I've got a lot of stuff going on and I figured I'd announce it all at once rather than badgering you with a series of small updates.
The Book
Thank you to everyone who picked up a copy of my latest book.
As of today, How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you has been on the New York Times Best Sellers List for 17 consecutive weeks,
and it held the #1 spot on that list for 7 of those weeks.
We're into our 11th printing, which puts us at over 450,000 copies in print..
This has been drastically different from my first book, which saw strong sales at the beginning but then dropped off after all my readers bought copies.
Instead, sales have been continually flourishing ever since the book came out in October. It's mind-boggling for me to imagine nearly half a million cat books out there.
Again, to everyone who bought a copy: thank you.
Time Magazine
I'm in the latest issue of Time Magazine. It's the February 11th issue with "The Drones are Coming" on the cover.
It's a great article covering not only The Oatmeal, but there's quite a bit on web comics in general and how our industry has grown up.
You'll have to actually go buy a copy of the magazine to read it (or have a subscription to Time.com).
If you don't want to pay I think Time releases the archived issues online a few weeks after they're published.
The Fire Comic
Last month I published a comic about my house burning down.
It was unlike anything I'd ever done before, and I felt like I stepped way out of my comedic comfort zone when I wrote it.
Creatively, this was one of the most rewarding comics I've ever worked on. I spent 12 hours a day for weeks and weeks
writing, drawing, revising, and obsessing. And typically when I obsess, I tend to over-revise my writing and the tone gets diluted. I've found the funniest, most visceral
comics are the ones that I produce quickly off the top of my head.
This comic was the exception -- I iterated often, worked deliberately, and focused more on the story and less on the punchline.
Bottom line: I want to make more comics like this, but they take a lot longer to create so please be patient with me.
The Oatmeal is not a daily strip, or even a weekly strip. It's a when-I'm-feeling-funny-I-draw-things strip.
SXSW
I'm keynoting SXSW this year
and I'll be giving my presentation on Tuesday, March 12th at 2pm in Exhibit Hall 5.
Indiegogo and I are going to throw some kind of party during SXSW as well, but we haven't ironed out the details yet. I'll post the details on my events page once I know.
To Be or Not To Be
I illustrated one of the pages of Ryan North's chooseable-pathway version of Hamlet. If you were one of the lucky people who funded this hilarious book, there's an Oatmeal illustration at one of the book's various endings.
Emerald City Comicon
I'll be at Emerald City Comicon again this year in booth #1202.
The Tesla Museum
I'll have some exciting updates regarding the status of the real estate to give you next month.
Meanwhile, the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe
has been diligently mailing out all your perks, so be sure to direct all your inquiries to them.
Also, the Tesla booklets are done and will be mailing out in a week or so.
And lastly
I haven't been updating my website much lately, and unfortunately it's going to stay that way for awhile. Last year was an odd year for me, and I got caught up in some silly things as well as some awesome things, and the time I'd normally spend on writing bonus material for my next book was spent elsewhere. As a result, the next few weeks I've got to hunker down and write all that new material, so updates will be slow.
-The Oatmeal
P.S.
If you want something to read while I'm away,
check out my girlfriend's website. It's about coffee.
