Archive for ‘Blog’
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If you read these blogs, you know that 2009 has not been a very good year for me. I’ve seen the lives of friends shatter and crumble around me – divorce, miscarriage and death. My own life has been beset by difficultly – my job being eliminated, emergency room visits. In general, 2009 has been tough to muddle through.
But I have something waiting for me in December that I think is going to make everything worth while…
Cami and I are expecting our second child.
As you can see from the date on the sonogram – July 23 – I’ve been sitting on this information for a while. Not for any particular reason. Except sometimes it’s hard to wrap my mind around the thought that we’re having another baby. I mean, Henry keeps us so occupied already, the fact that Cami’s pregnant sometimes slips my mind.
I would feel bad, but I’ve talked to friends who are also in the middle of their second pregnancies, and they admit to the same thing. You’re so busy trying to keep the first one from stabbing his eye out with a fork, you kind of forget the second one is on the way.
Well, there is no avoiding it now. Cami is showing beautifully and thoughts of the pregnancy consume my thoughts every day. Sometimes those thoughts are “Holy crap, I don’t have a job. How are we going to afford two kids in day care?” But most of the time, they are less panicked.
At any rate, for those of you wondering: Yes, we do know the sex of the baby and; Yes, we are sharing that information…
It’s a girl.
As for the name? We’re keeping that one close to the vest.
Having a girl let alone having a sibling for Henry to interact with is new territory for me. I’m not worried about the burping / feeding / rocking phase of development. I feel like I have those skills finely tuned. What freaks me out is what will happen when the kids are older and start bouncing off each other.
I never had a brother or a sister, so I understand very little about family dynamics. Cami has a younger sister, so she brings some experience to the table. But I’m coming at this with no idea if or how these two are going to get along.
This is my problem as a parent – I’m always thinking three years ahead of myself. Before Henry was born, I had all these big ideas about going to the zoo, playing catch and hanging out all the time. I gave no thought to the burping / feeding / rocking, etc.
I feel like I’m falling into the same trap with the new baby. “What’s it going to be like when she comes home crying because another girl said she didn’t like her shoes?” That kind of thing. What kind of advice can I give? Except for the highly acerbic kind?
Like anything else, I suppose I just have to play things by ear. All I know is that it will be a different experience for me.
Cami’s due date is sometime around the middle of December. But since Cami is planning on having another C-section (after delivering Henry by Cesarean last time) we won’t know the exact date until we meet with our surgeon.
All I know is that I’m very much looking forward to meeting Baby Brazelton and as I know more, I will be happy to share details with you.
In the meantime, I just wanted to put the good news out there and share a little bit of my life with you.
Thanks and take care.
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I don’t know if this is something worth mentioning or not, but I put a little bit of effort into it yesterday and I want you guys to check it out.
After months of the plain, boring default background Twitter gives you for your account, I decided to put together some custom artwork for my page. I don’t want to say much more than that because I don’t want to ruin the joke. The artwork makes a very specific reference that I think you guys might enjoy.
You can see the new artwork on my Twitter profile at http://twitter.com/tombrazelton
Let me know what you think!
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Hey, guys. Sorry, I have some bad news. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, I’ve been stressing about it most of last night.
Basically, my desktop hard drive failed. This is the machine that has Photoshop, my scanner and everything else that makes Theater Hopper possible loaded on it. So, my hands are tied in terms of uploading anything new.
You might be asking how I’m uploading this blog post. Fortunately, our laptop still works and we’re able to draw a wireless signal from our router. But everything else is pretty much off the board at this point.
The good news right now is that I have everything backed up. So all of my old Theater Hopper artwork, family photos and video, all of our music, my job application data has all been saved to external hard drives. So I haven’t lost anything important.
Right now, it’s just a matter of finding the time to purchase and install a new hard drive before loading everything back onto it.
I’m watching Henry all day today and I have to study for my accounting mid term for Tuesday. So there is definitely a lot on my plate right now. All I can ask for is patience while I try to get myself re-situated.
The timing of this hard drive failure is kind of serendipitous. Some of you might remember that I experienced a similar situation last year and launched a huge donation drive to help me recover all of the data I lost.
Well, things aren’t as bad this time around, but there are still several of you that I owe artwork to as part of your donations.
Believe me, I’m embarrassed that it has taken me more than a year to get this artwork to you. But I want everyone that I still owe artwork to know that I haven’t forgotten about them. I still have everyone’s information and fully intend on completing my end of the bargain. All I can say in my defense is that 2009 has not been a very good year for me and it has been very, very difficult just to keep my head above water.
No one is putting pressure on me, or anything. So I have to say thank you for everyone being so understanding. But I’m putting pressure on myself and I want to get the work done. So I will do my best to deliver the artwork that I owe people in the near future.
Thanks again for your patience and understanding, follow me on Twitter if you want the latest updates and I will be in touch with everyone soon.
In the meantime, if you have suggestions or want to leave comments about how I can amend my hard drive situation, please feel free.
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I’m putting together my fund raising page for Theater Hopper: Year Three over at Kickstarter and I’m having a problem.
As you may or may not be familiar, Kickstarter allows you to incentivize your backers with rewards they can earn depending on the amount the pledge to your cause. For an example, check out Gordon’s Kickstarter page for his Multiplex book.
My problem is, several people have already pre-ordered strong>Theater Hopper: Year Three and I don’t want to leave them out in the cold when it comes to rewards.
All of the rewards that fall under the $15 pre-order amount will be delivered to everyone who pre-ordered a copy so far. That includes their name on a special Thank You page in the book as well as a PDF copy of the book.
However, past the $15 mark, I was planning on offering incentives such as a custom sketches in the book, a special, limited-edition 1″ button set with a 3D theme, a new t-shirt design with 3D glasses on them and going so far as to offer up to 5 custom avatar illustrations for the backer’s personal use.
What do I do for those people who have already pre-ordered a copy of Year Three, but who also want to take advantage of the larger rewards?
Basically, I am very concerned about alienating anyone. ESPECIALLY the people who pledged their support early on and have been patiently waiting for the book to be produced.
The best idea I can come up with at the moment is to deal with these requests on a case-by-case basis. Meaning, if someone wants the higher level awards, then they can pay me the difference and I will send it to them. Maybe I offer them a 25% off discount of the difference as a small thank you for their patience.
Please tell me what you think in the comments below!
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I almost forgot, but I wanted to share with you guys a link to an interview I did with Li Comics. It’s only a handful of questions and should probably only take you a few minutes to read, but you might find it informative.
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I started talking about this earlier in the week (and have been talking about it privately with friends and family for almost a month), but I wanted to let everyone know that I have officially launched my Kickstarter fund raising project for Theater Hopper: Year Three.
I was introduced to Kickstarter by my friend Gordon a few weeks ago. Looking at it, I recognized it immediately as being perfect for helping me raise money for Theater Hopper: Year Three. But I just kind of… stared at it. Like, for the longest time. I couldn’t figure out exactly how to make it work for me.
After witnessing Gordon’s success with the site, I was motivated to take action, raise the funds I needed to make Year Three a reality and make good on all of the previous pre-orders that people have been waiting to see fulfilled.
For those of you unfamiliar with Kickstarter, the idea is simple. Basically, you put a project on their site, say “I need ‘X’ amount of money to complete this project” and then people pledge money to your cause at a level they feel is appropriate.
Let me stress that you can donate ANY amount you want. If you want to donate a dollar, great. If you want to donate $7, super. However, there are certain tiers at which the amount of your pledge will yeild specific rewards.
You can see the rewards I’m offering on the Year Three Kickstarter page and I think there are several attractive offers that you might want to take advantage of. But, again, the amount you donate is completely up to you.
Regarding those of you who have already pre-ordered, you will automatically receive all of the rewards up to the $15 pledge level as well have your name printed in a special “thank you” section of the book. If you want to obtain any of the higher-level rewards, contact me directly at theaterhopper@hotmail.com. I am offering the higher-level rewards for 25% off the difference of your existing pre-order. We can work out the details over e-mail and you can submit your pledge to the Kickstarter site as part of the overall fund raising effort.
I am asking for $3,500 by December 31. It’s very important that we make that goal in that time period or else I do not see ANY of the money that has been pledged. The Kickstarter system will not charge you as a supporter until the goal amount and deadline have been reached. If the deadline comes and we don’t make goal, you won’t be charged one red cent.
In order to insure that the goal amount is met, I will be promoting this fund raising drive quite heavily. I just want to tell you up front that I will be talking about it often in case that kind of thing annoys you. I will do my best to keep blogs about movies and blogs about fund raising apart, but I plan on posting reminder messages quite frequently.
As you can see above, I’ve already removed the advertising next to the comic to make room for the Kickstarter widget that will show you how much money has been raised and how much time is left in the campaign. I’m giving up ad revenue to do this because – at this point – no amount of money from advertising is going to make up for what I need to deliver this book.
At any rate, this is the new status quo regarding Theater Hopper: Year Three. I appreciate your support. Thank you.
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Before I forget, I wanted to let people in and around Iowa to know that I will be appearing at the I-Con Comic Book Convention this Saturday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Adventureland Inn in Altoona, Iowa.
I’ll be there, selling my wares, chatting with fans, drawing and signing whatever you bring me. So stop by and say “Hi!”
There was a rumor that I would be on a panel for self-publishing, but I haven’t heard any confirmation on that. So I guess I’ll find out when I get there. In the meantime, it would be cool if you came down to keep me company!
See you Saturday!
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I wanted to take a moment to talk to you guys about the rewards I’m offering over at Kickstarter as part of the Theater Hopper: Year Three fund raising campaign. Pledges have trailed off a little bit since I announced the campaign last Friday and I want to make sure you guys understand how the system works.
First, please know that you can pledge ANY amount you feel comfortable pledging.
Second, please know that I won’t see a dollar of the pledged money unless I make my goal of $3,500 by December 31, 2009.
Third, I am offering rewards based on the amount you pledge. They are as follows:
- $1 – Everyone who pledges a dollar will have their name and a link to their web site added to a special thank you page on the Theater Hopper web site.
- $5 – The previous reward, plus a high-res PDF of the completed book.
- $15 – The previous rewards, plus a hard copy of the book signed and numbered by the artist.
- $20 – The previous rewards, plus a custom illustration inside your hard copy of the book.
- $30 – The previous rewards, plus your name printed on a special thank you page in the book. Have your name memorialized FOR ALL TIME!
- $35 – The previous rewards, plus ONE free book! Choose from any of my publications – Theater Hopper Year One, Year Two or Year Three. Any combination. You choose
- $45 – The previous rewards, plus TWO free books! Choose from any of my publications – Theater Hopper Year One, Year Two or Year Three. Any combination. You choose!
- $50 – The previous rewards, plus a special 3D-themed 1″ button set. 5 buttons total.
- $65 – The previous rewards, plus first dibs on a brand new t-shirt design featuring an image of 3D glasses.
- $150 – The previous rewards, plus an avatar set of up to 5 images drawn by the artist. You will also receive the original art as well as high-res, finished digital art.
Without getting overly optimistic, when I look at Theater Hopper’s daily traffic, I see no reason why we can’t have this project completely funded if everyone pledged just one dollar. Obviously, I would love it if you could pledge more than that. But the point I’m trying to make is that the success of this project can be met if even with a minimal investment. If I’m able to rally everyone to my goal, we could have this fund raising problem solved by the weekend.
So please consider pledging. Even if it’s only a dollar. Think about the entertainment you come to this site for – the momentary distraction it provides you. Isn’t that worth at least a dollar? Hopefully you value it more than that. All I’m asking is that you not ignore this fund raising campaign completely.
If anyone has questions about the Kickstarter fund raising system, the rewards or anything else tied to this campaign, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. Please feel free to leave your questions in the comments below as well.
Thanks.
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Earlier this week I was freaking out because I was worried that my Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three wasn’t going to gather enough pledges before the campaign period ran out.
I’m feeling a little more comfortable today after a flurry of activity the last two days. So I wanted to take this moment to thank everyone who has pledged so far!
As of this writing, $533 has been pledged. The goal is $3,500, so that means we have $2,967 to go before the project deadline of December 31. That’s 55 days. In other words, the campaign needs to record pledge amounts averaging almost $55 a day to make goal.
I think that’s totally possible. $55 a day is like 4 of you pledging $15 for the book – which comes signed and numbered by yours truly. Or having a couple of you pledge $30 a day to get a copy of the book signed and numbered, along with a custom illustration AND your name printed in the book’s “thank you” page. Totally do-able!
There’s a lot that I still need to do to help make the campaign a success. Most notably, post a video of myself explaining the project to the uninitiated. I read on Kickstarters blog that projects with videos get 90% more funding. I’ve just had problems finding time to record myself talking about it. I also want the video to be of high quality. So I have ambitions for shooting locations, lighting and editing.
I might be overthinking it a little bit.
In the meantime, if you’d like to help spread the word, go to the Theater Hopper: Year Three Kickstarter page and access some of the social media tools directly below the project graphic. There are links for Email, Facebook, Delicious, MySpace, Twitter and digg – All of which you can use to let people know about the campaign!
Thanks again to everyone who has pledged so far and show enthusiasm for this project. It’s keeping me going!
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I just wanted to remind people in or around the state of Iowa that I will be appearing at the I-Con Comic Book Convention this Saturday, November 7 at the Adventureland Inn in Altoona, Iowa. The show is open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and tickets are just $5 (kids 9 and under are free with a paid adult admission).
I should mention that I am speaking on the “Your Career In Comics” panel at 2:00 PM. Not exactly sure who is moderating it or what the line of discussion will be, so it should be fun to watch me improvise!
Come out and see me!
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