Just a small update from me, where I’m at, where Yirmumah’s at, where Hero’s at, etc.

I have one week left of “extra” work on Hero By Night with the daily webcomic there, the “old” journals leave off and the book will begin running there following…then my schedule cracks open a bit.

Next week will be a busy one, Wizard World Los Angeles and the book’s official premiere there. Did I mention here how strange/cool it is to see a big banner that Wizard is running constantly about the book’s debut there? Go look. I’ll likely be drawing my butt off there, I’d like to make sure that anyone who wants one, gets a free sketch or doodle of some kind. I’ve been very humbled by this experience and the feedback I’ve received on Hero By Night. Beyond drawing and writing comics and having a good time, deep down I’m driven to really keep this train going into a new century… the world needs more comic book stories.

DRAMA– There are things i’d like to comment on about webcomics, comic books, digital distribution, online hacks, liars and assholes… but I won’t. It’s counter-productive. All I can say is the current webcomics scene better wisen up and get their heads out of their critical asses. Stop complaining about webcomic people not being a part of the process for panels at conventions… become a part of the process. Well, that is, if you’re a creator that produces actual webcomics. If you’re not, yeah, you’re likely not an expert on it and you should shut up. Or you can pretend to be a webcomics “publisher” because you have poorly designed site that others can use to post their crap online. You’re not a REAL publisher. And that’s fair to say in any argument for the people who say that bringing comic books to the web isn’t REALLY webcomics. In some ways, I agree with that. You can’t just take Spider-Man #220, scan it in, pop it online and call it a webcomic. But, The real answer is simple… COMICS are COMICS. Period. You have a story with pictures, and you have the readers. It doesn’t matter how it gets to the reader’s eye, just that it gets there. Comics are comics.

In webcomic circles… there seems to be a fear of the big guy coming in and squashing the little guy, or “taking credit” for things that think they’ve done or accomplished, but suddenly don’t matter when MARVEL WEBCOMICS or Stan Lee will pop out and say he invented it. - It’s probably a quality fear too. There are a lot of un-polished things published online, and suddenly the quality level bar is being raised if some of these bigger companies with money to pay talent come in the game. So many opportunities for creators and publishers though if they’d just open their eyes a bit, or be honest with themselves. Much like in the actual comic book industry, it’s usually a lot of bittered creators complaining or critiquing business moves that don’t help them personally. Outside of “webcomic circles”, webcomics are mostly perceived as amateurs who publish online because they can’t afford to print, OR they’re not good enough to be published elsewhere. We know that’s wrong, of course…. but ask yourselves this, oh awesome webcomic creators and so called publishers out there…. would a company or anyone PAY YOU to create a webcomic for them. Would they pay you to do what you’re doing that you think is so awesome? If no… then you have a lot of reality checking to do if you’re calling yourself a “professional” anything. IN fact, thinking about that further, it might be harmful to creators to even be called that, or told there is a “webcomics industry” when the people saying that don’t even know what it means.

Scott Kurtz has called it a “cottage industry” in the past. It’s probably the best term to come up with actually at this point, at least in regards to those who wish to believe there IS an industry of any kind, but if you really break it down, it’s not even THAT. In a cottage industry, MANY people make money off a set model. Not just 15 people, like THOUSANDS. Like, eBay has spawned a way for SEVERAL THOUSANDS of people to make livings reselling merchandise from home and they call that a “cottage industry”. Right now, webcomics are a friggin cottage HOBBY. A handful have prettied up their creations and sold them at flea markets…. at flea market prices. The SMART ONES have branched out into other delivery systems besides just the screen. There is no “industry”. There aren’t any “professional webcomics”. If you’re “making a living” with your webcomic at this point, you’re actually a professional cartoonist. Think about that. The day when we have thousands, maybe hundreds of people making a decent living off their webcomics online, then people can say they have a “webcomics industry”.

And if your really think about all of that…. here we are at the foundation of something NEW. That CAN be built up. But not many people at all are really working toward that. They just sit around and complain on the internet if it doesn’t benefit them in some way. You have asshats who BEG to be bought out by actual publishers, then when they’re turned down by those companies, they spend months criticizing them online. That’s not “professional” anything. We need to get MUCH smarter to make these things work for real publishers and creators. We lack real innovation in the webcomic medium.

Alright… back to work for me. Just had to post this here since I’m suspended from posting in other places.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 11:15 am and is filed under cartoons, Hero By Night, Entertainment, Humor, yirBLOG, yirmumah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.