February 22, 2009
Some of my more astute readers may recognize some of the questions from this week's comic taken from my abandoned Question of the Day project. I figured I might as well get them out there in Wiggles form.
Be sure to come back on Wednesday for a bonus color comic.
I Saw You...
February 18, 2009
There's a release party on Friday for the book, I Saw You...Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections, that I did a page in. I'll be there for a little bit. Stop on by and say "hi."
Friday, February 20, 2009
7pm
Desert Island
540 Metropolitan, Brooklyn, NY
I’m thrilled to announce that today marks the 500th "Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles" comic strip and the (soon to be) start of my 10th year making this comic! It’s been a crazy ride so far with this little teddy bear.
Mr. Wiggles started in August of 1999 when I was a senior at Syracuse University. The year before I had written and drawn my first ever strip—a very unsuccessful comic called “Truer Than Fiction”—for the school newspaper. On hiatus for the summer, I had the idea for Mr. Wiggles and when my final year of college began, I decided to try it out.
Ten months later, I found myself being published in my very first newspaper for pay. It was Real Detroit Weekly—a hometown paper in only its second year—whom I still continue to publish with. Shortly afterwards, I moved to New York and was able to get Mr. Wiggles in the popular New York Press, which it stayed in for six years and through five editors. In those six years, Mr. Wiggles began to branch out into other papers and today is published in three languages in America, Italy, and Russia. It still blows my mind to think about that.
I’d like to thank everyone who’s supported and enjoyed Mr. Wiggles this past decade, but in particular I’d like to thank you, the readers. I can’t tell you what an honor it’s been to have your support and how much I enjoy making this comic for you and interacting with you on a weekly basis. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
So what’s in store for the future? Well, I’m not sure right now. With the newspaper industry imploding, it doesn’t look good for alternative comic strips, but I’m working to find ways to continue to do this comic strip after the collapse and have been talking to web cartoonists to see if there’s a way I can bridge their model with mine. It’ll be interesting to see. I’ve started making some changes to the website already and you’ll start seeing more of them creeping in as the months roll on.
First off, I’ve eliminated Google Ads and am trying out the Project Wonderful ad service in a few key spots to see how that works. Secondly, I’ve tweaked the navigation a bit. You can now jump directly to the first comic from the homepage and each comic page will have a link to let you submit it to your favorite bookmarking and sharing sites, which I encourage you to do. Thirdly, I’m going to be offering up signed prints of individual comic strips starting in the next couple of weeks when I can get my “system” down. Lastly, I’m weening my book sales off of Amazon and taking over direct ordering myself so that I can personalize books to those of you who buy them. In the coming months expect to see more changes to the website and more extras like wallpapers and icons as time allows.
In terms of books, the third volume of Mr. Wiggles comics should be out by June. I’ve been working on it and am close to getting it together. I’m adding a bunch of extras to the book so it will take some time, but I am going to bust my butt to get it out before the end of Summer and I think it will be the best Mr. Wiggles book yet! For my Italian readers, sales of my Italian book have been strong enough that it looks like Fusi Orari may release another collection. It’s still too early to talk about, but I’m hopeful about that happening. So, please, keep buying and if the sales continue, it will help seal the deal!
In terms of other things in the Mr. Wiggles universe, there is something important going on, but I can’t talk about it yet. I’m hoping to be able to announce it soon though, so stay tuned!
So, those are my plans for the foreseeable future in regards to Mr. Wiggles. Once again, thanks for all your support and kind words these past ten years. If you have any ideas on how to improve the website and your experience with the comic, please don’t hesitate to email me or just say hi. I’m always thrilled to hear from you.
Many, many thanks,
Neil
Big Anniversary Next Week
February 7, 2009
Next week will mark the 500th Mr. Wiggles comic strip and my tenth year of doing this comic! I can't believe it!
Apology To The Webcomics Community
February 1, 2009
It’s only February and I’m already issuing my first apology. Looks like this year is off to a wonderful start.
So, last Thursday evening I wrote a long-ass, late-night rant about the decline of the weekly alternative comic strip market. This was all well and good until I started to talk about webcomics and that’s where I became a total jackass. To save you the time of rereading it, the part in question is where I wrote something to the effect of saying that because webcomic artists’ income was derived from t-shirt sales instead of comics, it made them t-shirt salesman first and artists second. Oof. That was a pretty stupid thing to say and not at all what I was intending and quite horrible. So let me apologize.
Obviously web comic artists are artists first and foremost and wouldn’t be creating a comic if they didn’t love it. It’s not like comics make enough money that anyone would even attempt to do them otherwise. So, my wording on that was just way out of the ballpark and terrible. Secondly, merchandising plays a large role in any cartoonist’s career. Most of the “big time” cartoonists you see in daily papers derive the largest parts of their income from merchandising instead of their comics. So, 0 for 2 on my statement and 2 for 2 on jackass-iness.
My intent in bringing up the question was that there are a lot of great artists out there whose work doesn’t translate to t-shirts or easily marketable products and who don’t have an interest in merchandising to support themselves. Their work shouldn’t fail because of that and that’s what the current webcomics model thrives on. In my haste to illustrate that point and my inherent jackass-iness, I chose some very poor words that look really quite awful upon revisiting them that I truly regret saying.
I would like to say that I’m genuinely sorry and thoroughly embarrassed about that statement and hope the webcomics community accepts my sincerest apology. Please be assured that I have the utmost respect for webcomics. If there’s anything else you need to convince you of my sincerity please let me know and I’ll try to accommodate.
Sincerely,
Neil Swaab
I'm here on a Sunday afternoon, working on the comic and thought I'd upload a few photos of the studio I recently moved into. It's been such a great experience finally getting to work out of an authentic studio-setting. For the past nine years, I've been working from home and this really makes a huge difference. I'm sharing the studio with three other fantastic illustrator/designers, Alex Eben Meyer, Josh Cochran, and Bryn Smith, as well as Josh's dog, Porkchop.
