we need to have a little chat
[cross-posted pretty much everywhere]
So I have to make a bunch of decisions about Hell's Corners.
First of all, do I want to keep going with it at all? This isn't some emo-quandary; this is a breakdown and assessment of the facts:
Hell's Corners has, by my estimation, about 30 fans and about 1000 people who periodically glance at the site. This is based on sales (like 50 books annually), hits (6000 daily), feedback (once in awhile someone Emails me saying they're gonna buy the book "when they get some money" and then presumably live out the remainder of their lives in abject poverty), etc.. This is probably my own fault: I haven't whored the comic with particular zeal. Only last year did I even add it to various webcomics listings; I find them tawdry and objectionable by their very nature and ugly besides. Maybe that's snobbish of me but I came of age in forum communities that crucified sitewhores. Point is I am still indier than thou; the comic as it stands is utterly obscure and a mostly-vain pursuit. Everytime I say things like this I get a bunch of Emails from people saying "oh I love Hell's Corners don't quit as soon as I get some money I will support you," but when it comes right down to it I am only doing this because at this point I can't imagine not doing it.
I think I got so lax in the past two years because I recognized I should pack it in and spend my time on something else and was subconsciously weaning myself off drawing the comic, but with my overdue return to school on the horizon I started planning more definitely on putting the comic aside following Canto IV and since the idea of actually just quitting was introduced there's been a nagging, anxious sense of loss impendent swelling in my gut. Since Dan Vado rejected Hell's Corners v1.0 back in 1843 or whenever the fuck I have been bitching and moaning about it pretty much constantly, but I don't think I've put more hours into any one pursuit since then than I have this comic. Not MMOs; not even games at large, I don't think. It's become a huge part of my life, if a stupid part. Cutting it out won't be easy, but I don't know if continuing is even going to be feasible in the near future, so where the comic stands right now in terms of updates is sort of up in the air. I have some things I need to wrap up before I can even think of starting a Canto V if in fact I do one at all; it's gonna be awhile before I even get around to the prepress for a print version of Canto IV. I have a plan for the fifth generation site to not be the plaster-and-sheetrock nightmare 4 was (and not have news on the front page like a dumbshit), but that's gonna have to wait, too, and if I'm not actually going to proceed with V after all is there really a point?
Speaking of prepress, there's the matter of ComiXpress. I just got through Emailing them a few minutes prior to writing this; I am aware they're problematic, kids. Books are late 70% of the time and a bunch of people told me ComiXpress lost their orders altogether in last year's lunatic shuffle (sounds like a party game). If it's any consolation, they also lost my Q4 creator statement. It's not just you: they really are that disorganized. So much so that I felt guilty asking people to buy books through them, and was planning on printing the Canto I-IV collected TPB through Lulu. But Lulu's prices on a perfect-bound book aren't really any better, and their employees don't understand Photoshop color modes, which scares me in a printer/international distributor. Additionally, their distribution services, which, apart from throwing off the yoke of ComiXpress unreliability were pretty much the whole of Lulu's appeal to me, exclude full-color comic-size books, so it's not like the comic would even have a broader sales outlet over there. Finally, as deranged as this is going to sound, I am attached to ComiXpress. They might embarrass me 9 times out of 10 but we stand for the same things and despite their difficulty with timely turnarounds they're passionate about what they're trying to do. Who am I to quibble over deadlines, anyway?
The thought has also crossed my mind (again) to resubmit Hell's Corners to various smaller press publishers and see if they'd want to put out the first four. It's come a long way since v1.0 but hasn't been seen by a submissions editor since.
...and so, I'm uncertain about the TPB and am putting it off for the time being.
I really want to do comics. Independent comics, even. More than ever. But man is it proving to be a bitch. Chris Ware always quotes his friend Seth in saying "I was tricked into becoming a cartoonist" -- I think Chris Ware has probably said this more often than Seth himself -- and I totally was. I knew ahead of time I was signing up for thousands of hours of writing, penciling, inking, flatting, shading, uploading, laying-out, etc., and I doubted my skills at all of these, but I never thought too hard about championing my own cause, and as it turns out I'm flat-out fucking terrible at that.
So I have to make a bunch of decisions about Hell's Corners.
First of all, do I want to keep going with it at all? This isn't some emo-quandary; this is a breakdown and assessment of the facts:
Hell's Corners has, by my estimation, about 30 fans and about 1000 people who periodically glance at the site. This is based on sales (like 50 books annually), hits (6000 daily), feedback (once in awhile someone Emails me saying they're gonna buy the book "when they get some money" and then presumably live out the remainder of their lives in abject poverty), etc.. This is probably my own fault: I haven't whored the comic with particular zeal. Only last year did I even add it to various webcomics listings; I find them tawdry and objectionable by their very nature and ugly besides. Maybe that's snobbish of me but I came of age in forum communities that crucified sitewhores. Point is I am still indier than thou; the comic as it stands is utterly obscure and a mostly-vain pursuit. Everytime I say things like this I get a bunch of Emails from people saying "oh I love Hell's Corners don't quit as soon as I get some money I will support you," but when it comes right down to it I am only doing this because at this point I can't imagine not doing it.
I think I got so lax in the past two years because I recognized I should pack it in and spend my time on something else and was subconsciously weaning myself off drawing the comic, but with my overdue return to school on the horizon I started planning more definitely on putting the comic aside following Canto IV and since the idea of actually just quitting was introduced there's been a nagging, anxious sense of loss impendent swelling in my gut. Since Dan Vado rejected Hell's Corners v1.0 back in 1843 or whenever the fuck I have been bitching and moaning about it pretty much constantly, but I don't think I've put more hours into any one pursuit since then than I have this comic. Not MMOs; not even games at large, I don't think. It's become a huge part of my life, if a stupid part. Cutting it out won't be easy, but I don't know if continuing is even going to be feasible in the near future, so where the comic stands right now in terms of updates is sort of up in the air. I have some things I need to wrap up before I can even think of starting a Canto V if in fact I do one at all; it's gonna be awhile before I even get around to the prepress for a print version of Canto IV. I have a plan for the fifth generation site to not be the plaster-and-sheetrock nightmare 4 was (and not have news on the front page like a dumbshit), but that's gonna have to wait, too, and if I'm not actually going to proceed with V after all is there really a point?
Speaking of prepress, there's the matter of ComiXpress. I just got through Emailing them a few minutes prior to writing this; I am aware they're problematic, kids. Books are late 70% of the time and a bunch of people told me ComiXpress lost their orders altogether in last year's lunatic shuffle (sounds like a party game). If it's any consolation, they also lost my Q4 creator statement. It's not just you: they really are that disorganized. So much so that I felt guilty asking people to buy books through them, and was planning on printing the Canto I-IV collected TPB through Lulu. But Lulu's prices on a perfect-bound book aren't really any better, and their employees don't understand Photoshop color modes, which scares me in a printer/international distributor. Additionally, their distribution services, which, apart from throwing off the yoke of ComiXpress unreliability were pretty much the whole of Lulu's appeal to me, exclude full-color comic-size books, so it's not like the comic would even have a broader sales outlet over there. Finally, as deranged as this is going to sound, I am attached to ComiXpress. They might embarrass me 9 times out of 10 but we stand for the same things and despite their difficulty with timely turnarounds they're passionate about what they're trying to do. Who am I to quibble over deadlines, anyway?
The thought has also crossed my mind (again) to resubmit Hell's Corners to various smaller press publishers and see if they'd want to put out the first four. It's come a long way since v1.0 but hasn't been seen by a submissions editor since.
...and so, I'm uncertain about the TPB and am putting it off for the time being.
I really want to do comics. Independent comics, even. More than ever. But man is it proving to be a bitch. Chris Ware always quotes his friend Seth in saying "I was tricked into becoming a cartoonist" -- I think Chris Ware has probably said this more often than Seth himself -- and I totally was. I knew ahead of time I was signing up for thousands of hours of writing, penciling, inking, flatting, shading, uploading, laying-out, etc., and I doubted my skills at all of these, but I never thought too hard about championing my own cause, and as it turns out I'm flat-out fucking terrible at that.
posted by squidbunny at
8:29 AM
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