Toothpaste for Dinner needs your business

Complexin writes, "Drew, of daily webcomic 'Toothpaste for Dinner' and 'Married to the Sea,' among other sites, seems in danger of going offline. He's offering special discounts on t-shirts, a book, and original music in hopes of generating enough revenue to keep it going. According to his Twitter stream he's not interested in donations... but if you enjoy the comics consider purchasing some of the associated items from the Sharing Machine store. I own a few of the t-shirts, and they are well-made, sized correctly for women, AND bitingly hilarious. Bonus: comes in men's styles, too."

I don't own any of Drew's tees, but I do own, cherish and highly recommend his book.

Toothpaste For Dinner: Daily comics by Drew (Thanks, Complexin)

• [Stephen Schenck]

  Twitter link borked.
  Edit: Thanks!

  • [Cory Doctorow]

     Thank you, Stephen!

• [girlalive]

  I love Drew.  I have his Toothpaste For Dinner book (which is awesome) and I bought his novel “Veins”, which is in every possible way entirely worth buying and reading.  But I won’t be buying any of his t-shirts because I am fat, and they don’t sell anything above XL.  I’m not about to starve myself into conformity for the sake of a t-shirt.  

  • [xxsalamandaxx]

    As my lady oxen physique requires a size larger than they sell, I emailed them to express interest.  Drew quickly replied that they had sold larger sizes in the past but they did not sell well.  They also tried a Kickstarter for larger shirt sizes and it failed.  

    • [elusis]

      Given how much of the online comic world AND the fatosphere I read, may I hypothesize that the fact that I didn’t know about this at all means it was not promoted the most effectively.

• [therantguy]

  Cute stuff and if I see a T I like will support him…but I really wish cartoonists would stop with this BS about how expensive it is to run a website…his looks like it comes from 1990 and other than the domain registration, he should be able to host something this size for $100 a year…

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    I was under the impression that the cost of hosting a website had more to do with the number of people that visit it than the “size” of the site.

• [Jack Thompson]

  If his webcomics aren’t to your liking, Drew is also Kompressor.

  http://www.kompressormusic.com/

  • [thezarray]

    KOMPRESSOR DOES NOT DANCE

• [bcsizemo]

  According to his Twitter stream he’s not interested in donations

  I’ve never understood this.  He offers a product (webcomics) in an online format that people can enjoy for free.  He also offers other physical products, which a person maybe or maybe have interest in buying.  But if I enjoy the webcomics and would like him to keep making them why do I have to buy something I don’t want?  You already know Fry said it best.

  • [Steve Hoefer]

    Agreed. I had a very nice but still infuriating (for me) exchange with the Toothpaste For Dinner folks over letting me give them money. They don’t want to, are deeply uncomfortable doing it. 

    And I sort of get that. But I don’t want t-shirts. It’s a waste. I’m not going to wear it, I’m not going to gift it. And I’d rather 100% of the money go to supporting them, not paying for T-shirts and shipping. (Replace “T-shirts” with the other merch they sell. I do not need more things.)

    It’s not “giving money” or a donation. It’s paying them for services rendered. I would like to reimburse them for all of the entertainment they’ve given me over the years, and yes, I’m a bit ticked they won’t let me.  I want them to succeed  but they’re making it hard. It feels like the same kind of unreasonableness that the MP/RIAA has over online content. There are people who want to give you money, you’re complaining about not having enough money… The solution seems obvious.

  • [Geoduck]

    If accepting “donations” bothers him so much, he could do up a special thank-you drawing and e-mail a digital copy to anyone who sends in money..

• [Conrad Constantine]

  I’d rather support him by encouraging him to do more work as KOMPRESSOR and buying Cd’s from him. Dammit I loved KOMPRESSOR (does not dance!).

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfoQj9kVnLU

• [ComradeQuestions]

  It’s a little ironic that the header picture is from Natalie Dee, the comic his wife does, not him.

• [leebenningfield]

  I’m not sure TFD is in any immediate danger of closing (or any more than usual).  This banner has shown up on the site before, I think it’s just a general reminder that they actually have things for sale, and want people to buy them. 

  • [John Ketchpaw]

    more importantly, the average size of each of his comics is ~12kb.  say we round that up to 15kb.  delivering a million views through amazon cloudfront = $1.80 for bandwidth + $0.75 for the requests = $2.55.

    extrapolate that out to a month and round up, and for $100/month he could be reaching a million daily readers.  He and Natalie are fine.

    In the meantime, I own 10 of their shirts and some original art anyway because I love them :).

    • [Katie Lacy]

      They do this for a living, and they have a baby now–I hear those are expensive.

• [jclor]

  I have enjoyed TPFD in the past, but as it became less amusing and repetitive a couple years in, I stopped reading.  Maybe it has run its creative course?