It had been over four years since I last did a general survey of my readership, so I felt a follow-up was in order. For two weeks I gathered he opinions of about 400 Filibuster readers in an attempt to get a better sense of my audience, and what they like and want. Here are the results:
Conclusion: most Filibuster readers (or at least those readers who can be persuaded to fill out a Stephen Harper-style voluntary census) are fairly loyal, and have been around for a while. Less than 20% have only been reading for a year or less.
Almost an even split between Americans and non-Americans. In any case, no matter how you look at it, Canadians are in the minority, which means a lot of foreigners are genuinely interested in Canadian-centric political cartoons.
I guess this was to be expected. I don't even know why I asked it. I didn't ask "gender" because I thought the results would be too obvious, but in retrospect "age" was a bit of a no-brainer, too.
People hate questions like this, because they hate being pigeon-holed and labeled. But I am always genuinely curious as to the ideological profile of my readership. According to this, you guys are almost evenly split. About a third are liberal, a third are conservative or libertarian, and a third are moderate or apolitical. It's kind of sweet to have such a clean equilibrium. It suggests Filibuster readers are quite mature, and are more interested in commentary for commentary's sake, rather than hearing one particular partisan point of view that re-enforces their own.
I often struggle with the question as to whether or not Filibuster is a "webcomic" and if I am a "webcartoonist." I mean, obviously I make comics and put them online, but the title of "webcomic" often implies membership in a particular subculture, and I have never really been sure if the webcomic subculture is one I'm well-suited for membership in. This question implies that most of you visit Filibuster as part of a larger smorgasbord of online comic strips, which is nice, because it makes me feel included. It suggests that things like advertising on other comic pages, or networking with other webcartoonists, would be worthwhile initiatives.
A lot of people asked me what the point of this particular question was, since the "things to like" choices are so limited as to be virtually useless for a broad survey. But, in reality this was just a coded way for me to get a sense of what sort of social class background my readership comes from.
So, looking at these results, I can see that only about a quarter of you guys care much about Christianity, which means I don't have a particularly religious reader base. Almost 90% of you care about video games, however, and 35% like Anime. So clearly a fairly nerdy / geeky demo, which is cool, because that's what I am as well.
Glad to see that not many of you care enough about politics to actually get involved in campaigning and formal party stuff. That's a level of obsessive political wonkery that not even I can commit to, and frankly intimidates me a bit.
Amazingly one-sided results here. You people really like Canada, apparently. Which is good, because so do I, and I don't like feeling guilty when I write or draw about it. My fears that my American readers find such stuff boring are apparently unjustified!
This is a bit rough. Not very divisive results, though I really do appreciate the honesty of everyone who voted "no." I really want to make a book someday, but this isn't exactly a huge mandate to move ahead with such a time-consuming and expensive project....
Again, not very divisive, although I guess it's clear that if you do want a book, you want it to be of something more than just a regurgitation of a year's worth of the archive.
Here now, are some of your specific comments. I got hundreds of wonderful replies, many of which were incredibly sweet and thoughtful. I've been doing Filibuster for quite a while now, so it really touches me to know that there are a lot of people out there for who are such loyal, appreciative readers.
Though I read every single comment I received, I won't stroke my own ego by reposting any of the mushy ones. More productive would be an excerpt of some of the more substantial reoccurring comments and concerns you guys made regarding the site:
On the book idea:
I would only buy a Filibuster book if it had cartoons you can not see on the internet.
A consistent theme was that readers were hesitant about buying a book that contained content they could easily get online for free, which is fair enough.
If you do a book, please include the accompanying blog post (for context) as well as possibly some commentary on each one, if possible. That makes the purchase more appealing and makes the book more interesting than a simple paper copy of what is readily available on the internet.
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I think I would like it most if it included essays with comics (either both, or make comics for some essays you've posted, or extend posts about comics). It doesn't need to be a particular time period, but I think it would be good if it looked or summarized the political climate of a certain time period, or of certain "stories" over time. I feel like that would have the most lasting value, and I only buy books if I would want to keep it or show people.
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I suppose the difficulty in a " all time best of" book would be selecting only timeless cartoons as so many political cartoons are based on the here and now events and not necessarily relevant or understandable years later. Thankfully you've got a lot of great ones to choose from so you can take my money now as a a sign of my confidence!
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If you go with the best strips, may I suggest adding updated commentary to past cartoons and your thoughts in retrospect?
These are all good suggestions. I'm going to have to continue to weigh my options for moving forward with a book, but it's clear you guys want lots of original stuff, and lots of commentary.
On content:
As well as too much Canadian content I think there's far too much American (USA) content. This is more of an issue to my mind than the Canadian content. i would personally prefer it if there were comics about the international scene or different countries other than the US and Canada e.g. the UK or other European countries.
I got several variations on this theme. I would like to do more international stuff, but it's a bit of a challenge to be particularly insightful about the politics of other countries, whose media I do not regularly read. A number of Britons and Australians wanted me to do more commentary on their politics, which I suppose is something I could give more effort to in the future, since they do speak English and all.
I should probably go back to reading The Economist....
Filibuster is pretty much my only source of info on Canada.
I'm always a bit flattered when I get comments like this. It's quite wonderful that people from around the world have so much interest in what is, let's be frank, a pretty boring country at the end of the day.
On my writing
I'm very glad you're back. Keep up the great work! I learn a ton about politics from the explanations you include with your cartoons, the explanations are in fact my favorite part.
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I often find your blogs more interesting than your cartoons.
The site has gotten a lot more writing-intense over the last year, so I'm glad to hear the transition has been well-recieved. I'd say my passion for writing is about equal to my passion for comics, so I'm glad no one resents the site getting more dual-focused.
On other issues:
Not sure how regular your update schedule is, but they definitely encourage me to return and check for updates. "Twice a week" is not enough; should be "Mondays and Wednesdays" or something specific like that.
Fair enough. I do try to update (either with comics or blog posts) three times a week, though I know the exact dates of those updates can be a bit unpredictable. My personal schedule is just a bit all over the place these days, and I'm afraid of promising updates before I know whether or not I can 100% commit. But I will try harder to conform to some sort of routine.
The filibuster forum response to each hot topic you touch on is some of the best internet discussion that I've ever come across. If you do end up releasing a book with the comics in it, I think that a couple of responses from the forum (especially of Psudo and Kjeorteo) would work great.
The forums are indeed pretty great, but they'd be even better if more people signed up! What are you waiting for, join now!
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All in all, thanks to everyone who participated in this survey. It was a very revealing and valuable exercise, as I knew it would be.
If you didn't have a chance to fill out the survey or have some other comments for me, remember you can always just email me at jjmccullough@gmail.com and I will eagerly read them.
— J.J.
September, 2010