We're Needed!!!!

[Labrusca]

If someone somehow missed Ralph's announcement, go back to the main page and READ it!!

To which I say:

Prayers are truly needed for Ralph, in this hour. But be sure to pray for yourselves, too, and think about how MUCH you want to help a friend. Are you SURE you can't send any financial aid? I've been saving for a personal project and prayer made me decide to put it aside a while to send something to Ralph.

Ralph has had to live on faith that the people who read his stuff would appreciate it enough to offer him what he needed to live on. Do we have enough faith to part with a small bit of what we make to help him in his faith? Have faith that what you give will come back in full measure and help someone who NEEDS us now!

[Dapple]

O CRAP!

[Nick012000]

Wow. RHJunior on financial aid. I thought you hated that whole system, RH.

[Zobeid]

What kind of world do we live in, where J. K. Rowling gets to be a billionaire, and RHJ can't pay his bills? Where's the logic, the fairness?

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

[DragonMasterHawk]

Rowling's books are brilliant masterpieces. It's true she was lucky that she was discovered, but it was bound to happen eventually just because of how much pure talent she has for the written word.

[Nick012000]

Eh. There are plenty of other writers with just as much talent. Success in writing is effectively random, as is the chance of being selected to be published in the first place.

[Lee M]

Rowling's books just happened to strike some kind of chord. It's not like there hadn't been school wizardry books before, but for some reason Harry Potter caught the public's imagination. Getting Hollywood involved early didn't hurt, of course.

The trouble is, no one takes webcomics seriously, let alone furry webcomics. That may change in the future - after all it's not long ago that superheroes weren't considered good box-office - but for now there's really nothing to do except put your shoulder to the wheel and nose to the grindstone, and keep on encouraging people to spread the word.

[Tom Mazanec]

Sigh. Look, people, I work in a non-profit group home, which accepts residents without regards to ability to pay. This is not a way to get rich. I have had stable, full-time employment for only half a decade, and I am 48. I have a mental condition which requires expensive treatment (medication and therapy). I have donated $20, purchased the 2004 ubercd, the 2005 supercd and the 2006 supercd. I have also purchased a "card" and an "adverisement". I have also purchased a Quentyn marquette, or whatever they call those things. I have been following TotQ for under a year, and have spent this much at a time in my life when I have to start thinking about my declining years and saving money. I admit I am not as bad off as Ralph, but I am not exactly in the upper middle class, let's say. I am sure that there are people worse off than me who are Ralph fans. I am also sure that there are fans who are just as devoted as I am and considerably better off. I cannot just give money to Ralph beyond a few bucks a year, and I am not interested in the book since I already have the CDs. Can't someone give more?

[Greatbeast]

What about the possibility of having ads on the page that will help pay (google adsense?) or maybe go to a "pay to get material sooner" or something and charge a very Reasonable fee?

I've donated like $60 in the past year or two. I know there are people who put money towards the tax fund not too long ago (I unfortunately was too broke trying to deal with my own bills at the time to give then.)

I do notice I dont see a whole lot of advertisements, and Im thinking that a lot of traffic must be generated here which might bring something in....


Just a thought...

Sean

[Solarfox]

ComicGenesis puts their own ad banners at the top of the page to generate revenue for themselves, so I'm not sure how they would feel about additional ad banners competing for space and click-thrus on the page...

The donation model can be successful -- for proof of that, consider Isabel Marks' "Namir Dieter" and "You Say It First" webcomics. She rarely fails to make her donation goal of $1000/month; in fact, last month was the first time I can recall her falling short in a while, and it wasn't by much. However, there's a few things that she does to help encourage donations:

(1) Anyone who donates at least $1 receives a background wallpaper image via e-mail.

(2) Any donation of $10 or more gets the donator one month of access to a "premium" site where she has commentary, sketches, extra comics, and so on.

(3) If the donation bar goes over $600 for the month, everyone who donated $10 or more gets a free 12-page mini-comic sent to them. (Previously, she's been mailing out physical copies, but she's going to start going to e-mailed digital copies instead.) The mini-comic is usually some one-shot side story not integral to the main plot.

(4) If the donation bar gets all the way to the $1000 goal, "Namir Dieter" updates 7 days a week, while "You Say It First" updates 6 days a week -- otherwise, ND only updates 5 days a week, while YSIF only updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Ambitious? Perhaps, but Isabel makes it work -- primarily because she's diligent about delivering on those goals. Donators get their stuff, and the comic updates on schedule pretty much come hell or high water; if the comic ever gets knocked off schedule for some reason, she tries her best to make it up as soon as possible, often by posting two strips a day until she's caught up. Thus, people keep sending their donations because they know she'll deliver. She's also diligent about keeping the donation bar up to date every morning, so that people know exactly where the tally stands.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Ralph should adopt such an ambitious scheme in toto -- promising daily updates on all three strips, for example, would probably be a bit too heavy a pace for Ralph to turn out (especially Tales of the Questor, which obviously requires a lot more work per strip than Nip & Tuck or Goblin Hollow) and still maintain the quality... And the "premium site" idea would probably require him to find a local web guru to help set it up, which presents its own problems. I just point it out as an example of how the donation model can be made to work if sufficient effort is put into attracting the donors by waving sufficiently juicy carrots under their noses.

[NydaLynn]

Or the straight up truth of the probability of -fewer- updates if artist has to get a 9-5 to pay bills.

[Tom Mazanec]

Maybe Ralph could post more often if he let up a little on the artwork. I follow TotQ for the storyline, not the art. Still. it is a labor of love for him, obviously, so this might not go over well.
Speaking of not going over well and working 9-5, Ralph has recently posted an "I have sinned" style mea culpa on his LJ where he confesses to having an abrasive personality at times. Something he might want to consider is making his LJ hard as he can to just find on the internet, and certainly SCRUPULOUSLY watching his writing in the future for this. I would not put it past a potential employer in 2006, even for a "low level" job (lots like to "promote from within"...that's how I went from nine years part time to full time) to "google" Ralph. Social skills are important in almost any job (as an "aspie" I can testify to this from painful experience, so I do not claim to be better) and the personality Ralph projects on his LJ is not always one that an employer might find suitable for the position. Of course, that is up to him...it is his journal, after all.

[Webkilla]

If Ralph was to pull a Dominic Deegan and promise us a (gods forbid) REGULAR (homg) updating schedule for all three comics, say.... each twice a week, one each day, two on saturday or sunday, then he might just be able to pull it off...

Mookie, yonder webcartoonist of DD, basically asked for a very large sum of money in donations so he could 100% live of his webcartoonery for the time being, in exchange for a daily update + colored sunday.

he has kept that promise for quite a while now, only missing updates when at cons or whatnots...

Ralph... DO IT!!!! - Cuzz we all want to see your comics nailed down to a regular updating schedule... or at least a cyclic one, where its 'this comic X numbers of times this week, next week another of the three'... either would work for me

[Dapple]

Well the donation bar is looking healthy.