Pewfell

The subject matter of this comic isn't the important point here. Incompetent wizards are plentiful, and what humorous fantasy strip would leave out the fearsome female warrior, the naïve cleric and trouble-making thief? How may strips don't take these characters and throw them through unlikely yet successful adventures?

Not to dismiss Pewfell as the normal cliche of humor and fantasy. The artwork is of high quality. Just because the basic gags are common doesn't preclude clever twists. You won't find much of this genre that can match it (Bruno the Bandit may qualify, but that's the only one that comes offhand).

The real reason to bring up Pewfell is how it has combined pay archives and free ones. One of the ground rules I made was "the archives of the comic must be freely available," i.e. anyone can pick up the comic and read it. This excludes several of the pay services that have a policy of "current comic free, archives cost."

You can image why this is a poor design for the viewer. Two reasons in particular jump out: Miss a single comic and you have to pay to read it. You only get the early (which for any webcomic is usually the lowest quality) or any strips on which to decide if the comic is worth reading.

Raven Blackmane (you probably won't recognize the name, it's a kind of small mailing list) pointed out that these pay services are a lot like shareware...only most shareware is done much better. One method used in shareware is the full version, but with many of the time-saving and convenient features left out (think Registrar's Registry Manager). Keenspot uses a style like this: the basic comics are all there, but ease of use considerations like no ads, viewing archives multiple strips at a time and bonus content.

Another method releases the previous version of the software fully functional; to get the latest features now will cost you. You can still use the older--and working--version and see exactly what you'd expect in the newer one. Pewfell has this system. The free archives lag an issue or two behind. Notice neither of these systems are "The original v1.0 (bugs unpatched) is free, plus you get the splash screen for the newest version."

Hopefully we'll see more like Pewfell, and the different methods can be compared to see which best supports their authors and server requirements.