I am committed to posting every two weeks, honestly. As many of you already know, I teach part time at my local community college. (Yes, I teach illustration.) The beginning of this last semester (Jan) saw the department short a teacher and they asked me to fill in another class –- two days before the semester began. What I thought would be pretty easy, schedule wise, has turned into something VERY complex and of course is sucking up almost every last minute I have to spare. The good news is, the semester is almost over and I should have my time back soon. I will continue to post (I am working on a drawing now.) But posting will be spotty until things are more stable.

I hope that everybody who tunes in has the patience to wait, I have some good story lines cooking and a written post to begin tying all these random pieces parts together.

Those who wait in patience are rewarded. I appreciate the throngs (more than 10) who read my wanderings despite my irregular posts. The economy sucks. (This comment posted here just in case you live in a cave and you haven’t yet heard.) I could go on and on about my work schedule and my lack of time, but that would so cliche.

So … I scribble in between layouts, and logos, and teaching, and web work, and … and … and … whatever else I can creatively bill for to make up for that time I am not billing for.

So AG continues despite overwhelming odds because I love doing it.

And yes, I am working on the next one.

As I get further into this webcomic experiment, I begin to learn what works and what does not. I track visitor numbers, referrers, and page views while I also track inbound and outbound advertising hits. A lot of this info is redundant, and predictable, but some of this info is just surprising. For instance. A number of months ago, somebody linked to one of my cartoons (Giving Thanks) from a scuba/diving forum. I receive 60-100 hits a week from this forum. I of course receive a lot of other hits from various other sources but this is one of the most stable performers in my stats. I of course pay nothing for this service.  It is a natural viral by-product of how the web works. It is tempting however to want to duplicate this result (by intent) by spamming other forums with the same kind of track-back link. I wouldn’t do this. I hate spam in all its forms, but it is interesting.

As I pursue legitimate advertising I am always weary to fill my pages with ad blocks. I think this detracts from the page but I view it as a necessary evil. I do not seek to make money from advertising, I seek traffic. If by advertising (inbound) and then advertising (outbound) I can cover the two costs to negate each other then I have purchased traffic at effectively no cost. Traffic after all is the key to a longer term strategy that I am researching.

Also, as I have grown, I have resisted the plea for donations. I have donated to other comics, I have researched the effectiveness of donate buttons, and I have concluded that it can’t hurt. Again I do (edit:) NOT presume to quit my day job (I love my day job!) from this venture, but incentive is always nice and given the opportunity, I believe that most people will donate something over the long term if they continue to like what they see and hope to see it continue.

So this week I have been doing some housekeeping. I have added a donation button (chip?) above my ads which leads to my studio PayPal site. I have also included another skyscraper ad to test another ad service called AdBrite. We will see how that performs. I have eliminated my cafepress link, and I have started creating some merchandise for a small store that I will set up within this domain (eventually). I killed the link chips that were doing very little except taking up space.

In the future look for a rating system for comics. The most popular will be turned into stuff. (Buttons, postcards, calendars, signed and mounted prints etc.)

As always thanks for reading and commenting. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I love feedback of all forms, I am always open to new ideas.

(edits: what kid of drugs was I on? I fixed a bunch of spelling errors, DtV)

Just to keep you office warriors on your toes, I actually published a comic on time. The Idea of Homes & Humans came after watching a YouTube clip of your typical D&D game. I laughed and wondered what it would be like if D&D characters played something equally distant from their day to day life; Like paying a mortgage or keeping your wife happy. After all, while real life might not be “climbing Mount Doom,” It has its moments of triumph.

For those of you not familiar with D&D, Mount Doom, and D20 systems … well … skip on to the next comic. But honestly, if you are sitting in front of a computer, reading a fantasy based web comic, what are the odds of that?

Sometimes I will get an idea, and it will strike me as incredibly funny. I will chuckle about it for days. I start to get strange looks from people at the mall, mothers coral their small children as they approach, and security guards watch me more closely. As the idea progresses towards reality it get less and less funny. As the cartoon is finally rendered I often look at it in embarrassment wondering … Really? I thought this was funny?

I am working on one of those now … It’s best viewed late at night, deprived of sleep and a bit tipsy.