Contact: kryptoniandawn@gmail.com

 

Retail Death is a web comic for people who know the horror of working in retail. Whether it's a grocery store, office supplies, clothes, a general merchandise superstore, etc., if you have dealt with the public, then you know. You know that when the public is buying stuff, they lose their damn minds. A well-bred socialite with ten college degrees will start galloping around and screaming her complaints to anything with a nametag the moment she walks into a retail outlet. An ordinarily polite gentleman can't find the socks this store used to carry, and loses his cool on the hapless cashier as a result. You've seen it all before.

 

Retail Death hopes to help its visitors, many of whom will surely be past or present slaves of the retail system, find something to laugh about in the face of the inevitable loss of faith in humanity that accompanies such work.

 

President/CEO of Retail Death:

 

I have worked in retail for three years (don't bother asking what store -- I'm not ready to get sued over this site just yet). I have drawn comics on a professional level for more than a decade -- which is to say, my sixth grade English teacher used to encourage mine and my friends' creativity by paying in ice cream for comic strips every Friday (that's a paying gig, damnit). This is my first web comic, and I'm playing around with different web publishing and computer art programs. Expect things to change around here as I learn my tools better. Expect the funny to be consistent.

 

The Name:

 

''Retail Death'' came from two sources. First, I came up with the idea while

e-mailing back and forth with a friend. We had both graduated college and were both working retail, and bemoaning that fate. The subject of her initial e-mail was ''Retail=Death.'' When I was asking friends their opinions on names for the comic, one suggested ''Retail Life,'' to which I made

some comment about how retail wasn't a life . . . the alternative became the name.

 

Mediums:

 

I do 99% of my drawing on paper, with a few lines added here and there in Photoshop.  The coloring is done in Photoshop with the assistance of the bpelt filter (which saves a lot of time). The web design is done primarily in Notepad, with some style help from WebPlus 10 (www.serrif.com), and again with a little help from mama Photoshop.

 

Hosting

 

The comics on the site are hosted by a super awesome webcomic hosting site called Smack Jeeves.  They make it a snap to post and archive news and comics.  It’s similar to WordPress in terms of use, but with a community of web cartoonists behind it supporting one another.  

 

Fair Use:

 

You can copy the comics on the site and post them anywhere you like, and are free to link from anywhere, so long as the image is credited to retaildeath.com. Failure to do so may result in flogging, and in some case subjection to experimental Yoko Ono music. I have mp3's, and I'm not afraid to use them.  You may not use the comics, or anything I’ve written on this site, for any commercial purpose without my express written consent (hint: you won’t get it).  If you’ve got a business proposal, bring it on; but if your proposal sounds something like “I use your comics to print stuff for profit, and you get the honor of having it done” then let me save you the typing.

 

Inspirations:

 

Other than the many customers I have had in my career, I would like to thank certain other web comics for inspiration. Their art and wit have entertained me for years and years, and planted the seed to do something like this in my mind. My favorites include Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Red Meat, xkcd, Toothpaste For Dinner (the Sharing Machine), the now defunct (but archived) The Parking Lot is Full, and Wondermark. None of these are retail-themed comics or sites, but they are witty, artistic, and very smart satire. I highly recommend all of them to anyone who enjoys the funny. This means you.