Look, it's not that it makes sense. It's that it wins games. I think, anyway. I've never really tracked it.

New stickers & 2019 Wondermark Calendar pre-orders are open

I’ve just added a few more new stickers to the store:

I also have the usual complement of holiday cards! I was hoping to release at least one new card this year, but I’m still waiting on the order to arrive from the printer. So we’ll see when those actually show up.

I’ve changed the way the store handles greeting cards so that now each card design is an individual product, meaning you can order as little as one card!

And you can still get quantity discounts starting at 3 or more cards (the product page shows you a coupon code that you can enter at checkout).

The Multi-Purpose Cards in particular are also now available in this store as PDFs you can download & print out yourself.

The 2019 Wondermark Calendar is up for pre-order!

Patreon backers learned about it several days ago, so the first 60 or so have already been claimed.

There’s not much to show, so far — I’ll share pictures once there’s something to take pictures of — but if you already know you want it, you can claim your copy now!

This year, available optionally with or without the calendar is a new mini-book called The Elephant of Surprise.

It collects all the comics from the entire sick elephant saga, and somehow this makes it 132 pages long.

This is because for this book, I’ve broken strips into individual panels and spread them over multiple pages so they can be printed decadently oversized. I’ve also added a few panels here and there for pacing, or enlarged existing panels to show more detail.

This book also contains all of the classic Wondermark elephant comics that are referenced in the story! There are nine classic strips from 2003-2012 that get called back to in the saga proper.

Pictures of this book are forthcoming too! The first thing is to get it finished!

There’s also a couple of sick-elephant-related T-shirts — but you probably shouldn’t buy them, because you’ll look like a big dork, and we wouldn’t want that!!

Email + RSS feed errors now resolved

If you’re reading this on an RSS reader, you probably noticed a bunch of old posts pop up today! There was an error in the feed. Be sure to read the latest comics in order, oldest ones first! (Or catch up with the entire sick elephant saga, now concluded, by starting at sickelephant.com.)

If you’re reading this via email, my guess is that it’s going to be a VERY LONG EMAIL with several weeks’ worth of comics you never received. Be sure to start from the bottom of the email so you read the comics in order (or catch up on the site).

Sorry for this extra trouble! The problem should be fixed now.

If you’re reading this on the website, you are a very good person to still visit independent websites! I hope you continue to. HOWEVER, just for the record, this is a good time to refresh everyone’s memory as to the different ways to subscribe to the comic:

Get a daily emailwondermark.com/email
Twitter feed for the comictwitter.com/wondermarkfeed
Twitter feed for me personallytwitter.com/malki
Facebook page for the comicfacebook.com/wondermarkdotcom

All of those get you all the comics (although of course with social media you’re more likely to miss some, thanks to “the algorithm” and Facebook’s business model of bottlenecking).

I have a Tumblr too (irregularly updated, though I did just post a couple good ones) and of course I also post various things to Patreon.

If you have some other way you’d like to see the comics — some way of reading comics that’s popular now that I don’t know about — you can contact me via any of the above things! (Or leave a comment on this post.)

(I’ve already squatted the Instagram and will start posting there once I find some elves who can break all the old comics into individual square panels for me.)

Roll-a-Sketches from Gen Con!

Here are a few of the Roll-a-Sketch drawings I did for folks at Gen Con earlier this summer! (Click the images for a closer look.)

TERMINATOR + BAT:

SCHOOL SUPPLIES + OWL:

RACCOON + MAID:

UNICORN + GRADUATE + PAINTER + SITH LORD:

I’m pretty fond of this last one, I gotta tell you. But lest we think there’s only one way to do a unicorn artist:

UNICORN + PAINTER + NERD + PEANUTS:

I have it on good authority that this is the original version, and Rockwell just cribbed from it from the past somehow.

It’s the FINAL DAY for the book Kickstarter

I’ve been crowing about this for a while now, so I assume you know about the Wondermark book Kickstarter already if you’re interested!

Here’s just a final reminder that the campaign ends FRIDAY NOVEMBER 2 at 4pm Pacific. UPDATE: It’s over now! If you missed it, you’ll have another chance to pre-order a bit later.

(And you can pledge for a digital copy for just $6 if you don’t need or want any more physical books!)

You’ll still be able to get the book later, once it’s printed and we receive actual copies in hand, but the money we raise during this period will determine how many pages the final book will have.

I’m pleased to announce that with less than 24 hours remaining, we have broken the $20K stretch goal, and now the book will be (AT LEAST) 140 pages long!

It MIGHT even get longer still, if we can break $22,500 in the final day. Which could happen! UPDATE: It did! The book will now be 144 pages long!!

We ALSO broke the 400 backer count goal, meaning now every order will ship with a sheet of word balloon stickers, so you’ll be able to correct or amend any bad punchlines that accidentally make it into the book.

The sticker sheet will come with a selection of both blank balloons (so you can write your own punchline), and also some handy pre-written punchlines for general use anywhere. I think it’ll be a pretty useful item.

That’s it! The Kickstarter will end tomorrow, and then hopefully we’ll get back onto something like a regular schedule around here with comics. The endless sick elephant saga of ’18 will conclude in two final dramatic episodes next week!!

Three places to hear my THOUGHTFUL VOICE

Here’s a video about me and my workshop! This is where I come to work each day, and where I ship your orders of stickers and pins and stuff from.

The video was made by Jesse Thorn’s Bullseye, the NPR interview show. It was one of a series on creative workspaces that Jesse showed as part of a lecture tour! Now it’s online, for the rest of us.

I love it. I think it really captures the things I like best about my work.

I also spoke with Jesse and his co-host Jordan Morris this week on their comedy podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go! — an hour-long freeform conversation about important topics such as my busted toe, a deer that has a bad day, and the permanent smell of cabbage.

(Note that there’s some NSFW subject matter in part of it.)

I was also on JJGO back in 2011 and in 2013! And on Jesse’s prior interview show, The Sound of Young America, in 2009. In that one I actually talk about Wondermark a little.

This week I was also on Tom Merritt’s Daily Tech News Show! This one is a very Wondermark-heavy interview. We dig deep into the weeds on the strip, including the TRUE SECRET ORIGINS of the entire sick elephant storyline.

(Which, by the way, you can now jump right to the start of by visiting sickelephant.com.)

There’s just about a week left in the Kickstarter for the new book!

We’ve just hit a stretch goal which now makes the book 132 pages, instead of 128 (and, as I mention in the latest project update, way more than 110, which I had totally forgotten was the original plan).

Projects like these are fun, of course, but they’re also important chunks of my income AND useful market research as to what form future projects should take. So if you’ve been considering it but haven’t pledged yet, you’ve got just one more week to do so.

You can even get just a digital copy if you don’t want to own yet another book! I get it.

As I say in the update linked above:

…The truth of the matter is that the minimum print run on this project is going to be over double our current backer count — so the more money this campaign raises upfront, the less capital I’ll have tied up in inventory and the more money can go into my baby’s mouth.

Which is a big deal to me! I guess if you don’t know the baby personally then it’s probably less important to you and I RESPECT THAT. He’s a pretty good baby though.

Just to lay out the facts of the matter for those who are interested in the nuts and bolts. As the video at the top of this post implies, I like nuts and bolts! We’re all pals here, let’s be straightforward about this thing.

My many thanks to the folks who’ve pledged so far! I know it’s not for everyone, but the folks whom it is for, I want to make sure don’t miss it. So I’ll keep yelling about it!

[ Wondermark Volume 5  (+ previous volumes too!) on Kickstarter ]


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