New things Happening

I began the process of switching servers yesterday. This will allow me to update stuff on the site more quickly and make some relatively big changes on the format of the site. I have plans to expand the offerings in the store, including more items on which the cartoons will be available and some altogether new media; to add a guide so you can look up old cartoons by subject---now that we're six months into the site being online, there are enough cartoons to do that, and I've been cataloging them for that very reason; and to eventually offer forums for reader input, in the form of "write-your-own" captions, comments on the daily cartoon and more.

This will be made possible by my hiring of an old friend, Sarah Dopp, who is much more internet-savvy than I and does this stuff for a living. I don't know why it took so many months of reading her online comments to realize that she might have better insights into web marketing. She and I had a wonderful adventure together years ago and I've always enjoyed and respected her. The coolest thing is that she's as excited about the strip as I am, and excited people bring more to a project!

I'm also working on the 2010 calendar, which is, predictably, behind schedule. I'm trying to find a program that will let me lay out a calendar month with the month, dates and day names in whatever font I want, and allow me to do it forever, rather than starting with someone else's template each year. Suggestions are welcome--but I use a Mac, so no Windows or Word, please!

I accidentally wrote over one cartoon that I thought I might use for the calendar; it was in a high-res, color-separated format, but after I messed that up, I had to pull a lower-quality version from another file to save in the "high res" file. It'll be fine for a book, but blowing it up to calendar size would really require rescanning and recoloring the whole thing, which had already taken the better part of a day. Grrr!!

Still, it's nice to be at a point where I can look at what's been happening the past six months and decide what I want to change or add based on that. I originally envisioned this whole thing as me just drawing my cartoons and the website being a simple means to present them, but the site now seems to have the potential to grow and do a lot more. We'll see where we are six months from now. I expect there'll be a book by then, but who knows what the site will include?