After years and years of giving his work away for free, Rich Burlew just raked in more than a million.
Via Hacker News [1], “The Crowd- Funding Phenomenon Continues – Comic Raises $1.2M on Kickstarter (+Q&A with Creator Rich Burlew)! | Singularity Hub [2]”
Wow. Rich Burlew just raised over a million dollars from his fans. For drawing a comic based on stick figures.
Granted, it took him nine years to to get the fan base for this, but still, that's quite a payout. And the best bit is that he did it on his own terms without reliquishing his intellectual property [3] (link via my very first post [4]).
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3701721
[2] http://singularityhub.com/2012/03/06/the-crowd-funding