#Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[NasserRabadi13]

You don't get it; doing several of the same things that killed its mainstream accessibility and mainly appealing to the same small audience of whales with variants will save comics forever. Oh wait, I mean make fat stacks off of mongos.

Being predatory with them is what hurt the mainstream. You don't need to buy all the variants for a crowdfund. In the mainstream, they're forced to buy X amount of regular covers to get 1 copy of X variant.

EDIT: typo

 

[A nameless trool]

That's the case at comic shops but the direct market is a completely different model. Kamen America and Lim's other books along with a few other examples would seem to indicate that growth of backer numbers from the first release forward is very achievable.

All one needs do is put out a product good enough that more people want to read it.


And also there is this. If Ethan has bothered to create a database of customers for mailing lists and metrics then he's the only one who actually knows if his real backer numbers are going up, down or maintaining.

I have my suspicions based on changes in the way he talks about his numbers over time but they are only suspicions.

If you look up Pullido's nuumbers, he had a drop off in Lady Death 2 and started gaining backers after book 3. As soona s @FROG has a way to get the previous issues, he can grow with every book (as long as fresh eyes see his campaigns)

 

[jspit2.0]

If you look up Pullido's nuumbers, he had a drop off in Lady Death 2 and started gaining backers after book 3. As soona s @FROG has a way to get the previous issues, he can grow with every book (as long as fresh eyes see his campaigns)

Maybe.

Maybe all his internet autism and e-thot slap fighting hurt him. Unlikely, but the question needs to be asked.

Maybe the fact he didn't package a tier with 1 and 2 hurt him.

I don't know. These are all things @FROG is going to need to do in his autopsy of the campaign. Be interesting to see.

 

[Adamska]

Being predatory with them is what hurt the mainstream. You don't need to buy all the variants for a crowdfund. In the mainstream, they're forced to buy X amount of regular covers to get 1 copy of X variant.

EDIT: typo

Exploiting collector autism on purpose isn't similarly scummy? Because that's using a person's psychology rather than an actual threat. It's also just pushing said tactic without the middleman.

Also still proof that the people who knew comics and how they work are either dead, foreigners, or retired.

 

[NasserRabadi13]

Exploiting collector autism on purpose isn't similarly scummy? Because that's using a person's psychology rather than an actual threat. It's also just pushing said tactic without the middleman.

Also still proof that the people who knew comics and how they work are either dead, foreigners, or retired.

Know your audience. There are people who love to collect premium items, and if that's your audience, why not make something for them? Which, it's not like it's just $35 for one floppy comic. IF we're talking about @FROG then $35 gets you 60 pages of the best art there is in crowdfunding, a chromium cover, trading cards, a PVC toy, and I might even be leaving something out. You get your bang for your buck. And there are thousands of people just like me who are happy with what they're paying for.

I don't see anyone in crowdfunding taking advantage of anyone. It's everyone's own choice to back these books, and they back them because they like the person, like the book, or like both. If people are happy with what they pay for, what's the problem?

It's $35 for one Cyberfrog book a year. It's infinitely better than $4.99 a month for some dumb SJW Marvel lecture.

 

[Adamska]

Know your audience. There are people who love to collect premium items, and if that's your audience, why not make something for them? Which, it's not like it's just $35 for one floppy comic. IF we're talking about @FROG then $35 gets you 60 pages of the best art there is in crowdfunding, a chromium cover, trading cards, a PVC toy, and I might even be leaving something out. You get your bang for your buck. And there are thousands of people just like me who are happy with what they're paying for.

I don't see anyone in crowdfunding taking advantage of anyone. It's everyone's own choice to back these books, and they back them because they like the person, like the book, or like both. If people are happy with what they pay for, what's the problem?

It's $35 for one Cyberfrog book a year. It's infinitely better than $4.99 a month for some dumb SJW Marvel lecture.

Oh wait, you're serious and defending this.

Premium items, meaning tat and guff you chuck in to pretend it has value, aka the Lootbox Method. I could just get a collection tradebook for about the same price and a lot more pages without the shiny distractions. Hell, I've been doing an Alien binge with the comics right now. Fuck's sake I could get two Hellboy books for the price of one of these, and they have 4-5 times the pages when you factor in both. I'd still get double the pages too.

Also telling you're defending the method you hope to thrive off of and pay into it yourself. Very much reminds me of an MLM and/or the Rat King Grift when that comes into play.

And as for the problem, it's mainly the fact that it's all about the grift rather than about telling a good story, given that recent entries just get more and more uninspired.

Also nice failed false dichotomy for assuming I'd go for modern Marvel, I'm probably just going to go back to them old books from any of the other companies now (again, currently reading Aliens: Colonial Marines as well as Archie's Mega Man Run), or maybe some of them funny comics across the pond. That My Hero Academia for example or Japanese Deadpool's lookin' a sore sight better for example.

Might even try giving the Question a run. I did it recently with Machine Man so why not?

Either way, in the face of two options, I pick numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6.

 

[Mister Dongs]

"Backers" does not equal individual customers since every item must be purchased separately and each purchase is counted as a backer. If you purchase the book, a variant cover and the plastic dolls you count as 3 or 4 "backers".

For the sake of this (moot) argument, if you took away every toy backer as an additional order from an already existing comic customer and only counted comic sales, you'd still have 9590 backers. Which is more than the 8566 backers for Bloodhoney.

And while yes, you could argue that there were repeat comic backers for Rekt Planet, that argument could also be made for Bloodhoney. As Newman's Own points out, the only way an unambiguous answer on this could be reached either way would be for Frog to disclose the total amount of addresses (email or physical) of those who backed. Still, its my position that if it's a reach to say 9590 backers means more individual customers than 8566, it's even more of a reach to say it means less.

Comic book crowdfunding is growing substantially as a whole; as crowdfunded comics themselves CG titles should be growing as well, or at least matching pace with the overall nascent crowdfund industry. Tim Lim is a lauded example of a "former CG" creator building himself up after leaving, but he's by no means alone in this accomplishment either in or out of Comicsgate. Even not including Frog - Jon Malin, Clint Stoker, Graham Nolan (projected), Jon Del Arroz, Robert Arnold, Mandy Summers, Michael Oden, Chimera Comics, Mark Poulton, Dave Brink, Eric Weathers and Brian Schearer have also made incremental gains on their campaigns.

That some people are able to build on success in a growth industry isn't that astonishing. If anything, it makes the people who's franchises do collapse after their first or second outing that much more egregious.

 

[FROG]

-The HONEYCOMB BOX and the Add-On features of this campaign suppressed single backers needing to back multiple times. Obviously, super fans still backed multiple times over the year, but the subscription model allowed people to back once and get everything, including the toys. So we cut that phenomenon way down.

-I didn’t offer a bundle of old product with the new product, because I think that’s a bad idea. We have an active eBay store with all of the books from prior campaigns marked up in price. We’ve sold hundreds and hundreds of copies of BLOODHONEY to newcomers, and we ship immediately, priority mail. These newcomers shouldn’t have to wait to receive books that are already in print. We’re finding that people order the eBay books, read them, and then excitedly back REKT PLANET.

This worked especially well when we hosted special deals on eBay. The “Warehouse Deal” (6 books for $60) did great, and won us a ton of new REKT PLANET backers. Making that first book easily attainable is key.

We’ll do the same thing with CYBERFROG 3.

 

[jspit2.0]

-The HONEYCOMB BOX and the Add-On features of this campaign suppressed single backers needing to back multiple times. Obviously, super fans still backed multiple times over the year, but the subscription model allowed people to back once and get everything, including the toys. So we cut that phenomenon way down.

Hmm. Maybe. Certainly they got the biggest cash.

-I didn’t offer a bundle of old product with the new product, because I think that’s a bad idea. We have an active eBay store with all of the books from prior campaigns marked up in price. We’ve sold hundreds and hundreds of copies of BLOODHONEY to newcomers, and we ship immediately, priority mail. These newcomers shouldn’t have to wait to receive books that are already in print. We’re finding that people order the eBay books, read them, and then excitedly back REKT PLANET.

This right there. Rekt Planet is 48 pages at twenty five dollars. Already more than triple the market price of a comic book of similar size and your marking them up.

This worked especially well when we hosted special deals on eBay. The “Warehouse Deal” (6 books for $60) did great, and won us a ton of new REKT PLANET backers. Making that first book easily attainable is key.

So you offset it down to an actually reasonable price and it sold.

We’ll do the same thing with CYBERFROG 3.

Well, good luck. I think if Rekt Planet proved anything it's that you have dedicated core of people. For now.

 

[A nameless trool]

-The HONEYCOMB BOX and the Add-On features of this campaign suppressed single backers needing to back multiple times. Obviously, super fans still backed multiple times over the year, but the subscription model allowed people to back once and get everything, including the toys. So we cut that phenomenon way down.

-I didn’t offer a bundle of old product with the new product, because I think that’s a bad idea. We have an active eBay store with all of the books from prior campaigns marked up in price. We’ve sold hundreds and hundreds of copies of BLOODHONEY to newcomers, and we ship immediately, priority mail. These newcomers shouldn’t have to wait to receive books that are already in print. We’re finding that people order the eBay books, read them, and then excitedly back REKT PLANET.

This worked especially well when we hosted special deals on eBay. The “Warehouse Deal” (6 books for $60) did great, and won us a ton of new REKT PLANET backers. Making that first book easily attainable is key.

We’ll do the same thing with CYBERFROG 3.

This is smart. Hope more people on CG had such business sense (or a wife with such business sense, because it smells to me that part of the operation is thanks to Andrea)

 

[NasserRabadi13]

I could just get a collection tradebook for about the same price and a lot more pages without the shiny distractions.

We don't have the benefit of being a gigantic comic book company who already made their money on Watchmen or some other "iconic" run 40 years ago, and can now sell it all for $15.99. We're creating these things fresh, and people are helping us bring them to life.

Marvel can afford to put a bunch of their comics from 60 years ago into an omnibus and sell 1,000 pages for $49.99. That was all paid for a long time ago. They prints tens of thousands of those Jack Kirby omnibuses and can print them for $3.00. We just don't have those options.

Comparing the price of a crowdfunded book against a mainstream book doesn't make sense.

 

[FROG]

View attachment 2058456

Oh wait, you're serious and defending this.

Premium items, meaning tat and guff you chuck in to pretend it has value, aka the Lootbox Method.

Lootcrate was garbage because it was filled with a diverse assortment of pop culture artifacts at random.

Getting free CyberFrog related gifts with your purchase of a CyberFrog comic book could only be unwelcome to angry haters determined to be mad about something. And the toys did really well. It should get some kids interested in Frog comics!

This is smart. Hope more people on CG had such business sense (or a wife with such business sense, because it smells to me that part of the operation is thanks to Andrea)

She does the eBay sales every single morning, while correcting shipping problems and making sure orders are shipped out same day. That kind of goodwill goes a long way. It's all about inviting people to be a part of ALL CAPS COMICS while we're still on the ground floor.

This right there. Rekt Planet is 48 pages at twenty five dollars. Already more than triple the market price of a comic book of similar size and your marking them up.

Yep! The Team Up Variant goes for $30 on eBay. The chromium Frog is $80, and the chromium Salamandroid is $100. They all sell easily at those prices.

We also feel that marking up rare CYBERFROG comics to as high as $100 allows the speculator backers who purchased extra copies for $25 a lot of profit leeway. They can undercut us, sell at $90, and do really well.

So you offset it down to an actually reasonable price and it sold.

I'm glad you think it's a reasonable price! It's the 3 Line Art Variants for BLOODHONEY, the two ashcans, and the REKT PLANET PREVIEW, plus two stickers. Individually, we found that the demand for them cooled in comparison with the other Frog books, not to mention the fact that we were over supplied on Line Art Variants. Packing them together as a bargain was a good idea...we sold over 500 sets, and we're now almost sold out of that product.

 

[GranDuke]

he fundamentally does not grasp the concept of heroism.

This makes me fascinated that he was picked up as a writer for Superman movie reboot.

 

[Rupin]

This is smart. Hope more people on CG had such business sense (or a wife with such business sense, because it smells to me that part of the operation is thanks to Andrea)

Teamwork makes the dream work.

 

[Newman's Own]

We don't have the benefit of being a gigantic comic book company who already made their money on Watchmen or some other "iconic" run 40 years ago, and can now sell it all for $15.99. We're creating these things fresh, and people are helping us bring them to life.

Marvel can afford to put a bunch of their comics from 60 years ago into an omnibus and sell 1,000 pages for $49.99. That was all paid for a long time ago. They prints tens of thousands of those Jack Kirby omnibuses and can print them for $3.00. We just don't have those options.

Comparing the price of a crowdfunded book against a mainstream book doesn't make sense.

What you described is a situation where Marvel is taking work that has already been produced and sold at least once and selling it again at a deep discount with the hopes of moving volume to make profit and increase awareness and interest in particular properties with an eye toward future sales of new material.

This isn't a new idea. It's good business because it monetizes otherwise stagnant material and draws new eyes to the product and future sales of new material.

You absolutely could do something similar. It would require not trying to maximize revenue per book in favor of maximizing reach and volume though and I don't see any CG creators with the confidence in their product to do that with the notable exception of JDA perhaps.

Whether JDA's confidence in his product is well founded is a matter of opinion though.

This makes me fascinated that he was picked up as a writer for Superman movie reboot.

If the new Superman was intended to be white I would expect Coates to take a similar tact as he did with Marvel's boy-scout icon Captain America thoroughly neutering him. Since the new Soops is going to be a brother I suspect the cringe will lean in the other direction and we'll get something more obnoxious and less heroic like MCU Captain Marvel.

Is Lois going to be white in this movie? I suspect that would be problematic with the progressive set because of the dynamics of putting a "strong feminist white" woman together with an iconic perfect black man of steel.

It should be like watching a pile up on the I-10.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

What you described is a situation where Marvel is taking work that has already been produced and sold at least once and selling it again at a deep discount with the hopes of moving volume to make profit and increase awareness and interest in particular properties with an eye toward future sales of new material.

This isn't a new idea. It's good business because it monetizes otherwise stagnant material and draws new eyes to the product and future sales of new material.

You absolutely could do something similar. It would require not trying to maximize revenue per book in favor of maximizing reach and volume though and I don't see any CG creators with the confidence in their product to do that with the notable exception of JDA perhaps.

Whether JDA's confidence in his product is well founded is a matter of opinion though.


If the new Superman was intended to be white I would expect Coates to take a similar tact as he did with Marvel's boy-scout icon Captain America thoroughly neutering him. Since the new Soops is going to be a brother I suspect the cringe will lean in the other direction and we'll get something more obnoxious and less heroic like MCU Captain Marvel.

Is Lois going to be white in this movie? I suspect that would be problematic with the progressive set because of the dynamics of putting a "strong feminist white" woman together with an iconic perfect black man of steel.

It should be like watching a pile up on the I-10.

Which small creators in CG have back catalogs that they can monetize like that?

 

[GranDuke]

If the new Superman was intended to be white I would expect Coates to take a similar tact as he did with Marvel's boy-scout icon Captain America thoroughly neutering him. Since the new Soops is going to be a brother I suspect the cringe will lean in the other direction and we'll get something more obnoxious and less heroic like MCU Captain Marvel.

From what I remember his Black Panther was fundamentally same as Captain America.

 

[jimsterlingspronoun]

x is a cunt blahblah
y is a dick blah blah
z scammed me blah blah.

boy is everyone in comics a retard. Now I no why 99% of normal people dismiss it as a kids hobby.

 

[Newman's Own]

Which small creators in CG have back catalogs that they can monetize like that?

Nasser has a back catalogue of books and comics. I'm not saying he has to copy Marvel or DC exactly but rather that he could adapt the idea to his own work.

From what I remember his Black Panther was fundamentally same as Captain America.

He's co-writing this time. I expect it will be somewhat different as a result.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

Nasser has a back catalogue of books and comics. I'm not saying he has to copy Marvel or DC exactly but rather that he could adapt the idea to his own work.


He's co-writing this time. I expect it will be somewhat different as a result.

Nasser is the one example other than JDA that I could think of but as far as I know they're both already doing what you suggest via Amazon's print-on-demand service. That makes a lot more sense than pre-printing a bunch of warehouse inventory stock for sale on ebay or retail. IMO that's the way to do it.