#Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[jspit2.0]

Someone mentioned Anna aka thatstarwarsgirl had redesigned the current abomination from DC comics. I didn't see if anyone else had posted the below. The video is a live discussion between Drinker and Midnight's Edge. Edge actually has contacts with comics and even interviewed professionals before the Coof. Anna appeared on the stream at the 46 minute mark and talked about her redesign.

For what it's worth, it sounds like Cecil asked her to do it, she wasn't that into it, but did it anyway. It caused massive backlash apparently, what else is new.

My two sense, seeing reasonable critique, is you can only do so much with the original and her ideas are solid on it for the little time she put in. What that says about DC comics design, well...

Sincere question: You're a former customer. Do you WANT to read my comics?

Somewhat, yes.

If that's an open question to the thread. I buy your comics sometimes, when they're at a reasonable price and I have the cash. I dipped out on Cyberfrog's sequels because I think the price is too high. But you shouldn't lower it when you have a group willing to spend twenty five an issue.

I will say this; Bloodhoney, Lost Souls, Shi, and a few other books were as good as anything the major publishers sell with maybe a handful of exceptions. Just too pricey for the comic.

Frog is one of the few creators who has actually improved the value of his products for backers while moving forward, along with Tim Lim and Doug TenNapel.

For $35 (inc shipping) during the Bloodhoney campaign you received the book, an ashcan, two trading cards, bookmark and a window cling sticker. The books also came with chromium covers and signatures at no extra cost. The price per page was $0.29 per page, which is rather steep considering other projects.

For the same $35 (inc shipping) during the Rekt Planet campaign you receive the book, a bonus comic (42 pages), Salamandroid zine, six trading cards (3 chromium), two stickers, a keychain, a customized shipping box, chromium covers, signatures and a PVC toy. The price per page was $0.25 per page, a four cent reduction in addition to receiving twice as many stickers, three times as many trading cards, a bonus comic instead of an ashcan, keychain, color zine, personalized shipping box and PVC toy.

For $40 (inc shipping) you could have got the Warts N All Omnibus, with a trading card binder and what appears to be 14 additional trading cards. Warts and All has a price per page of $0.09 cents per page which is as competitively priced as Tim Lim's Black Hops and Wallmight Omnibuses.

I haven't bothered to check the Rainbow Brute or Snowman campaigns, but when comparing the three campaigns above despite the price point not changing Ethan has improved the value for backers. Both Rekt Planet and Wart and All were undoubtedly some of the best valued projects offered by anyone in Comicsgate or outside of it.

At least Ethan isn't to the point of charging backers $20 for his signature like another crowdfunding creator.
View attachment 1787479

Thanks Smug for laying it out. I would just point out that I'm in it for the comic. I don't want knickknacks and the zines drive me crazy because, for example, blood honey's was a different size than the main comic. (I know it's weird). So I view it as 25 for a comic.

By the way, someone mentioned Gary Nerdrotic took a swipe at Miller? Anyone have the details, because I missed it.

 

[VIkkiVerse]

Frog is one of the few creators who has actually improved the value of his products for backers while moving forward, along with Tim Lim and Doug TenNapel.

For $35 (inc shipping) during the Bloodhoney campaign you received the book, an ashcan, two trading cards, bookmark and a window cling sticker. The books also came with chromium covers and signatures at no extra cost. The price per page was $0.29 per page, which is rather steep considering other projects.

The ashcan wasn't included.

 

[Brother Maynard]

Frog is one of the few creators who has actually improved the value of his products for backers while moving forward, along with Tim Lim and Doug TenNapel.

For $35 (inc shipping) during the Bloodhoney campaign you received the book, an ashcan, two trading cards, bookmark and a window cling sticker. The books also came with chromium covers and signatures at no extra cost. The price per page was $0.29 per page, which is rather steep considering other projects.

For the same $35 (inc shipping) during the Rekt Planet campaign you receive the book, a bonus comic (42 pages), Salamandroid zine, six trading cards (3 chromium), two stickers, a keychain, a customized shipping box, chromium covers, signatures and a PVC toy. The price per page was $0.25 per page, a four cent reduction in addition to receiving twice as many stickers, three times as many trading cards, a bonus comic instead of an ashcan, keychain, color zine, personalized shipping box and PVC toy.

For $40 (inc shipping) you could have got the Warts N All Omnibus, with a trading card binder and what appears to be 14 additional trading cards. Warts and All has a price per page of $0.09 cents per page which is as competitively priced as Tim Lim's Black Hops and Wallmight Omnibuses.

I haven't bothered to check the Rainbow Brute or Snowman campaigns, but when comparing the three campaigns above despite the price point not changing Ethan has improved the value for backers. Both Rekt Planet and Wart and All were undoubtedly some of the best valued projects offered by anyone in Comicsgate or outside of it.

At least Ethan isn't to the point of charging backers $20 for his signature like another crowdfunding creator.
View attachment 1787479

I just want a comic or graphic novel. Stickers and toys and signatures Don't interest me.

I'll add, Smiller may be charging more for an autograph I'm not interested in, but he's dropped his price to under 20 bucks for the base option, which has enticed me.

Ironically, his campaign is a fraction of what it was without CG, so he should have stuck it out at 25 bucks. Lulz.

He also dropped his shipping price down to 5 bucks early on.

He must have gotten the idea of charging extra for his own autograph from YBZ who was charging 70 smackers for his.

 

[FROG]

I'm okay with backing creators at higher prices to help them produce the books. That's what crowdfunding is all about. But when it gets obvious that people (not just you) are using CFing and inflated prices when it's completely unnecessary, it feels like I'm being milked.

More pages, or lower prices, something more commensurate with standard publishing would make me consider future projects.

Thanks for asking.

Sure, we can lower prices a little. But standard publishing prices aren't going to be an option for us, as they really aren't an option for the mainstream right now either. Most comics are losing money, as Jim Lee came out and said earlier this year.

DC and Marvel Comics have two advantages that we don't: They have volume (or they used to) and they have advertising. They're selling ad spots to Nike or Hershey, and that allows them to keep their prices low.

The most successful ComicsGate books sell 2000 copies, on average. It's still boutique publishing. We can't sell ads with these tiny print runs.

Crowdfunding allows us to ask the customer to invest the price of a trip to the movies ($25) in our making a comic book. If the volume of sales is disappointing, the higher buy in price, $25, helps us at least cover the printing bill. If the volume of sales is higher, we can spend more of that $25 in improving the product, or adding more fun "thank you" bonuses to your investment in us.

It should scale out, as a project becomes more successful.

So yes, I could lower my prices a little. I'm one of the few who could. But not many people are complaining, and my campaigns would be a lot less fun if I did. Out of the $25 for a basic tier on REKT PLANET, I might be keeping $3 in profit now.

If you backed my campaign at the $25 level, you were promised a comic book. You're now receiving:

CYBERFROG: REKT PLANET chromium edition
CYBERFROG: HEARTSICK HORROR bonus comic, with two new Cyberfrog stories with art by EJ Morges and Caanan White
SALAMANDROID COLOR ZINE, a colorized reprint comic of all of the early Salamandroid appearances
3 trading cards
3 chromium trading cards
2 giant dazzling stickers
a CyberFrog keychain
CyberFrog PVC toy, a beautiful collectible in it's own window box

That's how to do crowdfunding properly. If you didn't support REKT PLANET because the price was too high, I think you can see the price was pretty much bang on accurate. You should back it now!

Thanks!

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

Out of the $25 for a basic tier on REKT PLANET, I might be keeping $3 in profit now.

That doesn't seem right. That $25 tier is really $35 with shipping. How does that one book cost $32 to produce and ship? The only extra is the Gemini mailer.

Wenger might have some ziplocs left over.

 

[jspit2.0]

Sure, we can lower prices a little. But standard publishing prices aren't going to be an option for us,

You weren't responding to me, but whatever. I wasn't arguing. If you are interested, Smug pointed out price per page, above. If the average crowdfund book was 48 pages (Blood Honey was a bit bigger) than that's the equivalent of two comics.

The price of a comic is four dollars from the big two and Three Jokers, which is a 48 a page prestige, is seven. If you assume that a major mark up is necessary two times seven is 14. At 25 dollars that is very nearly four times the price of a similar comic book.

Most comics are losing money, as Jim Lee came out and said earlier this year.

The three Jokers isn't, though as you point out...

DC and Marvel Comics have two advantages that we don't: They have volume (or they used to) and they have advertising. They're selling ad spots to Nike or Hershey, and that allows them to keep their prices low.

Hence the mark up. But nearly four times is a bit much.

The most successful ComicsGate books sell 2000 copies, on average. It's still boutique publishing. We can't sell ads with these tiny print runs.

Nor should you. You don't have the market incentive to lower your price and won't until or unless the pay piggies balk. They haven't.

Crowdfunding allows us to ask the customer to invest the price of a trip to the movies ($25) in our making a comic book.

I've never paid twenty five dollars for a movie ticket. New Jersey must be expensive.

If the volume of sales is disappointing, the higher buy in price, $25, helps us at least cover the printing bill.

That's the idea behind crowdfunding, though I wonder at whether if you coordinated you couldn't get a pretty good deal on printing the books.

So yes, I could lower my prices a little. I'm one of the few who could. But not many people are complaining, and my campaigns would be a lot less fun if I did. Out of the $25 for a basic tier on REKT PLANET, I might be keeping $3 in profit now.

I'm not asking you to. That totals out to 7,749 dollars profit on single issues at 25 dollars a pop.

If you backed my campaign at the $25 level, you were promised a comic book. You're now receiving:

and if all I wanted was comics.

CYBERFROG: REKT PLANET chromium edition

neat

CYBERFROG: HEARTSICK HORROR bonus comic, with two new Cyberfrog stories with art by EJ Morges and Caanan White

that's nice, but don't want

SALAMANDROID COLOR ZINE, a colorized reprint comic of all of the early Salamandroid appearances

don't want

3 trading cards
3 chromium trading cards
2 giant dazzling stickers
a CyberFrog keychain
CyberFrog PVC toy, a beautiful collectible in it's own window box

not comics

That's how to do crowdfunding properly. If you didn't support REKT PLANET because the price was too high, I think you can see the price was pretty much bang on accurate. You should back it now!

But I don't want that other stuff. I want to buy just the comic book. Either way, you do you, congrats on the success.

 

[NasserRabadi13]

That $25 tier is really $35 with shipping. How does that one book cost $32 to produce and ship?

The most expensive tiers are most profitable and where most of his money comes from.
In Ethan's case, when you buy a $35 book, that's about $31.90 after igg fees.
I just sent out a bluray priority mail to Texas, $8.25 if Ethan is using priority (typically I use media) we can assume $8.25 is at least what he's paying.
$23.65
I don't know his printing fees or what he pays Kyle, EJ, and Caanan, but he's also including all of the following--a toy, 3 comics, and a lot of extra goodies:

CYBERFROG: REKT PLANET chromium edition
CYBERFROG: HEARTSICK HORROR bonus comic, with two new Cyberfrog stories with art by EJ Morges and Caanan White
SALAMANDROID COLOR ZINE, a colorized reprint comic of all of the early Salamandroid appearances
3 trading cards
3 chromium trading cards
2 giant dazzling stickers
a CyberFrog keychain
CyberFrog PVC toy, a beautiful collectible in it's own window box

Wouldn't surprise me at all if the profit on a $35 order to produce 3 comics, a pvc toy, 6 cards, 2 stickers, and a keychain is $3-5.

 

[FROG]

That doesn't seem right. That $25 tier is really $35 with shipping. How does that one book cost $32 to produce and ship? The only extra is the Gemini mailer.

Wenger might have some ziplocs left over.

Shipping is much more expensive than most people realize.

I'm in New Jersey, and most of the east coast of the USA costs about $5 to ship a single book First Class (3 Day shipping with tracking.) It's $7-8 for the midwest, and $9-11 to get it to California.

That's for a single comic in a Gemini Mailer. That is why a lot of CGers cheap out with Media Mail, and why they end up getting into trouble like Donal did.

We lose money on shipping. We charge $10 to ship an order domestically. We have to pay for the carton and shipping supplies, plus labor, and costs vary wildly. Here's what that looks like:

You weren't responding to me, but whatever. I wasn't arguing. If you are interested, Smug pointed out price per page, above. If the average crowdfund book was 48 pages (Blood Honey was a bit bigger) than that's the equivalent of two comics.

The price of a comic is four dollars from the big two and Three Jokers, which is a 48 a page prestige, is seven. If you assume that a major mark up is necessary two times seven is 14. At 25 dollars that is very nearly four times the price of a similar comic book.

The three Jokers isn't, though as you point out...

Hence the mark up. But nearly four times is a bit much.

Nor should you. You don't have the market incentive to lower your price and won't until or unless the pay piggies balk. They haven't.

I've never paid twenty five dollars for a movie ticket. New Jersey must be expensive.

That's the idea behind crowdfunding, though I wonder at whether if you coordinated you couldn't get a pretty good deal on printing the books.

I'm not asking you to. That totals out to 7,749 dollars profit on single issues at 25 dollars a pop.

and if all I wanted was comics.

neat

that's nice, but don't want

don't want

not comics

But I don't want that other stuff. I want to buy just the comic book. Either way, you do you, congrats on the success.

The other stuff is free. The book costs $25. You can sell the free stuff and get your money back on the book, if you want.

CYBERFROG BLOODHONEY was 60 pages of story material, plus 20 pages of extras. That's three floppies. At $25, that breaks down to $8 an issue, which isn't THAT far away from a Marvel or DC Comic, considering that it's also a premium product and it's autographed.

It resells now for around $80.

Three Jokers, a rare case of a mainstream book that everyone wants, initially sold 300,000 copies at $7. That is called VOLUME. If we were selling 300,000 copies, we could charge much less too.

 

[TheCosmicWarrior]

Sure, we can lower prices a little. But standard publishing prices aren't going to be an option for us, as they really aren't an option for the mainstream right now either. Most comics are losing money, as Jim Lee came out and said earlier this year.

DC and Marvel Comics have two advantages that we don't: They have volume (or they used to) and they have advertising. They're selling ad spots to Nike or Hershey, and that allows them to keep their prices low.

Their biggest advantage is they don't -care- if it makes a profit. These are license holders and copyright protectors for the movies. Captain Marvel makes a billion, doesn't matter if the issues make money.

They're not comic book companies, they're "lifestyle brands". We are comic book companies. We price things how it makes sense to sell comic books.

Competing against that is tough on a pricepoint level but our books are so much better than their garbage that it's well worth the entertainment bucks.

 

[jspit2.0]

The other stuff is free. The book costs $25. You can sell the free stuff and get your money back on the book, if you want.

I'm not looking to get into retail, thanks though.

CYBERFROG BLOODHONEY was 60 pages of story material, plus 20 pages of extras. That's three floppies. At $25, that breaks down to $8 an issue, which isn't THAT far away from a Marvel or DC Comic, considering that it's also a premium product and it's autographed.

But I don't what the autograph....

I agree, Blood Honey was about roughly equivalent, though sixty pages of story I'll need to recount. I'm looking for something no frills no thrills to read.

Rekt planet isn't 60 pages though, is it?

It resells now for around $80.

Three Jokers, a rare case of a mainstream book that everyone wants, initially sold 300,000 copies at $7. That is called VOLUME. If we were selling 300,000 copies, we could charge much less too.

I'm not saying you should. the market has people willing to overpay to the tune of 25 dollars for a forty eight page book.

Thanks for the reply.

Their biggest advantage is they don't -care- if it makes a profit. These are license holders and copyright protectors for the movies. Captain Marvel makes a billion, doesn't matter if the issues make money.

They're not comic book companies, they're "lifestyle brands". We are comic book companies. We price things how it makes sense to sell comic books.

Competing against that is tough on a pricepoint level but our books are so much better than their garbage that it's well worth the entertainment bucks.

Your books? Weren't you just on here crowing because one of your artists bailed to work at Marvel?

 

[TheCosmicWarrior]

Your books? Weren't you just on here crowing because one of your artists bailed to work at Marvel?

My artist hasn't bailed. He's working on the concluding volume to the Flying Sparks storyline right now. It's beautiful. Here's a preview:

Glad they're finally adding talent to their roster at Marvel. Hopefully, they pick up a writer who's better than bi-poly-gay Star-Lord writer Al Ewing to work with him.

 

[Pilule Noire]

To follow up @Smug Freiza's earlier post on the subject of debates, I have to say my dream debate is still Razorfist vs Micah, that would be so funny. Any Youtuber who sets that one up has more than earned a sub from me.

I'm thinking @FROG wants to ease back into debating with @Mecha as his gimme fight. Frog's butt is likely still very sore from the spanking he received in his own comments section after debating Razorfist on the pedophilia of Michael Jackson. Get a load of these doozies:

These aren't cherry picked either! There's very little coming the other way.

Razorfist is an interesting case, especially since Micah has been spurned by Frog now, yet is choosing to remain steadfastly clinging to his coattails. To use Frog's famous metaphor of Comicsgate being a poop jacket, Micah is clinging onto the coattails of the CG poopjacket, while Frog sort of spins and jerks around violently, trying to shake him off.

But Razorfist is Frog-friendly last I heard, and features a lot of good comics content that I would consider CG-compatible. He's got 281K subs too, his channel is literally more than twice the size of Frog's. But is it a CG channel?

And more importantly, does it matter?

The reason I bring it up is because I was looking at another Youtuber, Mr H. He's a pop culture guy with a horror and sci-fi orientation, did some Fandom Menacey, anti-SJW type video coverage of pop culture news, alongside things like readings of unfilmed Hellraiser scripts and things like that.

He's got 263K subs, almost double Frog's, and interestingly he's used the Youtube-to-crowdfund model to get his own short film made, which looks to be about some fat barbarians going mad:

I think both Razorfist and Mr H are better examples for Nasser to look at than Yellow Flash, who I don't really understand why Frog always brings him up as if he's the next big thing, as if he's going to be CG's PewDiePie. Does anybody here even watch Yellow Flash? I remember seeing his videos about two years ago, I didn't find them bad or anything but they just felt like second-hand information. I didn't feel like I was getting anything new from his videos. So I would see his thumbnail, agree with it, but then scroll past, since I never felt any need to watch it.

Razorfist, though, is a guy I like to come back to a lot because his channel The Rageaholic is a bit of a treasure trove of interesting videos on all kinds of subjects, if you look through his playlists. I never realised The Witcher is plagiarized from Elric, until today, from browsing Razorfist videos.

Mr H is less intelligent than Razorfist, but much more pleasant to listen to, and he has his ear to the ground with a lot of pop culture news, fraternizing with Midnight's Edge and the like in fairly entertaining streams, as well as usefully employing his radio voice to produce these sort of bootleg-Audible, Youtube-readings that can be quite enjoyable. He also has some very popular videos on sci-fi/horror franchise lore (Aliens, Predator, Hellraiser etc), many of them over a million views.

@NasserRabadi13 you should be looking at these guys, you're floundering at the moment. You've descended into a level of autism where it isn't even pleasant on a freakshow level. The entertainment value has plunged to deep negative where your stream isn't entertaining for anybody except you and your co-host. Literally the only entertaining thing is your sad, unanswered calls to Frog and Malin for help, that echo out into the darkness, giving the stream a poignant sense of melancholy.

You've become so uninteresting that even the CG jungle predators don't want to come out and take a bite.

The last funny thing to happen on your stream was when you misused your 'pretend snoring' gag to snore over the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer - which made you look autistic more than it made Cyberpunk 2077 look boring. And that wasn't the funny bit.

The funny bit was when you then went on to tediously re-shill your ASYL project for the eighteen billionth time, and Smiller used the pretend snoring gag back on you, snoring over ASYL, and making you get autistically upset.

Another brilliant Cowellish move by Smiller! He's absolutely the star of Afterlife I have to say.

By the way, someone mentioned Gary Nerdrotic took a swipe at Miller? Anyone have the details, because I missed it.

I also want to see this, it's Frog who always brings it up. You've hyped it up as being Simon Cowell levels of HUMILIATION now Frog, I hope you weren't overhyping it dishonestly...? I hope you weren't letting your intense emotional feelings color the stone cold objective facts of what happened. Post the clip!

 

[Brother Maynard]

@FROG bottom line, you don't care to make comic books for comic book fans who just want to read comics without paying exorbitant prices for them. There is no option EVER for someone who just wants to read your book.

Comic fans aren't your market. EVS fans are your market. It's fair. That's your market.

I just read two hardcover TPB's that I got from Indiegogo for $60, and if I remember correctly, zero shipping. The books were thick, very nicely printed and presented, fantastic art, and a great story. Took me a good long time to get through both of them. Well worth the $60 for hardcovers, even though I could have bought the soft covers for $40 (again, for TWO TPBs), I thought the extra $10 per book was worth it for the upgrade to the actual product. It didn't come with stickers or wizz-bangs or doodle-bops. Just entertainment value.

Somehow these little upstart creators can manage to charge me only $30 per hardback TOME of work on a minimal print run, but you would break the bank to lower your prices on your $35 floppy comic printing over 10K copies.

Maybe you need a business manager.

 

[Newman's Own]

The biggest problem with crowd funded comics seems to be shipping. The barrier to delivery seems to average close to $10 (or more with international) and there isn't much the creator can do about it.

It looks like 25-33% of the total cost is going to be shipping at best, and that's on a $25-$30 dollar floppy. The problem is also that indy books can't move enough units to spread the cost of talent out over tens of thousands of books like the big two do. So art, writing, coloring etc eat up close to half that cost before you get to the printing which is more expensive per unit the smaller the print run.

Spoiler: The Economics of Indy Crowdfunding

So you get a situation where the creator has to add "bonuses" to sweeten the kitty. I prefer the bonuses like 100+ pages of story material and bonus floppies (Doug's model) to the tchochkes personally because I like comics but I'm not turned on by stickers and toys. But putting out a 100+ page book isn't really an option for creators like Ethan who's output is labor intense and frankly slow. Ethan's 48 page book started funding a year or so ago and as far as I know it's not done yet. That's less than a page a week so 100+ pages is out for adding value. It's just not an option especially considering that doubling the pages would double the cost for letters and colors.

So people get tchotchkes. The problem with trinkets is that, while they can be provided for relatively cheap given enough volume, they only appeal to a subset of comics buyers. This is because there are two types of comics buyers. There are comics readers who want the book but couldn't really give a shit about window stickers and there are comics fans who want the book but are into collecting useless stuff and building shrines out of their collections. (No hate here for fans, whatever floats your boat.)

The economies of scale brought on by high shipping costs, the relatively low value of the primary product (a double sized floppy) and the high cost of artistic labor make it impossible for a crowdfunded book to be cost competitive with mass produced comics.

I'm impressed with George Alexopolous's attempts at solutions. First, he keeps his labor costs down by doing everything himself from breakdowns to colors to letters. Second he keeps his style simple and fast like Kirby did so he can put out lots of pages. Third, because he's serious, he bought his own printer cutting his print costs by more than 75% and made print on demand cheap and easy.

None of these options look like they're open to Ethan who should probably be hiring more help, not less, to finish the book, can't simplify his rendering technique without annoying his fans and has to large a print run to be printing them in house.

So what it comes down to is crowd funded comics are for fans but not readers. The economic realities of this won't soon change. The available pool of supporters are people either willing to spend $35 to have a $7 comic delivered to their door (not many) with some print up grades and people who get more value from the assorted souvenirs included than the book which is likely a souvenir too. That's a small pool.

I'm into comics. I'm not interested in merch and what not, so the crowd funding model doesn't appeal to me. The comics appeal to me but not so much that I'll willingly shell out 3-10 times the retail amount to read them. Unfortunately for crowd funders my demo comprises the largest portion of comics buyers (I think) and potential buyers (certainly).

I'd rather go to the movies. skip the fountain drink and use the change to pick up a cool book at the comic shop, book store or on line with free shipping through Prime.

At present the only way for indies to penetrate the much larger but much cheaper readers market is by getting into retail and potentially digital. (though that seems to be under performing)

TL;DR : It's impossible to get the price of crowd funded books down to competitive levels without huge page counts so the crowd fund market can serve fans but not readers.

I'm doubtful there is any solution for this.

 

[TheCosmicWarrior]

The biggest problem with crowd funded comics seems to be shipping. The barrier to delivery seems to average close to $10 (or more with international) and there isn't much the creator can do about it.

All of my 26 issues of comics are available on kindle for folk like you who don't want to pay shipping. Can start here.

 

[Brother Maynard]

The biggest problem with crowd funded comics seems to be shipping. The barrier to delivery seems to average close to $10 (or more with international) and there isn't much the creator can do about it.

It looks like 25-33% of the total cost is going to be shipping at best, and that's on a $25-$30 dollar floppy. The problem is also that indy books can't move enough units to spread the cost of talent out over tens of thousands of books like the big two do. So art, writing, coloring etc eat up close to half that cost before you get to the printing which is more expensive per unit the smaller the print run.

Spoiler: The Economics of Indy Crowdfunding

So you get a situation where the creator has to add "bonuses" to sweeten the kitty. I prefer the bonuses like 100+ pages of story material and bonus floppies (Doug's model) to the tchochkes personally because I like comics but I'm not turned on by stickers and toys. But putting out a 100+ page book isn't really an option for creators like Ethan who's output is labor intense and frankly slow. Ethan's 48 page book started funding a year or so ago and as far as I know it's not done yet. That's less than a page a week so 100+ pages is out for adding value. It's just not an option especially considering that doubling the pages would double the cost for letters and colors.

So people get tchotchkes. The problem with trinkets is that, while they can be provided for relatively cheap given enough volume, they only appeal to a subset of comics buyers. This is because there are two types of comics buyers. There are comics readers who want the book but couldn't really give a shit about window stickers and there are comics fans who want the book but are into collecting useless stuff and building shrines out of their collections. (No hate here for fans, whatever floats your boat.)

The economies of scale brought on by high shipping costs, the relatively low value of the primary product (a double sized floppy) and the high cost of artistic labor make it impossible for a crowdfunded book to be cost competitive with mass produced comics.

I'm impressed with George Alexopolous's attempts at solutions. First, he keeps his labor costs down by doing everything himself from breakdowns to colors to letters. Second he keeps his style simple and fast like Kirby did so he can put out lots of pages. Third, because he's serious, he bought his own printer cutting his print costs by more than 75% and made print on demand cheap and easy.

None of these options look like they're open to Ethan who should probably be hiring more help, not less, to finish the book, can't simplify his rendering technique without annoying his fans and has to large a print run to be printing them in house.

So what it comes down to is crowd funded comics are for fans but not readers. The economic realities of this won't soon change. The available pool of supporters are people either willing to spend $35 to have a $7 comic delivered to their door (not many) with some print up grades and people who get more value from the assorted souvenirs included than the book which is likely a souvenir too. That's a small pool.

I'm into comics. I'm not interested in merch and what not, so the crowd funding model doesn't appeal to me. The comics appeal to me but not so much that I'll willingly shell out 3-10 times the retail amount to read them. Unfortunately for crowd funders my demo comprises the largest portion of comics buyers (I think) and potential buyers (certainly).

I'd rather go to the movies. skip the fountain drink and use the change to pick up a cool book at the comic shop, book store or on line with free shipping through Prime.

At present the only way for indies to penetrate the much larger but much cheaper readers market is by getting into retail and potentially digital. (though that seems to be under performing)

TL;DR : It's impossible to get the price of crowd funded books down to competitive levels without huge page counts so the crowd fund market can serve fans but not readers.

I'm doubtful there is any solution for this.

What are your numbers and where are you getting them? I've heard creators saying that the cost of printing a 48pp comic is as low as lower than a dollar per when printing multiple thousands of copies and 3-4 bucks with minimal runs via digital printing. And I've heard very few having complaints about using media mail which costs as little as 3 bucks plus a mailer which is less than a dollar. Frog is the only one I've heard proclaim curses on Media Mail. Maybe his post-master just doesn't like him? lulz

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

The biggest problem with crowd funded comics seems to be shipping. The barrier to delivery seems to average close to $10 (or more with international) and there isn't much the creator can do about it.

It looks like 25-33% of the total cost is going to be shipping at best, and that's on a $25-$30 dollar floppy. The problem is also that indy books can't move enough units to spread the cost of talent out over tens of thousands of books like the big two do. So art, writing, coloring etc eat up close to half that cost before you get to the printing which is more expensive per unit the smaller the print run.

Spoiler: The Economics of Indy Crowdfunding

So you get a situation where the creator has to add "bonuses" to sweeten the kitty. I prefer the bonuses like 100+ pages of story material and bonus floppies (Doug's model) to the tchochkes personally because I like comics but I'm not turned on by stickers and toys. But putting out a 100+ page book isn't really an option for creators like Ethan who's output is labor intense and frankly slow. Ethan's 48 page book started funding a year or so ago and as far as I know it's not done yet. That's less than a page a week so 100+ pages is out for adding value. It's just not an option especially considering that doubling the pages would double the cost for letters and colors.

So people get tchotchkes. The problem with trinkets is that, while they can be provided for relatively cheap given enough volume, they only appeal to a subset of comics buyers. This is because there are two types of comics buyers. There are comics readers who want the book but couldn't really give a shit about window stickers and there are comics fans who want the book but are into collecting useless stuff and building shrines out of their collections. (No hate here for fans, whatever floats your boat.)

The economies of scale brought on by high shipping costs, the relatively low value of the primary product (a double sized floppy) and the high cost of artistic labor make it impossible for a crowdfunded book to be cost competitive with mass produced comics.

I'm impressed with George Alexopolous's attempts at solutions. First, he keeps his labor costs down by doing everything himself from breakdowns to colors to letters. Second he keeps his style simple and fast like Kirby did so he can put out lots of pages. Third, because he's serious, he bought his own printer cutting his print costs by more than 75% and made print on demand cheap and easy.

None of these options look like they're open to Ethan who should probably be hiring more help, not less, to finish the book, can't simplify his rendering technique without annoying his fans and has to large a print run to be printing them in house.

So what it comes down to is crowd funded comics are for fans but not readers. The economic realities of this won't soon change. The available pool of supporters are people either willing to spend $35 to have a $7 comic delivered to their door (not many) with some print up grades and people who get more value from the assorted souvenirs included than the book which is likely a souvenir too. That's a small pool.

I'm into comics. I'm not interested in merch and what not, so the crowd funding model doesn't appeal to me. The comics appeal to me but not so much that I'll willingly shell out 3-10 times the retail amount to read them. Unfortunately for crowd funders my demo comprises the largest portion of comics buyers (I think) and potential buyers (certainly).

I'd rather go to the movies. skip the fountain drink and use the change to pick up a cool book at the comic shop, book store or on line with free shipping through Prime.

At present the only way for indies to penetrate the much larger but much cheaper readers market is by getting into retail and potentially digital. (though that seems to be under performing)

TL;DR : It's impossible to get the price of crowd funded books down to competitive levels without huge page counts so the crowd fund market can serve fans but not readers.

I'm doubtful there is any solution for this.

Didn't Malin start a standalone third-party shipping service for crowdfunded titles? $10/book, creators just have the product shipped directly to him? How does he manage?

 

[Newman's Own]

All of my 26 issues of comics are available on kindle for folk like you who don't want to pay shipping. Can start here.

You and I are both Ditko fans but that's where our compatibility ends. You're a despicable example of a human being and I'd sooner buy trash from SJW Marvel or DC than give you a shiny nickle. You should take a page out of Ernst's book and have some dignity about the way you promote your books. The EVS model doesn't seem to be doing the trick for you.

What are your numbers and where are you getting them? I've heard creators saying that the cost of printing a 48pp comic is as low as lower than a dollar per when printing multiple thousands of copies and 3-4 bucks with minimal runs via digital printing. And I've heard very few having complaints about using media mail which costs as little as 3 bucks plus a mailer which is less than a dollar. Frog is the only one I've heard proclaim curses on Media Mail. Maybe his post-master just doesn't like him? lulz

I admit, I was using Ethan's numbers in part. If someone is charging $25+ for a floppy 1st class seems appropriate. International shipping still drives up the average massively though even with media mail as the domestic alternative.

The solutions you suggest are very valid but even then the lowest anyone seems able to get a quality book out for is around $15 plus shipping. My guess is the margins are low to non-existent on these lower priced books.

And let's face it, there's no way Ethan is going to lower his price point for readers like yourself and I when he can make more money selling tchokes to the cult short term.

I could be wrong. @FROG would you do a "readers tier" with minimalist dressing and media mail shipping for a deep discount?

Didn't Malin start a standalone third-party shipping service for crowdfunded titles? $10/book, creators just have the product shipped directly to him? How does he manage?

I'm not sure what you mean by the question but I'll try to answer. He might manage by refusing to do international shipping. Perhaps he figured out that a large enough portion of American backers are in close proximity to him (the north east I think) that his margins will be high. I wasn't aware Malin was doing this so I really don't know.

I get most of my CG news these days from this forum for the LoL's. Aside from Ernst and TenNaple who put out high quality stuff and don't really associate with CG anymore I can't be fucked to consider backing any other projects because they just don't interest me at the price point.

Edit:
Tim and Mark's stuff is decent. I might pick up their stuff on digital.

 

[Carmina Burana]

So, a couple of things polluting the comics world this Monday.

First up, Entertainment Weakly--which can always be depended on to promote the worst of humanity & culture--ran this story on Marvel's latest pandering faggotry:

The Guardians of the Galaxy films are 2 of the only Marvel movies I've watched since Iron Man 3. How many parents, when they hear about this second- or third-hand, are never going to buy another Guardians toy for their kids again? This'll get all the usual twitter assholes cheering & gloating, but how is this anything a normal person would ever have any interest in their kids reading? Would Stan Lee ever have written his leading man as some other man's bitch?

This is from a couple of days ago, but interesting for the long-term implications. Creepy-looking hack Erik Larsen, said this about the chinavirus vaccine:
Does he have the pull to get conventions or store signings--if such things ever come back--to enforce something like this? He's a big enough asshole to try, anyway.

I'd hope conventions would be obsequious af to their fans if they come back, but watching these SJW companies & pros still trying to force their audiences to eat the shit sandwiches they're serving, I doubt it.

 

[jspit2.0]

So, a couple of things polluting the comics world this Monday.

First up, Entertainment Weakly--which can always be depended on to promote the worst of humanity & culture--ran this story on Marvel's latest pandering faggotry:
View attachment 1788476View attachment 1788478View attachment 1788479View attachment 1788480View attachment 1788481
The Guardians of the Galaxy films are 2 of the only Marvel movies I've watched since Iron Man 3. How many parents, when they hear about this second- or third-hand, are never going to buy another Guardians toy for their kids again? This'll get all the usual twitter assholes cheering & gloating, but how is this anything a normal person would ever have any interest in their kids reading? Would Stan Lee ever have written his leading man as some other man's bitch?

This is from a couple of days ago, but interesting for the long-term implications. Creepy-looking hack Erik Larsen, said this about the chinavirus vaccine:View attachment 1788498
Does he have the pull to get conventions or store signings--if such things ever come back--to enforce something like this? He's a big enough asshole to try, anyway.

I'd hope conventions would be obsequious af to their fans if they come back, but watching these SJW companies & pros still trying to force their audiences to eat the shit sandwiches they're serving, I doubt it.

By the time most people get the vaccine, it'll have been used on medical providers and first responders for months. No reason not to take it at that point. People need to get vaccinated in order to eradicate disease. See polio.

Who wants to go to conventions or store signings?