This is the thread to talk about comics that aren’t DC or Marvel Comics.
Independent Comics Thread
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I do wonder why even reputable professionals like Busiek decide to air their dirty laundry like this with all these silly Twitter spats. It all feels very schoolyard.
In the context of the tweet to which Busiek was responding, and the (low) quality of the finished product, he has the right to defend his reputation by making it clear that he did NOT write that book despite what Liefeld claimed in the solicitations and in the credits.
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Yeah he always has been since he started hitting the mainstream, maybe around 10 years ago now.
I think in the last 3 or 4 though he’s really hit his groove. A lot of that earlier stuff was a bit hit and miss but it’s pretty much all hit nowadays.
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Image have put out a statement on Warren Ellis and Fell.
https://www.ign.com/articles/warren-ellis-fell-controversy-image-comics-statement
Seems pretty reasonable – the conclusion to Fell is still coming, just not soon, and not until Ellis finishes up making whatever amends he needs to make.
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No Unfunnies
When I was filing away some comics this past weekend, I saw those. The Unfunnies was one of the few Millar runs I kept when I purged my collection.
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Apropos of nothing, this is the first paragraph of the MillarWorld page on Wikipedia:
Millarworld Limited is a comic book company that was founded in 2004 by Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar as a creator-owned line.[5] The imprint is best known for publishing the books Wanted, Chosen, The Unfunnies, Kick-Ass and War Heroes.
Funny how the five “best known” books include one that was never completed and one that Mr. Millar has essentially disavowed.
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Unfunnies is the disavowed one. I think because of the content.
War Heroes is the unfinished one.
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Unfunnies was a damn good horror comic.
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I’m just glad they didn’t try to outrageously claim that Millarworld was a comic book publishing company.
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What was the last thing said about War Heroes? Anyone have a scoop? Inside info? Cheeseburger?
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I’m just glad they didn’t try to outrageously claim that Millarworld was a comic book publishing company.
All you had to do was follow the damn train
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Creators announced for the SIKTC adaptation that has been picked up for Netflix:
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Assuming his statement is genuine, he does seem to be doing more to address his wrongs than pretty much everyone else in his position.
Yeah. It’s a very good statement. We will see if it holds up. Maybe Ellis will be one of the first examples of someone coming back from being cancelled as a truly publicly reformed person. Because that’s something that’ll have to happen sooner or later, I suppose.
Anyway, I’m definitely there for Fell either way. That was one of my favourite works of his, and I definitely will be there to see it finished.
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Image Comics turns 30 next year: A look ahead at what’s coming (and what could be coming)
https://www.gamesradar.com/image-comics-turns-30-next-year-a-look-ahead-at-whats-coming/
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Bermuda #1
Written by John Layman
Art by Nick Bradshaw
Colors by Len O’Grady
There’s a region in the Atlantic Ocean where planes disappear, ships are lost, and souls go missing… never to be heard from again. And there’s an island within this place, mysterious and uncharted, untouched by time and civilization, where all who are lost end up — human or otherwise!
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Apparently it’s a common problem that some artists can’t draw feet no matter how great they are at other stuff (and everything else on those pages looks fine).
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The October 2021 solicitations thread has been updated.
More to come, but does have Dark Horse and Image
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Scott Snyder gets a Millarworld, signs on to produce comics for Comixology Unlimited:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/scott-snyder-books-comixology-1234988147/
Scott Snyder, the prolific comic book writer known for his work on DC’s Batman and Justice League and original projects such as American Vampire and Wytches, is lining up a roster of creator-owned projects that boast an impressive array of artists.
Snyder and his Best Jackett Press have signed a deal to co-create eight titles for ComiXology Originals. The titles will first debut via the Amazon-owned digital comics service and Kindle, and then appear in print via Dark Horse Books.
Among the titles is We Have Demons, created with frequent collaborator Greg Capullo in their first creator-owned book together.
“It was the idea that made the other ones fall into place,” Snyder tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It has everything that I love to do. It’s big and bombastic but it’s also character-driven and plays with genre and horror and monsters.”
Snyder is also co-creating titles with artists including Rafael Albuquerque, Francesco Francavilla, Jamal Igle, Jock, Tula Lotay, Francis Manapul and Dan Panosian. The titles will begin rolling out in October, with some expected to be graphic novels and others with the potential to be ongoing comic series.
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Amazon retains no rights to the comics under Snyder’s deal, meaning he and his artists will be in control when it comes to film, TV and merchandise. Amazon does get a brief first look, but Snyder has no obligation to grant rights to the company.
“There is a period during which we are making the books that they can look at them before we go out with them,” says Snyder of Amazon, which has successfully turned comics The Boys and Invincible into hit shows. “But what I love is we could decide, ‘Hey, we are going to go a different way.’”
BARNSTORMERS: written by Scott Snyder with art by Tula Lotay and colors by Tula Lotay and Dee Cunniffe — A high flying adventure romance set just after the First World War.
THE BOOK OF EVIL: written by Scott Snyder with illustrations by Jock — A prose story about four young friends growing up in a strange, near future where over 90 percent of the population are born as psychopaths.
CANARY: written by Scott Snyder with art and colors by Dan Panosian — It’s 1891 and a mine collapses into itself. Find out what the dark substance found 666 feet underground is in this horror Western!
CLEAR: written by Scott Snyder with art and colors by Francis Manapul — A sci-fi mystery thrill ride into a strange dystopian future, where a neurological internet connection is transforming reality.
DUCK AND COVER written by Scott Snyder with art by Rafael Albuquerque — A manga-influenced teen adventure set in the strange postapocalyptic America … of 1955. In conjunction with Albuquerque’s Stout Club Entertainment.
DUDLEY DATSON AND THE FOREVER MACHINE: written by Scott Snyder with art by Jamal Igle and Juan Castro and colors by Chris Sotomayor — A rollicking adventure story about a boy, his dog and a machine that controls time and space! What could go wrong?
NIGHT OF THE GHOUL: written by Scott Snyder with art and colors by Francesco Francavilla — A dazzling work of horror, intercutting between the present-day narrative and the story of a lost horror film.
WE HAVE DEMONS: written by Scott Snyder with art by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion and colors by Dave McCaig — The conflict between good and evil is about to come to a head when a teenage hero embarks on a journey that unveils a secret society, monsters and mayhem.
Very annoyed that Comixology Unlimited is still geo-blocked, I hope these get print versions soon.
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And, Humble Bundle have got a massive Dredd-verse related bundle online now, bizarrely enough including all the 2000AD books that they had last time. I have a lot of this material already (most of it, I think), but I’m tempted to convert to digital and sell off the trades instead. Worth a look see: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/judge-dredd-perps-punks-partners-2000ad-books?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_4_layout_index_2_layout_type_carousel_tile_index_1_c_judgedreddfriendsrebellionpublishingtbd_bookbundle
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In Image related news, Astro City is heading back to the old neighbourhood. Launching digitally later this year, with I imagine deluxe hardcover editions being planned for 2021/ 2022. Allowing me to plug some holes that DC allowed to fester.
I was just trying to catch up last week. So much is out of print, and the last few volumes never even came out in TPB, just premiere HCs. Hopefully they get those back out there.
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The only new AC material I know of is the N-Forcer OGN.
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Best of both worlds then. Obviously new stuff would be best, but I never bought any Astro City collected editions so a new line of *consistent* hardcovers would be tempting.
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From the sounds of it in Brubaker’s latest newsletter, there’s quite a fracas brewing over Sleeper. And he and Phillips only part-owning it might be helpful, as DC aren’t happy about Jed Mercurio doing a series with the same name.
Brubaker clearly feels let down by a fellow professional not checking for other works with the title. Nor would it have been hard as Sleeper is still selling 18 years on.
I know who I’m backing here.
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From the sounds of it in Brubaker’s latest newsletter, there’s quite a fracas brewing over Sleeper. And he and Phillips only part-owning it might be helpful, as DC aren’t happy about Jed Mercurio doing a series with the same name.
Brubaker clearly feels let down by a fellow professional not checking for other works with the title. Nor would it have been hard as Sleeper is still selling 18 years on.
I know who I’m backing here.
Doesn’t look like it has a US release yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets retitled when/if it gets released over there.
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Did they clear their comics name with Woody Allen?
Maybe I’m missing some context but material with the same name happens all the time. If you want to protect it you set a trademark in that territory. That’s how you check it’s taken rather than go through the name of every work of fiction ever.
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Maybe I’m missing some context but material with the same name happens all the time.
Like Ben says, there is some distinction between a ‘single work’ which can’t be trademarked and a series which can. This link goes into that:
https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/laws/title-single-work-refusal-and-how-overcome-refusal
But I think that’s a bit of a red herring here and having done a bit of investigating there might be more to this conversation than meets the eye.
Here’s what Brubaker says in his newsletter.
SLEEPER was the first major project that Sean Phillips and I did, way back when we started our partnership at Wildstorm/DC Comics (our first collaboration was an Elseworlds book called GOTHAM NOIR). It’s the only book we don’t own outright, though we do have a pretty decent stake in it, and it helped put us on the map as a team. It’s also a book that’s been under constant Hollywood interest or development. Sam Raimi and Tom Cruise tried to make it at Sony, WB recently had it set up with Ben Affleck attached to direct… and the various trade and hardback collections of it have been in constant print for about 18 years now.
Anyway, a month back it was brought to our attention that Jed Mercurio was launching a series of graphic novels entitled Sleeper. I’ve talked about my enjoyment of Mercurio’s TV shows before in these newsletters, so I was really unhappy to hear this. Somehow no one in the entire comics industry had heard about this book of his until it was already at the printer. Needless to say, WB owns the copyright and trademark to Sleeper as a series of graphic novels (and TV and film, I believe) and obviously they were more than concerned. So from what I understand there are a lot of legal things happening with them and the other publisher right now.
For my part, I’m just pissed about it. When you come up with the title for a series of graphic novels or comics, the very first thing you should do is search Google or Amazon to see if there’s already one in existence. Single book titles cannot be trademarked but a series title can be (trademark law is complicated) and so as a creator, you really need to do some due diligence. I not only check when I’m titling a series, but also when I’m doing a one-off book, just because I don’t want another GN with the same title as ours, to avoid confusion and because it’s the right thing to do. What you never want to have happen is find out right as you’re going to press that one of the biggest media companies in the world already has a series with the exact same title.
So to me this is just a sign of some big TV writer who took a movie pitch and turned it into a graphic novel, in hopes of then selling it as a movie or tv series, because everyone loves that ‘pre-existing IP’ these days. But to name your book the same thing as a popular series from DC Comics just shows a complete lack of knowledge of comics. So, to Jed Mercurio, I say…
Thing is, I’m not sure Brubaker is being entirely accurate there (or rather, whether the form of words he chose is dancing around an uncomfortable truth and implying the opposite).
WB own the copyright to Sleeper and claim trademarks linked with it, but having looked around I’m not sure they own the trademark to the title “Sleeper” being used for a graphic novel or series of graphic novels.
I searched the US Patent and Trademark Office for trademarks related to “Sleeper”, and turned up lots of them from various companies, but none registered to WB or DC covering comics or graphic novels.
So I went and had a look at the trademark information in the Sleeper Omnibus to see exactly what it said:
Compare that to this random Authority trade I pulled from my pile, which specifically cites The Authority as a trademarked title:
Or this one that I just happened to pull up for Death Or Glory, which again cites the title specifically as being trademarked:
So I’m wondering whether the title “Sleeper” is really quite as protected as Brubaker suggests, or whether what he says in his newsletter is more an attempt to get Mercurio to change the title as a professional courtesy rather than out of any strict legal obligation.
Particularly as this graphic novel (collecting a strip from Heavy Metal) came out last year…
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Copyright and trademarks are tricky when it comes to titles.
I think a lot of it comes down to how aggressively someone wants to push something (see Marvel vs Defiant over the Plasmer/Plasm). Some things like Star Trek and Star Wars are, obviously, off of the table, and a lot of it comes down to how similar two things of the same title are.
Trademarks generally cover a specific line of products… like Apple Computers and Apple Records (though once Apple Computers got into the music game with iTunes, I would assume they reached some kind of arrangement with Apple Records). For example, “Crest” is a brand of toothpaste. I can’t make another toothpaste or hygiene product and name it “Crest,” though I could, conceivably, create a superhero character named “Crest” because they are two distinct products.
One interesting thing I can recall in recent memory is Alias. The Marvel comic book titled Alias, written by Brian Bendis, and the J. J. Abrams tv series Alias. Both premiered at roughly the same time, and both were sort of mystery/espionage properties featuring a female protagonist. I’m not sure how they ran under the same title, since there could be marketplace confusion. I also recall that Rob Liefeld obtained the rights to produce comic books based on the Alias tv series, though I think they had to be under a different title, like how Grant Morrison’s comic book based on the Avengers tv series had to be titled Steed and Mrs. Peel. Unsurprisingly, the Liefeld Alias book never came out; not sure if had anything to do with the title, or just Rob being Rob.
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Don’t forget Generation X and Gen13.
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As someone who has registered trademarks recently you define the fields it covers and pay accordingly. So in essence if you have the money and nobody has trademarked before I could get a TM for The Carrier in 190 countries for every product under the sun.
Most do not do that as it’s a lot of work and money. They will more likely do it for the main country and field targeted. I had an app called Paytrak which is registered in the US but as our targeted audience was Malaysia and Hong Kong we registered it there anyway, where it wasn’t trademarked. If the US product becomes massive and they want to expand they can either pay us to hand over our trademark or change their name. The likelyhood in most cases is that won’t happen anyway.
That’s exactly what happened with The Avengers, in the UK the TV show registered it for TV, cinema and publications, in the US Marvel Comics did. So the US comic was called Steed and Mrs Peel and the movie in the UK was called Avengers Assemble instead of The Avengers. For something like Alias if one party registered for film and the other for publications then you can have both existing.
There are grey areas outside that as Jason suggests, you can come to agreements that may suit both parties. There’s also (outside of parody works) if there are too many similarities in the product that it hits plagiarism. That’s unlikely to be at play here, I doubt Mercurio’s OGN is at all working off any of the Sleeper comic’s ideas, but that was the argument in the Superman/Captain Marvel case. When anything actually goes to court then subjectivity comes into play very much. I think there are more derivative ‘Superman’ characters around today that get away with it but they don’t challenge as directly as in the 1940s.
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Here’s a link to his full statement. Doesn’t seem like the usual news outlets have picked it up yet.
https://jamestynioniv.substack.com/p/a-whole-new-era
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Nick Spencer, a comic book writer best known for his work for Marvel Entertainment, was the liaison between Substack and a group of creators who, starting Monday, will publish new comic book stories, essays and how-to guides on the platform.
The initial lineup includes comic-centric newsletters from Saladin Ahmed, Jonathan Hickman, Molly Ostertag, Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, with other writers and artists to be announced.
The creators will be paid by Substack while keeping ownership of their work. The company will take most of the subscription revenue in the first year; after that, it will take a 10 percent cut.
Mr. Tynion, who last month won an Eisner Award, the comic industry’s highest honor, for best writer, said he would break away from writing Batman for DC Entertainment to devote time to his creator-owned series and his Substack newsletter.
“This wasn’t an easy decision,” he said. “In order to invest my time in new material, I needed to choose. I could not do both.”
For his newsletter, one of his projects will be working with the artist Michael Avon Oeming on “Blue Book,” stories based on testimonies about alien encounters.
For his newsletter, Mr. Hickman is working with the artists Mike del Mundo and Mike Huddleston on a new series, “Three Worlds, Three Moons,” in which they will let fans in on the process of building a fictional universe.
“We’re treating it like a bunch of guys jamming together on a concept album, but we’re calling it a concept universe,” he said.
The group approach, which will also include contributions from the writers Ram V. and Tini Howard and others, will allow them to share the responsibility for the newsletter. “If someone is having a heavy week or a heavy month, someone else can pick up the slack,” Mr. Hickman said.
Mr. Snyder, a veteran comic book writer who has taught creative writing at Columbia University, New York University and Sarah Lawrence College, will offer advice to budding comic book writers in his newsletter.
https://www.polygon.com/comics/22616750/batman-james-tynion-iv-comics-substack
Fans of Tynion’s work will be able to subscribe to his newsletter, The Empire of the Tiny Onion, for $7 a month, or for a discounted rate of $75 a year. The plan allows subscribers to read Blue Box directly in their inboxes or Substack website, and grants them access to the full library of comic titles that Tynion has planned for the platform.
No mention of print versions.
I hope these projects are good, but I have little interest in following them as they’re just coming out; I’ll wait until there’s something more substantial.
One interesting thing is that one of the big things about Substack is that there are no editors (and Substack refuses to take responsibility for anything put out by anyone in their newsletters in the way an editor would). It’ll be interesting to see how that works with comics, which are generally a much more collaborative medium than essay-writing/journalism.
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I hope these projects are good, but I have little interest in following them as they’re just coming out; I’ll wait until there’s something more substantial.
Same. I’ll likely wait for hardcopy versions.
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RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT
The group approach, which will also include contributions from the writers Ram V. and Tini Howard and others, will allow them to share the responsibility for the newsletter. “If someone is having a heavy week or a heavy month, someone else can pick up the slack,” Mr. Hickman said.
This sounds horrible. First of all, Who is Tini Howard and what hold does she have over Jonathan Hickman? ‘someone else can pick up the stack’? I pay $7 month for a digital book but they can’t guarantee whether it comes out or not? e.g. I know you were expecting prime rib but our chef is having a heavy week, so here’s a mre chipped beef made by his apprentice.
I’m ok with Tynion IV. He is coming into his own as far as indies go and he has a right to say I don’t want to write Batman for another 3 years.
But Hickman came onboard the X Men with these grand plans then produced something little better than an anthology series while farming the rest of mutant universe out to lesser talent before jumping ship to this new platform and taking his proteges with him( i hope)
I may be making conclusion jumping here but it is obvious why they had the creators they did(Duggan and Percy) on Comic con x men panel.
It is ironic or insulting why Moira and the precogs were kept out of the picture within the x-books. Ironic if Hickman did not know himself how House of X was going to play out. Insulting if Hickman knew he was going to bail and never resolve his story and the HoxPox was a bait and switch all along.
End of RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT
Is Snyder using both Substack and Comixology/Best Jackett? Are their comics not going periodicals(no longer monthly or semi- , bi- , or quarterly) any more?
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I haven’t read a print copy of a comic in around 7 years! 😂
That aspect doesn’t worry me but this does smell a little of great digital initiatives that don’t really go anywhere, like Madefire or the thing Leah Moore and John Reppion had going on that I can no longer remember the name of.
How you will read these comics is odd to me too. They say people can read “directly in their inboxes or [on the] Substack website.”
So will it just be emails with jpegs embedded in them? No actual reader and no downloads? That makes it sound like a pain to read more than a few pages of.
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I don’t know how this is going to work, logistically, but this is pretty exciting news for the industry. I’m already subscribed to Snyder’s ComiXology stuff (via Amazon Prime). I like the sound of Tynion and Hickman’s too, and £5 a month for exclusive access to new material by both sounds fair. I’ve just subscribed to both.
Bitterly disappointing about Batman, but saw this coming given how successful Tynion’s indie work was being over the last few months. He’d be stupid not to capitalise on the interest in his work right now.
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Hickman’s not leaving, this is a side project. Tynion’s the only who says he’s quitting his day job AFAIK.
As I understand it, Tynion is just leaving his DC work, not his creator owned stuff like SIKTC and Department of Truth.
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You would be pretty stupid to share, for free, the newsletters that you paid for. But that’s the same with all DRM free content.
I’m paying to support the creator. If they abuse my trust I won’t pay them again next year, and would be hesitant to buy anything new of theirs going forwards. If I betray theirs, then it’s less likely they’ll make a success of this and go back to playing it safe. It’s in both our interests to not take the other person for a ride.
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Tynion sent out another email overnight that suggests his comics are going to be bi-weekly 10-page instalments, at least initially, with the comics as images in an email.
So I guess my $7 per month gets me a 20-page digital comic?
And I thought $5 floppies were expensive!
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That aspect doesn’t worry me but this does smell a little of great digital initiatives that don’t really go anywhere, like Madefire or the thing Leah Moore and John Reppion had going on that I can no longer remember the name of.
Yeah, Substack isn’t a comics publisher but apparently just a platform for newsletters. I have my doubts they know what they’re doing here in any way whatsoever, or how to attract this particular paying audience.
I do approve of Tynion’s decision to focus on his own original content (I’m not going to read his Batman books, and I love his indie series), but I don’t think his substack deal will work out. And I’m definitely not paying any money to read comics as jpgs in my email inbox or whatever.
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I have my doubts they know what they’re doing here in any way whatsoever,
From Tynion’s latest email:
HOW WILL WE READ YOUR DIGITAL COMICS?
This is an exciting question. The answer is really “We’re figuring it out.” There may be more options available to us as we move forward, and I’ve been chatting with other Substack creators about how they are planning on delivering their stories to you, but right now the plan is to release my comic projects in shorter chapters, about 10 pages long, releasing biweekly. We’ll run those as ten images you scroll down through in the body of the newsletter itself. We’ll also have an option for subscribers to download a PDF copy, with a download link in the newsletter. But this is all evolving! If another creator comes up with a better way to put comic books in your inbox and it changes my thinking, I’ll go with what reads the cleanest and the best. You’ll see it all start to play out next month with the release of the first chapter of Blue Book.
So it definitely sounds like they don’t have a clear idea how this will work yet. Maybe something they should have worked out before announcing it? I can’t imagine subscribing at this point without anything more than a vague notion of what you’re going to get.
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I have my doubts they know what they’re doing here in any way whatsoever,
From Tynion’s latest email:
HOW WILL WE READ YOUR DIGITAL COMICS?
This is an exciting question. The answer is really “We’re figuring it out.” There may be more options available to us as we move forward, and I’ve been chatting with other Substack creators about how they are planning on delivering their stories to you, but right now the plan is to release my comic projects in shorter chapters, about 10 pages long, releasing biweekly. We’ll run those as ten images you scroll down through in the body of the newsletter itself. We’ll also have an option for subscribers to download a PDF copy, with a download link in the newsletter. But this is all evolving! If another creator comes up with a better way to put comic books in your inbox and it changes my thinking, I’ll go with what reads the cleanest and the best. You’ll see it all start to play out next month with the release of the first chapter of Blue Book.
So it definitely sounds like they don’t have a clear idea how this will work yet. Maybe something they should have worked out before announcing it? I can’t imagine subscribing at this point without anything more than a vague notion of what you’re going to get.
For lack of a better term, this seems like an “old” way of doing things, almost a step backwards. If this had been announced in 2000, I think it would have been greeted with cheers and open arms. There weren’t that many options for reading a comic book digitally back then. Email was heavily used then, too.
Nowadays, there are so many options to reading comics digitally. Apps on phones, tablets, desktops, and laptops along with online services like Marvel Unlimited provide a lot of choices. You can buy digital comics from various vendors. I have seen that younger generations don’t use email they way older ones do.
This sounds like it may not work but I do wish all parties success.
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You would be pretty stupid to share, for free, the newsletters that you paid for.
You might be surprised to see how many people rip entire music albums they have paid for and upload them to youtube.
I guess there’s some kind of satisfaction in knowing you’ve beaten the system or something? I dunno
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Substack (or really their investors) are gonna bet it will build a paying audience enough for them to find a market or a place in a market of connecting creators with an audience or fans. More OnlyFans than Patreon?
I was reading from Dan Harvey, who’s a bit of an expert in the digital content world, that Substacks is drowning in venture capital money.
What Tynion seems to be saying here is that he’s being chucked more money than DC pay him to do whatever he wants with full ownership. I think that’s fantastic for the guys signed up and I’d jump at it but the combination of lots of VC money and a rather vague business plan makes me suspect they should make the best of it while it lasts.
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More OnlyFans than Patreon?
UGH!
So it definitely sounds like they don’t have a clear idea how this will work yet. Maybe something they should have worked out before announcing it? I can’t imagine subscribing at this point without anything more than a vague notion of what you’re going to get.
Good Question
Next Question
Hickman’s not leaving, this is a side project
is Hickman doing comics for Substack? or is he just doing newsletters? newsletters make more sense for the whole picking up the slack part but still would not want to spend $7 expecting a Hickman discussion about his framework for FF and get one from Howard discussing her cosplay attempts at Captain Marvel and Spider Woman
@Todd I saw a panel with Waid and Tynion at C2E2 about digital comics. I went to C2E2 twice. Was that the year I met you? Do you remember the panel? -
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It’s worth pointing out that all the money Substack is paying creators is just for the first year, after that they’re back to a regular Patreon-style setup where the creators get the subscription money, minus Substack’s 10% take.
Be interesting to see how many last past the first year.
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@Todd I saw a panel with Waid and Tynion at C2E2 about digital comics. I went to C2E2 twice. Was that the year I met you? Do you remember the panel?
Yes, it was! It was 2014.
My main remembrance is Jim O’Hara calling the Thrillbent model bullshit.
Their comics all had animations and transitions which was going make TPBs different and difficult. Nowadays when you got to Thrillbent.com, it’s redirected to a Twitter account. 1 user thanked author for this post.
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You realise that you all sound like a bunch of grumpy old men, right? Arguably today’s most popular writer, and other big names (Hickman, Young, Snyder, etc) have decided to dedicate a lot of their time and output to this platform. That’s exciting if nothing else.
Sure, it’s money related. Sure, there’s a damn good chance this will fall flat on it’s face (especially if everyone stands on the sidelines watching, just in case it fails, before committing to support it). And, yes, as with most things there’s going to be a process of trial and error; teething problems and the like.
But, this could be massively disruptive to the industry in ways that digital has failed to be so far.
Sure, I’m biased. I like the creators involved, and I have worked in consumer facing digital for many years. I’m willing to give it a shot. Rest assured, I’ll let you know how it goes. For what that’s worth.
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This was just in Scott Snyder’s newsletter; relevant to some of what we have been discussing.
And I wanted to also talk a little bit about “Why Substack?” and why a lot of us are doing this, because one thing to understand is that it’s not just the people announced yesterday. It really is a seismic thing—you’re going to see so many great creators from all areas of comics announcing newsletters and all kinds of projects on Substack over the next three months. So, just to give you a sense of why James and I and some other people thought it was a good place for us to go to make things right now.
Obviously, we’re aware of the criticism. No platform is perfect. We’re in conversation with people at Substack internally, and I know they’re dedicated to making it a better place, as are we. But, ultimately, this initiative itself in comics beyond the platform as a whole, this specific project and mission is really about creator empowerment within comics. It’s about injecting not just money but creative freedom into the lives of creators across the comic spectrum.
The grants that Substack is offering aren’t just to make a book and then go publish it. I think that’s the biggest misconception about it, and the thing to try to wrap your head around, as it took me a while, honestly, to understand it as well. But what Substack is doing, honestly, is giving us grants to essentially set up our own businesses—to set up the infrastructure of our own mini companies, where we’re the ones producing characters, stories, teaching classes, products, merchandise, all the kinds of things that we usually have to give rights or cuts over to or get permission to do or all of that—giving us the ability to do that ourselves.
And it’s not just something that’s in the immediate. It’s not about, “here some money, go do this, and then were done…” What everyone I know of that’s involved in it are about is setting up sustainable models for ourselves to be able to not just make great things, things we’re passionate about, free of any kind of constraints, not just have the rights to the things we we’re making or be able to market or merchandise whatever we want or sell ancillary rights to whatever we want out of those things—it’s also about creating a system that we can connect with you more directly and we can monetize our social media as we see fit to be able to continue to fund books and projects and all of this as we go forward.
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As a comics fan I’m excited by the prospect of these creators getting a free hand to create some new, original comics.
I’m fairly interested in the books-themselves – or at least intrigued to see more – it’s just the delivery format and price point that are a hard sell for me, especially given the apparent lack of thought that’s been given to the reading experience, which is obviously the fundamental part of it from the audience side.
A new idea isn’t automatically exciting just because it’s new, and $7 a month per creator for what sounds like it amounts to emailed jpegs of a single issue of a comic (plus some backmatter) isn’t an immediately exciting deal for me.
I’ll almost certainly check some of them out in print though.
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As a comics fan who long ago became fed up with The Big Two and their smug attitude regarding creators and fans/supporters, I’m always happy to see the creators come out on top. Tynion’s talents should be poured into creator-owned properties, not Batman; ditto Snyder and the others who have joined (or will soon be joining) the Substack model. I supported the Image 7 when they broke free of Marvel. I supported the Legend crew at Dark Horse when they tried to establish a creator-centric movement. And I would love to support Tynion and the rest at Substack.
But…
Similar to Dave’s comments above, I’m not sold on the format through which new product will be presented. I will wholeheartedly purchase a hardcover or trade collection if it’s something that interests me (a strong likelihood where Tynion and Snyder are involved), especially since doing so will (hopefully) allow me to continue to support the brick-and-mortar comics shops that have supported the comics industry through some of its worst and scariest times; but I am going to sit on the sidelines for now regarding the subscription service being offered.
If I hear great things (or even good things) about it going forward, I may rethink my stubbornness at that time. Meanwhile, I wish them well and hope that this is a successful venture for them, and for the industry as a whole.
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Substack (or really their investors) are gonna bet it will build a paying audience enough for them to find a market or a place in a market of connecting creators with an audience or fans. More OnlyFans than Patreon?
Yeah, that’s pretty much what it seems like. It’s a win-win for the creators for sure – they’re paid to support the process of creating the book (which usually, as indie creators, you don’t get and the writing/drawing process is your investment that you hope will turn out rewards), and when it’s finished you can get any printing deal you want just as if you’d created it the old-fashioned way.
So, you know, if this is a way to support creators and allow them to build more original, creator-owned content, that’s great for them. Personally, I am only interested in the finished product. In my case, that means print; for others like Gar, it’d be the finished digital book to read at Comixology or something. But I am definitely not interested in paying to get ten pages of content in an e-mail format. Or honestly, in any other format. It’s cool for people who want to follow the creation process of these guys closely, but honestly I am fine with just getting the end product and whatever they decide to put in there as extra material.
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You realise that you all sound like a bunch of grumpy old men
I AM A grumpy old man!
Hopefully Tynion learned from Thrillbent but I am reminded of Santayana’s quote.
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I wonder who the target audience is for this?
I ask because I’d bet there are a lot of people like me who check their email mostly through their phone. I really can’t see reading a comicbook very well on a smartphone. Sure, you can look at it on a pad or a laptop but it could get lost in an inbox stuffed with emails. I rarely open my laptop in the weekends or after work but I always have my phone with me and am usually on it.
I’m not saying it can’t succeed but it really feels like a step backwards. This feels like something a grumpy old man would come up with. Like I said above, 20 years ago this would have been big. But today, it feels dated.
I hope it succeeds for all involved but it isn’t something that I will sign up for.
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