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Time for a follow-up to the November 3rd post. First, I guess I
should apologize for underestimating you, my fan-base. I figured I
would get some e-mails regarding my decision to quit working on
Bruno on a regular basis, but I had no idea how much I
would get! I'm still working my way through the pile, so if I
haven't answered your missive yet, fear not, I shall in time. Your
outpouring of care and support proves something I've always said: I
have the best fans in the world!
Once again, I want to thank each and every one of you for
writing. Your kind words have really helped cheer me, and have made
me more determined to get back to the drawing board as soon as
possible. And again, I want to reiterate: Bruno the Bandit is
NOT over and done with! I am planning to get back to the
drawing board, hopefully sooner rather than later. But from now on,
I want to take my time, and polish my stories, rather than be a
slave to a weekly schedule.
Some of you have expressed concerns about my mental health, and
wondered if my depression hasn't kicked in again. Worry not! The
truth is, mental health-wise, I'm not doing too badly. In fact, in
some ways, this may be the best year I've had since my pre-teens.
Unfortunately, with regards to the strip, I ran out of gas, and
became disillusioned with the notion of ever making a living off it.
I suppose that could be a symptom of depression, but I'm still
feeling a lot better than I was during the crises of 2007 and 2008.
Right now, as I've told many of you, I just need to clear my head,
and recharge my batteries. And catch up on my reading,
movie-watching, and video/puter game-playing!
Some of you wondered if maybe I'm getting tired of Bruno the
Bandit. Is it time for me to end the strip, and move on to some
other creative endeavour? I don't feel that way. When I do get back
to work, I want to continue with Bruno. Although there are a
few small side projects I have been working on, which I may turn my
attention to during my time off, projects I may share with you the
readers eventually. But Bruno the Bandit is in my blood, and
I know I'm going to want to get back to it before too long.
It has also been suggested I need to revamp my business model...
or at least, come up with a business model, in order to
actually make some cabbage off this strip. Not being much of a
businessman, I'd hardly know where to start. I even considered
putting out a call for a business partner, to run the business side
of things, while I concentrated on the strip. We would then split
the profits 50-50. But I'm not gonna, because I fear the business
side of things may take over. I'd rather just work on Bruno
in my spare time, as a hobby.
In closing, I'd like to turn this column over to my friend
Mike
Dominic, the ol' Paladin Freelancer himself, who sent
me the following (slightly edited) e-mail, which I think should be
read by anyone out there who is either a) going through what I'm
going through with regards to theri webcomic/artwork, etc., or b)
just starting out, and is looking for ways to gt their name and
artwork out to the public. Take it away Mike:
I've just read the latest Tribune and would like to make a few
comments, for what they're worth.... I understand the need to
step away. I once took a break of about two years from drawing
altogether, just because the demands of family life required that I
either give it up or give up my sanity. I do regret the time lost,
but in retrospect, it was the right thing to do.
When I came
back, it wasn't to try to push the same old thing again, but to try
a different direction. One of the sages pieces of advice I've ever
read (and I've read a LOT) is, "If you do what you always did, you
get what you always got." While I'm still far from my personal goal
of being able to create for a living, I do see myself getting
farther down the road, and I've definitely made more progress since
I gave up trying to sell Simon Pariah and
started diversifying my output. It's not that the book was bad, just
that I had put all my eggs in one basket, and was surprised when
they all cracked.
So if I have any advice for you, it would
be to do something different. Take your break, catch up on videos,
games, or whatever you need, then come back and surprise everyone,
including yourself, by doing something completely different. It will
get the creative juices flowing again and you'll be able to channel
your experiences (good or bad) from Bruno into whatever new project
you take on. You might still work on Bruno, just as I still do the
occasional bit of unseen work on Simon, but it will because you want
to, not because you have to.
As for Bruno the dear old
bandit, I would not say that you've failed. The strip is good, and
has a good history. The storylines get a bit convoluted at times,
and longer stories tend to be harder to follow online, but it still
has its high points as it always did, and the art has only been
improving. The lack of commentary from readers is not an indication
that nobody is reading as much as it is that nobody cares to
comment...or complain.
If I would say that you are lacking
in any area, it is self-promotion. I am fairly well-traveled on the
internet in general and in webcomics in specific, and it is rare for
me to run across a mention of Bruno in advertisements, reviews
collections, etc. Nor do I see much mention of you as a webcomic
artist when the discussions turn around to who's been doing it for a
while, even though you've got one of the longest running strips out
there. I have to wonder what level of success Bruno might have had
if you sold yourself more, online and off.
Some suggestions
for new directions (again, for what they're worth):
-create a new strip/character, possibly in tandem with another
creator. Promote the ever lovin' $#!+out of said strip/character. It
doesn't even matter what the content of the work is; treat it as an
exercise in self-promotion.
-take on other jobs in the
comics/art industry. Hit up the forums like Digital
Webbing, Drawing
Boardetc. and take art and/or color jobs. You've got as
much, probably more, skill with color than I do, and I know beyond a
doubt that you're a better letterer than I am. If I can pick up
these odd jobs (even if it's just for chump change), so can you.
It's a great way to learn and expand your skillset, as well as
networking amongst the people who like to pay real money for funny
pictures.
-Create personal work for other media to create a
passive income. (This is sort of the stage I'm at right now, aside
from another project that's landed in my lap that I'll tell you more
about another time). Create T-shirt designs and sell them on
CafePress.
Compile some of your Bruno stories into proper comic books, graphic
novels and/or strip collections and sell them through DriveThru Comix,
IndyPlanet,
Wowio, anywhere you can
list them. Sell them as dead trees, cbr files, pdf files...whatever
you can. Sell original art on Ebay or Etsy. In short, take
anything you have or can create and find a way to sell it. Once you
get the work out there, it becomes largely self-maintaining thanks
to the good graces of the people providing these services. You just
have to sit back and rake in the cash. Even if it's only a few cents
at a time, it's a few cents more than that art is making sitting on
a website that doesn't get promoted, or sitting in a file in your
studio space.
-Create a blog to support all or any of the
above. Take some of your best pieces and create a DeviantArtgallery. Post to
the Drawing Board. Post on any art foum that will have you. Link
back to your blog/website. If you want feedback, get on Twitter, Facebook, and any other
social networking site...and, once again, sell the EVER LOVING $#!+
out of yourself. It's not selling out to sell yourself for yourself;
it's selling out to sell yourself for someone else.
Through
trying to do this myself, I've been discovering that it boils down
to a simple idea that Warren Ellis used as the title of his weekly
column for Rich Johnson's "Bleeding Cool"
website:
(3 November) Time for me to take another break from Bruno, gang! I'm really, really sorry that
it has to come at this time, in the middle of a freakin' storyline,
but I have little choice in the matter. Right now, my motivations
for doing the strip, not to mention my energy levels, are nearly at
zero.
The reason is simple: I failed with Bruno. My ultimate
goal was to make a living at this. But it didn't work out that way.
Yes, I kept telling myself that it doesn't matter that I'm not
making a living as a cartoonist, I enjoy doing this as a hobby.
Which is not entirely untrue, either. But deep down, what I really
wanted was to join the illustrious ranks of webcartoonists who are
making a living by publishing their comics online. That ain't gonna
happen. I'm just not that good... either at cartooning, or
self-promotion, or both.
Furthermore, my readership has been dropping steadily over the
past few years, though I've nobody to blame but myself for that, due
to all the "breaks" I've had to take. As well, feedback on the strip
has been at an all-time low. I rarely get any e-mail from readers
these days, and the Bruno the Bandit forum is all but dead. I
can't help but wonder if you the readers aren't getting fed up with
the strip. If so, I'm not sure I blame you. I can't help but wonder
if my lack of enthusiasm for working on the strip hasn't affected
its quality of late. Rather than plod along and churn out comics I'm
not proud of, I figure I should take a break and recharge the ol'
batteries.
Is this the end of Bruno the Bandit? No. But from now on,
when I create new comics, it's because I feel like doing so,
not because I feel compelled to put them out on a weekly
schedule. As such, it may be weeks, months, or maybe even a year or
so between stories, as I want to work on them at my leisure. I will
probably complete each new story before I put it online, so that I
can work out each story's kinks, and avoid steering myself into plot
corners, as I've come dangerously close to doing so many times of
late. I know this is going to cost me heavily in the readership
department, and I hate to disappoint those of you who look forward
to your regular weekly dose of Bruno, but as I say, I have no
choice in the matter. If I was earning a living at this, I'd have no
trouble keeping to a weekly schedule.
In closing, I want to thank each and every one of you for reading
Bruno the Bandit. And I'm sorry if I'm letting any of you
down. I appreciate your patience and understanding regarding all my
delays and breaks over the past couple of years. Though I may have
failed in my goal, it was the best road to failure I could have
experienced!
(26 June) ITEM: I got
one more YouTube video for you to see... or, more precisely, listen to.
Remember a while back, I mentioned that a band called Promon did
a song called "Bruno Bandit". Well, I found it a few weeks ago, and
thought I should share it with you. Some nice music to read Bruno by! :-) I can't really say the
song puts me in mind of my comic, so I doubt my strip inspired it
(unless anyone from Promon is reading this, and would care to
correct me), but, for curiosity's sake, here it is! Get ready
to shake your tailfeathers to this one:
Promon - Bruno Bandit
ITEM: Time for some more
awesome Bruno fan art! This piece comes to us from Danielle
R, aka Skelebug on the Bruno Message Board! Danielle is
currently working on a fan story about Numth'kul for me, which I hope to
have on my site some time after it's completed. In the meantime,
here's a Numth'kul pin-up that'll spook you out:
P.S. If you want to see more
of Danielle's art, click
here!
ITEM: Any Facebook
fans out there? Well, I have good news for you! There is now
a Facebook
page devoted to Bruno the Bandit. Membership
is small at the moment, so hopefully we'll have a lot more of you "jine
up" before too long! Hey, maybe I'll have some exclusive material
on this page some time down the road! Best become a member, so ya
don't miss anything! :-) Let's all raise a flagon of "Bandit's Brew
(Finest Gulping Vintage)" to Mathias Norman for creating this page!
(1 June) Thanks again for
your patience, with regards to my reduced Bruno schedule! I really
hated having to cut it to once a week, so I am really happy to be able
to go back to my regular "three times a week" routine, starting with the
next story! That said, I expect to be doing a fair bit of travelling
over the summer, so I may end up missing the odd week here and there.
But I'll try to build up a buffer of strips, so this happens as little
as possible.
And my apologies for not
updating the Tribune recently. The truth is, I haven't had a whole
lot to talk about lately. I suppose I could weigh in on politics
and/or religion, as I am wont to do every so often, but at the moment,
I'm just not in the mood to do so. As for what's going on in my life,
not a whole heck of a lot, really. The truth is, I'm really leading
a boring-ass existence these days. Have you seen the Garfield
Minus Garfield website yet? It's scary how much Jon Arbuckle's
life mirrors mine when a certain fat orange house cat is removed from the
picture.
So, with naught else to talk
about, I thought I'd share with you six of my favorite YouTube videos!
These are all great, but if you don't have enough time to watch 'em all,
at least watch the last one on the list.
You will remember it 'til the day you die!! Anyway, without further
ado...
1. Lia Sounds Off on For
Better Or For Worse
Like Lia in the video,
I read Lynn Johnson's For Better Or For Worse every day, due, it
seems to some masochistic streak my psychiatrist hasn't been able to root
out of me yet. Lia is similarly afflicted, but has decided, as a
form of therapy perhaps, to share with us what she finds so appalling about
FBOFW.
If you're also hooked on, yet nauseated by FBOFW, you need to see
this video:
P.S. If you want to see more
of the lovely Lia snarking off on FBOFW, click
here!
2. Peanuts "Hey Ya"
Two geniuses named Ryan
King and Dan Hess took the Outkast song "Hey Ya", and
made a video for it, using clips from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
What would Charles Schulz have thought, I wonder?
3. The Muppet Show - Tit
Willow
Rowlf the Dog talks a reluctant
Sam the Eagle into singing a duet of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Tit
Willow". This is Jim Henson and Frank Oz at their very
best!
4. Bert and Ernie, Casino-style
Still with Muppets, Henson
and Oz had nothing to do with this one! Instead, Bert and Ernie "re-enact"
a scene from the movie Casino. Warning: FOUL langage ahead!!!
5. Saturday Morning Watchmen
If you love the Watchmen
graphic novel as much as I do, you don't wanna miss Harry Partridge's
reimagining of the Comedian, Nite Owl, Rorschach and their pals as stars
of a Saturday morning cartoon show! I'd love to know what Alan
Moore would think of this video! Can you spot all the in-jokes?
6.
Muscle
March
Okay folks, this is why God
gave us YouTube! Where else would we get to see the trailer for this
Japanese videogame for the Nintedo Wii! Mere words cannot describe
what you are about to see, so without further ado...
Welp, those are some of my
YouTube faves, what are yours? Be sure to post 'em on Bruno's Message
Board. Then again, I'm not sure I should be asking! I could
easily spend the rest of my life surfing YouTube, if you let me!
(16 March) Sorry gang, no
new strips this week, and probably nothing for next week either.
My job with RGIS is keeping me away from the drawing board, for the most
part. I usually prepare Bruno a week ahead, but this past
week I had to go back to Corner Brook for another inventory count.
I could have returned home on Thursday, but I decided to stay on the west
coast, and visit relatives in Stephenville. Just got home yesterday.
But I'll be heading out again this Tuesday, for counts in the towns of
Botwood and Wesleyville. As a heads up, April promises to be even
busier! I'll see what I can do to keep the story going, but I hope
you'll bear with me during the dry spells. As always, your patience
and understanding are most appreciated during this time.
In a way, I'm kind of glad
for the break from the "Tito the Thief" story. I have to say, none
of my stories has made me as uncomfortable as this one has! I've
had g&y characters appear in my strip before, but this is my most gay-centric
story yet. But as squeamish as it's made me feel, I don't regret
introducing (or perhaps I should say "outing") Tito. As an artist,
I like to challenge myself, and as such, this has been the most challenging
story I've written in a long time.
Still, I have yet to shake
my feelings of discomfort with this story. I very nearly was unable
to draw the billboard in this
strip,especially the lads on the left. I was not
raised to be a homophobe, but I guess homophobia is still so engrained
in our society that there's no way to avoid picking up on at least some
of it. Hey, it's still a terrible "insult" to have someone call you
a homosexual (or one of the associated derogatory terms), particularly
if you're not. Maybe one day "homophobe" will be the insult instead.
Or better yet, maybe one day no one will even know what a homophobe is.
But here's what's weird:
I could draw a gory battle scene, chock full of berserkers and barbarians
hacking off limbs and lopping off brainballs left, right and center, and
not bat an eyelash. But if I draw some gay characters, I feel uncomfortable.
What's up with that??
I remember a Keenspot controversy
from a few years ago, when one cartoonist submitted a Newsbox showing two
young men kissing. Some other Keenspot cartoonists didn't care for
it, and for that day, removed the Newsbox from their sites. Now I
do support the right of any Keenspot cartoonist not to have any Newsbox
on their sites if it really bothers them. To a point, of course.
I mean, if every second or third day I was removing the Keenspot's Box
O' News because it bothered me, then it would be time for me to leave the
'Spot. But I digress...
The Newsbox in question made
certain cartoonists uncomfortable, and did cause quite a stir among the
readers, as I recall. But, if instead of two men kissing, the Newsbox
showed the two men trying to kill one another, there would have
been no controversy whatsoever. Doesn't that show how frigged up
our values are? If two men kissing is "unnatural", then isn't two
men trying to kill one another a million times more so? No matter
how much you may disagree with homosexuality, would you rather have two
men kiss one another than two men try kill one another? Shouldn't
depictions of men trying to kill one another be more offensive to us than
men showing affection to one another? If you disagree, then I'd love
to hear your reasoning.
But hey, what about two women
showing that special kind of affection to one another? I hate to
say it, but this
Sinfest
stripsays it all for me. Perhaps I should've given Bruno
a female cousin, and made her a luscious lipstick lesbian. 'Twould
be more fun to draw, and probably bring in more readers, too! Is
it too late to restart this story...? ;-)
(19 January) The good news
is, I have a new job! The bad news is, this will tend to frak up
Bruno's
publishing schedule, at least 'til April, possibly beyond!
Dunno if any of you from
the St. John's branch of Western Inventory are reading this, but
you'll no doubt be very surprised to find out that I took a job with Western's
rival, RGIS! I could very easily have called up my boss at
Western and asked for my old job back, and chances are, they'd have put
me to work the next day. I loved working at Western and I love the
people there. But, some people I know work with RGIS, and they told
me that the pay there is better, and there's more work, especially during
the busy season! Apparently, there's a lot more travel involved,
too! As such, I'm going to be away from my art desk and computer
a lot more often for the next few months. Today, I am on my way to
Corner Brook, on the west coast of Newfoundland. The cool part is,
as was the case with Western, I get paid just to sit in the company van
for the ride, as well as have all my eats and lodgings taken care of.
Still, there's something of a rivalry between Western and RGIS. I
haven't told any of my Western friends that I've "gone to the Dark Side".
Heck, I kinda feel like a traitor...
So, my apologies in advance
for the fact that, for the next little while, this will force me to skip
a few days/weeks/whatever here and there! I have to skip this week,
and possibly next. I may go back to a one-strip-per week schedule
for the next few months, if I find myself having to skip too many weeks
at a time. Thanks as always for your everlasting, ever-loving patience
and understanding! I hate keep frigging up Bruno's schedule,
but the new job offers me something Bruno doesn't: a regular paycheque!
In the meantime, if you're
looking for something to tide you over while waiting for Bruno to
return, I highly recommend you check the blog of one Andrew
Rilstone. Mr. Rilstone has to be one of the most entertaining,
witty, and intelligent writers I've read in a very long time! If
you're a Dave Sim fan (you know who you are), you'll want to go
here.
Harry
Potter fans may wish to approach this
section with caution, however. But my favorite part of the
blog has to be A
Sceptic's Guide to Richard Dawkins, in which Sir Andrew bats the
dear Professor and his recent bestseller around as a cat would a ball of
yarn. I can haz theizm, indeed!
