THE WRITE STUFF:  Writing Comics, by Curt Pires

So you want to be a real life bonified comic book writer? Great.  Welcome to the club.  There’s lots of us. We have tee shirts. And debt. Lots of it.

All kidding aside, comics can be one of the most rewarding mediums to both read, and write.  When something works it works.  There is nothing like the well-oiled machine of a well produced, strongly written comic. Nothing. Comics can take us places, make us feel things, and pull things out of us that we didn’t even know were inside of us in the first place.

The reading and writing of comics are fundamentally intertwined.  If a comic is written poorly, it will read as such.  If a comic is overwritten and filled with word after word of useless dialogue, it will read as such.

The idea of a comic being too wordy is a difficult one to wrap one’s head around. As is the idea of a comic not having enough words.  This is simply because this is such a subjective thing.  There is no barometer for the proper structure of a comic, the proper amount of words to put in a book (some people will tell you there is, but that is BS in my humble opinion, my friends). There is no engrained historical document, written on a piece of parchment with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Simon and Schuster’s signature’s on it saying “ There shall be no more than …. Words on the page”.

The thing is, we don’t need such a document. You know. You just know. When you read a book, and you have that feeling in the pit of your stomach that wow, that was totally not 3.99 worth of comic. We’ve all had that feeling. Sometimes it’s a really good comic too, and it just is so stretched out, so widescreen that we feel like as cool as it is, not much has happened.

Other times though, wow. We find that comic, that comic that you read, and think, “ Wow, this was a steal”. This was more than 2.99 0f comic.  This is theft under. This is magic.

It’s all in the structure. Which just happens to be a key part of writing and constructing your narrative!

LETS TALK ABOUT STRUCTURE.  HYPER COMPRESSION VS. DE-COMPRESSION

Fundamentally, on the spectrum of comics we have the ideas of what I refer to as “Hyper Compression” and “ De-Compression”. Imagine them on a scale like this:

Hyper compressed——————————————————————————————Decompressed

With all other comics falling somewhere in between these two end points.

A Hyper compressed Comic, is one that is “dense” one that is a read and a half, these comics often employee a higher panel and word count.  You don’t typically see splash pages in these comics, and they often feel like you’re actually reading something.

An example of this, perhaps the quintessential example of this working, is Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbon’s “Watchmen”.  Moore utilizes a 9-panel grid for the majority of the work, with heavy amounts of both narrative, and conversational dialogue.

Comics such as this serve as big, meaty, enjoyable chunks of media when done properly, and force their creators to stretch their respective storytelling muscles.  If Moore weren’t as strong of a writer, this page would have been an utter mess. It would have been an absolute chore to read. If Gibbon’s weren’t the great storyteller he was, and had not figured out the composition of these shots and to tell the story in an effective manner, whilst leaving room for Moore’s rather meaty amount of text, it would not work. When this works, boy does it work. But when it doesn’t? It’s probably one of the most tedious reading experiences you can subject a reader to.

Side note: I’d feel horrible if I didn’t mention another brilliant comic that makes use of this 9-panel grid structure frequently. The brilliant “Fell” by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith.

Hyper compressed style storytelling doesn’t strictly limit itself to a 9-panel grid.  There are many other ways, and methods to achieve this style of storytelling, many of which in fact utilize splash pages, and various layouts.

A prime example of a title employing this style of storytelling is Matt Fraction’s CASANOVA.  Originally (similarly to Fell) CASANOVA was part of Image Comics’ “SLIMLINE” imprint of titles. Basically these Slimline titles were 1.99 16-page comics.  16, pages !!!??? How can sixteen pages of comics be satisfying, you ask?

It can. See what Fraction does here, is he makes EVERY word, EVERY panel count.  There is literally zero fat in these books.  Every bit of text, every piece of information is here because it pulls you further into the world that Fraction is trying to build, and moves the story forward. Fraction is taking the reader further in these sixteen pages then some writers do in 40.

He uses Dialogue as a weapon. Each caption, each uttered syllable is conveying the essence of what CASANOVA is, whilst pulling them forward. So while the book is rather caption and dialogue heavy, it never becomes a chore to read, like some other titles that employ similar word counts.

The key point I’m trying to make here, is that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to write a wordy book, as long as those books are engaging, mean something, and keep your reader interested.

When writing a piece of Dialogue it sometimes helps to ask this question:

Do I need this? Does the reader?

Sometimes when writing comics the best thing to do is pull yourself out of the writer’s chair, and into the headspace of the reader. Imagine yourself reading this peace of work you are writing, and your honest to goodness critical reaction to it.

We’ve all turned out rough early drafts, in which we look at and shutter in utter dismay, before we sanctimoniously toss them into the embers of a freshly lit garbage can to help wipe the stench and shame out of our minds. It’s okay. We all suck sometimes.

The important thing is being able to realize when you are sucking, and stop it.

Your words need to mean something. It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to be wordy, wanting to unleash your inner Sorkin, and just overwrite dialogue.

But guess what? You’re not as good as Sorkin. (Neither am I.)  So rather then trying to wow your reader with your conversationalist zing, and witticisms, tell your story!

Just tell it! Use as many words as you need, but don’t get so overwhelmed by the physical process of creating the comic, that you undermine your core goal, of creating an enjoyable and consumable comic.

DECOMPRESSED COMICS: Or The Dawn of Widescreen

During the late nineties early two thousands, a new style of comic storytelling emerged.  It was big, bold, extremely decompressed and referred to as: “Widescreen Comics”.

The pioneering comic of this movement that some people would even credit with the creation of this movement was Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch’s “ The Authority”.

The idea of calling these comics “Widescreen” arose from their decidedly decompressed nature, and their frequent use of massive heavily rendered action filled splash pages.

Interesting thing about the Authority, and many of other of Ellis’ work is that while the comic retains an inherently widescreen structure, they are strikingly good.  There is a definite validity to this style of comic, as it is comparatively similar to attending a popcorn movie in the summer.

The movement of these “Widescreen” style comics absolutely took off, and lead to a more standardized decompressed approach to comics (at least at the Big Two).  Comics such as The Ultimate’s, JLA, New Avengers, Wolverine, Fantastic Four, all took on this approach, to varying success.

Here is where I feel the problem arises in this approach to comic structure.  Collectively this approach has been so whole-heartedly embraced, that we are writing with the trade in mind as opposed to the issue.

Instead of writing comics that read great on their own, we are reconstructing them as chapters in a trade, slices of a big, “real” story that we want to tell.

This again has to do with that feeling that as a consumer you are not getting your 2.99 or 3.99 worth of comic.

Again, I think books like this can absolutely be done well, but to achieve this you have to really flex your creative muscles. Balancing widescreen action with character development, dialogue, and story progression is a hard task.  It’s a task that even the pros have trouble doing within the confines of 20-22 pages (notice how almost every book Bryan Hitch draws is JUMBO sized.) Think about the books like this that worked:  Millar’s Ultimates (just Ultimates, Ultimate Avengers falls into the category of being too decompressed) Ellis’ Authority, Bendis’ Avengers, Morrison’s All-Star Superman. They work because they tow the line. They are not afraid to spend 5 pages showing you an intense, nutty, action sequence. However, they are also not afraid to spend time showing you character moments, and conversational pieces.

If you want to write a book like this, you need to recognize this.  The book isn’t going to work if it is just 22 pages of Splashes devoid of any genuine emotion, truth, or character building.  However, by the same token, your book may not work if it is just 22 pages of conversations.

I could honestly talk about the structure and mechanics behind comics forever. I could fill Adam’s site up with more posts than anyone would ever care to read, and it wouldn’t be enough. So I guess if you’re going to take one thing out of this let it be that writing comics is about finding BALANCE.  It’s about being able to call yourself out on your own bullshit and finding a way of making your book, your story, worth spending the time to look at.  Making it enjoyable for whoever takes that chance.

What more can you really ask for?

Curt Pires is a writer based out of Calgary Alberta, Canada. When he is not busy growing a mustache or walking his dog Mojo, he writes and reads comic books. You can connect with him on Twitter @CurtPires, or send your hate mail to curtpires@gmail.com . Check out his webcomic POPTRASH at poptrashcomic.wordpress.com

I am currently in search of an artist or even multiple artists to work on some projects with me. Most of these projects will be on the small side. I’m talkin’ short stories, one shots or even double sized issues. That sort of thing. Eventually I’ll approach the idea of a mini series as well but it’s not what I’m pursuing at the present moment. Edit: I’ve got an idea for a mini now so I might end up doing one after all.

If any artists out there would like to submit some samples, I’ll gladly take a look. Mail can be sent to: ithireeul at gmail dot com

Primarily these stories will be crime related but I’m open to any genre if you’d really want to work with me that badly. Ha!

Specific details about the projects, etc will be made available to those interested in working with me. Be advised that there are no page rates at this point.

I originally asked the internet to send in some questions but unfortunately I didn’t get too many responses… Have no fear though as I’ve read many, many scripts over the past decade and pretty much all of them were from creators just starting out.

So let’s start with some basic questions:

Do I make each comic page it’s own script page?

This one I didn’t really notice at first until I read one that didn’t do it. So yes, I think you should have a new comic page start on a new page in your document. Typically when I’m working on art for a page, I have the script on my desk as well. This certainly becomes easier when that “Page 5″ is just Page 5 of the script and not Pages 5-6 or even 7. I find it easier to manage, print and the page typically has room to do quick thumbnails on it as well.

How much/little detail do you prefer in descriptions? How loose do you like scripts?

Since this one was directed to me — generally I like my scripts loose. My rule of thumb is to make it easy, let me figure out the scene. Although I will say if you (the writer) have something specific in mind then by all means express it. I don’t want to interfere with the project but I’d also like some breathing room or freedom when constructing a page. I know for a fact I would not survive a script written by Alan Moore!

But I find I’m generally happier being a part of the project if I get some sort of say– it feels less like a work for hire situation.

What’s the general consensus on how much art direction a writer should give regarding angles, pacing, design, etc?

Every artist is different. The best answer is to ask them what they prefer. Some artists like being spoon-fed information like this, others not so. I prefer being told what’s important and leaving it at that. But I can certainly see the value in depicting all this information, especially if you’re just starting out. It’ll get you thinking about storytelling very early on in your career and you’ll find you can visualize the story much more clearly.

Do you want to work with a writer who will actually chat with you outside of work or would you rather keep the relationship professional and about the work only?

An interesting question and a very valid one. Comics by nature are a collaborative experience. Outside of working for the Big Two, you should be in constant contact with your other creators. Nearly all of my collabs have started this precise way. These are writers who reached out to me at some point whether through an email, a post on a message board or by dropping a note on my website. These writers then continued to talk with me via chat, text, and social media. Most of them didn’t outright state all in the same conversation when we got introduced to one another, “Hey, I’ve got this super cool project I think you’d be perfect on.”

These are writers that got to know me as a person and vice versa. Sometimes it took a few weeks, sometimes months and if you can believe it, sometimes years. Artists are one of the most sought out creators in this business. That typically means they’re very busy people. A lot of projects on the go, a lot of people waiting in the wings and constant emails coming every day from other writers all wanting to work with them. The more you can make yourself known or by simply being friendly to an artist, the better. I’ve come to the point now in my career where I have little published work (so far) but yet I would never have to approach  another writer again. I’ve made a ton of contacts and guess what? They’re all writers.

But there’s something to be said about someone who is a fan and a friend first… someone who knows what’s going in my life or that I just had a child (hypothetically). These are people who know my interests, know my sense of humour or my taste in comics. The more you know about a person, the more you can tailor a project or find the perfect match. That winning combination.

Typically a work for hire project lacks passion, lacks heart. In independent comics, it’s all about that. You have to live and breathe comics because let’s face it, it can’t be about the money or fame.

Now, how about some suggestions from myself?

One big one for me is what I’ll call: Setting the Stage

I encountered this one a lot more when I was acting as a colourist but it’s equally important for the artist as well. Too often I see no mention of time of day or if time has passed from one scene to the next. After all you’d point it out if a scene was meant to be a flashback scene right? So make a point to say that the scene takes place at night or it’s just before sunset and the scene prior to that one was morning. It makes a world of difference to both your colourist and artist. An artist will draw a night scene differently possibly using harsh shadows whereas a colourist may colour a night scene utilizing blues or purples.

Multiple Actions

An artist can very rarely draw a character performing 2 specific actions in one panel. Meaning a character can’t possibly light a cigarette and raise a gun outward simultaneously. That’s 2 different actions which would require an additional panel. Common sense, right? Well, they get missed. After you’re first draft take a readthrough and look for this one specifically. Edit: I’ve already had one person cite issue with my example but regardless, I see these multiple actions in scripts ALL the time. Granted these are from novice writers, people still learning their craft. Don’t forget the main reason I’m writing this whole article is to point out errors I’ve seen in the past and to make things easier for you (the writer) and your team in the future.

Thumbnails

I’ve recently started writing again and one thing that’s proven to be valuable to me is doing my own thumbnails for the pages. I’ll point out though that this is in very basic terms. I’m not talking about actually drawing figures or even stick figures. I’m talking more about the design of the page. How the panels are arranged, their size comparison to one another on the page, etc. I find I love using a 3 tier grid for instance. So typically that means I’m utilizing panels that are equally sized and the layout becomes very important. At the same time I also love using pages that have 5 – 8 panels on a page. That could seem a little daunting to an artist at first so this way I can present them with an idea that they can visualize right away. It also becomes a great tool for laying out word balloons and caption boxes. I can see quite quickly how my script is taking shape. Whether good or bad. Maybe I’m being too talky in one panel and not enough throughout the page. The balloons being present on the page in this thumbnail stage will help point these things out.

For those that unaware a thumbnail is a quick, gestural pencil drawing of a layout. Although you could do this on the computer too if you fancied that sort of thing. Artists do thumbnails all the time before they start drawing their pages. It helps them figure out the layout and composition of the pages including panel arrangements, placement of figures, word balloons and other text.

Again, not all artists could care to have your thumbnail but it won’t hurt things. Some will even be grateful. Especially if it’s a complicated scene to try and visualize.

Alright I’m gonna wrap this one up.

I encourage you to comment below with any questions and to share this post back out to everyone around you. Like you, there’s many other would-be creators dying at the chance to learn something new about creating comics.

If you have any ideas for future topics, I welcome your suggestions as well!

I want to talk about branding.

One of the smartest things you can do as a budding comic creator is to establish your personal brand. You’d be surprised at how many people fail at something so simple. In the beginning I was of course part of that group as well, not 100% but — I can tell you that that has since changed.

What I’m referring to exactly is those people that hide behind eccentric or downright silly usernames on social networks, message boards or even email.

Here’s a perfect example I found recently from Andy Khouri of Comics Alliance on his Twitter account. As a reminder since it’s Twitter, you have to read from the bottom up. (I didn’t bother altering it.)

For those unfamiliar with the site Andy writes a column every week titled “Best Art Ever (This Week).” It’s a great feature and an endless source of inspiration for any artist so do check it out. You can also follow Andy on Twitter here.

But back to the point.

My mission for doing these sorts of posts is simple. I want to help you. There seems to be a wealth of information on how to create comics out there but sadly there’s not a lot of business related comic information. Part of being a comics creator or really ANY kind of creator means you have to think about the business side. You are in essence an entrepreneur.

All you have to do is take a look at what’s going on in the traditional publishing world to get a sense of what I’m talking about. In the prose world we’ve got a ton of self published writers striking it out on their own though their ebooks. But with that power of control comes an even greater responsibility. When you’re in charge as a self publisher the bulk of the work falls onto your shoulders. You become the brand.

So I ask you, what good is it when your name is hidden from the world?

What if I had continued to hide behind my alias these past 10 plus years on message boards? Or hell, stuck with that awful somethinsomethingdotsomethingdotcom web domain that I had when I first started my comics career? Can you imagine how many people may have never discovered me? How much web traffic would I have lost all because they couldn’t find me?!

You have one goal: become a brand.

It doesn’t have to be as hard as many people think. Brand your name, then your name will help sell your products. The internet has valuable real estate that you want to command. How you can claim that real estate is by using your real name. You want to dominate that Google search when someone types in your name. You want those first three pages of the search to be about you. At bare minimum at least the very first page. This can be pretty easy to achieve when you’re active on the web, have accounts set up on the social networks and you have some product available.

Again I ask, what good does it do if I post some rockin’ piece of art on the net and everyone loves it but no one has any idea who did it? Or do I really want to be known as cheezy45 for the rest of my life on the web? How does that help me? Does that make me look like a professional?

So if you are one of these people I highly suggest you start making some changes today.

Here are some of the basics to help you out:

• Set up a web domain in your name
• Set your Twitter account to show your name (the username doesn’t have to be your name but at least have it featured in your Profile)
• Set your Facebook page with your name
• Set up your email using your name (I still haven’t started doing this myself. I have it but I still need to get all my contacts transferred over.)
• Get your Message board accounts in your name (Most boards are instituting rules stating as such nowadays anyway.)
• Set your DeviantART account to show your name

These are the first steps in establishing your brand name. There are many other things you can do but I think these are the most important.

If you’re not participating in social media or message boards at all, I suggest you start that shit right away. You are missing out on a huge audience that’s just waiting to get to know you. Network, network, network.

As always I encourage you to comment below with any questions and to share this post back out to everyone around you. Like you, there’s many other would-be creators dying at the chance to learn something new about creating comics.

If you have any ideas for future topics, I welcome your suggestions as well!

This week’s post is about how you can set up your own digital storefront directly on your website. There’s a number of reasons why you should do this but the most important reason has got to be higher royalty. With no distributor or middlemen taking a portion of your sales, that leaves more for you and/or your team. All you need is a digital delivery provider and Paypal. And yes, I’m aware that there’s other ways to go about this but this is what works for me. So far I prefer this method.

When a comic writer and I first started looking at digital providers we found: Pulley (which is a sister site to BigCartel),  E-Junkie and eventually Digital Delivery App. I’m sure there were more we looked at but for the life of me I can’t seem to find any trace of them in my email. I remember we liked Pulley the best but its pricing was a little out of our range for what we had in mind. Mainly it was the storage that we had issues with…

On the lowest scale for $6/month USD you get 25 unique products, unlimited orders and bandwidth with 100MB of storage. Granted there are a number of things you can do to get your file sizes down but with certain distributors asking for 300dpi files, eventually your storage is gonna be thrown out the window. One of my digital files for ex, hovers around the 25MB+ range. We were looking to add a number of different comics plus on all the different formats. (Mobi, ePub, cbr/cbz, PDF, etc) I could foresee us getting into the higher price brackets solely because of storage regardless of whether we needed the extra products or not.

One might assume that it’s in our best interests to keep costs down, no? Otherwise we start losing sight of the reason we’re trying to do this ourselves in the first place. Higher royalty. In the end, I personally chose to go with DDA (Digital Delivery App.) My writer and I may choose to go with someone else later for EnemyOne but for now I’m happy with them.

DDA is unique in that say for example, you don’t make any sales — then you don’t owe your month’s charges. That’s pretty cool, no? So let’s have a closer look at their plans.

Even on their lowest end, you can get 1GB of storage for $9/month USD! As you can see you also have the option of hosting your website with them, offering subscriptions, pdf stamping, and utilizing affiliate programs. There’s also no transaction fees, no transaction limits or bandwidth fees. You pay your monthly fee and that’s it. (If you sell anything of course.)

Some highlights of DDA for me include:

• their robust Dashboard,
• live reporting of sales and orders,
• live editing of products (such as the name, price, file, as well as get access to any test mode statistics.)
• able to create Packages (For example if you sell three products at $10 each, you may decide to offer all 3 in a package for $25 encouraging people to up their purchase.)
• able to issue Free Orders
• able to configure your own Order Emails and communication to Buyers
• able to send updates for free (Meaning say that you have altered a file that was previously made available, when you upload it again, you now have the option of sending out the new version to previous Buyers.)
• able to create Mailing Lists
• able to create Discount Codes
• receive weekly email summaries of your sales stats
• works with Paypal, Google Checkout and AlertPay

I could probably go on. I kinda love it and best of all, it’s so easy to work with. The system was designed to be user friendly so it doesn’t take a lot of work to figure out. I haven’t had any real trouble with anything aside from one small thing and the response back was swift and from the founder no less! (Thanks again, George!)

The only area some people might struggle with a bit is this area here. Configuring your Paypal. Basically here is where you would set up your payment gateway in order for the money to pass through them and into your Paypal account. It’s an area full of acronyms like IPN, API, PDT but if you follow along closely and read their tutorials, you’ll get there.

So what does all this mean? Well, after you set up an account with them and a Paypal account if you don’t already have one, you’ll be able to upload your digital file to them and start selling right away. Then it’s a matter of making a storefront somewhere on your website with some links and html and ta-da — instant store.

Another small tidbit I’ll suggest is changing your Paypal account to be a micropayment account so that you’ll receive more money from each sale as well. I’m assuming since you want to sell digital comics (otherwise why are you reading this?) that you’ll want to charge a minimal price for said comic, correct? Well, then you’re better off changing it to the micropayment type.

I encourage you to comment below with any questions and to share this post back out to everyone around you. Like you, there’s many other would-be creators dying at the chance to learn something new about creating digital comics.

When I first had the inkling to start selling digital comics I knew right away that I’d also want to sell them on my own. When you sell things yourself you make more money. You’d be crazy NOT to do it. And really, it’s not as hard as one might think. But let’s get those distributors out of the way first.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t used a ton of distributors yet but there are other people out there that have provided quick summaries of their experiences with them. Michael Jasper (from In Maps & Legends digital comic) is one. In Part 3 of his digital download book, “Formatting Comics for the Kindle and Nook“, he talks about distributors and shares some of his insights. I thoroughly enjoyed the book myself as it helped set me off on this path to begin with so please consider checking it out.

The major distributors for digital comics are:

• Amazon Kindle
• Nook (from Barnes & Noble)
• Comixology
• Graphic.ly

There are obviously a ton of other choices but those are the major players right now.

Some of the other players in no particular order include:

• DriveThruComics
• Illustrated Section
• Xin Xii
• Apple’s iBookstore
• My Digital Comics
• Robot Comics
• Panelfly
• Oxicomics
• Izneo
• Wowio
• Comics+
• Kobo

I can’t speak about all of them and I’m not going to because otherwise I’d be here all day but I’ll certainly provide some basics on a few of them.

Amazon Kindle

The Kindle is an interesting beast. You can sell on there via their DTP program. It’s definitely one to watch. At this time there’s not a lot of comic support on there and really why would there be? The device is grayscale with a rumored tablet arriving this Christmas. But just because of those two points doesn’t mean you should outright ignore it. There are comic readers everywhere and with less competition it might work in your favour.

Be forewarned though, if you’re a non-US resident like myself you’ll encounter some headaches getting your account started. Amazon requires all kinds of tax forms for the IRS and has to withhold 30% of your earnings for tax. There’s also things like being paid 60 days after the end of a month. They can pay you by two different methods; via EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) and cheque. EFT is available to publishers who have a bank account in the US, UK, or Germany. More on payment stuff here.

The royalties for selling on Kindle are about the same or similar to other sites like the Nook.

• If your comic is between $0.99 and $2.98 you are eligible for a 35% royalty.
• If your comic is between $2.99 and $9.99 you are eligible for a 70% royalty.

But there’s a catch. Amazon also has a charge for the size of your file. Have a look below for a summary on that.

Nook

The Nook frustrates me to no end as a non-US resident. At this time they don’t allow anyone else on the device.

Who can use PubIt? (Barnes & Noble’s online, self-service web portal.)

Anyone with a valid U.S. Bank Account, U.S. Credit Card, and U.S. Tax ID can sign up to use PubIt! Your Tax ID can be a Social Security Number (SSN)/ITIN or an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

Upon first look, it might be possible right? Nah, that question gets answered a little further down in their FAQ.

Can publishers based outside the U.S. use PubIt?

PubIt! is currently for U.S. publishers. PubIt! requires a U.S. Bank Account, U.S. Credit Card, and a U.S. Tax ID, that are ALL tied to a U.S. address. The content will be offered for sale in the U.S.

So… I’m not sure what else to say about this. Maybe get a US friend to make your account and trust that they give you your money?! It’s kind of ironic that in this digital age where we’re able to sell worldwide we’ve got someone like this telling us no, you can’t. When really, I can do it myself so don’t tell me I can’t. Anyway, PubIt offers similar terms as Amazon.

Publisher will set a List Price for each eBook between $0.99 and $199.99.

Publisher will be paid a royalty off the List Price according to the following terms:

1. For eBooks with a List Price at or between $2.99 and $9.99
   • 65% of the List Price
2. For eBooks with a List Price at or below $2.98 or at or greater than $10.00 (but not more than $199.99 and not less than $0.99)
   • 40% of the List Price

In most cases, you will be paid 60 days after the close of the calendar month in which the sale occurs at PubIt. All payments for eBook sales will be transferred into the bank account that you have on file with PubIt! via an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

When it comes to Comixology and Graphic.ly I have zero personal experience but it would appear you simply email them or fill out a submission form. They also seem to accept high res PDFs (in Comixology’s case) and TIFFs (in Graphic.ly’s case.)

I would like to touch on one more digital distributor in particular though and that’s

DriveThruComics

This is a site that’s got a lot going for it. Unfortunately it could be a big turnoff for some due to the abundance of shall we say adult comics. You can do so much at this site that I’m not really going to be able to go over it all here. On this site you sell pdf versions of your comic.

They offer two types of publisher accounts. Exclusive accounts offer a higher royalty rate on sales and other benefits in exchange for making their marketplace the only reseller of the digital products you upload to them. Exclusive publishers receive a 70% royalty on all digital sales and 70% royalty on the margin (sales price – print cost) on all print sales. They also receive more free promotion on the marketplace. Yes, they offer a print option as well but I had a look at the prices and they’re pretty astronomical.

Non-exclusive publishers receive a 60% royalty rate.

The best part by far at DriveThru are your account options. Here, have a look at what resides in your account once it’s set up:

You’ll notice there’s even an area for promotion. How cool is that? On the site you can “pay” for promotions using banners and featured product messages. I say “pay” with quotes because they do provide you with a certain amount free of charge every month but you can also buy more. What you are buying is what’s referred to as Publisher Promotion Points.

You can request to be paid via cheque or Paypal. You can also collect your funds whenever you want! Or at the end of each month automatically.

They have so many different options hidden in this one little panel. You can run select sales reports, order print copies of your comics, send emails to customers, send free copies to reviewers/friends, pay freelancers that worked on your comic, create product bundles, and more!

The process is very smooth and they have a ton of videos and tutorials uploaded to the site as well. There is a wealth of information here at your disposal. I still haven’t explored everything in fine detail myself.

Alright, well I was going to talk about selling on your own as well but this post is becoming unwieldy. In short, there are a ton of options out there to get those multiple revenue streams happening. It’s in your best interest to get your comics selling on as many different distributors as possible. At least in the beginning. You never know where those sales might be coming from. The more eyes that are on your product, the better. Your audience doesn’t necessarily come to you, you go to them.

I encourage you to comment below with any questions and to share this post back out to everyone around you. Like you, there’s many other would-be creators dying at the chance to learn something new about creating digital comics.

This week I want to talk about page sizes and resolution.

When it comes to drawing your artwork for digital comics you should really keep your page size in mind. There are already a number of different types of digital comics out there today. Off the top of my head we’ve got the landscape oriented comic like Michael Jasper and Niki Smith’s “In Maps and Legends,“ Alex de Campi’s  panel specific “Valentine“ or your normal, everyday comic that’s simply being ported over to digital as is. These would be the comics from the Big Two, Image, Dark Horse, etc that are identical to their print counterparts.

I should also point out before we get too far into this — page sizes? It’s all personal preference. Maybe you want a landscape comic. That’s your decision. There really is no right or wrong way. When I first started making digital comics I came to the realization that I’d much rather utilize the proper dimensions of the devices. So first and foremost I focused on the iPad. An iPad’s screen dimensions are 768 x 1024 pixels in portrait mode. It also has a resolution of 132 dpi (as of this writing).

Once I knew its dimensions I was able to play with some of my previous comics and port them over. The first thing I noticed and you’ll have noticed this as well if you’ve read some comics on your iPad, was that the page doesn’t fill the entire screen. There’s a very large blank area on both sides of the comic. (Left and right sides.) Here’s an example from Kurtis J. Wiebe and Riley Rossmo’s wonderful comic Green Wake.

This is happening because the art was drawn at a size that doesn’t fit an iPad. And why would it really? Print comics are one thing and an iPad another. Maybe in the future we’ll see this change but for now it’s highly unlikely. But that doesn’t stop us from making comics the way we want to… it may mean that our print version will be a slightly different shape but that doesn’t concern me anymore.

I ended up coming to the conclusion that if I draw my pages at a magazine size I can pretty much fit the iPad perfectly. For those template geeks, here’s the template that I use: Click here.

To the side is an example from my art book that I’ve since adjusted to fit the screen properly.

So now you scan in your artwork, adjust your image size down to 768 x 1024, 132 dpi and presto, a page formatted specifically for the iPad that fills the screen! I’ve actually created a separate template file that’s sized specifically for each device that I just drag and drop my artwork on. That way I can adjust the page if I really need to.

Below is a screengrab showing how I’ve used it. You’ll notice that I’m still keeping in mind AND USING the page guidelines on the template like the bleed, trim and live area. I wouldn’t mind printing my comics as well some day so this way they’ll be properly formatted for print as well.

But like I said, decide what works for you or what’s right for the project. You may want a single paneled comic similar to Comixology’s Guided View for instance. Or maybe you want your comic to be read easily on phones. Any time you choose a different device it complicates things. You will have to do some extra work.

One thing I haven’t touched on too much is the resolution of the pages. I’ve seen a lot of talk on the net about this. The consensus seems to be to just make them 72 dpi. (Web resolution) But I’m not sure I agree. If a device supports higher dpi, I say go for it. Sure your files will be a little larger but the last thing you want to do is give your customers/fans an inferior product. Some people may simply want to view them on their computer as well. They’d obviously  benefit from a higher resolution in that case.

An iPad’s resolution is 132 dpi, the Kindle2 167 dpi and the Nook Colour 196 dpi. These will change in the future as the technology increases and gets better and better each year but for now that’s where they stand. The great thing about digital is that nothing is ever obsolete. Say 5 years from now the iPad supports 300 dpi, you could simply re-do your dpi on all of your pages and upload a new file. You’ll have the ability to do since you kept all of your original files in a safe place right? Right?! Always, always keep an untouched file somewhere. What if you need to adjust your lettering? What if you need to increase your dpi? What if you need to adjust your page size? Make sure you have that original file. It’ll come in handy, I promise you.

I did find out from one digital distributor recently that they require their files in 300 dpi. When asked they responded that it was in preparation for the devices to change and to allow the text to be read easier. I did some experimentation myself and sure enough, they were correct in regards to text. Although I did not notice ANY difference in the artwork itself even when zoomed. It looked exactly the same. I would still focus on the device’s dpi for now until told otherwise such as in this case.

Speaking of distributors I think that’s what we’ll talk about next week.

As a sidenote since I only seem to talk about the iPad lately, Kindle 2′s dimensions are 520 x 622 pixels and the Nook Colour 600 x 952 pixels.

I encourage you to comment below with any questions and to share this post back out to everyone around you. Like you, there’s many other would-be creators dying at the chance to learn something new about creating digital comics.

You see — I have this sick fascination with digital comics right now. It’s quickly becoming all the rage in the media and with good reason.

• We’ve got DC getting ready to start their new initiative,
• Comixology partnering with retailers to sell comics to fans
• and in the standard publishing world, self published authors reaping huge rewards in ebooks through places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

Digital is here and it’s here to stay.

So why don’t we delve a bit further into digital comics… how does one make a digital comic?

I’m creating digital comics right now. That’s the reason I’m writing this post. To share with all of you what I’ve learned so far and to help you prevent some of the mistakes I’ve already made. A quick lesson then — digital comics typically use a cbr/cbz, pdf , epub or mobi file format. Cbr seems to be the file type of choice for illegal downloaders although most digital comic distributors want to use pdf for some reason. I don’t quite understand that line of thinking. Yes, most computers have the ability to view pdfs but your general comic reader populace prefers cbr and you can grab a cbr image viewer for free via the internet anyway. Why not just give them what they want? More than likely it’s due to DRM protection.

But before I go into a rant about that, let’s make a cbr.

One thing I was not aware of is that to make a cbr, you use rar compression. And to make a cbz file, you use zip compression.

Let me state that again: CBR uses RAR Compression, CBZ uses ZIP Compression.

When I created my first cbr file, I had the compression switched. It resulted in basically twice the page count in my book. The first half was blank pages and the second half was the book. Ha! (I should also point out that this was only when viewed on my iPad. When I viewed it on my computer, it turned out fine. So test, test, test! Or send it to someone to test if you don’t have the device you’re aiming to put it on.)

Another weird thing — at least in my experience — when creating the rar file, you have to make sure all of your files are directly in the area to be compressed. You can’t just drag over a folder containing the files. So folders=bad, no folders=good. (As seen in the graphic…)

To create a rar, download something like Simply Rar for Mac. I suggest turning on “test files” in the check box to double check that everything worked. You name your file, tell it where you want it to be saved and presto, you have a rar file. To create a cbr file now, you just rename it using the extension cbr.

That’s all well and good, Adam, but what about everything else? We’ll get there, we’ll get there. Next time we’ll talk about page sizes, resolution and all that fun stuff.

Lastly, I’m no expert.

I’m simply presenting to you the information that I’ve come across and the challenges I’ve faced. My hope is that you’ll learn something along the way and that some of the information here will become useful to you.

I encourage you to comment below with any questions and to share this post back out to everyone around you. Like you, there’s many other would-be creators dying at the chance to learn something new about creating digital comics.

After many false starts I’m happy to announce that you can now find my first ever art book under the Store heading up top. This has been something that I’ve wanted to do for an awfully long time. Even if I sell very little I don’t really care. This one is for me and my family. Now if I DO happen to sell a bunch well then I’ll be just as pleased but this project was a test. The digital market is growing at an exponential rate and anyone who doesn’t think so, needs to do some serious research. Hell, I’ve read reports that say within 2-4 years, more than half of the public will do their reading on some kind of device. Working in the print industry myself both as a comic pro and a bookseller, I can believe it. At the dayjob our own print sales are down 15% year over year. Ebooks, man. Ebooks.

But enough about that… we’ll talk about that later.

Back to shameless self-promotion! This art book, Cheap Vodka, clocks out at 56 pages and that includes the copyright, introduction, afterword and other miscellaneous pages but I think it’s still a pretty hefty book. Certainly a lot more than I thought I would have for my first book like this. The digital file is cbr format meaning you can load it up on your iPad or even view it right on your computer or any other device that takes cbr. I wanted to make it easily accessible to everyone and cheap. So it’s only $1.99 USD. I believe I will get to some other formats later but if there’s any format you’d like in particular drop a message below and I’ll see what I can do. Also, for you print lovers, have no fear I haven’t forgot about you. A printed edition is forthcoming but I’m awaiting word from the printer. When it’s available I’ll drop a note and add it to the store. The printed edition will actually be magazine size. So… 8 x 10.5 inches. It looks like it’s going to retail for $5.99 USD.

Edit: A pdf version is now available as well for the same price.

Keep an eye out for more from me in the coming months. I’ve got a lot planned and a lot on the go. My first digital comic is next. Working on that right now. Also, I believe I’ll have a comic I coloured called The Urn making its premiere at Baltimore Comic Con. Will update again when I have further information.

Alright, I’m out.

Read comics, make comics. Rinse and repeat, kids.

Here’s a link to Cheap Vodka. Go buy.

Make with the clickie for a non-squishy version.

Infographic by: Web Page Creation.com