Something for Nothing

I imagine that if I were stranded on a desert island (with neither Ginger, MaryAnne nor Kate Austen) I would fashion something to write with and hunt up flat surfaces to write upon and conjure in my fevered brain the vision of someone someday somehow discovering what I wrote, which is to say that once the sickness of Must Write takes hold, most of us do it even without a discernable audience. After all, how many non-writers "write" for no audience now? No one reads your blog. "So what?" they mutter to themselves. "I'm not writing to be read." A delusion, of course, but no matter.

The point, if there must be one, is that anyone insane enough to bare innards thus does so because of some twisted exhibitionistic tendency. Nowhere is this more apparent than with genuine writers who call off asides to readers in near-desperate attempts to make sure that someone is listening. I dare say the writers I admire most do this from time to time. More's the pity.

The conclusion, if there must be one, is that I woke up this morning aware of my own need to peek beneath the curtain before it rises, to check Google analytics on occasion to see who is listening and on other occasions (this occasion, here, now) to make certain that my island has "others" on the southside of the lagoon.

So:

If you subscribe to this blog (free, just follow the instructions in the right-hand window) and stay here for 30 days or more, I will send you one of my comics for free, signed if you like. You just need to mail me a large enough SASE. That's the deal.

Something for nothing. Well, not exactly nothing--something for effort. The signed comic will be the one pictured, with a cover by Gray Morrow interior art by Dave Cockrum.