We just hit 100 subscribers today! That's about 93 more than we were expecting this year.

Just wanted to take a minute to thank you all for supporting us. We're working hard on bringing you new features and content to thank you; hopefully we'll have some new toys for you by month's end (and hopefully sooner).

A few questions for you folks:

- What would you think about us adding in an option to turn off the dynamic menus? I've been noticing some slowdown in loading pages at work (and have heard the same from others who are behind proxies). This would cut the weight of each page in half, and you could turn the option on and off in your settings. Is something like this worth the effort for us to do, or would it go unused?

- Would you be (potentially) interested in purchasing additional Mystery shirts if we made them available to premium members?

- What are you all going as for halloween?

Firstly, it's no surprise that so many people have subscribed. You guys are doing a fabulous job.

Secondly, being able to turn off the dynamic menus would be great. I'm in Dublin, where we apparantly are only behind Dehli in the list of worst capital cities to get on the net. Reducing the load increases the average number of laughs per minute I can get. My doctor says this is good, as it helps stop me from stapling little notes to my neighbours' pets telling them to be more funny. Or funnier, if you prefer proper grammar.

Nextly, mystery is good. Unless it causes mysteries like "Ugh! What's that smell?!". Mysteries like that I can do without.

Lastly, I am going as "SuperDrinker". I picked up a funky Superman type t-shirt in the Oktoberfest in Munich. All I need to do now is find some red spandex y-fronts and a sidekick. If any of you folks live in Dublin and want to go as BeerBoy/BeerGirl, lemme know.

The option to turn of dynamic menus would be great! Who couldn't use extra mystery in their life? And I haven't decided on a costume yet, but it will most likely involve massive amounts of duct tape.

Congrats on the 100 members. I'd be curious to know what number subscriber I was, as I'm sure the 1st and 100th person would too.
As for mystery stuff, I'd go for it if it was new shirts and not ones you can't sell. I certainly don't want to open up my mystery shirt box only to find it's a small baby-doll tee (damn, where's door #1 when I need it).
And I wasn't planning on going out for halloween. I'm disabled, in a wheelchair. But I could be a sick s.o.b. and rent a Superman suit and wear it to work.
Ok, that's bad. Sorry.

In Response to Rich (#2339):

i also would be interested in seeing what # subscriber i was, that way i cna rub it in my brother face if i was smart enough to subscribe before him! mystery shirts are cool, dunno if id buy one for myself thou ;) and i am going as Tinkerbell for halloween, i just need to get my hair back to being blonde.

In Response to Rich (#2339):

Of course, mystery shirts could encourage hobnobbery:

"I'll trade you my XXL monotreme shirt for your kittens = poptarts babydoll tee"

"Throw in your chocolate milk and it's a deal"

Unless Jon meant mystery designs, which would also be fun. I would probably get one, then I wouldn't have to pick which design is my favorite.

I don't have a halloween costume yet. I will probably go to a thrift store and wait for inspiration to strike. When it doesn't, I will end up as a mermaid or something. I had wanted to go as an invisible woman, in Cancun, but I just couldn't find that costume in my price range. Maybe next year...

Well, I wasn't going to go as anything.

But now, I'm going as Len Pickering.

Honestly, I'm surprised that the number is much higher- everyone I've ever sent a Goats Postcard to has become enthralled with your work, and some may have even started a cult to worship you (but I wouldn't know anything about that... honest).

To answer your questions:
A) The dynamic menu options- sounds like a good idea.
B) The more Mystery shirts available, the better!
C) I will be going as Indie Rock Pete, and my wife will be going as Pale Suzie (from dieselsweeties.com, of course).

In Response to annabanana (#2369):

The mystery shirts in question are the mystery shirts offered with the Super-Premium subscription, which are a new design that no one has seen yet (it lies waiting in my brain, anticipating life).

They'll be silkscreened on a colored (non-white) shirt.

I won't be picking random shirts from our existing stock; don't worry.

In Response to jgarcia (#2380):

Yeah... I'm either surprised that you think the saturation so low, Jon. That or impressed that you keep the public face so humble. ;)

Honestly, wandering around SUNY Binghamton (crown jewel of the NY public schools*), I've seen several people wearing Goats shirts from time to time. As these are all girls, I use your works to strike conversations. Oddly enough, any girl wearing a goats shirt tends to be worth knowing.

How many regular readers do you have these days, web-stat-wise, anyways? Or is that seekrit business knowledge not for mortal men to know?

-mcgrue
---

*Which, if you compare to the UC-system, must be a crown of thorns.

In Response to mcgrue (#2399):

I think being in a large ciy where the saturation of webcomics readers (or even people who have heard of them) is rather low goes a long way towards maintinaing one's humility.

We get about 50,000 unique visitors in a month, although I haven't checked our stats in the last month or two.

In Response to jon (#2410):

i know that there is a rather large reader base in the tampa FL area, as my brother and all his friends got everyone addicted.

I wouldn't, personally, turn off the dynamic menus. They're just too damn smooth, but hey, if any of these party people want it, I fully support their impatience.

I'm potentially interested, but I can't say more than that, given that my bank is threatening me with bodily harm soon.

I went as Ford Prefect for Halloween, because I already owned a small yellow fish, ugly sweater, towel, and a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide. That, and I share his love of alcohol.

We just hit 150 subscribers. You guys are so super-fine.

I'm not looking forward to scrawling out all those character sketches, though -- 97 of you are super-premium. Ouch.

In Response to jon (#2815):

This is a cunning plan by us to ensure there are more post it's in the new year, you draw 100 odd custom pictures, destroy your "drawing" arm and phillip takes over mwahahaha

In Response to tor (#2822):

I'm just upset that no one has requested post-it note sketches instead of Jon's.

In Response to jon (#2815):

You just better make sure and put aside that "scrawling" on mine and do a damn fine job. I expect ART, goddammit! :)

In Response to phillip (#2846):

Wow. I blame my lack of imagination for not thinking of that =)

In Response to jon (#2815):

Hey, out of interest, after 8 months or so, what's the subscriber rates and stats like these days?

No need to answer, confidentiality and all, just interested if you do have anything to say.

BTW, the a whole 'nother years worth of subscriptions is only a couple of months away too... bet you're looking forward to that.

In Response to unFalln (#7124):

We're at about 200, more if you count about 20 or so comps.

That number also includes quite a few people who have unsubscribed, although we suspect that many of those folks got automatically unsubscribed when they switched credit cards in PayPal or their credit cards expired. I hope that everyone will opt to re-up their subscription, but I'm nto foolish enough to believe it will happen.

In Response to jon (#7128):

How many of that ~200 are Super Premiums?

In Response to zamphir (#7137):

About 120.

In Response to jon (#7139):

Thank God for your woodcut idea huh? BTW, how's the teacher dealing trying to show you how to do that?

In Response to Rich (#7142):

Yeah, I'm fairly thankful I won't have to scrawl 120 sketches again.

Amy is hopefully going to help me; I'm not going to get around to that until after Comic-con and probably much later, though.

In Response to Rich (#7142):

Will we be getting new custom sketches in this year's SPEY? Or does your soul and/or hand protest too much from last time?

In Response to mcgrue (#7149):

The SPEY package for this year isn't finalized, but it'll likely be pretty close to what's listed on the benefits page [goats.com].

That's to say, no character sketches this year. I think it's best if we try to give you guys different stuff every year. That, and it took way too much time to do 'em last year.