Help me improve my comic ad | Hacker News Reader

Help me improve my comic ad

querycell.com

12 pointssamh16 comments

I dunno, I have issues with things which are phrased as requests for help, but are in fact really appear to be just attention-seeking measures for your startup. If you ask for help, you should really, genuinely, want help, not attention, otherwise the "altruism" subsystems of my brain get all confused.

Now, if you phrased it as "hey, here's a competition, win $75 by writing good text for my ad" then that would be much more reasonable... but of course then it wouldn't be getting upvoted, would it?

yes I see your point hughprime.

I guess the altruism motive is why I didn't mention the reward in the title, I didn't want that to be the main thing.

Attention for my startup is great but if I can get something really funny / interesting into the comic then it becomes more interesting and provides more value to people, so when I use it it's less spammy.

I don't mean to insult you or your idea but, at least to me, this is terrible...

There are a number of problems with it.

You can't read the text without enlarging the comic.

It takes more than 2 seconds to read...you probably aren't going to get that much investment from anybody unless they already know what this is, and care (they likely have an active desire NOT to see this).

It is CONFUSING...I get that this has something to do with running SQL queries from within excel, but I have no idea what is going on in the comic. Is this the guys boss? Is this some vendor? Who is this person and why does he look so radically different than the guy behind the laptop?

I'm still not even entirely sure what your product does...doesn't excel have the capability of doing this natively?

I think if you wanted to do an ad...big bold letters that say "RUN SQL FROM WITHIN EXCEL" would be MUCH more effective than this...

Fair enough points blhack.

I guess your issues with the comic itself are why I want help to improve it, but I can see what you're saying about it taking a while for anyone to really understand it.

Maybe it was a bad idea to submit this :)

I made a submission...

I think that, if you're going to go for something like this, it's important that people understand what is going on right away...(which is what you'll see if you look at my suggestion).

Hi,

I paid to have a 1 page comic drawn to help promote my startup product.

The artist did a great job but I think the concept / dialogue that I came up with is not as great.

Check it out and see if you can come up with something better.

Thanks SamH

you need:

1) less text (as others have mentioned)

and 2) a punchline. Perhaps involving a scenario where the programmer tells the boss that he's using SQL in Excel, causing the boss to irrationally fear that powerful programs are breeding with each other (from which the only logical conclusion is Skynet), and he starts making preparations for an apocalypse-grade bunker while the programmer is trying to reassure him that it's merely some awesome product that will blow his wig off when he buys a copy.

In my humble opinion, you need to have some sort of engaging scenario that will keep people reading through the pitch, and then you need to pay off with a punchline.

Go for less text. More http://www.smbc-comics.com less http://www.qwantz.com/. The current template requires way too much.

I am pretty sure the technical term is 'excel ninja' and not 'excel kung fu' too. But I guess that was the punchline? I am just confused.

Maybe some work place humor? My 1 minute half baked attempt would be something like...

"With Query Cell, I've pumped up excel power user level to over 9000! It takes me half the time to run my daily extracts. Now if only I could figure out how to save on this new ribbon feature."

Okay, okay okay... I tried!

I agree with this being too long. When I see an ad which is a comic I instinctively expect it to be cheesy which is the impression I got with this. One panel might work if it is silly enough (SMBC style) or maybe 3 panels if you think up a good pun/punchline.

Thanks joez,

Of course! how did I miss adding a ninja reference :)

The links definitely make your point about the amount of text :)

I think the main problem is that there ISN'T a punchline.

others have made good points (too much text/text too small, also, you need a funny punchline.)

I have something to add, though; how does this fit into the rest of your branding? I mean, lately I've been getting a whole lot of customers. The other day, some guy on twitter pointed me out as 'an excellent example of niche branding.'

Now, Personally, I chose my style (that is, the minimal theme, figlet instead of graphics) because I have no taste, but it is a consistent style that I maintain across my website, advertisements, business cards, and even T shirts.

I think you just need a squirrel nibbling on the excel logo.

Noted : Add one Squirrel.

Are you Scott Adams ?

That comic reminds me of the time when The Daily WTF decided they would make a web comic.. and the only redeeming quality were the user submitted comment comics insulting the comic.

Anyways, its a creative idea.

At the risk of being too much of a smart-arse maybe some self-referencing could work in the comic.

"Hey dude I hear you're appearing in a comic today.."

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