Giving THANKS! (Patreon)

(Posted by Bea R.'s assistant-letterer-inker-husband)

Hello everyone.  Beate and I want to thank all of you, on this Thanksgiving weekend, for your gracious donations, here on Patreon and on other platforms.  Your donations help us more than you probably know.

Cartooning of this quality and volume isn't quick or easy.  It is a time-intensive task, but it is enjoyable to make these strips and entertain all of you.  Because we are under contract at GoComics, and we can't divulge our pecuniary benefits, we think it would be best to inform you that we (and others) make very little there; we aren't upset about it, or feel slighted, but many people think that because someone is contracted there they make buckets of cash.  The truth is that the pay is almost completely from the ad clicks by people visiting the strips.  Without traffic there is almost no income, so you can gauge an idea of income from subscription rates, translating to views.  Keep in mind that we make very little... now imagine all those people with lesser subscription totals... now you understand why most cartoonists get into GoComics and leave unexpectedly after three or six months (we are paid quarterly).  Bea and I noted most people will quit within 2 or 3 weeks after payday.  If you like their work, promote it, visit it, and encourage them.

Why do I write this?  It is merely to let you know something about this field.  It might help you to encourage other artists you like.  But it also leads into my next paragraph...

Bea noted some worry in the words of some posters.  She feels some of you are concerned about our future, more accurately--the future of "in SECURITY".  The main thrust of this entry is to let you know that you don't have to worry; we have a roadmap and I am here to lay it out for you!  Woo!

Some history: we began drawing this strip over 2 years back!  What a trip it has been.  It was started as a portfolio project for Bea, and we fell in love with it so much that we turned out 40+ strips and sent them to the newspaper syndicates... no word back.  We waited a few months, made another 30 strips and re-applied for newspaper syndication... no replay.  Well, we liked it so much that we decided to ram our heads into a brick wall and JUST DO IT!!  We already had 3+ years of ideas written down as general arc descriptions, and we discussed them and made jokes within them, and so we decided to blow off a chance at income and MAKE the syndicates love us.  And at that moment, we were contacted by GoComics and given a contract for online syndication. @_@!  (September 2016)  And thus we set off making endless dailies.

You guys caught up to us in January, 2017, when we become public through GoComics.  Since then we have kept a daily schedule.  At this time we have enough dailies to go into early January, and we have roughs for a few extra weeks, and general strip-by-strip writing for a couple more months.  NO FEAR--we keep working at it daily (though not this weekend), and will keep going.

This strip is very dear to us.  It is Bea's baby.  She created it and has been over the moon with enthusiasm since we began.  In July 2016, a special moment of enlightenment gave us enough ideas to push us through 5 years.  5 YEARS!  It's all laid out.  One year is almost done publishing, but there are solid ideas until February 2022.  More ideas pile in every so often, but we just heap them on the end.

SPOILERS: "in SECURITY" is in an initial phase we call the "sandbox".  All these arcs and ideas merely have fun in a variety of situations in order to introduce and develop characters.  

Starting somewhere in June (late June perhaps) will emerge a spine that will take about half of the strips coming from summer 2018 through to about Christmas 2019.  We call it "the romance arc", and you can figure it out on your own without us explaining.  In between the romantic (comedic) arcs, joining into a cohesive story, will be further sandboxing and singles dealing with the other characters.

2020 returns to sandboxing for about 14 months before a large moment occurs which will blossom in June (or May) 2021.  That will lead to one, single, arc containing all the characters, and that arc will go through the first week in February 2022.  I will not reveal more.

The strip will continue to be a humor strip with single strips and stories.  It won't morph into something dreary.  Don't worry!  There will come several quick, intense moments, tho.

We will ramp up drama and peak personal stories behind some of these characters to make the arcs more impactful, but we won't lose the humor... I hope (haven't done the strips yet).

So, fear not.  We have plans to go into 2022.  At that point we must shut down this strip if we can't make a basic living off of it.  The end will probably come a little later as we do a curtain-call segment and a little fan service and explanations delivered by the cast.

However, we would, at this time, love to continue beyond 2022 and into infinity.  We would love to go further, if we have the chance.  For now, we have to leave that to the future and see what comes.

Circa 2020 we might run out of saved money!  At that time we will have to make a near-poverty income in order to survive and continue through 2021 and into early 2022.  Luckily we have NO debts, own our vehicles, own a house, and live in a tiny town with dirt-cheap property tax, and we have no health problems.  (knock wood)  We can afford to do this comic beyond that if we start making a 5-figure income (yes, we make a fraction of that at this time).

I don't write that to guilt any of you or ask for more.  (One of you already pays WAY TOO MUCH for what you can afford--you know who you are.)  We are thankful for what you all donate, and merely hope more people will leap into Patreon in the next few years.  We also hope that subscriptions on GoComics improve.  The next step we hope to fuel us into a 5-figure income is WebToons where they offer hundreds of dollars each month for people of certain subscription sizes and daily views... so that might push us over the brink into sustainability starting next year or in 2019.

In conclusion, we wish to thank you all, again, and wish you all to know that we have big plans and a solid schedule for 4+ years.  We love doing the strip, we love how it entertains, we love our audience, and we love how it hones our artistic abilities as we turn out a large body of work.  So we give thanks to all of YOU for helping us in this fledgling year of our dear comic strip endeavor.

Oh yeah--books--people have been asking about books every so often.  I'm already compiling a book with InDesign.  It should publish circa June 2018, and it should have the first 18 months of comics inside, black and white on glossy white paper.  We plan another book for the "romantic arc" containing the next 18 months.  Finally, we will hopefully publish the last two years in January 2022. If we can afford to go beyond, those won't be the last two years.  Hopefully we get syndicated in papers before 2022, because a base syndication package is better than minimum wage and can provide an good middle-class income.

Thank you for your patronage!  We look forward to entertaining you into another year of "in SECURITY".