Theri There

Merchandising. “Spaceballs the t-shirt, Spaceballs the lunch box, Spaceballs the flame thrower!”

Previously, I had declined from putting any Theri There images on CafePress merchandise. Now I’m reconsidering whether I should. People have asked for merchandise a few times. I wouldn't mind making a little profit off of the comic; I've put enough work into creating it that getting something back sounds nice.

In your opinion, would it be immoral to make money off artwork and writing with spiritual themes? That operates on the idea that money-making and spirituality shouldn’t mix. Or is profit acceptable, since people have always been selling spiritually-themed works, and money is a logical part of distributing any creative works?

Are you looking forward to buying materials printed with pictures from the comic, or would you rather pass? What specific images do you want to see on the merchandise?

These aren't rhetorical questions, so ahead and answer in the comments. If you'd rather press buttons in a poll than write out a comment saying some of the same things, here's a poll for you:

Poll #1155125 Comic Merchandise
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Is it immoral to make money off spiritually-themed works, such as this comic?

Would you buy Theri There merchandise?

What specific images do you want to see on the merchandise?

Read today's comic.

If it hasn't appeared on the site yet, read the comic here.

( Artist's commentary on today's comic. )

Despite my notebooks full of unfinished sketches for it, the comic Theri There is now officially on hiatus. The past few months without posted comics may have been a clue in and of themselves, but I just don't have it in me to produce any finished work on it right now. I do not know when-- or even if-- the comic may next be updated. It could be next week. It could be never.

( Commentary that should be read after the comic, or else it'll spoil it. )

This past year, I've tended to devote more of my creative energies into making an illustrated journal, full of rants, sketches, meditations, jokes, attempts at sorting out my spirituality, and anything else about my personal life that needs to be drawn out in the form of a cartoon. That comic-journal is completely private, since I've found that if I don't censor myself and don't have to worry about how other people would see it, don't have to worry about something being too scribbly or arguable or personal, I'm getting farther with discovering my writing-voice. It just seems to work better when I can be as brashly honest as I want, as well as combining illustrations and text together instead of having them separate. It's been a marvelous exercise. When I drew this particular entry in it last morning (which was something that actually happened) I decided this one ought to be shared.

How do you feel about some (but not all) episodes of "Theri There" being a cartoon journal of a real therianthrope's life, and other interjections such as an episode with a joke about (say) Arthurian legends, rather than all the episodes having to deal directly with defining therianthropy in general? Must they all be exclusively, completely on-topic (even more so than most discussion forums about therianthropy or draconity tend to be, which tend to wander in any direction that interests the members, to such an extent that alt.fan.dragons said that nothing was off-topic for them at all)? Or can the idea of "on-topic" be broadened to include other topics that I feel are related to it? I was starting to feel like it was too limiting, even though I do have a lot of material for it, I have all these other comic ideas as well. What do you think, should they all be together in "Theri There," or should it stay strict with what's considered on-topic?

Have no fear, I'm currently working on the next additions to the comic... you'll see them this week.

The comic "Theri There" has now been going for one whole year. A lot of webcomics never make it that far. Happy birthday, comic!

The comic for August 26!

What, another one? Yes!

The first birthday of Theri There is coming up soon on September 4... a whole year! Many webcomics never make it that far. Although I have a zillion scripts and comic ideas in my notebooks, there were stretches when I wondered if I could ever find the time to make finished versions of any of them. A comic a week sounds easy until you get into midterms, and once you've lost your pace at comic updates, it's hard to pick it up again.

In celebration of Theri There's upcoming birthday, I'm going to make sure that this will be a full year of comics. In the past, I've missed 17 of the weekly comics, and now I'm going to make up for each of them. That's why there's an additional update today: it's a replacement for January 16, the first update that I missed. It cuts the count of missed comics down to 16 and raises the list of finished comics to 32.

There won't be a comic this week. This isn't the end of "Theri There." More finished comic episodes will be posted. I have tons of scripts, sketches, and episode concepts. However, there are some things I apparently need to work out first.

( The details. )

Technical difficulties. I know. Working on it. I guess this is what I get when I get the comic ready several days in advance... the website updates a day late!

[edit] Resolved now. I'm leaving this post instead of deleting it, so as not to break any links.

http://therithere.comicgenesis.com/d/20051003.html

You know the drill now: Monday's comic won't show up until Monday, GMT -08:00.

Livejournal entries on therithere now have tags. From now on, if you're looking for a specific old comic, you're not stuck with going back through each comic chronologically until you stumble across it. Now if the comic you're looking for has (say) a wolf in it, you can just look up all the entries with "wolves" listed in the tags.

[edit] There were technical difficulties, so the discussion about the comic itself is all actually on this other Livejournal entry.

( further rambling )