This is going to be largely a post for me to sort out some possible venues for merchandise. I've gotten a couple leads from surfing the websites of other folks who are doing this stuff, and so I'm posting them here so I don't forget them. If it's of use to anyone else, that's great. I'm not endorsing these folks, because I haven't done business with them. Just collecting data right now.
ModButtons.com Just what it says. They do custom buttons and magnets. Thinking I might do 4 or 5 designs, and sell them in packs.
Brunetto T-Shirts Custom T-Shirts. The pricing looks good here. Ariana Osborne used them to make the T-shirts for Diesel Sweeties. I have to read Diesel Sweeties again. I haven't read that in a while.
Also, (and here, I am endorsing) if you haven't been reading Ariana, of late, she's been on about POD, and has some really good thoughts on it. Even if she is a bit of a meany about it. But that's okay. A lot of us need a meany to kick us in our collective buttock and remind us what it means to GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS (Thanks, Matt Jones).
Last night I did a little work on the shipping design for the Milo Pocket Art. I think it's pretty nifty, and wanted to share it with you guys. The bottom of the box, I'll let be a mystery until you get one in the mail. It's nothing much. Just a fun bit of copy that I'll likely change up every now and again. I sent out a box last week, and at the last minute I drew Milo on there all excited that he was going in the mail, and then I thought it might be cool to have that be a ready made label that I could just pop an address into when I got a sale.
So. There it is. Learning and changing as we go. Think next time I'll make copies and print out labels as I go, because the inkjet ink runs with moisture, and thus I had to tape this one up with strapping tape so it doesn't bleed. Kind of makes it less cool, but I can't redo this one today. Have to get him in the mail.
I'm back. This blog is reactivated. I decided that I like having the comic separate from the blog, even if I decide to pull in an RSS feed to the comic page. Just feels better having two separate entities. Because not all of this is going to be Milo related.
So, this is a tiny sculpt I did this weekend, of everyone's favorite migratory secret agent. I'm doing it for a collaboration with the creator of http://www.flickr.com/photos/zook360/3512851994/sizes/o/in/set-72157617685683269/ Slurmy, the artist known as Zook. (Sorry it took me so long to get on the stick, man.) The scale is pretty tiny to do all that detailed a sculpt of Lou(with my not-so-mad skillz), but it's going to be a cool first crack at it. It's got my mouth watering for a bigger version that I have planned. Picture Lou bristling with guns.
So, this'll be the last post here. I'm gonna leave it up for a while, because some people may not know about it, and I want to catch the stragglers up to speed. I've moved everything over to MiloTheCloud.com and the blog exists there too. The reasoning was that I really hated all the clicking one has to do on blogger. Click to see the full size, scroll through and THEN click to find comics from the past. I've moved to Wordpress and specifically Comicpress which gives a fully customizable setup that's made for webcomics. So you'll be able to scroll easily through all the archives, and look through the blog posts separately if you want to read them.
So, there it is. Goodbye blogger, and hello MiloTheCloud.com. Follow me there, and add your name to my email list, so you'll get newsletters on merch and other happenings.
The colors are not as good on this as I'd like. Photoshop always drains the color out when you convert to jpg. Anybody who knows the magic of how to keep that from happening, I'm all ears.
Hank finally gets the drop on the little guy. I'm sure this will end in tears, or possibly shreds of rubber all over the ground. But not for a while yet. Probably it'll get worse before it gets better. Maybe for years.
So I’m doing this exercise, because I’m building the Milothecloud.com website architecture, and the first steps (in a tutorial I was checking out) involve defining exactly why you’re doing this thing.Which is something that I’ve never actually sat down and considered.I mean, I just draw the comics because I enjoy doing them, and I’m doing the book because I love the story, and I made the first toys because I wanted to see if I could.But the sitting down and defining is a really good thing to do, whatever you happen to be taking on, because it makes you consider if you actually want to do this thing at all.Looking at it in black and white makes you go, “hmmm.That’s pretty big.Do I really want that?Am I prepared to do all of that?”The even better thing right now is that I’m answering, “Hell yes I do!”I’m going to need help with it, and that’s maybe where I’ll have some problems (because I’m a dreamer, and not that good a delegator) but the thought of that doesn’t fill me with dread or make me want to stop.It makes me say, “I don’t know how I’ll do that, but I can learn.”
The thing that made me want to write this down was that I was thinking of who my audiences are, and the thought of the kinds of people that might dig what I’m doing made me realize that there’s something very cool about the age that we live in.Because of Twitter and blogs and message boards about random interests that are shared by niche groups of people around the world, it’s a very interesting time to be a small-time creator starting out.The fact that every time I post one of the Milo strips on http://www.sulliedreputation.deviantart.com someone favs it, or adds me to their watch list, means that the strips are enhancing someone’s life, even if only in a small way.And because of that, people will start to find it, and because of that, they’ll start to find the other things I’m doing, and planning to do on MiloTheCloud.com.
I’m very excited, and I’m glad if you’re lurking out there.Hit me up on twitter http://twitter.com/SeanArcher, or drop Milo a message on the digsby widget and let me know if there’s something that you’d love to see that you haven’t seen yet.I’m not promising it’ll sync with what I’m planning, but I promise to listen.At least until the haters show up and start griping about how there isn’t enough helium in Hank’s body to lift a teddy bear.I’ll have you know it’s super-helium, and the bear is made of a space-age polymer that weighs next to nothing.Your child won’t even know he’s holding a bear!!
Anyway, if you’ve read that whole thing, then cheers to you, and I hope that you enjoy the ride.
This look on Milo's face is something that cracks me and my lady up when we do it to each other. Best used when feigning indignant astonishment and pain. Milo's pain is real though. As is Hank's utter disregard and slight amusement at Milo's distress.
This page is a place for me to throw out the stuff that matters and have it stick somewhere. I'm focusing on the creation of life as art. It won't be perfect, and it won't be politically correct. And just because I'm often focusing on cute things that are fluffy and white (Milo is all of the above) it doesn't mean that I am always with him in his fluffy cute whiteness. Enjoy that fact. Revel in your own unfluffiness sometimes.
