Diseased #Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[Brother Maynard]

Interesting times when the Bunny-boy outsells Ya Boi Zack on the first day of their campaigns.

Comicsgates patron saint is losing to the first Anti-CGer.

 

[Stab You in the Back]

Interesting times when the Bunny-boy outsells Ya Boi Zack on the first day of their campaigns.

Comicsgates patron saint is losing to the first Anti-CGer.

The art in Impossible Stars looks terrible.

Its also kinda hypocritical for Zack to trash artists who trace 3d assets for years on his channel only to now release a book that's 99% traced 3d assets.

 

[GranDuke]

I don't follow closely whole indiegogo thing and CG drama, but can anyone explain Jon Malin to me? He did Jawbreakers with Zack and is now doing his own Graveyard Shift series. I looked at the numbers and it looks like each new campaign is doing a bit better than previous one. Is it actually good and more people are coming to him due to that or are there some outside reasons for his slowly growing?

And why he didn't do more stuff with Zack? Did they have a fallout of some kind or was it simply Malin realising that he could earn more on his own and they decided to split ways?

 

[Twinkletard]

I don't follow closely whole indiegogo thing and CG drama, but can anyone explain Jon Malin to me? He did Jawbreakers with Zack and is now doing his own Graveyard Shift series. I looked at the numbers and it looks like each new campaign is doing a bit better than previous one. Is it actually good and more people are coming to him due to that or are there some outside reasons for his slowly growing?

And why he didn't do more stuff with Zack? Did they have a fallout of some kind or was it simply Malin realising that he could earn more on his own and they decided to split ways?

Not sure why they didn't do more together, probably a combination of Zack wanting to give other artists work since Malin has his own successful thing going and Malin's page rate. Pretty sure there wasn't a falling out, Malin talks highly of zack.

As far as why Graveyard Shift is popular, Malin had a fanbase prior to him coming over to CG. There were quite a few people who loved his stuff on cable. I'm not a fan of his art but I remember meeting someone at the LCS back when Marvel had Malin on that talking about how much he liked Malin because it was the closest thing to 90s X books that had been put out in a while. I haven't bought any of the GS books though, so can't speak for their quality.

 

[NasserRabadi13]

Not sure why they didn't do more together, probably a combination of Zack wanting to give other artists work since Malin has his own successful thing going and Malin's page rate. Pretty sure there wasn't a falling out, Malin talks highly of zack.

As far as why Graveyard Shift is popular, Malin had a fanbase prior to him coming over to CG. There were quite a few people who loved his stuff on cable. I'm not a fan of his art but I remember meeting someone at the LCS back when Marvel had Malin on that talking about how much he liked Malin because it was the closest thing to 90s X books that had been put out in a while. I haven't bought any of the GS books though, so can't speak for their quality.

I bought the first one, didnt really like the writing in the main story but liked Nerd Wonder's ashcan. Didn't back the others.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Not as stupid as Stealing Mitch not giving me a copy of his chicken comic, since I was part of his initial funds that he used to trick other investors.

Scamweiser's doing a stream tomorrow on Ikari Press' YouTube channel. One of those channels I subbed to a long time ago and haven't looked at in ages. Hopefully @Mister Dongs will be in the chat spreading joy and love.

As an aside, I thought Ikari Press was an EVS butt boy? No longer the case since there's Breitweiser? Goes to show how much attention I'm paying to anything these days beyond salt and turd flinging.

 

[A nameless trool]

* From Jawbreakers: Lost Souls to Jawbreakers: Godking, Zack lost 4109 backers (38.7%) he continued to lose a further 2432 backers from Godking to Grand Bizarre (37.4%) from Lost Souls to Grand Bizarre he lost 6541 backers (61.6%) - these results aren't final due to Grand Bizarre being In-Demand.

This is pretty much healthy* series sales. Lots of people buy #1, 30-50% never go to book 2 and then they start to trickle down. This is why Marvel does constant #1s to re-inflate the numbers.
Now, a hyped book published reguralry with enough opportunities for new people to get into it can turn into an evergreen property. People will stumble upon Lost Soul, then binge on G0dK1ng and Grand Bizare. The IGG model though does not allow for that and, eventually, it will see diminishing numbers. Or some people who got Lost souls may come in the next JB book and get the previous books too to save on shipping. Lady Death had a similar trajectory.
But overall, as long as YBZ is not getting new people into his IGGs he will soon be faced with some tough choices.
IMHO, in 2021 he will go digital on Comixology, as he is getting more and more involved with reading digital comics

 

[Brother Maynard]

I don't follow closely whole indiegogo thing and CG drama, but can anyone explain Jon Malin to me? He did Jawbreakers with Zack and is now doing his own Graveyard Shift series. I looked at the numbers and it looks like each new campaign is doing a bit better than previous one. Is it actually good and more people are coming to him due to that or are there some outside reasons for his slowly growing?

And why he didn't do more stuff with Zack? Did they have a fallout of some kind or was it simply Malin realising that he could earn more on his own and they decided to split ways?

Malin did JB with Zack as a paid job. When he saw the success of that first book, he took advantage of the moment to launch GYS, a book he had already done years prior as pitch-work to get a job at Marvel IIRC. Seeing that he could make much more money doing his own campaign and splitting it with his co-creator, he abandoned JB to work on issue 2 of GYS. Seeing he could make much more money doing his OWN book on his own campaign instead of splitting it with his co-creator, he decided to do his 'Project Thundar' writing it himself, and handing the art chores to a work-for-hire talent on GYS3.

Thankfully for Jon, the blush is off the rose for CG, and Aaron would not likely see the kind of success Jon did launching on his own at a time when CG was clamoring for product. There's too much product in CG now for even good books to get enough support. Just some rare power players like Fraga and... and...

Who else besides Fraga has come into CG lately and done 6 figures? I'm sure I'm forgetting someone.

Boy, it's just not 2018 anymore.

This is pretty much healthy* series sales. Lots of people buy #1, 30-50% never go to book 2 and then they start to trickle down. This is why Marvel does constant #1s to re-inflate the numbers.
Now, a hyped book published regularly with enough opportunities for new people to get into it can turn into an evergreen property. People will stumble upon Lost Soul, then binge on G0dK1ng and Grand Bizare. The IGG model though does not allow for that and, eventually, it will see diminishing numbers. Or some people who got Lost souls may come in the next JB book and get the previous books too to save on shipping. Lady Death had a similar trajectory.
But overall, as long as YBZ is not getting new people into his IGGs he will soon be faced with some tough choices.
IMHO, in 2021 he will go digital on Comixology, as he is getting more and more involved with reading digital comics

This is not 'healthy' in crowdfunding. That's normal for the LCS model, but in crowdfunding the idea is to BUILD an audience. You deliver quality product on a timely basis first time out, and between the first and second issue you build your fanbase, so that by the time your second issue launches, you maintain 80-90% of your first backers and add the in-between new fans. GYS is a good example of that. LS too, although we'll have to see what happens with issue 3 after Smiller was kicked out of CG. Lady Death also followed this pattern, and Pulido isn't even on Youtube.

From issue 1 on KS to issue 11, Brian has grown his audience by thousands, and his sales by hundreds of thousands. That's long-term success.

Losing 40-50% of your backers from one campaign to the next means you delivered a product that the audience didn't like. They'll back you once to 'own the SJWs', but that ship has sailed, and you can't build an entire career in such a meaningless virtue-signal.

 

[A nameless trool]

Sorry for the double-post. I gave you guys 22 minutes to respond...

This is not 'healthy' in crowdfunding. That's normal for the LCS model, but in crowdfunding the idea is to BUILD an audience. You deliver quality product on a timely basis first time out, and between the first and second issue you build your fanbase, so that by the time your second issue launches, you maintain 80-90% of your first backers and add the in-between new fans. GYS is a good example of that. LS too, although we'll have to see what happens with issue 3 after Smiller was kicked out of CG. Lady Death also followed this pattern, and Pulido isn't even on Youtube.View attachment 1602913View attachment 1602911
From issue 1 on KS to issue 11, Brian has grown his audience by thousands, and his sales by hundreds of thousands. That's long-term success.

Losing 40-50% of your backers from one campaign to the next means you delivered a product that the audience didn't like. They'll back you once to 'own the SJWs', but that ship has sailed, and you can't build an entire career in such a meaningless virtue-signal.

I believe LD book 2 had fewer sales and then they kicked back for issue 3 and onwards.
YBZ (and CG in general) has stopped growing his audience and has to re-think a lot of his business come 2021

 

[jspit]

Here's the data from my spreadsheet regarding Zack's campaigns, if you're interested. Some key points:

*Price = the lowest physical tier available.
*Price per page = the lowest physical tier and includes bonus pages, comics and ashcans to the total.
*Funding/Backer = the average price paid per backer
*Campaigns are listed in chronological order
*Due to Indiegogo's system, shipping is included in the funded amount and final amount.
*Due to Indiegogo's system, backers buying multiple tiers during a campaign are considered multiple backers.

NAME​

CREATOR​

PLATFORM​

COMICSGATE​

FUNDED BACKERS​

FUNDED AMOUNT​

FINAL BACKERS​

FINAL AMOUNT​

FUNDING/BACKER​

PRICE PER PAGE​

PRICE​

STATUS​

FULFILLED​

YEAR​

Jawbreakers: Lost Souls​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

Yes​

5,362​

193,279​

10,619​

404,913​

38.13​

0.22​

25​

Closed​

Yes​

2018​

Iron Sights​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

Yes​

3,338​

119,424​

3,338​

119,424​

35.77​

0.17​

20​

Closed​

Yes​

2018​

Iron Sights: Premium​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

Yes​

155​

15,170​

155​

15,170​

97.87​

0.83​

100​

Closed​

Yes​

2018​

Jawbreakers: Lost Souls Remastered​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

Yes​

1,519​

56,164​

1,519​

56,164​

36.97​

0.22​

25​

Closed​

Yes​

2019​

Jawbreakers: Godking​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

Yes​

5,032​

196,102​

6,510​

251,357​

38.61​

0.26​

25​

Closed​

Yes​

2019​

Iron Sights 2 Psychos​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

2,040​

94,174​

2,799​

131,895​

47.12​

0.25​

25​

Closed​

Yes​

2019​

The Expendables: Go To Hell​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

2,528​

180,893​

4,144​

271,453​

65.51​

Unknown​

30​

In-Demand​

No​

2020​

Pandemic​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

1,947​

50,954​

1,947​

50,954​

26.17​

0.63*​

15​

Closed​

No​

2020​

Jawbreakers: Grand Bizarre​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

3,265​

163,126​

4,078​

201,978​

49.53​

Unknown​

25​

In-Demand​

No​

2020​

Pandemic 2nd Chance​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

308​

8,080​

593​

15,590​

26.29​

0.63*​

15​

Closed​

No​

2020​

DOAYT: Ballad of No​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

2,045​

69,648​

2,045​

69,648​

34.05​

0.58​

15​

Closed​

No​

2020​

Iron Sights 2 Psychos 2nd Printing​

Richard C Meyer​

Indiegogo​

No​

323​

18,412​

384​

21,688​

56.48​

0.25​

25​

Closed​

Now​

2020​

Summary:
* From Jawbreakers: Lost Souls to Jawbreakers: Godking, Zack lost 4109 backers (38.7%) he continued to lose a further 2432 backers from Godking to Grand Bizarre (37.4%) from Lost Souls to Grand Bizarre he lost 6541 backers (61.6%) - these results aren't final due to Grand Bizarre being In-Demand.

* From Iron Sights to Iron Sights 2 (including 2nd Printing) Zack lost 155 backers (4.6%), however these results would be worse without the 2nd Printing as he would have lost 539 backers (16.1%)

* His price per page on graphic novels is normally between 0.17-0.26 which is pretty reasonable compared to other campaigns, though without final pages counts on The Expendables and Grand Bizarre this data is flawed.

* His price per page on floppies is between 0.58-0.63 which is absolutely terrible, considering your average 24 pages $4 Marvel or DC comic comes in at 0.16 per page.

* The Expendables Go To Hell, while doing remarkably well for a crowdfunding campaign, seems to have unperformed in my opinion. I would have expected an established IP with the backing of Sylvester Stallone and the involvement of Butch Guice, Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan to have out performed any of the Jawbreaker books.

* Zack experienced an uptick in backers from Pandemic to the Ballad of NO, however including the 2nd Chance campaign distorts the numbers. Ballad of No offered a Pandemic double pack, which would have saved on shipping charges, especially international.

* Iron Sights 2 was increased in price from $20 to $25 while the page count was reduced by 20 pages, a fifth sixth of the book. Increasing the price per page by 0.08/page.

* Zack has fulfilled six campaigns, is fulfilling one now and has five campaigns unfulfilled. (This does not include Impossible Stars).

* Iron Sights: Premium has the highest backer average at nearly $100 and the highest price/page at 0.83, however since this was a charity campaign and a one off it should be disregarded in the final data.

* The average amount a backer is paying is increasing per Jawbreakers issue, Iron Sights issue or floppy comic issue. Not a good sign considering the drop in backer numbers.

* The (*) in Pandemic's price per page is assuming the comic is 24 pages, this total might change in future.

* After discussing it with other Kiwis in the Comicsgate thread, we unanimously agreed that Jawbreakers: Godking was the last campaign by Zack that could be called "Comicsgate", all subsequent campaigns were decided not to be.

This data is taken from a spreadsheet with over 250 crowdfunded comics from multiple platforms and creators, once it is completed and updated I will make all the data available via a burner gmail account on google drive.

EDIT: Spaced out the summary so it wasn't a blob of text, errors in summary and added additional key points.

This is some solid analysis.

He could have pulled in another 100K on that campaign had he been doing his old livestreams and interacting with people like he used to.

Maybe even more.

Audience engagement is important. Richard's the victim of an echo chamber that has enabled him to neglect interacting.

Interesting times when the Bunny-boy outsells Ya Boi Zack on the first day of their campaigns.

Comicsgates patron saint is losing to the first Anti-CGer.




View attachment 1602184View attachment 1602186

Everyone's favorite Trump furry fanboy is a regular on streams, interacts with his audience, and has kept his head down and delivered a consistent product with a consistent art style.

Contrast with Richard. He's gone from Jon Malin to a bevy of cheaper unknown artists some of whom are similar in style. He's got multiple unfulfilled campaigns. Rarely livestreams except with @FROG and a handful of Frog friendly you tubers.

I believe LD book 2 had fewer sales and then they kicked back for issue 3 and onwards.
YBZ (and CG in general) has stopped growing his audience and has to re-think a lot of his business come 2021

Richard's audience was always going to decline from Lost souls. But the level of decline is due to his choices.

 

[FROG]

I don't follow closely whole indiegogo thing and CG drama, but can anyone explain Jon Malin to me? He did Jawbreakers with Zack and is now doing his own Graveyard Shift series. I looked at the numbers and it looks like each new campaign is doing a bit better than previous one. Is it actually good and more people are coming to him due to that or are there some outside reasons for his slowly growing?

And why he didn't do more stuff with Zack? Did they have a fallout of some kind or was it simply Malin realising that he could earn more on his own and they decided to split ways?

In my opinion, Jon Malin is doing better and better because he's staying the course. Reliably appearing on YouTube and fighting for ComicsGate. He's a leader. He's producing GRAVEYARD SHIFT books at a quick enough pace, (he's on his third already) and it's a commercial book similar to Marvel X-Men books of the 90's. It's easy to describe: "Universal Monsters as Superheroes." Everyone gets that. And it's a fun book. The second issue was terrific.

Zack and Malin aren't working together anymore because their project was a 50/50 split. Jon did great for having to draw 48 or so pages. Zack had to spend his half paying the other talent as well, and Zack quickly realized he ought to hire less expensive talent.

The bad side of that is that obviously Jon Malin is a superstar within crowdfunded comics. His name sells books and he relentlessly promotes himself. When he worked with Zack, JAWBREAKERS did extraordinarily well. He's expensive, but I think he's invaluable. I would have recommended a second Malin JB book to fully establish and cement his worth to the franchise, and then make a decision from there, but Zack found another artist who would do work for hire instead.

The big thing is that NOTHING BEATS daily livestreaming to promote comics. It's why Scott Snyder's campaign didn't do as well as mine. If Scott were investing one hour nightly to get fans pumped up, I think he'd have hit 7 figures.

Zack isn't livestreaming anymore, and not being accessible and seeming like everyone's pal isn't helping sell comics.

 

[Brother Maynard]

Anti-CG Bunny-Boy isn't doing daily live streams (does he even do any YouTube at all?), and his campaign is kicking CG-Godfather Ya Boi Zack's ass.

 

[Adamska]

Anti-CG Bunny-Boy isn't doing daily live streams (does he even do any YouTube at all?), and his campaign is kicking CG-Godfather Ya Boi Zack's ass.

YaBoi has be breaking his tenets over comics regularly and is being a lot cagier with what the buyer gets nowadays since he can't be fucked to sell what he's making. Not helped by his channel deadening out. His Pandemic and the lunatic in 2020 comics were fucking stupid ideas, and apparently now he's using the same programs Marvel does to trace photos to cheat out time.

He also partially nuked his big chance to go bigger by fucking up Expendables by not talking about it as much as he should have. Which is funny since that's also something he mentioned comics people should do.

Either way, some of it's hypocrisy, some of it is he's putting less effort, and lastly some people just didn't think what they got was worth the price tag.

 

[Twinkletard]

Anti-CG Bunny-Boy isn't doing daily live streams (does he even do any YouTube at all?), and his campaign is kicking CG-Godfather Ya Boi Zack's ass.

That's because Lim's using big anime tiddies.

It's just not fair, no man can resist that.

 

[FROG]

YaBoi has be breaking his tenets over comics regularly and is being a lot cagier with what the buyer gets nowadays since he can't be fucked to sell what he's making. Not helped by his channel deadening out. His Pandemic and the lunatic in 2020 comics were fucking stupid ideas, and apparently now he's using the same programs Marvel does to trace photos to cheat out time.

He also partially nuked his big chance to go bigger by fucking up Expendables by not talking about it as much as he should have. Which is funny since that's also something he mentioned comics people should do.

Either way, some of it's hypocrisy, some of it is he's putting less effort, and lastly some people just didn't think what they got was worth the price tag.

They're all kinda highbrow ideas...not really what his audience wants.

JAWBREAKERS is perfect. It's broad and commercial. He can make toys and shirts and posters. He can cycle in new superhero characters to replace the team members that died. Keep it colorful, ridiculously over the top, fun and funny. I think he's starting to see that.

The main thing is charming the fuck out of his audience, which he did really well when he was livestreaming every day, plus he got that superchat income. If he's not interested in doing that on his channel, he's got an open invite to mine, and my audience would love to support him. But he needs to show up. Otherwise, he's going to get those Bunny-Boy or Smiller numbers.

He's better than that.

 

[jspit]

That's because Lim's using big anime tiddies.

It's just not fair, no man can resist that.

He appears on others streams He'll pop in on Doug sometimes.

They're all kinda highbrow ideas...not really what his audience wants.

JAWBREAKERS is perfect. It's broad and commercial. He can make toys and shirts and posters. He can cycle in new superhero characters to replace the team members that died. Keep it colorful, ridiculously over the top, fun and funny. I think he's starting to see that.

The main thing is charming the fuck out of his audience, which he did really well when he was livestreaming every day, plus he got that superchat income. If he's not interested in doing that on his channel, he's got an open invite to mine, and my audience would love to support him. But he needs to show up. Otherwise, he's going to get those Bunny-Boy or Smiller numbers.

He's better than that.

Mike's better than Mike.

 

[WhimsicalTrolli]

He can cycle in new superhero characters to replace the team members that died.

Not a fan of zack killing off characters in the second book tbh, Maybe in the 3rd or 4th? Godking seems like a book for a final installment rather than a sequel.

 

[Adamska]

They're all kinda highbrow ideas...not really what his audience wants.

I wouldn't say they're highbrow, I'd say it's the same mistake that hacks do. That is they only write about [current year topics], which doesn't work too well in entertainment. Mainly because entertainment has escapism as a pretty big component. I ain't gonna wanna read a book on a pandemic or how shitty this year has been.

Not a fan of zack killing off characters in the second book tbh, Maybe in the 3rd or 4th? Godking seems like a book for a final installment rather than a sequel.

Yeah, this wasn't that bright IMO. Technically it isn't the second book, but his assumptions we've seen his prior works in that universe wasn't wise. This being done in the third book would've been better yeah.

 

[FROG]

Not a fan of zack killing off characters in the second book tbh, Maybe in the 3rd or 4th? Godking seems like a book for a final installment rather than a sequel.

He'd agree with you, He painted himself into a corner with that, and I think that's partially why he went off into several tangents.

But it's fixable. Those characters are dead. Let's create some new ones. ALL NEW JAWBREAKERS.

I'm doing the action figures. Here's Silkworm.

The idea is to do the "movie version," but with tons of accessories. Every gun known to man.

 

[WhimsicalTrolli]

He'd agree with you, He painted himself into a corner with that, and I think that's partially why he went off into several tangents.

But it's fixable. Those characters are dead. Let's create some new ones. ALL NEW JAWBREAKERS.

I'm doing the action figures. Here's Silkworm.

The idea is to do the "movie version," but with tons of accessories. Every gun is known to man.

New characters can work, but I wish he could've let those who were killed have more time to develop, the second one is the cinematic/movie version right? Or alt from the comic version.