Coloring Book — Fun Facts
Posted June 13th, 2007 by Howard TaylerHere are some fun (and some boring) facts about the coloring book downloads:
1) The PDF won’t view or print correctly on Macs unless you’re using the actual Adobe reader.
2) There have been 230 donations. The gross (before Paypal’s cut) is $1721.01
3) That’s an average of $7.58 each, but the majority payment (90 out of 230) is $5.00.
4) Any payment of less than 33 cents goes entirely to Paypal in fees. You’ll still get the coloring book, though.
They say you can’t measure something without changing it. That’s fine. I figure it’s only fair for my readers to know how sales are. Sandra and I are very thankful for your generosity, and will definitely do something like this again — probably with less seditious satire, and more pictures of aliens for our fans (and fans’ children) to color.
Explore posts in the same categories: Business, Merchandise
June 14th, 2007 at 1:48 am
But I like seditious satire.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:22 am
I suspect the prevalence of $5 is, at least partially, due to John Scalzi’s donation drive for the Creationism Museum trip – he suggested $5 as the donation amount. And, hey, another donation, what’s a good amount…
(It’s at least part of why I chose that amount, at least.)
And I like seditious satire, too! And so do my kids!
June 14th, 2007 at 7:14 am
More seditious satire, please. This is Schlock Mercenary, after all, not Garfield.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:51 am
I just love satire, seditious or otherwise. And $5 seemed like a reasonable price for a coloring book.
Now if you were to color one yourself and put it up for auction…
June 14th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Personally I like seditiousness, satirical or otherwise.
I am, However, still waiting for my copy of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates.”
Hint, Hint. ;)
J
June 14th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
It’s weird how $5 becomes our default “small but reasonable amount.”
I gave more than $5 . . . . but if I’m being honest, I have to admit that I gave $5 per child (’cause that’s how many copies I planned to print.)
It seems more generous the other way, so just forget you read that last part.
June 14th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
90/230 is a plurality, not a majority.
Mathematically, I believe it’s the median (payment closest to mean).
This has been a public service of Pedantics, Inc.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
mode actually since it’s the single number with the most occurrences in the set median is line all the numbers up in order and take the one physically in the middle so it may be that as well
juenger1701
June 14th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I sit corrected.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Thanks for the pedanticism. I was looking for those words, and couldn’t find them last night.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Darnit, I knew there was something about that statement that didn’t seem right to me…
Parliamentary lesson time: “Majority” means “more than half”. Not “51%”, not “50% plus one”. A majority of 230 total votes would be 116.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:08 am
the word search is wonderful, especially the “additional words and phrases”. Though, does adding three little letters at the front of one of the phrases really count as an additional word? :)
June 15th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Hm. I noticed the problem with the PDF and Preview…wonder why it’s not working?
June 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Please please PLEASE tell me this coloring book is NOT a satire on the Eddie Eagle program.
(The descripton looks very much like the claims of the gun banners’ slander campaign against it.)
June 16th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I think more coloring books and little things like that would definitely be in order, Mr. Tayler. I for one am _very_ interested in seeing the Seven Habits book. :) More Schlock (not just schlock, but _S_chlock) in the world is a very good thing!
June 17th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Anonymoust Redshirt: Three things –
1) I probably SHOULDN’T tell you that, because satire is such that if you think it applies somewhere, it DOES, regardless of the author’s intent. Satire is designed to make us think, and to point out absurdity, paradox, and hypocrisy.
2) Your post is only the 2nd time I’ve heard of the Eddie Eagle program. The first was two days ago, from a similarly concerned reader. I cannot consciously satirize something I’m ignorant of.
3) It amuses me when people read my comic and think they can pin down my political views as a result. I’m perfectly capable of satirizing something I love.
June 17th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I’ll agree with the satirizing something he loves part. I mean, look at the whole Strohl Munitions thing with the plasma cannon. The M series (Mormon) and needing an I series (Irish) so that it can take alcohol, for example.
BW
June 17th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Eddie Eagle is aimed at kindergarten and younger kids. I don’t see this as anything remotely poking fun at it. Besides, the “advice” here is sound, unlike the grabber’s parodies.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Thanks, Howard. Youre point 2) answers my question.
Regarding point 1) I really don’t believe that Eddie Eagle is in need of satire. It’s a very simple program that reiterates a basic message: “If you find a gun: Stop! Don’t touch! Leave the area! Tell an adult” It was created in reaction to the large numbers of children being brought up carefully isolated from any knowlege of gun safety (or any other accurate gun information) by their parents and the policitally-correct school systems, leaving them with only TV, brags by other kids, and propaganda as sources of info on guns. It does its best to avoid any glamorization or demonizaton of guns, treating them as a potentially dangerous but inanimate item (like a power tool) and giving the kids a clear message on positive steps to take to avoid injury – to replace the natural tendency to explore and role-play.
Of course the program was immediately vilified by the anti-gunners – trying to block it introduction into schools and other child-training settings – as cynical propaganda directed at children, glorifying guns and attempting to instill a desire to obtain and use them. So you can understand how it resonated when you had Sthrol Munitions come out with a “public-service style ‘plasma cannon safety’ coloring book” “targeting kids” (as in “colateral damage”) with a “text … that says ‘These things are too dangerous for kids, so don’t play with ‘em.’ but [a] context and subtext [that says] ‘Kids, as soon as you have the money, you need to buy one of these for yourself.’”
Regarding attempting to read your politics: I’ve been impressed by how well you’ve created a satire strip without taking in-strip political positions in the process. That’s the sort of things that takes real genius. So when you did this coloring book and introduced a subthread that appeared to be a straight parroting of a political action group’s cynical attack on an honest child gun-safety program, I was stunned. If it were what it appeared to be, it was totally at odds with everything I thought I knew about your style.
Unfortunately, while it is often great fun, satire with a political message is a powerful propaganda tool. On one hand it is very effective at spreading political ideas – regardless of their truth or virtue. On the other hand, when a person using satire for propaganda is called on it, he has plausible deniability. “It’s just a joke; Laugh! Of COURSE it’s not true, it’s SUPPOSED to be an exaggeration.” and so on. On the idological battlefield, satirists are machinegunners behind nearly impenitrable walls.
So I’m very glad to hear that the similarity between the “plasma cannon safety coloring book” and related story arc to the smears against the Eddie Eagle program are really just a coincidence.
And regarding satirizing things you love: I can imagine you satirizing, for instance, some of the aspects of the Mormon Church (which I presume you love B-) ). (Even more than you already have with the “M” series.) But I wouldn’t expect you to portray them as a demonic anti-religion conspiracy with the Angel Moroni as Satan’s lieutenant. Or word-play on Moroni’s name and write him into the strip as a drooling idiot. Or do any story line that might risk having a negative impact on any of the Church’s actual lifesaving and child-protecting programs and teachings. Similarly I’d exepct that, if you thought the NRA’s child gun-safety program needed satire, I’d expect you to do so in a way that would encourage its improvement rather than in a way that might aid its enemies in restricting its deployment, thus perhaps resulting in actual children becoming actual colateral damage.
Anyhoo: Thanks for putting up with my long rant. Keep up the good work (and works).
June 19th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I’m pretty sure Howard likes guns enough.
Not as much as me or http://www.OlegVolk.net , but we’re the kind who live in the closet and keep the rest of the house for guns.