Career Damage

Two notes this week:

1) At the top of the email, there is now a big honking “ Subscribe Here” button. If you received a message as an email forward and you want to get more, please hit the button to sign up. Remember, anyone can read the email or the blog, but only people who sign up are eligible to win original art. (And please mention the person who forwarded you the email when you sign up, because that person gets an extra contest entry.)

2) Here's the best story I've heard about this book since I started this project: I was at a birthday party last week, attended by no less than Rob Brown, model for Part-Time Dog and actor extrordinaire (www.dysfunctionaltheatre.org).

I told him that he should be proud. The mailing list was up to about 1,400 people, and I was getting new members every week. He told me that he had been forwarding it to friends, colleagues, everybody, and everybody was enjoying it – except his mother. “Your mother?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said. “She kind it looked it over, read it through a couple of times, and then turned around and asked me, 'Rob, explain to me again how this is helping your career.'”

Mrs. Brown: I got nothing. But I will at least publicize that Rob's troupe, the Dysfunctional Theatre Company, is having a fall Fundraiser at Deacon Brodie's on 370 West 46th Street on Thursday, October 1st and that everybody who loves new theater in New York should come. It is apparently the very, very least I can do.

More soon, promise. In the meantime, keep sending in dog photos (thanks to all of those I got this week!!), write me emails, make some comments on the blog, read the story so far or check out seltzerstudio.com.

Open publication

A Matter of Degree

First off my standard apology: I have been totally overwhelmed in the last week (yay!), so I'm behind on posting. But a great number of you have found the time to send me some really tremendous dog pictures. Thank you all! I am absolutely shame-faced but tremendously grateful. Make me feel even guiltier, please, and keep 'em coming.

The question I was pondering this week was how broad to make the caricature for this page. I ask myself this question quite a lot, because while some of my illustration is pretty broad (see www.seltzerstudio.com for examples), I've toned down a lot of the distortion for Part-Time Dog, and I'm a little self-conscious about it. I think the book is funnier if the drawing plays it a little straighter. Too much caricature and the story would lose its sense of verisimilitude: the big yuks would be like rim-shots, and the jokes would die on the page. But if the drawing gets too straight, I'm afraid that the story will just be too, um, weird.

It's almost as though there might be a mathematical ratio, like an inverse square law, between level of caricature, level of humor and general weirdness. If I were any good at math, I'd figure it out. Of course, if I were any good at math, I'd probably be doing something else for a living.

More soon, promise. In the meantime, keep sending in dog photos (thanks to all of those I got this week!!), write me emails, make some comments on the blog, read the story so far or check out seltzerstudio.com.

Open publication

FAQs

The mailing list has expanded greatly lately (thanks!!!), so I thought I'd get everyone up to speed who missed the early days.

1) Somebody just forwarded this email to me. How do I subscribe? Send me a note here and I'll add you to the list. You are then eligible to win a piece of original art when the book is finished.

2) Can I send you pictures of my dog for inclusion in the book? You have phrased the question incorrectly. The correct phrasing is, “Should I send you pictures of my dog?” The answer is “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

3) If you draw my dog, do I keep the drawing? Sorry, no, because it's part of the book and may therefore become a prize for someone. But I will email you a high-resolution JPG, suitable for printing and framing. And I will credit you in the emails, blog and in the book proper when published.

4) Will you draw my dog on commission? Yup. See this blog entry for details.

5) Do you have a dog? Nope, but I'd like one. I mentioned to my wife that if I sold 10 commissions, we could get a dog. She said that if I sold 10 commissions, we could get a maid. If I sold 20 commissions, we could get a dog.

6) Your wife sounds pretty together. She is that.

7) This Dog is not even remotely Daily. Does it really take you a week to draw these pictures or are you just lazy? First, you could have thought of a more diplomatic way to ask that. But no, not even close. I'm a pretty fast hand when it comes to drawing. But getting this email out is fairly time-consuming. Here's how it goes: I draw the new story page and dog picture, scan 'em, clean 'em up, and color 'em in Photoshop. Then I import them into InDesign, make a PDF of the book so far, and post it. Then I take the Photoshop file of the story page, and reduce it in size and resolution for the web. Then I write the blog post, which includes the new image and a link to the story so far. Then I create the email with the new image in Dreamweaver, updating all links. Then I update the Welcome page on my website. Then I ready the email for all members, making sure to remove anyone who wanted off the rolls. Then I prep a Welcome email to all new members. Then I email everyone all 1,200 current subscribers. In between, I have to do some work. And also, commenters tell me that getting the email once a week is a pleasure, once a day is an annoyance.

8) You go through all that for bupkes? Are you insane? Possibly. I started this as a way to get my friends to communally bug me to finish this project, but the list (and the work involved) has expanded greatly. I do it now because I love, love, love to get the comments and emails every week. So please send more.

9) You do realize that this picture this week is gross, right? Yes, I do. And yet I drew it anyway. I could blame the story, but I wrote the story.

10) But it is a pretty awesome illustration. Is there any possible way I can make it my screensaver? Yes, there is and thank you! Click here to download.

11) Also, the web version of the book is pretty cool. Do you have any other books online? Yup. Here's a link to my latest portfolio. Feel free to hit the subscribe button on that page, and you'll be notified of any other work I publish.

12) Is this the longest email you've ever sent? Yes, but it ends abruptly.

More soon, promise. In the meantime, keep sending in dog photos (thanks to all of those I got this week!!), write me emails, make some comments on the blog, read the story so far or check out seltzerstudio.com.

Open publication