Sin's Gambit
A new story begins today! I hope you all enjoy it.
Thanks to everyone who swung by the booth and said hello at Northwest Fanfest this weekend! It was nice to see you all. (Even those of you who I had last seen a mere week ago at VanCAF!)
Have a lovely Monday, friends. With a little bit of luck, my copy of Splatoon will arrive today, and I'll have time to play it for at least five minutes!
-Sam Logan
Northwest Fanfest Starts Today
Friends! Starting today, I'm appearing at Northwest Fanfest in New Westminister, just a few Skytrain stops outside of Vancouver. It's being held at the beautiful, brand new Anvil Center,and it should be a fun time! You can find me and my pal Alina at Booth 18 in the exhibitor hall, right near the front door. AND YOU SHOULD.
Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Hive Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!
"Do you have any favorite web comics from Hiveworks? Am I right to assume one of them is Atomic Robo?" -Joe
I readily admit, Hiveworks has such a huge lineup that there are many member comics I've never read! But just off the top of my head, some of the comics I have read and really like are Amy T Falcone's slice-of-online-life Clique Refresh, Abby Howard's spooktacular Last Halloween, Michael Lunsford's universe-hopping epic Supernormal Step, and Ananth and Yuko's everything they do.
And for sure, Atomic Robo is pretty great as well! There are probably some others I'm forgetting as well. It's a big line-up!
"With the announcement that you're working with Hiveworks, could you please describe in more detail what this means for the website? I remember back 10 years ago where Sam & Fuzzy was attached to Dayfree Press, but that went away eventually. Is this a similar arrangement?" -Chris
It's interesting! Everyone knows what a print publisher does... they print books! But you don't need a publisher to make a website. So what does an online publisher/imprint actually do?
In the case of Dayfree Press, we were honestly just a group of friends who regularly teamed up to exhibit at conventions. We used the Dayfree Press name for our booths, and so we carried that brand name over online as well. Later, when Topatoco took over most of our online sales, it made more sense to exhibit under the Topatoco name. So the Dayfree name just kinda fell into disuse.
Hiveworks is a considerably larger and more formal brand. They provide a pretty broad array of business and tech support to their actual member comics -- hosting, backend work, merchandising assistance, cross promotion, and so on. From what I've seen, they're particularly interested in doing these things for younger comics that could particularly benefit from more assistance and exposure. (IE: People who have not been doing their webcomic for twelve friggin' years.)
Because I've been around since the dark ages, I have most of that business stuff sorted out already. But I do like the idea of cross-promoting with other webcomics and discovering new stuff. And I was also looking for someone to take over the management of my adspace, which has become kind of tedious.
So that's why I agreed to become a Hiveworks "affiliate"! I get to keep doing my own thing, but Hiveworks will be helping me with my ads and doing some promotion for Sam and Fuzzy, while I do some promoting of their member comics. Beyond those two things, nothing is really going to change around here. But they're two things that I think will be worthwhile!
"I'm thinking through many ideas for character and campaign creation in the Underground, but all of my players are both 1) new to tabletop gaming AND 2) new to this universe. I'd love to trade ideas with other future GMs / kickstarter backers / interested parties. To this end, do you have (or intend to create) a forum / subreddit / something ?" -Claire
That's a good idea, Claire! Sadly, the Sam and Fuzzy forum is woefully in need of a software update... but let me see if I can take care of that. If I can, I'll add a new RPG subforum that folks can use!
That's a wrap for this week, team. See you again on Monday!
-Sam Logan
Hiveworks
If you read a lot of webcomics -- and odds are, if you're here, you probably do -- you're likely already familiar with Hiveworks. For those who aren't: it's a big webcomic publisher. Look at all those member webcomics! I bet you read at least one of them.
Well, despite the fact that I'm old and cranky and set in my ways, I've decided to try collaborating with 'em myself as an independent affiliate.
Starting today, Hiveworks will be promoting Sam and Fuzzy, and little Fuzzy noggins will start showing up in the comic jump bars found on various Hiveworks sites (like the one I've added to my own site, just above this post). They'll also be taking over management of all the outside web adspace on the site, which should help crack down on those stupid auto-forwarding mobile ads that have been sneaking onto Sam and Fuzzy for some iOS and Android users. Other than that, it'll be business as usual around here... just possibly business as usual in front of a few extra sets of eyeballs!
The grand finale of Corporate Cat's Flvr saga arrives on Friday, as will a new round of reader Q and A. (If you've got a question you'd like to ask, just pop it in an email with "Q and A" in the subject line!) See you then, team!
-Sam Logan
