Independent Cartoonists Band Together for Success 194
Brad Guigar writes "Six cartoonists, previously hosted at Keenspot, are banding together in a new approach to self-publishing.
They have formed Blank Label Comics, a cooperative group of cartoonists who are helping one another succeed as independents. Each is using his proficiency in a particular aspect of the cartooning business to help the others -- who are doing the same in return.
Scott Kurtz, creator of the daily comic strip PVP, applauded the move. 'The forming of Blank Label Comics is a big story in the webcomics community,' he said in a statement on his Web site, insisting that the 'real story ... is that a bunch of really talented guys are taking a chance, putting their necks out and trying to do this on their own.'"
Re:Yeah, but are they FUNNY? (Score:2, Informative)
To be fair, that quote was from Scott Kurtz from PVP, who I don't believe is involved with the project at all...
zerg (Score:4, Informative)
Modern Tales [moderntales.com] has American Born Chinese, Ice, Narbonic, No Stereotypes, Odd Jobs, Paradigm Shift and Wahoo Moris. 7 out of 63.
Graphic Smash [graphicsmash.com] has Aces High, Ascent, Digger, Fans, Gun Street Girl, Johnny Saturn, Life's a Croc, Little White Knight, Magellan, Rip & Teri, The Jaded, The Replacements and Vigil. 13 out of 31.
Girlamatic [girlamatic.com] has Jupiter, L'il Mell, Sevenplains and The Stiff. 4 out of 23.
YMMV.
Re:Learn from history, dolts (Score:5, Informative)
Image comics has nothing to do with this discussion. It was a group of well-known superhero artists who wanted to get away from Marvel and keep all the royalties to themselves. Of course, they stuff they turned out was more expensive and no better written or drawn than the typical Marvel book, and they tried to maintain a market saturation that couldn't last forever, so they failed and failed big.
Blank is comprised of cartoonists, not superhero comic book writers and artists. It's a pretty big difference that I won't go into, if you don't understand it then you probably don't care. But these guys are like an indie band who's in it because they love what they do and I don't think it could be considered a "failure" if they don't turn a profit... As long as they can generate a fan base that makes it worth doing. After all, what's the cost, the domain name and web space?
And, Image is hardly the only independant comic book publisher. There are quite a few who've been around for a while and do pretty well-- Fantagraphics for one (Eightball by Dan Clowes, or have you not seen Ghost World?), Slave Labor (haven to all the teens who shop at Hot Topic), Drawn and Quarterly... They may not be huge successes or household names, but they have quite a few loyal readers.
As for "getting syndicated"... That's one route, yes. But not a likely one. The funny pages are incredibly hard to break into and editors are notorious for censoring any joke that wouldn't play on "Leave it to Beaver." An occasional Bloom County or Calvin and Hobbes slips through the cracks but that's maybe once every five or six years. And frankly, no one reads them any more anyway. There are a handful of Village Voice/Your-City-Weekly alternative papers for more eclectic strips, but that's also a tough nut to crack. It's a limited and slowly dying market and I don't think many aspiring cartoonists (who do comic strips) are even trying to go these routes any more. It's certainly not the end-all, be-all that you seem to think it is.
Re:Congrats guys! (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of webcomics out there. And I mean a lot. One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that anybody who can find a place to host their files can make a webcomic. There are no other real barriers (though I might argue that not having any discernable talent should be a barrier).
So how do you find a good webcomic? Well, Keenspot is an option. It's a portal that links to a variety of strips. It has certain standards of quality. It's been around for a long time, and it's well known. So if you're looking for something to read, you can always head for Keenspot.
On the flip side, if you're an aspiring webcartoonist and want to get known, getting accepted by Keenspot is a good bet for exactly the same reasons.
From a business perspective, Keenspot is okay. They sell advertising, and some of the money goes to the webcartoonists. Keenspot has done some work to get into newspapers, too, though I admit I don't know many of the details.
And Keenspot also handles the technical side. They provide the servers and all the website code necessary for a webcomic to function (if I recall correctly, that is). In exchange, you, as a webcartoonist, agree to brand your website with a little bit of advertising.
But Keenspot isn't the be-all and end-all of webcomics. Even though there are so many webcomics out there, the webcomic "community" is pretty small. Many of the artists/writers talk to each other. They see each other at conventions. They hang out. And they link to other comics in their rants. If you're looking for a good webcomic, it's almost as if it's a game of follow the links. All you have to do is find one good strip and read it for a while, and if you pay attention, you'll find out what some other good comics are. Word of mouth seems to be the best way to get known in the webcomic community.
And, as I understand it, Keenspot webcartoonists don't get paid as well as they could. Keenspot is a for-profit venture. It's the same as with any label you might sign with
I've got work tomorrow, so I'm going to wrap it up with a couple of webcomics that have my highest recommendation (not that you'd care, given that you don't know anything about my comic preferences). Both webcartoonists are independent.
Something Positive [somethingpositive.net]: It's pretty damn mean spirited a lot of the time, and sometimes gets a bit wordy, but it's consistently funny, and the characters come across as being very human. They have hopes and fears. They grow as time goes on. I think they're pretty believable.
Schlock Mercenary [schlockmercenary.com]: This is a fine piece of science fiction (certainly much more deserving of the label than is Star Wars), and very funny to boot. It also has very good characterization, and wonderfully twisty, entertaining plotlines. This is probably the first comic I check every night, and I read some 30+ webcomics. I think many Slashdotters will appreciate it too. Incidentally, this strip, like the ones mentioned in TFA, recently split from Keenspot.
Re:Congrats guys! (Score:2, Informative)
They:
-Have to share any profits they make off of the success of their strip with Keenspot
-Don't really get to decide who advertises on their site, Keenspot does (I think that's right)
-Have to format their page in a certain way to meet Keenspot's requirements (which includes a large adbox that points to other Keenspot comics)
For some webcartoonists, this loss of control is a dealbreaker. But for others, having the backing of a large-ish organization (which handles some of the more annoying details) and belonging to an established community are very nice benefits.
Commentary (Score:4, Informative)
Forseen by Bill Watterson? (Score:4, Informative)
Here is the link: http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/comics.html [uiuc.edu]
Marvel - Image split on a (much) smaller scale. (Score:3, Informative)
Just in terms of webcomics, fleen [fleen.com] was one of the earlier "networks"... and there's also dayfree press [dayfreepress.com]. The bit of Major News, as it were, is that it's a bunch of comics that were previously keenspace "titles" peeling off- ugly hill [uglyhill.com] is the only newcomer to the batch. Keen isn't the Mount Awesome some people have made it out to be - if anything, it is to webcomics what livejournal is to drama... and these guys have all apparently realized it's time to move on.
Personally, it's nice to see shortpacked [shortpacked.com] free of keenspace advertising feces- bullshit reduction is something I can always get behind. Joining a network looks like it's a good thing for all parties concerned, if it's something you're comfortable doing.
My own comic [amongthechosen.com] is going into its third year without being a member of a network, without having run a single ad. I might get shit for traffic but I know exactly what I'm displaying on my site- display and control of presentation is a huge concern of mine, at least for the time being. I'm sure one of these days I'll get sick of obscurity and spend more effort on increasing project awareness than I currently am on project production. Maybe eventually, like these guys, I'll find some like-minded media creators who want to conjoin into some sort of co-prosperity sphere.
Re:That's great for them... (Score:5, Informative)
Funny and not userfriendly (Score:3, Informative)
Funny and NOT trying to be userfriendly:
Jendini.com [jendini.com]
I wish more cartoonists would do "realistic" storylines without the sci-fi/fantasy copout of not being required to make any sense. I also like that the animals don't talk. :-)
Disclaimer the author is a friend, and I am actively attempting to spread the word about this new comic