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Business

Making money with webcomics. Seriously!

Platinum Studios Files For IPO

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on September 11, 2007 - 10:03

Kevin Church has a post on Platinum Studios filing with the SEC to become a public company (it filed a SB-2 statement with the SEC). Kevin's post is a little bit of snark with some highly superficial speculation on the traffic at Drunkduck.com (a site owned by Platinum Studios). He links, however, to an American Ventures magazine story slash press release on Platinum Studios filing which also details Platinum's closing of a $5 million dollar round of equity financing. Digital Media Wire also filed a story on the potential IPO but no one seems to offer any independent reportage on the details of the financing round or the realistic prospects for an IPO (including the almost prequisite speculation on initial valuation).

It’s Business, It’s Business Time. Part 3: Longform Comics Need to Man-Up

Submitted by Tim Demeter on August 15, 2007 - 12:35

I was never a fan of newspaper comics. Calvin and Hobbes may have been the first comic I ever read, but once it ended, that was it for me, everything else seemed formulaic and contrived to me with no room for any real artistry. That may or may not be true, but it’s how I feel.

Now, comic BOOKS, that’s another story. Just as Calvin and Hobbes was ending I began devouring X-Men, and Spider-Man and Batman, and it’s where my love of comic comes from, what originally inspired me to make a career out of comics.

Those are the kind of comics I love and the kind of comics I want make, but they’re not dominating the web.

It's Business, It's Business Time. Part 1: Welcome to THE WOOOOORLD OF TOMORROOOOOOW

Submitted by Tim Demeter on August 13, 2007 - 14:18

You know when Tim is running ComixTalk for a week it's time for business, that's why they call him Business-Tim.

Internet! How are you? It's me again, your pal Tim. You may recall me from such internetery as GraphicSmash.com, Clickwheel.net, and Reckless Life. I'm gonna be taking a look at the changing face of digital comics we seem to find ourselves in these days over the course of the week as it relates to stuff I know enough about to comment on.

Today I'm going to take a broad look at what's going on right now and what it means to you. Yes, YOU. So why not click read more and read some more, because I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, aaaaaaaah yeeeeeah, it's time for business. It's business time.

Life in Links for Friday, July 13, 2007

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 13, 2007 - 08:56

HEADLINES

REVIEWS

DEAD TREES

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS

Tuesday News & Blues

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 19, 2007 - 10:10

COMIXMEDIA UPDATE:  I'm still working on the site(s) upgrade. Current plan is to have this site rebranded as COMIXTALK by the beginning of July. I'll have another site called COMIXMEDIA as an umbrella site for comics-related projects I'm working on. The upgrade here went well except the current "theme" for the site is creating some problems so I need to get the site moved to a new theme pronto (current plan is to simply update the current theme to Drupal 5.1 specs)

Guest Bloggers Wanted: Interested in blogging about (web)comics on ComixTalk in July or August? Drop me a note at xerexes AT comixpedia DOT com

BUSINESS
Todd Allen breaks another piece of the story about DC Comics plans for the web. DC Comics' new online editor is Kwanza Johnson (who according to Allen had a similar job with Marvel back in 2000?!) Allen predicts a "big" 4th quarter roll-out of webcomics from DC.

Mike Strang posted about his unhappy experience working for Platinum on a work-for-hire contract and others (T Campbell) chimed in with comments. Joey Manley compared work-for-hire to sticking your hand in a meat grinder. My own personal opinion is that authors should keep their copyrights and that creativity and business are both better off under those circumstances. But in movies, television, music and especially comic books, work-for-hire arrangements have been used forever and are still being used. So long as you know what you're getting into I don't see anything inherently evil about it. Just be clear on the concept - work-for-hire means all of your creative work becomes someone else's property. (REMINDER: if you comment at ComixTalk please try to be civil and respectful of others.)

INTERVIEWS
T Campbell interviews Aaron Williams, creator of Nodwick, PS238, Full Frontal Nerdity, co-writer on Truth, Justin, and the American Way.

Jane Irwin interviewed Templar, AZ creator Spike about webcomics and "effectively whoring your way to higher pageviews." You can read the interview here.

Shaenon Garrity interviewed Rob Vollmar who writes the comic Inanna’s Tears (drawn by mpMann).

Lynn Lau interviewed Katie Shanahan creator of the off-the-wall journal comic Shrub Monkeys.

Finding Wonderland talks to American Born Chinese author Gene Yang. (link from Journalista!)

DEAD TREES: Life Meter Vol. 2 will debut at MOCCA. Life Meter is an anthology of video game- inspired comics, featuring stories and art by Bannister, Joel Carroll, Raina Telgemeier, Steve Hamaker, Jake Parker, Jeffrey Rowland, Queenie Chan, and many, many more.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: I saw some plugs for Boxcar Astronaut and it is indeed a cute comic (it reminds me a bit of the syndicated Red Rover comic strip).

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
FLEEN speculates on whether Elfquest creators Wendy and Richard Pini will follow the path of Phil and Kaja Foglio to the web.

At the Webcomicker blog, Gilead writes about Dominic Deegan:

If there’s one thing I like about Dominic Deegan, it’s that the storylines move forward progressively. The comic tends to have storylines which are fairly self-contained, with a specific villian or villians wreaking havoc with a specific set of goals and a specific set of heroes undergoing a specific set of actions in order to thwart said villians. But instead of each storyline coming around the full circle and leaving the heroes in basically the same place as they were when they started in classic comic book “and so the world was saved once again, and John D and Suzy Q were able to return to their normal lives” fashion, the characters in Dominic Deegan mature and grow from their experiences, and with each storyline move progressively closer to the “happily ever after.”

Joystiq readers pick their favorite comic.

Odd factoid of the day - according to this blog post, VG Cats creator Scott Ramsoomair used to babysit this guy.

The Summer Slump

Submitted by WizToast on June 17, 2007 - 18:45

I've had at least a few thousand readers for at least three years now. In that time, I've noticed that there are distinct patterns of website traffic every year that roughly correspond to the time high school and college students are in school. That is to say, September through Mid December and Mid January through May tend to be high growth periods. Summer tends to bring stagnation, slow growth, or even traffic loss. The winter holidays bring a brief but steep traffic drop.

Printer's Row

Check out here in Chicago - tons of books and some comics too. Complete information can be found at the website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/about/custom/events/printersrow/

Growing Comics

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 4, 2007 - 10:42

Some interesting articles recently on the biz of comics. First Journalista! points out that the website ICv2 recently estimated the entire Direct Market has retail sales of about $650 million last year (ICv2 is a pretty reliable source for numbers on comic book and graphic novel sales). Joey Manley writes "$650 million? Sorry. I’m just not that impressed." Compared to the total market for books it is a pretty small number.

Tom Spurgeon has a short post musing on the issues confronting the different facets of the comics-on-print publishing business. And at CBR, Todd Allen has a column which compares different sales channels for comics: Direct Market, Bookstores, Online Stories, Direct-To-Consumer.

Not a lot to add myself today except some speculation. I'd guess that a large percentage of the $650 million number for Direct Market retail sales is of the superhero genre. I'd find it hard to believe that there's much, if any, room for growth in that genre in comics as it's been so completely exploited by DC and Marvel over the years, so let's guess $500 million in sales as a ceiling for what is still often referred to as "mainstream" comic books. That's only one genre though - if publishers of comic books could develop other genres into at least $100 million plus categories, well, then you'd have a roadmap for the overall growth of comics. Start with popular genres in terms of sales of books and movies that have not been exploited by comics. You're not going to sell these new genre comics through the Direct Market (at least not primarily) but smart, innovative publishers could do it through a combination of bookstores and digital sales.

Office Supplies - The Comic

Submitted by geotraveler on May 31, 2007 - 12:35

Currently promoting my comic - Office Supplies - http://www.officesuppliescomic.com

Office Supplies(c) is a comic strip centered around everyday items used in the office and their personal take on life!

New scam targeting artists

Submitted by Tim Tylor on May 15, 2007 - 19:20

The artist BAM (Bruce Andrew Mckay) reports a new scam targeting independent artists.