Switch, already!
Friday November 11, 2005 • Howard Tayler

Switch, already!
entry, Friday, November 11th, 2005

Yesterday I posted a link to an auction, and I'm pleased to see that there is demand for my marker art. The jury is done deliberating, and she has informed me that I WILL be drawing at least one nice piece of marker-art per week to put on the auction block, or she will cut my allowance back again.

But this morning a Schlocker told me how I can make THOUSANDS of dollars in ONE FELL SWOOP. I just need to get all of you to switch from IE to Firefox using this here button:

(What! No button? You've obviously got Javascript turned off. Turn it back on, load JUST THIS PAGE, and then click the button. Then you can turn it back off, knowing you've done your good turn for the day. You can disable Javascript in Firefox once you've switched, and you can enable it, while still preventing scripts from doing things like resizing or moving windows, or hiding your status bars.)

Now let me say a few things about how this works, and why it's such a fantastic idea:

  1. I get up to a dollar for each of you who switches from IE to Firefox in this way.
  2. You get to donate up to a dollar by spending a little time instead of money.
  3. Putting the screws to Microsoft in this way is fun. Remember all those scams where we thought if we forwarded mail, Bill Gates would part with some of his personal fortune? This is like a dream come true, only it's Google's fortune, and it's Bill's market share.
  4. Worried about how Google may become an evil megacorporation, with tendrils throughout the web? HAH! Worry MORE about what happens if Microsoft succeeds in its ongoing quest to control the way we view web content. Google and Mozilla need more marketshare in order to resist the machinations of existing evil megacorporations. Vive la resistance!
  5. Switch browsers already! I've been using Firefox for a year now, while The Jury Sandra has been using IE. We both experience content the same way, only I do so with far fewer pop-ups, tabbed browsing (never tried it? You'll LOVE it), and with a Google search tool right on the menu bar. Seriously -- don't do this for me. Do this for you. Firefox is great.

There you have it. I now return you to yesterday's entry, so you can go look at the auction, the poster, the figurines, and sundry other ways for spending your money on my funny.

Original artwork on eBay
entry, Thursday, November 10th, 2005

I've been carrying a portfolio of "potentially sell-able" pieces to conventions for a year now. A few of them sell, and that's nice, but now I've got three months between shows, and I need to make room in my portfolio for all the NEW stuff I'll be drawing for the next convention season.

As an experiment, Sandra posted this wholly undesirable item on eBay, and I made announcements in the Schlockosphere (the three forums and one blog community) about it this afternoon. It's got a massive error in it, which you can find in the auction details.

Well, as of this writing, the price for this piece (and I mean "piece" in the best possible way, I assure you) is around $32. (EDIT -- a day later it's $80, and holding steady there.) The experiment, therefore, shows that there is, in fact, a market out there for stuff like this.

(Note: I've seen the original work of lots of other cartoonists lately. I've seen work by unemployed artists that blows me away. The tone of self-denigration I take towards my own work is not "mock-humility." It is genuine, bona-fide TERROR that somebody out there will see through me and announce to the world that the Emperor of the Schlockiverse has no clothes. Nekkid as an amorph, and smellier to boot.)

Anyway, here's the deal. You can bid on that one if you want, and Sandra assures me that we don't mind if the price goes up, up, and away. But before you bid through the roof, please understand that there will be more stuff coming. I don't plan to post more than one auction at a time, and right now we'll probably do one a week.

If you want to send me money (bless you!), but don't want to have to win an auction to do it, there are, of course, other options. I'll be putting up a new desktop background in a few days (he says confidently, with no idea what it'll look like), and that will be available to anyone who uses the Paypal button over there in the left column.

I've also entered into a partnership with the very talented Lanin Thomasma of N'Toonz. He can do original macquette sculptures of Schlock Mercenary characters, and they'll come complete with a certificate of authenticity signed by me and by the sculptor. These run around $40 each, and each one is 100% original. I'll link directly to the order form once he's got it up, but until then you can just reach him via the root of his website.

Finally, there's the Megalodon poster, or the other schlock at Warehouse 23. That stuff will always be available to you, just by clicking on the "Buy Schlock Stuff" button. And yes, eventually there will be a BOOK available there. That's what I'm working on for the next three months. If you're the sort of person who has a hard time finding two pennies to rub together, you can start saving them now, because it won't be available until July of 2006.