The survey I made around the end of February is now closed (the one attached to this mini-comic), and I've looked over all the results and read every comment. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to give their feedback, even the ones who were a bit critical. Taking criticism is kinda like eating your vegetables: sometimes it's hard and you don't like it, but it's good for you and helps you to grow. There was a bunch of positive feedback too though, which did make those veggies a little easier to swallow!
Here are a few of the insights that I gained from your valuable feedback:
I learned that what people like most about Aww, Feathers! are the characters and the story. I mean, that's not very surprising; I would guess the same applies to many webcomics. But it makes me happy that people enjoy reading about them and it's a good reminder to never sacrifice them in favor of some other aspect of the comic. And I love comments about a reader's favorite character, or one they feel they can relate to. I never get tired of hearing those!
When it comes to improvements, by far the top items were improved artwork, followed closely by more frequent updates. Feedback on what specifically about the artwork should be improved was very valuable, because while I've been aware since the beginning that it needs improvement, I haven't been so sure about where to focus my attention first. Your feedback gave some good direction, and recommended working on perspective and body proportions most of all. I can definitely think of some pages where those were giving me some trouble and where the page suffered as a result. I'll put more focus on practicing those things specifically.
As for updating more frequently, that's one of my biggest desires as well. Even one update every week just doesn't seem enough, especially with all the other stories I want to get to! Right now however, I am barely able to keep up with my current update schedule, even with only three main story updates per month. I'm always on the lookout for ways to increase production with the time that's available to me (and if anyone has any suggestions, I am always eager to hear them!). But as with any project I work on, before I dedicate a larger portion of time to it, it needs to be at least somewhat self-sustaining. That's why I've been encouraging readers to support Aww, Feathers! on Patreon so much lately. Money won't magically make more hours in the day to work on comics, but if certain funding goals are reached, I can then justify spending more time on it, instead of other projects. So if you'd like to see the comic back on a weekly update schedule (and hopefully even more frequent in the future), please consider a small pledge at http://ift.tt/1ULrIir. Right now it is by far the best way to support the comic financially, even if it's just a dollar or less each month. (Don't worry though. Regardless of funds received, the webcomic will continue to be available for free online.)
Reading about everyone's favorite and least favorite comic pages was very interesting to me, and it showed that the comic has readers with different tastes. More than one chapter was specifically mentioned by multiple readers, some who said it was one of their favorites, and others who said it was their least favorite! Overall though, the consensus seems to be that even when a chapter isn't their favorite one, readers still enjoy the comic overall. I'll use that info to make sure to have a variety of stories, without dwelling too much on one topic at a time.
I was a bit surprised by the results for the question of how people keep up with the comic updates. The vast majority said they simply visit awwfeathers.com on the days it's supposed to update, which is a big reminder to me that I need to keep my update schedule consistent! (I think I do a pretty good job at that at least.) Some said they follow on social media, and some even mentioned webcomic sites that I didn't know about, so that's pretty cool. Very few said they follow via rss, which surprised me mainly because that's what I use to follow webcomics, almost exclusively. There are a lot of great services (I use a free one called feedly) to which you can add websites (including webcomics) and they will automatically fill with updates from all the sites you follow so you never miss anything new. I find it very convenient and highly recommend it, but if you prefer just bookmarking the page and visiting weekly, that works just fine too.
This was a very valuable exercise for me, and I thank you all once again for your feedback, including the constructive criticisms. That survey is now closed, but I've set up another one to act as an all-purpose online "comment box" if you ever have anything else you'd like to say, but would feel more comfortable doing so privately and anonymously. Feel free to use it at any time by visiting this link: http://goo.gl/forms/QNmftweZWo. Thanks again for helping me to make Aww, Feathers! the best that it can be!
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