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The Apple Tower will temporarily feature a Sunday strip-only publishing schedule. This means that only one, full-color strip will go up per week, with one of the days reserved for the sketch copy of the same comic. Other professional cartoonists who have gone to a Sunday-only publishing schedule have been Bill Watterson with Calvin & Hobbes, and most recently Berkley Breathed with Opus.

 

I love creating the Sunday strips, and consider them the real treat of reading The Apple Tower on a regular basis. 

 

Writing and drawing The Apple Tower is not my only full-time job. During my days, I work as a professional medical Spanish interpreter. The daily publishing schedule had me working in my art studio every night until 3:00 am, and up again at 7:00am. That I have maintained this schedule for as long as I have, despite working the equivalent of two full-time jobs, is an obvious demonstration of my appreciation for the fans of the strip, and for my love of comic strips in general.

 

This love hasn't diminished any. On the contrary, it continues to grow! I'm simply not willing to see the quality of the strip suffer just to maintain the 6-day schedule. I hope you, the reader, will appreciate the difficulty I had coming to this decision. 

 

Many syndicated newspaper cartoonists have complained of the rigorous demands of their work, Bill Watterson is quoted as saying that Calvin & Hobbes was "all consuming". Imagine! His whole day was reserved for work on his comic strip, whereas for the past 10 months, my time has been divided between the expression of my passion and the necessity of my income!

 

I have proven without a doubt that I am easily capable of keeping up with the demands of The Apple Tower as a daily comic strip were I to be able to focus on it exclusively.  

 

I am so proud of how far The Apple Tower has come in terms of readers, as well as the evolution of the characters and overall idea. 

 

My goal is to privately continue working on the daily strips for several months, with hopes to return to the 6-day publishing schedule once I have accumulated enough material to stay well ahead of the game.

 

Sincerely, 

 

Brian Barnett

Creator, The Apple Tower

 

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Do you read The Apple Tower? You're not alone! Listed here, in the order of most readers to the fewest, are the places around the world where folks have enjoyed The Apple Tower since its launch on November 23, 2009. 

 

United States, Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, India, Norway, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Finland, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Argentina, Serbia, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Philippines, Portugal, Croatia, Indonesia, Turkey, Hungary, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Luxembourg, China, Austria, Switzerland, Singapore, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Jordan, Thailand, Egypt, France, Trinidad & Tobago, Slovenia, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Bahrain, Israel, Lithuania, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia. 

 

Within the USA, all 50 states have visitors to The Apple Tower, with the exception of North Dakota, who is just trying to be difficult...

 

Here are the U.S. States listed in the order of readership: Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Indiana, California, Michigan, Florida, Arizona, Illinois, Delaware, Texas, Colorado, Georgia, District of Columbia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Minnesota, Washington, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Utah, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kansas, West Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, Nevada, Alaska, Mississippi, Maine, Nebraska, Wyoming, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, South Dakota (who also held out for quite some time :-)

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This Week News (thisweeknews.com) in Columbus, Ohio, published a story about The Apple Tower by Brian Barnett.

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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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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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As of December 9, 2009, just a couple short weeks after the premiere of The Apple Tower, readers included people from the following places: In the U.S.A., 32 of the 50 States, the highest concentration in Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, New York, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, Washington D.C., in that order. 

 

The Apple Tower also enjoys a regular following in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada and Spain. 

 

 

 

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The Apple Tower now has a presence on Facebook. Within Facebook, search 'The Apple Tower' to become a fan. 

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In consideration for visitors of The Apple Tower from various time zones, and those living outside of the U.S.A., it should be pointed out that each new comic strip loads on the site at 12:00 midnight, Eastern Standard Time.

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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