865 words, 5 minutes read time.
And, visitors to this site!
I started Sequential in 2002 essentially as a link blog for promoting Canadian Comics creators work, trying to spotlight as many of us as I could. And of course myself as one too!
Out of invested self-interest as a comic artist, trying to maintain an independent career north of the US border.
As we all know North American Comics are intensely dominated by USA Publishers and creators, which created challenges for the visibility of comic creators in general even before the web. And with the rise of the internet, online as well. Just sheer numbers at play.
For a couple decades now I never really had a lot of people helping out but a few did join in for periods of time and we posted pretty frequently for a while there in the 00s and 10s for a niche subject blog. But the rise of the wall Gardens of social media took more and more of the focus away from the website.
I tried to roll with that and used a Facebook page and groups which was actually pretty effective for a bit. And experimented with a few other platforms for sharing and re-sharing news of Canadian creator activities and events.
But with the turn to the right and Enshittification of the big major walled gardens, it feels like the curtain is closing on that area as well.
Currently it seems like a few platforms are contending as possible replacements and one – Bsky, is taking the lead recently. Its structure reminds me of old blog sites and Link sharing with the ability to carry feeds and lists that you keep in your right column and so far the absence of advertising content littering the feed. When I first started using the site I found it sparse and quite because it’s not aggressively forcing “content” at you. But after reading a great how to intro by Debbie Ridpath Ohi I was able to start to set it up and really have come to appreciate what’s been built there so far.
There’s no algorithm force-feeding me stuff it thinks might engage me or enrage me. And with my lists I can browse on a certain subject or more broadly through friends and curiosity follows without being spammed with a mindless algo’s idea of what might engage me peppered with adds.
It feels like a potentially good time to bring back the C-lists!
The title was a nationally self deprecating joke from Brian K Munn, a long time contributor to the blog here. He would post a week’s or more worth of links in bullet point form with sometimes quippy comments.
For a while I experimented with doing them using social media to source links, even embedding posts. Some cool functionality that’s probably mostly broken those old C-List posts now that the API feeds for Xtwitter and others have been killed or broken.
And eventually it just seemed like no one was coming to the site to read those.
But I’m feeling like people are leaking back out of those walled gardens? Maybe a little? And if online at all might be looking for sites to return to? So, lets see if they come here.
Also, HELP! I mean this isn’t dire but I won’t be able to do a lot solo. And I’d really like to bring on some fresh blood for this website and to the effort of furthering that mandate I started this with.
To contribute to the C-lists and do other forms of blogging here about comics. There’s a lot I just haven’t kept up with and I’ve always wanted to have more collaboration here with people across Canada on the ground in it’s very diverse different scenes.
As an experiment I’m going to attempt to use my recently created BSKY can-con Comics lists along with the accounts I still have on other platforms to do the same thing again, maybe once a week, or biweekly?
If we are scattering once more into a decentralized web of human thought and creativity it might be a good time for that again. Or at least that’s my hope.
Representing different cultural backgrounds and communities and ideally in these times doing her best to raise the voices of those who need it the most.
This would not be a top-down, or paying job type scenario. Rather a peer collaboration amongst friends and fans of the medium within the loose confines of the site’s mandates.
- – Spotlight Can-con comics.
- – Follow the movers and shakers and ‘big news’ but over all, focus on indie and underappreciated artists who can use the help more than those with their own PR departments.
- – Elevate marginalized voices in the comics scene, and help broaden the scope of the medium.
If that sounds like something that interests you give me a holler and let me know!
For now, if you’re on the new place, good for now, and a fan or creator or otherwise involved in Can-con comics stuff of any kind follow us there and give us a ‘Hey’ on the post of this on the profile so we can follow you back!