New homepage coming soonish. But in the meantime, here are some convenient navigational links to stuff on the Shawntionary:
The Children’s Choir (unfinished)
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The Pig & Whistle Society Forums (I believe membership is currently closed.)
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The various DJ 486 remixes are offline, due to the overwhelming popularity of the Milkshake remix in Asia (I am not making that up.) They will be back online eventually, in some format that doesn’t destroy my bandwidth.
Oct 14
I did the cover for the upcoming first sourcebook for Ambush Z, by the fine folks at Ambush Alley Games. Click above for a super large close up version.
(Also, depending on your monitor the above picture may just look like a giant black blob. If that’s the case rest assured there are a ton of zombies in the shadows.)
I’ll let you know once the book with my pretty picture across the front and back is available.
I stopped in Borders last week to pick up a copy of Ignore Everybody.
(Great book by the way. Very slim and fast read, but it’s worth every penny if you’re setting out on some kind of creative endeavor (like say writing and drawing your own webcomic…))
While I was there, I was awed to discover that smack dab in the center of the store is a huge section of nerdery.
Picture this:
Three giant bookshelves arranged in a huge U, with a couple of small display tables in the center. The left bookshelf is all manga. The back bookshelf, all American comics, and the right bookshelf is a mix of D&D books, How to Draw Elves type books, more comics, and other assorted nerdery. On the center display tables were copies of the Domo manga. (As an aside, I’m 99% certain that the only reason that monster is popular in the states is because of the Everytime You Masturbate meme, which just amuses me.) The section also had posters you could buy for your dorm room or whatever of Watchmen and random anime stuff.
You do not know how happy this makes me for the future geeks and nerds of America.
Seriously.
If I was 14 right now, I could easily spend days loitering in that section, and entire swaths of allowance on comics and games for perpetuity.
Yes, Borders has always stocked games and comics and an ever expanding section of manga. But the central focus and quality of display and product of this section just made me freaking happy.
I picked up a copy of League of Extraordinary Gentleman vol 2, the first volume of Flight, and left way too amused.
So thank you to the Borders Marketing Division Guy Who Thought This up, and extra thanks to Borders Nerd Employee Who Knows Their Shit And Stocked The Section With Actual Good Stuff. I have no idea if you work at that particular Borders, or if you’re stocking good comics and games across the nation, but thank you.
That’s right, it’s time for both of you to congratulate Mary for winning the Boring Blog Post Contest! Her post about toilet paper was pretty much perfect.
Mary, expect a cartoon of you and your toilet paper adventures in the near future.
Hey gang.
I’m going to be pouring all of my Shawntionary related energies in to the Clockworks section, and I will be retiring this (very infrequently updated) blog. The blog will stay here through the Boring Blog Post Contest, and then settle in to it’s final resting place at http://www.shawntionary.com/blog/
Shortly after the 1st, I’ll be putting a new front page to Shawntionary.com that will act less like a blog and more like a point of entry for the comic, DJing stuffs, my portfolio, etc. (So, more or less exactly like the old front page at Shawntionary.com…)
And now you know.
Aug 14
Here’s my entry. Consider this an example of the minimum level of boringness needed to compete.
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Once every year or two, I like to go and buy new socks. I’ll usually get two packages of white socks and one of black.
When I bring my new socks home, I’ll throw away all of my old socks, and put the new ones in the drawer. This way, I know that my socks will always match. (Unless I suppose I did laundry in the dark, and matched a white sock with a black one…) I usually go for Hanes, but I’m not picky.
Some years, I will forget to buy new socks for more than two years. I dislike when this happens, as my socks become increasingly worn, and increasingly fewer in number.
I’m going to have to buy new socks pretty soon. The dog has destroyed several pairs, and the rest are getting a bit funky. I think I only have one, maybe two, pairs of black socks left. I’m not really sure what happened to the rest of them, as the dog mostly ate white socks.
I dislike it when people give me socks as a gift, because this means my entire system has been destroyed. Sock presents are only acceptable when I receive enough socks to fully replace my old ones, at least all of the white socks or all of the black socks.
That’s right, I have no updates, but I have a contest! Because I can. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: You think up the single most mundane, boring thing you can blog about. Something that would be too boring even for Twitter.
Step 2: You write about this horribly boring thing and post it somewhere for the world to see. You can post it to your blog, or create a new blog, or post it to livejournal or wherever. You can not enter posts to Facebook or private locked LJ entires in to this contest. All entries must be viewable by any random stranger who stumbles across your site and wants to be bored senseless. All entries must be at least 200 words.
Step 3: You leave a comment on this post with a link to your boring blog entry.
The contest will be open until 12:01 AM on September 1st, at which point I will pick a winner based on the following criteria:
50% How completely boring your topic was.
23% Grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
27% Creativity and dry humor.
As the winner you will recieve:
1: A cartoon version of yourself, drawn by me. Suitable for use as your Facebook profile image, or cropping down to use as your Twitter, AIM, or Wordpress icon.
2: A short comic starring cartoon you, reenacting your horribly boring blog post.
The choice of the winner will be entirely up to me, but feel free to leave comments encouraging/trash talking your favorite or least favorite entries.
Jul 21
Updates to the Shanwtionary blog are going to be sporadic for the forseeable future. Between work and the comic and wasting time on Facebook, Twitter, Failblog, etc, there’s only so many hours of a day I can spend staring at the computer screen.
Pretty much every update I’ve posted here has actually been written on the work laptop, whenever I need to borrow it and take it home. For some reason, I don’t mind spending even more time staring at a computer screen if it’s a different screen and if I can type from the living room or office or coffee shop or bar. So, until my personal laptop is finally fixed (or I find a new one super, super cheap), posts will be sporadic. The comic will of course update every Tuesday and Thursday.
So, you’re sitting there thinking to yourself “Self, I’d love to make it in the exciting world of webcomicry, but I just don’t know how.” Well, you’re in luck!
Unfortunately, you’re not lucky enough to be reading the How to Make It in the Exciting World of Webcomicry blog post by Jeph Jaques or Jerry Hoskins. You’re reading the post written by me. So really, I can only give you advice on how to succeed up to about the bottum rung of Nerd Success. But here’s a bit of advice.
1: Pick a regular updating schedule and stick to it.
You are not Rich Burlew, and your comic is not Order of the Stick. You need to update the same days every week and fucking stick to it. No one likes your comic enough to come running whenever they hear a new strip has been posted. But if you update every M/W/F, or every T/Th, or even every W/Sat or whatever, you will build an audience of regulars. If people don’t know when or if the next update is coming, they will stop reading.
2: Make Something Different
This may seem a no brainer, but take time to ensure that your comic does something cool and new and uniquely you. Part of the reason I think Chainmail Bikini died out was because really, a webcomic that pokes fun of gamers playing a roleplaying game isn’t exactly the most exciting and new idea on the planet. We only had so much ground to cover that hadn’t been trampled a hundred times before. On the other hand, Shamus’s brilliant DM of the Rings did do something new and exciting.
The world doesn’t need another webcomic about two roommates who play video games. Or a comic about your sad emo life. Or a wry and irreverent stick figure comic. Or a horribly drawn faux manga fantasy crap fest.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t hit a genre that is already covered. Clockworks is a steampunk/fantasy story, a comic that boldly goes where Girl Genius has absolutely gone before. I think there are some big enough differences in tone, style, setting, and art to distinguish the two though. Girl Genius always felt to me like it would be at home in an old issue of Heavy Metal magazine, where Clockworks is a bit more Final Fantasy Meets Turn of the Century Propaganda Posters, or something.
So figure out something you’re interested in, something that you enjoy a great deal, and try to tweak it in a way that’s uniquely you.
4: Make Something Good
Another no-brainer here. Figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are, and play to them. If you’re a hilarious writer but a poor artist, do something with a lot of copy & paste, or pixel art, or photos of George Washington’s head talking to Abe Lincoln’s head, whatever. If like me your art is definitely stronger than your writing, figure out ways to minimize or eliminate writer’s block, and get some friends to read everything before it goes live. (Actually, you should do that anyway. More eyes are better than no eyes.)
5: Update Regularly
Seriously. Pick a schedule and stick to it. This is absolutely the most important thing you need to learn.
6: Realize You Will Not Make Any Money
If you want to do something that will allow you to roll around in cash, or at least pay some of the bills and buy Pabst Blue Ribbon every month, you should look in to another hobby. When we were doing Chainmail Bikini, we had something like 12,000 unique visitors a day. In the 8 months or so the comic was running, I made enough to buy exactly one t-shirt from our Cafe Press store. And we split everything 50/50. (Actually, I think I got 60/40…) You can make money from shirts and art prints and ad space and all of that, but it takes a lot of time to build up a fanbase, and a lot of extra work to sell your stuff. If you want to make money, you will find getting a part time job to be much, much easier.
So, you’ll need to find other ways to make things rewarding besides wads of webcomic artist cash. The good news is, fans are pretty awesome.
7: Be Nice To Your Fans
Confession time: when Doors & Windows first stretched beyond my immediate circle of friends, I was kind of freaked out by fans. Here I was, just making this weird little film noir/horror story, and random people were sending me messages saying it was their favorite thing ever and the art was the best art in the history of art and all of that. It was kind of scary. Of course, by now I am a huge fame whore and crave attention and positive reinforcement like one of Pavlov’s dogs. So you know, times change.
But the point here is sharing something you’ve made and enjoy with other people who enjoy it is by far and away the main reward of making a webcomic. I get a little nerd thrill everytime someone asks me a random question about the world of Clockworks or tells their friends about the comic or just says they enjoyed it. So encourage and cultivate your fans. When you spend all your time doing something for free, that little bit of fan art or random speculation is going to make your day.
Don’t be a dick to your fans, even if you’re weirded out by the fact that anyone is a fan of the crappy little thing you’re drawing.
8: Make Friends
There are a bajillion webcomics out there. Go around and read some, say hi to the people who make the ones you like. Chances are, unless what you’re making sucks, they will like your comic as well. Then you can be friends on MySpace or Twitter or whatever and chat about stupid crap all day long. And then, when you have some questions about your comic or going to a Con or whatever, you can ask around, and your friends can tell you things. Plus, you’ll get to tell them stuff, and work together on things, and promote eachothers’ comics. It’s all one big happy hippie circle jerk.
In the business world, they call this Networking.
If you’re a moody, antisocial loner artiste, then you’re just going to have to try and make friends with other moody, antisocial loner artistes. And make half page indie comics. (oh snap!)
You may also want to join up on a site like Keenspot or So and So Press. I’ve yet to do this myself, but I might.
9: Ads Are Your Friends
With the ads on your site, you can make nickels a day. (Unless you one day become stupidly famous, then you can charge $60 for a banner ad.) You can use these nickels to help pay for ads on other sites. Please don’t be obnoxious with your ads. Many of us are running Firefox with Adblock Plus, so if I turn off adblocking on your site, please don’t make me regret it.
For ads, I’m a big fan of Project Wonderful. They’ve been an incredibly easy way for me to put up ads, and an even easier way for me to get the word out about the comic.
Here’s a shocking truth I discovered with Clockworks:
If you advertise your site, people will find out about it and check it out.
Crazy, I know? Someone should really look in to this. The point with ads is to be smart about where you spend your money. If your comic is about Robot Kittens In Spaaaace! there’s no need for you to advertise on a site about bondage gear. (Now, if your comic is The Adventures of Mistress Sadomachia…) With Project Wonderful, I can set up an ad campaign that spends X dollars a day on sites tagged Steampunk, or RPG, or whatever. This means I don’t really have to pay attention to it, aside from checking to see “Oooh, X number of people came today from the ads, and I spent $1.75! Swanky!”
And don’t forget free ads. Many forum sites have a space for free ads and promos. Pimp your shit. Pimp your shit on Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal, all over the damned internets. Just don’t be obnoxious about it. Remember, you want people to think “Oh, that looks cool!”, not “Oh shut the hell up already!”
10: Spend A Ton Of Time Drawing Your First Strip
Here’s a fact of life: as the comic goes on, you will invariably become more comfortable drawing it, and eventually you will fit in to a groove where everything becomes easier and you can almost draw certain characters with your eyes closed. The effect of this is that your first strip is all but guaranteed to look like crap compared to your 50th. The bad part of this is, when someone new comes to your site, after glancing at the latest comic, the first thing they’re going to do is hit First. You want that first strip to look as good as possible. Sure in six months you’ll think “God damn, why did I draw his head like that in panel 4? And the colors are all off!” But with any luck, things will be good enough that you won’t instantly repluse everyone in your potential audience. 
Well, there are the basics. I might post a Webcomicry 202 class at some point. If anyone has any questions or comments, why that’s what the comments are for.
Jul 1
Apologies for the lack of updates on ye olde Shawntionary lately. Most of my online time has been consumed with either the comic or Twitter. I have a few ideas that I’m planning on rambling about, so soon you’ll be able to see my exciting take on Biological Psychology, How To Succeed At Webcomicing, Post Post Modernism, and Bad Sci Fi Channel Movies about Gargoyles.
Oh yes.