Unlike most evenings I actually have something specific I want to ask of you. Advertising anything online has gotten extremely difficult with the prevalence of adblockers, Google ruining ads to begin with, and social media destroying the realm of the personal website. All my social media, which essentially is the same for the comic, have fallen into ruin for a variety of reasons. Not least of which is that legacy accounts are often broken by virtue of existing through site updates. Additionally most of my posts are little more than quick update links, which social media hates since they want you to stay on them. Video content is about the only thing you can use to get attention, but that’s not what I do. Anyway, what I need from you is a pitch of the comic in the comments to people who don’t know what it is. How do I sell this to people? I am a terrible judge of my own work since I tend to view it very negatively. Basically any selling points would be appreciated. Long or short, whatever you have that could be useful when trying to make my work enticing. I mean anything. Personal stories about why you started reading, breakdowns of why it positively portrays various things, ways it helped you in your life, it’s all on the table. The day is quickly approaching when I will be the one left to make sure my mother has a pleasant life in her retirement years and I take this responsibility seriously. I would like it if she didn’t have to worry about living on an extremely fixed income. In order to do that I need to draw in more patrons. Not all that many really, but stable people who like the kind of low stakes tales I make. The problem is letting them know this comic exists at all. Ideally I’d like to do that without having to become a lolcow. Or at least not become more of one than I already am. So this is my earnest request. You don’t have to leave your name or anything. The site allows anonymous comments. I need help seeing the value in what I do from the outside. If you could provide a little I would appreciate it.

Anyway it’s time to post so I’ll do that. If I don’t get many comments I might make a throwaway page that just points to the blog tomorrow, or sometime in the future, since this is actually important. As far as everything else goes it’s business as usual. I’ll be here with more comic on Friday. I hope your week has been nice so far. I also hope it will continue being that way until next we meet. Until then, keep squeezin’ them monkeys, lad.

45 Comments

“Clerks, in comic form with people making pop culture references.”

I started reading this after Multiplex and saw a guest comic of yours on Questionable Content, decided I had to check it out and man, it’s been a great ride along .

The only webcomic (or any comic, frankly) that I still read that I’ve never been mad at.

That’s a strong statement nowadays

!!!! heck yeah

Seems like Jo is now team Alex/John, and is disappointed/framing it as a bad thing that John is taking a break from Alex.
I fell you, Jo. I’m still rooting for them. But in the meantime, he gets a poly ship with two women sharing him.
Also, Reggie is less hot than John to her? Guess she had to call out Reggie’s Karvoka appeal.

Reggie doesn’t have that rugged facial hair like John does. ;)

“Those green eyes. I can’t even…”
“He’s got really nice eyes.” (Bridgette)

“Why you no tell me you has hot brother?”
“They’re like the best eyes ever.” (Maddie)

I don’t know Brooksie’s tastes, but two of our furry group certainly think Reggie isn’t in the category of less hot.

This comic has the most engaging, heartwarming, and narratively consistent character arcs in all the webcomics out there. It is written with eloquence, sincerity and warm-hearted nerd humour. Perfect for smart nineties kids who are a little bit sick with and of irony poisoning, who love words, and like it when people are just nice to each other (but also a bit snarky because that’s fun).

And also what Anon said.

I am not a man of many words, so I will make it brief:

Their lives suck exactly as much as yours, no more, no less. And there is hope for them. Also, good plot twists.

You know that feeling you have when you read a book or watch a movie and the underdog wins and you pump your fist and go “yes!”. You know that feeling when a flawed character shares and faces their pain and you go “I feel you. Damn.” This comic delivers both on a regular basis along with humor, heartwarming, and just silly joy.

I’ve been reading it for more than a decade and I’ve always loved it, never been disappointed by it and still re-read the archives when I’m having a tough time in my life. It’s the only comic I’ve ever ordered a physical book of. I’m really grateful it exists and it’s the only comment section on the internet where people are still nice to each other.

Try it, you won’t regret it.

“Between Failures – It runs long and has heart. Far from a Sunday strip, Between Failures transcends itself by keeping relevant to its core characters and their narrative, pointing out the struggles of working retail in a dead-end situation where it’s far too easy to become embittered. Come along with the crew of Megatainment as chaos reigns on the floor in-store and beyond, and prepare for extraordinary tangents. Love, betrayal, shenanigans. You’ll find them here. Masterfully penned in story by Julius Drywood and drawn exactingly by Jackie Wolfenhaus, Between Failures, in my honest opinion, deserves to sit in the same rarefied air as Calvin and Hobbes.”

Not much of a pitch, but I think your comic is quite funny.

I suck so much at marketing that I managed to fail at business school, but anyway here is a pitch, hoping some small part of it can be useful :

“Between Failures is a Slice of Life webcomic about the ordinary and extraordinary woes of a choral cast of young and less young adults battling with giving some sense to their daily life, just as we all are.”

Did I mentioned I suck hard at marketing stuff ?

Hey man. I started reading back when it was still black and white. I don’t remember exactly when but it was SOME time ago. I continue reading cause i’m invested in the characters. I’m invested in ed and nina, i love thomas and carol, even reggie has grown on me… whatever happened to wes…? Was that his name? The idiot with the shades. Anyways for how to pitch it to a new reader…

Just kick the door open.

No but jokes aside, just.. pitch it for what it is, a comic about some folks that work at a store that doesn’t know what it wants to be and their lives. … also there’s a pizza pope.

“Friends but they are working at the same place instead of living in the same building”
“What happens between failures”
“I have been reading this comics since 2014 and never regretted doing so”

I see the references to Clerks, or Empire Records as you so often say, but I would also relate it to stuff like The Breakfast Club or Friends. The reason is that it’s about a still-growing cast of characters, different people with different personalities, who are all relatable and likeable in their own way. They have conflict without there being a clear villain or traitor or anything like that, and their conflict resolution is based on growth and self-reflection. It’s also not just a collection of obvious tropes; no shade to classic groups like, I dunno, TMNT, but these people feel more like real people, with real flaws, hang-ups, strengths, etc. This is, I think, deceptively hard to do. It’s sort of like cooking, where they say it’s easy to throw 30 ingredients together or use powerful flavors to make something taste decent, but it requires a skilled chef to bring out the flavor and achieve balance of a simple dish. Likewise, it’s easy to write a bunch of milquetoast inoffensive characters, or to write a bunch of generic archetypes, but very difficult to create a range of unique characters who are just living life yet interesting enough to create a desire to get to know them better and to see them improve and achieve their goals.

Yeah, I don’t know how to turn that into marketing speech, I’m sorry, I’m wordy at the best of times. But I think that element is the real draw; these feel like people, people I would like to know, people whom we can learn from by watching them learn. There’s no gimmicky set up, no tricks, no zaniness, it’s not some epic adventure, your humor isn’t the kind that distracts or overshadows the actual story; it’s just a diverse group of seemingly-real people, on their own life journeys, together. These are fictional cartoon characters yet my brain still truly wants to see them succeed, I am just that invested. That’s some serious skill, and authenticity that you can’t fake.

The character of Carol is very much like someone in my life. Like Carol, she is also large, redheaded and green-eyed. For those who know her personally, the pitch can be as simple as, “Hey, doesn’t this character remind you of someone?”

There is also a Nena in my life, and a Tom, and I have known someone like Brooksie (though unlike Brooksie, she was not a bluenette).

If the characters remind you of people you know, leverage that to bring Jackie some readers!

“Literally the only comic I’ve felt to be worth becoming a Patron of, and has continued to prove that I made the right call.”

I forget how long I’ve been reading this comic (it’s been quite a while, though), but I came here from your guest comic in Questionable Content, read from the start, and just kept going. I think its appeal is that the characters are ordinary folks just trying to get through their days, while at the same time they live lives that most of us wish we could (they certainly seem to deal with a lot less bullshit than real life tends to offer, for a start).

As with a lot of the people here, it’s the simplicity of the story itself and the cast you have raised, which people who have been in the trenches of retail work can look at and go “hey, [character] there reminds me of this person I (used to) work with!” that seems to be its greatest appeal.

So I’m one for three from my comment yesterday; do I hold onto my ticket in the hopes of getting the other two (joke) predictions right or cash in now for a small payout? I joke, but I did get a big laugh when I saw John and Jo.

Meanwhile to add to what others have said, I think the characters are relatable (have known and still know people like them), enjoyable (I want to spend time with them), and investible (I want to see their ups and downs and have them ultimately come out on top and for the better); meanwhile something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the overall comic as a whole feels its stayed true to itself; I haven’t been reading long, but since it was a binge from start to current there hasn’t been a feel of drift, no “oh this started as slice of life and then became heavy and serious”, no Flanderization of characters either.

“Simply sincere in all moments, from honest to insulting. Your memories of friendship and hardship in objective form, writ long.”

Did not mean to post this as a reply. Hope I didn’t take anything away from what you said.

“The best use of a shift to full color I have ever seen used in a comic format”
“A slice of life Rom-Com where the first character to be introduced ‘gets the girl’ and the story doesn’t end there because their lives keep happening and we’re along for the ride.”
I started reading somewhere around 2015-2016 not exactly sure when because my memory is horrible but it wasn’t from any source other than the site used to host the comic. I graduated high school in 2015 and a friend of mine got me into reading web comics with comics like Paranatural or Devils Candy and using Hiveworks Comics option to discover other comics I found Between Failures and while I had a large selection of about a dozen different comics this has been the only one that I truly have never stopped reading and recommending to anyone willing to spend their free time reading a comic in the first place. I love the sense of humor from the plays on words to the just simplistic joke of “Fuckbuckets.” Reggie’s growth from absolute asshole to someone who genuinely seems to be learning to be self reflective and learn from his own mistakes while still keeping in line with who he “is” as a character has been a joy to see happen over the years. This comic has been a comfort for me to come back to 3 times a week always either able to make me laugh like a loon or be genuinely concerned about how quickly a robot bear can be rebuilt. I think I will always continue reading this comic as long as it keeps being made because I genuinely care about these characters and I genuinely care about its author, I have been a patron for as long as I have been able to afford an extra monthly expense and I never expect anything extra other than the continuation of this comic because its worth it to support you and I wouldn’t ask to add more to your workload because even 3 updates a week is astounding and the fact that you have kept that up nearly perfectly for so many years will never not be something to be proud of in my opinion. Alright, I’ve said my piece, back to being someone who rarely comments and just enjoys reading.

I love this comic because it’s real literature. It’s rural slice of life that is wise and insightful but not cynical. What do they say about good novelists? A keen eye for human nature? It’s about the pleasures of friendship among people who aren’t letting the bastards grind them down. (In fact there are no bastards on stage in this comic, maybe that’s why I like it so much.) Lest we forget, it’s also about the pleasures of loving sexy fat women.

That’s what makes it different from the rest, right? Big women as romantic leads, set in Kansas instead of the East Coast (or fantasyland). But we love it for more reasons than that.

And it avoids being mean spirited about the setting or other areas of the country, which is something you cannot rely on in other webcomics.

Oops for some reason my reply did not attach to the comment above it.

Oops redux: I was trying to reply about our host and Marbleton but that ended up downstream.

Between Failures is a slice-of-life webcomic about the young adults of a small town in middle America, where the only real opportunities are the ones they make for themselves, and how they find meaning and connection in the mundane. We all make plans, and we all end up living Between Failures.

On a more personal note: I think this is maybe the third time I’ve said this in the comments over my many years of reading this comic (though the second was quite recent), but it’s been a balm on the scars my own failures have left on my soul. I’m not much one for the metaphysical or artistic, but I am mildly obsessed with stories, and this one is like aloe on the sunburn of surviving in the modern world. Now I think I’ve expended my capacity for metaphor, but thanks for the comic, Jackie, and I hope this helps.

Oh John. You’d never go down has cinema’s biggest simp. That’s the MC from Rent-A-Girlfriend.

Between Failures is a grounded and intimate ongoing comic that portrays the humor and rhythm of every day life – the drama, romance, and an only slightly cynical optimism – that’s familiar to most people. It’s real life lived by retail clerks. The comic’s connection to the reader comes from the author embracing and sharing the whole human experience, not a preachy pessimism or an hr-compliant “wholesome chungus” caricature. The comic dates back 20 years, and has plenty of readers that have been along for the ride for most of that ride. The determination to let as much character interaction as possible play out in the readable comic makes for a slower pace at times, but taking your time with the characters gives you time to settle with them and be present in their lives. Jackie Thomas is an author you can trust, with proven tenacity, having posted on time every time, and who – out of a combination of duty, spite, and pure love of the game – will see the show through till it ends or he ends.

-John, a reader of 16 years and counting, and occasional patron.

There’s a line I keep thinking of from “Homage to Catalonia” by George Orwell:

“If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: ‘To fight against Fascism,’ and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: ‘Common decency.'”

Everyday life is ultimately about fighting for common decency, every day, over and over again. There’s a lot of other stuff going on and it’s easy to get distracted from that, but that’s what it’s all about, and it’s good to keep coming back to it. Between Failures is fighting for common decency.

one of the few webcomics i haven’t given up on. strong cast written by an author that trusts the audience (i.e. doesn’t pander to them or worry about them making laugh every single second, which lets the characters be actual humans instead of gimmicks), and ridiculously witty. i have so many pages saved because the writing literally took my breath away- either with its rhythm, jokes, or occasionally deep insight into human nature. every single member of the cast, no matter how much time they get (and the time is spread out really well), is a fully fleshed out human being, and it’s difficult not to fall in love with most of them after a few pages.

also the blog posts are really fun to read and the comments section is always a delight :p.

I used to read several webcomics and Between Failures is the only one I still keep up with. I’ve been a fan for at least 12 years if not longer. It’s fun in a way thats realistic enough to feel grounded but not mundane. You really root for the characters and feel happy for them when good things happen. They aren’t one dimensional and they aren’t perfect, when they mess up or do things that aren’t exactly “correct” it feels natural and fits their character. I love the fact that they feel real in that way.

It would be a lot of work, but what about Webtoon formatting your comic for mobile consumption? BCB did this and I think its paid off for them, introducing a new age group and shifted demographic to their years-old comic archive. They still have their standalone site and discord, so those groups dont even really have to “share” the comments sections. You get to double dip on the re-uploads, since it will be all new to those folks, and there’s monetization built into the app.

I was a teen girl reading webcomics in the late 00s and early 2010s, and my cousins who are at that age now are crazy about webtoons, its how they discover smaller online comics to supplement their manga/anime consumption.

I think your diverse cast of characters and casual sapphic rep could do well on there.

Between Failures uses retail as the pressure cooker, not the whole comic. It is about abrasive, horny, overeducated people who use sarcasm, spite, flirting and nerd fights to avoid saying anything honest until they are basically forced into it. The characters can be petty, damaged and exhausting, but that is why they work: they feel less like tidy “relatable” characters and more like people you would judge in real life before realizing you cared what happened to them.

So many webcomickers write about where they know. Jackie doesn’t slag on Marbleton nor does he pretend it’s Mayberry or Andy Hardy’s Carvel.

And at the same time the part of working in a fading chain store located on a faceless stroad full of generic outlets isn’t a cop-out but an addressing of where scars of Americans work, shop, and commute.

“Scads”.

I think “scars” is a very understandable Freudian slip.

I’ve been thinking about this assignment on and off all now and if you’re looking for an elevator pitch, I think you can’t go wrong with “It’s Clerks meets Friends” Between Failures has that edge that Clerks had about working in a dead-end job, but also the warmth and comradery of watching nice people being friends with each other that Friends had.
But that’s not a great sales ad, it’s a pitch. For an ad maybe something more along the lines of “Between Failures is a heartwarming slice of life comic about twenty somethings making their lives better between their failures.”

Been reading this since damn near the beginning when it was still in the B&W style. Honestly, I love reading this because the characters feel real to me. The struggles and such are human in nature in a way that speaks to me (and, I presume, most of my fellow readers) and makes my own work/interpersonal struggles throughout the years feel validated. The insightful wisdom that appears every so often (e.g; “Everyone is raindrops.”) has a way of sticking in your mind long after as well. The memes and jokes on occasion are also delightful asides to the interpersonal weavings you’ve established. 10/10 webcomic.

I hope to be reading Between Failures for many years yet to come.

The best recommendation I can give is that I’ve been reading this comic for almost twenty years now and it’s still just as engaging as when the main character got together with the girl and the story not only didn’t end, but shifted into higher gear (and color).

I will note that Brooksie is wrong, as that’s just the Hollywood Homely trope with a three-way twist. Granted that Alex being fat is an unusual variation, but she’s still hot.

I’ve liked [Between Failures] ever since I found it, years ago.

I’ve likely been reading it for [10 years] or more.

I really like this comic!

The characters, whether they’re at work, or at home, feel like realistic people, to me.

These characters have a style that I like, and when things go wrong, or these characters annoyed, these guys have bite!

For example: When someone talked to the character, Vicky, about her brother,…a brother that “grinds her gears” on some occasions, she really lets you know about it!

One discussion with Vicky went kind of like this, [if I recall it, correctly]:

John: “I want to know about your brother, Reggie. How should I interact with him?”

Vicky (Smirking): “For your total satisfaction, I really think, as LITTLE as possible! Ha!”

I like it that the comic’s characters act like real people, a lot of the time.

These characters: get annoyed at work, they get annoyed at home, they get startled or irked by the daft actions of their siblings + significant others, and the characters do fun things- like having fun discussing strange films + video games.

It’s fun to see how the people in the comic- deal with the pros + cons, of their regular work days, and their regular vacation days.

These people also really [like and adore] their friends, and they like to stick up for them.

The people in the comic act like people you would meet in real life, + you feel like it would be [fun] to meet these people- and talk to them for a long while.

[Please] give this comic a try!

Between Failures, I’ve found, is a lot a fun.

I really like its [art], and I really like its [writing].

It has some of [the most clever and fun] writing, that I’ve found in webcomics.

Please give it a try.
It’s fun.

‘Between FAilures Google it. Come for the snerk, stay for the development and steady updates.’

Ad idea for you. Of note this Is the only entry when ‘Between Failures’ is typed to search, so no odd entries. Could be a useful avenue to get the word out.

Between Failures is a comic that got me through alot of rough times.
A terrific slice of life comic dealing with the lives of retail workers and their experiences.

In a world where a corporation mandates a no relationship policy, see how the employees of a local store bends those rules. Personally, professionally and romantically.

Be warned, just about everything is on the table without heavy handed preaching from the author. A refreshing take that allows for an old fashioned story to develop organically.

2994 Simplicity Itself.

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