As of November 17th, I am doing a donation drive that will officially last through December 31st of 2005:

In a nutshell, I will post on my blog once a day how much money has been accrued. My hope is to gain a year's salary - $28,400. If I receive that, I will quit my day job and update FLEM 5 times a week. What's more, if time allows, I will start a third webcomic that I've been kicking around in my head for many moons.

Every little bit helps. What I'm asking is simple - if you like the Jay series, and want to see me update it more often, and you have a spare buck or more lying around, why not toss it my way? I know there's a passel of you out there who have enjoyed my work on FLEM, Two Lumps, etc. If every last one of you donated two dollars, it would be way more than the goal amount.

I don't expect everyone to, though. That's how webcomics work, see - I give you something for free and hope you can find it in your heart/wallet to toss me some chump change. I've asked in the past three times, usually little beggings that I didn't publicize outside of my blog. And the fans came through. I don't ask often, and up until now I haven't asked for all that much.

This time, I want to see if this really will give me a springboard to doing my art and writing full time.

The reason I even came up with this idea is simple: My company is laying me off as of November 18th. I have a couple job leads, but I realized that if I could free up 40+ hours a week to work on my comics and novels? Man, I could POUND out way more finished product.

So here's my gameplan:

All donations of $5 or more will result in a "thank you gift" of the following print:

This will be printed glossy, at roughly 9" x 12", and sent to you through the mail. So make sure you provide me with the info in the paypal donation!

If the donation level between now and the end of the year hits $3000, I will make FLEM a 3x weekly comic for the duration of January and February.

If the donations hit 6000 dollars, I will do 5x weekly for the same amount of time.

Now, here's the real scoop:

After a careful list of my expenses, etc, I have come up with a precise target number.

$28,400

This is NOT my salary - not even close. But it's what I can live off of - and if I get that in a lump, I can save a lot by paying my bills off en masse.

If I hit that number in donations, the immediate incentive is that I will move FLEM to a 5x weekly schedule AT LEAST through June of next year. I'll also probably move it off Keenspace and to a different server.

I will also possibly create a third strip, one that I've been kicking around in my skull for a month, and update it 3x weekly. This is ON TOP OF Two Lumps and FLEM.

If you donate more than $5, please do let me know if you want me to send you multiple prints. $5 apiece, so please don't give me $10 and demand 50 prints.

I'm begging here, folks. But I'm thinking this just might pay off. If this jerk can make money off his craptacular art, wouldn't it be cool to fund someone whose work actually makes you laugh?

Paypal. You send me money, they take out a small fee, I get what is left over. People who do this go to a better afterlife than those who do not. They accept major credit cards or debit cards with credit card logos.

Finally, for those who wish to send cash, checks or other odd crap,

James L. Grant
13410 Preston Rd. Suite A-141
Dallas, TX
75240
(Note to would-be stalkers: I do not actually live at said address. I can merely receive a bit of mail there.)