Blog
HEADS UP: These posts are old news, and old news is rarely relevant news. Situations change, and the statements made below are reflections of the ways things were then, which is not necessarily the way they are now. Products that that no longer exist are advertised; promotional schemes that have curled up and died are trumpeted; much ado is made about things that hindsight has revealed to be nothing. Any links that still work reflect the fact that the miraculous is still possible.
2008
December 10, 2008
I Have Absolutely No Idea What I’m Doing, and Clearly I Must Be Stopped
That blog-gy/comment-y thing you see (or perhaps, don’t see) above these words? It’s something I’m trying out. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get it to do what I want it to do, and therefore I may dismantle it shortly in a fit of pique. I have only a very tenuous grasp of this kind of stuff, so the only way I can ever know what something is going to do is to slap it up on the site and tinker with it while the world watches and smirks. Anyway, I’m tinkerin’ as we speak. I could go into detail about what I’m trying to make it do, but I have even less interest in trying to explain that as you would likely have in reading about it. So, anyway, there it is, a little comments section that you may use or ignore, and please be aware that it may disappear at any time (and your comments along with it), so if you think you’re on the verge of making The Most Important Statement of Your Life, I’d suggest not doing it here.
Oh, and no cussin’, neither.
December 3, 2008
But Who are You?
I’m trying to increase my readership by purchasing advertising on various sites, but I confess I don’t really know what I’m doing. My main problem is one of not really knowing who my audience is. This strip is designed to have broad appeal, but therein lies the dilemma… it’s a lot easier to market to a targeted group than to “the world”, which is what I’m trying to do. A few people have suggested to me that there are “groups” that I should be targeting, and I just need to find out what they are.
Well, okay. I’m going to need help with that. I’m going to ask everyone who is willing to do so to post here and answer some basic questions. I know, it’s obnoxious. Hey, no one’s forcing you to do it.
November 4, 2008
Now That the Horses Have Fled the Barn…
I was finally able to determine the source of the ads I mentioned yesterday (see below), and have taken the necessary steps to prevent them from being displayed on my site. Of course, since the “steps” amount to “typing a URL and clicking a button and hoping that actually does something,” I’m predicting the ads will disappear from my site about an hour after the polls close in California. I’m about as cynical about technology as I am about politics.
Which should not be taken to mean I don’t urge everyone who lives in these United States to go and vote today, because I do, in fact, urge you to do exactly that. Happy Election Day, américanos.
November 3, 2008
The Views Expressed Do Not Necessarily Reflect, Bla Bla Bla…
I noticed some ads popping up on my site today urging folks to vote a certain way on a certain proposition in a certain state that I happen to live in and it happens to be the opposite way I’ll be voting. The views expressed in the ads are solely the views of the advertisers, and do not reflect my personal views, merely my personal inability to control the ads that appear on my site. Most people would probably presume this to be the case, but I’m just steppin’ up here to add that extra layer of assurance. You can never be too careful.
The ads on my site are served by various Internet advertising networks. Most of these networks allow publishers (that’s me, in this case) to automatically reject certain “types” of ads (read “adult”), but sometimes their opinion on what constitutes “adult” may differ from mine, or yours. Just know that I do my best to keep your innocent eyes shielded from the evils of icky pornography and ickier partisan politics.
By the by, if you ever see some ad that offends you so horribly that you can’t resist e-mailing me to tell me about it, feel free to do so, just be aware I may be powerless to stop it. Often it’s hard to track down which ad network is serving the ad, and in some cases I’m unable to do anything about it anyway. It’s sort of like a drive-by shooting, but with less blood and more bad composition, gaudy color schemes, and inappropriate typefaces. Oh, how those inappropriate typefaces gall me.
October 18, 2008
“The Next Round” is Here!
That's the second Out There book collection, featuring 23-pages of all-new material, plus the entire second year of the strip. You can order it here, and you’ll make my day if you do.
October 13, 2008
New Feature! Storyline-Based Archive Navigation
New to this site, that is. Other webcomics have been doing it for years, but I'm a little slow sometimes. Anyway, mosey on over to the Archives page, and you'll see a spankin' new drop-down menu above that familiar monolith of a calendar. Ideally, this makes it easier to find that specific strip you're looking for. As a practical matter, though, the difficulty of deciphering my cryptic story titles probably defeats the purpose. But hey, it looks cool.
Also, always remember you can use the Oh No Robot search function at the bottom of this page if you know a few of the words in the strip you're looking for.
October 7, 2008
“Fortune” smiles on me
If you're not familiar with MJ Almon’s and Mel Olm’s brilliant historical farce Fortune's Fool’s, I urge you to check it out; I've been a fan of this fun and unique webcomic since its inception. It’s still a pretty quick read because updates have been spotty in the past but it seems the duo have all their ducks in a row now and are spitting out a page every coupla weeks. And what pages! You’ll have to see them to appreciate them. Anyway, Mel, the artist, recently surprised me with a stunning rendering of a petrified John flanked by a positively sinister Miriam and Sherry. You can see it here. And yeah, it's embarrassing that everyone who submits drawings of my characters draws them better than I do. But I'm stubborn, I keep drawing ’em anyway.
August 1, 2008
WOWIO Redux
Well, that was fast. WOWIO has already roped in a sponsor, so if you click here you can start downloadin'! I guess the free PDFs will be available from time to time, and right now is one of those times. Happy downloading!
July 31, 2008
The WOWIO Deal
WOWIO is (or was) a company that had a web site you could go to and download free e-books (PDFs). The first two years' worth of Out There strips, compiled into ten volumes, were among the goodies that you could get for free. Many of my readers took advantage of this, and while they were getting free PDFs, I was getting paid by WOWIO for each download. All was right with the world.
WOWIO is now under new ownership, and things have changed. The good news is that you can still go to the WOWIO site, and the Out There e-books are still there. As things stand right now, though, you can't download them as PDFs anymore, but you can now view them on the website without downloading them. I make a little bit of money from this, but it's not as good a deal for me as it used to be. That's okay; I'll survive.
The downloadable PDFs will return if and when WOWIO is able to find advertisers to sponsor them. This may happen soon. It may not happen ever. I'm hoping that it does, because I'll be getting paid per download again, and anyway, the idea of free books appeals to me. But we'll just have to wait and see.
July 22, 2008
Oh No It's Over—Except, It's Never Over
Today the final piece of the puzzle fell into place—the transcription database is now fully up-to-date! Many thanks to the many people who helped, especially the handful of people who contributed multiple transcriptions.
Of course, the job is never really finished, because I keep drawing new strips everyday, so we always need the latest transcription. It's like laundry, you finish it and then there's the clothes you wore today. Oh well, it's exciting (to me) anyway.
WOWIO UPDATE: Some of you may have noticed that clicking the above link to download free Out There PDF's no longer takes you a page where you can download the PDFs, but rather to an page that says WOWIO IS GOING GLOBAL. Well, WOWIO is indeed going global (it used to only cater to U.S. residents), and from what I hear, it will again be fully operational soon, possibly even later this week.
OUT THERE BOOK UPDATE: Speaking of links that don't go where they're supposed to, the above link that says "Order from Keenspot Store" now directs you to an error page. Apparently they're working on the Keenspot store. The button above that one still works, though. No word from the Keenbrass when the second Out There book is actually going to be available online, but I'm sure it will be soon (you can also pick one up at the Comic-Con if you happen to be going there this weekend.)
June 12, 2008
Just Another Day
The new Wowio volumes are available, see ad above today's comic for details. Oh, and today marks Out There's second anniversary. Yippee.
June 9, 2008
Your Monitor Does Not Need Adjusting
Astute readers will likely notice that there's something different about today's strip. Yes, after two years, I'm making the Great Leap Forward (or Backward, depending on your point of view) to the standard four-panel layout used by many beloved and despised newspaper comic strips.
Why was I using that quirky five-panel layout in the first place, you ask? The best answer to that is, "it just happened." When Out There was still in the planning stages a little over two years ago, I didn't know what it was going to look like. I hadn't sketched any of the characters, I didn't know if I was going to use color, I didn't know if I was going to try to go daily, and I didn't know what dimensions or layouts I was going to use. Heck, I didn't even know if I was really going to go through with doing a webcomic. So I just started writing. I didn't concern myself with how many panels each strip would be, in fact I figured there would be no set number, each strip would use however many panels seemed appropriate. I probably scripted about 30 or 40 strips before I started putting any thought into any of the visual aspects.
By the time I did, I realized that the great majority of my scripts called for five panels, and the ones that didn't could easily be adapted to five panels. Apparently the man on the flaming pie had determined five panels to be The Way. Not one to argue with that obscure a reference, I started fitting drawings and words into a five-panel template.
As time went by, I noticed two things: 1) writing five panel scripts was easy; it seemed to allow me the pacing I felt each strip required; and 2) drawing five panels wasn't easy. The panels were skinny, so the text tended to take up too much of the panel, and the characters were often forced to be placed very close together (a couple of people have mentioned that my characters seem to have a "European" sense of personal space; my panels, like many European cities, are crowded). There was also this nagging feeling that it took a lot more time to draw thirty panels a week than it would take to draw twenty-four.
Old habits die hard; I've considered switching to four panels many times over the last two years but I've been worried I'd have a hard time adjusting my writing style to fit it. Fortunately, laziness tends to force an issue whenever it can; the lure of drawing six fewer panels a week was just too strong, so I've finally made the switch. Over the next few days, I think you'll agree that the new strips look cleaner and airier, and are probably a little easier to read. Also, it turns out it hasn't been all that difficult to adjust the way I write to fit a four-panel setup.
Oddly, in the past, many reviewers, bloggers or other Internet folk have erroneously reported that I use a "three- or four-panel layout," or that I "often" use a layout other than what is standard (i.e., four-panels), but the fact is, all 624 Out There strips before today's have used the same five-panel layout. Well, as of today, the words of those well-meaning individuals are no longer false. Now if I can just convince people I don't have a character named "Shelly" or "Sally"…
May 30, 2008
Oh No Robot Ad Nauseum
Short update: we're about 5/6 of the way there, and I wanted to thank everyone once more, especially this one cat who submitted 53 transcriptions in one day. Now that was pretty nuts. But I appreciate it. Thanks.
May 15, 2008
A General Update Regarding Things You Might Consider Interesting
THING #1: The second Out There book is done! The book includes:
- All of the strips from Out There's second year.
- An updated Cast section featuring new drawings and descriptions (not available online).
- A new 17-page "flashback" story featuring Miriam and Sherry in their younger days (not available online).
The cover and an excerpt from the bonus story appear below, lookee:
The book should be available about two months from now, hopefully in time for…
THING #2: The Comic-Con International, July 24-27, San Diego, CA
I'm there. Look for me at the Keenspot booth, I'll be the guy with hardly any hair and a badge that says "R. C. Monroe." Drop on by and I'll draw you a picture or something. Buy my book and I'll draw you a picture and say "Thank you."
THING #3: The Oh No Robot Project (see April 17 and 22 below): Some of you people are completely out of control. One guy (I'm tempted to mention his name, but I won't because I don't know if he wants me to) has done at least 50 transcriptions; many others have done 10 or more. As of right now a whopping 342 transcriptions have been archived, so well over half of the work is done. A big thank you to everyone who has helped, and to everyone who plans to help. Remember, even one transcription will be much appreciated, and it only takes a couple of minutes.
Oh, a couple of you have asked if it's better to use all caps or upper case/lower case in the transcriptions. I think the latter is easier to read, and the bulk of them have been done that way, so there's your answer. As for how much detail you want to include (panel descriptions, etc.), I'll leave that up to you.
THING #4: Out There turns 2 years old in a little less than a month. Woo hoo! To celebrate, five new Wowio volumes will be released. Get 'em while they're hot!
April 22, 2008
Who'da Thunk It
My apologies for understimating my readership; when I wrote the post below (April 17) I really wasn't expecting there to be much of a response; I was hopin', but I wasn't expectin'. But ya'll have come through like troupers, and after four and a half days, the lofty task is about 15% done. Yes, a lot of work remains to be done, but a lot of work has also been done. I am grateful to those who have helped me out; I think I now have reason to believe this job might be doable after all.
A couple of comments: One, I had originally planned on personally e-mailing a note of thanks to everyone who helped out; but of course that was when I thought only a handful of folks would do so. Having seen that the number of helpers is going to be a lot greater than I had anticipated, I'm thinking it might be better just to give a generic "thanks" right here. So, here goes: "Generic Thanks!"
Also, you may have noticed that the transcriptions are starting to appear at the bottom of the pages, but not always on the right page. Don't worry about that; it'll all get sorted out eventually. Just pay attention to whether or not the page has a "Transcribe This Comic" button; if it does, it still needs a transcritption; if it doesn't, move on, that page has been done.
Lastly, some of you are going into much greater detail than I had expected, and that's great; if you feel behooved to include descriptions of the action in addition to the dialogue, then have at it—more is better. But if all you want to do is transcribe the word balloons, that's okay too (that's all I did in the ones I transcribed).
Thanks again, you people are too cool for school, and I think you all know it.
April 17, 2008
Announcing Project-Do-A-Lot-Of-Tedious-Work-For-Me
Seems like I hardly ever post anything here unless I want something. And being a traditional type of guy, I hate to break with tradition.
I've recently been informed that in order to attract the big, big advertising bucks, you need to have a lot of text on your site. Now the irony of this is not lost on me: I'm aware I could achieve this by posting something here every day (not gonna happen); I'm also aware that Out There is a rather wordy strip (too wordy at times, I think, but that's the drawback of having no editor to rein me in). The problem is that all those words in all those speech balloons up there don't really do anything to attract advertisers, because in this perfect world of ours everything is automated and there's no actual human looking at these strips and saying, hey, there's a bunch of words, let's buy some ads; instead some entity that only exists as ones and zeroes looks at the strip and says: there's a graphic—no words here, let's move on.
In order for the program to see the words in those balloons, they need to be typed. I'll bet you can see where this is leading.
Those of you who are in the know about webcomics are probably aware of something called Oh No Robot, in which case you know what I'm about to ask. I thank you for your time, I'm sorry for having wasted it.
As for those of you who've never heard of Oh No Robot, prepare yourself to hear a sales pitch. If you're really interested, you can first read Oh No Robot's description of what it is and what it does, or you can skip that and read my shorter, tailored-to-my-own-needs version, which follows:
- Click here. Now find the line that says “help transcribe” (or click here) and you'll see a list of links, each one of which is a page in the Out There archives. Click on one of those links, and once the page is loaded, scroll down to the bottom and find a button that says “Transcribe This Comic!” Click that sucker and a new page will load, instructing you on what to do. Follow these instructions, and feel good about yourself, for you have helped R. C. Monroe today, and you didn't even have to see him to do it.
When all (or a good amount) of the transcriptions are done, it will be a fairly simple matter for me to place them at the bottom of each comic page, and with any luck, the aforementioned big, big, advertising bucks will start pouring in. Yeah, I won't be holding my breath either. But it may help a little, and as an added bonus, a searchable database of my comics will exist, so if you ever want to find that one strip where Sherry uses the word “goofball,” you can type the word into the “Search” field (it's at the bottom of every comic page in the site now) and it will find it for you. In fact, since that particular strip has already been transcribed (I did it myself), you can test it now. Cool, huh?
Okay, I'll admit it: there's a much greater benefit in this for me than for you, and it sounds like a lot of work. Well, it is a lot of work—if only one person is doing it. Okay, it's even a lot of work if ten people are doing it. But there's still fewer than 600 comics in the archive, and a lot more than 600 people read Out There (I know, it amazes me too), so if everybody decided to do just one transcription, we'd be done before most of you had a chance to help out. That would make me very happy.
Okay. I'm done for now. Thanks for your help. I'll see you here next time I want something.
March 11, 2008
Thanks
Just wanted to thank those of you who filled out the survey. Apparently I've got all the responses I need for now. I appreciate everybody helping me out on this.
By the way, I'll be making an appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con again this year. I'll announce more details as they become available to me.
February 28, 2008
New review, old mistake
Posted a new review of Out There on the Links page, and fixed a misdirected link: the interview by Kathy Peterson now directs to the correct page.
And I still need more responses on this silly survey, if you've got the time. Thanks.
February 18, 2008
An Annoying (Sorry) Request
This isn't the type of thing I'd usually ask of my readers, but…
If you click this link it'll take you to a survey. The first several questions were created by one of the services I use to place ads on my site, and they're designed to help them get a better idea of who their clients are marketing to. Yeah, I know. But it may result in more ads being placed, and may generate a few more bucks for me. And it should only take you a minute or two.
The last three questions were created by me, and are designed to give me a better idea about my readership. And you might find them mildly entertaining/amusing.
If you'll take the time to answer the survey, I'll be most grateful. Thanks.
January 13, 2008
Still Kickin'
Just noticed it's been four months since I posted something in this space. And I still don't have anything to say. But that's what the comic strip is for, that's where I say whatever it is I have to say.
That being said (sorry, that's the last time I'll use that verb in this post), I know that some people look to these blogs or journals or whatever you kids call them these days as a sign that the webcomic creator is indeed still alive and still cares. Hence this post.
So… what have you guys been up to? Feel free to thow me an e-mail or drop a post in the Out There forum… I'm always interested in hearing what you like about the strip, what you hate about the strip, what you are completely ambivalent about, etc. Basically, I like hearing from y'all. It's how I know you're still alive and still care.
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December 28, 2008
I Gave Up
The two commenting systems that I briefly featured on this page are gone now; I just didn’t have the time or smarts to figure out how to make them do what I wanted them to do. What I wanted was a system that:
If there’s anybody out there who knows how to do that and can walk me through it, please let me know. Meantime, my apologies to anyone who had grown fond of the comments boxes; to me, they only served as a glaring monument to my technical inadequacy. I felt the best recourse was to smite them.
Milestones
To celebrate the new year and the 800th Out There strip (December 30), I’ll be trying something new later in the week. I’ve had it with Out There being stereotyped as a highbrow, elitist, self-consciously intellectual strip. Mark my words, those labels will come crashing down in a matter of days. You’ll see.
December 21, 2008
Still Tinkerin’
So now I have two comments systems on the home page, and neither of them are doing what I want them to do. I must again warn you, one or both of these commenting systems are going to be shown the door, so please don’t get mad at me if your comments go away. I would like to say thank you for the many suggestions I’ve gotten with regards to blog commenting systems, advertising, marketing, and the like.