The big day.

So, it’s the big day. The day America picks a new head of state and our little game and my little cartoon loose some of their value. Give those links one last poke for me:

The cartoon.
The game.

In other news, I have been doing a sculpt of Captain Capitalism. I would love to be able to one day make a series of Vinyl toys. Making a talking Captain Capitalism bank to sell in the comic shops and "hip" toy stores is kind of a geek dream for me. But I am admittedly not a great sculptor. If I ever wanted to really to do this, I think I would need to hire someone to do it. I have priced it out, but can’t really afford it. That being said, working with Sculpey is a blast. I find playing with this stuff just a lot of fun and oddly relaxing. Here are some photos:

One of the greatest things that happened with the cartoon was it getting put up on Daryl Cagle’s Editorial Cartoon website on MSNBC:

This was a real thrill. I am a fan of Mr. Cagle, both for his editorial cartoon and his efforts to keep alive what, unfortunately, appeared to be a dying artform. Newspapers are in trouble. The price of paper keeps going up. Circulations numbers keep dropping. The editorial cartoonist is equivalent of the polar bear in our ecosystem. Their disappearance happens first and is a harbinger of things to come. Editorial cartoons have shaped history. Is their anything more American than over simplying an issue into a panel andmaking fun of the most powerful among us in the form of a simple cartoon?

Daryl, through his syndication efforts, and his website has helped resuscitate and reinvigorate the art form by bringing it into the modern age.

In the same vein, I want to thank Mr. Tom Fulp for helping me get the cartoon up on Newgrounds and helping to sponsor it. I have only met Tom a couple of times, but he is a genuinely good guy. He is deeply involved with a still burgeoning online world of animated and interactive content and how to help grow. Newgrounds may seem like a crazy anarchist’s paradise where everybody craps all over everybody else’s work with bizarre reviews and a cruel voting system, and it absolutely is. I think he is making an army of tough young Flash artists who can take several hits to the chin. Tom loves Flash games and Flash content, and has done a lot more to bring some things forward in the medium than he gets credit for.

Want some numbers on views of the cartoon and game?

I am going by individual sessions/views not "hits" for you internet purists out there. As of Nov 4, 2008 around 7:00 am, this is what I know.

The cartoon got 64,832 views on Newgrounds, XXXXX on the MSNBC Editorial cartoons page, 1,500 on Captain Capitalism, 300+ on Youtube…for a total of roughly: 67,000 views. - I will edit this once I find out the MSNBC number.

The game got about 125,000 plays on Kongregate, about 20,000 plays on the Hothead site…for a total of roughly 140,000 plays.

And just to stay with the Captain Capitalism theme; did either of these shed any light on a way to generate money with creator-drive games or interactive Flash games? Well, no. Some money was made on both, but as far as profit that would pay for production is concerned, both were a lot of work and at the end of the day, money losers. Of course, that is not what it is always about. They both were a lot of fun to make. We tried some different things with spreading the game and I think we learned a lot.

Happy election, guys. Make some popcorn and kickback and enjoy the circus. I think I am going to watch thing using the picture-in-picture feature on my TV; one with Fox and one with MSNBC. I want to make sure I get to see Sean Hannity’s or Keith Olbermann’s heads explode.