Agent X | Agent-X Comics

Obey the rules

February 20, 2011 Agent X 7 Comments

Sometimes companies can have social media policies that do far more harm than good.

The “social media policy” is something that many of us can now find in our company handbooks or OH&S policies.
Apparently, only 29% of companies have a formal policy on employee social media usage in place, but of those that do, many seem to have gone a little overboard and made them overly strict.

While it is important for companies to set out guidelines on how employees can use online media while during work hours (an sometimes even dictating how they use it out-of-hours) these policies need to be flexible enough not to create issues every time an employee posts something.

Strict rules over social media use in the workplace, can lead to lawsuits and plenty of bad press – precisely the kind of thing these policies are trying to prevent.

There are many reports of people being fired due to posts on twitter and facebook. There is even a website documenting cases of people being “facebook fired“.
Some stories are funny due to the sheer ignorance shown by the poster like this one.
Others can be far more serious – such as an AP reporter being reprimanded for a facebook post, teachers being let go or being fired for letting off steam about work in your own time.

It is obvious that many businesses are unsure how or what to do regarding policing their employees & social media. But being dictatorially strict about it is definitely not the answer.
If you are looking to write a policy for how your staff use social media soon, why not browse through this library of Social Media policies from other companies, and choose the best course of action for your organisation?

Bat-Finn & Jake

February 15, 2011 Agent X 2 Comments

This little bit of Adventure Time fan art is my humble attempt at showing possibly the ONLY way that Finn & Jake could be any cooler.

This cartoon is seriously off kilter in the very best of ways. Thanks to this show, my son and I will now use the term “Boom!Boom!” and laugh hysterically. Thank you for this cartoon Pendleton Ward.

Bat-Finn & Jake — Click to view in AWESOME!

Hijacked Account

February 13, 2011 Agent X 2 Comments

If your twitter account gets hacked and it has more useful tweets than what you normally post, has a crime been committed?

There are many accounts out there that could do with a good hi-jacking, if only for no other reason than to remind the owners that they exist. I am not referring to the thousands of abandoned accounts that exist on twitter.
I mean all the accounts that are used (primarily by businesses) basically as another feed channel for their blog posts or facebook page updates.

If you look around, you will find these accounts everywhere.
They get regular updates added to then, but they are always a link to the latest blog or update over on another site.
When you look through the stream on these accounts, you will not see one single reply. Why is this?
Because the account owners simply have it so that they can say “Oh yes, I AM on twitter too” but they never actually visit it to understand how to use it properly. For them, it is a marketing channel and it ticks another box on the Social media list that they feel they need to complete.

So, having an account like this hacked & getting some replies in the stream would actually be an improvement.
I am not condoning hacking in any way, but I can see how it could produce a good result at times.

For the eagle-eyed followers among you, you may recognise the guys in this comic. It is good to see that they seem to have finally gotten jobs after all.

Standing out from the crowd

February 8, 2011 Agent X 3 Comments

There is a lot of debate out there, regarding the “future of webcomics” and how comic artists/illustrators can make a living from them. Especially with the current tools available, which let anybody with a computer suddenly become a publisher &/or a comic creator.
The ability to push out a webcomic, regardless of it’s quality, is within the reach of practically anybody.

(Side note – I dislike the term ‘webcomic’. In the present online world, there is a massive crossover between comics delivered in print format, or online. So, for the rest of this blog post, I am just going to call them ‘comics’. You will notice that it makes little difference, and is still relevant, despite the delivery medium)

For me, the answer to being able to make a living from just creating comics, is to do one of these things:

1. work hard and produce comics that are of great quality, which will then attract the readers/publishers.

2. create a great product, but pick a niche to work within, where there is less competition.

The first option is something you should do by default, as a comic creator regardless. It is the second option that I feel is the best path to follow.
The idea is nothing new, and smart artists have been doing this for a while.
Hugh McLeod talked about this approach in a recent article. He describes targeting the High-End Microaudience in order to make a profit from his art.

Very recently, I stumbled across this work by Carly Monardo. She has created a piece called Marc Jacobs In Space which I feel is not only great looking, but is also a very smart direction to take. The niche she has begun to target here is the fashion industry, and I can see how something like this could really blossom into a fantastic earning potential for her.

As artists, we should be thinking of the old adage “work smarter not harder”. In our case, this often means thinking about where we can apply our skills, rather than pumping out a heap of stuff that has already been done & hoping someone sees it after it has been tweeted, retweeted, voted up on reddit & facebooked to death.

So, why not take some time very soon, and think about how you are going to “work smarter, not harder’“.
It could really pay off for you.

Content Footer

Page Footer