Edit: Comments closed; over the course of a week, with conversations had between here and elsewhere, I believe that I have a plan. Actually multiple plans, in a way. Now what I need is time to bring the plan(s) to fruition (or something closely approximating fruition), so bear with me if I’m quiet a bit. Many many things happening. Thanks, you guys. You’ve been really super at keeping me on the right track and sparking my inspiration.

Life has a funny way of taking sharp turns when you’re not really expecting it. Such is the situation I find myself in currently.

Without a great deal of warning, I’ve, er, found myself in a bit of trouble. I’m staring at a very real, very near future of financial dire straits. In essence, the amount my day job is looking to be very soon paying me is not matching up very well with the reality of bills and rent and groceries, and I am but a singular human with a cat for company, trying to keep myself fed, with a roof over my head, and hopefully to continue working on this story which I’m really, really fond of.

The trouble is, there are only 24 hours in a day, I have to sleep sometime, and to make ends meet I’m afraid I’m looking at two possibilities: one is cutting back on the comic in order to scrounge enough work out in the world so that I can continue to eat and be sheltered,  or to see if ProtC can pull its weight so that there’s even the slightest possibility of it at least helping me to survive. Odd as it may seem, I dislike both options. The first, obviously, because this story is important to me, and I just want to tell it and to see it enjoyed. The second because it may seem odd, but no matter how I approach it (and I have before within my own head, hence the Store button at the top), I feel very strange at the idea of taking money from my readers, even if they offer it freely and get something in return. I know. I’m a crazy person.

Still, I think about you, all of you, and I don’t want to take the story away at all if there’s even a chance of keeping things running smoothly. It becomes pretty obvious which of the two options is preferable. So I pose the question:

If I were to offer merchandise, what would interest you? What can I do? Is there anything that comes to mind? T-shirts and art prints are my favorite ideas because I know how to make those happen, somewhat. Not entirely sure, as I’m rather new to this internet entrepreneur idea and it’s hard to know which manual out in the internet is the right one to turn to, but I have a few leads and ideas. I’ve done some research.

Also since I know that a rather large amount of interest in this story revolves around the art, I’m also considering doing small original sketches and drawings and selling those. I am nervous about handling shipping, but if it helps, right?

I’m really eager to hear what any of you have to say to this. Please, feel free to leave anything that might be useful in the comments. Ideas, thoughts, possibilities or even just encouragement. Anything and everything is welcome with attempting to figure out what comes next.