School Spirit

G’day.

Today, August 26th, School Spirit, the webcomic from which this blog site originated, completed it’s 50th individual storyline. In this particular instance it dealt with a Dress Up Day inspired by the recent Olympics. Things start to go pear-shaped when the kids misinterpret what they are to dress up as, and bottom out when others fail to fully come to grips with the Olympic Spirit.

If you haven’t jumped into the light-hearted, family friendly characters, story and humour of School Spirit, then there’s plenty of material to get involved with as the kids learn to deal with the spirits living in the cemetery next door to their school. The archive is designed in a bright, fun and friendly way to offer ease of storyline selection, complete with strip numbers involved, a small image from the story itself, and a brief description of that ‘chapter’.

So wander along, take your time, and make your way through the archive in your own leisurely pace. If you find it’s not for you, all you’ve lost is a little of your time, but just perhaps you’ll find something in the characters, the story or the temper of the strip that strikes your fancy.

Give it a go, eh?

With a bit of luck I’ll start updating the blog more often now too. There’s been some good news stories coming from the kids’ exploits these last few weeks you might enjoy reading about.

Cheers.

The month of June has just drawn to a close, and once again it’s a bit of positive news regarding my webcomic School Spirit, the hobby that spawned from the primary school musical I wrote, which in turn eventually spawned this blog. While June wasn’t the strongest ever month in regards to number of viewers, it was only a handful off. For the second time running, and the second time ever, it has gathered in 4000 views across a single month, which turns out to be an average of about 130 views a day, and about 900 views each week. While for four years of input, effort and continual regular production these numbers may not be fantastic (it can frustrate you when you see relatively new strips pop up and apparently gather these sorts of figures - and not be as good as yours - my opinion, granted!), it means the strip is moving along now on its own, which is a bit of good news, eh?

July begins today, and while I’d love to see it continue to grow each month, I’ll be happy to see it break through that 4000 mark a third time running. Let it settle a bit before I start entertaining thoughts of 5000, eh?

Back with more over the next few days, and this time focusing more on teaching and education themes again. Holidays have just started and reports and parent / teacher interviews are all done now, so there’s probably more time to share around again.

Technorati Tags: webcomics

‘The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, inate, untold,
Of being only four years old.‘
- Christopher Morley, To A Child

Four years ago today, I officially launched my little webcomic, School Spirit. I’d never read a webcomic before, I’d never even heard of them. A friend had just told me ‘I’m writing a webcomic and you’re drawing it for me’. I said ‘where am I going to find the time to draw a webcomic, whatever that is?’ and half an hour later had emailed him a quick sketch of what would become the first School Spirit strip.

On June 12th, 2004, School Spirit was officially launched and here it is, four years later with 580 regular strips, 57 special ones, three new strips a week and an unblemished updating record.

Now it’s even spawned this blog site!

As you’d probably guess, it revolves around kids at primary school, with spirits living in the cemetery next door. It originally grew out of a primary school musical production I was writing at the time but since then has taken on a story and life of its own. If you’re interested in reading it, or at least having a look, go right ahead. I’ll let you decide whether you think it’s worth your time or not. I’ve been here four years now… I’m well past that ‘look at me and love me’ drivel.

Leave that to those who think they’re going to be the next best thing, eh?

Cheers.

The month of May has just concluded, and for the third month running, my webcomic School Spirit, the hobby that spawned from the primary school musical I wrote, which in turn eventually spawned this blog, has had it’s most successful month. Also, that’s a really long sentence. For the first time it has gathered in 4000 views across a single month, which turns out to be an average of 130 views a day, and about 880 views each week. I’ve tried hinting that there’s this blog site as well when I’ve posted things across there, but at this point it hasn’t been bringing many of those readers across. Will have to work on that later, eh?

June begins today, and I’m thinking it may be a bit of an ask to expect the strip to continue growing each month. We’ll just have to see how things go. 130 or more readers a day is a fair ask, considering just last December it was still only getting about 80.

Mind you, it will reach four years online on June 12th, so with a little bit of extra publicity I might manage to wrangle up, just maybe it will repeat the effort this month. However it goes, all I can do is keep those three strips coming out each week and enjoy spending my free time on it, eh?

Technorati Tags: webcomics

Another month has passed for School Spirit, the comic strip I publish online which eventually spawned this blog site as part of its online presence. For the second consecutive month it has gathered a readership number of over 3500 views, and has average about 820 visits per week across the month of Arpil. That seems to average out to about 118 viewers each day, figures I would have been rapt with only in December of last year.

May starts today. Here’s to the intention of reaching more readers again and continuing School Spirit’s slow climb up that mountain. It’s been long, slow progress, but I think it’s making these last few month milestones all the more satisfying. It’s good to see that wholesome, innocent and family friendly humour still has an audience out about the internet, even if it does take a while to find it.

Technorati Tags: webcomics

Easter Sunday brings the beginning of a new storyline to School Spirit, the webcomic version of this site. Originally I intended this strip to be a stand alone Special (larger edition) as I usually do for events like Easter, Christmas, ANZAC Day, etc, but it was such a small, regular sized strip that I decided it could just be, well, a small, regular sized strip.

Either way, here’s the beginning of the latest storyline, The Easter Ferret. For those who’ve read this blog a few times in the last week or so, yes, this will feature a few of the events of our own Easter Fair during the last week of term - especially the events recounted in my previous post of the same name - The Easter Ferret.

Clicking the strip will take you to that particular strip on the site. Incidentally… I packed away my Christmas stuff earlier than this. I took it all down on Easter Saturday.

Technorati Tags: Easter, webcomic, ferrets.

The latest storyline in the School Spirit webcomic, Fire!, has just concluded in time for the Easter break, so now we feature a Good Friday special strip. Just a one off joke but probably one that most people returning to the shops for a Boxing Day special are aware of - the ever earlier appearance of Easter goods on the shelves.

The cartoon to the side is clickable, as always, and will take you to the School Spirit website. Specifically, it will take you to the page of this particular strip.

Meanwhile, the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal will run again today so no doubt I’ll have the telly running in the background so I can pop my head in and out and keep up with how much money Victoria has raised this year. I think they’ll looking at about $14 million or some amazing total this year. We keep seeming to beat the previous record each and every time lately.

Anyway… enough for now. Hope you enjoy the Good Friday humour, and all the best.

I don’t actually think I even have any hot cross buns in the house today…

Technorati Tags: Good Friday, Easter, hot cross buns.

I can’t even remember when I first dropped the website a line suggesting that, just maybe, if they were looking for things that might be useful, my little webcomic, School Spirit, may be worth a read through for possible inclusion. Well… it seems whoever runs this Australian government website agreed with me for today, sitting quietly in my in-box between the education newsletter I seem to have subscribed to yet have been unable to successfully unsubscribe from, and the regulation three or so spam emails, was a short note.

Success. School Spirit, the webcomic, has now been linked through an Australian government portal under the criteria of being of cultural and recreational significance to the Australian internet-surfing community. Hooray!

I mean, look! Here’s the School Spirit listing! It’s fair dinkum!

I don’t know how effective this link may be to gathering the niche readership I think the strip deserves, but all the same, I couldn’t see all that many webcomics managing to get themselves into such a site listing. Well, at least, I’m choosing to believe that!

While I’m at it, here’s the latest current strip, part way through a short sequence featuring a bushfire burning near one of the kids’ houses.

Yep, I’m a little bit proud at the moment. Whether anything comes of it is secondary, eh?