So.  I'm supposed to say something witty and charming about today's topic.

Hrm.

You know, I'm just making this stuff up on the fly, right?  None of you actually have to bother reading it.  To paraphrase from my Navy days, "It's all just bulls–t and Ouija boards anyway."

So, you can just skip this entry.  I'll see you all tomorrow, 'kay?  Might have something by then.

Well, you've just seen pretty much how a lot of sites operate.  Hell, how a lot of media, not just sites operate.  They just get to the point where they're just coasting along on past glories, or "screw it, people will look at it regardless," or just whatever.  The really insulting ones are when they don't notice or care how savvy the audience is, and will just do it because they can (Han Shot First, anyone?)

That, my friends, is lack of consistency, scientifically known by most clinical psychologists as "being a lazy ass/indifferent jerk/[insert insult here]."  Regardless of what it is, it can and will hurt you if you do it long enough or brazenly enough that it breaks disbelief.  Once in a while you screw up what you wrote or drew (aka continuity error), or you forget to update your webcomic once or twice every now and then.  Accidents happen, people know this and understand.  We're all human, and poeple make mistakes.  But when there are too many mistakes or the inconsistency is deliberate?  Well, let's just say it keeps Cracked.com in business.  It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder why they even bother.

Probably more than anything you do, consistency is the absolute most important thing.  It's important in life, it's important in what you do in your careers, so it's certainly going to be important in your projects – especially if you want to be professional.

As an example, let's step back to 1999 and one of the earliest webcomics, a little number called Avalon (let's forget for the fact that there must be some obscure Federal law that states that 1 out of 10 webcomics done by talented 15-year old girls must be named "Avalon" in some fashion).  Though it wasn't my cup of tea, it was very popular (as evidenced by a friend of mine who read the thing religiously and never failed to tell me about it).  He loved the storyline, he loved the art, he loved the characters.  He, like many others, was supportive of the creator's desires to go professional (you will believe a 37-year-old man will act like a squealing teenager when he got an email from the creator).

So when the creator decided to go into a delay or two, that's natural.  When the delay extended beyond the planned end date of the series, however, things got rough.  It all culminated when sometime in 2004, creator Josh Phillps ended the series, just haphazardly throwing the remainder of the text out onto the website and ending it with a heterosexual character gone suddenly (and apparently very out of character) sapphic.  Even more insulting to the fans was Philips' explanation for quitting: Phillips announced that, having recently been married, he had "outgrown" Avalon and cartooning in general, and had no further need to continue the project.

So it was a surprise that two years later, he returned, this time farming the art out to another artist, despite his desire to return "for the fans."  Philips also decided to ignore his own ending as if it never existed, capriciously going back to the strip before.  Instead, Philips drew six more comics before disappearing again, only to return one last time in 2007 saying he was done for good and reinstating the original ending (complete with the OOC slash pairing).

Philips then announced his newest project, a comic called Two-Eighty; unfortunately for him his former fans had become wise to his ways and never showed up.  Philips abandoned the series shortly thereafter and has stepped away from the world of comics.

You would think that one such embarrassing tale is enough, right?  Well, no.  I've got another one for you.  There was a webcomic that I used to read (this one is still in existence so I won't mention the name since I don't want to get into yet another shouting match with another webcomic creator; the only hint is that it's a magical girl parody) and I'm constantly amazed that the comic is still around.  Said creator once mentioned that a whole month's worth of work was lost because she got drunk and partied, skipping a couple of weeks' worth of work and drunkenly throwing away the two previous weeks' worth).  A second time, she didn't bother to color her pages (the comic is color) because "that would be too much effort"; the comic itself is plain tones, not rich shading.  Plus, what had originally been a biting satire of magical girl series has become (by the time I gave up) a dissonant hodgepodge of bad art and even worse storytelling; moreso, she'd initially tried to keep it family-friendly, but now the site's main advertising comes from (as of a check five minutes ago) porn sites.  Lastly, she's also mentioned that she thinks her fans are "idiots who like to see tits" and that she'd rather play video games than bother working on her "craphole of a series," neither of which are consistency problms but clear insults to her fans, an indicator she thinks she can put anything out and get away with it. 

Now, granted, she's still around and someone's reading her series, so she's a rare case of inconsistency ignored.  Maybe she doesn't care, or she's swept everything under the rug.  No matter; because for every one bit of media that successfully gets away with it there are hundreds more that do not and chances are you're not going to be that one.  Do you really want to roll the dice that way, running the risk of being the next Josh Philips while hoping you can slack off like the magical girl comic?  For those of you who've read my article on filling in plot holes, you know that people keep track of this stuff.  The odds are stacked against you, and if you're working with something legendarily famous or very popular, it's ten times so.  You don't want that kind of headache.

Yes, there are days you might want to slack.  That's why you build a buffer.  Sometimes you may just want to give up outright; if you do so, find a way to wind things down; the internet is a graveyard of half-finished works – and if you just abandon it, be prepared to have work times two to earn those fans back.  

For general mistakes (plot holes, etc.), there's a position called a continuity editor (also known in film circles as the script supervisor) whose job is to keep things straight and narrow.  Now, for small, one-man productions you can't exactly do everything yourself, so don't be afraid to ask a friend or a willing fan to serve as continuity editor.  In my case, I have a long-time fan of mine from back in my fanfic days who serves as my continuity editor; he's never failed me and I've always appreciated when he says something seems out of whack.  

In the end, consistency boils down to the old saying: If you're an amateur who acts like a pro, you were never an amateur; if you're a pro who acts like an amateur, you were never a pro.

Tomorrow will be the last day of abstractions; after that, we'll get back into the art as we get closer to the ten days before breaking.

Tomorrow: Day 11 – Advertising and Marketing (Insert Witty Phrase Here)