Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2002 6:59 am
As you may know, a few months ago, I was approached by the subscription service Modern Tales to join them as part of their initial lineup of cartoonists and put ROCR under their service. I declined, for reasons which seemed to make sense at the time, but now that they've started and are doing financially well with a killer lineup of cartoonists and comics, they don't seem to make so much sense. Fortunately, they are still interested in having me around, and so I'm looking at what my options are. One of the options is doing what other cartoonists like John Allison are doing, and offering a side-comic to Modern Tales as a weekly. White House in Orbit might be a good candidate, if Geir is interested, or I could start something new. Like with John Allison and Bobbins, this would require me to cut down the schedule for ROCR, but not by much, and it would result in a net increase in work made available to you by me.
Alternatively, I could try to put ROCR on Modern Tales. I'm still reluctant to put the existing archive behind their subscription wall, because I've got what I think of as a standing agreement that I'm giving these away -and so are the several dozen guests who have appeared on the site so far! However, I'm sure it can be arranged that at a suitable cutoff date (say July 1 - the second anniversary of the ongoing online publication), archives created after that date could be subscription-only. And what you would get for that is archives on a server that stays up, which is more than I can say for Keenspace. And a greater likelihood of ROCR continuing until there is nothing left to tell - right now, I may be able to go on doing it for another year, or another week. There's no way of knowing. Donations have extended the livespan of the strip, and could do so again, but only a steady influx of money can keep it going for any serious length.
There are many hurdles to take. Right now, I don't even know if MT's archiving and updating system can handle a comic as technically complex as ROCR has been lately. The technology I'm using on my mirror site can (with a few minor warts which I'm involved in sorting out), so it should be doable.
Do tell me what you think! The reason I'm bringing it up is because I want to give you more ROCR, not less. But the conditions under which I'm doing this need another look.
Alternatively, I could try to put ROCR on Modern Tales. I'm still reluctant to put the existing archive behind their subscription wall, because I've got what I think of as a standing agreement that I'm giving these away -and so are the several dozen guests who have appeared on the site so far! However, I'm sure it can be arranged that at a suitable cutoff date (say July 1 - the second anniversary of the ongoing online publication), archives created after that date could be subscription-only. And what you would get for that is archives on a server that stays up, which is more than I can say for Keenspace. And a greater likelihood of ROCR continuing until there is nothing left to tell - right now, I may be able to go on doing it for another year, or another week. There's no way of knowing. Donations have extended the livespan of the strip, and could do so again, but only a steady influx of money can keep it going for any serious length.
There are many hurdles to take. Right now, I don't even know if MT's archiving and updating system can handle a comic as technically complex as ROCR has been lately. The technology I'm using on my mirror site can (with a few minor warts which I'm involved in sorting out), so it should be doable.
Do tell me what you think! The reason I'm bringing it up is because I want to give you more ROCR, not less. But the conditions under which I'm doing this need another look.
