Comic Book Challenge: ONE YEAR LATER
July 16th, 2007Wednesday is the one year mark, when I received an e-mail from a guy named “Dan”, telling me I had 7 days to be in San Diego to pitch Hero By Night.
The funny thing is, I almost didn’t go. I was THISSSSS close to not going. I mean, SEVEN DAYS!!!? To get the biggest comic book show of the year, it would be near impossible. The only money I had at my disposal was $1200 bucks in my “Yirmumah Bankroll”, which was profits from previous print books, which I had saved for future printing projects. My wife said to go for it– and it costs just about that entire amount to book my last minute trip, airfare and hotel.
As everyone knows, I ended up winning last year. I thought I’d just post this saying how my life has changed since then. Well, for one, we have an entire kickass new super hero universe going on. I started online in October of 2006 after cutting a bonus deal with Platinum to produce the daily comic strip there that acted like a prequel to the book series. It was originally going to be weekly, but i was pushing the editors saying I could totally do M-W-F or even M-F if they wanted me to, and that’s what we ended up doing for quite awhile there. I’m really proud with the amount of work we did there fleshing out a background universe for the characters to play in. The mini series launched in March and ended in June, to TONS of great reviews from the comic press and reviewers out there. It was a very humbling experience. And it’s still not over.
Without getting too much into details, I’m also in a much better place financially. While I was doing well with Yirmumah stuff on my own, it was a lot of work and hustle to keep it going to the point of paying bills. Work on Hero By Night has kept me really busy and I had to put Yirm on hiatus here, but in the past month or so I’ve been really contemplating how cool it would be to just bring Yirm back, “ad free”, no sponsors, because I don’t really have to hustle around to make money with it. Usually the goal has always been for me to keep producing comics, build audience, sell to them, make some money of advertising, etc to pay bills. But now I don’t have to do that. So when Yirmumah makes a comeback, I want it to have also benefited from my success with HBN, where we’ll have absolutely nothing to pimp except for our own projects and that’s it. No more googleads, no more sponsor ads,etc. It’s a different feeling to think that way. It’s funny, because you hear about the creators who finally quit their day jobs to work on their comics full time, and now I’m maybe the first webcomic guy who has had something else come along that pays me to not HAVE to do the job of creating another webcomic. When I say “job of”, i mean all that hustle and flow. I don’t have to do that morning-noon-and night, and it’s a relief. But i Know that you miss Yirmumah, and I miss her too.
Over the past year I’ve had the chance to work with some talented people at Platinum Studios as well. They have so many things going on internally, many of which I just can’t talk about, so it makes it hard to be specific, but I can just say that it’s an honor and exciting working with them. Yeah, I’m always cheerleading them, but it’s only because I trust them and I understand the business end. I’ve learned quite a bit there too. It’s hard biting my tongue, but I’ve sort of learned that a whole lot of small petty things out there are just not worth commenting on. Instead of sitting around defending all the time, I thought I’d show some offense and prove things by my own actions with the company and my property that I trust them to represent well.
There have been several geek out moments I haven’t posted publicly about. Because ultimately, it doesn’t really mean anything, but just to know that my name or creations are brought up by some pretty powerful people in Hollywood, it’s cool to hear. While they specialize in all this other stuff that can be great for me down the road, I’m really just focused on putting out a great comic for me, them and YOU. I don’t let any of it go to my head— trust me though, there are some EXCITING things in the works. Hopefully a couple of them I can spill the beans on soon.
Case in point, one year ago, I was drawing comics about my Dad and bikers and all that jazz… and now suddenly we’re working with ATT, and there’s word how they want me to be more featured at this year’s challenge, and sort of be the “face” of Comic Book Challenge on the ATT site. It seems like everyone values my opinion on what’s a good idea and what’s not, and that too is very humbling.
So what about this year? You know, I really can’t wait to get out there and meet the new contestants, and just encourage them, or answer any questions they might have. I didn’t have that luxury last year of asking a winner how the deal has worked for them– and I’m hoping I can set the record straight for anyone afraid I got bad deal, because honestly I have one of the best deals in independent comics, barnone. I honestly want something BETTER than “Hero by Night” to win this year. I want to hear that idea that knocks MY socks off. Other people I’ve spoken to say that we’ve set the bar pretty high with the Hero By Night universe, but I totally believe there can be another creator out there with a better idea and as much or more passion than I have for the comic book medium. And I want to meet that person!
Here we are, about a year later. I feel like one of the luckiest mofos on the planet.
July 17th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
You have a lot to be proud of, the way you are with your family is very important and you have been one of the best father’s and I am sure that calypso would also say the best husband. You have worked so hard for everything that you do, your comics in my eyes are number one. If anyone wants to say anything bad about you, then they just don’t know you, because I am really glad that my daughter is married to you. Anyway, enough of this mushy stuff, just keep up the good work and you will go very far with HBN and anything else you set your mind to.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Cool website, keep it up! greetings from germany
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