Tagged: ComicMix

John Ostrander: Freelancers Live Without A Net

Ostrander Art 130106As the comics world knows, writer Peter David recently had a stroke. I’ve known Peter for a long time and I both respect and often envy his talent, skill and the breadth of his work. Peter has health insurance but there are plenty of bills that just won’t get covered and, as pointed out here on ComicMix, fans who want to show financial support can do so by purchasing his work at Crazy 8 Press. That’s incredibly easy; not only do your help Peter and his family but will probably get a damn fine read out of it at the same time. Like I said, Peter is a very talented writer.

Peter’s better prepared (as far as anyone can be prepared for something like this) than many in the field; he has health insurance and most other freelancers – including myself – don’t. It’s hard to get, and harder to afford, health insurance when you’re a freelancer. By it’s very nature, a freelancer’s life is precarious.

Take for example, job security. There isn’t any. Beyond your current contract (if you have one), there’s no guarantee you’ll have a job when it ends. You may be on a title for a long time, but that always ends. I had a “continuity contract” at one time with DC which guaranteed me so much work (and health insurance) within a given time frame, but that is long since gone. I don’t know if it’s offered any more. It was difficult for me to get a mortgage back when I bought my house (which I no longer own) and I dare say it’s tougher now if you’re a freelancer.

When you’re a freelancer, you only get paid for the work you actually do. There’s no sick pay, there’s no paid holidays, there’s no paid vacation. You sometimes get royalties ( or “participation” or whatever term a given company chooses to call it) and that’s nice. Amanda Waller’s “participation” in the Green Lantern movie sent me some nice bucks that were sorely needed at the time but that’s like finding an extra twenty in your jeans that you forgot you had. You never know when it’s coming and you can’t rely on it.

In some cases, you can’t even be sure you’ll get the check. The major companies are reliable but the smaller ones can be iffy. One company went into bankruptcy owing me thousands of dollars that I never saw. As I grow older, I continuously worry about getting work. For the past ten years I’ve done Star Wars comics over at Dark Horse but, with the sale of LucasFilm to Disney, that could change. (And, no, I don’t know any more about that than you do.) Will I be able to get other work? I’m going to be 64 this year and haven’t worked in an office for maybe 35 years. What office would hire me now?

When I was just out of college and aiming for a life in theater (another financially iffy occupation), my mother really wanted me to get a master’s degree in English. That way, I might be able to teach, have something to fall back on. My problem was – and is – that I know that if I had something to fall back on, I’d fall back on it. I had to work without a net, I felt, if I was going to make it at all.

Right now, it feels like I’m on the high trapeze and all the lights are out. At some point I’m going to have to let go of the bar and soar into the darkness and hope there’s another trapeze for me to grab. I have no pension, I have no life insurance or health insurance, I have no net.

This is not a pity plea. This is my life and I’ve chosen it. I’ve made my decisions and I live with them as best I can. I wish I had followed Peter’s example and branched out more into other media. I’m happy with some decisions I’ve made and regretful of others. That’s life.

What I’m doing is issuing a warning. There are many, many young writers and artists out there who want a career in comics. Very, very few can make a living off of it and, in many cases, that living only lasts a while. Some, like my fellow ComicMix columnist Marc Alan Fishman and his cohorts at Unshaven Comics, work day jobs while doing their comics work in their increasingly disappearing spare time. Once they’ve created the work, the Unshaven Comics crew also takes to the road, selling their comics at conventions. Ask them how tough that gets.

If you want to make comics a career, go for it. But you should understand what you’re getting into. I love my job and feel fortunate to have been able to do it for as long as I have. However, a freelancer’s life – whatever field – is precarious at best. It can be very scary.

If you want to try to make a living as a freelancer, just make sure you can deal with the idea of living without a net.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

Marc Alan Fishman’s Resolutions, Revolutions, and Retcons

Fishman Art 130105I’m nothing if not a slave to predictability and tropes. Sure, I wax poetic weekly on how I loathe authors and artists who fire off the same crap week in and week out,but I’m nothing if not a glorious hypocrite. So, after my “best and worst” article, what better to follow it up with a “New Year’s Resolution” article! Lest I be completely worthless to you, I promise to keep this punchy.

I resolve to wean myself from the teat of Marvel and DC. When I looked over my buy pile of books littered throughout my basement from the last few years, I’ve grown sick at the sight of so much mainstream chum. Not that I ever considered myself anything less than a mainstream whore before… it’s now with half a decade under my belt as an outsider indie guy, that I’ve decided to grow up, if only a little bit.

My rule of thumb has been pretty clear: every week that I have less than four books to buy, I will add one indie title to my list. Thus far, I’ve added Revival, Clone, and Nowhere Men. Two of which landed on Mike Gold’s list of awesome things. This obviously means I’m on the right track. Image, Valiant, Dark Horse, IDW, and the litany of unknowns are making me realize there’s so much more out there. More creativity. More unpredictability. More leaping from the cliff, and hoping to fly. It’s time to read what I sow; it’s time to tell Bob Wayne and Mickey Mouse I’m quitting (just a little bit, cause you know… I’m really liking Batman, Batgirl, and some Marvel Now titles).

I resolve to draw and write everyday. I’m not going to be a fool and say I’m “doing it for myself” because it’d be a lie. I’m going to write and draw more to do it for my company and my family. Not that I don’t love my day job, but let’s be real. Unshaven Comics gets where its going because we work at it. So, by proxy should I vow to write or draw everyday, I will presumably see Unshaven Comics be more lucrative. More than that though, the ideology is clear. The more you work at something, the better you’ll understand it. And while I presently work nearly every day as it stands? Making a concerted effort to spare time every day to do something for Unshaven Comics means there’s more chances at eventually becoming one step closer to semi-obscurity.

I resolve to make better connections with those in the industry – both here with my ComicMix mates and abroad. Unshaven Comics is traveling to 15-16 conventions this year. Simply put? There’s no excuse I shouldn’t be exercising my networking abilities. They’re what landed me here in the first place. As I stated last week, no better memory convention-wise comes to mind more than Baltimore, where I was in contact with Glenn Hauman, Mike Gold, and Emily Whitten, all of ComicMix fame. My hypothesis that possibly making ways to meet my other fellow contributors in the coming year could only benefit my growing rolodex of people I admire also knowing my name. Egotistical? Sure. But I’ve had breakfast with John Ostrander, so suck it.

I resolve to turn off the TV more. I realized over this “holiday break” of sorts how much worthless drivel I surround myself with when I’m home. I only actively watch TV in the last hour of consciousness. But the TV is on in my home basically from the time I get home to the time I go to bed. I tend to lazily leave the set on, with a cooking show, or rerun of The Cosby Show for background noise as I go about my business. Suffice to say, it’s silly of me to do so. Shutting off the set will give me an appreciation for when I turn it on. And maybe in a year’s time, I might just see the heavens part and drop my expensive cable bill in lieu of a Roku system. But that’s a long-game I plan on playing.

Lastly, I resolve to be a better columnist to you, my readers. I look over my body of work here at ComicMix, in 2012, and I certainly see some high points. But like many an artist, I also saw bouts of frustration on my part. Weeks where I had no real points to make outside the handful I’ve relied on: DC sucks. Marvel Sucks. Being an Indie Guy is hard. And so forth. So, in 2013, I vow to return to those tropes only when there is new meat on the bone. I’ll seek out bold and new directions to tantalize you from. I’ll strive to make you angrier, sadder, happier, or flameier. I’ll do everything in my power to remain relevant, and entertaining to you. And I’ll do it all with a smile.

Thanks for sticking with me for another year. The only place to go from here? Up, up, and away.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Help Peter David by buying his e-books now!

Help Peter David by buying his e-books now!

  • News
  • January 4, 2013

Pulling Up Stakes Part 2As you probably already know, Peter David suffered a stroke last week. Even though the Davids have health insurance, they also have co-pays and things that the insurance company just won’t cover. And many people have been asking how they can help.

Right now, the most direct way is to buy his e-books. Crazy 8 Press, a writing cooperative that Peter belongs to (disclosure: so do I) has agreed to make their books available for sale through ComicMix. You can get The Camelot Papers , Pulling Up Stakes parts 1 & 2, and his Hidden Earth Chronicles novels Darkness of the Light and Heights of the Depths right now. All proceeds go directly to Peter.

Peter’s e-books are also available for sale via Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Royalties from those sales will take longer to get to Peter, and be slightly smaller. But one thing that you can do there that you can’t do here is give his books as gifts. Just go on the webpage for the book and click the “Buy As Gift” button and go through the process using the gift-ees e-mail address.

We’ll be keeping you posted on additional efforts to help Peter as hear of them.

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Michael Davis: The Wrong Stuff

Davis Art 130101A few days ago I received an email from my friend John Jennings. John is a fantastic artist and teacher and I’ve known him for a lot of years.

I was not happy with what John had to say and let him know it. What John wrote me was a pretty detailed accounting of why some in the black comic arts community were not happy with the following line from the gallery show I’m curating for the Geppi Entertainment Museum called Milestones: African Americans in Comics. Pop Culture and Beyond.

“Up until now there has been no serious attempt to showcase African-Americans in the world of comic books, and the impact of their creative excellence, which has been a mainstay of the industry for as long as comics have been an American art form.”

Man, I went (as we say in the hood) Negro when I read that that line in the press release offended some people.

My response to John was in affect, how dare these mofo’s (white people, ask someone what that means, oh wait it’s New Years Day and you are all hung over so I’ll just tell you, motherfuckers. It means “motherfuckers”) be offended??

The reason why they were offended is because that line from the press release gives the impression that Milestones is the first exhibit of its kind. I must say, I’ve written some great kiss my ass letters in the past, but the one I wrote about those people who were “offended” was so good I thought about using it for a ComicMix article.

Before I could do that, John wrote a response that pretty much put be on blast (white people, ask someone what that means…oh I forgot New Years Day, hung over, OK “blast” in this instance means you call someone on their shit. Damn! I keep forgetting, New Year, hung over…’calling someone on their shit means you dismantle their argument), John called me on my shit.

John was right.

Milestones is the latest in a line of exhibits that feature black comic book art and artists.

I’m going to give John a forum to break down what has gone before in the Black Comic Space in a guest column here (something he’s just learning right now) as no one is better equipped than John to do so.

Those who know me are well aware that when I’m wrong, I say it.

I was wrong.

I also intend to acknowledge what has come before in any future press releases, interviews, etc. I think letting the millions of people that read me on ComicMix is a good start but I can do more and I will.

I’m excited about the show, I’m excited that Tatiana El-Khouri is co-curator, John is lending his considerable expertise and talent to the exhibition and Obama beat the living shit out of Romney.

That I was right about, was I not?

On a somber note, Peter David had a stroke the other day and all I can think of is how much I love that guy. Peter is not just a friend, he’s not just a great writer, he’s a really great guy.

Get well Peter and do it fast. We all love you dude.

Happy New Year, everyone.

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

 

Marc Alan Fishman: The Top Five Best and Worst Of 2012

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, my ComicMixers! I hope you all had a merry Christmas, a sassy Chanukah, and grumpy Festivus if you were so inclined. So, with Father Time about to hit the retcon button on our daily calendars… I thought it would be apropos to reflect a bit on those amazing and terrible things that made my year. Please note: this isn’t ALL about comic books; you’ve been warned.

Because I like to start on a dour note… here’s The Worst!

5. Avengers Vs. X-Men Vs. My Sanity: Simply put, this stands up as yet-another-example of what makes me hate the mainstream comics business. No matter how many times they lather us up with “we’ve got the best talent on this”, “this will change everything”, and “you won’t believe what happens!”, they always end up the same. Bloated, predictable, and unending. Every Marvel event since the dawn of Brian Michael Bendis has finished up in deeper doo-doo than when they began. His boner for “shades of grey” is unnerving. We get it; making our favorite characters wail on one another is why we buy comics. But, hey… guess what? It isn’t. I’d much prefer a well thought out story that ends instead of a non-stop soap opera.

4. The 2012 Election: Not the result, mind you, but the unending nature of it all. For what felt like nearly the entire year, we were privy to 24 hours a day coverage of not only our POTUS but everyone vying for his seat. It brought out the worst in the candidates and the politically charged masses along for the ride. In the worst case, certain louder-than-usual politico-creators became so unnerving I was forced to hide them from my feeds. First world problems? You bet. But no less annoying on my life and times this year.

3. Wizard World Conventions: The movie definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So Wizard World changes the guard on high. They attempt to make sweeping changes on the floors of their traveling circus, making D-List celebs the premier attraction. They continue to maintain the second highest per-show cost for visiting artists. In short? They continue to drive away the very thing that started them out so very long ago: comics and the people who make them. While my li’l studio always sells well at these abominations… rarely are we joined in celebration at the end of the cons. Hence, my finger of shame this year.

2. Green Lantern: Another finger of shame… a ring finger! Geoff Johns has taken Grant Morrison’s Five-Year Plan model and Michael Bay’ed it to death. As I’ve been forced to note several times this year, the continual event fatigue on the entire line –which shouldn’t even be a line – is too much to bear. And while the majority of 2012 was spent with Sinestro and his gal Friday Jordan traipsing around the universe righting wrongs… this Rise of the Third Army is the emerald icing on a sheet cake of excess. Too many McGuffins, too many predictable plots, and a brand-new Lantern who thus far is more a caricature of “not-a-terrorist” than a fleshed-out legacy ring-slinger. One I’ll happily predict will last in prominence half as long as the last not-ready-for-prime-time-player, Kyle “Costume Change” Rayner.

1. Comics News Coverage: Well it finally caught up to us too, didn’t it? CNN begat CNN, and from them spawned the 24-hour news cycle that has extended to comics. Between Newsarama, Bleeding Cool, Comic Book Resources, and others (hold your tongue for a second, please) all looking for an audience… We’re left scouring trash-bins and date books in order to report anything about our beloved industry. I waive the white flag. And now to those who think I hold this very site on the fire? Nay. ComicMix is about writers expressing their opinions, and that’s enough for me to remove us from said blaze. Simply put, the news is important, but the environment we’ve built to report and sustain it is sickening. Marvel, DC, and the like can’t sneeze without us finding out about it… and then creating a backlash over it before the press releases have hit an inbox. Enough is ‘nuff said.

And now… The Best:

5. The Dark Knight Rises: Three cheers for Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus. Yeah, I know… The Avengers was more fun. But it wasn’t close to TDKR’s level of sophistication. Neither movie was flawless, but Batman kept me on the edge of my seat pretty much the whole way through. The depiction of Bane was as good as it will ever be – menacing, big picture villainous thinking, and an actual brain amidst the brawn. But Bane wasn’t what made the movie. Bale’s Wayne was nuanced, angsty without being annoying, and above all else… visibly human. Nolan, in spite of Frank Miller and Grant Morrison showed that you don’t have to depict the God-Damned Batman to show the world a fantastic caped-crusader. Add in a brilliant turn for Selina Kyle, and it added up to one of my favorite flicks of the year. I would have put Django Unchained in this spot, but I haven’t seen it yet.

4. Marvel Now: If you read my reviews over at Michael Davis World (and I know you do…), then you’d know just how much I’m loving the House of Mouse these days. Fantastic Four / FF is proving thus far to balance the whimsy the series used to be known for with mature overtones. Iron Man, while nowhere near as good as Fraction’s run, is still entertaining. Superior Spider-Man has me legitimately interested in the wall-crawler again. Mike Gold has tried several times to recommend Captain America to me. My Unshaven Cohort is reading an X-Men book for the first time ever. And Avengers? Epic as I’d ever want it to be. Marvel looked at DC’s retcon-reboot-whatever, and opted instead to play it safe. Frankly, it’s proven to me that it was the right thing to do. Sales spikes or not. By choosing not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, Marvel is stealing me away one book at a time

3. The Baltimore Comic-Con: Unshaven Comics took the 13-hour drive to the East Coast, and boy howdy was it ever worth it. We sold an incredible amount of books. We rubbed elbows with industry giants at the Harvey Awards. We got to hand our book to Phil LaMarr. We had dinner with Mark Wheatley, Marc Hempel, Glenn Hauman, and Emily Whitten. And at that dinner? We had crab cakes as big as softballs. Frankly? It was a weekend of a lifetime. Such that we’ve already registered and purchased our table for 2013. It’s the most comic-book-centered convention we’ve been privy too. Charm City? Color me charmed.

2. Unshaven Comics’ Sales: Hate to get all self-promotional here, but screw it. Unshaven Comics had a simple goal. With no distribution, no investors, and nothing more than our blood-sweat-n-tears… we wanted to sell 1000 books over the course of a year. After attending a dozen shows, and doing our best work ever? We sold 1406. We made amazing connections, saw fans actually seek us out at shows, and gained over 300 Facebook fans without purchasing an ad or doing anything more than hustle. By hook or crook, we’re making the smallest impact known to man on the comic book industry. But I’ll be damned—it may actually be working. All it’s done is fuel our fire for 2013. 1,667 books moved next year will mean we see the shores of San Diego in 2014. Beards on.

1. Bennett Reed Fishman: Simply put, no other moment, comic book or otherwise, is worth a hill of beans in my world. On January 27th, 2012, I became a father. Ever since, every single thing I’ve done has been for the betterment of his life. Having been an ego-centered bearded ne’er-do-well for far too long, suddenly became moot. In his eyes and smile, the world around me means nothing. And when at 5:30 every day he stops whatever he’s doing, and smiles ear to ear when Batman: The Animated Series comes on? It tells me this kid is my kid. And my worldview is 100% different. Sorry, comics. You never stood a chance.

Happy New Year to all of you who read my articles week in and week out. May 2013 prove to be a safe, prosperous, and amazing year for you all.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

See the haunted opera “Lilith: Mother of Dreams” tonight!

  • News
  • December 20, 2012

There was a once-in-a-century storm that delayed the original premiere date. But Lilith will not be denied.

Join poet-violist (and ComicMix contributor) Alexandra Honigsberg, international artist composer-clarinetist Demetrius Spaneas, soprano Christina Rohm, and pianist-conductor James Siranovich at the premiere of Lilith: Mother of Dreams, a chamber opera of the iconic demon goddess. It’s debuting tonight at a historic haunted opera house, Flushing Town Hall.

The Lilith Project is conceived as a modern American suitcase opera, a chamber monodrama: intense, human, universal, compact in form and forces, accessible.

Before there was Eve, there was Lilith: Adam’s first lover, once human, made from the same dust, sensuality’s queen, bride of the Angel of Death, mother of opposing cosmic forces – strong, willful, unstoppable. She rules the storms of the skies and the heart – night owl, holy woman of power. From ancient tales of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, to Greece’s Lamiae and Daughters of Hecate, to Native American lore and Victorian Gothic Horror, Lilith looms large in the minds of men and women when the lights go out and they enter dream time. Some call her demon, vampire, child killer – others mother, lover, elder, friend. But whatever the appellations, she persists in the realms of our imaginations, from holy books and high literature to popular feminist concert series, TV shows, and Japanese anime. Child of Light? Daughter of Darkness? Both? Neither? You decide.

Composer Spaneas is a long-time professional, curator of Cornelia St. Café’s Serial Underground award-winning new music series’ 25th year, and Fullbright Specialist of the State Department’s musical diplomats. Librettist Honigsberg is a veteran violist, award-winning songwriter, long-time published poet, and this year’s winner of the Mayor’s Poetry Prize. Both Rohm and Siranovich have established opera careers all over the US and cities abroad.  Long-time colleagues in many configurations over the years, Lilith marks this creative team’s debut.

There will be a talk by the artists before the performance and then time for questions and answers, afterwards, and a reception to which all are invited. Come as you are, but gala premiere attire, period dress, and other unique finery is encouraged!

The production is fiscally sponsored by Composers Collaborative, Inc. $10 suggested donation/FTH members free, all welcome.

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John Ostrander: No Man’s Land Redux

One of the interesting developments in the past few years in comics, for me, is that stuff you’ve done earlier in your career gets bundled together and re-packaged. That can be especially nice if you have some sort of royalty arrangement (or incentive or participation or whatever they’re calling it now) because you know that means that at some point the company will issue you a check. That’s like found money; any writing you did was done long ago and you were paid for it already.

That’s not to say the money is unearned. In my view, if the company is getting a second bite of that apple, so should the creators who did the work. Seems fair to me, although the companies have a history of not being fair. And they also usually give a copy or two or three of the volume for your own library. That’s good because I rarely can find my original copies of the work.

Recently, I got copies of the last two volumes of the gathered Batman epic No Man’s Land. Our resident legend here at ComicMix, Denny O’Neil, was editor on the books at that time and asked me to do the Catwoman issues tying into the saga. I really enjoyed working with the character and would’ve enjoyed playing with her more but the book was cancelled at the end of that series. Catwoman, however, has more than nine lives and has gotten her own title back at least twice since then.

I have to admit, however, that I wasn’t too crazy about the whole No Man’s Land concept at the time. The main idea was that Gotham City, following an earthquake and a virus outbreak just seemed in general to be too toxic to reclaim so the federal government declared it a … wait for it … No Man’s Land. The citizens were ordered to get out and those who chose to stay (or were unable to leave) were kept in when the bridges and tunnels to the city were blown up. Any attempt to escape (or get in, as I recall) was prohibited and that was enforced by the Army. Very Escape From New York (a really fun movie, by the way; is Batman the comics’ Snake Plisken?).

At the time I found the premise too far fetched for my tastes. Okay, the main character dresses up like a bat to run around to strike terror into villainous and cowardly criminals but, yes, I found the central premise of No Man’s Land a little over the top for me. Gotham City was a major city in DCU’s USA. No federal government, in my opinion, would just abandon it like that; there would be howls of outrage throughout the country. Every city, every state, would fear that the same would happen to them. It simply wouldn’t be allowed. No U.S. government would be that cruel. It wasn’t politically feasible in my view (and I come from Chicago and, believe me, I’ve seen lots of outlandish governmental behavior that turned out to be very politically feasible.).

And what’s happened since No Man’s Land first came out? Let’s start with Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans and poor people stuck in the city and the horror stories of living in the Superbowl and a federal government’s response that was inept and way too slow in responding. There were people then who argued that New Orleans should be abandoned. The devastation was too great and, besides, it was a wicked, sinful city and the hurricane was God’s punishment yadda yadda yadda. New Orleans still struggles in the aftermath.

Let’s look at Hurricane Sandy. Better federal response this time but, again, the devastation was so widespread and so pervasive that it will take years for the area to recover fully, if it ever does.

Let’s look at Washington, D.C. right now. A fiscal cliff looms, one that was created by government, and one that government should be able to solve. As I write this, the two sides have gotten entrenched in their respective positions and each side is waiting to see who blinks first. A quicker resolution would help the Christmas buying season and, oh, might also keep the U.S. credit rating from being lowered again, but I’m not betting they’re going to get it done by the January 1st deadline.

No Man’s Land no longer seems that farfetched to me. I may still have a quibble or two with certain plot elements but the central premise? No, that’s become all too believable Maestro O’Neil, I tender my apologies. “I was wrong and you was right,” as usual. I should never doubt you or underestimate just how perverse reality can get.

My, this crow is tasty!

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

Marc Alan Fishman: The Economics of Being a Starving Artist

This morning a li’l post by Jim Zub, the author of the indie book Skullkickers, hit the viral airwaves. His post entitled “The Reality of Mainstream Creator-Owned Comics” set a plethora of shared Facebook posts ablaze in ‘likes’ and comments. Even my close and personal friend Gene Ha placed it on his wall with a very nice send up. By the way, when I say Gene and I are “close and personal friends,” I mean to say that he recognized me at Baltimore Comic-Con, actually talked to me for more than 10 minutes, and we once had pizza at Matt Wright’s (my Unshaven cohort) house. The article in question laid out in basic math how a comic on the rack of your favorite pulp store breaks down. It’s a sobering, but near perfect (as far as I can tell) account on how we little folk of Artist Alley aren’t in the business for the piles and piles of cash.

I won’t waste your time recanting the article verbatim. Go ahead and read it. I’ll wait. Back so soon? Great. I’d simply like to take up my little corner of the Internet this morning to add to Jim’s ending thoughts. He retorts “Skullkickers is the most expensive hobby I’ve ever had :D” Truer words, my friend, truer words. I decided to do some math myself. When you look at our meager books, you’ll see that things are actually looking up for us. After a year toiling on the con trail we have enough money in our little cash box to afford being able to register for the 16 conventions we wish to attend next year. And that’s it. It doesn’t cover the hotel rooms we’ll have to stay in. It doesn’t cover the gas to drive to them. It doesn’t cover the food we’ll eat. It doesn’t even cover the cost of printing the books we actually sell at the table. And we’re doing awesome. Not even kidding, kiddos.

When we started in the business, Kickstarter was just an incubating idea in some hipster’s noodle. Our lucky break, The March: Crossing Bridges In America netted us a whopping $500; it took us the better part of a year to complete. Mind you, we were as green as they came, and worked only on nights and weekends. And with many of those nights and weekends, we watched tons of cartoons, ate terrible food, and played Versus CCG until we fell asleep on the couch. But, if you distilled the man hours – from outlining the script, to taking the reference photos, to penciling, inking, lettering, coloring, and laying out the 54 page book? Easily 150 man hours. Simple math then dictates each of we three Unshavenauts earned a whopping $1.12 an hour to create the book. Take away from that total the $350 it cost us to buy our table at Wizard World Chicago? Well, I think you’re starting to get the picture.

They say the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results. And for five years, we have toiled mercilessly over our own books, driven halfway across the country to sit in convention centers 10 hours at a time, and pumped hundreds of thousands of unpaid hours of labor all to sell a whopping 1,408 copies of our wares in 2012 alone. But the kicker is we’re not insane. We never expected different results. Zub said it best – this is the most expensive hobby we could have ever had.

But unlike building model trains, collecting stamps, or memorizing the IMDB in hopes of crushing people at “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”… making comic books has produced something no other hobby could. The fact that I say without a quiver to my lip that “I Make Comics” is a badge of pride. Even ten years ago, when going to conventions as a fan became part of my vernacular, I didn’t honestly think I’d have it in me to sit on the other side of the aisle.

Now, it’s part of my identity. With Unshaven Comics, I have rubbed elbows and broke bread with industry legends. I have had some of the best meals with some of the greatest conversations I’ve been privy to in cities I would have never thought twice to visit. And most important … I’ve sold books (I dare not say thousands lest I make it sound better than it actually is) to complete strangers who then have returned to my table the following year to ask me “what’s next?” It’s a feeling I assure you no model train ride could touch.

And yes, there’s no smoke-screen to be had here. We indie folk all (probably) share that pipe-dream that our books will be noticed by some muckity-muck who will Pretty Woman us out of the Artist Alley and into the hearts of America. For those really daring, making comics is even a full time job (a luxury I could not afford, nor fathom). The reality of the numbers though prove what a zero-sum game it all is. Through the Image channel as Zub is doing, or the “out of our cars with a wish and a dream” as Unshaven Comics… being in the industry (if only on the very outer most ring of it) is a costly endeavor we do not for the bling. We do it for the love of the medium. We do it for the rush of having a fan. We do it because the movies and cartoons that play in our heads when we close our eyes can’t be turned off – they can only be crudely captured and splattered on a page. It may never pay our bills… but it fills our soul.

Simply put, this is an industry unlike most others. This is an industry being held together by duct tape, dreams, and desire. For those lucky few who are making the big bucks, we in the gutter don’t wish them ill will. We celebrate their successes as our successes. It’s a community. To be on the other side of that aisle – be you a long-time veteran, or a first time ash-can publisher… it’s a collected universe unto itself. One well worth the toil, the long drives, the longer conversations… and yes, the debt.

By the way, if you’d like to fill my soul, or any of the other starving souls here at ComicMix, do us a solid, and check out our holiday gift guide and spread the love.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Holiday Gifts For Comics and Pop Culture Fans

I don’t know why they call today Black Friday. It sounds like a superhero version of Gulliver’s Travels, as published by DC or Marvel in the 1970s. And that might be the quickest digression we’ve had on ComicMix to date.

A bunch of the ComicMix columnists contributed a list of gift suggestions, all with snappy convenient links to Amazon for your shopping pleasure. Well, Mindy ran her list in her column last Monday; you’ve probably already read that but if not, click through in awe and wonder. Please note: I asked each contributor to include one item that they were directly involved in, so don’t think they’re pandering. That’s not necessarily the case.

John Ostrander suggests:

GrimJack: Killer Instinct 

Star Wars: Agent of the Empire Vol. 1 Iron Eclipse

Timothy and Ben Truman’s Hawken

Max Allan Collins’ Chicago Lightning: The Collected Short Stories of Nate Heller

Storm Front: Book 1 of the Dresden Files

And, a musical interlude, The Blue Nile: Hats

Martha Thomases recommends:

Larry Hama’s The Stranger (that’s the first of a three-volume Vampire fun-packed thriller in e-book format; Amazon will lead you to the other two)

Knits for Nerds:  30 Projects: Science Fiction, Comic Books, Fantasy, by Toni Carr

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland 

And a book Martha wrote with Fran Pelzman and Trina Robbins, Cute Guys:  All You Need To Know

Michael Davis recommends:

The Avengers movie in Blu-Ray, the two-disc set.

Watchmen

The Beatles Anthology

My Best Friend’s Wedding

And The Littlest Bitch, the not-children’s book the book Michael wrote with David Quinn and Devon Devereaux.

Emily S. Whitten suggests:

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Warren Ellis’s Iron Man: Extremis

Bill Willingham’s Fables

Fabian Nicieza’s Cable & Deadpool

Terry Pratchett’s Dodger

Stuart Moore’s Marvel Civil War prose novel 

Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man 

The Philip K. Dick Reader 

The Firefly Jayne’s Fighting Elves women’s tee

Blue Sun shirt 

The Britishcomedy Black Books  

Marc Alan Fishman teamed up with his fellow Unshaven boys to offer:

Crumb (the movie) (that was Marc’s pick)

Courtney Crumrin Volume 1: The Night Things  (that was Kyle Gnepper’s pick)

Witch Doctor, Vol 1: Under the Knife (Matt Wright’s pick)

And the whole group picks Samurai Jack – Season 1 “We owe so much of what Samurnauts are to this amazing series by Gendy Tartakovsky. And the performance by Phil Lamarr is nuanced and brilliant.”

On behalf of our friend Dennis O’Neil, I would like to recommend each and every item he’s recommended in the Recommended Reading portion of his weekly ComicMix column… and I also suggest when you’re at Amazon you check out his own billion or so books – you can’t go wrong with any of them. But, of course, particularly the ones I recommend at the end of this column.

And, finally, I recommend:

The Manhattan Projects, Vol. 1: Science Bad by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra

Judge Dredd: The Complete Brian Bolland  by John Wagner and (go figure)Brian Bolland

Avengers 1959 by Howard Chaykin

And, finally, The Question trade paperbacks, written by Dennis O’Neil, drawn by Denys Cowan, and edited by Ye Olde Editor. I linked the first of the series; Amazon will guide you to the rest.

Have a great shopping season, drive carefully, don’t lose your cool and start gunning down your fellow shoppers, and unless you start shooting tell ’em ComicMix sent you!

 

What we’re thankful for, and how you can help ComicMix (and thank you for asking)

  • News
  • November 22, 2012

At this time of Thanksgiving, we’re thankful to each and every one of you who keeps coming back to the site because you like the people, or the comics, or the occasional snark.  We all know how tough it is out there, not acknowledging that fact doesn’t make it any less tight in the wallet. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history. But we’re glad that you’re here, reading and occasionally commenting.

We’d also like to ask you, if you’re doing any shopping at Amazon this holiday season, do it through us and help us keep the lights on. If you want to support ComicMix every time you shop at Amazon, bookmark this link and use it whenever you do your online shopping.

We are NOT asking you to forgo shopping at your local comic store, far from it. Please support your local shops. If you don’t know if you have one near you, go to our Comic Shop Locator. And if you’re running a store that’s not listed, please add your comic store to our database.

Things may be a bit light over the next few days with holidays and tech stuff, so enjoy yourself and watch out for crazy drivers and rogue TSA agents.

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