Webcomics Nation launched today. Granted, I've been a beta tester for WCN for a while so it hasn't really felt very different for me.
I do find myself in an interesting position of course, as you know I'm involved in Comic Genesis (formerly known as Keenspace) and now I'm also in the rival WCN camp. Given that CG is having humoungous teething problems at the moment (Teething? More like sabre-toothed Fangs) it probably couldn't be a better time for Joey to lauch WCN.
Personally, I think WCN is quite easy to use. People have been making comparisons to Blogger and Flickr, and they're almost spot on except the interface isn't as shiny yet. The only thing that recently I realised annoyed me about it is the dubious HCI-design aspect of it, where it commits a cardinal sin in HCI (Human Computer Interface) and has a shifting interface. Bad Bad Bad. You want all your navigational stuff to stay the same if possible.
However, putting up a comic in WCN is something like
1) Press button that says "Add New Page"
2) Press button that says "Upload Comic"
3) Enter date you want comic to display.
It's much simpler, though more restrictive compared to CG, but there are a lot of cool features, such as this "tooncasting" which I would use on a lot of my pages if the green "Hosted by WCN" text wasn't so big and ugly. Automated gallery and cast pages are pretty cool too, I admit. And having free advertising doesn't hurt either.
The price is $9.99 per month, which some people have mentioned as 'steep'. It'll be interesting to see if the price remains there or if it goes up or down.
All in all, I think WCN will be a good thing for webcomics. Anything that makes it easier to put up a webcomic is a good thing, certainly, and I like the idea that there's an alternative for Comic Genesis.
Granted I may have ulterior motives since I help run the Comic Genesis Help Center and less complaining is always welcome ;)
Edit: And it's ad free. I forget to mention that.
