I've been on Blogger for 3 years, have an LJ too and even a Wordpress.com blog.

For me, blogging is about having fun and expressing myself online. I'm jazzed anyone actually reads what I have to say. I don't do it for money and ads will never appear on my blogs unless Blogger or LJ or Wordpress puts them there but not by my choice.

Bells and whistles are fine, graphics are cool (and for art blogs, a must), and your own domain is nifty, but I don't need my own domain (I have one for my own website, whoopdeedo), and bottom line, blogging is about what one has to say. I read via Bloglines, so see the bells and whistles only when I visit to comment. If the content is interesting to me, I read. If not, I don't. Simple.

I loved Kevin's piece and I loved yours. All useful advice--I still feel like a new kid on the block and this is all tremendously helpful.

One point of advice I'd add that has bedeviled me since Day One or at least Day Fifty-Two: Put Some Thought Into What You Call Your Blog. You can change the title of your blog (though not your URL address name unless you want to start over from scratch), but it's likely to screw up and confuse people who come to you from other links.

I mention this because were I to do it again, the name of my friendly place on the internet would be "Bully's House of Fun." (Or maybe House o' Fun). Too late I realized that putting the word comics in my title means it's not impossible to talk about other things by any means, but that you run the risk of losing interest in certain posts if you're talking about non-comics. I got some frank "I'm bored with this, go back to writing about comics" reaction to my London blogs, and I think of Dave's Long Box posting an immensely entertaining series of discussions about James Bond films and getting a lot of crap in comments because he wasn't talking about comics.

Most days I am immensely proud of my blog title because it spells out the concept in four short pleasant words. But once in a great while I wanan blog about British comedians or pancakes or Brooklyn photographs and I hesitate and think..."but it's not really comics, is it?"

Then I post it and be done with it, live with the criticism if there's anyway, and post a Hawkeye panel tomorrow.

Anyway, great piece.

Yeah, what the heck does "Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog" mean anyway?

Seriously, Bully, I love all your posts. Your London posts are a highlight for me. Life oughta be fun, not just comics.

Golly, thanks, Laura! I wrote an apologetically non-comics post this morning about Kylie Minogue, expecting silence or "get back to the comics"...and everybody who replied responded with "Yeah, I love Kylie!" enthusiasm.

So maybe I overthink things.

Life is fun!

I've been commenting here and there on people's blogs and just recently discovered that someone put mine on their sidebar.

While I can't really say that was a goal of mine when leaving comments, it certainly was kind of a rush to see that. I've been keeping my blog pretty simple and it's still very new and I'm working things out as I go, but the confirmation that someone else might actually be reading it is a source of inspiration as well as a little pressure.

Brilliant post, Laura. The only question is whether I link to it in a blog post, or give the link a page of its own.

as a newbie here, i appreciate running into your blog and reading your insights. thanks!