off an RSS reader. By doing this we also give the artist all the ability to either update you about what they are doing with their comic (cons, events, guest strips ) as well as showing you what they have for sale and ways you can connect with them ( twitter, facebok, g+ ).

This leads me to talk a bit about interactions with the artist. I have always felt that artist are very busy giving up their time to pursue a passion by making their comics so things should be made easier for them. That why I feel that any interaction as far as comments, messages, forums, emails should be left on the artist page. Take the artist in consideration, lets say they are listed on 12 sites and a person commented on each….. it would be pretty annoying.

This is not and will never be a voting site, the homepage will always be listed as who updated last and set by the users settings. We feel that it would not be right to say THIS IS the best comic, because everyone has their own opinions on comics, and every user most likely has a different homepage. The homepage is always comics that are current, you can use the search to find older comics.

As far as Advertising on the site our main goal would be to cover the cost of the server. There will never be popups. There will never be ads on the ink bar across other sites. We will always try and keep advertising to a very classy level. I do not want a banner farm, I want users to feel welcome into the world of comics.

We continually add to the site everyday with features for artist and for readers. One of the newest additions is the fan box for sites, this allows you to show your fans off to new users and allow them to quickly follow you on inkoutbreak.com. The code for this box is located in ( Settings / Projects ). Also we are working on ways to export your data into any format you need. Also we did recently make it so that you could send people your comic page as you see it ( Here is mine as an example : http://inkoutbreak.com/?shared=9649547834bf4bad95d41c7d8ed29c2d ).

There are many things in the works to make sure this can be a great way to follow, discover, and enjoy hundreds of comics. We planning on sticking around so if you have any input, or ideas on how we could better ink. Please feel free to email, tweet, or comment we always love to hear from our users and artist.

We hope this has been helpful to find out where we are going, we hope you’ll join us.

Check out inkOUTBREAK.com or Sign up!

Thanks for your time,

Brian King ( bking@inkoutbreak.com )