ComicSpace

The tech team is working on many of the issues you guys are reporting. They’re working like fiends!

People who had more than one gallery may have seen only one of their galleries imported initially. The guys are running a new import to solve this problem. You should see all your stuff shortly. The imports take a while!

I will update you when I know more about the results of their efforts.

There are also other tech issues that have come up, which they are working on as well.

We upgraded ComicSpace to the WordPress platform over the past week. Things didn’t go as smoothly as planned and/or expected, and we are still working on the migration.

Members: if you are wondering where your stuff has gone to, here’s the way it works: you now have your own ComicSpace website, which will be located at http://[username].comicspace.com/ — so, for example, user cactuscomics’ site is at http://cactuscomics.comicspace.com. We’re working on fixing the template (it seems to be cutting some comics in half right now) and other assorted weirdnesses — but yeah. That’s how it’s supposed to work. This homepage itself, by the way, will also change once everything is sorted out, providing an entry-point to the vastness of the community, instead of a simple blog.

I expect the tech team will have all the problems sorted out soon, and will keep you posted, here, on our progress! Thanks!

Call For Submissions: T-Shirt Designs

A little while back, ComicSpace launched its t-shirt store in beta,
featuring the designs of several popular webcartoonists. Now we are
looking for more. Specifically, we want to find talented, enthusiastic
t-shirt designers

You know there’s an ongoing Heroes webcomic series running on that show’s official website, right?

And that LucasArts, Bioware and Dark Horse have teamed up to produce a series of officially-sanctioned Star Wars webcomics, based on the "Knights of the Old Republic" incarnation of the SW universe, to promote the next videogame coming out in that sub-franchise? It even has an RSS feed!

These seem like obvious moves to me. I don’t know why we don’t see this more often. Every action/sci-fi television show, movie, or videogame should have a webcomic running alongside it, to engage and excite the audience. Webcomics, compared to other forms of content-based marketing, are inexpensive to produce, easy to distribute, and relatively popular, with a built-in community and culture who can help push a new audience right into your lap.

When this trend first started, way back in the early aughts, I was afraid that these kinds of comics would always be, well, too promotional, along the lines of those Hostess Twinkies ads you used to see in comic books: short on story, long on pushing a product at you. There was a lot of that kind of stuff. There probably still is. But both of the examples above are full-on, seriously-thought-out "graphic novels" presented on the web, with all the complexity, high production values, and etc., that you’d expect from a "real" mainstream comic book. (Um, yeah, okay, coming from me, you might think that that is a little bit of a back-handed compliment, but you know what I mean). Most importantly, they stand alone as entertainment experiences, worthwhile in and of themselves while simultaneously making you more interested, indirectly, in the property they’re promoting, just by being cool and fun.

There’s a lot of ideological and anti-corporate rhetoric out there in the webcomics world. Webcomics have a tradition of being an underground outlet, one that got a lot of its original spark out of the fact that other channels of distribution were closed to new cartoonists. I can imagine even myself, from a few years ago, looking at these and snooting my nose up. I guess I’ve sold out now, or grown up, or maybe the field of webcomics as a whole has become big enough and established enough that these kinds of things seem like cool and interesting additions to the mix, rather than threatening corporate alien life-forms. Besides, I like Star Wars and I used to like Heroes, and, you know. Whatever.

I dunno.

A less obvious idea, but one that I think is equally great, is what TCM is doing with their "Lost Scenes" promotion. They’ve hired underground/alternative comics stars like Peter Bagge to create webcomics around cult classics like Reefer Madness and Terror of Tiny Town. The alternative comics aesthetic on display here matches the existing webcomics vibe a lot better than the slick action/adventure stuff I was talking about earlier. I think most webcomics fans, whatever they think of the Star Wars and Heroes stuff, and however anti-establishment they might currently be, will love these.

Check it out.

What do you think? Are promotional webcomics are a good idea, and a great step forward for the medium, or just more of the same old, same old? Am I just a sell-out now? Ha! That’s entirely possible! Let me know!

When Rich Stevens, creator of the classic webcomic Diesel Sweeties, signed a syndication deal with United Media, a major newspaper syndicate, the news was heralded as the beginning of a new era in webcomics. When he decided a couple of years later to end the relationship, people wondered why. Here’s what he had to say:

I did my taxes. I realized that I made less money than the last year that I wasn’t syndicated. It’s a hard business and it takes years and years to build up a client list and get paid. I just kinda thought to myself that I spent years and years learning how to make money off the internet. Why should I continue to injure myself, when I could just do what I’m good at?

Stevens is an extroverted guy with a very public persona, more even than most other popular webcartoonists, and has been quoted a lot on the break-up. I picked the above from Wired out of several dozen interviews and random off-the-cuff statements I found in a two second Googling session.

What I didn’t find anywhere in Google was "the other side" — what did the syndicate think about this development? I’m sure there’s somewhere that they made a nice bland corporate comment (that’s what they’re supposed to do). But I’m also sure that at least a few people on that side of the business, the corporate side, think that, you know, maybe it was just a Rich Stevens issue, not evidence of a structural problem with the way they do business, and that there are plenty of other cartoonists who would be happy to have the deal he had.

There are plenty of other cartoonists who would be happy to have the deal Stevens had. But how long would they stay happy? We have to figure Stevens was happy with the deal he had when he signed on, or he wouldn’t have done it. But it didn’t take him long to change his mind, and the reasons he changed his mind don’t seem, from my point of view anyway, to be emotional or egotistical. Dude wasn’t making enough money! He was making less than he had made before! That’s more than enough reason to shut down a business deal as quickly as possible.

So this isn’t news or anything. It’s been analyzed and discussed all over the place. The failed Diesel Sweeties/United relationship came to mind today when I read that Gina Biggs is reclaiming the book publishing rights to her popular webmanga Red String from Dark Horse. If I remember correctly, MegaTokyo also started out with a Dark Horse deal and left (for DC). And I believe that Penny Arcade started out with a Dark Horse deal and left (for Del Ray). In both of those cases, the creators went from one large publishing house to an even larger one. Biggs, on the other hand, like Stevens, has decided that self-publishing is the most efficient way for her to, as they say in the business, maximize her revenue potential:

This means they will only be available through the website and at conventions, but it also means that I will see more of the profit from these books which could be very beneficial to someone striving to make a living through art and webcomics.

So, to underline an important point: a newspaper syndicate gets you access to, you guessed it, the newspapers, and their millions of readers. A publisher like Dark Horse gets you access to comic book stores, plus Borders, Barnes & Noble, and every other bookstore in the world, plus a direct pipeline to Hollywood, plus … well … lots of other opportunities. And Biggs and Stevens both decided that they are better off without those access points and those opportunities, because the price, in the form of a lack of actual cash coming in the door on a day to day basis, was too high.

Either these cartoonists (and others with similarly failed relationships with mainstream publishers) are anal retentive control freaks and/or crazy egotistical jerks (and I have heard some people in the print comics business say that about some of the top webcartoonists), or the mainstream publishing model is too deeply flawed to provide meaningful benefit to them over and above what they are able to accomplish on their own despite all the natural and obvious advantages that a big company brings to the table.

I tend to believe the latter.

There are other examples.Sheldon. Boy on a Stick and Slither. Both ended their relationships with United.

But, yeah, there’s plenty of counter-examples, too. Quite a few webcartoonists seem to be happy enough with their Dark Horse (or DC or Marvel or Oni or Top Shelf or Random House or Pantheon or whatever) deals. Achewood is also at Dark Horse, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Get Your War On guy never bitches about his print publisher, I’m pretty sure. Jon Rosenberg only has excited things to say about his new book, which is being published by one of the largest companies in the known universe. Even the Zuda guys, who were heckled and warned about the dire ramifications of the Zuda deal by snarky webcomics bloggers like, um, me, seem uniformly happy with the relationship they’ve got going on over there with the Time/Warner conglomerate (and, just to be clear here, I think that’s a good thing!) When Penny Arcade and MegaTokyo left their publisher, as noted above, they didn’t fall back to self-publishing books — they moved onward and upward to even bigger publishers.

So I’m not trying to pretend that every example out there supports my thesis. Just sort of thinking out loud. There are enough failed deals — deals that end up with the creator reverting all the way back to self-publishing and self-sufficiency — that it seems to me that there’s got to be something structural/endemic/systemic going on here.

What do you think?

I’m as much of an indie print comics fan as I am a webcomics fan.

There are a lot of us who participate in both communities, but they are still two fairly distinct communities. A lot of my friends at the comic book store (I shop at Jim Hanley’s Universe, by the Empire State Building, most of the time these days, but sometimes I go to Galaxy Comics in Bay Ridge) aren’t into webcomics, and quite a few of my Facebook friends have probably never been to a comic book store.

The two worlds are slowly coming together, though.

In particular, I find that a lot of indie print comics fans have a lot of curiosity about webcomics, but just haven’t found "the one" they like, yet. Because many of the most popular webcomics seem to be humorous punchline-oriented strips, some indie comics fans think that all webcomics are in that genre. A lot of indie comics fans aren’t any more into punchline-oriented comics than the average non-comics-fan (which is to say, they like them fine when they happen to see them, if they’re funny, but they don’t like them quite enough to call themselves "fans").

There are many great webcomics that aren’t punchline-driven, of course, but they’re maybe a little harder to find.

Couple that with individual taste (the kind of narrative-driven webcomic a Love & Rockets fan would love, for example, is likely different from the perfect webcomic for a Fear Agent fan or a Walking Dead devotee), and it gets really, really hard to find the right comic to recommend, when they ask. And they do ask. A lot.

Now that Ursula Vernon’s Digger is free, though, that job has become a lot easier. Digger used to be part of the formerly-subscription-based website Graphic Smash, which I used to own. Now it is free. And it is on its own site. And I honestly can’t think of anybody who wouldn’t love Digger.

Indie print comics fans? Meet Digger. And, um, everybody else, too. If you already like webcomics? You’ll also love Digger. Or maybe I should say you’ll, um, dig Digger.

So check it out.

How many more times can I fit the link in there? At least one more. Consider it the bloggy equivalent of grabbing you by the shoulder and insisting you head over, you know, this way.

Etc.

Object lesson: when people who make media for a salary are laid off, and can’t find work elsewhere, they sometimes take matters into their own hands, and invent their own next opportunity. That’s what I did in 2002, after streamingmedia.com imploded, and I’ve never had to look back. And I’m not the only one. The creative diaspora after the dotcom bust was directly or indirectly responsible for more exciting and sustainable media businesses — from Digg to Achewood to Revision3 — than any number of swollen VC-funded "business" "plans" from the bubble years. The means of production have been in the hands of creative people since at least the 1980′s, with the wide dissemination of personal computers and inexpensive software to make ideas into visible projects. The means of distribution are also within everybody’s reach now. Promotion, likewise, has become more about viral effects and nimble meme-riding than about big budget commercials. What, then, does mainstream media have left to offer the creative people who make its product? Only a steady paycheck. And with the credit crunch and economic turmoil surrounding it, even that one advantage is rapidly moving out of reach of all but the largest of the large corporations.

I stayed at my job longer than I had to, long after I knew that I had the power to create economically viable media properties, because I was afraid of losing that paycheck. Once I got laid off, I didn’t have any other choice. So I made something of my own. And I made my living at it, for six years, right up until the day I merged it with ComicSpace and joined that company as CEO, about a year ago. Would I have been able to do that if the dotcom economy had continued to thrive? Probably not. It was the crash that ultimately empowered me and, simultaneously, dis-empowered my better-funded competition.

That’s about to happen to tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of creative people out there.

I can’t wait to see what they make.

A lot of people who read comics also make them. Maybe even most people.

This isn’t true of other forms of art. I mean, when I was a teenager, I used to daydream about being a cool New Wave singer (I know, I’m old, I’m old) like that guy from A Flock of Seagulls, but I never bothered putting together a band or even learning how to read music. And there are definitely people who get hooked on, say, movies at an early age, and then dedicate their lives to learning that craft — but they’re a tiny percentage of the overall movie-going audience. Every novelist was a reader first, and so on. I guess every art form draws its next generation of creators from its current generation of fans. But this phenomenon seems to be more concentrated in the comics world. Am I right? What does your experience tell you? Almost everybody I’ve ever met who reads comics has, at some point or another, actually made one, even if he or she never showed it to anybody. I don’t know why, but have a lot of thoughts.

On my more cynical days, I decide that comics has a higher concentration of budding creators in its audience because the only people who bother to read comics anymore are the ones who want to make them. You know, like contemporary poetry. Ha! But my cynical days are few.

On my optimistic days, I am convinced that comics is leading the way for all forms of media, where the audience and the creator are one and the same, and that anybody with a voice and some talent can reach for the stars, or can be a star. Historically, comics has been the breeding ground for some amazing self-published successes: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Penny-Arcade, American Splendor, and so on. This isn’t to say that every self-published comic is successful — god no. There are way more failures than successes (there are also way more failed corporate comics than successful ones, way more failed big-budget movies than successful ones, way more failed television series than successful ones, etc). But here’s what counts, at least to me: no other entertainment form I can think of allows people to scale the ladder from complete obscurity to fame and fortune, all by themselves, without a corporate paycheck. Or to put it another way: no other entertainment form is as open as comics to the self-published and the creator-owned. The web has accelerated this dynamic, but in comics, the self-publishing trend predates the web by a couple of decades. Now the rest of media is catching on.

And then there are also people who make comics just for fun. Which is also valid. Comics are fun to make. Maybe that’s the reason so many people make them.

Yeah, probably. That’s probably all it is.

What do you think?

Knowing some of the people behind it personally, I was in on some of the early conversations about the New England Webcomics Weekend. It originally sounded like a small little thing, a quick little get-together, and I figured I wouldn’t bother. I had seen all those people recently at NYCC and all. Now, with panels, exhibitors, etc., etc., it’s starting to look like a convention. And that’s a good thing, for the most part. Except that it means I’m having to change my mind. I’m gonna go after all. Anybody else from the NYC area taking off to go up there? Maybe we can caravan.

This is how all the cool stuff starts, by the way: by accident.

Everybody who watches the scene kind of knows that t-shirts are a big deal in the webcomics world. And I guess I knew that a lot of indie rock bands sold t-shirts out of the back of their vans. We’ve all seen Threadless. And CafePress. And etc. Like "everybody," I thought I was pretty hip to the scene. What I didn’t realize, until I started doing research in preparation for the launch of the ComicSpace Store beta, was just how many businesses there are out there specializing in hip, snarky, graphically-intense, indie t-shirts. There are even blogs that cover the latest designs and interview the hottest designers — just like, here in webcomics, we have Fleen or whatever. So far, I haven’t discovered any crossover between the two crowds — no mention of Rich Stevens or [url ="http://www.topatoco.com"]TopatoCo[/url] on the t-shirt blogs; no mention of Emptees or Cottonable on the webcomic sites. Maybe there has been some cross-pollination and I missed it. I dunno. I’m new to the t-shirt party. I’m looking forward to learning more, though. Expect me to start linking more and more posts from the t-shirt blogs and such over the next few weeks, because that’s where my head will be as we work through the ComicSpace Store beta.

Meanwhile, the beta is going well. Evil by Shaenon Garrity and Evergreen by James Kochalka seem to be the runaway hits. We know we need to add more kinds of t-shirt "blanks" (babydolls, kids’ sizes, maybe hoodies). We know we need to add more designs, by more artists. We know we need better pictures of people wearing the shirts. But beyond those obvious things, I’d love to hear any other feedback you guys might have about how we could improve the store. Use the comments! They seem to be working! For now! Ha!

Also, a quick correction. It seems that TopatoCo has been fronting the money for merch for about a year now — which is the same model we’re employing here at the ComicSpace store. I implied that we were the first to do that last week in my announcement, and I apologize to the fine folks at Topatoco for the inaccuracy. In my defense, they’ve been quiet about it — which reflects well on them, I think. Webcomics has a lot of talkers. TopatoCo are doers. Good on them.