Posted by Sean C on Oct 10th, 2008
I recently discovered Frumph, a relatively new webcomics list, and checked it out. There’s a lot of tender-loving care put into the site, and it seems to be very active, posting reviews and hosting the Webcomic Readers Choice Awards. It really seems to stand out against some of the more established lists, and that got me even more curious. I sat down with Philip Hofer, Frumph himself, and asked him a few questions about his site.
1. How did Frumph come about? What were some of the challenges when it came to distinguishing yourself from other webcomic lists?
I’m Frumph, you really want to know how I came about? Erm.. According to my Mom, I was a “pleasant surprise, and a gleam in my father’s eye at a halloween party”. Oh, you mean the Frumph.NET? The public reason is that I used to store thousands of bookmarks of comic websites and pass them around to friends as a list. I posted them up on the net and several of my friends asked me to “make it look pretty” .. I think I got a little too overzealous with it.
I’ve always been a webcomic reader, a fan in the shadows sort of speaking probably for about 10ish years previous to this, when there were but just a scant few to read. Needless to say my bookmark list was and still is huge. I wonder if I’m ever going to get around to adding them all to the master Frumph.NET list. The stance we have of not listing something unless we come across it or having people request it to be added is better, keeps it fresh.
I do not think that Frumph.NET is competing with other webcomic lists. In my thinking I consider myself “working with” those other webcomic lists to promote webcomics, to get them seen, read and enjoyed.
2. On the note of other webcomic lists, what does Frumph.NET do differently than, say, a Buzzcomix?
I really don’t know. Again, its all perspective. If anything is different I would consider it to be that I feel Frumph.NET is more reachable. You can email/contact/chat with me online *anytime* (that i’m awake and online), I listen to what comments and suggestions people have for additions to the site and community; I also feel that with our stance on Frumph.NET to support and promote webcomics in a positive manner I feel we produce content that points to comics that people would like to read. I’m not just the administrator, I’m also the programmer, which means that I can actively make the changes to the site as needed. In thought though I understand that most of the listing sites out there try to be as pro-active as possible so who am I to judge. I use a darker background. What do you feel are the differences?
3. How does the ranking system at Frumph.NET work?
I am one of those guys who thinks that having things “transparent” and able to have people understand the working of how Frumph.NET does things is important; I made the ranking system very easy to figure out. The Top Ten Favorites is basically how many people have favorited a particular site. The top ten outgoing is how many people have clicked links on Frumph.NET to go to the particular site. The Top Ten Incoming is how many times people from those outside sites have clicked on the links there to come to us. The Top Ten Rank itself is just simple math that is Incoming + Outgoing + (Favorited*10) = score, highest score in the top position. To participate in the Top Ten Rank the site has to have the link to Frumph.NET on their site. Everythings done automatically in the code, which is nice. Once my system see’s the link it will put that site into the ranking. The ranking has its benefits as well. All of the banners on any of the Frumph sites recognize that the site is in the ranking and those banners rotate for those sites. A good bonus for being seen by the users who come to our site.
4. What are your overall goals with Frumph.NET? What do you aim to do in the long run?
My “personal” goal of Frumph.NET would be to one day be ‘the place’ to go to find webcomics in the different categories for users to find the types of sites they would like to go to and read. Every review, every spotlight, every event we hold for those sites is designed to have the reader’s in mind and lead them to sites that they would enjoy.
5. What does it take to become a Frumph favorite? Any benefits to that distinction?
Since you wrote this I changed that to “Must Read”, instead of Frumph Favorite. The purpose of “Must Read” is to distinguish certain sites out there that are actively part of the webcomic community pop-culture. Those sites are relevant in discussions and references in a positive way for the webcomic community as a whole. I update those on a monthly basis dependent on events that have occurred or aspect of the comic that denotes them as being something special.
In order to be a “Must Read” the comic / site needs to be exemplary in one way or another. The comic, the news, the community, the author congeniality needs to be something noticeably a step above the rest in one way or another. This is also a subjective view by myself alone. I can only hope that I keep the attitude that I present myself with the ability to make those distinguishes without biases, to which I am trying ardently to do. I actively pursue avenues in which users of Frumph.NET be able to vocalize their opinions and thoughts to me about such issues. I do not consider a must-read to be a popularity issue, which is why you probably will find some high hit sites not on the must-read. They probably havent done anything to advance the webcomic community or distinguish themself in a positive way, yet.
I’m on the list, and if you’ve got a comic, you should go get yourself listed, too. This is the kind of list site worth supporting, that’s putting in a world of effort, so go Frumph yourself, comickers!
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Podcast RSS
Kurt
October 11, 2008 at 3:04 pm
While Frumph.net is a news, list, ratings and review site, there is also the fact that we do weekly Podcasts on Sunday.
You can find it here called:
T.G.T. Webcomic Podcast on
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/22928
Sundays 7PM PST / 10PM EST
[Reply]
Brock
October 11, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Great interview, Sean! You guys touched on a lot of things I had been wondering about. Frumph’s a good guy and I’m glad to see him get attention like this.
[Reply]
Krishna
October 13, 2008 at 5:43 am
Sean, great interview of the man, the myth, the legend that is Frumph! :)
[Reply]