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On the Comics Curmudgeon’s 8th blogiversary, I have a couple of quick notes on my planned novel. First, THANK YOU! My Kickstarter reached its goal in the first 24 hours it was up, and has already raised much more money than any fundraiser I’ve ever done. The book will still be better — better edited, better designed, and better written — if I get more pre-orders, and you get a more physically pleasing version of the book if you pre-order, so please do check it out.

Second, you might note that some of the high-end rewards I’ve offered involve me travelling to your home town to participate in a book party. These look pricey, but aren’t so much if you split the costs among many party guests! If you’re interested in hosting, email me and tell me where you live, and I’ll try to connect you with others nearby.

Blondie, 7/11/12

Mr. Dithers is violating any number of employee protection laws, but it’s almost certainly worth it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/12

Sorry, Rex, Iris hasn’t understood a word you said since she heard the telltale sound of a corkscrew opening, because she’s been so very focused on staring intently at the delicious, delicious wine.

Luann, 7/11/12

When Luann’s mom was a teen, “heavy face time” was the name for a deadly plague that caused people’s faces to fill with pus and swell up painfully, so you can understand why she looks so upset.

Beetle Bailey, 7/11/12

I feel bad for constantly making fun of General Halftrack’s alcoholism and erratic behavior now that I know that he suffers from terrible PTSD.

Family Circus, 7/11/12

Sam the dog looks beseechingly at the sky, wondering why the ancient Thunder God gave Jeffy enough warning to successfully escape the terrible electric death prepared for him.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/11/12

Herb’s attempts to live out his philosophy of non-violence as a youth failed to make him a better person, and instead have left him a bitter, frustrated adult, consumed by thoughts of revenge.

Six Chix, 7/11/12

This nice scientist has grown a baby in a lab, raising any number of disturbing ethical questions.

Marmaduke, 7/11/12

Someone gave Marmaduke a bag of corn chips.

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Click the banner to help sponsor Josh’s novel and to reserve your copy! Details here.

If you’ve always loved my blog, but want it in novel form, and also (mostly) not making fun of comics but rather with a plot, then please consider sponsoring my novel!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/10/12

I’m putting both yesterday and today’s Snuffy Smith up there to demonstrate that they’re both basically the same joke, which … I’m OK with? There’s something charmingly vaudevillian about having Parson Tuttle continuously lob the same opening to Lureen and seeing her bat “I’m so lonely and desp’rate!” punchlines back to him. Maybe they’ll keep it up all week! Or maybe tomorrow the Parson will stop hinting and just come out and say that he wants her to recruit men for the choir by going out and having sex with them.

Apartment 3-G, 7/10/12

Haha, will I ever get tired of Nina suffering and turning her physical pain and rage on anyone who gets too close? No, the answer is no. “You’d better be telling the truth! I know medical professionals lie to patients constantly. I know you’re a dirty liar! If you make me get into this awkward position and it doesn’t help, I will destroy you, Tommie, do you hear? I have connections! I’ll get your apartment building condemned and your nursing license taken away and have everyone in your family killed! Then I’ll strangle you, but I wanted to do that other stuff first to show that I’m in earnest here. And I’ll do it all using the rage-strength I gain during a single contraction!”

Funky Winkerbean, 7/10/12

Is Funky Winkerbean really going to make us worry about whether this kitten dies on the way up, or possibly down, Kilimanjaro? All signs point to yes! To be fair, the readership is wholly indifferent about the death of any the human characters, so dramatic tension has to be maintained somehow.

Crock, 7/10/12

So wait, Crock‘s done now, right? These are repeats? Enh, whatever, it keeps showing up in my online comics page, so I guess if I can rag on Archie reruns from the 1990s I can make fun of this. Anyway, today’s strip is about Trooper Benson, who was hit by artillery shells during combat and died screaming in agony.

Ziggy, 7/10/12

Despite all of the foregoing, nothing in today’s comics has discombobulated me more than discovering that Ziggy’s cat is a lady.

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This post is going to be a little on the long side, so I’m going to start up front with the short version: Hey, remember when I told you all that I quit my job and hinted vaguely at several “projects” I had in the works? Well, here’s the first big one: I’m writing a novel called The Enthusiast, and I need your help to make it happen. It’s about marketing and trains and capitalism and soap opera comic strips, and there will be a love triangle! You can read the rough cut of the first chapter to get a sense of it. And the way you can help make it happen — as well as make sure that you’re one of the first to get the book when it’s published — is to support my Kickstarter campaign.

If you’re unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it works like this: Someone who needs money to complete a project asks for sponsorship, and offers rewards in return. They set a minimum level of cash they’d need to make the project happen; if they don’t meet that goal, they get no money, and sponsors’ credit cards are never charged. If they meet or surpass the goal, they get the money and use it to bring the project to reality.

In my case, the project is the book, and the rewards you can get are, for the most part, copies of the book when it’s done. Depending on your level of support, you can get an e-book, a paperback, a hardcover book (only Kickstarter supporters will be able to get hardcover books), a signed hardcover book, or a bunch of books that I will fly to your home and hand-deliver and then read aloud to you and your friends. (Really!)

I’m self-publishing, because I feel like I have a strong personal relationship with you guys that doesn’t necessarily map onto how traditional publishers think about a first-time author; so, I’ll be using the money I’m raising to print the books, and to pay for editorial and design help. (I’ve already got an editor lined up: National Magazine Award winner Emily Gordon.) I’ll also be using the money to live on while I write the book: as the following video explains, there’s nothing that’ll kill a writer’s focus like the Internet, and since all my freelance gigs involve being on the Internet, the more sponsors I get, the longer I can turn the Internet off and write. (Don’t worry, I will never abandon my faithful Comics Curmudgeon readers; it’s the other, more boring stuff I’m talking about here.)

You may have noticed that it’s been an unusually long time — almost 10 months — since Uncle Lumpy last ran one of our occasional fundraisers here; that’s because I’ve been planning this for a while. So if you normally contribute to one of the semi-annual fundraisers, I would humbly request that you treat this Kickstarter as a pledge drive, and contribute to it what you normally would — and hey, this time you actually get some creative work out of me for it! You can contribute any amount of money that strikes your fancy, and in return you’ll receive any reward you want at or below the contribution level that you chose. (If for some reason you want to give me money but the thought of receiving a book from me disgusts you, you can opt to receive no reward as well.)

That’s about it! The Kickstarter will be open for contributions for three weeks, and believe me, I’ll be reminding you of it fairly regularly. And if I meet my goal early in the process, I have some ideas for stretch goals — ways I could make the book even better with extra funding. Stay tuned! And feel free to e-mail me at bio@jfruh.com for more details or if you have questions on how Kickstarter works.