If you’re a regular reader of this comic, you’ll probably have noticed a few things being off over the last two weeks; I’ve not been keeping to the update schedule lately, the logo has been changed and there have been mysterious whispers about trademark infringement in the air. Well; I finally managed to make a little order in the chaos, so let me now tell you the full story as its consequences are going to lead to a few new things for the comic.
An ominous message
It all started two weeks ago when I found an ominous note in my mail inbox; I apparently had been infringing on a certain company’s trademark (not going to name any names). They also told me I had ten days to comply or they would not hesitate to take legal action. In the period that followed, I gave myself a crash course in trademark law, found out that hiring a lawyer is not an option and spent a great deal of time coming up with new names for the comic. Now, it was clear that I had two options; surrender and change the name of the comic, or challenge their trademark claim. The time consumed by investigating the viability of both options is what caused me to miss many updates.
The solution; changes!
As the ten days they gave me to comply slowly passed, I mainly tried to come up with a new name for the comic. Some people have accused me of giving in too easily to a little intimidation, but in the end I just didn’t want any legal trouble and maybe even more importantly; I wanted to avoid any such things in the future and find a name that I could safely use as a trademark myself. After failing to come up with a new name for almost two weeks, the idea to just reverse the words and call it a day finally dawned on me.
So, long story short; this comic’s getting a new name, and it’s Scientific Madness.
In the next few weeks I’ll be gradually adapting everything on the site to the new name, ending with the domain name. Note that there might still be some references to the old name hidden somewhere in old news posts, but I’ll try to get everything renamed soon. I apologize for the inconvenience, but let’s not see this as a problem; let’s see it as a new start for Scientific Madness!
As you’ve all probably heard by now, 2009 is no more and we’ve entered a new year (a new decade even). I’m sure the question on all our minds is; what does this new year have in store for this comic?
Most importantly, I’m looking forward to publishing my first book (according to my current planning I’ll be able to put it together at the end of this month). Secondly, I’m going to once again try to stick to my ‘twice-a-week’ update schedule. I’ve been missing a few updates lately and I’m just as bugged out by that fact as you are.
So, to keep this post short; there’s enough to look forward to and Scientific Madness is not going away for 2010, and I hope you all keep reading and enjoying the comic in the new decade!
Now that I’ve been updating my Mad Science Comic online for over one and a half year, the next step seems pretty obvious; publishing a book. As I quickly found out, there was a lot more work involved in this than I imagined; from laying out the pages to finding a printer, when you’re doing something like this for the first time, everything is new and mistakes are easily made. So, I decided that before I was going to print a large number of books, I needed to do a test – a prototype, to see if I could achieve the quality I wanted to.
To make a long story short; yesterday the first print of this prototype arrived in the mail, and… it’s awesome. So, the decision to go ahead with making a proper book and making it available for you was an easy one; over the course of the next few months I’ll have amassed enough strips to fill the amount of pages I need, and hopefully somewhere in the beginning of next year you’ll be able to buy and own the first book collection of this comic.
Followers of my Twitter feed already knew that the comic wasn’t going to be on time today, but due to the headache I’ve been having after work I can’t really focus on getting the comic done on time, so I’m going to have to bring even worse news; I’m skipping today’s update. But do not despair; there’s a bright side to everything; I’ll be getting a head start on this friday’s comic so you can be sure that there’ll be an update then.
With today’s strip, the the longest storyline I’ve done for Mad Science so far comes to an end. Where normally my story arcs were 8 to 12 strips long on average, this one has been going for a whopping 39 installments. This brings me to a point that has been kind of bugging me since halfway through this story, and I’m looking for your feedback on the matter; was this storyline too long?
Don’t get me wrong; the 2012 storyline is my personal favourite so far. I’ve really enjoyed both writing and drawing it and I think especially the artwork improved a lot over the course of this one, but with only two updates a week, I think the story lines can sometimes feel a little drawn out when you’re following them. I mean, this one started in April and only came to a conclusion in October – it lasted almost half a year!
I guess that I already came to the conclusion myself that shorter story arcs (I’m thinking that 8 to 12 comics is ideal) work better with my update schedule, but I’m very interested to hear if you agree with me.
