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.
Well, to be fair, JAWBREAKERS LOST SOULS offered two big ComicsGate names: Zack and Malin.
It's interesting that you aren't using Jon as an example: His first book sold $105K during the exciting heyday of CG, his second sold $175, with an additional variant campaign bringing in another $78K.
Nothing Zack has done since has had that same ComicsGate starpower. The sequel used a very talented but unknown artist.
The EXPENDABLES is performing way better than I thought it would have. As cool as it is that Zack's name is tied to Stallone's, in the grand scheme, it's an already tried IP in the comics market, and it failed. The EXPENDABLES GO TO HELL is going to end on about $250K by the time Zack pulls it off InDemand, I'm guessing. It's a triumph.
I disagree with Zack that the IPs that we could get our hands on could ever be bigger earners for us than concepts we create ourselves. He wants John Carter from Mars.
He'd be better off with another JAWBREAKERS.
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.
UNFROG is sitting at $81K with 12 days of funding left of it's first 30 day campaign. I'm confident that BackerKit is pretty close to accurate, having done plenty of these campaigns. The question is whether I leave it up for another month, let it go InDemand, or clear the field for the launch of REKT PLANET on the 15th. I can drag it out another month and land this project at $150K, or just drop it where it lands.
Frankly, I thought it would make $50K. I'm stunned.
REKT PLANET will be a cool experiment to see where things go. BLOODHONEY made $530K over the course of three months of funding in the first campaign. I'm not sure what will happen, but there are several thousand backers that signed up for the notification list in the past week. That makes me feel like it's going to hit six figures pretty handily.
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.
1. Ben was on my channel, regularly promoting KILL ALL MEN. He got thousands of dollars worth of free promotion from me, and that's the end result. THE OFFWORLDER isn't even his book...didn't he sell it off? I don't know what's going on, but I haven't promoted it at all.
2. BRAND needs to fulfill that first book. I think it exists and has been printed, but Antonio goofed by launching the sequel before people were showing off their copies on Twitter. That's the PERFECT time for a new launch. That $78K is the combined total of a year's worth of funding, BTW.
3. DOWNCAST funded it's initial two months and landed at $26,116 USD by 746 backers. DOWNCAST 2 just ended it's first rounding of funding at $31,153 USD by 669 backers. The first book stayed InDemand for months and months to reach it's final total, as will this one. I agree that it's a decline in the number of backers, but not by 1/3rd. Compare apples to apples. And he'll catch up.
Clint Stoker announced a deal with ALTERNA PRESS that his books would be broken up and reprinted as $1.50 newsprint pamphlets and distributed through Diamond. I do believe this killed some interest in backing his graphic novel at twice the price. But not much! He's doing great.
4. IRON SIGHTS drop off might just be customers deciding that series isn't for them. The thing about releasing a sequel is that it almost never outperforms the original. It's finding it's audience, and for a black and white book of it's nature, god damn. It's making a huge profit for Zack.
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.
Team Up Variant stayed InDemand for months and months, accumulating that $250K.
VAMPIRELLA variants are niche collectors items that are almost pure profit, but probably confuse some readers who aren't regular comic collectors. (You didn't do the inside, and CyberFrog isn't in them?)
LINE ART Variants were a disappointment...I printed 1500 of each on a whim, and only sold about half of them. I won't be doing those again, even though they did turn a profit.
SECOND CHANCE campaigns are just selling product that already exists and was already sold. Almost all of that money goes straight into our pocket. It's not comparable to a premiere campaign.
But what you're looking at is exactly what I described when I started crowdfunding. It's like a movie premiere. There's the red carpet, (the first campaign, everything is new) the second run, digital release, DVD/Blu-Ray, HBO, basic cable and then it's on TV.
The amount of money declines as it goes.
But you keep repackaging the project and offering it again to people who missed it the first time. It's the same book over and over.
It's made $1.1 million, and I'm about to reprint a new version of it for REKT PLANET.
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.
Well, we'll certainly see! It's nice to have another creator with a large YouTube following aboard! I'll promote his campaign and he'll promote mine, and hopefully we'll win over some Weebs to Frog vs. Wasp comics!
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.
That's just not what anyone wanted to do. Actually, it's what the Breitweisers wanted to do, and that's what they did. But the idea of all of us as a We Are the World comic book company, that wasn't in my day book. ALL CAPS COMICS is it's own independent imprint. I might attach myself to a bigger company eventually, but "ComicsGate" was a movement that became a brand. It was propelled by anti-SJW sentiment and became an opportunity for indie creators to use social media as a marketing tool for self-distributed comics. That's where we are today.
At the end of all of this, the cream will rise to the top and the rest will probably sink to the bottom, but I'm feeling good about where things are right now.
