Making Notes
Yearly Archives: 2006
Upgrade complete!
Well, it took the removal of at least 35 screws and most of the bottom half of my (already out-of-warranty) iBook Dread Pirate Roberts, but we replaced the original 40GB drive with a 120, and boy is she sweet. I’d already bumped her to 1.12 GB of RAM a few months ago, so she was cooking in the RAM department already. The only thing holding her back has been a distinct lack of space to use as a scratch disk — complicated and compounded by the fact that both Photoshop and Mac OS X will happily use the entire freaking drive as extra RAM for pageouts if they need to.
But now? Wow, my images actually open quickly, which means I can do things like finish the Nuclear weather rock print. It’s sweeeeet.
When you don’t have the right tools, drawing can be a really painful experience. But once you do, the inspiration flows like water.
Fan art part III: Jamie was inspired
This should be the last piece of fan art, for now, gleefully provided by ideaphile Jamie, who apparently found himself inspired by the last news post.
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sorry for the lateness and confusion – just got the laptop up and running again when squeak alerted me to the problems.
Another Quick Update
Ideaphile Jamie sent me fan art inspired by the last news post to get us through the weekend. A huge thank you to Jamie!
Dread Pirate Roberts (my iBook laptop) is in many pieces on the diningroom table right now (call it drydock if you wish) but I’m out the screwdriver necessary to remove 3 screws, so until I find one, well, we’re stuck. It’s not easy being sans computer either, let me tell you. I just paid off my house again in Animal Crossing: Wild World and I’m up to two rooms on the 1st floor and one on the second floor.
Hoping either Lowe’s or Radio Shack has the screwdriver I need or we’re dead in the water. We’ll see….
A quick update
- The new hard drive is here, sitting next to my laptop, but I probably won’t get a chance to install it until Saturday.
- I’m probably working some overtime today/tonight to free up some hours because have a viewing to go to on Friday for my next-door neighbor, so time’s kind of tight.
- I’ve got a spare comic I might throw into the queue… I’m not happy with the writing for it but it’s better than running nothing at all… if I convince photoshop to play nicely and let me finish the comic I’m working on for the “at the restaurant” quasi-storyline I might not have to. We’ll see. Or, y’know, someone could send some fanart to kirabug at kirabug dot com… no really, anything will do… send your pictures to dear old captain kirabug, send today, send right away….
Comic Girl Wants Barbecue
Another fan art from ideaphile Plantnerd. I’ve owed her my recipe for barbecue rub for ages and ages now, so we’re trading fan art for recipes.
Anne’s Barbecue Rub Recipe:
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup kosher salt (a heavy 1/3 cup)
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp old bay
How to make: Mix all the stuff together and then mix until blended. I use a whisk.
When to use: You have a slab of meat? Put meat in dish, cover with rub, cook. Or, put meat on aluminum foil, cover with rub, wrap foil around meat, cook. How to cook? Bake, broil, grill, doesn’t matter. What to cook? Beef, pork, fish, chicken, any critter will do. A spoonful in the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese you added that can of tuna to will make a decent lunch.
Store extra in a relatively large airtight container. The brown sugar, if moist, tends to make it kind of clumpy. I tend to shake the whole container before reopening.
Update on prints, or "That’s why they’re so expensive!"
I mentioned the possibility of doing a print run for the Nuclear Weather Rock comic and then promptly didn’t mention it again outside the forum. This should remedy that.
I found a local place where I can get short runs of full color prints done for very reasonable prices. I can do a run of 15 prints at 11×17 inches for under $2 a piece (almost impossible everywhere else I looked) or 10 prints for like $2.10 each.
Aaaand if that were the only expense I’d sell ’em for $5 a piece and double my money and feel really good about myself.
But then beyond the print cost there’s the Paypal fees, and the shipping fees, and depending on how I ship the container fees and I can see why a poster costs $15 on some of these websites now. :(
If I can find a shipping method through the US Postal Service that will mail prints in a tube (including the tube) for under $2 a piece, I can do a print run of either 10 or 15 prints, charge $6+$2 shipping (or $8 total), and I only have to sell 6 (or 8 if I do 15) to break even. If I actually did sell all 10 (or 15) I’d actually make a profit on something I did for the comic for the first time ever.
(Unless you count that incredible $5.50 I’ve made from Cafepress in the last year. I can’t eat at McDonald’s for $5.50, so that doesn’t count.)
I could even do a run of 5 prints at $6+$2 shipping, and still break after selling 4 prints. It’s more likely that I’ll hit 4 prints, but less likely that I’ll make a profit, especially as the 5th print would be for my wall.
Now, if I can’t ship for $2 or less, then I’d have to ship USPS Priority Mail and they cost $4.05 per package to ship. At that point I break even (barely) selling exactly 5 prints for $10 (That’s $6 per print plus $4 for shipping) each. At $8 ($4 for the print and $4 for shipping) I have to sell 9 of a 10 print run or 12 of a 15 print run.
Aaaand so far, ideaphile peri-renna is the only one who’s expressed an interest in a print. So, well, it’s all up in the air but if anyone else is interested, I’d love to hear about it. Hell, I’ll sign up for you if that’ll up the interest.
Meanwhile, my respect for the big successful comics that actually make a profit doing this every day has gone up tremedously.