I’ve been getting a lot of licensing queries recently. I thought maybe I should publish my general terms one more time. From April, 2006:
[Add the gapingvoid widget to your blog]
Like I’ve said many times before, I much prefer giving away my cartoons for free, rather than trying to sell them. It saves everybody a lot of hassle, myself included.
Which is why I’m now letting people download my stuff in high-resolution, print it out and stick it on their wall etc. Which is why I have a Creative Commons license.
Hey, if you want to put the work up on your website, blog, or stick it on paper, t-shirts, business cards, stickers, homemade greeting cards, Powerpoint slides, or whatever, as far as I’m concerned, as long as it’s just for your own personal use, as long as you’re not trying to make money off it directly, and you’re giving me due attribution, I’m totally cool with the idea.
[NB: If you see a gapingvoid cartoon that you like, and you fancy it as a piece of schwag, all you have to do is download the high-resolution image off this site, then upload it here onto Cafepress. I make no money at this, everything on Cafepress I sell at cost. Easy.]
So, if people aren’t paying me for my work, then how do I make a living? Good question.
Well, years of messing around in various enterprises have led me to the following conclusion: People don’t buy art. Not really. But they do buy wine.
Which is why I have a commercial interest in the Stormhoek winery. Basically, the more cases that sell, the bigger a car I get to drive. It’s that simple.
So to the kind folks who download and use my stuff, I say thank you very much, but if you want to support what I’m doing, please keep your money.
Instead, if you’re ever in wine-drinking mode, walking down a supermarket aisle, and you see a bottle of Stormhoek on the shelf, I hope you might consider giving it a try. No worries if you’d rather not, but I’d appreciate it if you did.
The other thing you can do to help the cause is add the gapingvoid widget to your blog, but again, no worries if you’d rather not etc.
I guess this all ties in with my “indirect marketing” schtick, of which I am a huge advocate.
Sounds like a plan?
[NB:] Stormhoek is now available in San Francisco and Silicon Valley at K&L Wine.
[BACKGROUND READING:] The “about gapingvoid” page. Also carries some of my favorite cartoons, and what inspired them etc.
