1179 Advantages.

Just so you guys know, a lot of spam comments have been getting past the filters, so I added Facebook to the list of banned words for a while. If you want to comment just don’t put your FB account as your website, if you enter anything there at all. I’ll take it off the list if it looks like the filters start working properly again.

For those of you who don’t read the comment threads, the archive was eventually removed from the other gallery. I sent a takedown notice as soon as I found out it was there. A lot of well meaning people suggested I do so, perhaps not realizing that I am capable of knowing the most obvious thing to do in the situation. But they were just trying to help, so I appreciate the effort in spite of it being a very casual insult. XD I got advice from both camps of copyright belief. By that I mean the people who think it matters and people who think that it’s pointless and everything should be free all the time. I’m not going to go over what I believe point by point, but I will say this: If you don’t defend your copyright at all the law assumes you don’t care about it, or you don’t value your work. Therefore they will not value your work. Even if a takedown notice fails, and you never go to court over the matter, the fact that you try may help you down the road when you really do need to take legal action. Which is why Disney, as a very obvious example, sends notices to random small businesses all the time. It’s also why you see Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes, pissing on various things while its creator never gets a dime, and laments the misuse of his character.

I honestly don’t mind if you save a copy of the comic to your computer, but I’d like for you to save those files from my website. You pay nothing, and I still get the ad revenue, which is basically the only source of income from this work. I don’t offer merchandise anymore, because virtually no one wanted it, and the actual book is sold almost at cost. I don’t have a way to sell electronic books of the work right now. Unfortunately that part of publishing still has gatekeepers who impose rules about how books have to be presented and I never bothered to adhere to them. I also don’t have the means to create a functional pdf from the base files right now, nor do I have the knowledge to do so. If enough people show interest in electronic collections of the comic I will find a way.

I would cheerfully accept any help in the aforementioned areas, as long as we’re talking about it.

In other news, the Teen has been playing a lot of the Deadpool game I got her for Xmas. I am only called in to assist in the most dire of times. This is usually parts where advanced platforming skills are required, because Deadpool’s controls are not precise enough for some sections of the game. It’s probably the game’s biggest technical flaw from what I’ve seen. It also does a poor job of showing you where to go sometimes. This failing must have been noted because they string money along the ground to help guide you at key points, like a trail of breadcrumbs. Still, it’s a decent game for the price now. I’m curious to see how it ends when she makes it there.

I started playing that new 3DS Zelda. I have to say it’s pretty well done so far, and it’s basically a love note to Link To The Past. The magical painting stuff is really clever. I’ve walked along a lot of walls for no reason other than to do it.

My Animal Crossing town is doing okay. There just aren’t as many people playing it now though, so it’s hard to do a lot of the multiplayer stuff it’s constantly trying to get you to take part in. This has made making money a lot harder because you have to hope someone comes online that doesn’t have the same fruit as you AND that they have a good connection AND enough time to indulge your desire to sell fruit. Generally though, if you have fruit they also have fruit and the same lack of connectivity you do. So doing some town hopping isn’t that hard to talk people into.

I also had my first high spike in turnip prices, which not a single person took advantage of. T^T Working the stalk market is a lot harder now that so few people are playing. The chance of a big loss is much higher. Plus you can’t cheat the world with turnip default swaps.

32 Comments

Actually, under current copyright law, it is not possible to lose a copyright by failing to defend it, and the law will be on your side whenever you try to take action.

Trademark, OTOH, is a lot trickier, and trademarks CAN be lost by failure to defend them … which is why both Coke and Pepsi send out “secret shoppers” to check if ordering “Coke” gets you Pepsi … and why if you use “cat” to refer to generic construction equipment in an article or story you’re likely to hear from Caterpillar’s lawyers.

Just ask the original trademark holders on “aspirin” and “nylon” how serious it can be…

In any case the fact of the matter is that both trademark and copyright law are nebulous at best. You can’t get a straight answer out of an attorney about either.

Sure you can. You just have to ask the right questions.

Q. I have a simple trademark or copyright question. Will you give me a simple, useful answer?

A: No.

Works pretty much every time. ;)

Hi Crave! Awesome comic you have here!

as for -> to .pdf, I’d suggest looking at a free program online called ‘GIMP’, it’ll make pretty near any type of graphics file into pretty near any other type of graphics file with nearly no training needed at all, it’s very intuitive to use. and it’s free.

uhh..actually..I don’t care for GIMP, as a person who doesn’t draw myself, I downloaded it because a friend used it and sometimes she sends me the occasional drawing to look over just because she likes sharing her art with me. It’s good for when you get that rare, pain in the neck XCF extension file..but overall? I’d say that you get what you pay for in terms of accessibility and intuitive..and when I say that, I’m meaning I literally had to go online the first time I was figuring out how to actually -RUN- the system and check Ask.com and those other question-type search engines..just…not worth the trouble, believe me.

The trademark “Aspirin” belonged to Bayer, a German company. During WW I, German property in the United States was confiscated by the US government. Among the properties confiscated were the “Aspirin” trademark. In other countries, to this day, “Aspirin” is still a trademark owned by Bayer.

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon it’s not clear whether nylon was ever a registered trademark.

Maybe it’s one of those trademarks no one else respects, like Kleenex, Jell-o, Claymation, Frisbee, Pop-tarts, Band-aid, Sneakers, Podcast, Microsoft…

…wait. That last one gets no respect for different reasons.

I know your Animal Crossing pains. I’m still playing my Gen1 DS and have no reason to upgrade, really, because the hardware still works. So I’m still playing Wild World and have no one to play with. :(

Download OpenOffice (now this process might work in MS office but I dont use it)
Open Impress (the equivalent of PowerPoint)
Arrange each page with comics as you see fit, perhaps one comic to a page/slide
File>Export as PDF
Choose location to export to and give your file a name
You now have a PDF of your work
I honestly dont know what I would do with a PDF beyond that

So Carol realizes that it isn’t just her attitude, but her body which intimidates people. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much in the height department, which is what people truly fear more than a little cellulite. If only she were real and met me…

Yeah, I’ve thought about that too. (Her meeting me, not you.) Yeah, and then we’d…nope can’t suspend disbelief well enough even for a comic character. I wouldn’t stand a chance…but I’d remember her eyes as she surveyed me dismissively and the view as she walked away….

I’ve been reading the comic for a while now and I just have to say I love the whole thing, Your art is wonderful, and its progress is outstanding, and the plot line is enthralling. I read a lot of web comics but I can honestly say, Yours is one of the ones that I perpetually come back to. The characters have depth and are very well rounded. Although I could just love it since it reminds me of my very first job. Anyways, I just want to say I love your comic and thank you!

PS: I know the feels about AC, I went out and bought NL and no one else in my area plays it, makes me sad.

These two are like the perfect buddies — polar opposites in every way, but the characters play off each other so well.

“I honestly don’t mind if you save a copy of the comic to your computer, but I’d like for you to save those files from my website. You pay nothing, and I still get the ad revenue, which is basically the only source of income from this work.”

Well that’s good. Every few months I crank up my Web Spider program and haul down your entire site — art, blog, fiction, forums, adseverything. I’ve used Teleport Pro from Tennyson Maxwell (www.tenmax.com) for almost fifteen years for this purpose on dozens of sites.

Years ago, some dirtbag hacked one of the sites I followed and occasionally hosed down with Teleport. They deleted all of the art and comments, and plastered some kind of obscenity on the /index.htm page. The next time I logged on, the site’s owner had changed the Index to a letter of apology, since he did not keep a backup of the site on his home machine (remember how small hard drives used to be? 1/2,000 of what we have today).

I eMailed the site’s owner and told him I had a recent backup of his entire site. He was amazed someone would even do that, and I sent him the works for $5 to cover the CD-R and postage (hey, CDs used to be expen$ive). Yeah, yeah; instant hero. This could never happen in the 21st Century, but things were different then; so there you go.

Since Between Failures uses an ‘infinite canvas’ format, i.e, irregular panel definitions and episode length, Portable Document Format (PDF) is preferable to print. You don’t have to follow the constrictions of a ‘dead tree’ book layout, but by the same token, it makes book publishing difficult. As it happens, I have a legal copy of Adobe Acrobat and a little experience converting webcomics to PDF. If I get some time this weekend I’ll play around a little. eBook is another option, but I’ve had less luck with that format.

To all the well meaning helpers… yes, Crave could download OpenOffice/LibreOffice and attempt to save as PDF. Unfortunatly, that works quite well for simple documents, but for a web archive? Not so great. Same with GIMP. Excellent graphics program, which isn’t “designed” to make PDFs, but can. Why would you think Crave has time to install and learn a new software package, which may or may not work, and then who is his support?

As far as the actual comic goes, wow, blushed all the way up to her ear tips. I never noticed that before, so now I’ll have to hunt through to other instances of Jo blushing and check her out. :)

Good point — it’s not as though @Crave has to work a full-time day job, come home and create a webcomic to entertain us, then entertain the Teen until he drops from exhaustion. Especially since his advertising revenue and our subscriber fees pay for even his wildest dreams (and those modeling fees he pays the girls, and the salaries of his writing, art and production staff).
[/snarkasm]
Anyway, that’s why I offered to arm-wrestle the Acrobat. I’m not doing much creative work outside my real work lately, and the weather in the Northeast is going to suck this weekend…

I’m sad to hear the book only sold at cost. I like owning books. Ever since I graduated and stopped being perpetually broke, I’ve been buying books of webcomics I love. If you ever feel like making another book (kickstarter, indiegogo, whatever) I’m in.

Huzzah! For once my unexplainable hatred for facebook has paid off!! Usually its the reverse, and I can’t comment on a site unless I HAVE facebook! Goodness knows one of the few highlights in my life is sharing my two-rupees worth on a topic. (ThatGuyWithTheGlasses and TheEscapist just don’t understand my type of Facebook loathing!)

Oh Crave, this warrants boot-kissing!

Would you consider doing prints of the characters doing reader requested things (within reason)? These could be offered as e-mailed, snail mailed, and people could request whether the print would be available to other readers or not-all for the appropriate nominal fee? Maybe as greeting cards with extra meaning for those in the know on BF. Anybody else think this has any merit?

I think it has lots of merit if he were willing to give it a try. This is one of my favorite webcomics, and I would totally by merchandise/prints if they were available.

Awww….Carol is making Jo blush!! XD

……I’m sorry…..I know I have you added as my friend for AC:NL…..But….I’ve been playing Pokemon X/Y….Both of them….I kinda need a girl & a boy for those games…..And for a few months I had the same problem with AC. Every time I played, none of my friends were on, or they were playing another game.The hours I can play during the week are wonky due to my work schedule. By the time I get to a internet location to play, most people are asleep. I solved the acquiring fruit problem by mailing a piece of fruit to all my villagers. The will, most of the time, send a piece of fruit back. Bamboo is also a “fruit”, and if you have planted your first shoot, it replicates its self every three days after maturation. I also found out that you can only get perfect fruit from your town’s native plant. I save all mine so that when a villager asks for a piece of perfect fruit, I have one instantly.

Hey Crave, I’d be thrilled to help you figure out a way to automate turning the comics into PDFs! I have some experience scripting image manipulation and creation, as well as being a programmer professionally.

I dunno if you’ve seen this tool, or what the fees are like, but for ongoing support without dealing with a Kickstarter or whatever the website Patreon seems pretty nifty. I know of at least two other webcomics which are being partially funded through this system, and it allows users to pledge to their comfort level based on volume of comics posted and whatnot. I know I’d be perfectly willing to add you to my list of webcomics I’m kicking money toward each month if you signed up. Not sure what the price point is to actually derive supportable funding for you via this method, but thought it was worth mentioning. :)

I will wholeheartedly agree with this. Kicking in $5 a month (or whatever) on top of the ad revenue pennies I send your way might not seem like a lot, but I bet I’m not the only one here who would jump on board.
As a supporter, I’ve been pretty impressed with Patreon. Some artists post extras there for supporters, but I don’t really find this necessary. You already make something that gives me joy and I want to help you keep doing that.

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