I wanted to share this review of my comic book by Noah Bell AKA @NoahTheGeek on Twitter.
Comic books
This is something all comic book readers should watch!
It covers the history of Comic Books, a look at how politics play a role in the scripts, and some of the people behind our favorite characters.
You need to watch this!
As a kid and even today, I don’t consider myself a comic book guy.
I enjoy the stories and love reading them, but I am not very knowledgeable about the history of the characters, the name of writers, or a lot of the back stories about my favorite characters.
I partially blame this on the fact that as a kid my parents did let me buy comics because we didn’t have the money. I had the choice of buying a comic book or renting a video game over the weekend and video games won every time.
This is one of the reasons I found this video so fascinating.
A few things I took from this video:
- Some people see Superman as the greatest superhero of them all. They say that at the begging of the video and I have to disagree!
- Comic books were more politics than I realized.
- Wonder Woman’s creator is amazingly interesting.
- Marvel filled for Bankruptcy in the ’90’s
Let me know what you thought of the video in the comment section below!
This post is part 2, you can read part 1 here.
So, far we covered the first half of the 6 elements of a successful WebComic. The first three are: You, the Story & Art, and the Stage. For this article we will talk about Propaganda, the Audience, and Revenue.
Before we jump into these elements I wanted to take this opportunity to mention you can check out my webcomic at www.madmanofmagic.com. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and those who might also enjoy reading it.
Thanks!
Now back to the last 3 elements of a successful WebComic.
4: Propaganda
This is what brings an audience to your site. It is technically marketing, but I like the idea of not promoting your webcomic, but instead spreading propaganda. In my mind propaganda has more of a viral feel to it (technically it’s supposed to be on more of a political a political nature, but lets ignore that for this article).
How to Submit to Comixology
What is Comixology?
We all have our favorite comic creators (some of mine are Stephan Pastis, Norm Feuti, and Aaron Johnson). We see them and think, how cool would it be to be “insert name”. They have made it and I want to be there.
Comic creators are forged, not born!
You might envy your heroes of comics, but you shouldn’t want to be them. You can’t be them, so lets focus on you (what are we going to do with you?).
All those guys started off creating their first comic strips or comic book pages. They have been where you are right now and struggled with finding their way in making it a career.
What did they need to do?
Of all the things I have covered in this blog about web comics, the one thing that seems to be asked the most is “how to start a webcomic“.
Since I have a blog about learning to be an independent comic book creator and starting a web comic is an important part of the independent comic world, I’ll go ahead give you a simple checklist to get started.
Read then ACT!
Before I jump into the list I want to give you a little heads up on most people reaction to this post.
Many of you will read this and never act on it.
You just started a web comic and you’re very excited!!!
The Negative news for the new web-comic creator
Sorry to tell you, but you’re not special. Nobody knows the exact numbers of web comics that currently exist, but I have heard the number 40,000 thrown around by several of my peers. Of those 40,000 there are probably 2,000 that are good, regularly updated, and able to make any money from their efforts.
This means the slogan “if you build it, they will come” is not an option for web comics. You are not going to have bloggers, reporters, or even your friends asking to interview you or begging to put your link on their site. People don’t care that you started a web comic, but they are always interested in reading great content.
This means your web comic has to be as good as you can make it.
If you are not prepared to work your butt off you must accept the fact this comic book or web comic you want to make is going to be a hobby. Something you do once in awhile. A Website people will check out every now and than.
It will not accidently become a full time career. You can turn your hobby site into a career if you work hard enough at it, but the myth of you making millions while having fun creating a few images is not the reality.
