Almost Friday…

If you haven’t been joining us this week, we’re seeing the comic in an ‘The Office’ type of strip. We’ve heard from Milton, Marvin and Mindy Manner, now we get Winchester’s insight.

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!

Rick the Stick is a funny online comic – word.

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Good morning,

The title of today’s comic has an additional meaning. I appreciate the feedback I get. I really do – good and bad – in fact, it’s what drives me to do the comic. Especially five days a week, it’s not easy, but I love it.

So today I wanted to take a second and explain that this comic is a saga. It was always meant to be an ongoing story of Rick, his inheritance, his finding out his history and ultimately his continual struggle against the Cartoon Mob Syndicate (CMS) trying to steal his money. The reason I’m making this statement is in regards to the story arcs – and in particular – the length of them.

Granted, I’m not the most concise with words, as evidenced by the length of this post, but I think there’s an important relevance to help build the back story to the comic. I try to continually remember that not everyone knows what I know about the comic, that not everyone reads every day and someone may be reading the comic for the first time – every day. This is a four panel format (most days) and in comparison to some longer formed comics it’s more of a challenge to tell a story and try to be funny at the same time. I tried for a while to make shorter story arcs and have different unrelated adventures, but I felt like I was losing interest in writing and I lacked direction. I’ll be honest, most weeks I don’t know the exact path the overall story is taking until Thursday or Friday the week before. I know in a general sense where the story is headed, but I haven’t worked everything out. But I like writing that way, I like the fact that there is an overall sense of knowing we’re going somewhere with all of this.

This isn’t Peanuts, Garfield or Beetle Bailey, it’s more like a dumbed-down version of Doonesbury. I use “dumbed-down” for lack of a better term.

I view each story arc as a chapter. Each chapter interdependent on the overall theme of the comic – just like a book. So there will be long story arcs, but I’m trying to mix it up like I have the last two weeks. In this instance it may be the same story, but it feels a little different. This week is a basic look, but I’m trying to fill in some blanks for those who read often and I’m trying to build a base to move the story forward.

I hope this sounds like an explanation and not defensive rambling non-sensical drivel. I enjoy feedback and welcome constructive criticism. I’d humbly like to think I’ve grown more as an artist and hopefully as a writer. All a result of incorporating that criticism I’ve had the fortune to receive. But I have to get back to basics. I have to write how I’m comfortable, I have to write what keeps me interested. I’m just hoping that it coincides with what people want to read and continue to join Rick and I on this saga…

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!

Rick the Stick is a webcomic – true that.

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Good morning!

It’s Friday. Whew. If you’re in the Tampa area, I’ll be at the Tampa Comic Con – come on out and see us! If you’re not in the Tampa area, and I wish you were, then I guess you’ll just have to wait until I give ya a recap next week.

Hope you enjoyed Winchester’s return!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Good morning!

The comic was done before midnight (11:59) so there’s progress! Woohoo!

Thank you guys for continuing to comment on the strip. It means a lot – and I apologize for my lack of participation on the site and on my fellow webcomickers sites. I have a ton going on personally and I’ve mentioned a little bit of what’s going on and I don’t want to whine about it so I’ll leave it at that. So just please accept my apologies for now. I’ll get my head out of my butt before too long…

As always, thanks for dropping by!
Ken

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Good morning!

Happy Monday!! Winchester is back! Today’s comic contains a lot of words (sigh) and is basically to kind of catch up to where he’s been. It’s been a fun discovery for me because it lead me to Blabber Monkeys – Nonsensical Monkey Monks who have been trying to train Winchester so he can better understand Rick. Let’s hope it works!

More about the Blabber Monkeys. According to their literature (no site yet), they are experts in nonsensical teachings and are the foremost authorities on Monkey Business. As such, their slogan is “Around here, it’s all Monkey Business and that’s Business As Usual”. Interesting.

The design on Winchester's shirt – will be available soon.

I would have made Winchester’s shirt black in the final frame of today’s comic, but then you wouldn’t have seen the Monkey’s legs and I thought it was better this way. Hope you like it!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Good Friday morning

It’s Friday! And before I forget – IT’S FRIDAY! Wooohoooo! What a week! Crazy for me personally! Hope you enjoyed the strip. I have lots of quality family time planned for this weekend! Plus I have plenty of webcomics to catch up on!! Have a greeeeat day!

Oh and PSSSSSST – Winchester’s back next week. We’ll find out what our resident caveman/bodyguard/former British spy/assassin has been up to!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Happy Friday!!

If you’ve noticed the changes to the site, and you like them – drop me a comment. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I haven’t done much with the design aspect – most of what you see is ComicPress’ original template – and as a designer I have to say – it’s quite impressive. I’ll continue to be tweaking – or cartooning it up over the next couple of weeks, but I’m pretty happy with the way it looks now and the functionality is great. Special thanks for Phil (Frumph) from WebComicPlanet for helping me out of some tough spots (mostly me needing a well deserved smack upside the head! .

Moving on – I had a different kind of wake up call earlier this week. Many webcomic veterans out there – specifically the Webcomics Weekly guys: Scott Kurtz, Brad Guigar, Dave Kellett and Kris Straub have been railing against syndication – of any sort. As you probably already know, Amazon in conjunction with Andrews McMeel Universal (a traditional comics syndicate) announce Comic Strip Superstar. A competition of sorts where you would submit your comic and it would be reviewed and voted on – the winner getting a contract.

Having been on ComicsSherpa for a year and a half – and watching my pageviews steadily grow (without promotion), despite the selfless advice of the Webcomics Weekly guys I thought I’d consider entry. I was pretty aware what I would be giving up, but I thought in my opinion the pros outweighed the cons.

One of the cons are I give up a lot of my rights to this creation, and I could be missing out on potential opportunities as a result. Even if the comic goes nowhere, I lose it and the syndicate has the right to let it die a slow death.

A couple of the pros are that I would get opportunities that may not be afforded to me on my own – at least not as quickly as I’d like. I would get to meet people of influence in the comics industry. My career is put on a faster track than it currently is – even if it goes nowhere (I guess you’d be afforded the opportunity to get there faster).

I was seriously considering entering – my wife is a lawyer and I was half convinced that either there would be some sort of leverage point or my wife would be able to give me the final say on whether it was a risk worth taking (legally).

All this changed with one email. Confident in my growth in pageviews, I emailed someone at ComicsSherpa asking “what numbers they look at before they start to consider moving someone from the Sherpa site to the main UClick website”.

A quick bit of history – prior to the site redesign recently – getting to the “New Artists” section was – not easy. It’s still not easy to find my comic which is among a sea of links in the Sherpa listing.

So brave upon the belief that people that are coming to my page over there are REALLY looking for my comic, I awaited the response, which surprisingly came quick – even at 11pm on a Monday night. The “aide de sherpa” delivered a swift dose of reality.

“Creators asked fdor stats, and it seems a useful tool for you folks and we are glad to provide, but the traffic and readership are never a factor in our editorial decisions. I never even look at them. Our editorial decisions in pursuing a feature for online syndication are completely based on our own subjective opinions!”

That’s it. That’s verbatim – including the typo. Other than a quick greeting and his email signature – that was the email.

Traffic and readership mean nothing. Basically, they “just know”. Subjectively. 99% of the Internet relies on ‘traffic and readership’ and here you have a business that doesn’t even ‘factor in’ some of the most important elements to online success. The point is – they don’t get it. Regardless of the subjective aspect of their means of choosing comics – they really don’t get it!!! Perhaps this is the reason traditional comics are in trouble – it’s certainly a case for why syndicates may be destined, like newspapers, to fail.

Prior to that email, I was confident that if I could put out a quality product, I would have the opportunity to make a living. The reality now is, the comic will continue to get better and it will undoubtedly take longer. My motto for the last couple of weeks has been “Success only comes before Work in the dictionary”.

I should be happy now – and I am. My eyes are open a little wider – and I’m motivated even more. Ask my waistline what happens when I get motivated… Hopefully you’ll stick around for the journey.

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!




Rick the Stick is a webcomic – true that.

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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Good morning

Hey guys! Hope you’re having a great week! I took yesterday off from work to catch up on some RTS stuff and let’s just say I was working pretty much the whole day, but once again felt it was unproductive. In comparison, working in the few hours tonight (Wednesday night), I feel like I’m getting more done. BOOOHOOO! Woe is me right? What about you? Well, I’ll tell ya what…

It’s Webcomic Review time!!

I’m a little late on this and for that I apologize. I apologize because the webcomic Y2CL is not a webcomic – it’s not one, not two, not… you get the point – it’s SEVEN comics all different, but some tie in to each other… some don’t. Get it? It doesn’t matter because they all are a part of the same very disturbing and confusing world. How do you get to the y2cl-verse from here? Well you travel through the brain of J Horsley and you get – well, you get a little something f’ed up from every angle. And it’s all good!

You want range? You want creativity? YOU WANT ZOMBIES?

y2cl. y2cl and YES I SAID y2cl!

Want to know more? Use this link to the page where you can get a taste of what each one is about. Or take a gander at this handy list of the seven comics that create the y2cl-verse:
The Gang
Furry Animal Magic
Inanimate
Larry & Friends
The Jesus Triplets – one of god’s sons is a woman – with a beard – in a word awesome!
Sergeant Blinky and His Brigade of Fantastic
Zombie 2 Christ

You should go there now and see for yourself. Seriously, go NOW!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!




Rick the Stick is a webcomic – true that.

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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	I just can’t believe what’s going on. Winchester’s dead, and my family is running an underground safehouse designed to protect me, what does it all mean?

Good morning!!

Happy Friday!! This is me doing my happy Friday dance! You can’t see it, but I’m standing here doing it!!

So here’s what I want you to do for me this weekend. I want you to sit down, and take a breath because I know it’s been a wild few weeks here. Once you do that, I want you to fire up your email program and do me a favor.

Pass this site, this web comic, or webcomic if you will, on to a few friends.

When I say a few, I mean everyone in your address book. And ask them to do the same. You see, it’s my belief that sharing mediocrity* is a good thing. And if I’m right, and I mean – just look at you – I think I am, you were brought up right and you enjoy sharing. And mediocrity* is something this comic strip has in abundance. I share it with you, and you share it with your friends, family and other people you know.

When we all come back on Monday, we’ll have a couple new friends sitting at their computer wondering what in sweet carnations you did.

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

* Mediocrity as in something good enough to share (like a rumor), but not too good to keep to yourself (like a secret stash of cash in your yard from a little bank heist – not that I saw you do it, or I’m even suggesting you might do such a thing, but something like that).

Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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	They found Winchester’s car, but nothing else. Milton doesn’t believe me, I know it! I AM NOT A LIAR!!

Good morning! Hope your week is going well! Not much to say today…

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Would you like this comic strip to be specially hand delivered to you first thing every weekday morning by Magical Interweb Genies? Become a Subscriber McScriberson Get on it! CLICK HERE NOW and fill in your email address – SPAM FREE!!! And thank you! *Be sure to click on the link in your email that verifies you REALLY want the strip!

©2012 Rick The Stick – a comic on the Interwebs. All Rights Reserved.

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