So what remains? What's left is Zack selling 6500 copies of G0D K1NG. Or grossing $200K on a book with Sly Stallone on an IP that barely sold 500 copies last year.
I'm not denying the six figures for crowdfunding comic books isn't impressive, but I think alot of people (Zack included) would have expected more. If this trend continues then in a year or two, even the big CG creators won't be hitting the six figure mark. Zack gave Kwanza hell for failing to retain his backers and allowing them to drop by about 50%, from Black to White, but now the same thing appears to be happening to him (though at a slower rate), I'm sure this hasn't gone unnoticed by him.
What remains is CYBERFROG reprints from 1994 due to bring in $125,000. (it isn't struggling, dude. It's miraculous.) And thousands of backers lined up for advance notification about CYBERFROG 2.
I can see your point, however again I must assert that this is the first Cyberfrog story which was not just a variant clone of your initial campaign. If people were interested in reading more Cyberfrog, they should be jumping at the opportunity to acquire more stories which they may not have read before. Though given the old issues are on ebay and probably available to pirate somewhere, I concede that Unfrogettable Tales is probably a poor example to compare against Bloodhoney in terms of statistical data. Rekt Planet will provide a much better example.
Middle sized campaigns are now comfortably bringing in $20-40K. YouTube personalities like Raging Golden Eagle are topping $60K in the first 24 hours of funding.
That price range couldn't be considered mid-ranged, a better range would be from 30/40Kish to 100K and in that regard they aren't looking to healthy. Lets look at some recent numbers:
1. Ravage: Kill All Men raised just under 48K back in 2018, however when Cautionary Comics launched The Offworlder it failed to get backed and was pulled down despite raising 18K. It now has been relaunched a second time and currently sits at $4800 with Backerkit projecting it to trend 7K.
2. Antonio Brice's Brand raised 78K during its run, the sequel Way of the Gun is sitting at $5900. Backerkit predicts it will raise $15K at this current rate.
3. Downcast by Clint Stoker raised over 31K from 924 backers in 2019, his sequel Wrize and Fall recently finished with 32K. At first glance it is a small improvement, however this time with 692 backers and a $5 increase in the price of the book from $15 to $20. A decline of backers somewhere close to a third, meaning 1 in 3 backers didnt return to the series.
4. Iron Sights should be considered a large campaign but lets take a look anyway since it was in the lower six figures. It was funded with 119K from 3338 backers, while its sequel is currently sitting at 117K from 2528 backers. Similar to Clint's Downcast that is drop of backers close to a third, although with Ibai Canale's terrible artwork I cant blame them. Again similar to Clints Downcast the price of the book was raised by $5 from $20 to $25.
5. Lastly we'll use you as an example. Your last truly big campaign was the Cyberfrog Bloodhoney Team Up variant, raising over 250K from 4800 backers. That was the last time you hit six figures in April of last year, since then your campaigns could only be described as mid-sized. Your Vampirella variants pulled in 67K and 57K respectively from 1093 and 872 backers, your Line Art Variants brought in 75K from 1072 backers but were an uptick from the Vampirella campaigns, your Ribbit Coins collected 14K from 123 backers, followed by the Second Chance original Bloodhoney cover which performed the worst with 55K from 732 backers and lastly the Second Chance Ashcans at 54K with 918 backers. Those campaigns are listed in chronological order and an overall declining trend is undeniable. Unfrogettable Tales is trending 6 figures but Backerkit is overly generous with its predictions in my experience.
As for Raging Golden Eagle he is an old MGTOW content creator with 60K subs, a pretty decent audience size. Since MGTOW manosphere types swear off wives and children it would make sense his viewers have large amounts of discretionary income. I would warn though that a large majority of his audience are Weebs and would prefer manga and body pillows over forgetable Frog comics, I doubt his audience will provide any substantial boost to CG's numbers over the long term.
re: Cridious, absolutely correct. It's very discouraging. He stole from his backers and this will affect people's trust in small campaigns for awhile. As for Preston buying it, nobody agreed to let Preston Poulter have their personal data. It's a security breach and a breach of ethics to even consider selling that info to him. Preston could buy the project and re-solicit donations, but buying backers data is a no-go.
I personally couldn't care less if Preston has my personal data, I've backed his campaigns before so he already has it. However I bet the thought of him obtaining that information caused a few Warcampaigners to piss themselves with fear at the thought of being doxed. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The fate of ComicsGate as a indie network depends on where we go from here. How good our stuff is, how quickly we can deliver it, and how we adapt to these changes. But I'm pretty confident. CYBERFROG is a spiffy book. The sequel is a knock out.
And where will Comicsgate go from here? All I can see is a decline into irrelevancy. Such a pity really, the early days were quite exciting and the potential was inspiring. Comicsgate ultimately feels like a wasted opportunity, you all should have consolidated forces in the early days and formed an Image like company, used the bulk of your numbers to bully printers and shipping companies into better rates and passed on the savings to your customers to reduce the burden on their wallets, then created an online digital store to create a catalog of past crowdfunded books so when word of mouth reached people they could have bought them easily.
TLDR - Comicsgate may not be dead but it is dying.
)
