Happy one year, Paper Tigress!

Wow. A year has passed and I’m still writing a blog about comics. In the past ten years, I’ve started and abandoned about seven highly embarrassing blogs: one where I pretended to be a prostitute named Candy (I was fourteen, give me a break…), another where I talked about “style” and a Livejournal. And the one I stick with is about comics. How did that happen? Let’s take a look at the past year…

When I started this blog, the only people that read it were my friend Avery, my mom, and my aunt. My mom even friended people on Facebook to get them to read my blog. Humble beginnings, people, humble beginnings. I mainly wrote about the basics of my Fulbright project and Owly, a children’s comic about an owl. After arriving in Buenos Aires, the composition of my blog changed to occasional reviews of comics and events, interviews, and musings on the Argentine comics world, all with a “what is happening to me” sort of vibe. Oddly enough, some people started reading my blog, mainly because of this recommendation by Andrés Valenzuela, but also because I post on Facebook every time I write. Now about 100 people per week read my blog.

Now that I’ve expounded upon the general trajectory of my year, let’s talk about statistics. As an obsessive Blogger stats checker, economist, and narcissist, these statistics are some of the most interesting parts of my blogging experience.

Since beginning this blog, I’ve had:

4,697 views in total

2,051 from Argentina

1,765 from the USA

Obviously I expected these people to read my blog, but then there are the big question marks, like the 50 views from Russia and 43 from Latvia. Most perplexing were the 8 views from Iran that only appeared in month of May. Apparently THEY didn’t enjoy my blog. I’ve also had readers from Colombia, Chile, Mexico, France, Poland, Peru, the UK, Spain and the Netherlands.

In terms of posting, my five most read are:

1. New Chicago Comics at the Museum of Contemporary Art

2. Interview with Andrés Accorsi

3. Tea and Totem Comix, my new remedy for the common cold

4. Estupefacto

5. La ciudad de los puentes obsoletos

The reason 1 & 4 are so often read is because I used images from the internet and when you look the authors up online, images linking to my blog appear. #2 and #5 were promoted by their respective subjects. I can’t account for #3…unless people just really like seeing a picture of me sick in bed and read that post.

The other stats (browser, links, etc.) are sort of boring, so I’m not going to include them. But the stats that I included are quite informative, showing a heavily Argentine interest in my blog. As people have told me, it’s exciting to read musings on the Argentine comics community from an outsider’s point of view. Although I enjoy being the “gringuita divina” that provides a new perspective on Argentine comics, I am returning to the USA in a few months. What happens when I become yet another boring American with a comics blog? I would like to keep on specializing in Argentine comics, but build some sort of presence in the USA. Keeping this in mind, I’ve decided to take on the example of my Catholic ancestors and conquer new territory. No, I’m not going to settle Kentucky, I’m going to try my hand at Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ThePaperTigress. Wish me luck!

To next year and the surprises it brings! Happy birthday, Paper Tigress!