Tag Archives: Comics Biz

Journal

I love a good discussion…

I’ve been waffling on this for some time now, and I think I’ve finally reached a decision. This site (howardtayler.com) will not have discussions enabled when it goes live.

Why not?

I love a good discussion. I like social networks, and I love being part of a community. But being part of a community where I’m the moderator, and the central focus is a lot of work. Aaaand maybe not all that healthy.

I’ve also found that it slurps up a lot of my time. Perhaps this is my ego speaking, but I think people would probably rather I spent time writing words and drawing pictures than reading comments and flushing spam-traps.

It’s a tough decision, though. I’ve been making art online for almost fifteen years now, and for that whole time I’ve been fostering communities and discussions. It’s going to be hard to let that go.

Journal

At Best, Inappropriately Expressed Enthusiasm

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I blogged about the final round of the easily-spoofed Washington Post poll, and I made a mistake. I mentioned that it was easily spoofed.

This was not meant as encouragement to spoof, but apparently it was taken as such. For this I am sorry.

You see, when I blogged at 9:15pm local time, Schlock Mercenary had around 120 votes. Three hours later Schlock had 211,000. That, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, is more unique IP addresses than hit my own website in the course of an entire month. I don’t for one minute believe that more than 1,000 of those votes are legitimate. And by curious coincidence, during the one minute for which I’m not believing, about another 1,000 votes arrived.

I’m embarrassed and saddened. It’s much more fun to mock an easy-to-rig popularity contest when it’s not one of your own fans doing the rigging. You see, now if tens of thousands of Penny Arcade fans visit the poll (and they will) they will associate “Schlock Mercenary” with dishonesty.

Whoever you are, mister or missus Inappropriate Expressor of Enthusiasm, you are damaging my name with your antics. Worse still, you are making all of the smart, discerning, tastefully dressed, and bewitchingly attractive Schlock Mercenary fans look dingy and disreputable.

Shame on you.

Announcements, Journal

Two Years

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Today I celebrate the 2nd anniversary of “doing it full-time.” On Monday, September 20th of 2004 I resigned from my position at Novell, came home to my home office, and wondered how I was going to be able to make it work.

I didn’t really figure it out until May of 2006. There were some really rough patches in there – particularly July of 2005, when Ad revenues were in the toilet, commission work had dried up, and we had to pay bills using a home improvement loan. And then there was the $100 Christmas.

Sandra was there for me (and I was there for her) throughout all of it, and I could not have done it without her. Of course, without her it would not have been worth doing at all.

It wouldn’t have been possible without you readers and fans, either. Thank you, everybody.

–Howard

ps. I’m celebrating by scripting, pencilling, and inking an entire week. I’d probably better get started.

Announcements

Swarthmore – This Saturday!

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This Friday and Saturday, September 22nd and 23rd, I will be at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore Pennsylvania. Freeculture.org is hosting a lecture series, and a few of us who make our living by “giving our stuff away” are going to be there to talk about it.

If you can’t make the Friday evening lecture (which begins at 7:00pm in “Science Center 199 Cunniff Hall”), my position on the matter can be summed up in the phrase “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.”

If you CAN make the lecture, rest assured that copies of Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management and Tagon pins will be on-hand and for sale. I’ll also be able to whip out quick sketches (On scratch and in copies of books), and I may even try to find time for a paid commission or two.

You gotta hand it to those folks at Swarthmore, they know how to cover their bases — in case I‘m not enough of a draw, or insufficiently erudite for the university environment, they’ve also invited J.D. Frazier, Eric Burns, Wednesday White, Shaenon Garrity, and Rich Burlew.

There’ll be breakout sessions on Saturday from 1:00pm through about 6:00pm. I don’t have a schedule, but all events appear to be in rooms 183, 181, and 199 in the Science Center. I’ll be presenting “Business for Artsy Types” and maybe offering a discourse on the mechanics of a good punchline.

Sadly, there’s no time for me to do a comics shop appearance while I’m in the area. You’ll just have to screw up your courage and set foot on campus…