Anniversary

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of QlownTown. Yep; I've been drawing this cartoon every day (but five) for the last year. To celebrate, I'm offering a free, signed copy of any QlownTown cartoon to whomever comes up with the best name for the orange-haired woman in the February 30th "Under the Weather" cartoon. She's appeared in several cartoons over the course of the last year, and I think she's an appropriate choice for the first recurring character to receive a real name. Of course, the best entry I receive might be something mundane like Jane or Sue, but I'm hoping for more creative and interesting submissions. Entries can be sent to dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com. Judging will take about two weeks.

About those five non-cartoon days: no apologies. QlownTown does not yet appear in any newspapers, so I don't have to do one every day. Things came up. Power outages. A party. Still, I hear from many readers that reading the cartoon is the first thing they do in the morning, sort of a start-the-day-off-right pick-me-up. So I'm sorry in that respect. Okay, there's an apology after all. And I still intend to fill in those five days. If and when that happens, I'll let you know.

Anyway, while checking out the fact that the first anniversary is traditionally Paper, I noticed that the second is cotton. Maybe next year, I'll offer a cartoon printed on a pillow. Third is leather, which could suggest a whole new direction for QlownTown. Biker clowns? Clowns with whips? One shudders at the possibilities.

Fourth is fruit or flowers. Can I print a strip on a grapefruit? Would anyone want it? Fifth is wood---a box with a comic strip, of course. By the time of the tenth, Diamonds, I like to think I might be able to offer a QlownTown diamond ring setting. Maybe QT spelled out in diamonds? No. We'll see.

The importance of an anniversary is more about achieving the milestone, not what you give someone to mark it (although diamonds are nice). Since the site was delayed almost a year from when I originally intended to start it online, actually getting a year's worth under my belt feels like it's been a long time coming. I know that with any strip, you can see the evolution during the first year.
I can see the changes in my style over the course of the last year. Stuff that I thought was perfect a year ago looks kind of scratchy to me now...although I still like some of it. Next March, I expect to see even more improvement. Or at least I hope it'll look like improvement.

So for the coming year? Plans include getting the strip into newspapers, using more recurring characters (and naming them), working on the 2011 calendar early enough that it goes on sale in August or September instead of December, and maybe doing a couple of thematic weeks, like the Custer's Last Stand variations of January 25th to the 28th. Maybe even a storyline that extends over a week or so! Let me know if you have any suggestions.