Ashes to Ashes

November 8, 2011 10:10 AM

"See, lots of people love comics. Lots of people make comics. Most of us aren’t included in the mainstream. Now with our own books, we can reach a far broader audience than capes comics or art/autobiographical comics can." Comics creator Alex de Campi talks about digital comics, the realities of funding indie comics, and bypassing the mainstream - finding the Self-Publishing Holy Grail. De Campi is not new to digital comics, and has written at length about the nuts and bolts of publishing a story in a dizzying array of languages and formats. She is now using crowdfunding to publish Ashes, the follow-up to her Eisner nominated graphic novel Smoke.
posted by Artw (9 comments total)

Previously, previously -Turns out I've mentioned Valentine before. It's interesting how quickkly these thinsg move on - back then the plurality of formats was an exception and as in the title of that And print comics, of course, are stubbonly not dying. In fact rather interestingly, in the case of DC at least, it seems that while digital increases sales it does not cannibalise print.
posted by Artw at 10:26 AM on November 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gah. back then the plurality of formats was an exception and as in the title of that post it was all about the iPad and ComiXology, now things have moved on.
posted by Artw at 10:34 AM on November 8, 2011

Also worth mentioning that she is an amazing music video director, who has made things for Amanda Palmer, Art Brut, Los Campesinos, and many, many more.
posted by HellKatonWheelz at 10:35 AM on November 8, 2011

God, this gave me the weirdest feeling of deja vu.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 11:11 AM on November 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

tl;dr: Digitally self-publishing your comic across a bunch of formats, in a bunch of online stores, and in a half dozen languages is an insane fuckton of work.

Me, I'm a sole creator. I write, draw, and do the web design of my comic myself. I don't have TIME to even THINK about doing all this stuff she's doing AND to try and promote it. I barely have enough time to make it, what with the two collaborations I've got going on and the dance hobby.

Though I might try pouring my designed-with-the-iPad-in-mind-anyway comic into Kindle and EPub, now that I've got ~30 pages and some pointers from her articles...
posted by egypturnash at 11:17 AM on November 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this a repost?
posted by glaucon at 11:18 AM on November 8, 2011

It's a do-over.
posted by Artw at 11:20 AM on November 8, 2011

I've been wanting to make a post about Thieves and Kings but didn't have enough material for it. Might as well tack it on here! Self-published fantasy comic by a Canadian fellow. (many library systems have it; checks yours or use interlibrary loan).
posted by curious nu at 4:43 PM on November 8, 2011

Writing on the Ether, in response to Self publishing doesn’t mean you have to be a raging fuck wad.
posted by Artw at 9:19 AM on November 10, 2011