Two years ago last May, I got chatting to John Glynn at the Reubens (the US National Cartoonist Society’s annual shindig). John is President and Editorial Director at Universal Uclick. My comic strip, Arctic Circle, is syndicated by a rival company King Features. John asked whether I had any other comics I could run on GoComics.com. I had a panel that I had developed on their site for cartoonists who want to put their comics in front of a larger audience, Comics Sherpa. This panel was Human Cull and King Features had already passed on syndicating it (it isn’t really newspaper-friendly). John was interested, I sent him some samples and then I was green lit to start running the comic on GoComics.com.
The Human Cull that ran 2 years ago today.
Human Cull first appeared on GoComics on 7th October, 2013. Two years ago today. Apart from one week off this year, it has run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since then. Readership has increased gradually to about 1800 subscribers and Cull has some really loyal fans who write in the comments, send me suggestions and generally make the comic worth drawing (well that and the daft comments I get with my pay check from John Glynn).
1800 subscribers is very niche and Cull earns me the minimum of $100 per quarter. I’ve also found that most of the really annoying people have now been added to the list of culls and the number of suggestions I’m getting is dropping off. Because of this and the need to spend more time on some other cartooning projects (I’m working on some middle grade books), I need to reduce the hours I spend drawing Human Cull. I enjoy the freedom of having this webcomic and the interaction it brings, so I’m not going to nix it completely, but I am going to change it from three times a week to once a week. On Fridays. Fridays are a good day to cull.
Today’s Human Cull was suggested by Lennia, who is one of the top cull contributors.
If you are a Human Cull reader and/or contributor, thank you for your support in making the world a better place by getting rid of all the really annoying people.
