Well, as it turns out I’m down another paper — sorry to say that due to (what else) budgetary constraints, long-time client paper NUVO in Indianapolis is dropping the strip.
Sucks to lose the readers, but there’s not much to be done about that.* However, adding a mere couple dozen more members to SPARKY’S LIST would make up for the income hit, at least for a few months.
And that’s what I’m hoping to do with the list and its model of direct audience support — to shield myself from the vagaries of the market, which are mostly trending downward these days, as you may have noticed.
So consider this a small NPR-style pledge drive. Without tote bags.
The basic rundown about the list is here. I would add that as I’ve been doing it for a couple months now, it’s begun to develop into its own creature. You get to see the cartoon a couple days early, but you also get a moderate-to-lengthy post deconstructing the week’s work, discussing what I was thinking about certain panels, or other directions I might have gone. One week, subscribers got a peek at a first draft which normally no one would ever have seen.
And more to the point, if I get enough people signed on to this crazy scheme, then it’s going to be a lot easier to shrug off these losses and stay focused on the work.
*Though of course if you live in the Indianapolis area and This Modern World is one of the reasons you pick up NUVO, it certainly can’t hurt to let them know.