UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

5 thoughts on “Issue 22 Cover

  1. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Ooohhh … He looks – desperate.

  2. No hat. He lost his hat. Which had a lot of his personality. Alert! Alert! We have a Lost Hat emergency! This is Not a Drill! Alert! Alert!

  3. Hang in there, I’m a retired fireman, and those pictures/videos have me sweating… The closest thing to a forest fire I ever fought was when a stupid tried to burn raked leaves on a windy day. 4 houses! Mostly grass and bush fires but, yeah.

  4. Good news, we are back at home and there was a home to return to. It’s been a crazy week and a serious near miss seeing as several other homes on our block burned. Terrible stuff but the Ranch persists.

    1. Welcome back.
      My mom’s whole town, Monrovia, seems to have survived so far, too, but it ain’t over yet.

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Issue 22 Cover

Traditional post-issue comic cover! Episode 23 is currently TBA but we're hoping to have the first page out on January 22nd so as to not leave y'all hanging from the proverbial cliff for too long.

[1/9/2025 NOTICE: Some of you may know we live in the Greater L.A. Area and if you've heard about the wildfires here: yep, we're currently evacuated from our home and still unsure as to its fate. We grabbed our computers and backup drives so whatever happens we still have our files, but definitely expect some delays and cross your fingers that the worst we're going to end up having to do is throw food out of the fridge due to power loss.]

[1/11/2025 UPDATE: Good news, we are back at home and there was a home to return to. It's been a crazy week and a serious near miss seeing as several other homes on our block burned. Terrible stuff but the Ranch persists.]

[1/22/2025 UPDATE: In the post-fire chaos we forgot to mention, no comic this week. Things are intact but there's still cleanup of smoke and ash to do, insurance to wrangle, etc. We had a really close call.

Since we're between issues anyhow we're going to push the start date of Episode 23 back to February 26th. Gives us some room to breathe (literally!).]

Random acts of commerce

Dawn and I have now been exhibiting at various conventions for over five years. We’ve come a long way from where we started, and learned a lot, but I still have to admit this: I have no idea how we’re going to do, sales-wise, at a given show. Even if it’s the exact same show and just a different year. It’s possible this is because we’re not being meticulous enough in tracking our data, or just still don’t have enough data to work with, but if you look around at the veterans of the independent press circuit, you’ll often notice that it’s not just comics that they have for sale. There will be art prints, postcards, mugs, jewelry, buttons, t-shirts, plushies, etc. etc., all in a variety of price ranges. The net is cast wide, and although their brand is incorporated into the merch, it is hardly ever the primary selling point. You’re selling to people who like steampunk, or zombies, or unicorns, and while you hope the pendant they just bought might serve as a gateway drug to them getting into your brand or at least becoming a repeat customer to your table, for the moment it’s enough that they’re helping fund you being able to get a repeat table. Sometimes they’ll want to buy the comics. Sometimes prints. Sometimes t-shirts. Sometimes Dawn will have to turn away people wanting sketch commissions because she’s already too busy with them, sometimes she goes an entire convention without anyone even talking to her. And this, my friends and neighbors, is why we diversify our selection. Even the types of prints people might be buying can vary wildly, sometimes with no apparent rhyme or reason. You can sit there and theorize all day, but in the end the only safe bet seems to be to spread your bets out as much as possible. And well, sometimes even the safe bet isn’t safe. Sometimes you get bad placement at a show, or people just plain aren’t in a buying mood. And you will lose money on those. But as one of my fellow travelers told me: “We keep at it, and hope the good shows make up for the bad ones.” They’d been at it for over ten years at that point, and though they had a rocky start (as it seems we all do), in recent times have always ended the convention year more up than down. So if you’re going to be an exhibitor, or are one already and have had some rough times, just keep that in mind.