I started this site so that cartoonists and fans would have a place strictly dedicated to personal appearances. No interviews, no comic book reviews, no gossip, just "who is doing a book signing or a speaking engagement" along with ticket information and the address of the venue.
I know most people now just use facebook or twitter to let their followers know where they will be but I had hoped to provide a site that would bring fans into contact with cartoonists they might not already be following and increase audiences for everyone.
The other nice thing about this site is that announcements didn't fall down the timeline as quickly as they do on social networking sites.
But, in order for the site to work well, I needed folks to put me on their mailing list and send me their info, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack for me to gather a list of appearances all on my own.
Some people did, and I have to give a HUGE thank you to all my friends who publicized Spot The Cartoonist on their own blogs and websites. Unfortunately, I have no advertising budget - especially since I never charged cartoonists to be listed on the site - so I just don't have enough consistant exposure to keep the public aware of "Spot's" existence.
Also, since launching this site, I started the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning and am also working on developing a speaker's bureau for cartoonists and, frankly, those endeavors take a tremendous amount of time and energy and will probably yield better results as far as getting the public to be excited about meeting cartoonists.
So, the bottom line is that I am putting this site on hiatus and may suspend it permanently. For the time being I will leave it up as an archive and, if I start getting input from a lot of people that they want me to continue it, I will.
Thanks for visiting the site and be sure to check out the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning in September!!
ShareThis