I\u2019m not a \u201cfive year plan\u201d kind of guy, for the most part. I guess Zombie Ranch might be an exception just based on it existing for 14 years and counting. We\u2019ve slowed down considerably but haven\u2019t stopped, which is more than I can say for most of our peers back when we started. We\u2019ve put out over 20 print issues and 2 volume collections, and what do we have to show for it? Well, at some point Dawn and I decided not to rate our success in fame or dollar signs. Against all odds we retain a core audience of people wanting to read the story being told, some of whom are so enthusiastic about it I occasionally feel guilty about not living up to their wishes for more content. And yet we\u2019re not getting any younger and we\u2019re not making a lot of money off of this, so we err on the side of health and sanity.<\/p>\n
We still want to put together a Volume 3, but the landscape is so changed from 2019 that when people come by and ask at conventions I just have to dissemble. We have one more episode\/issue to stuff in after this one to close out this current arc and at our current pace that may take most of the year, and the last thing you want to do is start a crowdfunding campaign late in the year because it makes for gnarly tax complications.<\/p>\n
Also, regardless of your political alignment I don\u2019t think most people would disagree a lot of changes are in store after Trump gets sworn back in, particularly if he goes through with his promised tariffs. We\u2019ve always gotten our printing done inside the U.S. but who knows what the knock-on effects would be if those printers depend on any imports? And that\u2019s presuming the companies we\u2019ve done business with before are still intact, though thankfully that\u2019s so far been the case. There\u2019s a lot of uncertainty out there, and a hike of even a few cents in postal rates can become a big deal if you\u2019re trying to ship rewards out to hundreds of backers.<\/p>\n
So maybe it\u2019s a blessing that we\u2019re not even at the point where I\u2019d try a 2025 Kickstarter (assuming we even go Kickstarter again, because who knows?) and instead I\u2019m looking to 2026 for that. It\u2019s slow and I\u2019m sure is disappointing to some of our fans that have been \u201cwaiting for the trade\u201d but I also figure by then things will have settled some, for better or worse, and we can look at the cost estimates with clear eyes. Crowdfunding lives and dies by realistic goals and I want the goalposts to settle down before going for another punt.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not a \u201cfive year plan\u201d kind of guy, for the most part. I guess Zombie Ranch might be an exception just based on it existing for 14 years and counting. We\u2019ve slowed down considerably but haven\u2019t stopped, which is more than I can say for most of our peers back when we started. We\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ERFy-2lL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9105,"url":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/outlook-uncertain-try-again-later\/","url_meta":{"origin":9037,"position":0},"title":"Outlook uncertain, try again later\u2026?","author":"dawn","date":"April 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I don\u2019t usually post about current events outside the sphere of pop culture, but in this case the events are broad enough they\u2019re intruding on it. The week before last Dawn and I were at WonderCon and also hearing from friends at another show out of state and the word\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9039,"url":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/the-cat-is-both-alive-and-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":9037,"position":1},"title":"The cat is both alive and dead\u2026","author":"dawn","date":"October 30, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Schr\u00f6dinger aside, this title is referencing us. Dawn and I don\u2019t have kids, we have a cat. Our agreement was that if we ever divorced, the person who asked for it would have to take custody of the cat. We kid, of course. We loved the little furball for all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9038,"url":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/league-of-extraordinary-animation\/","url_meta":{"origin":9037,"position":2},"title":"League of extraordinary animation\u2026","author":"dawn","date":"November 20, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Is the term \u201ckiller app\u201d still in parlance in the tech community? If not, quick rundown: hardware by itself doesn\u2019t sell, or at least doesn\u2019t sell for long. This is particularly true with game consoles and is why they tend to jealously guard their library of IPs. I remember the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9051,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9037\/revisions\/9051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}