This is the thread to talk about comics that aren’t DC or Marvel Comics.
Independent Comics Thread
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I expect the Phase 3 OHCs to suddenly accelerate. Vol 2 is end of March. There’s probably 3 more needed to finish that epic run.
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The reboot Transformers comics have been largely great after a rocky start,
How is the humor in the reboot TF? I would love if when they restart we could get something like MTMTE
The humour is mostly dry wit and characters making fun of each other – there’s a sequence where Blitzwing constantly makes fun of Apeface because while they’re both triple changers, Apeface’s modes are rubbish, for example. But there are some quirky characters as well.
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Hey all, new series alert!
THE JONESES, a superhero riff that's part Fantastic Four, part modern-day domestic drama.
I don't tell many superhero stories, but this one means a lot to me, as a husband and dad. And wait until you see Alessandro's *amazing* art!
Find it April 6! pic.twitter.com/U8AIpxAZ9W
— Michael Moreci (@MichaelMoreci) January 27, 2022
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New Astro City interview:
https://www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/interviews.html?showinterview=IN02042211462
Confirms hardback OHCs are on the cards for the future.
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I had no idea this was happening. Coming from Rebellion Comics (2000ad).
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I had no idea this was happening. Coming from Rebellion Comics (2000ad).
I loved that movie as a kid!
It will definitely go on the pull list.
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I loved that movie as a kid!
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I’ve never even heard of Hawk the Slayer until now. Will download immediately.
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I loved that movie as a kid!
And Krull was on the TV last night…
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New Astro City interview:
https://www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/interviews.html?showinterview=IN02042211462
Confirms hardback OHCs are on the cards for the future.
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May Solicits are starting to appear (click here) with Dark Horse and Image
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Zero knowledge of or interest in Bloodshot, but Deniz is a great writer and I’ll try this just because of his name.
But this is a really early announcement. Don’t let me forget by September!
The nuValiant Bloodshot has been pretty consistently entertaining every time I’ve read it, well worth checking out.
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Valiant in my experience are pretty good too at helping the new reader along. They even designed their crossovers so you they work if you are only reading one title or if you read them all.
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That Texas Blood returns June 2022! With covers from @MattTaylorDraws and @SavageSmallwood !! pic.twitter.com/di4YCZFIJH
— Jacob Phillips (@jacobr_phillips) March 18, 2022
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One of the few titles I managed to get to work on Scribd’s awful app was Seven Secrets.
What a great series. Tom Taylor is not a flashy writer in the sense of using narrative tricks or breaking ground but he tells really good stories with character moments you care about. I got up to #15 which is the latest, it has twists and turns at a good pace, nothing is dragged out and it keeps you wanting to read the next one.
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Frank Miller Launches Publishing Company with Dan DiDio
Frank Miller Launches Independent Publishing Company, New ‘Sin City,’ ‘Ronin’ Comics in the Works
I was initially excited by those headlines, but reading the story in more detail it sounds like this is going to be more about cashing in on the names of his high-profile older projects rather than new work.
A Ronin sequel and more Sin City likely done by other creators? Not sure I’m interested.
As for the other original books announced, who knows.
If there’s at least some element of new work by Miller then I might take a look, but otherwise it sounds like it’s more about trading off his name as a brand.
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A Ronin sequel and more Sin City likely done by other creators?
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Solicitations for August can be found in the Solicitation thread, including Image.
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September Solicitations can be found in the Solicitation thread.
Dark Horse and Boom! Studios are up, plus more.
_________________________________________________________________MASKERADE #1 – click for cover
Kevin Smith (W), Andy McElfresh (W), John Sprengelmeyer (A/Cover), Guilia Brusco (C), Francesco Francavilla (Cover)
Felicia Dance is hiding in plain sight. The provocative social media star and shock TV sensation has one of the most recognizable faces in the world — so she can’t capture and kill the butchers who murdered her little brother and experimented on Felicia like a lab rat when she was a child. Not unless she looks like someone else. The face of justice is reshaped forever in Maskerade — an exciting new vigilante comic series from writers Kevin Smith and Andy McElfresh and artist John Sprengelmeyer, marking the dynamic debut of Smith’s Secret Stash Press imprint with his very own vigilante!
32 pages, $3.99, in stores on Sept. 14.
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Image is up, but at an evil site (which was seriously giving my computer issues. Seriously, don’t go looking)
I’ll wait until they’re up at a half decent site, and give you a pic.
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A Ronin sequel and more Sin City likely done by other creators? Not sure I’m interested.
RONIN would be interesting in other hands. SIN CITY… not so much. A 300 style series about the Peloponnesian War (Athens vs Sparta) would also be interesting as the Spartans are really the “bad guys” in history so I would be interested to see how Miller even as editor or co-writer could spin that.
Honestly, the entire political history of Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Argos and Corinth from the Greco-Persian wars to the eventual rise of Philip II of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great could make up many terrific series in comics, novels or even television. Honestly, though I’ve seen and read plenty of the history, I think it is really still quite unexplored in popular media and fiction.
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Image Comics is 30 Years Old – Here Are Some of Its Greatest Accomplishments
While I think that some of the Image boys (in particular Rob Liefeld) did incredible damage to the industry in the mid-90s, I should note that the six books that I picked up from last Wednesday’s releases are ALL from Image (Bone Orchard, Saga, Closet, Little Monsters, That Texas Blood, Starhenge). So, in spite of their early mis-steps, they eventually got it right, IMHO.
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Ok, let’s see, of the indie sector companies I know of:
Avatar Press – Gone
Oni Press / Lion Forge – Look to be in trouble.
IDW – Also look to be fading.
Valiant – Seem to have cut back on trades / OHC.
Image – could be one of the few left standing.
Dark Horse – still doing OK
Titan – Always very variable, but do sometimes put out some good stuff.
Cinebook – Good source of translated BD material.
New ones that could go either way:
AMA Upshot – Doing small set of books, might be working for them.
Vault – Could work.
That might be it for now?
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Aftershock and Scout are another couple that I occasionally pick up books from.
Avatar Press – Gone
Have they finally folded? I know they’ve been dying for a long while now.
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Garvey Comics seems to be doing well.
He needs to do more trades but appreciate that’s hard for him as it’s just Matt.
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Oni cancelled their booth at SDCC and have laid off 4 people.
Kinda confusing for those who still work for them.Newsarama/GamesRadar link
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Further confirmation that Once And Future concludes with #30, as Mora just posted the final three covers on Twitter.
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Newly launched non-woke comic book defies cancel culture, brings in over $1.7M in first four days
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How did they get $1.7M from 19,000 copies? That’s a $90 cover price. Someone needs to tell the readers they’re being ripped off.
Some people will have paid more than others for higher tiers with extra perks etc. – often I don’t feel like these things are worth the money but usually pricing is pretty transparent, it’s just a case of how much you want the signed copies or prints or digital versions or whatever the bundles offer.
Also, worth noting this is for a graphic-novel length book rather than a single-issue comic, and once you factor in print prices and shipping it isn’t unheard of for these crowdfunded things to end up pretty pricey.
My main question is how you verify those sales in the first place, given that this isn’t going through a site like Kickstarter. I guess we have to take his word for it. To be honest it seems plausible given the exposure this book has received on some of the US news networks.
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How did they get $1.7M from 19,000 copies? That’s a $90 cover price. Someone needs to tell the readers they’re being ripped off.
You don’t understand the market, boyo. It’s not a spending, it’s an investment.
It’s like Matt Damon said – “Bravery favours the brave”, or some shit.
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How did they get $1.7M from 19,000 copies? That’s a $90 cover price. Someone needs to tell the readers they’re being ripped off.
Crowdfunding models are like that. They are selling individual issues (albeit it’s 96 pages) for a minimum $35 and various other add-ons that go up to $5000 for an appearance as a character in the book.
Unlike most crowdfunding they are doing it themselves on their own site so there is the possibility they are just making it all up. They are claiming it’s over $3m by today, I mean well done to them if that’s true but it’s also an effective way to get people to write articles about you. It takes strong anti-woke sentiments to want to pay $55 for a poster of another generic bog standard superhero.
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Just reading some of the comments above, I feel there’s a bit of cynicism in the reception of this gentleman’s success.
It’s not really crowd funding, he wrote it, paid the artist who drew it, and completed the book, all self funded. The target was $100k to break even, I believe.
The amount raised is sales. Sales of the finished book, sales of signed copies, sales of merchandise etc
Looking at the site today, he’s sold around 50,00 – 60,000 copies of the book (probably more than DC and Marvel sell of their current single issues, never mind trades), with many of those items now marked as sold out as there was a limit on them (eg 27,000 copies of cover A).
Therefore, not crowdfunding but sales. I guess he’s advertising these figures to be transparent, to highlight to other people what they can do too (which he is a strong advocate of) and also as some clever market – which would have backfired completely had it not been a success and with him being something of a public figure would have come back to haunt him.
Crowdfunding as you know is raising the capital in order to then go on and pay the artists, printing and other costs of producing the books. These books will be shipped in September (assuming he’s not a victim of his own success and can’t get the over ordered printed in time).It’s not really an anti woke book as much as a political neutral book. Maybe that’s quite similar, but given that Eric July is black and the main character is black, which maybe the eagle-eyed amoung his many online critics have since spotted, he could market this as a ‘diverse’ comic book as the big two would – but he chooses not to insult his audience’s intelligence. His focus is on making the books he used to love reading, which he doesn’t believe DC or Marvel do any more.
Time well tell if the book if the book will be any good, how the universe will expand – as he plans to reinvest the money raised back into the comics, and also whether he can fulfil all the orders in a timely fashion.
At $35 a pop the book is pricey for what is essentially a 5 issue graphic novel, although I’ve seen books on the likes of Kickstarter for a similar cost.
However I doubt he anticipated the level of success, so perhaps future books may carry a lower ‘cover price’ if he plans to expand and grow the readership.Good luck to him though. He’s a self made man and he’s taken a big risk in doing this, probably one that if it didn’t work could kill off his credibility and potentially adversely impact his other enterprises. $3.2m in sales with 58 days left (although a dwindling inventory of things to sell, unless he keeps pumping out new covers, would suggest the sales are going to naturally level out very soon).
Maybe it will change the industry, maybe it’s a flash in the pan, but I guess he’s decided if doors wont open up for him he’ll make his own door and do his own thing.
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I feel there’s a bit of cynicism in the reception of this gentleman’s success.
Maybe Chris, I do wish him well if it’s all genuine. The Fox article (unsurprisingly for them) seems to push the ‘culture wars’ stuff rather than the actual Rippaverse site which just describes a pretty generic superhero book. The sales also rose very rapidly since that story.
I am just a little cynical of self reported sales so high on prices so high, it’s completely unprecedented on a crowdfunder model, even for big established names. I do get your distinction that it’s a finished product but so are others sold via this method rather than via retailers (people regularly shop reprint collections via goals and pledges.) It’s a Kickstarter model of direct sales to readers. However I confess I am also ignorant of who Eric July actually is, maybe he has a massive personal following I am underestimating.
I guess we shall see when reviews appear and then if future sales match up. I can’t say it’s distinct enough to really grab me even at a much lower price point but if it is all genuine people who do want to read the material then that’s good for comics. I’d be happy if plenty of comics creators could get a fraction of $3m.
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Yeah he’s got quite a big following that he’s built up from YouTube and music over the years, so much of that has translated across to this as he has a lot of well wishers.
If the comic is shit he will be disappointing a large audience so he has a lot to live up to.
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I don’t know if any of you enjoyed Royal City (I did), but it’s back next year.
The image anthology is quite poor, other than the Geoff Johns strip, so I’m not going to pick up the 5th issue – but hopefully whatever is in the anthology gets collected or included in the first issue of the new Royal City run
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I did like Royal City. Like Christian I would like more comics that are more real life and less genre based and was a little bummed Lemire ran out of steam on the first volume.
I will pick it up but will wait for the collection too.
As a sweeping generalisation Americans are not very good at anthologies, they always seem to pad them out with substandard or try-out work which I think is the primary reason they never catch on there, it’s not cultural it’s just they aren’t very good.
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I did like Royal City. Like Christian I would like more comics that are more real life and less genre based and was a little bummed Lemire ran out of steam on the first volume.
I will pick it up but will wait for the collection too.
As a sweeping generalisation Americans are not very good at anthologies, they always seem to pad them out with substandard or try-out work which I think is the primary reason they never catch on there, it’s not cultural it’s just they aren’t very good.
Yeah, I’d tend to agree with that.
I think it’s quite a difficult skill to master, telling a worthwhile story (or a part of) in a limited number of pages, especially just now when so many creators are writing decompressed books.
Even James Tynion’s much much heralded Razorblades anthology was really disappointing, included the stuff written by him.
Then I look at Garth Ennis Battle Action Special, for example, by contrast and every strip is a winner (Ennis is clearly much better at it now than his 2000ad days!)
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I think it’s quite a difficult skill to master, telling a worthwhile story (or a part of) in a limited number of pages, especially just now when so many creators are writing decompressed books.
Yeah I think it is. I remember in a creative writing class I did we were given the task of writing a story in under 300 words, it was the hardest thing to do.
It’s partly that though and also how much care they take with them. When Dark Horse Presents had Sin City, Concrete and The American in it, it sold very well. Same for Marvel Comic Presents when they ran Weapon X as the lead. Most of the rest of the time the stories were written by assistant editors and badly drawn and deserved to be ignored.
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Yeah I think it is. I remember in a creative writing class I did we were given the task of writing a story in under 300 words, it was the hardest thing to do.
I recently read Stephen King’s ON WRITING (excellent book even if you’re not a King fan), and he said one of the most important pieces of advice he ever got, when he was trying to get published early on, was from a magazine editor who rejected a short story he had submitted:
“I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: “Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”
King goes on to say to took that advice and began trimming his first drafts by at least 10%, and that’s when he started selling his stories; and he continues to live by that advice today.
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Millarworld scooping up both Jorge Jiminez and Pepe Larraz is a bit of a coup (shame that I have less than zero interest in Nemesis). Hopefully this is worth it for both of them. They’ve certainly paid their dues on the “big two”.
I can understand it when it’s to create a new series you get an ownership stake in, especially with Millarworld, where the possibility of an adaptation is high, but I don’t get leaving Batman to take over on someone else’s series. Especially Nemesis.
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I don’t get leaving Batman to take over on someone else’s series. Especially Nemesis.
Millar always claimed here that his page rates were higher than Marvel and DC. I guess this would prove it.
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Yeah, I mean it’s just a job. It’s not like it’s real art or anything.
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My impression has always been that Netflix’s role in the comics has always been very light touch.
While the last MW title didn’t show well in the sales charts the little explainer Kieran Gillen did a few years back the on Image model said that you don’t necessarily need to do gangbusters to earn significantly more than big 2 page rate and because you take everything after costs the gravy comes in the trades.
Along with the moans that DC have cut or frozen rates for years it doesn’t surprise me he feels he can outbid them. Skybound is also work for hire and Kirkman has lured in some big names there like Samnee.
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Yeah, I mean it’s just a job. It’s not like it’s real art or anything.
You did see the word “Netflix”, right?
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Yeah, I mean it’s just a job. It’s not like it’s real art or anything.
You did see the word “Netflix”, right?
Is that some sort of prescription opioid that I’m unfamiliar with?
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Oh I don’t think they get involved in the comics in that way, I’m just talking about where the money is coming from.
I did get that but that was also my impression from the mod area chats with Mark before he closed off the board. They were only interested in the TV which allowed him to launch the comics separately under the Image deal but copyright to them (and a logo that has been up and down in use).
Thanks to the deal itself Millar is a multimillionaire, still getting royalties from his catalogue too, so I can’t say categorically he’s funding the page rates himself (that stuff tends to be insinuated rather than stated even in non public chat) but my guess is he is. From what Gillen said with the numbers if you can get 20k or so for an Image book you will make significantly more than a top Marvel rate. If you can get 50k+ like Saga then BKV said that has delivered the biggest pay cheques he’s ever had, including writing on LOST when it was the #1 rated show in the USA.
The biggest problem with the Image model is cash flow, if you turn in a script for Marvel you get paid when it arrives, even if they don’t publish it, in the Image model you won’t see anything for months and it may be very little if it doesn’t sell well. Which is why (ironically really considering who set it up) it is harder for artists to go creator owned because they can’t straddle both. Hence the guys like Millar and Kirkman that don’t have cash flow issues operate a little differently and offer up page rates to tempt the guys they want.
Unfortunately for number crunchers since publishers moved from a Diamond monopoly the sales charts are very hard to take seriously (DC have been removed entirely) but Firepower by that measure is selling just under 15k in singles and is keeping Chris Samnee from the big 2.
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Millarworld scooping up both Jorge Jiminez and Pepe Larraz is a bit of a coup (shame that I have less than zero interest in Nemesis). Hopefully this is worth it for both of them. They’ve certainly paid their dues on the “big two”.
It looks like he is not leaving DC for that MW comic.
https://twitter.com/JorgeJimenezArt/status/1554240554355068930?s=20&t=rkjn0hvvRX18CFg6KWiEzg -
Millar is fully on the hype machine again. His Night Club vampire book is getting a cover price of $1.99 even though it’s 24 pages of story.
Maybe he is getting some support or dipping into his millions to get his sales back up.
CBR EXCLUSIVE: Mark Millar's upcoming vampire series, Night Club, has one of the lowest cover prices in modern comics.https://t.co/hzPuqaLO4n @mrmarkmillar pic.twitter.com/LXQkAOwIJa
— Comic Book Resources (@CBR) August 4, 2022
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It’s still not enough to get me to buy the book. The premise just didn’t interest me.
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It’s still not enough to get me to buy the book. The premise just didn’t interest me.
Even if the premise had interested me, it’s got Millar’s name on it so I would definitely pass.
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“To hell with it,” he said. “Writing rules are meant to be broken.”
I just mentioned Freytag’s pyramid in a different thread, but that’s where these “5 elements of plot” come from and it’s worth pointing out that what Freytag did in the 19th century with that pyramid was to create a model on how classic theatre plots always seemed to work; he wasn’t writing a normative poetology and going “This is how you should do it!”, he was just describing what he saw in these works.
The point I’m making is, those “writing rules” were never meant to be rules in the first place.
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“To hell with it,” he said. “Writing rules are meant to be broken.”
I just mentioned Freytag’s pyramid in a different thread, but that’s where these “5 elements of plot” come from and it’s worth pointing out that what Freytag did in the 19th century with that pyramid was to create a model on how classic theatre plots always seemed to work; he wasn’t writing a normative poetology and going “This is how you should do it!”, he was just describing what he saw in these works.
The point I’m making is, those “writing rules” were never meant to be rules in the first place.
I would use the term “codified practice” rather than “rules”.
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With the announcement yesterday that Jason Aaron would have a new series coming out of Boom Studios! it struck me that they have really become the spiritual successor to Vertigo in the last few years.
They have a string of high profile books coming out by the biggest names in the business currently. Critical acclaim. Rising sales.
Not that DC care anymore, but I think Boom’s success shows that there is still a place for publisher supported/ not quite creator owned content. Shame DC had the perfect business model for this before running it into the ground over time.
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One of the things I’m liking on Boom’s output is that, for whatever reason, they seem to both want stories to conclude and don’t fear that. Wild’s End was three volumes, it’s known Once And Future will be five volumes, Seven Secrets is three volumes.
It’s a bigger deal than it sounds as it avoids too big pitfalls. One is a series going on too long and becoming lesser as a result. The other is a series which goes off the rails at the ends, which can happen on Image books. Copperhead? Really good but it needs a conclusion, will it get one? Don’t know. Redneck looks to be doing the same but I’m hoping it recovers and finishes.
Boom’s trades, be they paperback or OHC, are both good quality and carefully priced. Yeah, they’re doing well.
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The other is a series which goes off the rails at the ends, which can happen on Image books.
It has always been the same with Image, their strengths are also their weaknesses. By being the most creator friendly publishing model on the planet they attract top talent and personal vision but with no strong editorial control it also lacks discipline. Very quickly in its existence we got long delays and indulgence.
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I’ve recently been back on Comixology after reactivating an old tablet, and while it does function OK, it’s definitely a step backwards after the previous iterations of the app. Everything is just a bit more hassle.
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I agree. With the TV show I tried to call up the Sandman trades I bought years back in a sale.
Instead of downloading all upfront as it used to it now downloads page by page like a streaming app. Despite the fact I have a 500mb wifi connection that downloads a TV show in less than a minute it had a lot of random pages missing that gave a black screen, with no real option to download them again.
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Well, this sucks.
I’m not sure how its collapsed so fast for Valiant. Only a few months back they’d announced the new creative teams for a compact set of books. Going from that to a single book a month is quite the cutback.
As it is, the Abnett Rai run could be Valiant’s final OHC.
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