Dress up a pig. . .

A trick some webcartoonists use is trying to convince the reader their stuff is great even when it's suffering it's lowest page views in years. Many ways to pull this stunt. Some will come on and boast about "how they can't believe traffic has increased" or "I'm getting a ton of emails from readers saying they love this week's story" or print fanmail like "I've never laughed harder in my life than I have at today's strip." In the past tricks like this worked but now we can find what your pageviews are and it's insulting to the reader. You can proclaim your strip is the best thing since Apple and you may boast about how thosands love your work and your inbox is flooded but you are not fooling anyone and, at best, anger fans who feel like you are duping them.