201102091307.jpgAlthough E-i-C Laura Hudson tweeted that the HuffPo/AOL alliance was yet to have any effect on AOL’s comics blog, Comics Alliance, it seems that now AOL is sending out PR about sub-site achievements. Congrats to the Krew!

Following several months of increased growth, AOL’s comic book industry blog ComicsAlliance has passed its nearest competitor to become the most visited comic book website in the United States, according to comScore Media Metrix, January 2011 data.

In under two years in operation, ComicsAlliance has distinguished itself with consistently entertaining and engaging material that reflects the vivacious culture, humor and artistry of comic book readership and creators. Edited by an experienced team of professional bloggers, ComicsAlliance articles have been featured on websites and news sources including The Huffington Post, The Maddow Blog, NPR, Google News and The New York Times, and are particularly popular among users of social networking tools and aggregators including Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, BoingBoing and StumbleUpon. As such, ComicsAlliance shares only 11% or less of its audience with its leading competitors, making the AOL (NYSE: AOL) site the premier source for readers far beyond scope of normal comic book coverage. Additionally, ComicsAlliance earned a 2010 nomination for the Eisner Award — the comics industry’s most prestigious honor — for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism.

“I am so proud of what my entire team has accomplished over the last year and a half,” said ComicsAlliance Editor-in-Chief Laura Hudson. “We’ve worked incredibly hard to make ComicsAlliance the sort of website that we always wanted to read, with a smart, funny approach to comics culture that’s appealing to both casual and devoted fans of comics. We’re offering something different, and we’ve been hugely gratified and appreciative that it has found such a large audience.”

“We’re breaking away from the news and review model of comic book coverage by focusing on art, op-eds and humor,” said ComicsAlliance Site Operations Manager Brian Childs. “And our readers have responded by sharing our content regularly with their friends via social media.”

In the past year, ComicsAlliance has received major coverage in the mainstream media. The site’s coverage of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church’s protest at Comic-Con International in San Diego remains the most shared AOL article on Facebook; Editor-in-Chief Laura Hudson’s editorial about a comics retailer’s violent remarks about Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords resulted in a police raid of his home and the confiscation of weapons; Associate Editor Andy Khouri’s series of articles on comics-related racial and religious prejudice inspired coverage on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and in the Arabic media; and Senior Blogger Chris Sims was approached by Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” about media reaction to a comic book story featuring a Muslim Batman.

13 COMMENTS

  5. Not according to Alexa and Compete.

    CA had a spike in Traffic Rank and also Reach this February, but Comic Book Resources still has much more pageviews.

    Actually Bleeding Cool takes turns with CA as comics-related most viewed website, with Comics Beat in fourth.

    In any case congrats for both CA’s and BC’s teams – they accomplished a lot in such a short time.

  7. Don’t count Alexa, Quantcast, Compete or any outside estimate measurement service as unimpeachable sources.

    Alexa measures traffic based on those who use their toolbar.

    When I look at Girl Genius, I see huge numbers on their Project Wonderful ads, 250,000 or more per day. When I look at Quantcast, or 7zoom, or Compete, I see a small fraction of those numbers. Sometimes showing only ten percent of the traffic the PW ads show.

    For example, according to 7zoom, Girl Genius only has about 27,000 page views per day, roughly 10% what the PW ads show. And Compete shows Girl Genius has only about 70,000 unique visitors. That’s got to be low.

    According to Comcast, PVP has only 50,000 unique visitors a month. I’m sure that’s also low.

    Page views aren’t always as important as unique visitors. 10,000 unique visitors per day are more important than 1,000 people who hit 100 times.

    Take those measurement services with a grain of salt.

  8. For some reason, my work computer filters out all graphics from the CA posts, making something like the “Best Romances in Comics” article difficult to read. (My WinMo6 Treo handles it perfectly.)

    Otherwise, great site!

  12. I think, as far as I can tell, pretty much all the differing stats are bunkum to some degree or other. But it’s fun when one puts you at the top.

    I mean Technorati generally has BC as either the first of second top comic blogs, alternating with MTV Splashpage. I don’t believe it though. Or that BC is one of the top 100 in the world. Fun to see however, and always worth of congratulation. You must be doing something right!

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