Letter to readers 4/2/02 - And the winner is...

Can't stand the suspense? Read ahead.

Don't underestimate the situation we were in. At the eleventh hour, just before our book was to go to press, our beloved comic strip Overdue had to change its name for trademark reasons. We were stuck. All of our ideas had equally bad trademark issues. Finally, with the clock ticking, Bill convinced Gene to go public with our woes. Surely someone had a better idea than us.

We got a lot of suggestions. A lot. 739 letters containing, in totem, over 2000 names. Our readers obviously had a lot of fun trying to come up with a new name for our strip, and we had a lot of fun reading them. How often do cartoonists get to enjoy the creativity of their readers for a change? Not nearly often enough, as it turns out.

Suggestions ranged from the straightforward (Library Life, Dewey) to the clever (Shelf Life, Checked Out) to the library-centric (OPAC o' laughs) to the truly obscure (Ranganathan 's Progeny). Variations using the words Book, Check, Stacks, Shelf, Read, Dewey and Patron were common. Check it Out! was probably the single most popular suggestion.

In the end, our filtering process consisted of the following:

Name must look trademarkable based on our searches
Name should be funny
Name should be memorable - short and spelled like it sounds
Big plus if [name].com is available
Name should evoke libraries, books, and/or reading, but not so much that only library workers would get the joke.
Name should fit the feel of the strip

Based on these we compiled the following shortlist:

Book Drop
Unshelved
Shelf Life
Questionable
Checked Out
Misinformed

Further prior-use research knocked Shelf Life, Book Drop, Questionable, and Checked Out out of the running because comic strips or publications exist with those names (or variations).

For a little while Misinformed was the favorite. It has a nice sound and it's pretty funny. But after way too much analysis we decided that it didn't really fit the strip. Plus misinformed.com was taken. The runner up prize, an autographed copy of our new book, goes to Bill DeLong, Reference Associate at Brentwood Branch Library in Springfield, Missouri.

And the winner is... Unshelved! We love this word. It recalls "unhinged" and "dissheveled," and it seems like almost every character in our strip is like a book in search of the right shelf. And, yes, the domain name was available. No one suggested Unshelved by itself, but for suggesting Dewey Unshelved the grand prize goes to Lynette "Lynn" Mitchell, Media Specialist at Citrus County Schools in Crystal River, FL. Lynn gets a custom portrait of herself standing with the staff of the Mallville Public Library.

We'll miss Overdue but the name lives on in our newly-formed publishing company Overdue Media LLC. And we aren't changing our URL -- it's still http://www.overduemedia.com (Unshelved.com will point readers there). If you are one of the wonderful people who point to our comic strip in your website or blog, we ask that you update your link to:

<a href="http://www.overduemedia.com">Unshelved</a>

or, if you want to help our vital Google ranking for "comic strip,"

<a href="http://www.overduemedia.com">Comic Strip</a>

Thanks to everyone who sent in a suggestion. They all contributed to our brainstorming and decision-making process, and we couldn't be more thrilled with the results.

What's next? The book, of course - Unshelved, Volume 1! Stay tuned.

Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
Unshelved