Ahead of schedule

I now have every cartoon written till the middle of March 2010. Not drawn, but scripted. I know what cartoon will appear every day till then. (I actually have more ideas sketched, but they haven't been assigned dates yet.) I came up with a Valentine's Day joke which is already scheduled for February 14th, for example. There are several Halloween strips planned for October. A week or more of Christmas cartoons for December.

It feels good to know what will appear when, although I continue to juggle them. There was a recession joke that I was going to plug into March 2010, but then I realized that maybe the economy will have recovered sufficiently by then (hey, it could happen) to make the punchline dated, so I moved it to September of this year. I'm not worried about that fast a recovery!

Sometimes when I'm drawing, I'll come upon an idea that seemed funny when I entered it a month or so earlier, but when faced with drawing it out, I decide that it doesn't work as well as I initially thought...so I either bump it to a later date when I hope to revisit it and find a way to make it funnier, or jettison the idea altogether and put another one in its place. This is a big advantage of planning 'way in advance. Of course, there are always the Six Stages of Idea Development that come into play:

1. Initial Idea is conceived and quickly sketched or written down. I actually prefer some of these quick scribbles to the more laboriously-drawn final versions. At this time, I generally find the idea hilarious, a sure-fire winner, and give myself many kudos.

2. Revisiting the Idea: a week, a month or however much later the idea is again encountered as I open my list prepare to draw it. This is a second chance to decide if it's really funny, or if the seed is there but needs development, or if I was stupid to originally believe the idea had any promise at all.

3. Penciling: The concept has passed muster, and the initial pencil drawing is executed. Here is where I may begin to seriously doubt the hilarity of the concept.

4. Inking: More doubt arises, as I've lived with the idea for several hours, and it's not funny to me at all any more. Here I remind myself that I'm too close, too far into it, to realize that it really is good. (Occasionally, I'm still happy with the idea at this point. Then it's a real keeper!)

5. Scanning and coloring: Now it begins to seem funny again. It may just be coloring someone's nose red or their hair purple or their shoes yellow that makes me smile, but I begin to feel good as the final product takes shape.

6. Uploading to the site: At this point, I'm either going to have to wait, hopefully, for someone to write to assure me that it was indeed a comic masterpiece, or I'm satisfied with the end result already and hate to move on to the next one, where I have to repeat the whole process.

It can also be called Six Degrees of Exasperation.

But there's never the pressure of not knowing what I'll be drawing two or three weeks from now. I hope I can always be several months ahead, because it takes a lot of stress out of the process. The only stress this does cause is when I have what I think is a boffo cartoon and it isn't scheduled for a couple of months. I want people to see it now! Sometimes I'll switch a couple of strips for that very reason. Kind of like a little kid who can't wait to show his new toy in Show and Tell.

I hope I always feel like I'm a kid doing Show and Tell.

Why Q?

Dave P. emailed me, asking why QlownTown is spelled with a Q. There are several answers: some legitimate, some whimsical. At the time I conceived of the idea, there was already a website called Clowntown: it featured games for kids. It has since disappeared, but the name is still owned by someone else. Consequently, I began looking at other names: Clown Acres, Clown City, Circus World. But Clowntown still appealed to me the most. I've always disliked the misspelling of "C" words with "K"--it just seems Korny to me. But "Q"--ah, Q. No one uses Q much. It would place my strip or site in a more distinctive place if someone were searching sites alphabetically, or looking for a strip on a site that listed them that way. And, once I dropped the anticipated "U" after the Q, it became even more distinctive.

Pronunciation didn't worry me. The Beatles took a common word and made their spelling the dominant version: at least to people of certain ages, if you say "beetles", they'll think of the band first. People will learn the spelling and pronunciation of a word if they see it often enough. Besides, "Iraq" ends in Q and no one thinks it's pronounced "Irack-qway" or "Irack-qwuh".

QlownTown could be trademarked, and so I did. That was important, because as word gets out, evil claim-jumpers can steal a title. If someone with a "Clowntown" or "Clown Town" or other, similar business name complains at some point, my feature has now been established. Besides, there's room for multiple companies named "Acme", as long as they don't create confusion among the products. Businesses in Maine" using the term "Mainely" number in the dozens, at least.

It's also memorable. Once you know how to pronounce it, you're likely to remember it with the Q. It's easier than Albuquerque, certainly. English has never been known as a language devoid of odd or inexplicable spellings.

The original version of the "Origin of QlownTown" essay on the website---which ran to about eight pages and was therefore severely edited---explained that the native people in the area which became settled by clowns was "QlownTown," a term that translated as "place where silly people live". While this is of course made up (there isn't really a QlownTown, folks--they're cartoon characters), it's nonetheless a sensible explanation in the reality of the characters' world.

I also wanted an offbeat spelling because the strip is offbeat. I hope it's closer to The Far Side than to, say, Family Circus. I'm not interested in cute. Witty, clever, literate perhaps (as literate as one can be while drawing clowns). Acerbic, occasionally. I'd rather have someone say "I don't get it" or have to look something up than say "Awww, that was so sweeeeet". I'm actually working on a Family Circus parody. Oddly, Family Circus was the most popular strip in one survey, suggesting that I'm barking up the wrong tent--but one does what one believes in. (Note to those who are as grammatically anal as I: I know the previous sentence should end with "one does that in which one believes", but sometimes, you gotta say it without too much pretension.)

Anyway, back to the why of Q: once I settled on Q, I liked the wacky spelling. It looks normal to me now, and that's the real goal of the strip: to create a world in which the offbeat seems normal. Except for occasional strips, the daily jokes are not about them being clowns; they're about the characters being wrong, or mistaken, or hapless--just like real life for the rest of us.

Funny, though--it's gotta be funny. And I think Q is funny.

Ah, the wonder of the internet

When I began on the journey that has resulted in QlownTown, my simple goal was to draw cartoons every day, post them on the internet, and make enough money at it to feel comfortable. I have since realized that I really need to set up an RSS option, a Twitter feed, and a bunch of other things that I still haven't done yet. You can, however, subscribe to this blog by clicking on the Subscribe option at the bottom of the page. If enough people subscribe, I'll make sure I blog more often.

I'm also tied up right now choosing cartoons for submitting to newspapers. I will of course refer them to the website, but they want 4-6 weeks of strips printed on paper (just like the old days!). I'm taking ideas from people now about what their favorite QlownTown cartoons have been. Based on feedback so far, I know the Sunday strip, Imminent Collision, will be in there, along with Evolvolation; Bottles of Beer; Alien, the QlownTown version; and (one of my personal favorites) the Ash and Elmo twins. Looking at the descriptions of other strips, I've found "offbeat" to be a frequently-used word which also describes what I try to achieve. Thirty years ago, there were no offbeat strips...now they're everywhere. But only mine features clowns!

Composing the cover letter to go with these collections is always a challenge; I don't want to send out a dozen packets, then realize I left out the word "wry" or whatever word seems to communicate something distinctive I was trying to get through to the editors reading the letter.

So the ongoing struggle is always the same: get things done that aren't Drawing Cartoons. I know that the more successful the strip becomes, the less time I'll be able to dedicate to just doing that, but the alternatives are much less attractive.

Today is Take Your Pants for a Walk Day. (Of course, you know that if you've printed out the the July 2009 calendar from the FREE page at QlownTown.com.)

I don't know who comes up with these holidays. I may have to start one of my own. Maybe March 6th should be QlownTown Day. After all, that's the day QlownTown debuted, and it's in a month when people tend to be depressed and tired of winter (at least here in the Northeast), so a ridiculous holiday would fit well there. I don't know if I just announce it and it becomes so, or if there's a Holiday Clearing Board somewhere. I may just put it on the 2010 calendar and proclaim it to be official. The worst that could happen is that someone proclaims it Not QlownTown Day, but then that would imply that every other day was QlownTown Day, so it would work to my advantage anyway, wouldn't it?

I sent all the rest of the 2009 calendar months to my web guy to place on the FREE page of QlownTown. The 2010 calendar has been bumped to September (I'd planned to start printing it in August). The 2010 won't be free. The 2009 calendar has been, because the site, which was supposed to launch in late October 2008, was delayed by the bonehead who put the site together for me, and by the time it appeared, no one was looking to buy a 2009 calendar. I'd already laid out the pages, so I've been posting them for free. That was three or four full days of work down the tubes in terms of earning money off the calendar, but at least the response to the free pages has been positive--and maybe it'll push sales of next year's calendars. (Not-so-subtle plug)

If you have any suggestions for which cartoons should appear on the 2010 calendar (or suggestions for original cartoon ideas), send 'em to me at dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com.

Now I'm going to walk my pants into the kitchen. It's lunchtime. It's always best to eat lunch with your pants on--especially if it's a hot lunch.

Power of subscription

It occurred to me today that I can use the extra forum of the message that accompanies the daily cartoon email that I send to members (subscribers) to explain potentially confusing comics. Tomorrow's cartoon features a reference to a Rolling Stones song that not everyone may pick up on. People who just check out the site might not get the joke, but if you have signed up for a (FREE!!!) membership, you'll get instructions on how to figure it out. I've learned that some people don't realize that one can sign up for free and it'll get them the cartoon every day via email. I'm in the process of learning how to edit the site myself, and when I'm proficient at that, there'll be some changes to tell people they can sign up for free, with no strings, no need to tell us your age, shoe size, hobby proclivities or birth date (although if you include your birthday when you sign up, you may get a birthday wish at some point). I originally conceived of the site as bursting forth full grown at the beginning, with maybe a major overhaul every few years, but now I'd like to make small tweaks on a pretty regular basis. This does, of course, run counter to my original plan of just drawing cartoons and shipping merchandise with as little other work as possible, but hey! things change.

I like doing cartoons that not everyone may get sometimes. I did one a few months ago about two seagulls meeting in a bar which featured a post-punchline in French. I didn't translate it for anyone. One person said that a woman in her office spoke French, so they all enjoyed it. Another person looked it up online (the internet can make almost any reference decipherable, unless it's just a bad cartoon). The joke worked fine without knowing what the gull said, but her French was kind of an extra gift for those who cared or wanted to figure it out.

Speaking of bad comics, there's a website, www.comicsidontunderstand.com, that deals with those cartoons that one or another person just doesn't get. I look forward to appearing on the site--not because I hope to do a strip that can't be understood, but because it's free advertising. Feel free to submit any QlownTown strips that you find confusing--I won't mind. There's also an "Ewww!" award for icky cartoons at Comics I Don't Understand, and I suppose my "muscle shirt made of real muscles" cartoon could've been submitted for that.

By the way, anyone who downloaded the July calendar from the FREE page on the QlownTown website may have noticed that yesterday was Hammock Day. Hope you took some time to hang around in one.

Rain

This is the first blog in over a month. When I first decided to do a blog, I figured I'd be writing four to six a week. I mean, I have plenty of opinions on the things I read, encounter or hear about in my day-to-day. But once the blog had been established, I was so wrapped up in frustration over the shabby work that my former web guy was doing, the blogs became more rants, so I waited till I had a new guy. By that time, I'd lost the flow of writing.

What inspired me to write again was an odd, delightful and unexpected experience with my cat and my computer. We have two large dogs living with us temporarily, and the cats have been pretty much hermits in the master bedroom or outdoors for a month or so, with the exception of daily visits to my office from Lucy, the friendly one. Midge, the other cat, only appears every couple of days.

Last night, Lucy finally came into the living room and sat down and allowed herself to be patted just a few feet from one of the dogs. This was a breakthrough. (The dogs are locked in their room upstairs during the day, so this is when Lucy has been showing up on my desk. )

Just now, she came in from the rain and brushed against the computer screen in her latest attempt to distract me from my work and demand attention. This left about two dozen droplets of water on the screen, which glow like multicolored crystals from the light of the screen behind them. On an overcast day, following many previous overcast days, this was cause for rejoicing, a bright and tiny show of beauty in the midst of cabin fever and boredom!

And now, as I write this, the final drop has dried out, and my screen is again a flat slab of words and formatted graphics. But now I know that I can carefully apply several drops of water to the screen and enjoy my own little light show. I hesitate to suggest this for anyone else, because the electrons on the screen might react with a wet fingertip and cause, if not major damage, some small discomfort or electronic failure. (I don't know this stuff. That's why I draw cartoons instead of programming space shuttles.)

But it's nice to know, as the rain pours down in a metaphorical cloud of misery, that there are little miracles of light waiting on a wet cat.

Hurtin'

I decided this past weekend would be "Other People" weekend. I'd agreed to help other people on various projects, so on Friday, I decided not to do anything on the comic strip and instead did some planning for my cousin Norm's new deck, and then did drawings for a passive solar collector and an efficient house framing technique and sent them off to Re-Member, a group that I've worked with on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Saturday, Norm rented a two-man hole digger, which has a gas engine with four long handles coming out the sides. A heavy (80 lbs.? 100 lbs.? By the end of the day, it feels like a thousand.) steel auger hangs down from there and spins into the soil. You each hold two handles and assume that the auger will just dig into the earth easily. Not when there are lots of rocks! It got caught repeatedly under the edge of rocks, at which point we'd have to wiggle it back and forth and try with all our might to lift it out when it was finally freed. It would buck and toss us around when it hit an immovable object, and sometimes we'd see a big rock coming to the surface and then it would just disappear back into the hole, followed quickly by a yank on the handles. To get down to the required four-foot depth, you also need to add a (heavy) extension rod between the auger and the engine, making it even more top-heavy and harder to lift. By the end of the day, I had three broken blisters on my palms and a number of bruises and scrapes on one arm from when I backed into a hole and fell down and the machine came down on top of me. We were both sweaty, exhausted, tired, sore...yet had a sense of accomplishment. Good times!

When I got home and into the shower, my hands hurt so much that I washed almost my entire body using just my little shaving brush, because I could grip that with my fingertips and not get too much soap into the raw blisters. I shampooed using my fingertips, because the mint shampoo that normally makes my scalp tingle wonderfully also made the blisters tingle horribly.

Waking up sore on Sunday, I went over to my son and daughter-in-law's house to help them and her dad wire and re-frame their kitchen. As long as I was concentrating on doing something I felt fine, but if I stopped to rest, I'd notice how painful my hands and arms and pretty much everything was. So, on a day that I had thought I would ideally liked to have sat around doing nothing, I was grateful for a chance to work at something distracting. And at the end, I had a real sense of accomplishment.

Today I'm still sore, but my hands are not in constant pain and I don't have a half a box of Band-Aids on anymore. The cartoons may look a little amateurish for the next week or so (yes, even more so than usual!), as I am working with something more akin to a lobster claw than a human hand right now. (Oh--I also forgot to put on sunscreen or wear a hat on Saturday, but somehow avoided even a mild sunburn. I guess that's some sort of good karma payoff.)

Once the pain wears off, I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get a funny cartoon out of all this. And Norm has already sent me a funny clown cartoon by another cartoonist off of which I may be able to spin another idea. So two days of hard work could result in two strips. That's almost like working on QlownTown for the two days I didn't!