Save Early, Save Often

With Drunk Duck vanishing from the world this seemed like a good topic to address. Obviously it's trivial if you own a domain name; you only wait for the change to propagate. Otherwise, there's a lot of work involved in saving a webcomic & moving it to a new location.

First you have the images. Follow the standard rules for backups, one copy on your computer and a second (or more) stored safely on CD or other permanent media. The web server is the least stable place to store data; keep it somewhere you control instead. As a last resort, if you keep the originals (or at least copies) you still have the possibility of restoring the lost strips.

Users must be informed of the change, a forum or blog can work. Remember that it must be on a different server. Having an account on forums.comicgen.com doesn't help you redirect readers when comicgen.com dies. Sites like OnlineComics.net or TheWebComicList.com are good services. Record when you've placed your comic on one, not only doesn't it help if you fail to update the entry, but an old entry will give a dead link; your comic could be mislabeled as lost.

Be sure to check everything before moving. If you have PHP-based archives, all those pages must be built before moving to a server without PHP. Some files (like .css files) are rarely updated, and end up forgotten. For those who link, validate them regularly, 'tis death to '404!