Monday - November 8, 2004:

I might be in trouble for this one. I'm a little worried people who will read this and recognize the inspiration for the guy in panel one, but then I don't really plan on doing that particular show any time soon. He's not really the target anyway. Instead, it is the state of small-town comic shows and, more generally, the print comic industry. For me offering my collection for sale at comic shows has been a monumental waste of time and energy. Sure, I sold a few hundred comics over the course of three shows, but the hours spent pricing and lifting far outnumbered the profits, and why did every single show have to be held on a beautiful day when I could have been hiking?

I've since developed other plans for my ten thousand book comic habit, top secret stuff. I won't delve deeply into the fate of the print comic again, but it really is a very sick industry. My only hope is that the graphic novel market will explode, but for that to happen, it will have to be accompanied by huge changes in the public perception of comics and the way the most recognizable are being used by corporations.

Web-based comics are in the midst of their own dry-spell. Lots have found relative popularity, but only a few have been able to turn clicks into money and for the most part, these are of the daily gag sort. Of course, my own strip, HB, is primarily a gag-a-day strip at this point. Sure, there are threads of story, but they're primarily designed around my goals for the blog that follows each strip. Behind the scenes, I'm playing around with some other regularly updating models. One will begin this Thursday, part of a much larger publishing plan. Do I have anyone's interest piqued? Well, mine is and if I want to make it work and meet the dealines, I'll need to get back to work.

-Bob Stevenson