Poll results
From 1 May 2014 to 29 August 2014, the following nine polls ran on Gaia. All of them got over two 1,500 votes and it’s time to present the results.
Poll from 1 May 2014:
The numbers are almost exactly the same as in the same poll running on Sandra and Woo. I find this surprising since the comics are very different from each other and the comments on Gaia are often more focused on the overall plot instead of the specific update.
Poll from 1 May 2014:
Almost nobody used the bookmark buttons so I removed them some time ago.
Poll from 1 May 2014:
Compared to the same poll running on Sandra and Woo, there are a little less hardcore webcomic fans among the Gaia readers. Over 50% of our readers read between 4 and 12 webcomics which I would describe as the “average” range.
Poll from 1 May 2014:
Compared to the same poll running on Sandra and Woo, the readers of Gaia are significantly older. However, the Sandra and Woo poll ran from 19 August 2011 to 21 December 2011, so the average age of the Sandra and Woo readers might also have increased in the meantime. I am still older than over 80% of our readers, though.
Poll from 1 May 2014:
Compared to the same poll running on Sandra and Woo, there are 8% more readers with a bachelor degree and 5% more with a masters degree. Of course, this goes hand in hand with the increased average age of our readership. I find it remarkable that 4% of our readers have a PhD or are even professors. We really have some highly educated folk among our readers ;).
Poll from 1 May 2014:
Compared to the same poll running on Sandra and Woo, Gaia has 7% fewer women reading it. I find this quite surprising since fantasy is usually a popular genre among women and Gaia has three major female characters. I wonder why not more women are reading it…
Poll from 1 May 2014:
This is a quite even distribution. But (relatively) new readers are currently the majority.
Poll from 1 May 2014:
Compared to the same poll running on Sandra and Woo, Gaia has a little fewer people calling it one of their absolute favorite comics. However, the numbers are still great, even when one considers that casual readers may not have participated in the poll.
Poll from 10 August 2014:
Lilith and Viviana have made their way into the hearts of our readers. Good, good. 😉 Apparently, there is also a significant number of straight girls who’d marry one of them. (Remember that 27% of our readers are female.)
About the polls…
The educational degree poll is one I’d have answered differently, had any of the following questions appeared:
[Associate’s Degree] (I will have one within one semester)
[Working on undergrad degree] (this is my current status)
[Some college] (also my current status)
I answered [Still going to school] instead, since none of these appeared, which I suggest may have skewed the results.
@ TachyonCode:
Er, I meant “options”, not “questions”.
Little typo, in the text below “What’s the highest educational degree you’ve achieved?” it say’s “with a masster degree.” I’m sure it’s supposed to be “master degree” (or even “masters degree”).
You ARE aware that many readers might not answer ALL polls? (I know I didn’t.) Although I admit that the conclusion that “there is also a significant number of straight girls who’d marry one of them” is more enticing. Alternatively, you may have above-the-average number of non-straight girls between female readers 🙂
As one of the older readers, I would expect that both your readers age and educational attainment would skew much higher than average as Gaia is the best Webcomic I’ve seen – from the story to the characters to the background to the graphics – none of the ones I’ve seen come close. I was disappointed to see it’s barely in the top 20 best webcomics, until I noticed that essentially ALL of the higher ranked ones have continual vote incentives!
Congrats!
I wonder of San de Vertis would have registered on the Marriage poll, in spite of her only brief appearance.
Besides the already mentioned “not everyone answers polls” (I don’t think I noticed all of those, though I answered some), it should be noted that they are not necessarily an indication about the general audience interested in this comic.
Most of the webcomics I read I’ve stumbled upon through recommendations, advertisements and mentions in social sites and other comics. I’m sure there are many others that don’t actively seek more reading as much as I’m sure if there was more attention brought to this particular comic it would be very popular.
Novil wrote:
I must confess I voted at least seven times in the “who’d you rather marry” poll, but can’t remember voting more than once in gender poll.
Your numbers for girls(514 viewers) and numbers for marrying “neither” and “neither ‘cuz I’m straight” total to 501. Having 13 LGBT out of 514 people is about on-target for estimates of LGBT population statistics.
The overall difference could be further noted that males are more likely to answer a poll about marrying a female, hence the higher turn out, than they would care to express “yeah, I’m male!”
Which isn’t the most exciting evaluation, but probably the most accurate.
As for why so few females, generally, it’s been noted females prefer character development and examination over action or plot. That’s not true for all females, and perhaps not *actually true* for any, but it’s what we’ve been trained, and what we get with “chick flicks”. So this obviously doesn’t qualify(the most romantic scene we’ve had is Lili+Staff), and there’s virtually no introspection on characters at all.
Also, there’s a sincere lack of faeries. It’s not a particularly girly webcomic, so it’s not surprising. It’s also not overly happy(murder, false imprisonment, more murder, murder in the past, murder in the present, murder that might not be murder, a faked suicide(with tons of blood)… thing is effing dark). If you want more girls, you’re either going to have to try and appeal to the girly, or do a lot more advertising in places there’s lots of females.
Oh, one more thought: There’s no girl candy.
Eldor is kinda interesting, in that dark, brooding, older-man way, and Ryn is the fun-loving buddy character, but that’s about it. Delvor had cool hair, but there isn’t really any character for a girl to go gaga over. There’s nobody that’s dreamy or sexy, and the one nifty guy is always being put down by his “friends”.
If you tried a “who would you marry” poll using the guys of Gaia, it wouldn’t have much response.
It is a good thing that Vivi and Lilith are strong-ish main female characters(you said there were 3, I don’t know who you would qualify as the third), but it’s also noteworthy that they’ve spent most of the comic relying on men to do all the work for them–Lilith’s escape required a bunch of men doing most of the on-screen work, Vivi’s planning required a bunch of men doing most of the on-screen work. They’re both clearly quite strong in favor of plot points, but in what’s actually shown, they do remarkably little. The guys build the stuff for them, buy the stuff for them, distract the guards for them, and generally save them as damsels in distress. Outside of the last ~dozen pages of the last chapter, they’re really not shown doing much on screen at all. Knowing they’re strong versus actually seeing them be strong are very different things. We mainly see the world around them, which is mostly men, or them talking to people(mostly men), or being saved by men. There are a few places here and there where we get to see them in action, but it’s almost never more than a page or two.
Example: Eldor killing Elea took more pages than Lilith’s entire combat test.
We’re told they’re great, but we don’t usually get to see it.
And I really don’t know who the third “strong main female” is. My best guesses are San, Alissa, or Faye, but none of them do a lot.
If things keep going like the last half of the last chapter, it would definitely be more interesting for female readers, but right now, it’s mostly talking, and mostly men talking, in between men saving women.