Holy effin’ crap, guys! It’s been 1 year to the day since I started The Experiment (read the original announcement here)! For new readers or old school Fancy Bastard who may have forgotten, The Experiment is my attempt to make a living from my webcomic. Originally I gave myself 4-6 months to try this out after I lost my day job. Since it’s been 12 months, you might think The Experiment has been a success. Success is a relative term. This is certainly the most rewarding job I have ever had, and I wouldn’t trade these last 12 months for anything, but as of today HijiNKS Ensue only provides a little less than half the income my family needs to meet our basic responsibilities. This income comes from your DONATIONS and store purchases. A tiny tiny tiny tiny sliver comes from advertising (almost enough to pay the car note!), and the rest comes from my personal savings. The savings well has dried up several times in the last year, but has been occasionally replenished by tax refunds and other such unexpected allocations of cash.

So now it’s “do or die” time. Phase 1 of The Experiment was all about “make the best comic you can and see what happens money-wise.” Phase 2 (this is Phase 2) is all about “The comic is pretty good, let’s get serious about the money part!”

A big part of the new money seriousness is that the fine folks at Topatoco will now be selling HijiNKS Ensue Shirts along with the shirts they already offer from all of your other favorite webcomics.

Check them out HERE!

This is a pretty big deal for me and it’s great news for you. Topatoco is a top notch operation and all they do is sell webcomics merchandise. The shirts are cheaper than they were before, the are professionally screenprinted and you can save on shipping when you buy multiple shirts from me or any other artist. I’m extremely excited. I really want the Topatoco guys to see they made the right choice in adding HijiNKS Ensue to their roster and a great way to show them would be to pick up one (or all) of the new shirts (hint cough hint).

What about the old store? It’s still there… for now. It’s run through Yahoo Stores and I have ALWAYS hated their back end and every other aspect of using them, so I will be shutting this store down in the next couple of weeks. You can still purchase any of the shirts or prints available in the old store as long as it’s still there. I will be moving to a different store front service (same URL for your convenience) shortly. You will still be able to buy prints there and eventually it will have the first HE book. Seriously. I’m watching my wife lay it out right now. It’s happening. I will probably still offer some of the non-Topatoco shirts in the store but not many. If there’s one you want I would suggest getting it now.

What about the Donation Drive? Your monthly donations currently total a little over $700. I am so freaking grateful for this, I can barely express it. The original idea was to reach a goal of $1500 in monthly donation subscriptions. Then the economy went to shit and the donations dried up. Anyone who has donated any amount, especially those of you that have stuck it out and continued your subscriptions have my heartfelt thanks. I’m not going to be shooting for a specific goal any more with the donations. Instead I’m just going to post the monthly totals in the sidebar of the site. I don’t want you guys to feel like “we are never going to get there” in terms of donations. What you are doing now is already more generous than I could have ever imagined.

What about The Vault? The Vault is the “premium content” site that all donators and subscribers get access to. I have big plans for it in this phase of The Experiment, but you can already get Post Shows for the HE Podcast, Destop Wallpapers, iPhone Wallpapers, unfinished art, behind the scenes/making of type stuff, and much more when you donate or subscrbe.

So that’s the current “State of The Experiment.” Treading water but hopeful. The new shirts, the book, and a few other things I have planned for this year are really going to decide the fate of HijiNKS Ensue. If you want to help (with money) you can buy a shirt, buy a print or subscribe to The Vault. If you want to help (without money) you can tell a friend about the site, post a comic on your blog, or send me an encouraging email. Every little bit helps.

Thank you all so much for making the last 12 months so geektastically amazing.

-Joel

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I’m handling a bit of a crisis right now and won’t be able to get to the comic until tomorrow some point in the very near future maybe never.

There are a handful of shirts that should already be in FB hands and are… off the grid. More than likely I am going to be eating a chunk of cash, cursing the USPS and going into disaster recovery mode to get these shirts out. I’m already getting unhappy emails from customers which is the worst thing that can happen. I’m suspending the comic (again) until this crisis is averted.

This kind of shit gives me ulcers.

Eli and Josh aren’t available for the Podcast this week, so I offer a worthy substitute in the form of the “Open Mike, Insert Foot Podcast.“

Mike Leuszler (MiketheArtGuy.com) conducted an interview with me (my first!) and it’s all uploaded in MP3 goodness. It’s all about the comic and The Experiment and such. It’s about an hour, so check it out and hopefully the HE Castcast will be back next week.

In summation: I have a shirt related migraine, comic will be up Saturday and No Podcast this week/ listen to the Interview I did.

UPDATE:

The shirt situation is handled. I could write a 3 or 4 page post about the frustrations the last few days have caused me, but I’m just going to chalk it up to “on the job training” and move on.

If you ordered a shirt in the month of September and haven’t received it, I’ve refunded your shipping. The shirts are in the mail and should be there any day. I

If you ordered a shirt in the month of October, you either already have it or will within a few days.

If you ordered a print at any point before today, they are signed and in the mail.

If you ORDER A SHIRT today you will get it much faster than in the past because they are being drop shipped directly from the printer. I lose a little profit this way, but it’s much faster and easier on every body.

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“In 1972 a crack hockey team was sent to the penalty box by for high-sticking and decapitating a team mate with their skates. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security moose cave to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the Canadian government, they survive as maple syrup smugglers. If you have a pancake, if no one else can help, and if you can find the syrup, maybe you can hire the Eh Team.”

Near….. Far…..Yeah, let’s keep it at “far.” As far as possible would be great. (Groverfield shirt)

A couple of other changes in the store:

• Signed Comic Prints are now $10 (down from $12.50). They look fantastic framed and are totally awesome and totally tie your room together.
• I retired (for now) the “Magically Fabulous” and “Catonmyface” shirts since they have only sold in the single digits over the last several months. If you have one, it’s a collectors item!
• Personal Avatars: I’ve been enjoying doing these (you can see a few here), but they are extremely time consuming and I was undercharging for the amount of work I put into them. For right now I’ve stopped accepting new avatar orders. If you’ve already paid for one, you will certainly get it. They may return in the future.

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The “Cat On My Face” shirt is in the store now.

Here’s a comic that might explain why Denise has a cat on her face (except it doesn’t).

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Custom Designed Avatars are now available at www.hijinksensuestore.com.

Thanks to Fancy Bastard Bill F. for being the avatar guinea pig.

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I’m ordering shirts and prints in a couple of hours, so now is a great time to order something if you want to receive it with as little wait as possible.

Head over to the STORE before 5pm central or so and you should get in under the wire.

A few of you have noticed a new option on the DONATIONS page, where upon you can “subscribe” your donation. This means that you can support HijiNKS Ensue with an automatic donation each month.

The Experiment is coming soon to an end and the future of HE is quite unsure. If you enjoy this comic, the forum, the podcast or anything else I put out there and you want to see it continue, please consider starting a subscription donation, or making a store purchase.

Speaking of the Store, I’m working on adding “Custom Avatars” right now. They should be available for purchase soon.

A few of you have asked for a Denise “CATONMYFACE” shirt. If there is enough interest, I will make one. Just let me know.

Thanks, guys.

Joel

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The all new HijiNKS Ensue store is up and running at www.hijinksensuestore.com.

All the shirts from the old store are there, and for the first time you can buy Signed HijiNKS Ensue Comic prints.

I’m very excited about the new store and the prints, so please check them out and give me your feedback.

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All shirts ordered from April 22nd to May 9th are out the door.

The “Holodeck is for Porn” shirts look awesome.

I need your help on a couple of issues:

1) I ordered a Ladies 2XL Baby Doll “Godspeed You Fancy Bastard” shirt and have it in my posession. I can’t find an order, email, or Paypal payment that goes with it. If this is yours, please let me know because somehow I have lost your order. If no one claims it and you want it, place an order and I will ship it right away.

2) Anyone have any idea why my LJ Syndication Feed is borked?
FB, Serenity Valley alerted me to the issue.  It either says “Too Big” or “Parse Error” as the reason for its borkedness.

I didn’t create this feed and I have no access to make changes to it. The XML link goes to the right feed, so I have no idea what to do.

3) Just a heads up, but I noticed HE Podcast #3 had less than half of the downloads of #2 and #4, so I check it out and the MP3 was named weird. I bet this jacked with iTunes or something, so I fixed it. If you want to give it a listen the working link should be here.

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Cuz’ it’s the first of May.

If you ordered a shirt from April 3rd to April 18th (or so), it is shipped. All except for a few unlucky Fancy Bastards that ordered XL Roslin ‘08 Mens shirts. I was a dumbass and ordered 2 too few of those. I will make it up to them with special presents. Maybe I’ll send them a free print of any comic of their choice. Lesson for next time: order extras of popular designs.

Speaking of, I have 1 extra Godspeed shirt in a men’s large. If you are in need of such a thing, it will go out very quickly because it’s sitting on my desk.

I’m sending off the next round of shirts to the printer tomorrow, so if you want to get in on that batch, head over to THE STORE.

I’ll be posting a video blog shortly with my first impression of trying to be a clothing store disguised as a web comic. I made LOTS of mistakes this time, and learned many tips and tricks for next time. You’ll notice a few changes in the store based on what I learned:

• 2XL and 3XL (adding 3XL soon) will be $2 more because they cost me more to print and more to ship. I had no idea.
• Shipping to Canada will be $7. I figured it would be cheap to ship to Canada. It’s not.
• Shipping in the US will be $4.50. Turns out I have to pay for Envelopes and Labels and other crap.
• Ladies Shirts will be $1 more than mens. They actually cost me $2 more but I would feel shitty charging $2 more just because you have boobies.

The whole “Experiment” is just that, so I am learning more about the realities of full time comicing each day.

Look for a new video blog, and Podcast 13 this week, and a new comic tomorrow.

Last thing: Check out FB Aaron’s plans for the Shitty VHS Movie Challenge.  (original post here) Also check out his very kind review of the comic and the podcast.

Godspeed, you Fantastical Motherfuckers! (doesn’t have the same ring to it)

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Check that out! They look fantastic. I’m wearing my “Roslin ‘08” shirt right now. Today I am picking up a printer for shipping labels and a postage scale. The plastic shirt envelopes I ordered to ship these in should arrive early next week. Once I have those, this batch will be heading out to all you Fancy Bastards. Thank you, again for your patience.

International FB’s, thank you for your contined patience since I have no idea when yours will actually arrive. All I know is that I will be sending them out with the North America shirts. I’ll post the date I  ship them on the site. Please let me know how long thy take to arrive so I can add international estimates to the Store FAQ.

Please send pictures of you wearing your shirts when they arrive. I’ll be posting them on the site soon. 

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