So far I am enjoying life as a web cartoonist.  Even though I am still producing one cartoon a day, the deadlines are not so intense because I don’t have to stay 6 to 8 weeks ahead of myself.  I don’t have to write a Halloween strip in August, or the Christmas strips in late October.  I’m finding that it’s easier to write about the season we are in rather than the next one.  Easier to write about what’s currently going on, rather than guessing what might be talked about in 6 weeks.  It’s way more fun to be topical.

I am also enjoying the freedom.  I might write my toons in a certain order, but now I’m free to publish any cartoon I want on any day I want.  If I write a cartoon today that I just love, I can publish it tomorrow if I want.  That is nothing to be sneezed at.  There’s no problem with rearranging them, publishing them out of order, or last minute changes.  The freedom is an awesome perk.

Do you know what I’m looking forward to?  Posting my cartoon on the day after the election and being able to name the winner (assuming we HAVE one) instead of dancing around the idea and prentending that everything you write will work equally well no matter who wins.  Because it doesn’t.  Not even close.

Here’s my cartoon that ran the day after the 2004 Presidential election.  I like it and I think it works, but, obviously, I had no idea which person would be saying those words the next day, so I wrote it as if Kerry had lost.  Gloom, darkness and ruin… pretty apt, I’d say. 

I was worried that we’d end up with another 2000 election where we didn’t know who won until weeks after the election.  If that had happened, this cartoon would have made no sense at all.  Luckily, I guessed correctly.  How unusual!

11/3/04

11/3/04

So, overall, I’m happy to have moved on to the web.  I’m still looking into all the different ways to make money, and I’m not there yet, but I hope to make this a success.  Does this mean that I’m glad about what happened?  No.  I’m not.  I had my own timetable for my cartoon which included things like when to pull the plug on print, when to move to the web, etc., and I would have preferred to follow that plan.  But now that I’ve been forced to follow a THIS plan, I see no reason to be miserable, especially when it’s such a nice plan.  A different plan, but nice nonetheless.