Given the choice, I’d rather comic strips not end. Oh, there are strips I don’t like, even ones I won’t read. But for the most part, I like comics. I like them carrying on. I love it when a new creator comes in and revives a moribund property. But even something that’s just marking time is this comfortable, familiar friend for whom nothing exciting is happening, but nothing bad is happening either. And that’s consoling, especially in the face of a terrifying world.
So I expected the ending of Hazel and then Henry to bring readers here, since who else writes anything about either? Besides actual comic strip news sites. Still, people did come. Partly from the comic strip news. Partly spillover from my mathematics blog, which hosted the Playful Mathematics Education Blog Carnival at the end of September. Give that a try, please. You might find something delightful there. Here’s how the figures worked out, precisely:
WordPress tells me of 3,070 page views in October. That’s way up from September’s 2,644 and August’s 2,848. These views came from 1,681 unique visitors, again way up from September’s 1,436 but basically level with August’s 1,619. Still, there were 173 likes submitted around here in October. That’s basically the same as September’s 174, August’s 180, and really every month going back to April. It’s been in a 165-to-180 range all this time now. I don’t know. The number of comments jumped, up to 67, the highest figure since March. September had 50 comments and August 39. I’m trying to be comfortable with people talking to me.
Comic strip talk made up the bulk of my readership. Part of this is comic strip endings or major changes. Part of this is story strips getting really confusing. Here’s the top five posts for October:
- Is the comic strip Henry ending? Is the comic strip Hazel ending?
- What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Who’s Now Dead In Judge Parker? June – September 2018
- What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Is Something Happening In Apartment 3-G Suddenly? March – June 2018
- What’s Going On In Mark Trail? Why Is He Making So Many Nerd Movie Jokes? February – May 2018
- What The Heck Happened To Nancy and Why Does It Look Weird?
Yes, none of them actually published in October. My most popular thing actually published in October was In Which I Am Distracted By Ziggy For Crying Out Loud, a cry of despair provoked by paying too much attention to the art one strip. I had a lot of well-liked short pieces, by the way, possibly because I got into this good groove of having an amusing trifle and being able to put it down in 150 words. My most popular long-form piece was, like, the 814th most popular thing around here last month. That was Regarding The Time When I Had Too Much Desiccant, showing that what really amuses people is me somehow having problems with petty stuff.
Here by the way is my schedule for upcoming What’s Going On In The Story Strip posts. Subject to change if some fast-breaking news breakfasts:
- The Phantom (Sundays), week of the 4th of November.
- Rex Morgan, M.D., week of the 11th of November.
- Gil Thorp, week of the 18th of November.
- Judge Parker, week of the 25th of November.
- The Amazing Spider-Man, week of the 3rd of December.
I also have another seven weeks of recaps of The Stan Freberg Show to run. Don’t think I’m not already panicked about what to write about after that.
Now for the running of the countries. There were 69 countries, if you count the European Union as one and Trinidad & Tobago as one other. And Bosnia & Herzegovina as another one. In August and September there were 60 such countries. In August and September there were 16 single-reader countries. In October? 17. So I’m clearly in a growth spiral here. Here’s the roster:
| Country | Readers |
|---|---|
| United States | 2,329 |
| Australia | 140 |
| Canada | 96 |
| United Kingdom | 54 |
| Spain | 53 |
| India | 47 |
| Italy | 31 |
| Philippines | 26 |
| Germany | 24 |
| Japan | 19 |
| Brazil | 18 |
| Mexico | 17 |
| Hong Kong SAR China | 16 |
| Netherlands | 13 |
| Romania | 13 |
| France | 12 |
| Saudi Arabia | 11 |
| Sweden | 10 |
| Belgium | 9 |
| Finland | 9 |
| Denmark | 7 |
| Sri Lanka | 7 |
| Colombia | 6 |
| Pakistan | 6 |
| South Africa | 6 |
| Ireland | 4 |
| New Zealand | 4 |
| Norway | 4 |
| Peru | 4 |
| Singapore | 4 |
| Taiwan | 4 |
| China | 3 |
| Czech Republic | 3 |
| Latvia | 3 |
| Malaysia | 3 |
| Slovenia | 3 |
| Thailand | 3 |
| Zimbabwe | 3 |
| Chile | 2 |
| Ecuador | 2 |
| European Union | 2 |
| Greece | 2 |
| Indonesia | 2 |
| Nigeria | 2 |
| Poland | 2 |
| Russia | 2 |
| Serbia | 2 |
| Slovakia | 2 |
| South Korea | 2 |
| Turkey | 2 |
| Ukraine | 2 |
| Vietnam | 2 |
| Argentina | 1 |
| Austria | 1 |
| Bahrain | 1 |
| Bangladesh | 1 (*) |
| Bosnia & Herzegovina | 1 |
| Croatia | 1 |
| Curaçao | 1 |
| Cyprus | 1 |
| El Salvador | 1 |
| Estonia | 1 |
| Kazakhstan | 1 |
| Luxembourg | 1 |
| Madagascar | 1 |
| Maldives | 1 |
| St Lucia | 1 |
| Suriname | 1 |
| Trinidad & Tobago | 1 |
Bangladesh was a single-reader country in September. No other countries were, though, and no country’s sent me a single reader each month for three months running now.
According to Insights, by the end of October I had published 195,599 total words in 304 posts for the year. This is 643 words per post total, on average. I had been averaging 641 words per post at the start of October. There were 18,418 words published around here in October, over 31 posts. That’s up a little bit from September’s total, although really only because there were only 30 September posts. Huh. Anyway, I’ve had 742 total comments for the year, as of the start of November. 2.4 comments per post this year up from 2.3 at the start of October. 6.1 likes, on average, per post, the same number as at the start of October. 1,844 total likes so far this year, by the way, if you wondered.
November opened with the blog having had a total of 102,048 page views, from 56,394 unique visitors. And yes, I reached my 100,000th page view this past month, and celebrated it with a special Statistics Saturday post.
If you’d like to follow Another Blog, Meanwhile, please do. You can add it to your WordPress reader. You can add it by RSS reader, using whatever tool you like to read my content, and maybe even get the versions with the dumb typoes and grammatical errors not corrected out. And if you’d like to see me on social media, that’s your business. But I’m @Nebusj on Twitter, so that’s an option. Choose wisely.
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