You asked, I answered. It’s time for the September/October Mailbag Q&A, where I answer subscriber and patron questions about…really anything you have questions about! And this time, perhaps unsurprisingly given how 2025 has been for yours truly, there were a lot of questions about me. But hey, as a reminder, if you ever have any questions you want me to answer for this, you can comment on this post or email me at david@SKTCHD.com to get it in the mix.

And now, to the questions!

How are you doing? Also, am I crazy or have you been a podcast guest on other people’s shows more this year? What’s it been like being the subject of interviews instead the interviewer? – Scott Haselwood

The first part was a common question, so I figured I’d just use one version of it to answer all of them. I’m doing great! Coming off New York Comic Con, I’m feeling very good about what I do and about the impact I’m having, which is wonderful. I’m also coming around, health-wise, and a doctor’s visit this week revealed that I’m heading in the right direction, I can now get to full-strength exercising, and I can even take slightly less medication. Woo! That’s all good! And I feel pretty normal unless I eat 12 pounds of pasta in one sitting, which I did in New York. (Okay, maybe it wasn’t 12 pounds, but it was a lot, and it was pretty rich too) Most importantly, though, I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. I feel free, and it’s amazing.

To synopsize that, though: So far, so good in the SKTCHD 3.0 era! But with everything being crowdfunded, you never know! So, I am continuing to push. Thanks to everyone who asked, though. I really appreciate it!

Related to that, I have been a podcast guest quite a bit more. That was a deliberate choice. I thought I should put myself out there more in an effort to promote my work and gain more visibility. And what it’s like is…well, it’s a lot of fun! I can talk to anyone about anything, so it’s easy for me to do. I like meeting people and chatting, so it’s easy peasy. The only problem is I am terrible at promoting my work. I just don’t have that gear in me, or at least the gear that would result in me actually promoting myself. It ends up just being fun conversations that introduces me to new folks. Hopefully that helps, but I’ve managed to do very little hard selling so far. Oh well!

The only tricky part is sometimes it can be hard to not ask the host questions. That isn’t my host self kicking in. I’m just a naturally curious person and it can be hard to turn that off. Thus, the questions!

How much of your audience is text SKTCHD, how much of your audience is Off Panel, and how much is both? Or is that not something you can/do track? – Isaac Kelley

Both is probably the biggest, but let’s set that to the side for now. Specificity and knowing what is what is very difficult to say, because each flavor is so different. Text SKTCHD is largely paywalled, Off Panel is not, and because of that the latter will naturally have an easier path to reaching more people. Off Panel’s download numbers are consistently higher on average than the readership numbers of an average SKTCHD piece.

Here’s where it gets weird, though. The most read SKTCHD articles have been visited far more times than the most listened to podcast. By a lot. A lot a lot. And significantly more people subscribe to SKTCHD than back Off Panel on Patreon. It’s a pretty meaningful multiplier.

Long story short, I can track it to some degree, but it results in a complicated narrative. I like to think of both as each benefiting the other one, though. Off Panel listeners have discovered SKTCHD because of the podcast, and vice versa. There’s a lot of cross-pollination that happens. It feels like a cohesive whole that reinforces both sides of my efforts, which is very cool.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned as you transition from SKTCHD/Off Panel being something you did in your free time to being your full-time job? – Colin Holloway

The weird thing is it’s been such a chaotic time since I made the change that I almost feel like I haven’t settled yet. Behind the scenes, I’ve had varying things eating up significant portions of my time, most notably spending dozens and dozens of hours digging through the woods and putting up signs and posting online trying to find my parents’ lost cat (who was also my wife and I’s first foster cat). It was a full time job for a bit. So, it’s hard to say. But if I had to pick the most interesting thing, it’s that the change hasn’t resulted in me doing more, necessarily, it’s just that it has resulted in me being more consistent with my efforts and in a way that’s less brutal on how much time everything takes.

That’s logical. SKTCHD/Off Panel went from a “whenever time allows” thing to something that is my focus. But it has still surprised me a bit. I also think the quality of my work has improved and that I have greater clarity about my approach on everything. That’s been a very good thing, and I think it will continue to pay off in the future.

I’ve become so efficient that I’ve been able to pick up side projects too, like writing a weekly email newsletter for my local comic shop, BOSCO’S, and doing some freelance work for ICv2. I even had another project developing behind those two but I had to move on from it. Other things are cooking behind the scenes. It’s a busy time, and now that things are normalizing, I’m excited about the potential of all of it.

I’m curious, have your reading habits changed with the shift? More broadly, what do your comics reading habits look like these days? Does reading for SKTCHD count into your “work” hours, or do you separate it out somehow? I ask because I’ve got a puppy who keeps me busy, so fitting in comics can be a challenge. Do you, for example, sit down and read a whole volume of something like Hirayasumi in one go, or do you break it up? And if you feel like it, a little pie chart showing how your time splits between trades, single issues, and sports columns would be fun. – Omega Slice

One thing I can say conclusively is my reading habits have not changed. Reading is almost exclusively a nighttime activity for me, so it’s still me primarily reading before going to bed. Sometimes I’ll read a bit more during the day, I guess, but that’s something that hasn’t changed too much.

Unless the graphic novel or volume is too big, I almost always read books in one sitting. Hirayasumi is light work. It’s a breeze to get through. The only ones that I can’t with are massive books like Mimi Pond’s Do Admit!, which I recently discussed in Double Take with Oliver Sava. That was 444 pages, and it was 444 dense pages. That took like…five nights to read. Sometimes I’ll finish something like that in a single night, but it almost always eats into my sleep time, so I try to break it up.

One thing I’ve long known is on the larger spectrum of comic podcasters/journalists, I’m on the higher end of how much I read and the mix of what I read overall. That hasn’t really changed if only because I don’t know how much more I could reasonably read, unless that became my actual full-time focus, and as much as I’d enjoy it, I don’t think I can get paid for just reading comics. Or, to express that in a pie chart built on showcasing my media engagement outside of watching movies and shows, it would be:

That’s a rough estimate, but I’d wager that’s in range. I read sports columns (primarily Fangraphs and The Athletic) over breakfast each morning and will read others throughout the day. But I’d say that pales in comparison to my comic engagement, and podcasts are barely a thing. 5% is probably generous, as I exclusively listen to the basketball podcast The Zach Lowe Show at this point, and even then I still skip certain episodes and segments (apologies to Mets Corner!).