Matt Stout of the hilarious comic Big Sandy Gilmore sent out a call to some of his interweb cartoon buddies asking for some guest strips for his finals week coming up in May. I jumped at the chance and planned on doing one eventually. I guess I must have gotten inspired quickly because the next thing I knew I had the comic done well ahead of schedule. I sure wish I could do that for my own webcomic but oh well. It was fun to draw other folks cartoon characters. I did a guest strip a long while back for a guy in England to benefit Make a a Wish but I was new to the webcomic thing and it was not as good as I think I’m capable of.

     Matt was going to use my comic and others during finals but now has decided to spread them out. I know how it is, if you have a buffer of any kind it is hard not to go ahead and use it. So I guess Matt is on the hook to do some posts during final week now. Anyway find the comic I did for Matt here. It was fun and I hope it looks good enough for his usual fine work. I see web cartoonist ask for submissions for guests toons but I hesitant as I”m not sure my style fits theirs. It was cool that Matt asked me specifically, so in theory he knew more or less what to expect. I hope other cartoonists ask me for submissions in the future, it sure was fun.

    If you don’t read BSG regularly now, go ahead and bookmark or subscribe to his feed now. It’s worth it and  family safe and still manages to be a little edgy without getting vulgar as so many webcomics will do.

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     My first book has arrived. I ordered my book through www.instantpublisher.com and they had it to me within 10 days. I must say I’m very happy with the end product. The cover was done by my interweb buddy Krishna Sadasivam and it may be the best part of the book and really sets the tone. The book is B&W with some color pages and a total of 60 pages. The price of an all color book was greater than I was willing to pay. I think the B&W and color mix works well though. I was very worried of the quality of the final product so I did a short run. I had also not heard of any other cartoonist using Instant Publisher. So far everyone who has seen it has been very complimentary. I highly recommend Instant Publisher, they were great to work with. They have a great utility on their site to do a price quote that is fun to play with the variations. If you are considering a book at least check out the price generator.

   My plan is to sell these at the upcoming Dallas Web Comic Expo. I have not really put much thought into how to sell them on my webpage. I know I can create some options to use Pay-pal on my page but honestly have not investigated that much. I’m not sure if the demand will be high enough to put forth the needed effort. I suppose I could just deal with people who want a book one on one for now. Maybe have them put the money in Pay-pal and then I’d send the book? Again, I think I’ll wait and see what the demand is. I’ve actually sold several copies and had some readers “pre-order” the book so we will see how it goes. I hope they sell well enough that I have to make another order right away.

    Regardless, the process has been a lot of fun and I learned a lot. If I do another book, I’ll do a much better job. I hope this one does enough sales to justify the next book. The price of the book is $12 but I may sell it cheaper at DWEX as a promotional thing. The nice thing is my investment is not high so if I sell half of the books I can break even. I think considering my webcomic, breaking even is a lofty goal.

   Here are some pics, I’m wearing my “hacker” shirt for today’s photo:

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   Happy New Years to you all. I am not big on resolutions for myself but this is the 3rd  I’ve done for www.dontfeedthegeek.com Check out last year’s post here.

   Let’s take a look at how I did on 2010′s goals for DFTG:

Goals for 2010

1. Increase traffic. Duh. Success. With the exception of December every month was an increase in traffic. It looks like I almost tripled my traffic.

2. Participate more in the webcomic community and find new heroes to follow. Success. I met many new cartoonists and fans of webcomics. Some of the folks I “met” I only met virtually, but still made new friends and heroes.

3. Publish a book. I’m close to finishing this one. I just need to finish some original art that will only be available in the book. And then have the guts to spend the money to do it. The mock ups look decent so far I must say. I hired Krishna to do the cover and that looks fantastic. In this case I want people to judge a book by it’s cover. I was hesitant to have someone else to do the cover but I see many examples of far superior artists have someone else design the cover, I had the good sense to ask Krishna to do it. Success. My book is out at the beginning of the year. The reaction was decent just like the end product. I learned a lot for next time. Buy the book here.

4. Have a table at least 2 expos in 2010. Fail. In 2010 I still only made the one expo, DWEX in Plano Texas.

5. Get more mentions on other sites, positive mentions. 2009 was great as I “met” many great cartoonists who actually looked at my toons and some even had good things to say. Success. I was mentioned, did a guest comic for another site, got reviewed, and was mentioned on a blog.

Goals for 2011:

1. Create at least one comic book. My next book will be a more traditional comic book style. I found where I will have it printed. If it looks good a may do more than one with different themes.

2. Have a more successful comic expo. I did OK in the last expo, but I was too laid back. I need to self promote better. Hopefully, I’ll have more products to sell.

3. Double my web traffic.

4. Start a new B&W comic. I have some plans for a new strip I’m trying to develop. If I do it, it will be kept simple and will be more about the writing. I can tell you it will be more focused on family humor. I’m trying to secure the URL I want for it and it is available in January hopefully. So I won’t give the name just now. I want to keep it simple enough so I can produce it faster. Right now my full color DFTG toon takes 3 hours minimum and usually much longer. I will still be doing DFTG for those that actually read it now.

5. Master Manga Studio and step my comic’s style to a professional looking art. This is my most ambitious goal and the hardest to achieve. I’m getting closer but not sure I’m close.

Let’s get back together one year from now and see how I did again. happy New Year. I hope your coming year is your best and that God blesses you and your family. Thanks for reading this year.

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