ANNOUNCEMENT: status of the Toad

Christmas toad digital illustration by Sergio Gonzalez

To those whom it may toadcern:


Most of you have probably already gotten wind of this, but we at the toad have made the decision not to print a Christmas issue for 2021.

This does not mean we are that our interest is waning in any way. The Joplin community and our family of contributors have strengthened us more than ever this year. We just need a little time to breathe and to play.

CONTRIBUTORS: if you submitted content for the Christmas issue, we are still in the process of reviewing all recent submissions, and will be posting plenty of holiday content in coming weeks. So your work is still very appreciated and is being considered for publication on our website and social media.



MORE WORDS:

Our team came to this decision after much deliberation. There are two reasons:

1: Sometimes, we have to recognize our limitations. With our head designer near the finish line for grad school and our entire team also working full time jobs on top of volunteering for the toad, we simply hit a point of a holiday issue being too much for this season. If we’d done it, it wouldn’t have been as good. And we refuse to ever compromise on quality.

2: We want to maintain a spirit of playfulness and dreaming as we continue to build this platform. We’ve come to a strong conclusion this year that while our flagship offering is certainly the printed magazine itself, we are NOT only a magazine. With the time we’ve freed up for ourselves before our next printed issue in spring of 2022, we plan to expand our online offerings, try out some exciting new mediums, plan more events for the Joplin community and its’ artists, and develop more exciting content and merch for you all.

We are also in the process of building more funding. While the objective of the toad has never been about profit, we do still need more income to be able to better support our creators and create the time to keep momentum going for what we’d like the toad to be. We’ll be re-building and promoting our patreon to be better than ever, and will be developing new ways for sponsors to help us keep this thing running.

WANNA HELP?

We can always use more volunteers, for everything from events to design to sales. We can always use more help spreading the word about the toad. We always crave more submissions, from local artists and writers and humorists of all walks. And if you’re interested in collaborating or helping financially, we’d love to talk to you about that.

For any thoughts or questions, you can always DM us or drop us a line at joplintoad@gmail.com.

Thanks toads. We love you all.