Raccoon Toons

I am not in town. And in case you missed it, I updated 5 days a week last month. That was pretty flippin’ awesome of me. I’m not in town this week to do a comic strip, so you get this: an informative list of things that maybe you didn’t know about Raccoon Toons.

1. This is the second time I have done a list of this sort. The first list of 29 interesting things was done last June and can be read here.

2. Raccoon Toons readers cover a large range of demographics, but the largest portion seem to be between the ages of 25-35. I find that interesting because I’m always trying hard to keep everything appropriate for all ages.

3. While we’re on the subject of readers, I’ve discovered that Raccoon Toons has 3 different groups of readers: Readers who come just for the comic strips, readers who come just for the blog writings, and readers who come for both. (The last group is my favorite. Shhhh….don’t tell the other groups. They’ll take it the wrong way.)

4. I have a constant battle with myself over how personal I want this website to become. I also have a constant battle with myself over how many Red Vines I can eat in one sitting, but that’s a different matter entirely.

5. As I’ve stated before, when comic strips update, they always update at 12:29am California time. It always makes me feel bad when I see people looking on the website for the new update at 12:26am, and I want to yell at them to wait just a few more minutes. I’m looking at you, Ohio.

6. Some of my readers are lazy. They only come to the site when the updates hit the Twitter or Facebook feeds, which I don’t usually update until at least 10:30am because that’s when those feeds are at their peak internet traffic. Want the updates immediately? Check the site at 12:29am, or subscribe to the emails or RSS feed.

7. I do have a Google+ account, that also publishes my comic strips. For those who are so inclined.

8. Speaking of social media, did you know you can also follow the site through Blogger? Yup. Just add the URL (http://www.raccoontoons.com/comics) to your Blogger feed or import it from Google Reader.

9. In the past year or so I redesigned the raccoons somewhat, trying hard to focus on the simple reoccurring shapes. The result was a younger, more vibrant set of characters, which I’m very happy with.

10. For the most part, I keep all my comic strips and storylines to myself before running them on the site. But I do have a couple of close confidants that I occasionally get feedback from before I run them.

11. Michael started wearing an orange shirt a while back because I felt the strip needed more color and contrast between characters. I felt orange fit his personality best.

12. I’m a pretty private person. As a result, the people who regularly read my work, probably know me best.

13. Nothing excites me more than when someone discovers I am the author of the comic strip and then they tell me how they’ve been reading my work. In a local town where my cartoons are printed in the paper, it happens every so often and that’s a thrill for me.

14. Each comic strip is drawn in blue pencil, then inked in black ink, then scanned, colored, and lettered in Photoshop. Someday when I have a few extra thousand dollars lying around, I’d love to skip the paper and scanning and use one of these bad boys.

15. One of the most challenging things I have to work with is the height difference between Matt and the raccoons.

16. I have stacks and stacks of the original comic strips inked onto bristol board paper, and I have no idea what to do with them, except stack them in my closet.

17. I used to never do color strips because they took too much time. Now I’ve gotten pretty fast at coloring and I won’t do strips without it because they look so much more alive.

18. “Useless Fruit Smashing Day” was created by my little brother, and is a day to remember my father and his life.

19. January has been selected a few times to update comics strips more than once a week, because I can typically draw a lot of them over the holiday vacations prior.

20. My roommates sometimes ask if anything they do will ever end up in a comic strip. I told them that it seems unlikely to happen until one of us moves out, at which point it becomes very likely.

21. Sometimes I think I can multitask and draw or ink cartoons while watching television. I can’t.

22. The past year or two I have been trying to further develop the characters and personalities of my cartoons more. I’m pleased with the progress that has been made. I am especially proud of the character Wendy has become. When I first started with her she really didn’t have much of a personality. Now she’s probably the strongest and most complex character of them all. I wonder if that is why my reader demographics as of late lean slightly more to females.

23. I find that I can often find traces of myself in any character that appears in my comic strip.

24. Matt is always reading a newspaper, even though no one reads newspapers anymore. It’s probably because he’s old, or maybe I’m just a little old fashioned that way.

25. I’m very pleased with how much the site has grown in number of readers. But sometimes I grow impatient and I wish it would grow faster. Grow faster dang-it!

26. It’s harder to come up with twenty-nine things than one would think.

27. Most of the random extra human characters that appear in various comic strips, are often based off of the physical appearances of people I actually know, although I rarely ever tell them of that fact.

28. San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson once appeared in one of my comic strips. I’m not going to link to it. You’ll just have to find him yourself. Pretend it’s a game of “Where’s Waldo?”

29. I’d do this anyway, even if no one was reading it. But it sure is nice to see the stats grow from the hundreds to the thousands and to read comments and get emails from people who do enjoy reading my work. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for reading me.