Ralf the Destroyer

I would like to thank Deb Wolfe for sending me this great fan strip of Ralf the Destroyer. Deb is a fan on Facebook and I had the pleasure of chatting with her there. She is also working on a strip of her own called “The Frenetic Adventures of Fred Barlowe” over at Comic Genesis. I think she did a great job and I do enjoy the gag having been a fan of all the Spielberg TV animation from the 90s.

Thanks Deb!

Hey Ralf the Destroyer Fans!

Are you or someone you know looking for a job? If so, read on!

For the last 19 months, we have been working with a publisher on an exciting project for comics fans everywhere called Funnies Extra, and it’s finally about to launch. Funnies Extra is a free, stand-alone, weekly humor newspaper that is printed in full-color with over 40 comic strips, 8 puzzles, a humor column and fun facts scattered through the publication.

The part we are most excited about (other than it includes Ralf the Destroyer) is that these will be ‘localized’ newspapers that will be available as License opportunities to the public, and they are letting us offer this to our fans before they make it available to the general public and to other weekly newspapers. Also, there is little to no start-up capital required. With the economy in the toilet and so many people unemployed or underemployed, we think this looks like a great way to help out some of our fans who are interested in starting their own business, and get the word out about Ralf the Destroyer at the same time.

Here are some of the details:

Most Funnies Extra editions will start out as 10,000 print-run, local, humor newspapers.

The local Funnies Extra owners will be responsible for selling ads to local businesses, etc. and they will also need to distribute the newspapers once per week. This will be your own business.

Funnies Extra will provide samples and a customizable media kit with advertising specs & guidelines as well as suggested rates.

The papers will be FREE, and distributed to coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, auto repair shops, oil change businesses, and anywhere else with a waiting room or where people generally have waiting time.

Ads will be sent to the Funnies Extra’s main office where they will be placed into ‘your’ template, which will then be sent directly to the printer.

Once printed, the completed papers will be shipped to the local owner for distribution.
Funnies Extra charges a flat rate (licensing fee) per 1000 copies to pay for the comics, puzzles and other content, as well as the template set up, etc.

The local owner runs their edition as a separate business. They will be responsible for billing & collecting from the advertisers. Information for doing this will be provided as well.

There is no real experience required to start your own Funnies Extra humor newspaper in your area. You just need to have the personality to be able to talk to business owners and get their permission to leave papers each week, as well as see if they are interested in advertising. Of course, previous advertising experience is helpful, but not necessary.

Areas where this would work well include tourist areas, college towns, beach towns, ski towns, small to mid-size cities and more. Larger cities can be split into sections such as downtown shopping districts, beach-front sections, college areas, etc.

Funnies Extra has set up great printing and shipping rates, but you are welcome to use whoever you want if you can find better prices on your own.

The most common question we get is: What costs will we have other than the license fee?

Answer: You would be responsible for the license fee, printing costs, shipping (to get the papers to you), a business license and gas.

We’ve looked over the numbers and it looks like it would be very worthwhile financially for anyone interested in doing this, as long as your area can support a print run of 10,000 papers. Best of all though, you can test it in your area by taking samples around to businesses to get their reactions first. If it doesn’t look like it will work for you, it doesn’t cost you anything. Bill Kellogg (Tundra Marketing Director) did this at a number of businesses in Lake Tahoe and Sacramento and the response was extremely positive.

Bill is actually helping Funnies Extra with starting new locations, so for more details, please e-mail him at bill@funnies-extra.com or you can call him between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm Pacific, Monday through Friday at 907-441-6882.

Bill is reserving territories now so contact him soon if you have questions. You don’t even have to commit yet. He will hold territories for anyone interested until you make your decision.

On a limited basis, Bill or one of the other Funnies Extra representatives will be available to fly out to help you get started too if you want. There would be a cost to this though, but at the moment they are only charging enough to cover their travel expenses. These include airfare, hotel, car rental, food, etc. Once again, contact Bill for more details.

Please go to www.funnies-extra.com and click on the icon on the right side of the page if you would like to see a sample of what it will look like.
With warmest wishes, Scott Lincoln

For all those German speaking readers out there (Germany ranks forth in visits according to Google Analytics) Ralf the Destroyer is being translated into your native tongue. So far the comic network site “Streifenhoernchen” is only in its Beta format and there are only a few “Ralf” strips up but the translator did a great job finding a font and justifying it to fit in the word balloons.

Ralf the Destroyer got a nice mention over at the Comic Booked website for their “Webcomics Wednesdays”. Ralf got a mention in the “aliens category and listed second behind “Zorphbert and Fred” by Dawn Griffin who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Wizard Philadelphia Comic Con this summer. Feel free to stop by the Comic Booked site and comment!

I’m sorry for there being a couple of missing updates this week. We finally moved into a new house and moving in reminded me why I hate moving. Besides the regular mess of moving and being completely exhausted, I don’t yet have my internet connection up yet. So I’m hoping I can get things straight by Monday. Thanks for your patience, Scott.

Just a quick note to readers: It was my intention to start updating Ralf the Destroyer this week but due to a pretty destructive storm here in Connecticut I have not had any electricity since Saturday night (six days). The power has now returned and new Ralf strips will again resume on the original “Monday, Wednesday, Friday” schedule.

Thanks for your patience and support.

Many of you have been very generous and I am quite thankful for all the readers out there who enjoy “Ralf the Destroyer”. I am especially glad when I am able to meet some of you at conventions and I always enjoy the heart and wit of the comments that appear on this site.

I have received some curiosity about the updates and the state of the website so I thought I’d let everyone know where I am and what my plans are. While I had hoped to be further along on certain “non-Ralf” projects, life has simply thrown me a few sneaky curve balls (such as suddenly having to move my family to a new home). This on top of a few rather large projects has seriously impaired my scheduling of Ralf strips.

I thought lowering Ralf to a once a week update would be easier to meet, but I have really had my hands full. Now what I know is this, before October is over one very large deadline (a 48 pg graphic novel for “Graphic Classics”) will be done and met. After that I am very confident that I will be back to scheduling Ralf to Monday-Wednesday-Friday.

As for the site, I am trying to obtain some professional help to create a child theme and update my ComicPress site. I know certain buttons have never worked quite right, so I’m hoping I can fix some things with a newer version of ComicPress or possibly Easel. I am also looking into adding an “Extra Content” portion of the site which would showcase a full color long form comic which would update weekly and would reveal much more of the mythology and dig into Ralf’s past.

Last but not least, I will also be setting up some appointments to meet with comics editors to see if self syndication will be an avenue worth pursuing. What all of this means is I am ramping up for what I hope will be a big year (2012) for Ralf the Destroyer… but it has nothing to do with the Mayan Calender.

Please let me know what your thoughts are, I would love some feed back from you the readers.

Scott Lincoln