lew
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by lew on May 6, 2023 9:37:24 GMT
First thought is the euro magazine format. You've got Tintin Mag. Spirou. Corto Maltese had a damn magazine! What strikes me about these is you've got iconic cartoon characters as the face of anthologies. Now I dunno if it was guaranteed you'd see your favourite comic every month, especially with Tintin as Herge had a lot of missed deadlines/going awol. But you've got a magazine with a familiar character you could pick up and know that that familiar comic/cartoon/face would be in its pages to some degree. Or atleast you'd have an association. And on top of that you'd be introduced to a range of other creators, stories characters, that could change from month to month.
Say you've got a popular character, and you somehow make this happen.
Could it be leveraged in english markets to fill monthly books with boundary pushing work? Would people buy it?
For the sake of the argument what if Hanselmann put out Megg, Mogg and Owl Monthly? (He could definitely guarantee a monthly/bi-monthly comic.) His work is that breakout success, its everywhere. People will have his work alongside their two other comics, watchmen and sandman. This usually comes up when I bring up I make comics and they proceed to ask me what to get! People want more and don't seem to know how to get it.
I should definitely post what I'm reading more. Maybe people will get inspired to click the buy button, maybe thats what we all need to do, talk with joy about the books we love.
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devin
Junior Member
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Post by devin on May 6, 2023 10:38:07 GMT
... not to mention, creators who can't afford to use those expensive printing services ... Is there a reason people don't use print on demand/drop shipping? Is the quality awful? Do the companies take a big cut? Is it tricky to ship to distributors, etc.?
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devin
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by devin on May 6, 2023 10:44:42 GMT
First thought is the euro magazine format. You've got Tintin Mag. Spirou. Corto Maltese had a damn magazine! What strikes me about these is you've got iconic cartoon characters as the face of anthologies. Now I dunno if it was guaranteed you'd see your favourite comic every month, especially with Tintin as Herge had a lot of missed deadlines/going awol. But you've got a magazine with a familiar character you could pick up and know that that familiar comic/cartoon/face would be in its pages to some degree. Or atleast you'd have an association. And on top of that you'd be introduced to a range of other creators, stories characters, that could change from month to month.
Say you've got a popular character, and you somehow make this happen.
Could it be leveraged in english markets to fill monthly books with boundary pushing work? Would people buy it?
For the sake of the argument what if Hanselmann put out Megg, Mogg and Owl Monthly? (He could definitely guarantee a monthly/bi-monthly comic.) His work is that breakout success, its everywhere. People will have his work alongside their two other comics, watchmen and sandman. This usually comes up when I bring up I make comics and they proceed to ask me what to get! People want more and don't seem to know how to get it.
I should definitely post what I'm reading more. Maybe people will get inspired to click the buy button, maybe thats what we all need to do, talk with joy about the books we love.
The idea brings together a number of good points others have made upthread. Interesting. I think you might be onto something. Also a big tick to talking up the books we love.
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Post by bakertoons on May 6, 2023 14:08:14 GMT
... not to mention, creators who can't afford to use those expensive printing services ... Is there a reason people don't use print on demand/drop shipping? Is the quality awful? Do the companies take a big cut? Is it tricky to ship to distributors, etc.? The color printing in POD can be a mixed bag, although for B&W I actually have good experience with it and use it for my books.
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Post by eheitner on May 8, 2023 13:11:40 GMT
Lol Simon Hanselmann, who's big new release is 800 copies? It should be Dog Man on the cover! Dog Man magazine with one story by Dav Pilkey a month (man seems prolific enough) and space for new and up-and-coming cartoonists.
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devin
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by devin on May 8, 2023 14:15:00 GMT
Lol Simon Hanselmann, who's big new release is 800 copies? It should be Dog Man on the cover! Dog Man magazine with one story by Dav Pilkey a month (man seems prolific enough) and space for new and up-and-coming cartoonists. 2000 copies, dammit!
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Post by eheitner on May 8, 2023 16:40:08 GMT
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Post by Scott Gerard Ruhl on May 8, 2023 21:29:46 GMT
But seeing Joshua Cotter complain that Nod Away 2 (published by Fanta) sold FOUR copies in a year makes me think there's got to be a better way of doing things. Never mind mainstream success..... four copies!!!! (And that's 100% not a dig at Fantagraphics, btw.) The hardest thing I've encountered with self publishing is the selling and marketing. I've never had any interest in business and I'm a terrible salesman. When I read about the success various self publishers have had in the past it's because they took an active control in promoting their work and they never gave up. They call every comic shop in the country and ask if they'd like to carry their book. They send it out for review and basically insert themselves into the machine whichever way they can. I may have mentioned elsewhere but lets say I send 5 copies to Quimby's for consignment. If they sell I break even. If they don't I lose money. But other than tabling at conventions this is the best way for me to get the book out there and on shelves where people can see it and flip through it. And even if they don't buy it I still see tons of value in that. I can promote a physical store that has it and often that store will promote it on their social media. Quimby's has a weekly video that promotes all the new books and Partners & Son regularly posts whatever new offerings they receive. I've already realized that tabling at SPX this fall will probably cost me money. Plane fare, hotel room, table cost, etc. There is just no way I will move enough comics/prints/stickers to cover all that. I see it as an investment in my self and my work, with the hopes that I will slowly gain some sort of steam along the way. It's tough. In many ways I think it's why I put it off for so long.
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Post by teemcgee on May 8, 2023 22:33:35 GMT
I participate in a few discord groups concerned with literary fiction, and the general interest level in comics in these groups is low, and I'm not surprised why - when they discuss what they have been exposed to, it's all the tired best-of classics, Maus, Perspepolis, etc, which I think are actually poor entry points from an audience expecting textual sophistication. While audiences of these sizes are still small, from a commercial perspective they are an untapped market for art/experimental comics, but I suspect there's a high barrier to surmount - while your lit fic enthusiast is a highly literate reader (and often engaged with contemporary art as well) I wonder whether comics requires you to do a reader's apprenticeship on the genre/conventional work first to get an appreciation of anything more challenging, since the later so often involves manipulation of form or unconventional approaches to it, and it's in the genre work that those conventions of form are established. As an adult, particulary if you're concerned with "serious" literature, that might be a difficult ask (it seems to me like that people who read comics as adults for the first time, without any adolescent exposure, are rare, people who make comics without that exposure rarer even still - on that topic does anyone find it slightly embarassing that most comics interviews start with asking about exposure to comics as a child? Does the Paris Review ask writers what children's books they read?!).
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audra
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Post by audra on May 8, 2023 22:35:19 GMT
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devin
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by devin on May 9, 2023 12:29:36 GMT
I participate in a few discord groups concerned with literary fiction, and the general interest level in comics in these groups is low, and I'm not surprised why - when they discuss what they have been exposed to, it's all the tired best-of classics, Maus, Perspepolis, etc, which I think are actually poor entry points from an audience expecting textual sophistication. While audiences of these sizes are still small, from a commercial perspective they are an untapped market for art/experimental comics, but I suspect there's a high barrier to surmount - while your lit fic enthusiast is a highly literate reader (and often engaged with contemporary art as well) I wonder whether comics requires you to do a reader's apprenticeship on the genre/conventional work first to get an appreciation of anything more challenging, since the later so often involves manipulation of form or unconventional approaches to it, and it's in the genre work that those conventions of form are established. As an adult, particulary if you're concerned with "serious" literature, that might be a difficult ask (it seems to me like that people who read comics as adults for the first time, without any adolescent exposure, are rare, people who make comics without that exposure rarer even still - on that topic does anyone find it slightly embarassing that most comics interviews start with asking about exposure to comics as a child? Does the Paris Review ask writers what children's books they read?!). Didn't Ivan Brunetti have a column in the Paris Review for a bit? Anyway, maybe they should start asking what kids books authors read. Nabokov is one example of a literary great who used a lifetime's skill and preparation to eventually delve back into his youth. There are others. Also the authors whose works positively drip with childhood aesthetics. I'll put down Italo Calvino as an appropriate specimen here. The above is why I hold comics' association with youth as a potential strength. Childhood experience and memory, or at least intonations or echoes of them, can be used to create a powerful and very literary aesthetic space. Think of Gary Panter with his joyous mish-mash of childish pop-cultural flotsam and jetsam. Or what about Ben Katchor's Julius Knipl and its sense of exploration, mystery and wonder? To me, they both, at their best, obtain a genuinely literary quality through their aesthetic link to childhood experience. You're probably right that people have to have had that early exposure, though. But doesn't everyone to some extent or other? Even if just through the Sunday funnies? Interesting points all round.
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devin
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by devin on May 9, 2023 12:36:03 GMT
I know Sean takes building a supportive infrastructure for cartoonists very seriously. Also, the anthology format, for better or worse, has come up a number of times in this thread. Which is interesting. If I may ask, what are your thoughts on anthologies?
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devin
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by devin on May 9, 2023 12:49:21 GMT
But seeing Joshua Cotter complain that Nod Away 2 (published by Fanta) sold FOUR copies in a year makes me think there's got to be a better way of doing things. Never mind mainstream success..... four copies!!!! (And that's 100% not a dig at Fantagraphics, btw.) The hardest thing I've encountered with self publishing is the selling and marketing. I've never had any interest in business and I'm a terrible salesman. When I read about the success various self publishers have had in the past it's because they took an active control in promoting their work and they never gave up. They call every comic shop in the country and ask if they'd like to carry their book. They send it out for review and basically insert themselves into the machine whichever way they can. I may have mentioned elsewhere but lets say I send 5 copies to Quimby's for consignment. If they sell I break even. If they don't I lose money. But other than tabling at conventions this is the best way for me to get the book out there and on shelves where people can see it and flip through it. And even if they don't buy it I still see tons of value in that. I can promote a physical store that has it and often that store will promote it on their social media. Quimby's has a weekly video that promotes all the new books and Partners & Son regularly posts whatever new offerings they receive. I've already realized that tabling at SPX this fall will probably cost me money. Plane fare, hotel room, table cost, etc. There is just no way I will move enough comics/prints/stickers to cover all that. I see it as an investment in my self and my work, with the hopes that I will slowly gain some sort of steam along the way. It's tough. In many ways I think it's why I put it off for so long. Yeah, I mean it's a bit of a cliché, but artists aren't usually the most business orientated people, right? All I can do is wish you the best of luck. Also, the guy's controversial (often for good reason) but have you ever checked out Dave Sim's writings on self publishing? You might get something out of them. Though they're probably a little dated. Have a look at the 'Notes on how to become a cartooning self-publisher' section nearer the bottom of the page here: cerebusfangirl.com/sitemap.phpOr a transcription of a talk he gave in the early nineties here: cerebusfangirl.com/artists/nftp/procon.php
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Post by eheitner on May 9, 2023 13:33:36 GMT
Maybe we just each need to find a good neighborhood tree on which to staple new pages regularly.
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devin
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by devin on May 9, 2023 14:05:40 GMT
Maybe we just each need to find a good neighborhood tree on which to staple new pages regularly. Great. You've given me an excuse to bring up Ben Katchor for the fourth or fifth time in this thread. Didn't he, when he lost an outlet or something, start posting his weekly strip in a little frame in a coffee shop? I really like that.
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