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I found it interesting for a few reasons

- makes money on merchandising rather than ads

- generates a lot of traffic (80 million pages views/mo)

- he thinks only a couple of dozen web comic authors actually make a living off of it.

- believes this sort of niche comic is only successful because of the internet. in that he never could have gotten published traditionally. (that being said "tech/geek" isn't really a small niche for internet audiences)




What irks me: he's supposedly doing xkcd full time now, and he can't manage five comics a week instead of only three? I mean, it's not like they take a long time to draw.


This reminds me of a letter-to-the-editor I saw in a computer magazine years ago, asking why computer books cost so much when the materials that go into them only cost a couple dollars.

In the case of XKCD, the limiting factor is not how fast he can do the artwork but how frequently he has good ideas. That frequency may not increase with free time... In fact, it may even decrease, since he might have less experiences from which to draw inspiration.


>He said they sell thousands of T-shirts a month

Not bad at all...




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