If I was going to print up (and hopefully sell) a batch of t-shirts as a little fundraising effort, what would you guys want on them?

Keep in mind that more colours cost more money and that I don't own the rights to most of the characters on here, so I'm not really allowed to sell their likenesses. The threereasons category is all clip art, so that stuff's fine. I think DexX has previously consented to allow his art, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

I was trying to think of something clever and neat, but I haven't had much luck.

I'd buy them like soiled cheerleader panties.

I mean, I'd buy them.

I would happily wear a "Wirthling Sucks" t-shirt, with his floating head in the centre.

....hmmmm....sounds like a Photoshop contest to me...

The obvious design is white shirt, asiangirls 1 and 2 and no text whatsoever on the front. stripcreator url on back.

The second most obvious design is Cowboy Physics panel 1 on the front, panel 3 on the back.

I would buy it and love it to pieces.

By the way, I've got money again, and was planning on donating in the next two weeks.

My first choice would be this guy with no caption or dialogue.

My second choice: "RAAAAR!!! TOBOR WILL CORNHOLE YOU!"

I also like kaufman's front and back idea, especially for the Cowboy Physics comic.

Another option is to have a person pick a comic they'd like on a shirt and print it up for them individually. (Say their favorite comic they've done, or someone else's comic they love.) This would be more work for you, but you could charge accordingly.

How about offering hats too. I don't wear T-shirts too often, but I wear a hat every damn day. Plus, a hat you can get one size fits all. You'd have to go to a big and tall shop to find a shirt that would fit my 300-pound frame.

I'm too poor to buy any of these till I get a job though. But, hell, you put the scientist on a black hat, I'll put down the nachos and go get one.

I'll get one, me birthday's soon, that'll do.

The URL on the top of the back neck in nice black would be cool, if you made a proper logo or something...

Using "Cowboy Physics" brings up the interesting question of who owns the strips on this page? I have to assume it's Brad, and not the individual users. Or do we actually own the rights to our comics? Or is it just a gray area?

I've been kicking this idea around for a few days, and I'm not sure I much like posting it without clearing the ownership up, but I'm going to, anyway, because I'm an idiot...

It seems like there's plenty of talent on this site just among the forum users, not to mention others of that bent. It also seems like a lot of the jokes here are much funnier than the syndicated comics, even though syndicated strippers earn enough money from their chosen career to make a living...

So what I'm saying is, why not syndicate and have published a comic strip based on comics on this site? If my comics were used, I'd of course want some sort of per-comic commission, but I wouldn't want all the proceeds, and Brad (or, more appropriately) "Stripcreator.com" could keep the rest.

No rights to characters? No problem. Someone could just draw some of our own characters to replace the non-owned characters in each instance. How hard would it be to draw a non-similar character, for example, in each of Jon's 5 poses?

Seems like among all the talent we have here, we could MORE than come up with at least one comic each day to syndicate, which is all we need. Even if we leave out the in-jokes.

It seems that would more than provide a revenue base to keep this site going, as well as giving us comedically talented people financial incentive to make comics! Hear that? No more feeling guilty about wasting time on stripcreator! You'd actually be MAKING MONEY!!!

Sound silly? Give me some reasons it wouldn't work; I can't think of any.

Well, getting syndicated is rather difficult. Have a look at some of the Goats rejection letters here.

As far as I'm aware, no web comic has made the jump to syndication. Making money off of web comics generally comes from merchandise and occasionally advertising.

Some simple shirt would be excellent. I had the idea of setting up some sort of "buy your comic on a shirt" button, but getting it to look good might be a bit rough. I'm going to send off a letter to the t-shirt place I'm considering and see what he's up for.

Well, maybe Goats is having trouble, but you've also got to consider that Goats isn't funny on a regular basis.

Stop being so negative! Don't look at Jonathan Rosenberg, look at Max Cannon.

Anyway, I've presented the syndication idea to you. If you want to run with it, you should. It could only cost you some time and maybe a few stamps. And when you consider how many tee-shirts you have to sell to make a profit, and then consider how many regulars you have who would actually buy one (I estimate 20 max... especially if you incorporate in-jokes like Tobor), you'll see the tee-shirt idea is probably going to lose money.

(Not to get off the subject, but I will contribute money when I am once again gainfully employed.)

It just seems a more stable business model to me to use the resources you have -- a potentially inexhaustable supply of comic talent -- rather than resort to bake-sale type tactics.

The idea gets yummier the more I think about it. Because of the multiple contributors, as a syndicated strip we could avoid the pitfalls of once good strips like Dilbert and Garfield that have a good run of it and then run out of ideas, get old, and continue a pitiful existence on momenum alone. (Not that that's a bad financial model, mind you...)

I suppose I should shut up and let this thread continue to talk about what should be on the shirt. BUT let it be known that I personally would like to see this site become a viable, sustainable, money-generating machine on its own merits.

To do that it's best to use what you've already got, rather then try to make up something else! You'll never know 'til you try.

Although, actually "buy your comic on a shirt" isn't a bad idea. But my experience with having shirts made is that unless it happens by pure luck to be a black-and-white comic, that's going to cost major $$$ even before mark-up. 8)

Actually, I take that back about Goats not being funny. It's recent strips have been pretty good.

It also has an extensive store from which it sells merchandise even without being syndicated.

There are other aspects of my idea I could go into, but not unless someone else thinks this is a good idea. Feel free to contact me on AIM (Scyess), MSN (scyess@hotmail.com), or Yahoo! (scyess@yahoo.com) if anyone wants to discuss it further.

I'll just shut up now. 8)

We had this conversation a couple of months ago. About printing an SC book, like an Annual or something. I personally think THAT would be a good idea, a book chocked full of all the best comics and series. Pages with the best competitions and their best entries. Individual pages about the authors involved, about SC's history etc etc. There are companies who deal with this kind of thing, promoting it and stuff.

But I remember the conversation last time, about wether or not individual comics were the property of the author, and, in fact, they aren't.

Plus there's the problem of the art and the amount of money it would cost and if it would be shared (I personally would rather it just went into the general running costs of SC, but I dare say if it was a HUGE success, I'd get the feeling that I was somehow missing out (assuming any of my comics made the final copy)).

If I'm wrong about the comics not being the author's property, then I'm sure anyone who made a comic that was in the book would probably have to sign something or at least legally agree, plus there might be people that you could never track down and then it would keep getting pushed back and we'd all get a little cranky and then Boorite would cry and I'd be the one stuck with him in the bedroom holding him while all you bastards are in the kitchen hitting bongs and laughing at Andy's party tricks.

Wait...something went wrong with my train of thought there.

Coincidentally, a friend of mine suggested that I put some of the stuff I've been doing in the Photoshop contests on t-shirts via Cafe Press.

The other thing is that books and syndication and all those sorts of things are very large, ambitious projects with questionable returns. T-shirts seem like a much simpler route.

I'm not really expecting to get rich off of Stripcreator. It would be nice, but I don't see it happening. I'm happy if it pays for itself.

I'm thinking that if I/someone can come up with a neat Stripcreator design, I'd at least throw a Cafepress page up. That stuff's more expensive than if I go with the place I was thinking of, but it's also a lot less work and you can get frisbees and hats and stuff like that. There's a surprising number of people who don't actually want t-shirts, which shocks and frightens me.

I'd buy a shirt but I have no money at all.

I would love to be able to give you money Brad, I would prefer my dad to give you the same amount of money ;-). A T-Shirt does this, as long as you get the prices right so you gain a profit. How about "I went to stripcreator.com and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

I think what we've said about intellectual property every other time the topic has come up is basically that if we want to reprint a comic, we have to get the permission of everyone who contributed art or text. Even if it's not the law, which it probably is, it's at least the polite thing to do.

I would probably not buy SC clothing, although if it were kaufman's Cowboy Physics shirt, I could be convinced. I would be more likely to buy other paraphernalia like mugs or, better yet, stickers.

I would prefer that SC merchandise feature full comics, if possible, rather than just characters or a slogan (especially since the slogan would be one we just made up so we could put it on merchandise).

Whatever I do or don't buy, I'll continue to donate.

The idea of syndication raises the question of what periodical would dare risk offending a large portion of its readership by printing the sort of comics most of us write. The other obvious question it raises is, as Scyess originally pointed out, that of copyright.

Of course, there's nothing to stop a group of creative people from banding together, creating their own comic strip, and trying to sell it to an appropriate publisher. But I don't see any way that syndicating Stripcreator content could work.

On the other hand, selling t-shirts is not only not certain to lose money, it's practically guaranteed to make at least a small profit if you do it the way Cafe Press does. You simply figure out how much it'll cost you to make one shirt, then you charge more than that amount for each shirt sold, and you don't manufacture anything that you don't already have an order placed for.

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kaufman's Cowboy Physics

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I agree with Obi. Also with Kaufman's idea of the Asian girls, blank with no captions. I think it should be kinda generic, with the url on back in large print. You want to attract people to the site, and it's all about creating your own, so I wouldn't put any inside jokes on the shirt. If you put comics like Tobor cornholing you and Cowboy Physics, no one but us will get the meaning.

You could have the scientist inviting people to come to SC.com to experiment.

I also agree that you'd have to have plus sizes, I'd certainly buy them if they fit me!

Most of my thoughts are in the new forum topic I just created, "Let's Make Brad Some Money" (or something like that).

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On the other hand, selling t-shirts is not only not certain to lose money, it's practically guaranteed to make at least a small profit if you do it the way Cafe Press does. You simply figure out how much it'll cost you to make one shirt, then you charge more than that amount for each shirt sold, and you don't manufacture anything that you don't already have an order placed for.

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I like _d's suggestion of stickers too. I have a bunch of that ugly almond color still showing on my monitor.

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The idea of syndication raises the question of what periodical would dare risk offending a large portion of its readership by printing the sort of comics most of us write.

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On a practical level, just mixing otherwise human goats and chickens with humans is confusing. Your chances of reaching a mass newspaper audience will be greater if your cast is all human.

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Not necessarily. Most of the print shops I talk to scoff at printing only a few shirts at a time; printing, say, a single shirt can cost upwards of $25. Who's going to pay that for a tee shirt? You'd have to print by the hundreds to sell them at, say, $12 (not including shipping & handling) and still make a profit after taxes.

Still, I'm sure you can probably work out SOME deal with the printing place if you guarentee future orders, or whatnot. But tee-shirts are far from guarenteed; you could end up $600 in the hole with nothing but boxes full of unsold shirts to keep you company.

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printing, say, a single shirt can cost upwards of $25. Who's going to pay that for a tee shirt? You'd have to print by the hundreds to sell them at, say, $12 (not including shipping & handling) and still make a profit after taxes.

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I'll sum up the Goats rejection letters for those of you who don't have the time:

"Dumb it down, fucknut!"

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I've also copyrighted "wirthling", "pita", "RAAAAAR!!!", and the word "the". You've been forewarned.

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You can...copyright ME!!!

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I copyrighted "1" and "0".

I ownz all info.

I copyrighted kicking your ass.

By the time your foot reaches my buttock you'll be so deep in legal suits over abuse of my binary system that by the time you get out of it you'll be able to go back in time and fufill your wish of never doing that.

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I copyrighted "1" and "0".

I ownz all info.

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As long as your computer doesn't represent information with binary-

HEY wait, that's not fair!

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By the time your foot reaches my buttock you'll be so deep in legal suits over abuse of my binary system that by the time you get out of it you'll be able to go back in time and fufill your wish of never doing that.

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I'm going to edge my lawn with your face.

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I'm going to edge my lawn with your face.

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Who, me?

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Yeah, but he'd use your ass as a grass bag!