blog: reader participation

I’ve made a READERSHIP SURVEY! I would love it if you would contribute your thoughts! UPDATE: Thank you very much, I have all the responses I need for now!

It will take about five minutes to complete. And as a thank-you for participating, I’ll randomly draw three email addresses of folks who submit the survey, and send them each an original Roll-a-Sketch drawing in the mail!

(Or, you can also submit the survey anonymously.)

Real talk, here: now that I’m starting to come to grips with the time tradeoffs that parenting a toddler requires, I want to be able to focus my energies where they will be the most effective creatively.

This survey will help me prioritize some of my creative plans for the coming months! As well as figure out what kinds of rewards to offer when I introduce new tiers on Patreon, which will happen very soon.

Thank you very much for participating! It will help me out a ton!

[ WONDERMARK READERSHIP SURVEY ]

Earlier this week, I streamed the making of a Wondermark comic on Twitch!

It was a little experiment to make sure I had all the technical stuff figured out for streaming—the infrastructure for it has come a long way since the last time I streamed regularly, let me tell you.

One of the things I’m interested in starting (perhaps as a bonus for subscribers on Patreon) is regular livestreams, and one of those regular streams will be called Magazine Time Machine.

On every different computer I use, I’ve got about ten open tabs of old books and magazines that I would LOVE to browse through and read and share, but just haven’t been able to dedicate any otherwise-unallocated time to.

This Friday, January 18th, changes that!

At 12 noon Pacific time / 3pm Eastern time / 8pm GMT,  I’ll be live on Twitch reading you VICTORIAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS. 

We’ll start with 1899’s An ABC For Baby Patriots (pictured above) and see where that leads!

For maybe an hour or so? We’ll see how it goes! Hope to see you there!

UPDATED TO ADD: It was great! You can watch the video on Twitch, if you like — it’s a little less than an hour and a half.

Reaction to our current story arc (which starts here) has been fascinating to see!

Thank you for the many kind (and even the few less-than-kind) emails. And for your own sick elephant suggestions — though I am perfectly well stocked, believe you me.

I know this has been going on for a while. And I assure you that this plane is on a gradual and appropriate glide slope to its narrative conclusion.

HOWEVER, if you’d like to parachute out now, I UNDERSTAND. Put your email into this form and I’ll let you know when this storyline is over:

OR, if you happen to be of the opposite opinion, you can always put your email into this form:

What does this accomplish? WHO CAN SAY. Maybe, at some undefined future point, elephant fans might get something special in their email! THE WORLD IS UNCERTAIN.

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Our Kickstarter campaign for the new book is proceeding apace!

Thank you to everyone who’s reserved a copy so far, I am very excited for you to get it in several months.

If we beat our funding goal, any extra money raised will go toward making everyone’s book longer, with more comics included – so please spread the word!

The new book will not, alas, contain any sick elephants; the contents come from a bit farther back in the archive.

(Though if you’ve read the past books, you know that Norbert, the hero of the present story arc, has made a small appearance in each.)

But here’s one thing I am including: over on the campaign page, there’s a link to a free download of my last book, Emperor of the Food Chain:

This is so interested parties can see firsthand what a Wondermark book is like, without me giving away too much of what’ll be in the new book!

You can download the book even if you don’t back the project — it’s just a “thank you!” from me for visiting the campaign page.

Embed from Getty Images

Let’s pull back the curtain a bit! I’d like to do a mailbag style post where I try to answer any BURNING QUESTIONS you might have, about Wondermark, or my other work, or anything else you might be interested in.

For maximum visibility, I’d prefer you leave your question on the Wondermark Facebook page, but if you don’t have Facebook or prefer not to post there, you can also comment here on this post and I’ll see it.

I’ll do a question & answer roundup in a future blog post!

And if you see someone else posting a question you’re interested in, like it (in the FB comments) or upvote it (in this post’s comments).

(Note: a few years ago I also did a brief AMA on Reddit. But maybe my answers to those questions have changed since then, WHO KNOWS??)

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, Americans! I’m thankful for ALL OF YOU. I mean it sincerely!

Gax has informed me that he’s ready, after a period of recovery, to once again “lend [his] neck” to the task of answering advice questions from humans.

You may recall that he has done this, on occasion, before.

He has expressed to me a particular interest in questions “that don’t paint me as some mysterious Other to be patronized”, which I take to mean that he’s starting to reconcile himself to being on Earth for the rest of his natural life. Which, I don’t know, could be centuries; he won’t give me any indication of his lifespan. (Why would you, I guess.)

If you have a question for Gax, leave it as a comment on this post, and I will forward them to him to choose from! You can look back at his previous columns if you want to see the types of matters on which he feels himself qualified to advise.