Catching a Vision 014
Breaking Comics Out: Self-Publishing Part 1
Catching a Vision, the (sorta, kinda) weekly column on Comic Related from C. Edward Sellner, Founder and Creative Director of Visionary Comics Studio. CAV provides practical guidance on how to break into the comics industry, as well as insights into this medium we all love. With resources you can order online, interviews and debates with comic professionals, and online workshops, this is your best introduction into the wonders of creating comics!
So, in this series on breaking comics out, or the introduction to the business end of comics, we focused first on putting together and working with a team. A critical stage in moving a project ahead and good skills to have in any situation. We then hit on some of the important things to consider in putting together a submission, an attempt by a creator, or team to pitch themselves or a book to a pre-existing publisher or studio.
But what about the other path into comics, the route of self-publishing? Glad you asked.
Introduction
First, let's define self-publishing. At it's most basic level, self-publishing is when a creator or team of creators go beyond the process of simply creating the comic and take on the challenge of getting that comic out into the public arena through one form or another, so that it can actually be read by someone other than those involved in its creation. Pretty broad definition huh? Indeed it is and that is part of the challenge of understanding self-publishing. Simply put, it covers a lot.
After the last two columns on submissions, I was asked if I was excluding people who self-published. I quickly assured folks I was not excluding them, but someone self-publishing, by definition, is not submitting that work. The more I've thought about that since, the more I've realized that every other single column I do that is focused on the business end of comics is really more geared for those who intend to self-publish than for anyone else. I certainly don't expect someone to get hired as the Marketing Manager for Marvel because they read my column. Folks who take on specialized business roles for larger publishers come with a lot more background than that.
Chances are the people who find the columns on the various business aspects of the industry the most valuable are those who are in the trenches, doing it themselves and not really knowing just what they got into. Right?
So, with that in mind, let's kick off a multi-part series on introducing the business of self-publishing by unpacking some answers to each of the five BIG questions: Who? Why? What? How? And When? (At least, that's the order I'm asking them in.)
Who?
Again, for the sake of these columns I'm going to give this the broadest possible range of definition. So, who is a self-publisher? It's the guy down the street who writes and draws his own stuff, photocopies 50 copies of it and sells them at the local comic convention in his town. It's the young lady who draws her own comic strip and posts it online. It's also the couple who create a unique property, print books of it, put it online, and spend decades building their audience until its considered one of the best comics ever published and is licensed by major publishers for reprints and a major movie company to be turned into a film. It's also the guy who self-publishes some books that really show his talent as a writer and then gets picked up by a major publisher and writes for them the rest of his life.
The fact of the matter is, all these self-publishers exist. If you've been to a comic con and wandered through artist alley you've seen plenty of the first type. If you've browsed web comic listings, or searched for web-comics you've found plenty of the second. By the way, if you haven't...try it.
The more established comics industry is filled with great examples of folks who have done the others in one combination or other. Wendy and Richard Pini launched a small, self-published title called ElfQuest that was self-published for years, went from one black and white title, to several, inter-related color titles, to being reprinted by both Marvel and DC and has most recently been optioned by Warner Brothers for a motion picture. Dave Sim, with some help, published 300 issues, over 6,000 pages of his character Cerebus the Aardvark, an icon of comics literature that is the longest running series by a single creative team. Brian Michael Bendis self-published his own material as a writer and artist, built a fan-base, got recognized as a great writing talent, and then went to work for Marvel and has been one of the main shapers of the 21st Century House of Ideas.
Their stories are as unique as the ones they write and draw. So, what is it that draws such a diverse and eclectic group? How can you start to decide if you should try and join that roster? Well, let's start with a pretty logical question...
Why?
Why self-publish? Well, in trying to answer this question, there are two layers of answers we should look at.
The first is the most fundamental and the one aspect shared by all those who do indeed successfully self-publish. It involves having a passion to create comics that drives you. If you're going to follow this route, there just simply is no easy way around it, self-publishing is lot of work. It requires the investment of a lot of time, not only in the creation of the product but then in the hard work of getting the product out into the hands of potential fans. No matter what venue, no matter what schedule or timeline, no matter how broad based or targeted your potential fan-base is, self-publishing is quite simply a lot of work.
As a result, there are many people who brush up against the idea, get an inkling of what's in store for them and then run the opposite direction. There are others who get into it, grossly underestimate the commitment and work involved and get out of it almost as quickly. Then there are those who take the leap and move ahead, sometimes slowly, sometimes with great speed. Sometimes they make a lot of mistakes along the way, sometimes they don't. Sometimes their progress is slow and they have to fight for each step they take, other times they seem to just miraculously connect with a fan-base and become seemingly overnight sensations. Although, most 'overnight' sensations spend a lot of late nights getting there, just most people don't realize it.
So, the people who are going to successfully make that leap into being a self-publisher are the folks who are passionate enough about it to make the commitment for the long haul. Don't get me wrong, passion is not the only marker of a successful self-publisher, but it is the first and foremost one. No matter how smart, how business savvy, or how scary talented you are, if you don't have a passion for it, you will burn out on it far before you accomplish much of anything.
Beyond having a passion for the medium itself, you then get into the second layer of properly answering this question and here, the process becomes a lot trickier.
No, Really, Why?
Before you start on the avenue of self-publishing, you really should have clearly defined goals of what you hope to accomplish. Know your purpose in doing it. Of course, unexpected things may happen along the way that change those goals, or introduces a whole new direction. That's okay. But if you don't have a clearly charted course to begin with, than most likely you're not going to get far.
The End
For some people their whole motivation may be as simple and pure as their passion. They love comics, have always dreamed of creating comics and use their free time to do just that. Part of the love of creating comics is to create something that someone, somewhere out there will enjoy. Call it the zen, or karma of being a creator, but there it is. When you go to conventions and find the host of folks lined up along the far wall who have their photocopied ashcans, or POD books, you are seeing the folks with the unbridled passion of creating comics. When you search for web-comics and find the numerous listings of strips and series posted on blogs, community comic sites, or their own setup web-site, you are seeing folks with the unbridled passion for creating comics.
For these folks self-publishing is not a means to an end, but often the end itself. They usually have unique creator styles and visions that do not fit into the mainstream sensibility, sometimes they even purposefully snub their nose at the mainstream, and find their own niche audiences. The creators essentially want to do it their way and not be involved in the larger conglomerate. For them, doing the local shows and hawking their wares, or setting up a web-comic online meets their creative passion.
Now, again, if Eric Stephenson walked up to their booth and offered to publish their title through Image, or Dan Didio offered them a contract with DC, that might all change in a heartbeat. But most of these creators don't expect that, some spend little time even hoping for that, and some among this group would even reject such an offer if it actually came.
For those folks, the value in learning more about the business end of comics is simply in broadening the fan-base they want to build, of having a unique creation that carves out a little bigger niche for itself. If they can learn some better ways to market themselves and their creation, learn how to capitalize on doing conventions, or on promoting themselves on the web, then they're happy.
As we continue down this road, I hope this series will be helpful to folks in doing just that. However, a lot of what this series focuses on will not apply to you self-publishing mavericks. You're doing your thing, you're defining your niche in the market. By definition, no one can come and tell you how to blaze your own trail, especially creatively.
The best example I can think of in this vein, again, is the Elfquest series. If you are not familiar with them, please check out their website www.elfquest.com where they have just finished a major project of posting everything from the series online, where you can read it all for free! I'm tremendously enjoying catching up on those chapters I've missed over the years. Anyway, as I recall from Richard Pini's editorials in the early editions, Elfquest was greeted with a very lackluster response from the mainstream of the comics industry when it debuted.
It wasn't action oriented enough. It was drawn like a children's book but had mature themes. And not mature as in gore and sex, but mature as in themes of identity, love, family and the depth of complex relationships. It was sorta fantasy and sorta sci-fi, and nothing with super-heroes. So, it was largely dismissed by the mainstream of the time.
But the Pinis stayed true to their vision. Wendy was the artist on the series, and her and her husband co-wrote the series. They crafted their own tale and self-published it. Now, I don't know what kind of hopes and expectations they had when they started, but their hard work allowed them to devote themselves full-time to their passion. For them, that may have been all they ever wanted. Years later, Marvel picked up the series to reprint in their creator-owned brand of Epic Comics. Years after that deal dried up, DC picked up the rights to reprint them in manga-sized graphic albums. Now, there is a movie in the works. Who knows when they surpassed their wildest expectations, but the point here is all they ever set out to do was publish their own unique vision and find its audience. What they may not have anticipated is the sheer magnitude of the audience that would find it and in finding it absolutely love it!
As their numbers of fans grew, the mainstream came to them. They became true trailblazers because they made something the powers that be, overall, looked down on, and turned it into a highly successful franchise that helped push back the limits of what people thought comics could be.
If none of that had happened, and they had just been successful enough to devote themselves to the book and publish their own vision, they may have been happy with just that. As a matter of fact, to listen to some of their stories of challenges in dealing with licensing and other issues, they may have been happier with just that.
Now, the fact that they were business savvy, explored multiple venues and means of getting the series out, capitalized on opportunities to expand the franchise at the height of its popularity into multiple series, and were able to negotiate deals with folks like Marvel, DC, and Warner Brothers speaks to the many other gifts, talents and strengths they brought to the table.
But the why of it was simple and always put straight out there by the creators: to create our own vision and see where it leads. They never spoke of their desire to create for Marvel or DC, they never even hinted at any desire of growing a publishing house to rival the mainstream. It just was not on their agenda. Creating something unique was.
The Means
But let's face it, a large number of people who self-publish do not do so because that is their end goal. For them it is a means to an end. They self-publish because they are wanting to build a platform from which to launch their career as a creator, or to launch an intellectual property they hope helps establish them in a broader, more mainstream market, or build a publishing entity that expands beyond being a self-publishing outlet. In other words, it's their starting point for making it to one perception or another of 'The Big Time'.
This gets even more complex and we're going to save that for next time.
NOW ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT...
THE INDUSTRY ROUND-UP
Our Visionaries...
Yes, every once in a while I'm going to give you all updates on projects coming out from Visionary Comics Studio, or projects some of our talented Visionaries are part of. So, here is the latest scoop on a number of our folks...
-Overlook, the three issue series from Image, created and written by Joshua Williamson with full art by our own Ale Aragon is doing well. Ale has wrapped the art on the series, and it made its debut on the direct market. Sales were solid and it looks like the series is being well received! Congrats guys! If you are a fan of gritty, street crime style comics, you'll love this, check it out.
-Pat Broderick is starting to stage his return to comics. His full art job on one of the Vincent Price Presents issues from BlueWater has been solicited, the one-shot entitled Road Rage features a fully finished cover by Pat.
-In addition, buzzing is starting on the debut of Man O'War, one of the books from BlueWater out of their William Shatner line. Pat is doing art chores there as well!
-It's a little late, but a number of Visionary names popped up in various Zuda competitions. Congrats guys! None of them took the final top spot, but they all did pretty decent. Congrats especially to Nathan Furman who had two solo strips make the top ten cut-off.
-Colton Worley who was part of VCS for a while has hit the big time with his work on the adaptation of The Complete Dracula, from Dynamite. Hats off to him. The book has been much anticipated and is getting awesome reviews. Newsarama has recently run previews and interviews with the creators.
-Frog Princess, VCS' first foray into manga is now available through Haven Distributors. It's a great book written by VCS' own Jeff Loew, another rising star we interviewed here.
-Headlocked will be promoting itself this summer at various conventions, along with wrestling superstar Jerry Lawler. We will be selling issues from the hard to find Tryout mini-series. Look for an announcement this summer or early fall for the first trade to hit the stands.
-Coming up? All kinds of great stuff. Be looking for more VCS names in Zuda competitions (we just know that some of these will make the contest). I personally also have written a one-shot in the Vincent Price series, the art is being wrapped up on that even now. It's a great little story entitled Pawns, look for the official announcement soon. Plus, I'm writing a top-secret licensed project with BlueWater that I am VERY psyched about. I just finished and sent off the first script for the debut and had a ball writing it. Trust me, once it's public, I won't shut up about it.
Visionary will also soon be re-launching our web-site with a top-of-the-line, quality media site that will give a lot more exposure to our various projects and serve as a much better web-portal for all things Visionary! I will let you know our official launch date as soon as it is set in stone!
Get the (re)Source Special Edition
I'm undertaking a project of revamping, updating and transferring all my bookmarked web-sites over to Internet Explorer. As a result, I thought over the next few columns, this would be a good time to give a list of some of the best for aspiring comic creators to know about. Some I've mentioned before, others I've not. This will be an ever growing list as new resources come out, or improve and become more viable.
Art Resources...
Gray's Anatomy Online
A great online version of the definitive book on human anatomy.
Photoshop Tutorials
I prefer free online resources. This site has some free stuff but most of it is fee based. However, that being said, for visual learners who like to see stuff done, this site offers great tutorial videos on improving your mastery of Adobe Photoshop. Great for aspiring digital inkers or colorists.
Pose Maniacs
Here's a unique and different resource for artists. This site has rendered, 3-D animated models in various classic poses, that you can rotate through 360 degrees to get various views from virtually every angle. It includes heroic stances, floating, sitting, etc. and they regularly add new pose models. Great for the learning artist. (Thanks to Nicholas Valente for pointing me here!)
Networking Sites...
Inevitably if you're going to be trying to build yourself as a creator, get your work out and connect with likeminded professionals and potential fans, you need to explore social networking and content sites. Here are some of the basic ones.
Blogger
Start your own blog. You can feature your own written and artistic content. Upgrades allow you to also add in regular sidebar links to portfolios, projects etc. Such a site is free and can serve as the portal to your entire creative work if done right.
Comic Space
Think MySpace geared for comic creators. The site allows you to post art, pages in sequence for featured web comic stories, news alerts, etc. In addition, you can link to friends and then send out news bulletins. It's not the most functional site, but it has remained very comic-centric.
Deviant Art
Also a social networking site, much more geared toward artists, though writers can also post. It serves as a decent online portfolio as you can post galleries, and sort them into any number of categories. Great place for writers to connect with artists.
Facebook
Probably the current premiere social networking tool. You can search on a wide variety of interests and post most anything, or provide links to something more involved, like your studio site, or online portfolio. You can also create groups or pages for projects or yourself to network with fans.
Linked In
This is a networking site focused on professionals in various industries. As such, it is much more valuable than some of the others for building a base of connections among fellow pros. They are expanding their usability by adding groups and other features that is making the site more functional for professional networks.
My Space
Even though many are frustrated with the spam and the ever increasing advertising on the site, it is still a major social networking tool, especially with younger fans. Comics now have a major place on the network as well, so it's a good tool for news and such once you explore.
Photobucket
One of several solid photo or art posting sites. This is one such site that can be used well to set up online portfolios of creative work.
Whew, that's going to do it for this round! Cheers and Jeers and other features will return next time.
Next...
We delve further into Self-Publishing as we explore those who go that road in order to build something bigger for themselves...whatever that may be. We'll discuss the whys of it and start to explore the What question of Self-Publishing, as in What should you publish based on what your goals are? Join us!
Join the discussion and add your thoughts on this edition, or the column in general. If you have any questions or suggestions for resources, post them or email them to Sellner so they can be included in future columns. Are you an aspiring or up and coming creator and would like to share your story? Email Sellner and let him know who you are and what you've done.
C. Edward Sellner is the co-founder and Creative Director of Visionary Comics Studio, a studio that within its first three years has drawn high praise from the media and attracted the attention of legendary creators in the comics industry. They have been digitally and print published in the mainstream market and their creators currently work with over a dozen different publishers. Their work has been featured on television news shows, radio programs and internet podcasts as well as featured in every major comics news site online.
Contact him directly at cedwardsellner@aol.com
You can find him at...
Comic Related Forums
Facebook
Deviant Art
MySpace
ComicSpace
Visionary Comics Studio
The official site of the Studio where Sellner serves as Creative Director.
Visionary's Networking Sites:
VCS' Facebook Group
VCS' MySpace Page
VCS' ComicSpace Page
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