If this is your main source for reading Dykes To Watch Out For, please consider clicking on the PayPal button over there and ponying up some dough from time to time (guideline: a buck a strip). Here’s why:

I need to pay the mortgage and eat. I used to earn my living from syndicating my comic strip to newspapers. But as the media landscape has changed, the number of those papers has been dwindling, along with the income that I’m able to make from them.

Increasingly, readers are following the strip online, on this website, where it’s available for no charge. If you’re one of those people who used to read the strip in a newspaper, or if you’re one of those people who has never seen a newspaper, please help to keep the strip financially viable by making a contribution every now and then.

At the least, I want the site to pay for itself. There are lots of costs involved in maintaining a website, and it also takes a fair amount of time on my part. Above that, I’d really like it if income from the strip would make up for my shrinking newspaper income.

Is this possible? Paying for online content is still a sticky wicket. It’s complicated, and people don’t like to do it. And I’m loathe to get into the whole advertising scenario. There was a lively debate among the readers of the site on the pros and cons of the various payment modalities.

In the end, my decision has been to go with the National Public Radio model–to rely on voluntary donations from people who read my comics here regularly. I may or may not prod you with “pledge drive” posts from time to time.

The donation guideline is a buck a strip. I normally produce 26 episodes a year, one every two weeks. But as of 4/07 I’m temporarily slowing down to one strip every four weeks, or 13 episodes a year. I’ll alternate these new episodes every other week with an “archive episode.”

I’m duly grateful to everyone who has contributed so far. Thank you very much.