Dark Musings
DARK MUSINGS #18 – BANNER SHARING ON DARKBRAIN by Andrew Zar 9/20/11 You have hopefully noticed that DarkBrain was completely revamped with our new “DarkBrain V5” code last week.  The site was re-designed from head to toe to make it easier to navigate and use.  I will do a blog on that one later; I’m still reeling from the workload related to the rollout and the production comics that are now stacking up towards the end of the month because of it (eek!) But this week’s blog is on a different topic – Indy comics helping each other.  One of my early observations about the psyche of an Indy comic is that we all “go it alone.”  This is simply part of the makeup of people who feel that drive to publish their own.  This is great, this is the spirit of innovation and creativity – it is awesome.  But it also results in losing opportunities to help each other, and thus ourselves.  As part of the new site design, I had to look at myself too and assess that I wasn’t living up to that criticism either – I had to make more opportunities to help other Indy outfits.  So I created a new “Banner Share” footer on DarkBrain that lets me put anything I want under any specific title page.  For example, I now am running a banner for “Bloodletting.org” at the bottom of our vampire title “Columbia’s Underbelly” page http://www.darkbrain.com/dbe/Underbelly.aspx  And you will see more of these popping up on the site with relevant links.  (The vampire link on our vampire title makes sense, for example).  All banner shares will be personally approved by me and must be to mature sites that have relevant content to my audience.  Also, they are all FREE!  The only thing that I will hope is to have a reciprocal banner link back to DarkBrain on the ones I choose.  This shared banner is independent of the Project Wonderful skyscraper I run on the right side – which is already a way for Indy comics to help themselves to DarkBrain fans.  These are more specifically, hand-selected, “recommendations” if you will.  As such, there is no chance that every interested party will get an ad – so please keep that in mind if you have interest in this.  Also, these ads will not show up for DarkBrain “members” – as they are paying for suppressing ads.  However, one cool feature DarkBrain does have is that we can run a PG version of the ad for anonymous users and an R+ for logged in users who have verified their age.  So, if you have a webcomic you feel fits well with DarkBrain, is mature, and can do a reciprocal banner back, then email me at AndrewZar@DarkBrain.com and we can chat.  Remember that all banners must have a PG version w/o nudity – but  you can have an alternate for the mature readers on DarkBrain.  The sizes I am accepting right now are either 468x60 “half-banner” or 728x90 “leaderboard” and they can be animated (but not Flash). So, I’m excited to finally have the technology to support this – and even I will find it interesting how this one evolves. Till next time, Andrew Zar The above picture is from Columbia’s Underbelly #1, which rolls VERY SOON.  Lines by Randy Kintz, colors by Christa Rosenkraz.  Copyright 2011, DarkBrain, LLC, All Rights Reserved

DARK MUSINGS #18 – BANNER SHARING ON DARKBRAIN
by Andrew Zar 9/20/11

You have hopefully noticed that DarkBrain was completely revamped with our new “DarkBrain V5” code last week.  The site was re-designed from head to toe to make it easier to navigate and use.  I will do a blog on that one later; I’m still reeling from the workload related to the rollout and the production comics that are now stacking up towards the end of the month because of it (eek!)

But this week’s blog is on a different topic – Indy comics helping each other.  One of my early observations about the psyche of an Indy comic is that we all “go it alone.”  This is simply part of the makeup of people who feel that drive to publish their own.  This is great, this is the spirit of innovation and creativity – it is awesome.  But it also results in losing opportunities to help each other, and thus ourselves. 

As part of the new site design, I had to look at myself too and assess that I wasn’t living up to that criticism either – I had to make more opportunities to help other Indy outfits.  So I created a new “Banner Share” footer on DarkBrain that lets me put anything I want under any specific title page.  For example, I now am running a banner for “Bloodletting.org” at the bottom of our vampire title “Columbia’s Underbelly” page http://www.darkbrain.com/dbe/Underbelly.aspx 

And you will see more of these popping up on the site with relevant links.  (The vampire link on our vampire title makes sense, for example).  All banner shares will be personally approved by me and must be to mature sites that have relevant content to my audience.  Also, they are all FREE!  The only thing that I will hope is to have a reciprocal banner link back to DarkBrain on the ones I choose. 

This shared banner is independent of the Project Wonderful skyscraper I run on the right side – which is already a way for Indy comics to help themselves to DarkBrain fans.  These are more specifically, hand-selected, “recommendations” if you will.  As such, there is no chance that every interested party will get an ad – so please keep that in mind if you have interest in this.  Also, these ads will not show up for DarkBrain “members” – as they are paying for suppressing ads.  However, one cool feature DarkBrain does have is that we can run a PG version of the ad for anonymous users and an R+ for logged in users who have verified their age. 

So, if you have a webcomic you feel fits well with DarkBrain, is mature, and can do a reciprocal banner back, then email me at AndrewZar@DarkBrain.com and we can chat.  Remember that all banners must have a PG version w/o nudity – but  you can have an alternate for the mature readers on DarkBrain.  The sizes I am accepting right now are either 468x60 “half-banner” or 728x90 “leaderboard” and they can be animated (but not Flash).

So, I’m excited to finally have the technology to support this – and even I will find it interesting how this one evolves.

Till next time,
Andrew Zar

The above picture is from Columbia’s Underbelly #1, which rolls VERY SOON.  Lines by Randy Kintz, colors by Christa Rosenkraz.  Copyright 2011, DarkBrain, LLC, All Rights Reserved

Posted 5 months ago