New comic is coming along, I'll have a preview of it up in the morning. It's taking a while, but it'll be up early this week.
Danika's beau, Lance is having a bit of a virtual garage sale. Check it out and see if there's anything you could use.
Man, I really gotta do this myself. I still haven't put up any of the stuff from that list last year :P
Sorry about the lack of comic this week, I've been busy and distracted. I will have one for next week, though it might not be monday either.
Rest assured I'm not abandoning the strip, it's just been a rough couple weeks for it. I have a slightly revamped version of the skyline shirt going up for preorder in the next few days. There'll be a Deathtoast shirt up sometime after that, though that's mostly just a small print run for me, I don't know as there's gonna be that much demand from anyone else for it.
More soon.
IF YOU HAVE ORDERED A BOOK, AND HAVE NOT RECIEVED IT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
You may have seen this message on a number of other webcomic sites lately, as a lot of us have found ourselves in the position of suddenly needing to take back distribution of our merchandise.
I don't believe it's been a huge problem where my books are concerned, as I really don't sell that many. Suddenly I feel a bit better about not being a huge merchandiser, let's just say I don't have as big a mess to clean up as others.
As for the details as to what happened, I really can't say. Partly out of respect for those involved, and partly out of simply not knowing exactly what happened myself. I do know that sometimes people get in over their heads, and things can snowball out of control very quickly given the right circumstances. It happens.
In any case, this will allow me to do things like sign books when they go out, and put together special packages when they come up. Really I think this is going to be for the best.
As a side note, for those who've been concerned about my comments last week about the comic not paying for itself, don't fret too much. The hits aren't really enough to make this expensive. THe point I was trying to make was more that I just haven't been doing much in the way of merchandise, and that's largely my own fault for not having much to sell outside of the book. I'll be changing that very soon, and not just with the pandas.
More in a bit...
Spent every waking moment last week working on this strip to have it done before Dave arrived for the weekend. If you can't figure out why, keep in mind Halloween is our anniversary.
Watched "The Wizard of Oz" last night. That movie scared the hell out of me as a kid, and I hadn't seen it in 20 years. And I can tell you it was just as disturbing now as it was then. That is one creepy movie. Seriously, nothing says bizarre like a hundred midgets with plastic pastel hair and flowers growing out of their toes singing unintelligible songs about dead witches.
In comic news, I've decided that this will be the last regular Monday update. Not to say there won't be a new comic each week, but I'm not even going to pretend that Monday is a target anymore. The comic will be done when it's done, and it should look better for the time spent. I've been tossing around various ways to continue the strip in ways that will best serve it, and for now this looks to be the best call. At some point in the next year I intend to leave off the regular strips entirely for a time, and work on a series of RP illustrations. Not sure yet if it's something that will go into a calendar or artbook, but it's going to be interesting nonetheless.
Right now though I'm concentrating on getting a run of story strips done proper, and we'll see how this goes. I really want to just spend some leisurely time playing around in this world without having to churn stuff out by a deadline.
The basic fact is after almost 3 years, this strip is still not even able to pay for it's own hosting, let alone support me as even a part-time job. And while our hits went up this year, they've topped out at about 5000 uniques a day and lately seem to be dropping. Not the most encouraging sign. I've absolutely no intention of stopping the strip, not now and not for any foreseeable future. But if it's going to be a hobby, I need it to be more fun for me than it is.
The panda plushes are still in the works, and I've got a few ideas for side stuff that I've wanted to do for some time. And since I can't see enough of an advantage to the current method of cranking out a strip each week, whether it's decent or not, I'm going to start enjoying this properly.
Hopefully, some of you will appreciate this, and I won't blame anyone who leaves because I miss a week or update haphazardly. I can only promise the end product will be better, so enjoy what you get :)
Next update won't be till late next week, on account of a number of things. But I'll be working, don't worry.
Thanks
