Midnight Ramblings - August 2008

I went to the Portland Zine Symposium last weekend and picked up several new zines that I'll be reviewing here on MF.com and in my blog on the Poopsheet Foundation social networking site. The event was held at Portland State University in the heart of the city.

Smith Hall with zinesters

I was surprised to see Jerianne from Zine World at the show on Saturday. She traveled all the way from Zine World headquarters in Murfreesboro to attend. She was selling copies of several recent issues and told me the new one, #26, was deep into design and would be available any day.

Nicole Georges was selling copies of her latest split zine Invincible Summer #15/Clutch #20 featuring diary comics from May 2008. Nicole provides one side of a page and Clutch McBastard provides the other. On Sunday, Nicole teamed with Diane Gasperin of Floor Hockey PDX for a Homorobics exercise session in a feminist, queer, and body-friendly environment. The practice promotes having fun while strengthening muscles. The session was spontaneously moved from a meeting room to the PSU open-air skybridge and included two laps around the Symposium tables to spice up the show on Sunday morning.

Kip Manley was tabling copies of his Chapbooks, City of Roses. It's a serialized adventure set in a Portland much like Stumptown, only with more swordfighting. Each zine features another chapter in the ongoing saga. Kip explained each issue is a story unto itself, but there are elements that continue from issue to issue. He printed up complimentary 8-page excerpts from several issues, so you could sample the stories. Check out his website for similar online excerpts or to order copies of City of Roses #1-6.

Joshua Kemble, who was awarded a Xeric Grant in Spring 2006 was selling copies of the comic he produced as a result—Numb. Now he's working on a graphic novel called Jacob's Apartment, to be published by NBM.

Zineocracy is a new online resource for the zine community where independent publications will be reviewed and discussed. It's still in the start-up phase — for more information check out their website.

Indigo Kelleigh, who puts together the Stumptown Comics Fest, told me about his webcomic Ellie Connelly, that he updates three times a week. He plans to publish it in print when the tale is complete. He's also half way through making six packs of 8-bit Tarot Cards. These are full color tarot images rendered in Photoshop in an arcade game art style. You can check out samples on Lunar Bistro, which also links to his online shop where you can buy his Chutney Point comics, tarot card packs, and other sundry gems. Incidentally, the promotional postcards for the 2009 Stumptown Comic Fest list the dates as April 18 &19, at the same location as last year's fest. (Apparently the postcards were made before the website was updated.)

Jason Martin had the sixth issue of Laterborn for sale at his table. The 48-page comic was over a year in the making.

Kate Haas had several issues of her Miranda zine for sale. The twice-yearly publication chronicles her more adventurous past life as well as the complexities of her current job — motherhood. Her current issue is #17.

BT Livermore finished the second volume of The Life and Times of Otto Zeplin, just in time for the show. He said he's already at work on volume three. The Robopocalypse Comic Collective always makes a great showing at NW conventions and they're planning to appear at APE this November. They recently completed a jam comic called Oakey Hollow with work by Livermore, Brybox, Matt Grigsby, and the rest of the collective. It includes jam pages (a different cartoonist drawing each panel) and a jam story (a different cartoonist drawing each page).

Jen Swank of Angry Tooth and Panurge Press was selling shirts and zines, including copies of Manuscripts Don't Burn, Tales From the Bus, Spamnation, Cranky Buddha, and several others.

Tender Loving Empire produces quality limited edition books, music and art works. Jared and Brianne Mees were tabling many of the wares from their NW Portland store including zines and CDs.

Jesse Reklaw

Jesse Reklaw was on hand, tabling for Global Hobo, which he founded with Thien Pham in 2003. He had several of his comics for sale like Bluefuzz the Hero and Applicant. He recently completed teaching at summer course called Making Comics Art through Portland Community College. He said he was considering starting work on another comic featuring his character, Bluefuzz. The second collection of his dream-based webcomic Slow Wave is due from Dark Horse in September. It's called The Night of Your Life.

Drewcakes was offering copies of his travel zine, Sebterranea at one of the tables. You can catch a few of his images on his Flickr site.

Julie Sabatier is the host of the Destination DIY (formerly just DIY) radio show and podcast which is aired on KBOO.FM or can be heard anytime on the show's website. Sabatier also publishes a companion zine for the show (with the same name) and has just put out the third issue.

Chelsea Baker, Director of the Olympia Comics Festival and Katy Ellis O'Brien of Trumpetflower shared a table and were selling copies of their prints and comics.

Another consistent supporter of NW zine fests, Shawn Granton, of TFR Industries and Urban Adventure League, was on hand selling his copies of his zine Ten Foot Rule.

Sculptor and cartoonist Tom Lechner was tabling copies of Consumption, Solids, and Tales of Inertia. He'd been hoping to complete the second issue of Tales of Inertia for the show, but still had a little more work to do. He assured me it'll be out soon.

Theo Ellsworth was selling prints and zines of his amazing artwork. He had the latest issues of Capacity for sale as well as an early artzine called Minnow. Although Minnow is now out of print, he'd recently run across a small cache of silkscreened covers, so he printed up a few more copies of the inside b&w pages and put a few more copies together. He's now working on a book collection of the best of his Capacity zine that will also include a lot of new material.

Bert Benson is the Publisher and Designer of Art Bureau an art zine that showcases the work of artists from around the world. The latest issue is #17. The Art Bureau website features a blog, a shop for zines and prints, and an online gallery of the some the artists published in the print edition.

Aron Nels Steinke was selling copies of his award winning Big Plans series and the Super Crazy Cat Dance. He said he was nearly finished with work on a new book called Neptune about a a brother and sister and their dog. He's been working on Neptune for over a year. You can keep up with Steinke's progress and all of his projects on his blog.

Mario C. Brown was promoting his novel Bushido A War of Gods along with Saab Lofton who published the Rufus the Black Cat comic.

Greg Means who edits the incredible Papercutter anthology manned the Tugboat Press table with all seven issues for sale. He said the next issue was coming along nicely and should be out later this year. He also had copies of his new comic You Ruined Everything!, a collection of one panel cartoons that originally appeared on the Tugboat LiveJournal blog.

Rio Safari of Move! Dance! Create! had copies of Odd Ends #1 for sale and was handing out free copies of a micro mini comic called Musing on a Cat about adjusting to a feline roommate with a powerful streak of independence.

Erika Moen was selling all of her mini comics and handing out copies of a sampler of DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary, which you can read online at Webcomics Nation. In fact, you can purchase and read many of Moen's comics online at her website. Be forewarned, most of her work is for adult readers.

Celso

Monk in Ogreland is a small press comic series written and drawn by Celso. The first issue is 7" x 7" and the second is a digest-sized comic laid out in a landscape format. Celso also had copies of a mini called Kame Hame Ha, an instruction manual for a game he described as more complex than — but not entirely dissimilar to — Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Smith Hall at the Portland Zine Symposium

The 2008 edition of the Portland Zine Symposium was a wonderful show. It's just the right size, held in a comfortable space, and showcases a great mix of zines and other small press publications. Many thanks to the organizers and the zinesters who tabled there!

Top

August 23, 2008 Blog Entry

Real Magicalism
A new b&w anthology was announced this week that features both graphic and prose fiction. Real Magicalism captures the place between waking and sleeping, that nexus between the real and unreal, where things aren’t always what they seem. Think of them as O’Henry stories, but with "snark." You can find out more here. Contributors include: James Burns (Editor), Mark Campos, Egg Embry, Jason Flowers, Ron Fortier, Chris Hamer, Jesse Jarnow, Gonzalo Martinez, Bobby Nash, Jessie Nelson, Jaymes Reed, Terry Staats, Damion Suomi, and Matthew Warlick.

The Pit and the Pendulum DVD
Production company Ray Harryhausen Presents announced their first animated short DVD this week, The Pit and the Pendulum. The classic story by Edgar Allen Poe was adapted by animator Marc Lougee and is now available on DVD.

Captain Cure
Small press comiker Ty Wakefield is well into production on a new project. This one is Captain Cure. A young boy named Jack, diagnosed with cancer, learns of a weird side effect of his chemo: super powers! Ty is taking pre-orders on the $3 book, which will be available in October. All sales proceeds go to help families and foundations in their fight against cancer. More details here.

Ladeez Nite
Cartoonist and punster Hilary Barta announced an eight page story on ComicMix this week written by John Ostrander and drawn by Barta. It's a beautifully rendered and colored story about the horny misfits at Munden's Bar and their transformational behavior.

NetDrag
Crime fiction author Bill Cameron was interviewed on Ken Lewis' NetDrag podcast about his first novel Lost Dog and his latest book, Chasing Smoke, that debuts in November. NetDrag website. Bill Cameron Mysteries website.

Thanks for items and links to:
Cartoon Brew
Poopsheet Foundation

Publishing Metrics of Free PDF Publications Special Report

There are thousands of free PDF files available to download from the web. The PDF format offers many of the benefits of a webpage—full color, small file size, and interactivity. But it's also portable, and unlike webpages, it delivers its content intact, both onscreen and when printed. The PDF format ensures the designer's layout, graphics, and typography will be consistent for readers across platforms and viewing applications. MF.com interviewed several small press comics and pulp fiction creators to explore the appeal of the format, their reader's response, and their overall experiences with PDF publishing. (Note: Responses were made in July 2008.)

Participants:
Josh Blair, Editor and Publisher, Candy or Medicine mini comic
Walter Bosley, Publisher and Chief Editor, Lost Continent Library Magazine
John Donald Carlucci, Editor and Publisher, Astonishing Adventures Magazine
Steve Lafler, Creator and Publisher, Manx Media (Cat Suit comic)
Jim Main, Editor and Publisher, Main Enterprises (Gnome)
Bram Meehan, Editor and Publisher, Panel Press and Spokesperson, 7000 BC Comic Collective
Michael Mott, Associate Editor and Distributor of Lost Continent Library Magazine

MF.com: What were your main reasons for offering a free PDF of your publication?

Main: It was basically an experiment to test out the waters.

Carlucci: We're trying to follow the business model touched on by Warren Ellis, John Rodgers, and Bill Cunningham. They suggested the wild experiment of publishing an online magazine that is free and supports itself with ad revenue.

Meehan: When we started Raised By Squirrels, our main goal was simply to get our book distributed as widely as possible. Our first issues were giveaways, so it was a small jump to offer files to download.
  Later, more of a plan emerged as we got a better view of the economics of the whole thing—and what suited us was publishing individual issues for free online, and then collecting them and printing a book that's offered for sale online and in stores and at conventions.
   It seems that a model like this will be the future of a lot of content—music, books, comics, whatever—where it's offered for free, but the comprehensive/deluxe/actual physical version is where the money gets made. Consumers are getting used to getting their content for free, but it also looks like they're still willing to pay creators that they appreciate for their work.
   Now, it's mostly functioning as an experiment, putting that theory to the test.

For the 7000 BC comics collective our String PDFs are mostly a way to show the members what we did, but also try to get a little exposure outside the group.
Another important part is getting the group's creators producing work regularly and giving it an outlet.

Lafler: To be honest, I didn't know what to do with Cat Suit. It was too short to be a graphic novel at about 45 pages, and the old school comic book format was no longer economically viable. I thought I'd pitch it to various publishers with a couple sample pages and a synopsis, and direct them to the PDF if they were really interested.
At the same time, any fans of my stuff who wanted could take a look at it too. So it's multifaceted viral marketing, you could say.
It was pretty funny researching the various indy comics publishers' submission policies. They ran from give up now to don't bother us. But I understand their point of view; I was pitching them because I was wary about returning to publishing my own stuff. Which of course I did anyway, as publishing is a permanent affliction.

Blair: I published a Free Comic Book Day special issue of Candy or Medicine in conjunction with the annual event. In addition to handing out copies at comic book stores local to me, and shipping copies to various stores across the country, I wanted to offer a free PDF for people who do not live near one of the stores handing out the print version.

Bosley: I wanted to publish fiction and writers that get ignored by the trend-obsessed, greedy big media and to promote what I do and determine how big an audience there is out there for it.

MF.com: How did you spread the word about your PDF publication?

Mott: Various message boards.

Blair: My blog, the Mini Comic and Zine Scene communities on LiveJournal, and also various Internet forums.

Lafler: I shamelessly spammed my friends, acquaintances and enemies about it. I blogged about it on Self Employment For Bohemians. Amazing how electronic media has taken over the promo function for publishers. I used to swear by direct mail postcards for my various and sundry business ventures, but now I believe electronic media has flattened print promo, unless you are a credit card company.

Meehan: Several online outlets point to the free downloads or have them on their site—Online Comics, ComicSpace, and Literate Machine as well as DC Conspiracy, a group we're still ancillary members of, and we've tried a little advertising. We send out an email to a list of names we've collected at shows and such whenever a new issue comes out, which, unfortunately, isn't that frequently.
We've also gotten some good reviews of Raised By Squirrels on websites like Newsarama, Broken Frontier, and Indy Comic Review (and, of course, Midnight Fiction) that point to the free downloads.

  We haven't publicized the String PDFs extensively. We post each issue to our website, and then post to the Cartoonist Conspiracy, an organization like ours, to the STAPLE! blog, to ComicSpace, and to Literate Machine.
   String is still a new publicaiton, and it was created in time for a couple conventions and events so we would have something to give away (or hopefully sell) that shows the diversity of work being produced. With that, and some work we've been doing getting it into comic shops, we've really been putting more effort into getting the physical version out.
   One thing we should be doing is emailing to the list of names we've gathered over the years.

Main: I used the various sites and co-ops I belonged to first. After awhile word of mouth helped out a lot too.

Carucci: We talk to similar sites as ours and cross link. We also have been blessed by having friends with high traffic blogs that have gotten us press. AAM #3 on Issuu received almost 40,000 views thanks to John Rogers. Also, a strong website is important to draw in readers.

MF.com: How many times has your PDF publication been downloaded? Any trends over time?

Lafler: Beats me. In some ways I am a naïve neophyte of the web world. If I want to continue to be an artist, I have to focus on art making because the web will eat me alive if I let it. I love it, but my main impulse has to be ink slinging.

Meehan: We're not tracking a list of Raised By Squirrels downloads, but from our regular reports, we can see when people are downloading. It's a pretty small number; we get maybe 1-3 people a month downloading some or all of the issues.
Unfortunately, those good reviews really haven't led to any real spike in hits. We do get a fair number when we send an email out, but it's not a terribly high percentage of those receiving it.
ComicSpace doesn't offer any statistics; LiterateMachine does, and we've got around 20 downloads—pretty pleasing, considering their launch hasn't been really publicized.

For String, we can track from our site, and it's predominantly downloaded by group members, but hopefully they're showing it off to other people. We'll get a handful of people surfing the Web who look like they download an issue now and then.
The only other site we can track is Literate Machine, which is a new site. We've gotten 15+ downloads on the first two issues in the few weeks they've been posted, which is nice to see.

Blair: I don’t have a way of tracking this (or at least I’m unsure of how to track this), but the website did see a spike in hits during the Free Comic Book Day weekend.

Main: At this moment, I've sent out a little over 400 so far.

Bosley: A lot. Mike's server gets hammered every month, upon release of an issue.

Mott: It varies from many hundreds of hits to the low thousands, per month. Generally, the hammering on the site is heaviest in the first two weeks after each month.

Carlucci: PDF downloads have leveled out around 1500, but it is the online readable issue we place on Issuu.com that really generates the attention.

MF.com: How does that compare of your printed publications?

Carlucci: We do the print version only for the exposure and provide copies to the writers. The print version generates virtually no interest and no revenue.

Bosley: My printed stuff is dogmeat, in comparison. But that's picking up.

Mott: Since it's a free download, it's a better amount of dissemination and exposure. However, my books are doing well, as they fall into two different markets, fiction and non-fiction.

Lafler: Comics are unique in the print world because even more than novels, they are fetish objects. E-media is taking over, but comics have a singular status as a mass produced art object (unless its an obvious commercial piece, but I'm talking about art comics). Graphic Novel sales have actually increased as the web has ascended. I know, I didn't answer the question.

Meehan: Pretty much all of our Panel Press printed publications are sold at conventions, in person, and that's been a couple hundred over the past few years. I think we've made maybe six or so sales from the website in the 4+ years it's offered downloads, people who presumably at least previewed a couple issues.
I don't think anything will be able to take the place of the sales opportunities of human interaction offered at a convention, especially as an unknown creator with an unknown product.

For 7000 BC, since the String publication was created with the purpose of just getting printed issues into readers' hands—even for free if that's what it takes—we're passing out more issues of the physical copies. With more publicity for the PDFs, we could probably reach a wider audience, but it's tough to figure out how to get the word to them.
Yeah, I know, that email list. I need to get on that.

Main: Gnome #5 has had many reads so far—more than my titles that have been published the normal way. Well, I'd be doing quite well if I was being paid at least a dollar for it. People like things for free!

MF.com: What's the feedback from your readers?

Lafler: I'd say it's overwhelmingly positive, anyone who goes to the trouble to download the piece already digs my stuff, I reckon.

Meehan: When we sell an issue of a Panel Press comic, we plead for any sort of feedback—even if they hate it and want their money back (and that's usually how we'll [jokingly] put it at a convention), but we've heard almost nothing from the issues we've sold, online, in stores, or in person.
There have been a couple of instances, returning for a second or third year to a convention, where we have had someone stop by and tell us how much they like it (and maybe buy more). I can't convey how gratifying that is.

What we've heard about the String jam comic has been positive, but there hasn't been any large response. Most gratifying is other local creators who have seen it and are interested in the group now.
We've really only begun to get String out there. But an anthology is generally a tough sell, so we'll see what feedback we get.

Blair: I’ve had a lot of positive feedback, especially recently considering I included a copy of the Free Comic Book Day Special with review copies of Vol. 3. It’s nice to be able to put the PDF online so I can send it to friends/acquaintances who might not be too interested in a print version. Also, a lot of people really liked Colin Tedford’s comic.

Mott: Very positive so far.

Bosley: All good and encouraging and saying how much they love it.

Main: They all seemed to have enjoyed it and want me to contunue with it. It was basically going to be a regularly printed title of mine but then I got the idea to do it as an all PDF title. It's been compared to my other title Comic Fan, but at least with Gnome I can use color art and photos wherever I want! It's so inexpensive. That's why I can charge so little for ads in this title.

Carlucci: The readers have been amazing and generous in their enthusiasm for the magazine. We will be investigating other areas of availability soon such as cell phone availability and the Amazon Kindle.

MF.com: Do you consider the project successful?

Mott: So far, so good! So yes, it has been successful so far. It seems to be a unique product.

Bosley: Highly.

Lafler: Yes. Some people downloaded it and read it. It's ridiculously cool. I love print, but this is just whack. I started publishing comics in 1980, fresh out of college. If you told me what was to come, I would have been delighted. Actually, I had a sense back then that some amazing shit was coming down the pike, and I still do. We're just getting warmed up, I suspect.

Blair: I would say it is very successful. Being a fan of print, I doubt I’d ever offer a PDF-only issue. Rather, I see it as a supplement to the print issue. I plan to print a special issue for Free Comic Book Day every year as long as I'm publishing Candy or Medicine. However, if for some reason it ever got to the point where I simply could not afford to publish this extra issue, then I might consider publishing it exclusively online.

Meehan: It's all in how you define success. We enjoy making the Raised By Squirrels comic, we've had some great experiences and met some terrific people while doing it. Nobody's demanded their money back. And we feel that we're learning and improving our comics-making and storytelling skills.
So, even though sales and exposure aren't high—and I should stress that we're not working on marketing anywhere near as hard as we should—I'd say it's successful, but only because we judge success by a different standard. And it's certainly not money.

String is off to a great start, I think, just getting creators contributing regularly and getting issues printed and posted. Success for this is going to be kind of tough to define, since the first goal is just to get people's work out there. It looks like we're going to be carried in some shops throughout the country, so the primary method of distribution is shaping up to be print—and we'll know in a few months if anyone's buying.
In terms of using this to generate interest locally, it's been great—we've received some press interest and coverage and met new creators. And, as it's gotten our people to start new projects and produce them regularly, or even get something into print for the first time. It's been a great boost for the group.

Carlucci: I wouldn’t keep at it if it wasn’t. It is an incredible amount of time and effort, but that finished product never fails to put a smile on my face.

Main: Yes, I certainly would. I just wish folks would send me more material to use though. I have requests for news and reviews and comics and illustrations and articles and ad rates in many places but they all seem to just read the requests and sit on their hands for a long time before making a move. I'm currently planning a full color PDF comic publication now.

MF.com: Do you feel the free PDF increases traffic on your other web pages or the sales of your printed publications?

Main: Only by a slight margin.

Blair: I would say it definitely increased traffic to the website and awareness of Candy or Medicine. As far as sales go, not yet.

Carlucci: I think the free PDF will keep going up as far as traffic. You have to put together as professional as possible a product to be taken seriously. Always improve on your previous issue and never slide. You are only as good as your last issue after all.

Mott: Yes, I'd have to say so. Definitely, in fact.

Bosley: Absolutely. I've also been asked to publish another magazine by comics industry pros who read LCL, and one of them is publishing one of my titles in a comic book format.

Lafler: Maybe, but it's just one facet of creating a web profile for myself as a cartoonist. I think that a cartoonist these days needs some sort of web home base, a blog, and a print presence. The trick is to keep them all humming in concert with each other. Ha ha, I got me some ways to go.

Meehan: Part of our experiment is offering Death, Cold As Steel, which is related to but separate from Raised By Squirrels, in a much more restricted way online. Previews of the beginning are available at various sites, but the whole story has to be bought. In a limited way, we can see some results over at Literate Machine, where the downloads of the free complete RBS far outpace the free DCAS preview, but nobody's buying either.
So, overall, I'd say no, but it's difficult to draw any conclusions from our limited data.

MF.com: What improvements would you make in future PDFs?

Blair: I would have made an icon of the cover a clickable link (not sure of the exact terminology), but I’m not really sure how to do that. Also, I’d probably send out an email blast, notify comic blogs/news sites and post it on more forums.

Lafler: Simplify, simplify, simplify. Make all my sites & web offerings elegant, engaging and easy to use.

Carlucci: We have a major site relaunch coming with the release of the 4th issue in July. We are looking to become the pulp hub with the new AAM! I will be placing issue of the magazines on Lulu.com this month also for our European buyers. Amazon doesn’t seem to list the issues on their European webpages. Lulu has different format requirements and this will call for a restructuring of the issues. We went with Amazon because of the credibility and the free ISBN number that comes with placing issue on their site.

Main: Add more color spots and experiment with the layout a bit more.

Bosley: I have improved the magazine with every issue, but ultimately I'd like the look to be even more complete and thorough than it has been thus far.

Meehan: Publicity and marketing. It's tougher and tougher to cut through the clutter and even get noticed, let alone attract the attention of readers who might be interested in your specific comic. It's clear that good reviews aren't enough to drive sales. Advertising is tricky to target, even with the added accountability of the web. And conventions are still the best way to make sales, but that's an expensive, time-consuming proposition (especially coming from New Mexico). What's clear is the need for a new innovative way to get noticed . . . and when we figure that out, you'll be sure to know.

MF.com: Any recommendations for other publishers?

Main: Just that they should give this format a try if they haven't already. You really have nothing to lose.

Blair: I’ve recently come across a couple free PDF zines/comics and I think it’s a great idea. For me, if I like the free sample, if you will, it makes me more likely to purchase the next issue (or the sampled issue if I really enjoyed it). Plus, in my mind, the point is to communicate your message to as many people as possible, so what better way than to offer it for free?

Meehan: Though my experience with free downloads isn't really all that encouraging, I'd strongly recommend that publishers get used to offering something for free—not necessarily the whole comic, as we've done, but at least something. Especially for an unknown in today's oversaturated media landscape, you have to show what you can do, even if it's only to demonstrate the confidence you have in your product.

Carlucci: I hate to admit it, but I don’t read anyone else right now. I just don’t have the slightest amount of free time. Right now I should be laying out the new issue, painting the rest of the cover, and putting content on the new site. Sheesh, sleep would be nice also.

Bosley: Look at a PDF magazine as your advertising. My exposure with my magazine has been a thousand times what conventional advertising has ever done for me—and is far more on center with my target audience. Personally, I think traditional advertising is mostly bullshit for anyone other than corporations looking to sell to the mainstream masses via television, etc. That said, I still sell ad space in my magazine—but my rates are shamelessly low because of my attitude about the nature of standard advertising. Use your magazine to showcase your products, but don't expect to sell a damned thing. Be thrilled when you do. Another very important thing: do the magazine you want to do (as long as it's legal!) and social trends be damned. Find a niche and cater to it—but don't go after an audience someone else has already captured most of or you're wasting your time. I've found that there is usually room for one of a kind with these things. Do a magazine that no one else in that topic is doing in the way you'd do it. Finally, you have to present content your audience wants to read and see.
I hope that's useful.

Lafler: Yes! At least four times a week, do something like yoga, walking, running or meditation for at least 45 minutes each session. I am not lying when I tell you the solutions to your problems will appear in your heart and mind like fuckin' magic if you stick to it. This applies to free PDF files, and everything else in life.

Many thanks to Josh Blair, Walter Bosley, John Carlucci, Steve Lafler, Jim Main, Bram Meehan, and Michael Mott for sharing your experiences and advice about PDF publishing. I encourage MF.com readers to download and read their excellent PDF publications. And send them a note with your comments. As you can see from their responses, publishers and editors love to hear from readers!

-R. Krauss

Top

August 16, 2008 Blog Entry

Foster Nabs Another Hugo
Congratulations to Brad W. Foster for winning the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist. I believe this is Brad's 6th Hugo. You can check out most of this year's nominee's work just by clicking their names: Terry Harvia, Sue Mason, Steve Stiles, and Taral Wayne.

Coming Soon
Editor/cartoonist Josh Blair reports this week that the fourth issue of Candy or Medicine is deep into production and will be released on Saturday, September 13 at Ithacon. Contributors to the 16-page mini comic include Olivia Arrow, Blair, Simon Corry (cover), Abby Mullen, Molly Mullen, Ray Negron, Kevin Richardson, and Russ Walton.

Art and Story
Back in the newave comix era, for me, the artwork was king. Of course story was important too, but it was always the artwork that first caught my attention, pulled me in, and brought an imaginary world to life and gave it depth. I poured most of my effort into improving my drawing skills. As time went on, earning a living took more and more hours away from my comix work and I dropped out of small press publishing entirely.

Years passed and I channeled my creative juices and energies into other outlets. But the allure of self-publishing never left completely. When I revived Midnight Fiction as a website, it seemed like an ideal venue to repurpose all those newave comix and give them a second chance to reach a wider audience than they had in their original limited print runs.

Since then I've created a few new pages of comix for Dan Taylor's Weird Muse Productions and done a few other projects here and there. But now I've got a new perspective. Now, the story is king. I've been a professional copywriter for years, but creative writing is a different beast. So I've started focusing more energy on writing and learning about writing.

In truth, the story and artwork are equally important to illustrated fiction. I still devote time and energy to improving my drawing skills, but the craft of writing gets at least equal time these days.

Top

August 9, 2008
Blog Entry

Classic Schomburg Reprint
Age of Adventure's Wayne Skiver announced this week a one shot special featuring The Fight Yank with a classic cover by Alex Schomburg and interior stories from the pages of Startling Comics and Fighting Yank Comics. $6.99 printed or $1.25 download from their Lulu.com shop.

Otto Two
BT Livermore has released the second volume of The Life and Times of Otto Zeplin, the fake story of a real boy. It's available for $4 through the Robopocalypse store.

Top

August 2, 2008
Blog Entry

Special thanks this week to Steve Willis for his August calendar cartoon. Why did he place a penguin in the desert during the hottest month of the year? Perhaps Ronald Coleman said it best on the Suspense radio program when he uttered that fateful line, "A man's not responsible for what he does in this heat."

Astonishing Adventures
Publisher John Donald Carlucci and Editor Katherine Tomlinson recently launched a major refresh of the Astonishing Adventures Magazine website and announced their 4th issue. Check out the new look here. You can read the new issue of AAM, as well as past issues online. Plus, a print version of the new issue is available through Amazon.

String 6
Bram Meehan reports the lastest issue of String is now available for download here. The sixth issue is 32 pages and features the work of the Northern New Mexico comic collective 7000 BC. If you've missed any back issues the same webpage includes the links to download issues #1-5. While you're there, it's easy to post a comment and the group loves to get feedback about their work!

Promote Your Mini Comic
If you publish your own mini comics, it's likely you're always on the lookout for good ways to promote your comic and cartoons. Members of the social networking site Poopsheet Foundation can now publish Blog entries on their member's page and see them feed through to the front page of Poopsheet moments later. Even if you already have your own site, this is a terrific way to put more eyeballs on your work and spread the word. Site Editor Rick Bradford is constantly adding new content, news items, and new features to the site, so traffic is building every week. Join now!

Bash Magazine
The first issue of Bash Magazine will be on the streets of Washington DC and on the web August 1st. You can download the entire 16 pages of the monthly comic alternative on their website. Contributors include Dan Archer, Pascal Blanchet, Ken Cursoe, Theo Ellsworth, Eamon Espey, Keith Knight, Morgan Pielli, Jesse Reklaw, and Jen Sorenson. (Add a pdf file extension if you have trouble opening the file.)

Thanks for items and links to:
Cory Doctorow
Mike Lynch
Alan Gardner

Top

Midnight Fiction Shop
• 2008 Desk Calendar
• Self-published comix
• Movie Magazines
• Illustrated Fiction