The Holiday season is upon us, and if you've read my first update, I wanted to give 15%-20% of my profits to charity. However, I never really did anything with the site to make profits. The ads on the site are doing their job, mostly paying for webhosting space, and my internet bills… So they're allowing me to simply post online and BE online, but nothing more.

That is okay, life contains bridges. I'll explain. When I was sixteen (or was it seventeen?), I began to look into colleges. It was at that point I thought I wanted to be an artist, but I didn't know what kind. With art schools, you have to pretty much tell the school what your major is going to be and stick with it for the four years. When I got accepted in to the School of Visual Arts in NYC, I choose Illustration over Cartooning (two different majors) because I said, "What happens if one day I wake up and I don't want to be a cartoonist anymore?"

That sort of did happen. I don't want to be a cartoonist. However, it kind of evolved. I want to be a storyteller. I really like creating entire universes populated with people. I love how they interact because something in my head told me to write it as such. Perhaps that is why I am working on a first draft of a novel on my free time, and not a graphic novel.

But Punks and Nerds is still around, and I'm looking into reviving Stubble in a way. I have realized that online comics is a bridge for me, and not the direction I want my career to go. I needed to be online to understand the importance of keeping a schedule, and be consistent in both writing and drawing. My drawing skill has improved a lot faster compared to if I never made a comic. I wouldn't have figured out I love writing stories from experience mixed with dreams and "What If" scenarios. If my name were to ever become big, it is important for me to learn humility and humbleness now instead of much later in life... Or not at all. If I couldn't handle negative feedback when I had an audience of 15-20,000 readers a day, how could I handle it if one day it got any bigger, and the haters grew too?

I had to take a pause from making stories and comics by taking a job with Apple, and then working a year at Rockstar Games, with a little bit of intern work at animation studios in between to understand that retail and corporate life isn't for me. I had to illustrate other people's children's books and magazine articles to learn that I feel more fulfilled making my own children's books, and writing my own stories. I understood all of that after I experienced it all. Through trial, I learn. I have to get my hands dirty. My calling in life is not going to be this website, this I feel. But it's a bridge to something else. It might be bigger, smaller, or the same size, but all of this is preparing me for happiness and satisfaction in what I do. By coming here and reading what I have to offer, you are helping me get to where I want to in life. Thank you very much for that, I mean it.

This is all related to the type of charity I want to raise money and give to. And let me explain that too: My grandmother died of Leukemia in 2005, at Punks and Nerds' peak. What was sick in the head was that I had more fans offer condolences than most of the people I considered friends at the time. I've honestly had people say things like, "Your grandmother's death means nothing to me" and "Everybody dies. It's not worth crying over, move on."

I do not care what kind of person you are, and if you think like that, that's fine. It's okay… But that is no way to talk to someone you call a friend, or at the least, someone who calls you one. But it was one of the harshness of realities I experienced. The family life opened my subconscious a bit, and made me realize I was taking my online comic life too seriously. I had to change mentally, become healthier within, mature, and understand that life matters too much than to become upset if there's people on live journal, that never met me, saying nasty things about me, simply because of what I post under my comic strip at the time (like this). Life is too special to stress out when viewership numbers go down. The amount of readers is only just a way for a lonely person to try and feel acceptance where it lacks in other places in life, after all. I didn't have acceptance in some places in life, But I had acceptance in places that matter. Family and the close friends that counted. I know why all these things affected me the way they did, but we shall keep that story untold for now.

What matters is that the family situation changed things severely for me.

Back to the charity… I have heard my deceased grandparents' friends' grandson has passed away at 19, from the same Leukemia my grandmother had. Ninteen guys. That's our age group. Sometimes I think too logically, thinking that there is cause and effect for things in the world… But when a 19 year old passes from an illness… What is the reasoning? There is none. He didn't have a chance to live life. My characters that I have created are living a fuller life than he was given. And that upsets me. Punks and Nerds has morphed into a story of growing up and learning how to deal, but it's something this guy won't get a chance for.

So that is why Punks and Nerds' charity will be towards Leukemia. Because my grandmother's death triggered a change in me to improve, and this kid's death is going to help remind us to live.

I will do research and the week after Christmas, I will give between 30-40% of any money I make during November 23rd-December 25th to such a charity. I cannot offer a bigger percentage because things I'm offering will take away from my schedule, and it will just help compensate for it.

Here's what I'm willing to do to help start revenue flowing for this:

1) I have a box of the original volume of punks and nerds. I will be comfortable in selling it for $4.99 + whatever it costs to package and ship it. After paypal fees, that $4.99 turns into $4.55, so I will take $1.82 of that towards the charity. That is exactly 40%

2) I will draw you original digital drawings, starting at $5, going up to something reasonable (we're in a recession and you're not rich clients). I will give you a high resolution file of that for you to use the drawing as a print, or for a social network or something of that nature. So if you want something very simple, like I'm drawing Super Mario in each of his power-up suits, to practice coloring a different way, that would cost you $5, for an original drawing, something unique that you can use on twitter or facebook. For every drawing, 30% of that will go towards the charity.

3)I will put up a paypal donation button, after people have asked. I will refuse donations of $50 or higher. That will send you into receiving a refund. Send me something low and affordable, and I will divide 30-40% of that towards the charity.

4) If time permits, I will try and make an original print in which a percentage of that will go to the charity.

That's my plan, for now anyway.

Thanks!

-J</font>