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Hello Everybody,

I started my PERSONAL Facebook account in 2009 as a way to promote The Apple Tower (www.appletower.com), my comic strip ode to hometowns. My personal "Brian Barnett" account currently boasts 1,136 'friends' - something I'm really happy about. And although that number may seem large, it really is not when you consider that I am trying to promote my life's work to the whole world.

The problem is that somewhere along the way, that particular Facebook account has evolved more into a personal site, and less one that revolves around my beloved comic strip. There are videos of myself playing the guitar and singing, pictures, quotes, etc. that have nothing to do with my comic strip. All this stuff has become a distraction from what I set out to do. 

My goal has always been for The Apple Tower - and specifically Norman the zebra - to become household names, among the likes of Snoopy, Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes. 

Let me point out that The Apple Tower currently has a Facebook FAN SITE, separate from my personal account. It is here: http://www.facebook.com/theappletowercartoon. 

I have done the math, and the majority of followers of the Facebook FAN SITE are not the same people from my PERSONAL "Brian Barnett" friend list. That said, I would encourage all of you who want to support The Apple Tower to immediately run over to the Facebook FAN SITE for The Apple Tower (http://www.facebook.com/theappletowercartoon) and press "Like".

The Apple Tower Facebook Fan Site currently boasts 1,329 followers. Again, that number is thousands under what I had hoped it would be after three years. If the majority of readers of The Apple Tower, who are also Facebook users, were to join The Apple Tower Facebook Fan Site, the number of Fans, or 'likes' could easily climb into the high thousands. 

As a comic strip, The Apple Tower's livelihood depends on its number of fans. I desperately want to see it in book form within the next five years, but for that to happen, it has to gain thousands of more followers. A publisher can't deny the popularity of a work that has thousands, or even millions of followers every day or week. We're getting there! But we're still tens of thousands of readers shy from being able to claim real success. 

It's frustrating for me to see the popularity of muck on the web soar, muck that requires no skill, thoughtfulness or hard work to produce. Just a video camera, point and shoot. Or a stick figure killing other stick figures. Meanwhile, a quality production like The Apple Tower, single, daily comic strip requires 5-6 hours to produce (writing, pencilling and the inking). My Sunday strips require much more work - an average of 10 hours, because of the size of the original work and added color! 

I believe in the potential of The Apple Tower so much, and see no reason why the crap that is being printed in syndicated newspapers should have a wider reader base. I have also considered the quality of many 'web comics' and find them horribly lacking, with the exception of a few, such as R.C. Monroe's 'Out There' (http://outthere.keenspot.com/).

 

I work very hard on providing a profound, quality strip with real characters who are hard not to love. I hope you will agree with me that The Apple Tower is far from being the cookie-cutter, brainless, commercial Bazooka Joe-type comic strips being printed in your local paper and forced upon you by newspaper syndicates. Please support my efforts and help The Apple Tower gain the readership it is worthy of. Send a message that you value quality over brainless nonsense. 

As a second announcement, I'm proud to inform you that The Apple Tower returns to its full-time daily, online publishing schedule starting this Sunday, February 5, 2012. As long as I see the support and number of readers continually rise, this will continue indefinitely. I know you've seen false starts from me before, but really, due to the effort (and lack of sleep) I devote to the strip, I need to see consistent readership growth to be able to keep in step. Your readership fuels my creativity, enthusiasm and energy to keep producing on such a stringent schedule. 

Another exciting development is that, until recently, somebody in Russia owned the address "appletower.com". To visit The Apple Tower, you had to include "the" in the address, such as "www.theappletower.com". Well, not anymore - appletower.com now belongs to us, the people! Or, me, rather... which means you no longer have to type in that pesky "the" to reach the site. 

This message will remain on my personal Facebook account for two weeks from today. After that, I will be shutting my personal Facebook account down. I hope to see all of you primarily here, on The Apple Tower's official website (www.appletower.com), and secondarily on The Apple Tower's official Facebook Fan Site, where I will continue posting all things Brian Barnett & Apple Tower related. 

Sincerely,

Brian Barnett

www.appletower.com
brianbarnett@theappletower.com

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Many readers have already noticed that there are a lot of cool, new offerings in The Apple Tower Store ("Shopping" tab above). We're all excited about it, given the fact that it marks the first major upgrade to the merchandise offerings since The Apple Tower premiered in November 23, 2009!

 

Brian Barnett alone designs all of the merchandise artwork, as well as personally writes, draws and colors everything related to The Apple Tower comic strips. In order to make the new merchandise available, he had to take a short break from drawing the daily comics. Now, the merchandise is in place, and he's ready to get back to what really matters - the regularity of the strips themselves!

 

Stay tuned!  

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Very cool happenings this weekend, as I had the privilege of meeting Caitlin O'Keefe, daughter of artist David O'Keefe. I have admired David's work for some time, and so it was a real pleasure for me to get to talk to his daughter. 

Here is a link to Mr. O'Keefe's site. Also, why not become a fan of his on Facebook. 

http://www.davidokeefe.com/default.aspx

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His name is Gregory Haynes. If you would like to contact him for any reason whatsoever, please email him at gregory.haynes@verizon.net.

 

Without Greg, Brian Barnett's vision for this site would still be on paper. Clearly, Gregory Haynes is skilled at his job - theappletower.com is evidence of that. But even more than that, he's enthusiastic about his work, and that is really what makes him stand out.

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This Week News (thisweeknews.com) in Columbus, Ohio, published a story about The Apple Tower by Brian Barnett. Jan. 14, 2010. Read it here: 

 

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/grandview/news/2010/01/13/0114gvcomic-strip_ln.html

 

 

The Jackson County Times-Journal ran a front page feature article about The Apple Tower by Brian Barnett in their Sunday, December 20, 2009 issue.

 

The Telegram, serving Jackson and Vinton Counties, also ran a front page feature article about The Apple Tower by Brian Barnett in the Saturday, December 19, 2009 issue of the paper.

 

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Search for The Apple Tower within Facebook and become a fan! 

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It seems an oversimplification to say that today marks the official launch of The Apple Tower - a comic strip website. I have always considered The Apple Tower to be more than just a cartoon. Rather, it is a large-scale graphic work – and this website is your portal into its world. As the creator of this new world, my aim has been to make everything just right for you, the visitor. I hope you will let me know as to whether or not I’ve succeeded.

The Publishing Schedule
The publishing schedule for The Apple Tower – that is to say, the frequency with which new strips will appear is as follows: Every day.

The exception to this is the weekend. You can instead expect a great big, full-color, “Sunday” strip. It will appear Saturday and run through the whole weekend. As a special treat, I will at times run the rough penciled version of the Sunday strip on one of the two weekend days.

Gregory Haynes (gregory.haynes@verizon.net)
Let me take a moment to mention my friend, Gregory Haynes, the man behind the workings of the site itself. I am a perfectionist, and I made this aspect of my personality painfully evident over the last several months. Almost daily, I bombarded Greg with a steady and endless stream of miniscule change requests in my attempt to achieve perfection with the site. Greg not only endured it all with graciousness, but with enthusiasm.

I especially owe Greg a lot of gratitude for those aspects of the site which were his ideas alone. I’m talking about all of the really cool features here at theappletower.com that contribute immensely to the overall experience. Features that I would never have thought of by myself. Although the basic design of The Apple Tower site itself is mine, there are a great many elements that Greg can take full credit for. Much of this involves features and programming, but it certainly doesn’t end there. He’s responsible also for some of the color choices, layouts, etc.

When I started this project, Greg and I had never heard of each other. I had a sketch of my imagined site design on a scrap of paper. All I needed was somebody with the ability to make it into a reality.

I was given Greg’s name by a friend, and he’s turned out to be exactly the kind of guy I was hoping for. Working with Greg reminds me of Shawn Langley, an art buddy from back home. They’re both the sorts of people who are rare pleasures to collaborate with because of the enthusiasm they exude. The time involved with this project has sometimes been maddening, but I can say that working with Greg has made the whole development process a lot of fun. As I advance to what is now the upkeep stage of this project, I’m going to miss the journey that brought us here. Even so, Greg and I will keep in close contact, and I’m sure our work together isn’t finished.

The Store and Merchandise
I really went back and forth with the idea of including a store at theappletower.com. A part of me greatly admires cartoonists who believe in never merchandising their characters for any reason whatsoever. And yet, there’s this other part of me that yearns to see posters, T-shirts and mugs featuring my characters.

My reasons for wanting an online store have never been about money. In fact, my concern has always been that people might actually buy The Apple Tower merchandise, which would then keep me so tied up with managing the store, that my real purpose for the site, the creative aspect, would be defeated.

Nevertheless, after doing some research, I discovered various services that allow me to offer merchandise without cutting into my drawing and writing time. My best guess is that fans of the strip would appreciate a T-shirt or a bumper sticker every now and then. (After all, if I go to Disney World, I expect to walk away with a Mickey Mouse cap, don’t you?) The Apple Tower merchandise is meant to fuel enthusiasm for the strip, the characters, and the site itself. Plus, if you walk down the street wearing an Apple Tower T-shirt, it’s good publicity and we all win.

So it is with this consideration for fans of The Apple Tower, and consideration for the strip itself, that I have included a store full of character-related merchandise. Rest assured, sales from this store aren’t going to make me rich. Furthermore, I am only making available that merchandise which I myself, as the true, Number #1 fan of The Apple Tower, have desired for my own collection.

I will admit that some of the items in the store may seem outrageously priced, but it is the nature of the beast. I can offer the merchandise, but my control over the pricing is limited. I will say that my concern for quality always overides my concern for cost – so I scrutinized each available service very closely before settling on the current merchandise provider.

The Bulletin Board
The page you are currently on is the official source of all up-to-date notifications related to The Apple Tower. Publication news, merchandise news, awards, honors, appearances by the creator of the strip, delays, publishing schedule changes, etc. will all be communicated to fans of the site by means of this page. Check back in periodically so that everybody stays in the loop.

 

We have a long road ahead of us! A nice long, imaginative, colorful and fun road. I hope you stick around for the whole ride.

 

Brian Barnett

The Apple Tower
November 23, 2009