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[Golfhaus]

That said, the subscription fee is pretty low so I can't see people bitching about it on cost terms, even in this foul economy. I felt pretty burned with Serializer, inasmuch as I subscribed for an equally LOW LOW FEE and then he maybe updated once in fourteen years and so basically I felt like I was funnelling a LOW LOW FEE to Serializer as some sort of escrow for a future that would never come. I figure with Onstad's crazy schedule he'll eventually lose interest in subscriber only strips, just like he's lost interest in Ray's Place, the Achewood radio station, or updating the story arcs in the drop-down box on the front page. At which point a LOW LOW FEE would be a one-time payment, to see the backlog of everything Onstad did before he found other, more entertaining or lucrative interests. Once I skim that backlog I'll cancel my subscription, to avoid another Serializer situation.

Which is fine, as long as what Onstad loses interest in isn't the subscriber-only scripts, but the free strips. In October of this year, there were 23 weekdays. We only got 10 strips out of Onstad last month. Last year, there were also 23 weekdays in October. We got 18 strips in October 2007. What was he doing the other days? The book tour, the sandwich shop thing that I don't really get, etc.? After seeing that people are willing to spend money on books where most of the content is already available for free, he may realize that what he can really get away with is one free strip a week, and then taking everything else to the subscription-only side. He's charting new territory - few online strips have been as popular as Achewood, and the xkcd guy isn't getting a semi-regular feature on the New Yorker online version. Most online strips, if the author says he's going to a pay model, the readers would say "Whatever, fag," and move on to YouTube videos of cats getting kicked in the nuts. Achewood has some pull, though. At some point, when does Onstad start to believe the hype and "take himself to the next level?"

[littlefallsmets]

Much as I enjoy this strip, I can't imagine that it has both a large and fervent enough fanbase to really get there... unless a television or movie deal is struck somewhere down the line, of course, more on the whim of an entertainment executive than really any mass clamor.

I mean, there's us and the people on the assbar and... I mean... we are few and the vast majority of the assbar folk seem barely capable of putting on their own shoes. Maybe velcro, if they don't drool all over it in the process but that's as much as I'll give 'em.

The more of the content that gets shunted to the subscription service from the free site, the less of a continuing fanbase the dude develops.

I mean, for all the free content that's online, you can read that over a weekend easy.

The kind of fans that will buy your shirts and posters and books and... yes... your subscription service are made though the pavlovian encoding of checking in for four updates a week over the course of months and years.

The kind of identification-building that creates those kinds of fans... if the free content slows to a trickle, you're robbing from Peter to pay Paul at best.

[pmcd9]

When this messageboard was born there was probably less than 100 strips in the archive.  We are fervent.

They aren't making any new Calvin and Hobbes, haven't in years, but Watterson is still reaching new fans.

[littlefallsmets]

Well, yes.

But my point is that most of us became fans during times when the free content strips were most of the thrust of the Ache-output and they were frequent.

As for Calvin and Hobbes, that's basically an entirely different size and type of cultural critical mass right there. Possibly tens of millions of people loved the hell out of that stuff for free for many years and there's a half an aisle of books of it at the local B&N to pass down to your kids... not to mention hillbillies and religious fanatics plastering bootleg images of Calvin onto their tacky-ass trucks to this day.

At this level of notoriety, if a large amount of the content goes gay-for-pay as the kids say, the engine for sustaining sustaining a person's interest until they become a fan to the point where they'd pay for merch or pay for content basically seizes up and dies.

Who knows, maybe this is just a bump in the road for the book tour.

But if this is a developing trend... I can't see it ending well, in the long term, for Mr. O and his finances.

[wombat]

As for Calvin and Hobbes, that's basically an entirely different size and type of cultural critical mass right there. Possibly tens of millions of people loved the hell out of that stuff for free for many years

For free? Calvin and Hobbes was never free. You had to pay for the newspaper in those days.

[littlefallsmets]

People were buying the paper anyway, though.

I doubt that many people were dropping their fifty cents for the comics or any one comic.

[theinevitable]

Hey, back in the day that is why the comics started, right?

[Doc]

People were buying the paper anyway, though.

I doubt that many people were dropping their fifty cents for the comics or any one comic.

That's probably true but papers have spent a lot of money over the years to be the only one in their market to carry particular comics. That tells me the people who make their living getting people to buy newspapers think it matters. People are funny that way, they figure they'll get more or less the same news from any paper so they make their choice on whether or not they want to read ziggy.

[pmcd9]

I used to buy the paper mainly for the comics.  When I was a kid I didn't buy the paper, but my parents did and the comics were the main thing I read from them.

You know, back in the day BC was funny as hell.

[Turbo Ninja]

You know, back in the day BC was funny as hell.

Johnny Hart would rather you use a less Satan-y simile.

[Golfhaus]

Nothing else the paper on the Peninsula in Hampton Roads did attracted more audience participation than their annual customer review of the comics page. Mallard Fillmore always rated in the top three of Most Loved and Most Hated comic strip simultaneously. People disliked Cathy pretty roundly. My sister and I always submitted hate-filled vitriol about The Dinette Set. People CARE about their comics. But are they buying the newspaper to get them? I doubt that.

Why are we talking about newspaper comics on the Achewood forum? Perhaps because there was no strip today, only a message.

We will see you tonight (Wednesday, 11/5) in Evanston, IL! Comix Revolution, 606 Davis Street, Signing. 4-7PM.

Next up: Chicago (Th), Brooklyn (F), and Boston (Sat)! (Full tour dates and times)

Doesn't take a lot to read between the lines there.

[jaydub]

Maybe he'll come back all recharged and ready to deliver 4 strips no more than 6 hours late over the next week.

[Bimmicus]

Wait, Onstad still makes comic strips?

[sje46]

I mean, there's us and the people on the assbar and... I mean... we are few and the vast majority of the assbar folk seem barely capable of putting on their own shoes. Maybe velcro, if they don't drool all over it in the process but that's as much as I'll give 'em.

Yeah, I know.  It is so difficult to get these dang shoes on.  But the rest of my fellow Assetbarbaryans honyxly seem quite capable with both their shoe ligature and literacy. 
I don't think you understand the wit and intelligence most of these guys have.

[pmcd9]

By signing up to a messageboard for the sole purpose of arguing with someone you've pretty much solidified our opinion of Assbar.