Blógünder Schlock

I went to the “Success in Comics” seminar in Las Vegas over the weekend as a featured speaker. Turns out I was the closing speaker. I worried all weekend that my job was going to be the “Voice in the Wilderness,” prophesying doom for everybody who depended on syndication — especially since the original theme of the seminar was pitched to me as “self-syndication.”

As it turns out I needn’t have worried. Everybody there understood that syndication was not the be-all, end-all of comics success. Everybody was looking for alternatives, and at least two-thirds of the presenters discussed those things.

A year ago I would have thought that the event would be a waste of time. After all, Kevin Kelly’s “1000 True Fans” is proven out by webcartoonists using the Free Content Business Model, and we professional webtoonists have been enjoying an upward revenue trend.

But while we in webcomics often pat ourselves on the back for proving Kelly’s “1000 True Fans,” I think we do ourselves a disservice with our hubris. I learned an awful lot at this show. For starters, I cemented my belief that the presentation I gave in 2007, which was based on information I got in 2005 is very, very badly out-of-date. Some principles still hold true, but don’t expect to hear me preaching that as the one true business model again.

I’ve said before that I don’t want to be the guy making a living giving motivational speeches to cartoonists. I stand by that remark. I’d prefer to make a living BEING a cartoonist. This event presented an opportunity for me to share and share alike with professionals who are making their way a little differently than I am, and for whom the old FCBM just doesn’t fit. I may not have gotten paid to speak, but I came home a lot richer than I left (and not Vegas-style, either.)

I’ll probably do an interview with Gary over at Fleen.com with more details, so I’m not going to bother to write all this stuff twice. If you’re interested, look for the link here when the interview airs there. If you’re not interested, that’s okay. My next post will probably be about Surrogate Meatballs.

True story: there was this girl at a convention I attended recently, and the show ran out of tickets to the big signing before she got hers. Her last words before collapsing in tears were “I guess I’m not a good enough fan…”

It never occurred to me that bad things happen because you’re “not a good enough fan.” In fact, it never occurred to me that being a “good enough fan” was a prerequisite for anything. But it takes all kinds of people to make the world go ’round so I shan’t disparage this particular angle of divergence from what I consider normal.

It would be especially hypocritical for me to cast stones from within a glass house that has been lovingly constructed by people who are, per this newly-minted metric, “good enough fans” of my own work. For just over five years I’ve been cartooning full time, and I get to keep doing it because enough of my fans are good-enough fans.

But if there is a point on the fandometer labeled “good enough,” is there a point further on labeled “exceeds expectations,” and others even further labeled “here there be monsters?”

I think so. I have photos to serve as evidence.

To the left we see Steve Strote proudly wearing a Tagon’s Toughs shirt during a 5k run. I have heard that some people get paid to perform physical feats while wearing others’ logos. Not so for Steve. He is definitely exceeding expectations.

What are the rewards for exceeding expectations? For starters, he got nods of acknowledgement and respect from fellow runners. What’s amazing is that he was able to earn these not through physical prowess, but by choice of attire! This is the sort of reward that all of us who don’t run for five thousand meters in one go can really get behind.

He also got his picture in the blog. You win some, you lose some.

Further along on the fandometer, though, I’ve hinted at the existence of a “Here there be monsters” point. I think I’ve found it:

It’s a Schlock tattoo on the person of one Charlie Watson, and it’s quite a nice tattoo at that. But the real kicker is the “why” behind it. And I quote…

…I’ve been reading Schlock for 6 or 7 years now and I’ve often followed your advice about sci-fi authors, web comics, and movies.  But once I didn’t.  You wrote a review for the movie “Bloodrayne.”  Scathing doesn’t even begin to describe it.  I decided to buy it (not rent, but buy), watch it, and try to find something redeeming about it.  I couldn’t.  My friends and I even invented a drinking game we thought would make it help.  We called it “Drink Until Bloodrayne Doesn’t Suck.”  We lost.  It was still horrible.

So as penance for ignoring your advice, I decided to get a Schlock tattoo.  I figured that wasn’t quite enough so I had it done by an apprentice on my shin.  The shin is a bad enough spot when the tattoo artist knows what they’re doing, but when its their 5th tattoo ever, it’s an event.  And it took two sessions because she wasn’t ready to do color work at the time we started it.  I think I would have rather dealt with the fire ants in my bed, but at least this way I ended up with a pretty sweet Schlock tattoo.

So again, sorry for buying “Bloodrayne” and helping Uwe Boll make another movie and I hope you find that tattoo as cool as I do.

Just so we’re clear on this, Charlie got the tattoo not because he loves the comic, but because he needed to do penance for ignoring my advice about a movie.

Charlie, you’ve raised the bar for fans everywhere. Also, I’ve called off the fire ant brigade. You are forgiven.

Short version: If you live in Vegas, and can make it to the Tuscany Saturday Evening you can get free shipping on Schlock stuff. Good friends of mine are driving down, and will be hauling things for me, so I’m not going to run out of luggage space.

Want a boxed set? Want THREE boxed sets? Want to buy XDM for all your friends for Christmas? Shop now! Just select “Pick up in Vegas” for your shipping option.

You’ll need to bring your receipt, or at the very least your order number and your name with you to the Tuscany on Saturday evening between 6:00pm and 8:00pm, where I’ll be on hand to both deliver and deface your merchandise.

This is my last appearance in Vegas for at least the next year. Don’t miss out!

This should be easy.

I’m going to be in Vegas for a seminar this weekend. There’s an open evening on Saturday for fans to come say hello and get stuff sketched in. But some of those fans may not yet HAVE stuff.

Want stuff? Let me know! I can’t sell it to you at the Tuscany, but I can sell it to you through the Schlock store, and provide a “pick up in person” option for you. But I need to know NOW how many of you want stuff. My luggage is filling up really, really fast.

Don’t buy anything yet. Just email schlockmercenary@gmail.com and let us know what you want to buy. We’ll finalize things on Thursday.

First: Yes, the very original-most version of Tuesday’s strip had a math error in it. It’s gone now. Hat tip to Matija for telling me to move my decimal point. Clear your cache and we can proceed.

Second: I’ve been getting email from people who are using incorrect formulae for determining the surface area for a cylinder. I’ve also gotten email from people who used the right formula but misread the results (which is how my original error crept into the strip, but I digress.) Finally, I’m getting email from people who are misunderstanding what Kevyn is asking for.

So: The formula for the surface area of a cylinder is (Circumference * length) + ends. In this case we’re leaving the ends out, so it’s just C*L.Circumference is 2pi*r, or pi*diameter.

Using the dimensions of Credomar in meters:

(6000*3.14159)*60,000 = 1,130,972,400 square meters.

Kevyn wants one teraport for every thousand square meters. That’s not the same as every square kilometer. He wants a thousand square meters, not a million.

So… Divide our result above by 1000, and you have 1,130,972.4 discrete “chunks” with a thousand square meters in them. Some chunks might be 10×100 meters, others might be 31.625*31.625… -ish. The square root of 1000 is in that neighborhood somewhere. It’s close enough for engineering work. (The pure mathematicians in the room should have covered their ears for that.)

This would have made a great footnote, but at the time I wrote the strip I wasn’t trying to make math funny. This blog-post is more of a stop-gap measure so my mailbox doesn’t fill up with well-meaning-but-erroneous geometric pedantry.

It will probably still fill up with hate-mail from the pure-math crew.

Keliana hadn’t finished coloring Tagon last week when she started begging for me to draw Para Ventura. In her defense, she is a fourteen-year-old girl, and loves to see empowered girls in comics.

She’s also my daughter. How could I possibly deny her this? So I drew Para Ventura in a fairly empowered pose. Keliana colored her last night, using pictures from my iPhone as color reference. Also, she canonized Para’s eye-color: brown.

This piece is up on eBay now. The auction winner will own the original, but we will retain the right to reproduce it for merchandising purposes. It’s a really, really nice piece.

On a semi-related note, the iPhone app that Keliana was using for reference pictures is an alpha version of the Schlock Mercenary Reader for iPhone. The pictures are 22% larger than the ones you find on the site here, and with the high pixel density of the iPhone screen the comic looks really, really sharp. Also, this application will let you see into the future… but not yet, because this is the alpha version.

Maybe we’ll have a public beta.

I’m attending (and presenting) at a cartooning seminar in Vegas next weekend, and our hosts have arranged for some fan-time. I’ll be at The Tuscany on Saturday, from 6:00 to 8:00pm, along with several other cartoonists of note, including Daryl Cagle, Chad Carpenter, and Bill Kellogg.

The seminar itself is full. I’m excited to have the opportunity to rub shoulders with my peers in the print cartooning world (the seminar is geared towards self-syndication, which means getting into papers without big corporate help) and maybe a little worried about being a voice in the wilderness. I’m not especially interested in syndication, self- or otherwise, but I’m SUPER interested in making a living as a cartoonist. I’m sure there will be lots and lots of delightful discussions, and yes, I will actually spend some time listening. It’s a good skill I picked up from my kids.

But the seminar isn’t what you Vegas-area Schlock fans are interested in. You’re just there to come and say “hello” and maybe get me to sketch in a book.
I’ll post again next week as a reminder, and I’ll probably tweet about it too.

It may not be the best solution, but it is certainly a good solution.

Oh, wait. You still don’t know the problem. This is because if you’re reading this you likely don’t HAVE the problem.

The problem is that people who are going to love Schlock Mercenary look at the depth of the archives (3380 strips and counting) and balk. They can’t afford to lose entire days of their lives all in one stretch. They are tempted, perhaps sorely, but they are the faint of heart.

You, though. You read the whole thing. Some of you did this very recently, and have the scars to prove it. A very few of you are in withdrawal right now, having only just reduced your Schlock intake to but a single strip per day.

Well… Archive Binge promises to solve this problem. The faint of heart can set up an RSS feed that will carefully parcel Schlock Mercenary out to them a few strips per day. I recommend seven. In that way the archives can be savored over seventeen or eighteen months.

I don’t recommend one strip per day. Nobody is catching up with me that way until I die, and even then it’ll take nine years and change to close the gap.

So… Archive Binge. You will need to register, but it’s free, and spam-free. It’s cheaper than buying Schlock Mercenary books, and less likely to get you fired than grinding through nine years of comics on a slow Thursday (and Friday, and the following Monday) at the office.

And don’t worry about lost revenue on my part. Once the faint of heart are hooked on the comic, they’ll go ahead and start buying the books. We’ll be able to afford to replace the dishwasher any day now.

Yesterday I agreed to auction a few pieces for Jake. The first is already fetching 30 times what was originally donated for its creation. The rest, though… wow.

We did two sketch jams for Jake. The first is pencils only.

The second started at the other end of the table, where Derek Hunter and Ryan Ottley broke out the pens and the markers and raised the bar.

You can get more pictures, including some close-ups and a list of participating artists by clicking on through to the auctions themselves (Jam #1, Jam #2). And note that these are just quick iPhone photos of the originals. They really have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated (read: you want to own these.)

Both auctions are running for seven days. A week or so from now I want to be able to hand Jake some money. And that second piece… how many times are you going to see Invincible, The Phantom, and Schlock on the same original? That’s a bit o’ history, right there.

As I mentioned in my previous post, all the proceeds from these auctions are going to Jake once eBay and USPS have been paid for their services. Jake will be auditing me — he reads this blog, he can see what the auctions close for, he’ll know how much is due him.

So… after all that talk about how much I didn’t want to be running online collection for Jake, I’ve had a small change of heart.

Small, mind you. Three items worth.

The first is a piece I was paid a dollar to create. The catch? I had to draw with my eyes shut. It’s up on eBay right now.

Everything above the eBay fees and the shipping costs will be donated by me to Jake. He watches this blog, and these auctions, so he’ll be keeping me honest. It’s the best we can do, under the circumstances. If I ever try to run an actual 401c Non-Profit then I’ll have to hire an auditing firm, but for now, Jake audits.

The next two pieces I’ll blog about on Sunday the 13th. They’re “Sketch Jams,” where everybody present threw something down on the same piece of bristol. One is pencil only, the other has a mixture of pencils, inks, and even grey markers. Same deal on those — everything above what eBay and the USPS charge me will go to Jake. If the bids go so high that I start seeing serious income tax penalties, well… I’ll just have to take that chance.

Watch this space!