E-Mailing the Stripper

I love to hear from you folks! Although I encourage you to post your questions and comments publicly by clicking on the "Post a Comment" option that follows each post on this blog, if there's something you'd rather discuss privately you are welcome to email me at strippersguide@gmail.com. To ensure that I get your email and respond, please follow these suggestions:

1. Make Yourself Heard Over The Spam
I receive hundreds of spam emails every day so I'm pretty ruthless about deleting emails that appear to be junk. To optimize your chances of not getting tossed into the trash please include a subject line that will catch my eye. Ideal way to do that is to start your subject line with "Stripper's Guide". I can pretty much guarantee that if your subject line is blank, or something like "Question" or "Hi Stripper" or the like that your email will end up in the virtual circular file.

2. If You Don't Get a Response, Check Your Spam Folder
I generally respond to my email, assuming there's some pertinent question I can answer or to tell you "I dunno" or to thank you for submitted information. Even if I can't answer your question or otherwise don't really have much to say in response to your email, I will likely write back to acknowledge your message. This can take awhile these days; I seem to get farther behind the faster I peddle, if you know what I mean. If you haven't heard from me after, say, a couple weeks, you can assume I did not get your email. Send it again or post it as a comment on the blog. And don't forget to check your spam folder; my response may be lurking in there.

3. Questions I Can't, or Won't, Answer
I get some questions that are beyond my ability or desire to help. Here are some basic categories:

a) I can detect a kid looking for me to write their class paper from a mile away. Not my job, sport.

b) The question that goes something like, "My mom used to have a {insert feature name} strip up on the fridge. The gag was something like {insert vague description}. Can you get me a copy of that strip?" The answer is no. Even if I could figure it out there would be a lot of work involved and you're momentary nirvana of nostalgic joy is insufficient payment for my trouble. If you're really serious about finding that long-lost memento, get on newspapers.com and start searching for yourself.

c) Questions that require expertise on comic books, animation and other cartooning genres. You'll find experts on those other genres lurking about the web, but I'm not the ideal guy to ask. Newspaper comics are my thing.

d) If you have some treasure and want to know how much it's worth don't bother asking me because you won't get an answer. There are very few things in this world that are so unique and rare that you can't get a good idea of their value by checking auction results for similar items on eBay and other sales sites on the web. If, on the other hand, you need a collection appraised for insurance or estate purposes I'll be glad to quote you a fee for that service, but keep in mind that I'm an expert on newspaper comics, not a licensed appraiser. The two are most definitely not the same thing. While I will be more accurate than 99.9% of all licensed appraisers (who know next to nothing about newspaper comics), my opinion may not be of any interest to your insurance company or lawyer.

e) Questions that are answered in my book, "American Newspaper Comics -- An Encyclopedic Reference Guide" will be answered by referring you to that reference.

4. Show and Tell
If you are hoping to have me ID something, please send a good sharp scan of the item in question. Don't bother sending shadowy, blurry, out of focus pictures. If the item is signed, a close-up of the signature is a great bonus. A picture of the reverse of the item can often be surprisingly informative as well. If you are sending pictures that you'd like me to feature on the blog please send minimum 150 dpi scans, and preferably 300 dpi.

5. If You Want To Sell Me Something, Quote a Price
I'm always interested in buying newspaper strips and related ephemera, but don't think you'll con me into doing a free appraisal (see #3d) by asking me to make an offer. It took me awhile to figure out this little scam. Someone writes me asking for an offer on their item, I make one, get no response, and then lo and behold it shows up on eBay, often quoting everything I said about the item and setting my offer as the minimum bid. No more. If you want to sell me something you'll have to quote a price, otherwise no go.

6. A Thank You Is Appreciated
Email has bred a lot of bad manners, and I admit I'm an occasional offender, too. But if I answer a question for you, a simple "thank you" is always appreciated.