PAT: Friday 8 October 2010 Introduction

Welcome, and thanks for reading! I draw Rock Garden Comics, located at: http://www.webcomicsnation.com/patjones/rockgardencomics/series.php. August 20 of this year marked the comic's fifth anniversary on the web, with a new cartoon every day. This blog will chronicle my past and present adventures with cartooning, but it's the latest adventure that most excites me. Since the beginning, my dream has never wavered. I hope to use the wonderful tools that are now available to create successful merchandise for Rock Garden Comics, and I hope to share how I do it with anyone who wants to know.

The history of comics has never been entirely favorable to the artists and/or writers. The lucky few have managed to find work with newspaper syndicates, magazines, comic books, and commercial art. Usually, someone else owns or co-owns their work. Nothing new happened for cartoonists until the web came along. Many of us have long held secret dreams of learning to monetize our comics, all on our own, without hooking up with the corporate world. Thousands of us create webcomics, but very few make any money at it. And why is that? We're talented, funny, and sometimes profound, but most of us do not have heads for business. Most of us work day jobs unrelated to art, and we spend most of our spare time creating comics. That leaves very little time to learn how to make money with them. A handful of webcomic artists do make money, but, as far as I know, there's never been a big breakout success for the one man (or woman) band.

So far, I've tried a number of merchandising experiments. Some of them were fiascos that make me cringe at the memory of them, while others were fairly successful.  I'll probably share most of them with you.  But my big dream has always been to have a ferocious little Rock Garden team, performing the most vital tasks so that I can be free to draw.

As luck would have it, I eventually got my wish!  A longtime friend, Donna, asked if I would be interested in having her help monitize Rock Garden Comics.  Donna's daughter, Nikki, was also interested in being a part of this venture.  My biggest concern was that it could somehow affect our friendships, but Donna and Nikki both thought we could do it and keep our relationships intact.  We met for the first time to discuss it on August 17, 2010, which was perilously close to the Rock Garden 5th anniversary.  Their first suggestion, and they were insistent about it, was that I start a blog.  I agreed, provided they would make posts to the blog, too, adding their two cents' worth about what we learn.  So, here goes!  The post title will tell you which one of us is posting.  My greatest wish is that something we say can help your dreams come true, too.