People tell you EVERYTHING on their blogs.

Life imitates art.

Not that events from my own true life didn't inspire the comic in the first place. Luckily no ass blood for me though.

Retains Resell Value

Not sure how this ended up in my referal stats but I thought it was interesting that one of Randy's fans is reselling his artwork and doing quite well. I've only ever auctioned off one original and that was a couple of years ago. I can't help but wonder if the buyer would make more back than what he paid for my artwork ($94 USD if I recall correctly).

I should get over this fear of parting with original artwork but I suppose the rarity of original Ghastly artwork would help maintain its value. There arn't too many people out there with original Ghastlies. Cuteswan was the most recent to receive original art from me as a thank you for the Palm IIIc he gave me. I did a painting for a friend for xmas to give to his daughter as a present. There's the auctioned painting that now belongs to a reader in Alaska. Then there are a coupld of very rough watercolours I did as a convention guest. When I'm on a panel I like to do a quick watercolour sketch of one of my characters in a situation that fits the theme of the panel and then give it away as a prize to one of the people in the audience who asks a specific question or performs a specific task (or is an increadably hot chick)*. It's just one of those "value added" bonuses you get when you invite me to be a guest at your convention. I'm all about the fans, baby!

On the one hand I'd be thrilled if someone was able to turn a profit reselling my artwork, but on the other hand I might be a little saddened that the owner no longer wanted my original artwork.

As for the fear of parting with original artwork, I think what I'll have to do is make it a point in November of each year to auction off a single original Ghastly so that one lucky reader will be able to have a christmas present to give to their favorite GGC fan. That'll keep the market from being flooded with Ghastlies.

* Incidently, one of my favorite such panels was one when I was a guest at I-Con in the US. The panel was about Geek Culture so I did a watercolour of Fnanp saying "Yeah, well my mother says I'm cool." and gave it to whoever asked the geekiest question. This one guy asked J.D. "Illiad" Fraiser of User Friendly "Why can't I get laid even when I'm wearing your T-shirts?". That was it. Contest over. Give that man the prize. There was no way anyone was going to be asking a question more geeky than that. I damned near fell out of my seat I was laughing so hard.

OMFG! I'm offencive!

You know, usually I find the complaints about my comic far more amusing than the praise. Sometimes they're bizarre complaints like "you draw like a fat 13 year old girl". What the hell does that mean? Is there something inherent in being a fat 13 year old girl that causes one to suck at drawing? Do skinny 13 year old boys consistantly and verifiably draw better? I mean hey, I'm the first to admit I'm a total novice when it comes to drawing. I've only been doing it for a few years and apart from bits of wisdom imparted upon me by my more talented peers on the internet I'm pretty much self taught pulling shit out of my ass as I go along, experimenting, making mistakes, finding out what works and what doesn't. But "you draw like a fat 13 year old girl" seems more of an insult against fat 13 year old girls than it does one against me.

Anyways, today's trip through the referal headers brought me to this little coversation here about my take on the game of "Google Seppuku".

An interesting concept -- "Google seppuku."

While I find the idea amusing, I'm extremely, massively, and overwhelmintly offended at the presentation.

It's a classic case of someone with a good idea but not the sensitivity or maturity to present it in an inoffensive manner.

This just completely perplexes me. I'm not sure how anyone could complain about a single strip in Ghastly's Ghastly Comic being offencive. It's not like I am famous for producing bland, family friendly Garfieldesque crap and then one day slipped a cock joke into the mix. The tone is pretty much set from day one that GGC is going to be offencive. It just seems so off to me that in my strip of zoophile furries, tentacled beasties, not one but three Jesuses, venuses with penises, and sexually frustrated chibis being scared of their own dildos that someone would complain that my presentation of Google Seppuku was offencive.

Yeah, like that's where I crossed the line. Sheeeesh! Complaining that one of my strips is offencive seems to make about as much sense as complaining that water is just too darned wet.

Oh well, at least he didn't point out that I draw like a fat 13 year old girl.

Well that's odd.

Following my referal stats today I was caused to reflect and then remark it's not everyday you see a horse fucking a tiger up his ass. But then I remembered, oh wait, I'm on the internet. Scratch that.

Why do I even bother?

A lot of traffic comes to my webcomic from blogs. I get more traffic each week from blogs than most webcomic artists have in total readers. Once you reach a certain level of readership a kind of enertia takes over and your readers begin to become your biggest promotional tool which snowballs in a "they tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on..." sort of 70s hair commercial kind of way.

One thing 90% of blogs seem to have in common is the "what (insert thing/personality/meme) are you?" survey. I don't know why I click on these things as often as I do. It's very rare that any of them actually seem to reflect in any way who or what I am. I swear 90% of them just generate a random result and most of the time there's never an answer to the question that really speaks to you.

You're walking through the woods and come upon a halfling whose leg is caught in a snare. So naturally you:

1) Help the poor fellow out. It's only nice.
2) Promise to help the halfling only if he agrees to become your servant.
3) Slit his throat and take his treasure.
4) Magic Missile! Magic Missile!
5) Does he have pipe weed? I could use some good pipe weed... and some nachos.
6) I'm too fucking busy with shit of my own for this crap. Let me know how this works out for you Halfling. I'm outta here.


Now what's up with that? Where's the "pull down his pants and bugger him senseless while he talks about Pokemon because, after all, he appears to be but a child to your eyes" option? How the fuck is this survey supposed to accurately reflect who I am if they don't give me the appropriate options? Seriously!

Yet still I click on the icons and take the surveys perhaps hoping beyond hope that someday I'll find the survey that displays the result that brings my whole life, my very being, my soul into such crystal focus that I am awed by its insight and find a peace and enlightenment that transforms me into something beyond human, beyond GOD!

You never know. It could happen.





It could happen.

A sense of purpose.

I've decided I'm going to need something to do with this blog as I hate letting anything go to waste. As previously mentioned I've already got a Live Journal Blog which Clay of Sexy Losers gave me so I could post to his blog. I've been using the Live Journal blog for generic blogging activities. Posting opinions, shit that happens in my life, bad angst poetry about pining for the fjords... oh no wait I don't do that last one. I'm not 15 years old. But I do keep a journal of sorts there just because I can. Usually I communicate through the forum of my webcomic.

Since I signed up for this Blogger blog so I could post to William G's Blog I've been pondering a way in which I could employ this little spot on the internet. Two generic blogs doesn't make much sense especially since I rarely ever post to my Live Journal blog. Then I was struck by inspiration.

One of my guilty little pleasures is to check the stats on my webcomic every once in awhile to see what sites are referring people to my webcomic. Part of it is I get to see what people are saying candidly about my comic, away from my forum. Each week I get to see dozens of different blogs and forums where my comic is mentioned or discussed. Sometimes the forum will require a registration just to read the thread or a blog will be "friends only" and I won't get to see the post in those cases, but usually the sites referring to mine are open for me to read.

But apart from simply getting a peek at what various readers think about my work one of the really cool things about following the referrals is every now and then I end up discovering a really cool site on the internet that linked to me. Man, there's got to be, like, hundreds of webpages on the internet. They're everywhere, and some of them are really cool. So it got me thinking, I could use this secondary, ultra secret blog to report on some of the websites I find going through my referral stats. This way I can share some of the amazing, weird, puzzeling, or just plain out and out stupid websites, blogs, and forums where my comic was referenced.

So that will be the purpose of Ghastly's Ultra Secret Blog. To share the fruits, bitter and sweet, of my statistic's page with those who manage to stumble upon this site.

With that new purpose fresh in mind I will share the first site from my referal stats.

ILikeNakedWomen.com

The site is a blog which doesn't appear to have been updated since October 11th, 2003 but it still earns a place here in the Ultra Secret Blog simply because it's got the best title ever. I Like Naked Women dot Com. What more needs to be said. It's a statement so simple and yet one that resonates so true with not only my own heart but the hearts of billions on this fragile blue ball we call home. I like naked women. I do. I really, really do. So too does some guy name Wade, appearently. Then again, who doesn't like naked women? Even most women I've talked to like naked women.

There's a simple purity in the statement "I like naked women". It's not lurid. It's not obscene. It's not crass. It's naked women, being liked. And what is there not to like about naked women?

Now some of you may cluck your tongues and shake your heads as is the cynical nature of Generation-X and it's little brother Generation-Nintendo (or whatever they're called). Surely this guy only chose that name to whore for hits from people looking for porn sites, but a peek in his Extreme Tracker stats reveals his is a site with less than 100 uniques a day. No, I put it to you that Wade is not looking to exploit porn surfers for cheap hits. Nay! He is but another human soul on the internet expressing his innocent fondness for naked women.

Know that you are not alone, Wade. For I too like naked women.

Double Secret Probation

Well, I guess it makes sense. I have a LiveJournal blog only to post on Clay's blog. Now I have a Blogger blog for the purpose of posting on William G's blog.

Maybe I'll use this blog space as a control centre for my own secret society.