Posts Tagged ‘book’
8 items.
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and before I partake in the libations that will help to wash away what was 2005, I like to take a moment to look back, take stock and examine where things started and how they ended.
2005 was a difficult year for me in a lot of ways. Lots of personal stresses. Cami got a new job. We sold our first home and bought our second home. Moving… THAT’S never fun. I lost my Grandpa and tried to guide my family through the aftermath of that. Still have a few relatives in the hospital. Somewhere in there when I was stressed out to the point I was banging on the steering wheel in traffic (it happened!), I decided to make a change in my personal health, started working out and lost 25 pounds.
So, yeah… lots of personal change. So it feels good to have moved beyond it.
As far as the comic is concerned, I don’t know if I was as dedicated to it as I could have been this year. Looking back through the ’05 archives, I’ve had more guest strips this year than any other. And while I’m proud that Theater Hopper is at the level where there are enough readers and other creators aware of the comic to help support me through a rough patch… honestly, that shouldn’t be happening to that degree.
Then again, I only blew off two updates this year. One was because my monitor fried on me, and the other one was just this week because I was still coming down from Christmas. So that’s not bad!
2005 was a year for milestones. We celebrated our 400th comic, our 3rd year anniversary and our 500th comic. All big successes. Incidentally, our 400th comic was also the introduction of our first new character in a long time – Charlie. Which could be considered successful or unsuccessful depending on your level of patience for slowly-unfolding storylines…
In the spirit of further transition, 2005 was the year that Theater Hopper moved away from Dayfree Press – the web comic collective we helped to establish – and onto greener pastures with Boxcar Comics. As much as I learned from the Dayfree guys – and I respect all of them – I think the camaraderie I have at Boxcar is a little more tightly knit as I was already good friends with Zach, Mitch and Joe. So it was a pretty smooth transition. Incidentally, I had a blast with those three jokers at Wizard World Chicago this year and hope to do it again next year!
Probably our biggest success this year wasn’t even something I did. The proper accolades go to Dave Buist from Taking the Bi-Pass for helping get our content the most organized and efficient it’s ever been. And I mean EVER!
Dave devised a new archiving system for the comics and the blogs built off keywords. So now you guys can search for your favorite strips, characters and movie references with greater ease. This has been something I’ve wanted for A LONG time. Not only for you guys, but it was even getting hard for ME to find the comics I was looking for. And I created the dumb things.
But Dave took his work one step further by also developing our Movie Review Database – and application so brilliant, I’m still grinning over it’s potential. I haven’t talked about it in a while because I’m still adding to it all the time. New movies, images of posters, cast information, links to the Internet Movie Database, plot descriptions, the works.
The idea is amazingly simple. All you have to do is create an account through the THorum. One you’re logged in, you can search for any movie that you would like to comment on and leave your own review! How cool is that! Like I said, I’m adding movies all the time. Eventually, the hope is that you can leave your two cents on virtually every movie Theater Hopper has ever referenced! How many other web comics are doing that!
There’s still a few layout glitches in the database that Dave and I are working on. Cosmetic stuff. Nothing serious. The guts of this thing work like a charm and it’s all thanks to Dave’s expert code knowledge. Once again, Dave – thanks from the bottom of my heart!
I think 2006 is already shaping up to be a great year. With my personal trials out of the way, I have more time to dedicate myself to the comic and push some projects through that I’ve been wanting to accomplish for years. I’ve designed the initial layout of the FIRST THEATER HOPPER book which will collect the first 52 strips in one handy volume. Eventually there will be two more volumes and the entire set put together will represent the first year. I plan on producing books in a similar fashion for Year Two and Year Three.
It might sound odd to offer three volumes for the first year, but I’m going that route to help me keep costs down. When it’s all said and done, the individual books will only be $9.99. When compared to other web comic collections I’ve seen, that’s pretty cheap. I want to make sure you guys get a copy for yourselves because it’s going to look really nice. More news on that in the future.
In the meantime, I want to thank all of you for sticking around and making Theater Hopper the success that it is. I’m continuously humbled by your interest in my work and only want to bring you more and better work in the time ahead.
Happy New Year and best wishes to you and yours!
THANK YOU!
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Just wanted to send a shout-out to my good friend, creator of Joe and Monkey and fellow Boxcar Comics brother-in-arms Zach Miller.
His book Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection recently won the 2006 Lulu.com Blooker Prize – an award the on-demand publisher give to self-published material as a means of drawing attention to quality content found online. A category in which Joe and Monkey firmly resides.
Great job, Zach!
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Regarding the Theater Hopper – Year Three pre-sale, I’ve gotten some feedback that the store is not working and people cannot complete their orders.
I guess if you live in the States, it asks for your zip code, but can’t figure out the shipping rates and won’t let you complete the order. However, at the same time, I have received ordered from people outside of the U.S. with no problem.
I’m attempting to troubleshoot the issue. I just need to know if I’m on the right track.
Has anyone else who has attempted to pre-order the book experienced this problem? Please let me know in the comments below.
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It was brought to my attention that there was an error on the Store > Bundle page. People trying to order the One Book, One Shirt bundle were being charged for One Book and TWO Shirts! Not cool on my part. My sincere apologies.
I wanted to let everyone know that the error has been fixed and you can now place an order for One Book and One Shirt at a discounted price of $25.00. That’s $5.00 off!
Thanks!
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As some of you know, I’m in the middle of pursuing my Master’s degree. Y’know, because a full-time job, a two year-old and a comic I’m updating three times a week isn’t enough to keep me busy.
As part of my degree, I am taking a research class. For our final paper, we can write about any subject that we find interesting so long as we support it with research.
I’m writing a paper about the decline of print publication and the rise of online news sources – specifically as it pertains to film criticism. Within that larger topic, I am trying to uncover the value opinion leaders place on film criticism – do they turn to it as a resource and how to they regard print versus online?
The survey is 4 pages and about 30 questions long. Mostly “yes” or “no” questions. Nothing complicated.
It would really mean a lot to me if you would participate in this survey. I’m hoping to use you guys as a resource, not only as opinion leaders but as the means to wow my professor with by returning big numbers in the survey results.
If you’d like to take the survey, you can do so by clicking here.
To provide you with incentive, I will be choosing one survey participant at random to win a FREE t-shirt and FREE book. All you have to do is submit your e-mail address at the end if you want a chance to win. If you don’t want to give me your e-mail address. That’s fine, too. It’s totally voluntary and you can remain anonymous if you wish.
What’s important to me is that you take five minutes to fill it out. I would be very grateful.
Thank you.
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Wow, you guys. I gotta say that I am overwhelmed by the support you showed the Theater Hopper: Year Three fund raising project over the weekend. When I posted about it on Friday, the campaign had gathered $533 worth in pledges. This morning, we’re up to $868.04. That’s a difference of $335.04 pledged in just a few days and that is GREAT!
I’m kind of chuckling about the .04 that was pledged. That’s pretty cool and it just goes to show that you can pledge ANY amount that you’re comfortable with.
I have to admit that I’m kind of surprised that no one has taken advantage of the $1.00 pledge reward. Your name and a link to your site from Theater Hopper? Seems like pretty low hanging fruit to me. Of course, I’m pleased that more of you are pledging large amounts. So keep up the good work on that front!
If you’ve never purchased a Theater Hopper book before, this campaign is a good opportunity to take advantage of the rewards system and to get your hands on all three books at one time.
Pledging $45 or more opens the door to acquiring Theater Hopper: Year Three as well as TWO FREE BOOKS. Don’t forget the additional rewards, like getting your copy of Year Three signed and numbered with an original sketch. Lots of great stuff to take advantage of.
I still haven’t gotten around to filming my video yet, which is kind of bad. It’s just hard to do at the end of the day when you’re bone tired and trying to put a 2 year-old to bed. I’m also kind of self-conscious about recording myself if Cami is anywhere within earshot. Which is weird, because I bather in typical loudmouth fashion whenever I record The Triple Feature. She says she can hear me in the basement from our bedroom on the second floor.
I guess I’m more comfortable with that because it’s more stream-of-consciousness and I’m free to tumble over my words. I guess I feel like I need to rehearse this Kickstarter video, or something. I gotta get over myself.
In the meantime, if you could help spread the word using the social media links under the project graphic on the Kickstarter page, that would help a lot!
Thanks again for everyone’s support. Let’s keep those pledges coming!
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Hey, guys. Small status update for you.
I don’t know if you tried to access the site yesterday. But if you did, you might have noticed it was down. I have no idea what caused it and we may never know. Sometimes Dreamhost likes to stop displaying your web sites to see if you’re paying any attention.
At any rate, you’ll notice today that I am running a Blu-ray review of Up instead of a new comic. Two reasons for that:
One, the Up review was supposed to run yesterday and (as I previously mentioned) the site was down all day. So I’m making up for lost time.
Two, I forgot my pens at the place where I’m freelancing. I left them there yesterday after attempting to be proactive and completing the comic over my lunch hour. That didn’t happen and then I forget my pens. So I wouldn’t have been able to draw a new comic if I wanted to.
Not resting on my laurels, however, I made SEVERAL significant updates to my Kickstarter fund raising campaign page for Theater Hopper: Year Three.
Read the updates page where I address questions about the book’s eventual availability, the amount of flexibility regarding the custom illustration reward (available at the $20 pledge level) and you get a close look at this:
This is the image that’s going on the t-shirt available at the $65 pledge level. Eventually I will sell the design in the Theater Hopper store. But people who pledge to the Kickstarter fund raising campaign at the $65 level or above will get first crack at it.
I know committing to something like that is difficult if you don’t have a sense of what the shirt will look like. So I wanted to put the image out there to whet your appetites a little bit.
By the way, you can leave comments on any one of these update posts. If you something you’d like to say about the direction of the campaign or the information you’re receiving from me, I would appreciate your feedback!
Lastly, the most important reason to check out the Kickstarter fund raising campaign is because I finally uploaded my project video last night!
I took the time I would have otherwise spent working on the comic and used it to film and edit the video. I’m very happy with the final product and I think it’s worth watching even if you think you already know all of the project details. Hopefully you’ll find it at least a little bit entertaining.
Again, I ask that you pledge whatever you can to the project. It’s very important to me that the book be published this year and your involvement can make that a reality!
Thanks to everyone who has show their support so far. I greatly appreciate your help!
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Hey, guys. Just a quick update about the Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three. I know you guys know what’s up, so I won’t belabor the point.
I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that, as of this writing, the campaign is now 28% funded with $979 in pledges. We’re so close to $1,000, I can taste it.
I strongly believe that the success of this campaign will be buoyed by the momentum we keep. So if you’re thinking about pledging at all, please do so now. The closer that status bar gets to being 100% filled, the more it will motivate others to help us reach that goal!
If you’ve been following the project updates on the Kickstarter page, you’ll know that I’m considering putting together some original art as part of a giveaway to get people to pledge. The idea is that since I’m starting to replace some of my DVDs with Blu-ray discs that I would make available the DVDs I no longer use and create some original art to go with them. Movies that I’m willing to let go of include A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Wall-E and Iron Man.
I think I’m going to go forward with this. So even though we’re on the precipice of $1,000, let’s make $1,500 the next goal. Everyone that pledges in advance of the $1,500 goal will be entered into a drawing to win a DVD copy of Monsters, Inc. with some original art on a sheet of 10 x 14 Bristol board from yours truly. Once I have the artwork finished, I’ll post some pictures.
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