Archive for ‘Blog’
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This isn’t me trying to be a big shot or anything. I just like celebrating milestones.
I checked Theater Hopper’s statistics for the month of November and we posted our biggest number of unique visitors in the history of the site – 170,124.
This blows my mind. It breaks our previous record by about 10,000 hits.
Like I said, this isn’t me trying to brag. And really, when you compare those numbers to some of the other web comics out there – several that even started after Theater Hopper – there’s not a lot of reason to call attention to it. Most sites wouldn’t want to tell you the traffic they do because it might make them look “weak” in face of the “competition.”
I don’t feel that way. I’m only in competition with myself and my prize – my validation – is to make the best comic I can. Of course I want to share my passion with others, so if there’s an audience for it, why not put it out there?
I sometimes think it’s easy to overlook exactly what those numbers mean. Frankly, I’m stunned that there is anyone out there interested enough in what I’m doing not only to visit once, but keep coming back or even mention it to their friends. Theater Hopper is growing because of the dedication and support you’ve shown and I just wanted to thank you for it.
All 170,124 of you.
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Okay, at first I wasn’t going to mention it because I didn’t want to harp on you guys about it like I did at the beginning of November. It was kind of sad. A little pathetic, really.
Then I thought, “One casual mention at the top of the month just to remind them couldn’t hurt. If we could cement a high placement early on, I wouldn’t have to bother them with it for the rest of the month.”
Then it appeared that buzzComix exceeded their bandwidth and the decision was made for me.
Well, buzzComix got their bandwidth back for the start of a new month. Incidentally, the top list has reset for the month.
Vote for Theater at buzzComix. It’s a nice thing to do. I promise I won’t annoy you about it. Just do it every day. We had a strong showing in November. I know we can do it again.
And that should be the last I’ll mention it.
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Like many of you, I waited until the last day possible to order my “Professional Movie Goer” shirt, but remember: There is a difference between procrastinating and just plain missing the boat.
Order one (or more) today and be one of the cool people! Everybody’s doing it. [Unless you are against that sort of thing. If so: order one (or more) today and be a unique individual!]
Have a great weekend!
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I think it will interest you to check out our newest sponsor The Fish Institution. The art is exceptionally well rendered – different then how it appears in the banner advertisement. Great pencils and some watercolors. Check it out.
Congratulations to Jeph Jacques, our brother at Dayfree Press who recently crossed the 250th comic milestone over at Questionable Content.
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Just had a few site things I wanted to mention. There are some advertising spots available. Most notably, that big honkin’ ad at the top of the site. Don’t forget that it appears on every page. With over 350 comics in the archive and an audience that grows by the day, that’s some good coverage.
I also have an advertising spot available in the THorum. It’s been kind of dormant for a couple of weeks, so to spur interest, I’ve SLASHED prices by ten bucks! 7 days in the THorum used to cost $15, now it costs $5. That’s more than 50% off regular price.
If you’re interested in any of our other advertising spots (including future availability and prices), that information can be found here.
Also, since we mentioned the THorum, I want to point out that today we’ve posted a new set of questions for The Friday Five. What’s The Friday Five, you ask? Simple! I ask the community five questions and everyone comes back with their answers! It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s a great way to learn more about the people in the community. If you’re NEW to the community, it’s a great opportunity to introduce yourself. Give it a try!
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You may have noticed that we have a new sponsor this week – the awesome Joe and Monkey.
Now, normally this would be cause to celebrate all on it’s own. But our good friend Zach Miller pulled a bait-and-switch on us. A very awesome bait-and-switch!
For the entire month of January, the erstwhile original punk rock gangsta of web comics Mitch Clem is running the show at Joe and Monkey!
You might remember Mitch from such previous web comic hits as Nothing Nice to Say and Barrett’s Lament. And if you don’t, it’s time to make yourself familiar.
All of this awesomeness is leading up to the ultimate in awesome. The return of Clem to his own full-time gig, The Coffee Achievers in February. Who says winter has to suck!
So if you want to see if Mitch still has the mojo, check out Joe and Monkey for his triumphant return to web comics!
By the by, besides the current column sponsorship, all of the advertising spots are available for purchase. If you’re interested in putting your site in front of a bunch of people for the New Year, now’s the time to come aboard. I’m making a concentrated effort to re-introduce Theater Hopper to the web comic community, so I’ll be stirring up a lot of press that will hopefully draw traffic here.
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If you want to know what it means to undertake a labor of love, then you need to talk to Derek Rose. THorumite, humorist, writer and illustrator of the web comic Pathetisad. Derek assembled an awesome Flash game for Theater Hopper that can be found in the Bonus Materials section, under games.
Have you ever wanted to strip Tom down to his tighty-whities and dress him up in a myriad of different outfits once featured in the comic?
Well, guess what? Thanks to Derek, now you can.
Thanks, Derek!
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Something that I forgot to mention yesterday was that our online community – that place we lovingly refer to as the THorum – celebrated its one year anniversary yesterday. Finally, I fell like we’re over the hump when it comes to providing a place for Theater Hopper fans to communicate with one another.
The history of the THorum is a long and complicated one. Marred by gross ineptitude on my part, this is actually the third incarnation of the community. Those who have been with me from the start know the story I am about to tell.
When I started Theater Hopper in August of 2002, one of the first things I made sure to have was a forum. I believed strongly that developing a community was key to getting the site off the ground. Initial fans would congregate and then spread word of Theater Hopper to all corners of the internet.
When only 20 or so people signed up after 3 months online, I grew impatient and shut it down.
Hey, don’t blame me! I’m a moron, remember? I was totally naive to the fact that having 500 unique visitors per month wouldn’t necessarily translate into an online community. Remember, I’m the same guy who tried raking in donations and advertisements when I was barely a blip on the radar screen. At that time, Theater Hopper was a pimple on the ass of web comics. I’m happy to say we’ve since moved up to “boil” status.
About 6 months after voluntarily closing the first forum and steadily watching our readership grow, I decided to take another swing at establishing a community. Another forum was forged.
Things went well for a while. We had gathered a little clique and we were online without and problems for a good length of time. That is until a catastrophic server failure totally crippled the site. The database that ran the forum was lost and I nearly lost a year’s worth of blogs. Of course, like a fool, I had never made a back-up of the forum. So it was gone, baby. REAL gone. Strike two in forum world.
Desperate to reconnect with the community that was lost, the third version of the forum was brought to life January 17, 2004 and we’ve been plugging along ever since.
It hasn’t been easy, though. Luckily with the help of my team of administrators and moderators, we’ve been able to keep it up and running without much data loss or obnoxious post whores ruining it for everyone. So my thanks to AdSquirrel, Brian, JClark and MadMup. You’re help has been invaluable.
In the course of our existence, we’ve even been able to implement custom features to make ours a totally unique environment. A web cam portal, The Friday Five, The Danza and The Urkle. Even our own dictionary – or THictionary for the unenlightened – of THorum-specific vernacular! Did you know we did a holiday gift exchange last Decemeber that went off with flying colors? We did, and it was great!
Now before you start thinking that the THorum is some sort of secret society or members only cabal, know that there has never been a more welcoming group of people online ANYWHERE. Friendly and bright. Gracious and insightful. And several of them more hilarious than anyone you will ever meet. My thanks to these THorumites who make our community one that I have looked forward to posting to every day since its inception. Thank you.
If you think that sounds good, sign up in the THorum today. You won’t be sorry.
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I know I’m going a little blog-crazy today, but I don’t care.
After both kicking ass AND taking names with his month-long stint on Joe and Monkey, web comics own versatile rock star has emerged from seclusion and returned to the comic that made him famous – Nothing Nice to Say!
Reading about Mitch’s return in a blog Zach left over at JaM got me giddy when he talked about Carrington’s blog site and a potential rumor that he would be restarting Movie Punks.
Well, that turned out not to be true. Carrington still has it on the back-burner. But the prospect of a POTENTIAL return still has me giddy. I was thinking back to the time when the four of us met each other for the first time back in October 2003 at the Minneapolis FallCon. How cool would it be if we could repeat that event in 2005? Come back two years later… a little older, a little wiser, a little fatter and swap notes. It would be tres cool!
Looks like that old 2003 commemorative poster isn’t as obsolete as we once thought! It can live again!
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Don’t avert your eyes from the animated nose-picking on the front page. That’s the ad for our latest sponsor Pathetisad. Go check it out for more animated goodness?
Let me sweeten the pot for you: Pathetisad create Derek Rose was also the brawn behind the excellent Theater Hopper dress-up game in the Bonus Materials section.
I should also mention that his Abe gave him the idea for the dress-up game. It’s been a point of contention in the THorum for the past couple weeks!
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