About 4 million years ago (give or take), I used Kickstarter to fund a little comic book I had written. It was a sort of retroactive funding, since I had already paid for most of the artwork on the thing, but still a much-needed boost, because I soon learned that creating your own comic when no one knows who you are is not a get-rich-quick endeavor. Or a get-rich-at-all one.
Anyway, I paid all the collaborators and printed a couple hundred issues, some as rewards for the donors and some because I had this silly notion that people might actually buy them at conventions and things. But the goal all along was to get on Comixology.com, pretty much the biggest dog in the world of digital comics. They carry Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, and even a have small section for little weenies like me called Comixology Submit. The great thing about this business model is that there are no printing costs. Comixology takes a percentage of each sale (if I actually sell any), but otherwise I take home the rest.
Now, technically, the book is already available on several websites, including Amazon, Indyplanet and even a little place I found called Robinhoodcomic.com (which, of course, I only recently discovered had a broken shopping cart link. Sorry, folks. It’s totally working now, by the way, in case you’re interested.) However, I have all of .69 cents in my Indyplanet account, and have made three whole bucks from Amazon digital sales. Remember what I said earlier about the “big dog?” That wasn’t idle chatter.
So, I submitted to Comixology some time ago, and was delighted when I received an email stating that the book had been accepted… kind of. I had a few technical corrections to make first. Apparently, the problem was something the Comixology people called “artifacting.” Naturally, as I typed that, there is a red, squiggly line under that word, because it doesn’t actually exist. I asked several graphic designer friends, and people in comics, and Google, and finally figured out what the issue was. I thought I had fixed the problem and submitted again, only to receive the exact same email from Comixology telling me that that there was a problem with “artifacting.” After exhausting all of my friends, both computer-y smart and creative, and three attempts, which were all separated by about three months of waiting for a response, I got the email officially congratulating me and saying that my book was going to be carried on Comixology, starting December 31st.
I don’t know if this date is cool foreshadowing for 2015, or an amazing coincidence, but either way, it’s good news. This idea that I started way back when now seems more official. Not that it wasn’t “official” before, but to me, it seems nice and real now, mostly because I am my own harshest critic. It also means I actually have to come through with issue #2 now.
If you made it this far into the post, you obviously have some interest, so let me apologize to you,loyal friends and colleagues, because starting at 10:00 a.m., December 31st (tomorrow, as I write this), I am going to bombard all of you on social media with links and shares and tweets and smoke signals, reminding you that this is a thing and that it’s a cool book and you should buy it, and if you don’t want to buy it (which is understandable), you should at least tell your friends and your friends-of-friends. Because let’s face it, that’s how this shit works these days. And thank God, because I wouldn’t be here, otherwise.
Thanks in advance, and happy New Year!
mattdursin.com 