The State of The Oatmeal

What's this all about?

TheOatmeal.com is now 8 months old and I wanted to take a moment to make a few announcements. I also wanted to explain why you won't be seeing as many comics from me in the next 6 weeks.

The Traffic

TheOatmeal.com launched on July 6, 2009, and since then traffic has been growing steadily. Currently, the site is receiving 4.6 million unique visitors and over 20 million page views a month. With that, I've been able to successfully work on the Oatmeal full-time and (happily) end my career in web design and SEO. (THANK GOD.) The Oatmeal Shop has grown enough that I not only can support myself, I hired a few of my family members to handle order fulfillment.

In short: The Oatmeal is becoming the biggest thing since Hannah Montana and Winston Churchill COMBINED.

The Book Deal Since launch, I've been selling a 30 page self-published comic book. As of a few weeks ago, however, I signed a book deal with Andrews McMeel, my first pick publishing house whose other comic artists include The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, and a bunch more. The full-sized book will contain a massive collection of new comics from The Oatmeal, and because I'll be working hard on all these new comics I won't be posting as often to the site until after they're done. Expect updates to become slow on the Oatmeal for the next 4-6 weeks. Holy Goat Shit! How can I be notified when the new book is available!? So what about the old book? There are a few hundred copies of the old comic book left in stock, but once these run out I won't be ordering any more.

Sorry folks, the old comic book has sold out! There's still posters available though.

The Television

I got invited by NBC to appear in a documentary about The Oatmeal which will appear on Last Call with Carson Daly. I flew to Burbank last week for the shoot, but I don't know the exact date of when it'll air yet. It's supposed to go live in March sometime, so I'll be sure to let you know. The episode will also be on NBC.com so you can always watch it later if you miss it the first time around.

The Digg Party

I'll be attending the Digg party at SXSW on Saturday, March 13 in Austin, TX - so if you want to meet me make sure to come up and say howdy.

I look different from how I draw myself, so don't go looking for an obese bald guy.



I'll also be at a couple other events in the next few months, view them here.

The Thanks

Lastly, I want to formally thank Digg and Reddit for being such spectacularly awesome communities. A big part of The Oatmeal's success can be attributed to the metaphorically-giant-bear-hug I received from both of them, which enabled me to expose my website to a buttcrapton of people in a very short period of time. We've all heard wishy-washy talk about the big impact one person can make on the internet, but with social news sites such as these this idea has truly come to fruition.



Reddit and Digg, thank you for letting one guy be heard!



To everyone else, thanks for continuing to be a fan of The Oatmeal. I love you with every square inch of my bloated, black, shrieking little heart.



-The Oatmeal