Day 15.25: Dead Ant, Dead Ant, Dead Ant, Dead Ant, Dead Ant, Dead Aaaaaannnnnt (ZF)

Like the Pink Panther theme, get it. . .never mind. Philistines.

Anyway at work, but brought the sketchbook, so here's a quick posting of the mutated zombie ants that start the infection/outbreak. . yes that is a radioactive barrel of toxic waste. What you think the dinosaurs didn't pollute?  How naive. . .anyway the spore's just started mutating at the start of the story as they dino-loggers are well. . .logging in the Dino-Amazon rainforest.  Suddenly the zants (ie zombie ants) break out, attack and infect the Dino-Loggers. . .The zants are really only in it for a second or two (the comics about zombie dinos not ants after all) but still, they're amazingly fun to draw. The below is a scan of the pencils for a zant.
More stuff coming soon.

Day 15: Watching the Doomsday Clock

I'm getting some more art done and still working on the 1st draft, but seeing as my work schedule is downright insane right now, I'd like to bring up something important to all self publishers: time.

Time is really the most important thing to a professional publisher, so think how important it is to those of us self-publishing, especially those of us slaving away at a 9 to 5 (Or in my case a 6am to 10pm). Now I'm 'blessed' in that I'm an insomniac that suffers from chronic (clinical) migraines, so, as much as I love it, sleep and me. . .we don't meet too often. This gives me a bit more time in the day than the average joe, but even so I still need to keep a schedule like everyone else.

Which brings me to a major point: Those with drive to truly accomplish something, learn the self-discipline to do it. They MAKE the time. I know a few people that start to work on their comics, but the siren call of TV, Xbox, Hulu, etc. numb their brains and achievements.  Nothing worth doing in the life is easy.  You're going to have to strive to do it.

I'm not going to babble on how you should keep a schedule, block out time for yourself every day to work on your project, etc.  That works for some of us, not all of us.  What my sleep deprived mind is try to state, that if you truly want to do something, you will keep at it, and force yourself to do it.  MAKE the time. And if you have that drive it is something you were meant to do, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  But to do something you HAVE TO DO IT.  So figure out a way to make time work for you. Draw, write, create on your lunch break.  Work on YOUR project instead of zone out on some mundane TV show.  As much as you want to hang out with your friends, explain you have to get that page done, that script finished. If they're your friends they'll understand. Try to make every step you take push you further, instead of standing still.

And for god's sake believe in yourself. Before having faith and others, or concepts, or whatever, have faith in yourself. You are the only thing you can with out any doubt, say exists, and has relevance. . .you.

Because if you don't, who will.

Enough exhausted pep-talk.  Zombie Dino goodness coming up in the next day or so.

By the way Gin and Natural Pineapple juice is an amazing combo.

-T

Delay in post

Sorry for the delay in posting folks.  Works gotten crazy (approx 20 hour workdays) so as soon as things calm down and I can get a bit of sleep I'll post more. . .

Day 14.5 The last Survivor (ZF)

Taking a break from the Comic Creation stuff to post the last Survivor, Paul (named for a friend of mine Paul Donoghue - Paul I chose your name when we were talking at Free Comic Book Day just so you know). It's kinda Ironic though as the real Paul is a pretty decent guy, and this Paul (the Dryosaurus) uh. . .isn't. Selfish and Self-Absorbed the dino Paul's survived by being downright underhanded and mean (sorry Paul, he was the last character that wasn't named).

This is being scanned at work (will be here very late tonight, and my co-woker had to fly out to a funeral, so quite frankly I'm surprised I found the time to do this) so quality isn't amazing, for which I apologize. I sketched it out in non-photo blue, so I'll try to a scan that shows what I meant about inking over non-photo blue can come out odd later.

In any event there's the last of the protagonists. Next up some more story and devs for Zombie Dinosaurs.

Have to work tomorrow as well, so the biggest update will probably be on Sunday or Monday. 

-T

Day 14: the search for day 13.

WHEW.  Blogspot put up the missing post that this rant is about, so that's back in place, but of course if you tried to comment it didn't stick. So if you had anything to say about any of the posts please let me know.  As a result I've done a quick edit to this post. As always anything I can do for you, just ask -Trevor

Okay kids the moral of the story is apparently NEVER USE BLOGSPOT.


Naturally on the day the great folks at Comicrelated.com run a story on the blog, what does Blogspot do? they put the site down for maintenance, make it so nobody can post, or send messages, and to top it off, they delete everyone's last post.  So my day 13 posting about budgeting, which I wrote at 12 at night, is now gone (If anyone for any reason saved a copy, please let me know.  I usually save everything in a word file, but was exhausted after working over 12 hours at the day job, and forgot.)  So I have no way of tracking anything that happened yesterday, anyone that tried to post or send me a message, I'm really sorry but I didn't get it.  I'm trying to conact google the owners of Blogspot, so see if there's anyway to recover that post, comments, etc. but it seems improbable (we live in an infinite universe-nothings impossible).  Had I gotten some kind of warning email, or, ANYTHING that showed an once of professionalism I wouldn't mind.  As it stands I'm kinda ticked off right now.

Worst case, I'll retype the information I posted, I still have it all, I just don't want to possibly skip out on something I had mentioned before. .

On the plus side had to work really late yesterday, so I got a sketch or two done while I was waiting for downloads and burns to finish (the day/pay job is at a post production facility).

If I hadn't already done some marketing and made some contacts I'd jump ship to a different blog company. As it stands I'll work with Blogspot for now, but if something like this happens again, I'll have to seriously consider going to a different company.

-There should be more zino (zombie dino) goodness tonight, and if I have a second or two I'll redo the post for day 13 budgeting.

-T

Day 13: It's all about the Benjamins' baby (CC)

ZOMBIE FANS the next week or so is gonna be dedicated to the story and art so you should be having a ball.  This post is gonna be for those crazy folks thinking about self publishing so please, bear with me. . 

Just got home from work (10:36 yikes) and I didn't have much time to work on character designs for the last dino-survivor BUT I did get some price quotes back from some respectable printers that have a distribution chain set up with Diamond distributors, so now I have an idea of what my personal costs will be.  As I stated early on the blog (which reminds me: if you're new to the blog best to start at day one and work your way up. It will also explain that the headers CC stands for blogs mainly put up for Comic Creators and ZF for Zombie Fans. . .which I guess is pointless since I just explained it) this is what I was looking for, production-wise:

" a quote for a 1,000, 3,000, and 5,000 unit run of standard size comic book, saddle stitched, 24 pages, B&W interior on (preferably) 50 press, with a color cover (preferably) 70 or 80 press" 


Again if you don't get any of what I said, start at day one (or was it two...whatever).


So the quotes I'm getting back are around (give or take a couple hundred):
1,000 units (issues) ---$1,000
3,000 units --- $1,500
5,000 ---$2,000


The math astute of you will realize the larger the volume, the cheaper the price. Why is this?  Since I worked with a professional printer I can let you in on a secret: A large part of your cost is the 'set up' for each job (one customers publication would equal one job).  It takes time to get those giant presses set up, calibrated, inked up, etc. for a good run.  Once it's set up all your really paying for is expendables (paper, ink) not TIME.  For printers TIME = MONEY (Well really thats for anyone, but I digress).


Now I've seen quite a few cats and kittens use digital press companies to put out their books, the one I like the most is Ka-Blam (http://ka-blam.com) from what I've seen quality-wise.  I've gotten pretty impressed by the dramatic rise in quality from some of these vendors, and to be assured the convenience of them can not be beat. BUT there's one problem:


Digital Printer (name left out on purpose. . .)price quotes comparable to the above printers:
1,000  units --- 2185.00 
3000 units --- 6555.00
5000 units --- $10925.00


Digital printers are great if you are doing small runs. . .and in fact that's what they are intended for. . .they way the operate their set up time is less (although potentially so is their quality).  If I ordered 100 comics from the same company I quoted above it's only $218 roughly.  If I ordered that from the printers I've contacted I'd be looking probably around 500 to 600 dollars, if I'm lucky. So they are great for promotions, small scale distributions, selling at cons, etc.   My focus is to hit the big leagues and get a deal through Diamond, and an ad in their Previews (which I'll have to pay for-more on that in a later post).


Now then we have to think about profits.  Comics range from 4.50 to 2.99 on average.  The problem is, at least in my opinion, that I'm not good enough to justify the steep 4.50 cover price, so I'm currently thinking 2.99 cover price. So some quick math and we see: 
1,000 ---2,990
3,000 ---8970
5,000 ---14,950


If we reduce printing costs we're (at first looking at a profit of):
1,000 -1990
3,000 -7470
5000 -12950


Looks pretty snazy right? Wrong.  Here's why:  First off, Diamond takes a chunk of those profits. What, you think they distributed comics for free?  Of course not. Their website has changed so I don't know how current this is, but their old website used to state , "If you publish comics Diamond generally receives a discount in the range of 60 to 70 off of the us retail (cover) price. Non-comics product discounts vary".  Now lets take the 1,000 units as our example because if Diamond picks up this comic that's probably going to be their initial order, unless I can generate some AMAZING pre-press buzz (which I will, don't worry).  So at (best case) a 60% discount, and priced at 2.99 I'm looking at selling 1000 units at (1990 X .60 =) 1194. And how much did we say it's going to cost me to get 1,000 issues printed? 1,000. So profit wise I'm looking at $194. Big bucks right? Oh and let's not forget that I'm gonna want to spring for a ad in Previews (the monthly magazine/catalog that comic shop owners purchase the comics out of the store from), and other marketing. That is not going to be covered by 194 dollars.  No way, no how.


The Big Guys make money because they've established their companies, brand and characters ( I would argue that the characters actually are a brand themselves, but that would lead to a 25 page dissertation on branding, symbolism, and mythology and even I don't want that. . .okay I do, but I'm sure you don't). This means they have more of a share of the marketplace, get the public eye more, and naturally they sell more comics.  I'd wager they even have their own printers, which of course lowers the cost even more. This is my first comic.  I'm going to take a hit (at least I should, but I do have a cunning plan I will reveal soon. . .because as the blue unicorn said to Charlie. . ."you got to be sneaky Charlie. . .Sneeeakkkyyyyy") which I knew going in.  I have to establish my brand, and that costs.  But if I can survive the losses for the first year or so, I should have established my company as a fun, quality based, and most importantly UNIQUE, comic company. 


Okay, that's all the 'info dump' I have for now. I'm exhausted, my co worker has to leave for a few days (loss in his family) so I'm doing both our jobs and best of all I have to work through the weekend. . .on my birthday. Yeesh.  Kids never go into television.  


Till later; Be brave. Be well. Be kind.
-Trevor

Day 12: Bleed suckas! (CC with a little ZF)

Today on the wonderful wily world of weirdness we’re gonna look at the difference between Bleed and Non-Bleed comics. Most of this is going to appeal to those of you that have come for the self-publishing bit, but don’t worry dead-heads, they’ll be some zombie dino action for you gals/guys as well.

To start with most mainstream comics you probably pick up are non-bleed comics.  What this means is the panels are separated from the border of the page (see example below).  It keeps things, neat and tidy. It also raises cost due to the printers set up time, and quite frankly budget is a big factor for a self-publisher (don’t believe me; check out some of the indie comics at your local store/stand). 

Bleed comics, on the other hand, has the art drawn all the way to the outside of the page, in other words it’s drawn to the trim, and some of this art is most likely going to be lost.  (Again, see example below).

I personally work on art boards that are set for comics. These are 11X17 bristol boards that are marked with a light blue that doesn’t reproduce (i.e. show up) if it’s scanned correctly.  You can find these pretty easily. I prefer Blue Line Pro’s or Stathmore’s boards, both have unique qualities in regards to how they accept graphite or ink, so I recommend only buying small quantities of comic art boards until you find one you really like.

Granted you don’t have to buy comic boards to draw.  I prefer to because it’s and industry standard, and as I’m only looking at printers that have output comics in the past, it will avoid confusion. But if you want or need to put your art on regular or a unique sized paper, keep in mind you will need to know what the reproduction ratio is. Also the nice thing about Blue Line and Strathmore is they have set panel blocks you can use quickly if you feel the need.

So a quick (simplified) breakdown of scales you’ll need to know, that I stole out of Digital Prepress for Comic Books by Kevin Tinsley is as follows:

BLEED BOOK	Art Size (inches)	Print Size (in inches)
Dimensions	10 1/8 X 15	7 X 10.375
Trim Boundries	9 37/64 X	6.625 X 10
Bleed Allowance	¼	3/16
Safe Area	9X 13 27/32	6.1875 X 9.5625

Okay, that cleared that up hopefully.  Sorry to belabor a point, but it a really important issue that many comic creators don’t think of until they’re done, and suddenly realize their comics either going to be more expensive, harder to output, or they’re gonna have to figure a way to cheat approx. 24 pages of art.

While I’m on the subject of artboards and blue line, let me quickly pop in on another topic:  Non-photo pencils.  If you’ve never seen these they’re blue (sometimes red) pencils that look like a standard colored pencil, that just like the blue lines on a comic art board will not reproduce if scanned right.  Some people like them, some don’t. I’m fifty fifty on them, only for the reason I still like to ‘manually’ ink my pages (in other words I don’t do it in photoshop) and whatever stuff they put in the blue graphite seems to not want the ink to stick.  So you keep having to go over it to saturate the area, which then becomes a problem in itself.  I personally like to have everything done in a light lead, like a 3h or 4h – it’s just soft enough some nice technique work comes through, but erases easy. Oh, that’s the other thing, I have a really hard time erasing the non-photo pencil work.

So there you have it. Below is a reduced example of a comics page, with non bleed on the left and bleed on the right.  It's rough pencils, I promise you the final product will be a lot cleaner and more professional. got home at 10 last night, and cooked dinner, so I didn't have much time to pound this out on an artboard. (Click the image for a better view).

 .

NEW NOTE: Actually I just realized I made a mistake on the non-bleed, which just goes to show how important this is.  On the non-bleed I put the panel up to the trim line. The Trim line indicates where the comic will get cut at the printers. My boarder of the shown panel goes right up to it, meaning . . .mistake, and more importantly a problem for the printer. I should have moved it down a 1/4".  SEE, TOLD YOU THIS WAS IMPORTANT!