Most webcomic artists are not marketers. We’re artists, and inherently we are all about our work rather than thinking about big picture stuff like marketing plans. However, successful webcomics have creators that are willing to grow and learn new skills to be lean, mean, business machines in addition to artbots. When it comes to advertising on a shoe string budget however, it pays to invest a little time in wrapping your brain around a few fundamentals of marketing.

Advertising your comic

There are two key points you need to consider and have solidly in place before you start spending any money on advertising. One is ‘website metrics’. This is more commonly known to internet folk as ‘website stats’. If you don’t have your own website, you can sign up for a free counter or preferably something more comprehensive like Google Analytics. The second thing you need to do is a little thing called ‘identifying your target market.’ Let’s talk about one at a time.

Website statistics are important because they tell you things about the visitors coming to your website. It measures how many, how many unique, how many stuck around, and where they all came from, where they went, and if they ever came back. When you start advertising this is important stuff to know so you can understand your ‘ROI’ or ‘return on investment‘. When each dollar is precious, you want to pull in the absolute most quality visitors for the buck, but the only way to know if you are getting that is to actually measure the numbers of people who arrive from which websites, how long they stay, and how many come back.

Some of these trackers can provide you with a LOT of information, but here’s the main stuff you want to look at as measurements ( for the basics anyway, we can get more involved later):

1. Unique visitors: This tells you how many unique IPs visited.Think of these as individual people. This is more of a true measure of your readership, if you sort of average out this number over about a month.
2. New visitors: These are new people who’ve never visited your site before. Most trackers use cookies to deterimine if someone is ‘new’ or ‘returning’. If you are doing a lot of advertising, you’ll notice ( or at least should notice) a spike in new visitors. If you stop advertising, this will drop. However, the goal is to turn New visitors into Returning visitors.
3. Returning visitors: These are visitors who come back to your site. This is a good thing because it means that they like what they see and are or could become regular readers. You want as many new visitors to become returning visitors. The conversion rate between new visitors to returning visitors is something you want to keep an eye on over the weeks even after you stop advertising, because that will actually give you a measure of how many people are visiting your site and then sticking around.
4. Referring URLs: When you are advertising, keep an eye on your referring sites. Sites which have a very high referral rate as a result of your advertising, take note of! It means they likely have a higher percentage of the target market you are looking for. Sites that you are advertising on, but are doing very poorly, you should check out. Is the ad placement proper? Is it working? If a site is under performing, you should make note of THAT and save your advertising dollars for the sites that do perform.

Something that measures all this stuff should be in place well before you start advertising (at least a few months), so you have a baseline to compare against once you do start to advertise. They also provide a lot of other useful information, but I’ll get into that in another article. This one is sort of bare bones basics.

Target your Audience

One mistake a lot of people make when they go to market something (well anything really) is the idea that you can attract anyone and everyone to whatever it is you want them to look at. While you might be able to scream ‘look at me!’ loud enough to turn people’s heads for a second, the reality is that most of them won’t care unless they are already interested in that type of thing. There are just too many marketing messages these days and people tune them out. This principle holds true for webcomics as much as it does for movies, books, cleaning products, or toenail polish. If you cast your net too wide, the message becomes watered down and you won’t get as many ‘quality visitors’ as if you specifically target and advertise directly to people who will already be interested in what you are selling. These people who are already predisposed towards liking your stuff are your ‘target market’.

So who makes up your target market? Well to answer that question you have to do two things. The first one is a little research. If you’ve had your comic for those few months, see what sort of people are already visiting your comic. You may want to do polls to find out how many girls vs boys read your comic, how old they are, what sorts of comics do they like. If your comic is of a fantasy genre, chances are the people who read your comic like fantasy genre comics. Your counter might collect information such as referers (where people came from), and country they live in. Visit links of referers and check out what got your comic a mention and what sort of people were interested. This gives you some very specific information about the types of people who are interested in your comic. It can tell you what other sorts of things they are into, this is important when you are looking for places to advertise.

The second thing is doing a little guess work and thinking about your comic in specific and the sorts of people who would want to read it. There are a few things you can assume in terms of target market for webcomics in general. Webcomics, as a rule, tend to appeal to people age 12-30. Unless the comic is extremely targeted at younger children, or older people, most webcomic readers fall into that age group. In north america generally the comic readership is male dominated unless a comic is specifically geared towards women. Certain genres tend to have a higher female readership than the standard, for example romance or boylove comics tend to be often aimed towards females rather than males. However, action adventure comics generally have a higher percentage of male readers. If your comic is particularly violent, graphic, or adult, your target is going to be 19+, which will remove some advertising options, particularly from places like project wonderful. Generally if you have an M or R rated site, you don’t advertise on G rated comics. Its honestly not the audience you are looking for, and some comics don’t appreciate it. Etiquette is somewhat important between comics these days.

Generally if you have a comic that can be placed into a genre, people who like other things in that genre will have a greater chance of liking your stuff. You should seek out places where those sorts of people gather as well as other entertainment that fits in that media that already has large followings. Forums, facebook pages, and other social media works well for this. As does things such as fan art, or link exchanges with like comics.

You may also be able to guess other sorts of things and other specific products or entertainment those who share similar interests with you and the sorts of things your comic is reminiscent of. For example, if your comic has vampires in it, you can probably assume people who like horror may like your comic. Specific examples of other entertainment might be fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anne Rice, Twilight, White Wolf’s World of Darkness RPGs, and Dracula fans might also enjoy your comic. If your comic is fantasy based you might be able to assume people who liked Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or the Final Fantasy series of video games might like your comic. Think also about yourself, about the sorts of things you are into, that inspire you to do your comic, and may find audiences in stuff you are already involved with. Its always easier get people who know you personally to check your stuff out.

By advertising primarily to people who are already predisposed towards liking what you have to offer, you get a better chance of conversion of visitors who are inclined to click on your ad from a ‘visitor’ to a ‘reader’. Remember, the goal of all this is to gain a readership, and that means that people have to like your stuff enough to come back and check on it. If they already like that sort of thing, the chances of this conversion happening are much, much higher.

Getting your message to your target

Back in the day, it was a lot easier to get your message in front of people without it being too expensive. Today its a little more of a challenge. As a result, where you spend your efforts and money needs to be carefully considered in terms of ROI. That can include time as well as money. Today there are better tools for getting your message to your targets in many cases. Facebook has one of the most robust set of targeting tools for advertisements out there aside from perhaps Google Ads, but facebook is more personal. Project Wonderful also has some capability to target by selecting comics similar to your own to advertise on.

There are free options, such as doing fan art for comics that are similar to yours, getting involved in forums or other social groups that have a common interest that your comic shares onto (such as if you have a sci-fi comic you are involved in sci-fi websites) and making sure you put your comic and your signature and profile. It should be noted that spamming boards or any other social media is considered bad form and not only makes you look like an asshat, can get you banned and potentally alienate readers from ever checking you out strictly on bad behavior. Link exchanges with like comics are one of your best tools, as links are often permanent and raise your own page’s google rank. A link exchange is also a little like an endorsement, and a lot of people will check a comic out that someone they like essentially recommends.

Its also advised to advertise and try to exchange with comics larger than you because they have a larger fan base, but not necessarily the largest in the community. Often times, when a comic has reached a certain size the author will not entertain link exchanges or social exchanges. While fan art or paid advertising remains viable options for these sites, certain exchanges are not just due to the volume of requests the person probably gets. You can try, but don’t hang your hopes on getting an exchange. Some of the biggest comics, such as Penny Arcade, will not do them for fear of knocking servers out. Don’t even bother.

While targeting people who may already be into webcomics is a good idea, such as by advertising on webcomic sites, don’t forget that there are a lot of people out there who may not yet read webcomics, but might still be interested in your subject matter. Look for innovative places to advertise and to look at

Final Note: Be Personable

As a final thought, as you embark on flogging your work to the world, its important to keep in mind that in today’s climate on the web, everything is about being personable. Its all about being friends with the world. Genuine enthusiasm for your fans and for your work will help to propel you a lot further than being an asshole. While controversy can work in your favor, and everyone likes to gawk at a train wreak, its not the sort of attention you want over the long term. Be smart about your image you project. Be personable and polite, excited and enthusiastic. If you can get excited about your own work, and share that with the world, people won’t be able to help getting enthusiastic about your work too. And enthusiastic people share things they are passionate about to their friends. And there is nothing that beats word of mouth advertising. A personal recommendation is the highest compliment a person can give for a product, and a zealot fan can be your best ally in getting the word out about your comic.

Good luck!

So a little quick background here.

I’m a graphic designer. I also do illustration and other creative work. I’ve suffered this pain first hand. I’ve watched my designer friends and co-workers suffer. I have yet to come across a single creative professional that doesn’t have at least a handful of ‘bad client’ stories where the artist never got paid for work well done. Its happened to all of us, and the reason is simple. We’re dumb when it comes to doing business. We are also often idealistic, and more than a little afraid to do what needs doing up front. We lack the confidence to be the hardasses we need to be to do well in business. I don’t know a single designer or illustrator who ENJOYS confronting problem clients and kneecaping money out of them. They’d rather just drop it, file it off to someone else, or just soak it and move on. But that’s not good business either.

As a community of professionals, we need to grab a bit of a brain and a pair of balls to start protecting ourselves as individual freelancers to bully clients, and also to help re-inforce that art and design HAS value in the marketplace and its not just something that you can “get bob to do off the side of his desk, he knows Indesign…”

Now, after many years of freelance myself and observing others in their own businesses, I have some ‘rules’. I am going to share these personal rules of mine so that perhaps other designers might use them to prevent “non-payment” syndrome clients.

Rule #1 – Interview your client

This sounds a bit odd, but honestly, it saves you a lot of time. And as any good business man knows, time is money.  As a freelancer you only want to take clients that are going to pay you and if they are troublesome you are going to want to know what you are getting into. I personally have certain criteria for my clients. For example, unless they bring money up front, I won’t do anything for entrepreneurial types unless they bring money up front. As a freelancer I have the ability to pick and choose my clients.  I highly suggest you remember that. You don’t have to do anything for anyone you don’t want to. You don’t have to suffer bad clients if you don’t agree to take them on in the first place.

And if you do happen to take a bad client by mistake, don’t be afraid to fire them before you get burned. Then you can turn your attentions to clients that are worth your time.

Rule #2 – Paperwork

They say no job is finished before the paperwork is done. If you are serious about working in freelance (and actually getting paid), I highly suggest you invest in a few very important pieces and have EVERY client go through the process of filling them out with you before you do a single shred of work.

The three essentials are:

1 – Creative Brief

A creative brief is a sort of questionnaire/documentation of the clients exact needs, project specifications (dimensions, number of pages, content) where its coming from, who’s duties are what, timelines for delivery, payment schedule and budget for the project. You will probably want to design one for your own workflow, but you should have all those points. Clients MUST sign this before beginning work. If they start adding things later on that aren’t in the original creative brief, stop them. Tell them adding things at that point will require either a) a halt on the project until a new creative brief with new price can be agreed and signed, or b) the added thing is now a ‘new project’ and must be done as a separate creative brief with its own payment schedule, etc. Don’t let them bog you down in the middle of a job with unexpected add-ons.  Use a docket system, and treat any new project as a new docket. That’s how agencies do it, and it works pretty well.

2 – Contract

This one is a must have. Even if you can’t afford a lawyer to have one written up custom for you, and you should at some point. You need to have these signed before you do ANY work. The officialness of them makes clients realize, yes, you are serious. And it also gives you legal clout to go after them if they owe you money in the end. If a client balks at a contract, its a good sign that they aren’t on the level and are probably looking to screw you over. In the absence of a real contract, you can write your own with a little self education. Just make sure you make them sign something, and watch how they react. If they refuse to sign it or balk at the idea ( “Oh, I’m sure we don’t need a contract”, “We’re friends right? why make it so legal?”, etc) its a HUGE red flag that this person is probably going to try very hard to not pay you for your work. Make sure you also have a clause to terminate your association on non payment on your end too, so you can fire bad clients who are troublesome. Having a clause for ‘additional fees’ ( read – asshole tax) is also good. If you get a client who’s wayyyy to fussy and is making a job difficult, you can legally add additional fees for changes and such without modifying the contract.

3 – Invoices & Tracking

You should have a proper invoicing solution in place. They have some nifty ones like Freshbooks online now that work well. If all else fails you can do it yourself manually. But you need to keep records like an accountant. You also need to keep all your receipts (for everything, gas, dinner with the client, and records of hours spent on the project). The better your records, the more organized and prepared you will be to corner an unpaying client. In order to go after them if they don’t pay, you need records of invoices and the date of invoices. You should have a schedule of payment on your creative brief and contract, your invoices should match this regardless of if the project is running over time. ( because the client never returned that copy you asked for three weeks ago…)

Rule #3 – No paycheck, no files.

One of the MOST effective ways of getting paid is to hold the ‘product’ hostage until you get paid. You have to REALLY hold your ground on this. No sneak peeks, no draft files, no nothing until that paycheck is in your account. (cash the cheques first, just to make sure they don’t bounce before you send the files! Yes, I am THAT paranoid.) If you’ve done this properly in the contract and brief, the client should be expecting this. I make it very clear to my clients that I expect my payments at each file delivery scheduled. If there are drafts, I expect my ‘draft’ payment before I show my files to anyone. If you want to be REALLY bitchy, only show your drafts over hardcopy. NEVER give digital files with drafts. This way, the client is forced to deal with you and can’t just forward your files to someone else and not pay you. If you want to still deliver digital files, consider a digital download solution.

Example: If you have a website (and you should as a designer) and you use wordpress, there is a plugin called “Shopp“. It gives you the ability download digital content, but you have to pay to download. Put the files there for the client to download at their outstanding amount. Although watch for reversals on credit card payments if you use something like this. People do that crap all the time.

IF your client refuses to pay you and insists on seeing the drafts, insist on payment. Period. They will try EVERYTHING to get you to release the files. This is an exercise in boundary setting. Be the broken record. Tell them politely that all they need to get their files is to pay for them. As soon as payment is recieved, they get them. That simple. If the client becomes highly annoying about this or extremely unreasonable, you can remind them of the contract and creative brief they signed. That this was the agreement. They might say that they don’t get this from other designers, etc, etc. Insist you aren’t other designers. You get paid for your work. That’s how it is. You did work, you get paid. If they do happen to spill another designer’s name or company, its always fun to see if they did work with the client and if they client welched on payment or ran off with files. You pay for product, don’t let the client get away with trying to get produce for free. No file leaves your computer without being paid for. If a client claims you don’t know business for not sending the files, you can tell him that you do very well, and thats why you insist on payment BEFORE you send them.

This rule, explained very clearly, bluntly and forwardly up front can almost eliminate client non payment. Why? You’ve been paid in full by the time the last file is sent to the printer. Make sure you NEVER EVER send the final files before the last invoice is paid in full.

Rule #4 – Never pay anything out of pocket

Clients will sometimes want you to liaison with a printer or a web service provider and they will just pay you back. Liason, sure. But when it comes to actual buying, invoicing, registering, or putting names on things, make sure that you have the client do it. Do NOT have the printer bill you. If you liason, put a liason ‘fee’ on your bill for brokering the deal, but don’t pay the printer yourself unless they have ponied up money before hand for this purpose and you can trust them to pay any unexpected printer fees. Tell the printer to bill the client for the job, or if its webhosting or domain registration, make sure you have the business as the person to bill to and name on the domain. Then if they do something stupid (like not pay their bill) those companies go after them, and not you.  If you do pay yourself, the chances of ever seeing that money again are practically nil. Don’t ever put out for another business.

Rule #5 – Clients sign EVERYTHING

When client sees the drafts or any file really, if changes are required, write them down and have the client ‘sign’ all the changes you’ve agreed on and the completion date. If the clients are required to provide files, give them a hard deadline. Have a clause on the ‘changes’ sheet that if they change their minds you can charge. Make it very clear by ‘signing off’ on something they have agreed they like it and that you will make the changes specified, and anything additional change wise will be billed extra.

This is to prevent the client from going ballistic and changing their minds. If you say “Certainly, I can make that change, but its not part of the original agreement, so its going to cost you X more dollars.” You’d be surprised how a ‘essential’ change is suddenly less important, or if you say “I can do it now, but it will cost you X in rush fees.” Suddenly things are less rush. Business people speak the language of money, and that’s what we artists have to get through our head. Everything EVERYTHING costs, and we have to remind them of it.

Rule #6 – Never under charge. Overcharge.

This might sound a bit counter intuitive, but here’s the deal. Your time is precious. Your skill and talent is also precious. Clients need to realize this. You are a Porsche.  You are a Mercedes.  You are Prada, or Gucci. You aren’t Bob from accounting who knows how to use Publisher or frontpage. You are a designer. Bonified, trained, educated, experienced. You are a professional, you need to get paid what you are worth.

Everyone wants a deal. Back in the days when I used to work retail, I learned something. Namely that markup on retail products is stupidly huge. This is so they can have two things. A regular price, and a sale price. When there are sales, they aren’t generally losing money. They might not make AS MUCH, but they are still making money. Lots of it. You need to do the same. So take a cue from retail.

Take the base rate you think your time is worth, say, for example 45$ an hour. This figure should be based on what you actually need to make on jobs, you know, for bills and such. Then, mark it up by 50%.  This makes it about $67.50. A cute trick also used in retail is to round it up to just under the nearest dollar. So take 67.50 and put it up to 68$ an hour. This serves two purposes.

One, it allows you to give discounts at the end of the job to good clients. This is good business because the good clients will come back. But never give more than 2-30% and if you do give a discount, be prepared to give discounts to that client all the time. They will expect it.

Secondly, if a job runs over and its your fault (ie: you can’t bill the client), your expenses are covered. Also, if you only get paid for part of a job, or less hours than you thought you could get, you are still making enough to make the job worth it. Do not let business people brow beat you from your rate.

And thirdly if a client is a little bitch, you have the satisfaction of charging them full rate plus rush charges.

You also have a little wiggle room of the most awesome job comes along, and the client can’t pay your rate to drop it a little without cutting into the rate you need to make a living. NEVER discount more than your markup, preferably less.  This also makes you appear more ‘flexible’ in your payment rates. Some clients actually prefer to pay a higher rate and be billed for less hours! Its honestly kind of mind boggling.

Rule #7 – Always get a deposit up front

Its happened to me more than once where I’ve taken a job, did drafts, held them hostage and the jerk still won’t pay. For me to hold my ground, it means I throw away the time and investment because client is a deadbeat. As a result, I now require a deposit of a quarter of the job up front before I do anything to prove the client is serious. And its never less than 50$. If its too low, the client will consider it laughable, and try not to pay it. Don’t ask me why they do this. It happens with things like parking tickets too. Beware of clients driving really expensive cars. More often than not, they are cheapskates. If a client balks at a reasonable deposit or retainer, I won’t do business with them.

In the end, clients are difficult beasts and many of them are quite dumb and difficult. Ultimately, finding a person who’s as good at breaking knees to get money for you rather than having to go after them yourself is awesome. Setting up a proper business is a lot of work, and most of us designers just don’t have the chops for it. But if we can at least try to limit our losses, and maybe start making more profits, we’d be a little happier in our chosen profession.

This originally appeared in my deviant art journal, but that’s not exactly a great place to post this and I thought it was one of the more poignant pieces I’ve ever written on what Webcomic readers can do to support their favorite comics without spending a dime. A lot of webcomic readers are young, and understandably don’t have a lot of cash, but when it comes to support, lifting your favorite comic up doesn’t have to require a credit card or even a bank account. If you are interested in seriously showing webcomic artists some appreciation, read on.

When you do a comic, especially a webcomic, there isn’t a lot of reward. You don’t get any money for it unless you really go out of your way to monetize your comic (and not everyone has the resources, business savvy, or discipline to do it.) and its not as easy as some people seem to think. People read webcomics largely because they are free, and people like free entertainment. Unfortunately a lot of people also equate free with worthless and free stuff holds less value in the minds of the people who consume it. Unless they actually set out at some point to do something like create a comic, they just don’t get how much suffering and work goes into making stuff. Most webcomic authors do it for the love of making comics, but you know what? Its really nice sometimes to get SOMETHING for all your hard work.

Now I also realize that a lot of webcomic readers are young people. Elementary school, high school, college. They don’t have a lot of money, so financial contribution is out of the question. Hey, that’s cool, I understand. I work and I STILL don’t have any money. I’m pretty sure a lot of people are nodding right about now. But there is still stuff you can do to show your love and support of a webcomic that won’t cost you a cent. Curious? Well read on.

1) Comment
This is probably the most direct thing you can do to show the comic author that you are reading and care. Do you like updates? Well comment on them! Most webcomics have some kind of comment feature these days. Many don’t even require you sign up with a membership, just post a message saying you like and appreciate them. its like giving your favorite webcomic a cookie.

A true story: I get the MOST comments when I *stop* updating. I’ve had more comments and stories about how people appreciated/loved/wanted Shifters AFTER I quit doing it. If I had heard those voices BEFORE I stopped, I might have felt it worth continuing despite the problems. But there is only negative voices or worse, nothing at all, its like a musician playing for an empty auditorium. Its depressing and kinda disheartening. So, because people seemed not to care, I decided ‘okay, no one will miss it if I go off and do what I need to do on my own time’.
Doesn’t it seem odd to you? That I get a ‘cookie’ when I stop doing something? Shouldn’t I get cookies when I do?

I’m not alone either. We only hear from you guys when you bitch. Its kind of disheartening honestly. If you really want more updating, you need to reward us when we DO update, and not slag us when we don’t.

So if you love your webcomics, COMMENT. Don’t be a lurker. Says something to let us know you are listening. Even if its just. “Thanks for the update!”

2) Vote and Fave!
Getting seen in the webcomics arena these days can be pretty competitive. For webcomics who can’t afford paid advertising we have to kinda do what we can with things like toplists. You might see vote buttons or links to comic directories (like onlinecomics.net for example). Take five seconds to click through the vote, every day you get a chance or every day it updates or whatever you feel is fair. Even if there is no vote incentive. If you think the comic is worth reading, give them a vote or a favorite.

3)Follow us!
A lot of artists these days often use social networking, like twitter, facebook, myspace, ustream, RSS, etc to try to spread the word of our works. If people are following us or friending us, then we know people are listening, but if we aren’t being followed or friended, we feel that our message isn’t getting out (which it isn’t) and no one is listening.

4)Share us!
Webcomics rely on ‘word of mouth’ advertising, especially in these times of social networking. If you see a comic has updated or you find a comic you like, share us with your friends! Re-tweet comic updates, link us on your website/blog/facebook/myspace. Digg us and Stumbleupon us. It doesn’t take a lot of effort on your part, but it shows you feel we are good enough that you are willing to share us with your friends. We can see when these numbers spike (most webcomic artists if they are freaks like me, do track referers. If we see we’ve been getting stumbled upon or digged or refered from various social sources, we know someone is giving us some love.)

5)Send us fanart.
Its probably the most time consuming on your part, but most webcomic people that aren’t enormous love to get fan art. Its really cool to see other people take on your characters, and that you inspired someone enough to draw your characters. Its flattering and super cool. We might be able to make our own art, but seriously, who doesn’t like presents? It doesn’t have to be art either, it could be a fan story, sculpture, plushie, hell even a picture of you cosplaying our characters at a con. Now that’s super awesome.

6)Get involved
Interaction. We love it just as much as you do (well some of us do, I know I do, but some artists can be really weird about it). Reply to us on twitter, sign up and get involved on forums, ask questions, send an email, visit our Ustreams, come visit us at conventions. A lot of people get intimidated or feel weird about interacting with people they might look up to or like, but don’t. We are still people and usually like to talk about our projects and work. Some artists aren’t so good about it but some thrive on it. There are so many ways these days to interact, its crazy. I’ve got several fans that are now my friends because they got involved and talked to me.

The article talks about ‘movement’ as alternative word for ‘exercise’, but I don’t know if that’s entirely nessisary. I think the key thing I personally took away was something I think I’ve been feeling for years. The gym is a fucking boring place.

When I think about it. It makes sense. I’ve already dealing with repetitive boring tedium all day sitting on my ass for 8 hours plus. Why do I subject myself to MORE boring tedium after work? It may be in the name of ‘exercise’ and ‘fitness’ and all that jazz, but when I absolutely DREAD going, and feel like I’m dragging myself off to be shot in the head. It isn’t really positive, and I’m paying for this privilege?

People say they feel great after the gym, invigorated, and all that. Generally I just want to get done as absolutely fast as I can to leave. It stinks. Its dusty and hard to breathe, I have to fight to get on the machines I need to do my little hamster routine. I had more fun walking my dog through the woods for two hours than I ever have next to the sweaty creepy guy at the gym on the elliptical machine. Every minute I’m in there I’m just “Ah! Get it over with!!” Of course when you go with people, you are also at the mercy of whatever their workout is, so even if you are done, they may not be. Let the standing around awkwardly commence.

I have this love hate relationship with physical activity. I’m not a fit person. I never have been overtly fit, although I have been more fit at some time than others, although I’ve never been fit on account of ‘going to the gym’. The only time I’ve been ‘fit’ was as a result of my lifestyle or job. For about three months I carried books door to door in various locations around Downtown vancouver. I hoofed it many KMs a day in high heels with a huge backpack stuffed with books. I did this for something on the order of 8-9 hours a day. In three months, I was pretty svelt. I also had a nervous breakdown and was in writhing pain in my hips, as I already suffer hip displacement, you can no doubt guess that this little activity absolutely ruined my hips. And then there’s the other part. Since I was 13, I lived in a place heated by a wood burning stove. From the age of 13 to 25ish, I hauled wood, every day, without fail from the back woods of the acreage I lived on. A lot of wood. We did a lot of yard work. I remember this one summer that I worked with my family on clearing and deforesting a portion of the yard, we worked from 9 am to 5pm every day, doing nothing but hauling wood, branches, and debris. Again, another summer I was built like a brick house.

However, I do not find yard work to be fun in the least. I hate gardening. I hate lawn mowing, and I can’t grow anything to save my life. Even my fiance has forbade me to have plants. I don’t like walking around delivering books.. I did it because I had to. Much like the gym. I do it because I have to. Not because I want to.

At the gym, its boring as fuck, but I know I’m not going to hurt myself if I stick to my little routine and don’t deviate too much. Its safe.. safe and boring as the grave. But if I try to play sports, even Frisbee in the summer, there’s a good chance of me pulling something (hip or shoulder) as I have done many times, although admittedly its much less boring and a lot more fun. Although living in a place where it rains 90% of the time, there’s not a lot of opportunity for outdoor sports unless you like being wet. Being wet is only acceptable to me in a swimming pool. And while I like swimming, its expensive to travel and fighting for lanes or even a few cubic meters of space in a public pool is not my idea of fun. I loved swimming in lakes and even the ocean when I’ve had the chance, but its… very cold to do so here save perhaps a month out of the year, and I don’t own wetsuits, nor could I afford them. Or scuba lessons, or any of that jazz. I like to ski, but my left leg is often too swollen to fit my boots and the cost of getting up a mountain (if there’s snow) and the time is challenging. Skiing really is a rich person’s sport, and I’m dirty poor.

I’ve never really liked or been good at any of the usual sports. Basketball, I’m too short and my shoulder’s buggered. Baseball, I can’t throw worth a damn and catching really isn’t that active unless you happen to be on first base. I remember playing outfield so I could stand there and not do anything in gym class. I can’t run due to my hips. I can walk forever, but its really not challenging where I live now to walk around the area. I used to walk through forests and up mountain trails. Too many people, too flat, too much pavement, and challenging walks are too far away to do on a daily basis. I’d have to drive there and drive back… and the gym is closer. Not to mention, you only get to walk on a single trail. There’s no variety. Honestly, you can probably name a sport, and I’ll tell you why I don’t do it. Maybe its excuse making but if … movement is supposed to be fun, and its highly individual, then why the fuck don’t I have SOMETHING I enjoy that’s physical?

The thing I’ve found the most fun (at least recently) is Dance Dance Revolution. A video game, sadly enough, although its got that physical ‘dance’ component. Its the one thing that I can do that’s aerobic and gets me sweating that I can do for hours and it feels like only a very short time. Sadly, i can’t do it because the people I live with get annoyed because the only place I can play is in the living room. I’ve pondered getting up at 6am to DDR, but the neighbors might shoot me. Ah, the joys of townhouse living, namely sharing walls.

Admittedly, I’ve got the attention span of a hyperactive nat when it comes to physical activity. I don’t do ‘routine’ well, and its an exercise in futility to make me ‘enjoy’ the gym, or any sort of ‘regular’ activity. In my own little world, if I didn’t have anyone else to accommodate, I would probably do whatever came into my little head. Maybe I’d do yoga one day, play wii fit the next, dick around with an exercise ball the day after that, DDR whenever I felt like for as long as I felt like. But, I don’t. With people around you that want routine, that either can’t, don’t want to, or find it annoying what you are doing or laugh openly at your spontaneous need to dance while cooking, its hard to find ways to be creatively active and not be ridiculed, or find ways to include others in that without it becoming regular and monotonous.

I’m not sure of “movement” is really the best term for being active (as suggested by the article), considering I ‘move’ to the bathroom. I ‘move’ from the office to my car. I ‘move’ from the couch to the bathroom, and its not the kind of ‘movement’ that really the article wanted to emphasize. I think activity is a better word to be honest. We need vigorous activity. Not ‘exercise’, but activity. Brain activity, physical activity, social activity, spiritual activity, and other sorts of activity. We need to be active in more than just one way at a time. I’m mentally active at work, but I sit on my ass. I’m physically active at the gym, but my brain flatlines. We need cross stimulating activities in our daily lives to make us feel less… well dead inside. And I’m not talking about activities like world of warcraft… unless of course you’ve created a LARP group that is having mock sword fights and running around in heavy armor for the sake of having fun. That’s pretty heavy physical activity to swing a sword and run around in armor… Oh, did I say LARP? Shit, my geek is showing. Sorry guys.

Originally written by Kevin Kelly, the 1000 true fans theory states in a nutshell that if you want to make a living off your creative genious on the internet, you need to cultivate “1000 true fans”. A true fan being defined as someone who is so zealous about your work, they’d buy everything 10 times over, even your belly button lint if it was sold on Ebay. Basically someone who truely is ‘fanatical’ about what you are doing. This post turned out to be a pretty hot topic across many blogs, which even prompted further posts, against, defending, and comparing to similar theories, even some temperance from reality of doing it. Go ahead, read it, come back. You’ll need to know what I’m talking about for the rest of this post.

Although the vast majority of the examples and applications have been to music, its been put to other creative diciplines, from writing, to painting, to comics, to business. But I have to say, personally, as a webcomic artist, it intrigues me.

This is not to say I think this is the be all and and end all solution to the age old dilemma ‘how do I make money with my webcomic’, but rather a bridge. A goal to get from your day job to making your living on the web by providing direction and a target number.

The nice thing about this theory is that it sounds easy and friendly. Initially reading it, I caught myself going ’1000? that sounds doable’, especially on the internet right? I mean there’s millions of people on the internet. Finding and keeping 1000 people around who worship your stuff shouldn’t be too hard just on odds alone. But as I thought about it, and did some math in my head (although admittedly I suck in math.. so take it as you will), it became a little more… shall we say, challenging?

I’m only talking webcomics in this post, to be clear, my numbers are based on my experience in webcomics and being involved in the webcomic community.

A ‘True fan’ according to the principle, is someone who is SO crazy about your stuff, they will buy ANYTHING you put out. In the terms of a webcomic, they own every shirt, even book, ever button, the UNDERWEAR, win art auctions regularly enough you know their screen name, donate regularly, and hassle their friends to buy your stuff. They are the sort of fan that asks ‘when do I pay?’ when you are still talking about a hypothetical product. I’ll tell you right now, these people are RARE. Rare enough that when you’ve got one, you will come to know them as good friends or on the flipside someone you dread but smile for because they help pay your bills. At any rate, these people are your bread and butter, and collecting them is quite a challenge, because they have a pretty high upkeep, and there are all sorts of challenges involved in paying that upkeep. These people, at most are only going to make up maybe 1% of your total fanbase.

Now, with every true fan, comes a gaggle of what I like to call  just ‘fans’. People who like your work enough to follow it regularly, have probably saved every comic to their hard drive, and maybe have bought one thing here or there from your store, or are very patiently waiting for a product offering they feel is actually worth money. They participate in forums, polls, comment on your comics, etc. Overall they like you, they might follow your work for years, but they aren’t yet paying customers. Or at least not regularly paying customers.  These people aren’t a huge group either, but there are more of them. Say 5% of your fanbase.

Out side of THAT level, there is what I like to call ‘casual fans’. These are people who like your stuff enough to follow it, to read it, maybe not regularly, but they like what they see. You figure on their entertainment radar, but they are just not invested in you for whatever reason. They are the sort of fan that might check back every month, or couple of months, and read through whatever you’ve posted, or maybe even as little as once a year. They might not even remember the author’s name, or only sort of vaguely recall the actual work. But they remember they liked it.  However, you still have the foot in the door, in that they know your work, and they might like it, but something is holding them back from moving ‘inward’ towards being a ‘fan’. They are pretty much everyone else.

On the very outskirts of your ‘circle of influence’ as it were, there’s the rest of the whole damn internet and planet, just waiting for you to tap.

This basically boils the 1000 fans theory down to the general consensus that, of ANY fan base, only about 1% is going to reliably spend money on something. And of that only a percentage again is going to buy everything you do. Its a really tiny number, and its REALLY freaking hard to get exact numbers of fans over the internet. You can get a clue, but never really know every life you’ve touched.

Here’s an actual example of the above math:

With comic rank, I get an idea of how many readers I have for my comic, Brymstone. My highest number was about 1400 or so. With that number, the amount that are ‘fans’ that might spend money is 70.  The amount of people who probably WOULD spend money is approximately 14.  If I was making a sales projection for  merchandise this would tell me ‘don’t make a lot of it’.

You know, this type of math makes things more depressing. However, this does provide me with a sort of target number, and working in the marketing industry, I really like target numbers.

In terms of a webcomic, this generally means steady traffic of numbers in the 100,000s on a daily basis. If you are getting over 100,000 uniques a day (or better), the chances of you actually having 1000 true fans in the mix, is pretty good. And even if your true fans are a little scarce, the ability to ‘convert’ from the fans to true fans, is better the more fans and casual fans you have. But you do have to work on that whole ‘conversion’ process. Matthew Ebel is champion at this. You have to make people CARE about not only the work, but you as a person as well. People help people they like, and your true fans, you have to treat them like friends. Good friends. Special friends. Personal friends.

This is a very important part of this theory. It is based a lot on new media making this possible through facebook, twitter, blogging, whatever. These people have to feel close to you to spend money 0n you. Cultivating these fans is like growing a garden, they must be tended lovingly, gently, and often with frequent nutruring of webcomicy (in our case) goodness. You can’t let them forget, and you can’t disappoint them too much, or they will cease to be true fans.

This is sort of part of the catch 22 of this. It takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate these fans. How do you find time for this if one of the secondary key points to this theory of success is creating new content? And as often as humanly possible.

Let’s face it. Content is king. The way people come to your site, the whole REASON they come is your content. Be it writing, comics, music, or whatever, the people come when you update. So in order to keep people coming, to keep their interest high, and nuture the want to buy shit from you, there has to be a regular stream of content flowing out of your website. Not only THAT, but a regular stream of merchandise too. If you want to keep the true fans spending, you have to keep coming up with new things to spend stuff on! No one wants 12 of the same shirt. Also, not every thing you make is going to be consumer gold. You’re going to have a lot of misses to your hits, so you have to be prolific. If you look at those who are succeeding in this theory, the are, for the most part, extremely prolific. We’re talking weekly content here people. AT THE VERY LEAST.

For webcomics, this isn’t entirely bad news. We are kind of used to putting out on a weekly, bi-weekly, or tri-weekly basis, some people are daily, or 5x a week. The more you update, the more people come back, the more your stuff gets known. In my experience, anything less than 1X a week, and you’ll be struggling. Regularity is also a huge key for the webcomic industry, you need to hit those update days if you are serious about growing your fanbase.

Although that’s not obviously the ONLY thing you need to do, as Robert Rich points out in his letter to Kevin Kelly, you can’t limit yourself to only fishing in one pond for fans. You can’t pander to one group forever, or even one set of tastes forever or you are setting yourself up for a sort of creative suicide. For webcomics, a lot of creators don’t reach past existing webcomic readers, cannibalizing over and over otherwebcomic’s audiences. The comics that really succeed have to bridge the gaps between subcultures, and into untapped markets. Webcomic creators that see opportunity in non-webcomic places and seize that are the ones who usually blaze their way to some kind of quazi success. Daily funny type comics tend to do this more easily that serial manga, which is probably why one sees more success with the daily. I’ll write more on that bitch later.

But on a whole, the theory, if you can wrangle and convert 1000 people into being true fans, you can make money. Maybe not enough to make a luxurious living, but a living. And obviously once you’ve got the first 1000, you have to continue adding and converting, because ultimate people on the internet have attention spans that are about the equivalent to that of a ferret with ADD on speed and drowning in coffee.

Anyway, I’ve been making webcomics for years, I started way back in the beginning before webcomics were a big deal. Back when the idea was still novel, and having your own website was all the rage. Today, it has evolved into a highly competitive content industry where people can actually making a LIVING doing it. But how do you get started? This is my first in a series of posts about making webcomics.

Contrary to popular belief, making a webcomic really isn’t hard. The essence of the thing is make some sequential art and post it on the internet. With services like DrunkDuck and SmackJeeves, its dead fucking easy. You don’t even need to know HTML or anything. Sign up for a service, click upload, upload comic jpg, and voila, instant webcomic.

However, making a GOOD webcomic that’s going to stand out in today’s increasingly crowded webcomic landscape is a completely different question. And with the wealth of increasingly awesome comics out there, unlike just a scant five years ago, you really have to kick up your game and have a plan if you want to get noticed.

As a potentially aspiring webcomic creator, you may be wondering, if you want to put your best foot forward, how the heck do you get started?

Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

In the case of webcomics, and indeed anything you intend to go anywhere with, its best to have a plan. If you are going to start a business, you start with a Business Plan. If you were going to make a movie, you’d start with a script at the very least. When you plan a trip, you get out a road map. Making a comic is no different. You should have a plan. At the very least, a script or summary with a direction you want to go.

If you are just sort of futzing around with the idea, you may be interested in making money at this point, but just publishing for exposure or for the love of sharing your stories/art. This is a different goal than making a marketable webcomic you can make a living off of. Both require different sorts of planning. One is less involved than the other, but both so require some thought. Lets address the more hobbiest aspect of the craft, and we’ll worry about the heavy stuff where money is involved a little later. After all, if you can’t handle webcomics at a hobby level, you probably won’t make it at the money level.

At this point, when you’ve decided to make a webcomic, you need to consider a few more basic parameters:

Format - Is this going to be a strip type comic or a serial manga?  Both have their own challenges associated with writing and production.

Medium – Digital or traditional? Color or black and white? These factors will affect how you make your comic and how you get it on the internet.

Frequency - how often can you produce a completed page? This becomes important when you decide how often you can update.

Place – Do you want to put it on a domain you already own as a subdomain? Do you want it to have its own domain and hosting? or do you want to be a part of a free site? or a free site with your own scripts? This will affect how people find you, and how you can advertise your site and what sorts of promotional tools you can use and access. Your technical knowledge of the internet, php, html, rss, and other interesting techie acronyms will be tested here. Can you even design a website?

How long? – How long do you want to be doing this? Is it a one shot deal?  A single story with 30? 50? 200 pages? Is it an ongoing strip with no real beginning or end? Is it a finite story with multiple books? Is a series of short stories? Deciding how long or short your story is gives you the ability figure out timelines. If this is your first webcomic, I tend to suggest a shorter format before working on your opus, as it seems 98% of long form webcomics are never finished. I’d say less than 50% live past 50 pages.

Artist or Writer? - Usually, most people who do webcomics are one or the other. Not to say that if you are an artist you can’t become a writer or vice versa, but knowing your strengths lets you also address your weaknesses. If you can’t draw, but write well, you will probably have no trouble coming up with a story, although you may run into trouble turning it into a comic script, as you really have to cut down your words. The other problem you will probably have is actually creating visuals. You are going to have to learn to draw, hire an artist, use a program, or create some kind of crutch to get by. Artists learning to write can produce the visuals, but their stories are often not that well thought out, crude, and not always well executed. Since a lot of the draw of a comic hinges on the story, the artist would benefit taking the time to properly develop their story and script (and have it proofread & revised a few times by actual writers) before setting to creating visuals.

Recruit help – Even the most seasoned, awesome, amazing webcomic creators need a little help from their friends from time to time. Most become involved with the webcomic communities online in some way or another. Be it advice on plot, to help with webdesign, to artistic tips and tricks in photoshop, there’s lots of help to be had to anyone who asks. Places like the drunkduck forums are a good place to start if you are new. I’ll update this area with more resources as I track them down. But the long and short is, if you need help, don’t be afraid to use google and ask. Most creators are happy to share advice or point you to people who can help.

Equipment – You will need some actual STUFF to make comics. If you are working traditionally, you’ll at least need access to a scanner to get things into the computer. Many creators start with a pen and paper, and then scan it in and add text and such later. I’ll cover artistic process in detail in the next article. Some artists prefer an entirely digital route using an input device such as a Wacom tablet. Many use programs to aid this, including some such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and MangaStudio. Others use free programs such as GIMP or Pixia. I’ll work on providing a more complete list in another article.

Once you’ve made the above decisions, acquired equipment and connections, and you’ve got yourself a script in hand, its time to actually start making comics. Unfortunately, this takes time and work. I highly suggest that you make a buffer of comics before you consider putting them online. I use a guideline of 30 comics before debut, but you could probably start with 10, but I wouldn’t launch a comic site with anything less. Doing 30 comics gives you a good chance to get to know your own work speed, and to do refinements. Once its up, its up, and people see it. If you make a spelling mistake or need to change it, its easier to do it BEFORE you’ve launched to the world. (although the nice thing about the web is you CAN change it, as opposed to dead tree format, where you can’t.)

( I will update and flesh some areas out more as I get more articles written. )

And with 2010, I’m sweeping out the old, and turning over the new. A new leaf that is.. well sorta. Read on, as if you are an old time Shadowsden patron, this is going to affect you. If you are here mostly because you like what I do artistically, then you might be pleased.

I’ve decided that I am no longer going to offer spiritual content on this site. After over 12 years of being involved in it, I’ve decided I’m tired of most of the BS that goes on. While the site is still here I’m changing its focus back to a personal website for me, showcasing my current interests and projects, such as my art, webcomic stuff, tutorials, photoshop stuff, creative writing, roleplaying resources/worldbuilding, and other random shit that might come into my brain.

You might ask ‘ but why Myst? Why give up after you’ve been running this site for so long?”

Well,  not only has it been half assed for many years, and practically barren for at least the last like.. 3 years. But I realized that there was more content I COULD be putting here, if I wasn’t chained to the old spiritual stuff. And I also realized that I don’t really have an interest in sharing that much anymore, I’m quite happy these days to keep my spiritual stuff mostly private. Oh I may still post the occasional musing on dreams or tarot card drawings, but for the most part, I think I’m largely done. I’m kind of sick of paying for hosting for a site that was dying for the most part anyway. Most of the people I really cared about have slipped quietly into the night on this side of their lives anyway, and the people I know I still have conversations with.. well.. that isn’t going to change. The forums still are up if you were a part of them, but you may notice a few missing forums. That area will get overhauled in time, right now I’m going to focus on creating new content. Probably to start with a lot of crap on webcomics and art, and then move on from there.
Anyway, here’s to 2010. Huzzah.

Transformation Rituals

The rituals listed here were gathered from various sources around the net, credited as they have been found. I do not make any claims to the effectivness of these rituals or validation in their claims to bestow the abilities of the werewolf.

The following rituals were found on the Werewolf Page.

Ritual #1
Drawing a circle from seven to nine feet in radius, in the center of which a wood fire is kindled- The wood selected being black poplar, pine or larch never ash. A fumigation in an iron vessel, heated over the fire, is then made out of a mixture of any four or five of the following substances:
Note: The substances involved in this ritual have been withheld by The Werewolf Page because of the harm that may caused by obtaining and/or ingesting them.

As soon as the vessel is placed over the fire so that it can heat, the person ho would invoke the spirit that can bestow upon him the property of metamorphosing into a wolf kneels within the circle, and prays a preliminary impromptu prayer. He then resorts to an incantation.

“Hail, Hail, Hail, great wolf spirit, Hail!
A boon I ask thee, mighty shade.
Within this circle I have made.
Make me a werewolf strong and bold.
The terror alike of young and old.
Grant me a figure tall and spare;
The speed of the elk, the claws of the bear;
The poison of snakes, the wit of the fox;
The stealth of the wolf, the strength of the ox;
The jaws of the tiger, the teeth of the shark;
The eyes of a cat that sees in the dark;
Make me climb like a monkey, scent like a dog;
Swim like a fish, and eat like a hog.
Haste, Haste, Haste, lonely spirit, Haste!
Here, wan and drear, magic spell making,
Findest thou me – shaking, quaking.
Softly fan me as I lie.
And thy mystic touch apply.
Touch apply, and I swear that when I die,
When I die, I will serve thee evermore,
Evermore, in grey wolf land, cold and raw.”

The incantation concluded, the supplicant then kisses the ground three times, and advances to the fire, takes off the iron vessel, and whirling it smoking round his head, cries out;

“Make me a werewolf! Make me a xxx-eater!
Make me a werewolf! Make me a xxxxx-eater!
Make me a werewolf! Make me a xxxxx-eater!
I pine for blood! xxxxx blood!
Give it to me! Give it to me tonight!
Great Wolf Spirit! Give it to me, and heart, body, and soul, I am yours!”

The trees begin to rustle, and the wind begins to moan, and out of the sudden darkness that envelops everything glows the tall, cylindrical, pillar-like phantom of the Unknown, seven or eight feet in height. It sometimes develops further, and assumes the form of a tall, thin monstrosity, half human and half animal, grey and nude, with very long legs and arms, and the feet and claws of a wolf, but surrounded with the hair of a women, that falls about its bare shoulders in yellow ringlets. It has wolf’s ears and a wolf’s mouth. Its aquiline nose and pale eyes are fashioned like those of a human being, but animated with an expression too diabolically malignant to proceed from anything but the super-physical. It seldom ever speaks, but either utters some extraordinary noise-a prolonged howl that seems to proceed from the bowels of the earth, a piercing, harrowing whine, or a low laugh of hellish glee, any of which sounds may be taken for its assent to the favour asked. It only remains visible for a minute at the most, and then disappears with startling abruptness. The supplicant is now a werewolf. He undergoes his first metamorphoses into wolf form the following evening at sunset, reassuming his human shape at dawn; and so on, day after day, till his death, when he may once more metamorphose either from man form or wolf form, or vice versa, his corpse retaining which ever form assumed at the moment of death. As far as I know from this process once a werewolf always a werewolf is an inviolable rule.

Ritual #2
Make a magic circle on the ground, at twelve o’clock, on a night on a night when the moon is full (one of about seven feet in diameter is most appropriate) in the center of the circle, a wood fire, heating thereon an iron vessel containing one pint of clear spring water, and any seven of the following substances;
Note: The substances involved in this ritual have been withheld by The Werewolf Page because of the harm that may caused by obtaining and/or ingesting them.

Whilst the mixture is heating, the experimenter prostrates himself in front of the fire and prays to the Great Spirit of the Unknown to confer on him the property of metamorphosing, nocturnally, into a werewolf. His prayers take no one particular form, but are quite extempore; though he usually adds to them some such recognized incantation as:

“Come, spirit so powerful! come, spirit so dread.
From the home of the werewolf, the home of the dead.
Come, Give me thy blessing! come, lend me thine ear!
Oh spirit of darkness! oh spirit so drear!
Come, mighty phantom! come, great Unknown!
Come from thy dwelling so gloomy and lone.
Come, I beseech thee; depart from thy lair.
And body and soul shall be thine, I declare.
Haste, Haste, Haste, horrid spirit, Haste!
Speed, Speed, Speed, scaring spirit, speed!
Fast, Fast, Fast, fateful spirit, fast!”

He then makes the following formal declaration:

“I (insert name) offer to thee, Great spirit of the Unknown, this night of (insert date) my body and soul, on condition that thou grantest me, from this night to the hour of my death, the power of metamorphosing, nocturnally, into a wolf. I beg, I pray, I implore thee-Thee, unparalleled Phantom of Darkness, to make me a werewolf, a werewolf”!

And striking the ground three times with his forehead, he gets up. As soon as the concoction in the vessel is boiling, he dips a cup into it, and sprinkles the contents on the ground, repeating the action until he has sprinkled the whole interior of the circle. Then he kneels on the ground close to the fire, and in a loud voice cries out:

“Come, oh Come!”

And, if he is fortunate, a phantom manifests itself over the fire. Sometimes the phantom is indefinite – a cylindrical, luminous, pillar-like thing, about seven feet in height, having no discernible features: sometimes it assumes a definite shape, and appears either as a monstrous hooded figure with a death’s hood, or as a sub-human, sub-animal type of elemental. Whatever form the Unknown adopts, it is invariably terrifying. It never speaks, but indicates its assent by stretching out an arm, or what serves as an arm, and then disappears. It never remains visible for more than half a minute. As soon as it vanishes, the supplicant, who is always half mad with terror, springs from the ground and rushes home, or anywhere to get again within the reach of human beings. By the morning, however, all his fears have departed; and at sunset he creeps off into the forest, or into some equally secluded spot, to experience, for the first time, the extraordinary sensations of metamorphosing into a wolf, or, perhaps, a semi-wolf, i.e., a creature half man and half wolf; for the degree of metamorphosis varies according to locality. Though it is at sunset that the change most usually takes place the transmutation back to man generally occurring at dawn.

Ritual#3
There are conditions of mind essential to those who would successfully practice these rites. It is necessary that the person desirous of acquiring the property of lycanthropy should be in earnest and a believer in those super-physical powers whose favor he is about to ask. Such an individual must betake himself to a spot remote from the haunts of men. The powers to be petitioned are not to be found promiscuously anywhere. They favour only such waste and solitary places as the deserts, woods, and mountain tops. The locality chosen, the candidate must next select a night when the moon is new and strong. He must then choose a perfectly level piece of ground, and on it at midnight, he must mark, either with chalk or string, a circle of not less than seven feet in radius, and within this, and from the same center, another circle of three feet in radius. Then in the center of this inner circle he must kindle a fire, and over the fire place an iron tripod containing an iron vessel of water. As soon as the water begins to boil the would be lycanthropist must throw into it handfuls of any three of the following substances:
Note: The substances involved in this ritual have been withheld by The Werewolf Page because of the harm that may caused by obtaining and/or ingesting them.

While repeating the following incantation:

“Spirits from the deep, who never sleep, be kind to me.
Spirits from the grave, without a soul to save , be kind to me.
Spirits of the trees, that grow upon the leas, be kind to me.
Spirits of the air, foul and black, not fair, be kind to me.
Spirits of the dead, that glide with noiseless tread, be kind to me
Spirits of heat and fire, destruction in your ire, be kind to me.
Spirits of cold and ice, phantoms of crime and vice, be kind to me.
Wolves, Vampires, Satyrs, Ghosts!
Elect of all the devilish hosts!
I pray you send hither, send hither, send hither
The great grey shape that makes men shiver!
Shiver, shiver, shiver!
Come, come, come!”

The supplicant then takes off his vest and shirt and smears his body with the magic salve. Then he binds round his loins a girdle made of wolf’s skin, and kneeling down within the circumference of the first circle, waits for the advent of the Unknown. When the fire burns blue and quickly dies out. The Unknown is about to manifest itself; if it does not actually appear it will make its presence felt. The spirit advent may be; a deep unnatural silence immediately proceeding it sometimes, sometimes crashes and bangs, groaning and shrieking, herald its approach. When it remains invisible its presence is indicated and accompanied by a sensation of abnormal cold and the most acute terror. It is sometimes visible in the guise of a huntsman sometimes in the form of a monstrosity, partly man and partly beast, and sometimes it is ill defined and only partially materialized. To what order of spirits it belongs is, of course purely a matter of conjecture. It is some malevolent, super-physical, creative power, such as, participated largely in the creation of theirs and other planets. It is not the Devil. It is difficult to say to what extent. The Unknown is believed to be powerful by those who approach it for the purpose of acquiring the gift of lycanthropy; it is not ascribed to be any supreme power, but is regarded as merely a local spirit, the spirit of some particular wilderness or forest.

Regarding the New Moon, psychic influences are demonstrated by the position of the planets. For instance, at new moon, cusp of seventh house, and conjoined with Saturn in opposition to Jupiter, sinister super-physical presence’s are much in evidence on the earth.

Lycanthropous Water Ceremony
A Norwegian or Swedish peasant when he wishes to become a werewolf, kneels by the side of a lycanthropous stream at midnight, having chosen a night when the moon is in the full, incants these words:

“Tis night! Tis night! and the moon shines white over pine and snow capped hill. The shadows stray through burn and brae and dance in the sparkling rill.”
Tis night! Tis night! and the devils light casts glimmering beams around. The maras dance, the nisses prance on the flower enameled ground.”
Tis night! Tis night! and the the werewolf’s might makes man and nature shiver.
Yet its fierce grey head and stealthy tread are nought to thee, oh river!
River, River, River
Oh water strong, that swirls along I prithee a werewolf make me.
Of all things dear, my soul, I swear, In death shall not forsake thee.”

The supplicant then strikes the banks of the river three times with his forehead; then dips his head into the river thrice, at each dip gulping down a mouthful of the water.

Concludes ceremony, he has become a werewolf, and twenty-four hours later will undergo the first metamorphosis.

Lycanthropous water is said, by those who dwell near to it, to differ from other water in subtle details only, detail that would, in all probability, escape the notice of all who were not connoisseurs of the superphysical. A strange, faint odour, comparable with nothing, distinguishes lycanthropous water; there is a lurid sparkle in it, stongly suggestive of some peculiar, individual life; the noise it makes, as it rushes along, so closely resembles the muttering and whispering of human voices as to be often mistaken for them; whilst at night it sometimes utters piercing screams, and howls, and groans in such a manner as to terrify all who pass near it. Dogs and horses, in particular, are susceptible to its influence and they exhibit the greatest signs of terror of the mere sound of it.
(Thanks to Wolfgang)

Lycanthropous Flowers
Pluck and wear after sunset, and on a night when the moon is full. Lycanthropous flowers, no less than lycanthropous water, possess properties peculiar to themselves; properties which are, probably, only discernible to those who are well acquainted with them. Their scent is described as faint and subtly suggestive of death, whilst their sap is rather offensively white and sticky. In appearance they are much the same as other flowers, and are usually white and yellow.
(Thanks to Wolfgang)

This ritual was found in this Dark Corner. I believe it actually is pertaining to vampires becoming werewolves…but it might be of interest..

The Rite of the Werewolf

-Mental Lycanthropy and the summoning of Shadows -

The altar can be either within a home or in the woods. Upon the altar should rest bones of the dead and two black candles and two red candles, above the Wamphyri – Varcolaci Pentagram (A Sigil of the Black Order of the Dragon). With your mind draw one circle anti-clockwise that it might fit a man within.

“From the will of that which is Satan I call the Demonic powers of the Wolf
Shadows demons I call to thee! One spirit shall rise through this circle -
One chosen of the Demonic hordes I evocate thee to bring forth the Gray Beast which makes all tremble, by my will and will to power I will become WEREWOLF! Phantoms of Darkness I now invocate thee -
they likeness is to be within and through my Vampyric Will I implement the power of Satan.”

With your mind focus upon the transformation. Feel each muscle as it stretches, grows stronger, more beastlike. Rough gray hair grows through the skin as the flesh itself turns ghost white and the face blackens. The bones stretch and begin to form a beast between a man and wolf. The face warps into a long snout which holds many razor sharp fangs. The fingers stretch and fold into Talons, cruel to the flesh they Shred.. Feel now the pleasure of the Werewolf, go out into the night and taste the pleasures of the Will.

SO IT IS DONE

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From ‘Strange Monsters and Madmen’ by Warren Smith. 1969,

Ritual for a Werewolf

“A werewolf is the legendary man-beast with the alleged ability to instantly transform itself into a killer animal. This murderous metamorphosis is supposed to occur at midnight, preferably in the deepest reaches of some dark forest. Legends claim the transformed wolfman is then driven by a lusting, carniverous appetite. Medieval manuscripts have disclosed the rituals used by the ancients to call the dark powers of werewolfdom.
The supplicant must select a level piece of ground and wait until the light of a new moon burns brightly. At midnight, a seven foot circle is chalked on the earth with a three-foot circle inscribed inside. At the exact center of the two circles, at a spot marked with a white “X” , The candidate lights a black candle. Arrangements completed, the supplicant who seeks the evil powers of werewolfery must chant:

‘Spirits of the dead, with souls of lead, hear me.
‘Spirits of the grave, you Devil’s slaves, hear me.
‘Spirits of the air, from the wolves’ lair, hear me.
‘Spirits of the Devil, with deeds so evil, hear me.
‘Spirits of hell’s fire, angry with ire, hear me.
‘Wolves, vampires, ghosts and ghouls,
‘Make me one of your evil tools.
‘Send me yon, send me hither,
‘In a shape to make men quiver!
‘Shiver, shiver, shiver!
‘Come, Werewolves, come!

Chant completed, the applicant must crouch inside the circle to undergo the terrible transformation. The change should start when the candle flame burns blue. The old manuscripts usually ended their descriptions of the ritual by stating, ‘the reader must beware calling up the powers of darkness because the werewolf is always killed by a silver stake, or a silver bullet!.’”

Other things that could make you a werewolf in mythology includes:

1. Being bitten by a werewolf
2. Eating a wolf’s brain
3. Eating the meat of a sheep that has been killed by a wolf
4. Drinking from the paw print of a wolf; or drink out of a pool of water that a wolf frequents.
5. Tasting human flesh
6. Eating roasted wolf flesh
7. Wearing or smelling of wolfbane
8. Wearing a garment made of a wolf pelt
9. Wearing a belt made of the skin of an executed criminal.