Right now, there are seven available, covering topics like cosplay and creative writing and makeup. And comics. Amy Dallen, who works at House of Secrets, debuts with “Talkin’ Comics”:

I like that she starts with a message about how everyone is welcome. Then she reads comics to us, but since it’s R. Sikoryak’s Masterpiece Comics, I don’t mind.

The company is also searching for ten more video bloggers through open submissions. Videos will be reviewed and given community feedback on the Geek & Sundry site. The community will also vote on “their favorite personalities and topics” to determine these future programming options. Here’s Felicia explaining the project:

I’m tempted to submit a manga-focused vlog, but I suspect I’m too old and crotchety for the audience.

“There’s a bigger infrastructural point here which is that a big part of the indie comics economy at this point seems to rest on the shoulders of people who work very hard for very little reward to create these festivals…. No one is making money personally doing these things, and you can’t have an industry that depends on volunteer labor forever…. This whole industry is not financially sound. If it weren’t for people working against their financial interests we wouldn’t have an indie comics world.”

That’s why comics is in many ways a young person’s game — most of the older folks have wised up and gotten out in order to support themselves. Which is why you see the same problems and scams over and over again. There’s a loss of institutional memory. The problem is, what do you do about it? Where does real money come from?

Should publishers stop making miniseries? I think so, in favor of original graphic novels, but Brian Hibbs doesn’t care for either format, because it’s hard to predict sales. The only virtue miniseries have is the possibility of a real ending, but the corporate publishers have even backed away from that. (Mystery Men from Marvel, I’m looking HARD at you. Most disappointing lack of ending in a long time, after a promising beginning. That series flat-out asked to become an ongoing, but clearly, sales weren’t there — and I was so turned off by the taunting “want to see what happened? hope for more” that I wouldn’t be interested in following a series anyway.)

Since Hibbs seems to be talking mostly about the corporate superhero universes (including such works as BPRD), the question of “which stories matter?” winds up playing a role. And with restarts and reboots and relaunches, fans have been taught the hard way that there’s no point in getting too invested, because it can all be taken away next time they need to goose sales artificially. So they stick with the characters they’ve loved a long time.

Red She-Hulk, apparently cancelled. Why wouldn’t you want to read this?

If a miniseries looks interesting, why not wait for the trade collection? By that point, you’ll find out whether it really fulfilled its promise (unlikely) or simply forget about buying it, thus saving yourself time and money.

Why can’t Marvel sell books starring women, as Graeme asks? Could it be that the stories just aren’t very good? This is an interest of mine, as you might expect, but I found the recent relaunch of Captain Marvel incomprehensible, Red She-Hulk boring when it wasn’t mired in continuity, and the Fearless Defenders just plain bad. Having a woman star isn’t enough — you have to tell interesting stories that new readers can understand and (more importantly) enjoy. That means introducing your characters, giving readers some reason to care about them (beyond “they used to be…” or “they’re related to…” or “Marvel has this trademark…”), and doing more with them than having them punch things. Attractive, readable art is helpful, too. (In response to a particular point Graeme makes: what a long-time comic reader considers a good book and what a casual reader does may not be as close as one would hope.)

Has Yale Stewart got the best take currently going on the JLA cast, even though he draws them as eight years old? For my money, yes. Of course a baby Wonder Woman would want to play “truth or dare”! And when feelings get revealed, watch out. Power Girl’s got a crush on Superman (they aren’t cousins here), while he cares about Diana and is being counseled by baby Batman. (Not the best idea.) Lots of drama still to come, I’m sure.

Not comics, but fascinating: when did we start sleeping in only one session? Culturally, people used to expect to wake up midway through the night. They’d read, pray, talk, think, make out, and then go back for a “second sleep”. This explains so much!

First, there’s Marvel deciding that the upcoming Avengers: Endless Wartime is their “first” original graphic novel (according to advertising). This ignores that there were almost 40 of them back in the 1980s, beginning with The Death of Captain Marvel. Tom Brevoort explains the discrepancy away by saying that those older books were too short to meet today’s definition of a graphic novel. Funny, I’m not aware of a length requirement for the format.

Then there’s taunting the fans over Miracleman, or as they’re now back to calling him, Marvelman. Joe Quesada is telling curious readers to be patient with the company’s silence about the long-awaited reprints of the good stuff (by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman). When Marvel needed to sell the older books, that no one really wanted, they were hinting around about upcoming news. Now, it’s inconvenient, so fans should “go away, kid, you bother me”. (Can’t you see Quesada as Foghorn Leghorn? Only he’s not that Southern.)

I still think we’re never going to see the Miracleman reprints we want from Marvel. Back in the day, bringing them out would be a real service — but now, anyone who wants to read them can, on the internet. It’s not technically legal, but then, much of that case falls in that category.

Keith Knight, award-winning cartoonist of The K Chronicles and The Knight Life, last year raised $40,000 on Kickstarter in order to draw his autobiographical graphic novel I Was A Teenage Michael Jackson Impersonator! (expected next year).

Now, he’s telling you how to be successful in the same venue by selling a zine, “25 Steps to a Better Kickstarter Campaign”. (Visit his store page and scroll down to find it.) It’s $10, which includes postage. I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know how long or content-packed it is, but I imagine that this is only the first of many “you can make money on Kickstarter!” books to come. Knight wrote an earlier article for the Washington Post; this booklet expands on those tips.

It’s a clever way to turn the experience into yet another source of potential income, and goodness knows that there’s demand for it, particularly from those who haven’t yet realized that a successful Kickstarter campaign is a huge amount of work, not just a way to get free money.

I’ve been pondering this because Gina Gagliano at First Second recently wrote about her intentions in providing review copies. She says,

Reviewers to whom I send books are not obligated to write reviews! In fact, if they get books from me in the mail and they hate them, I would probably prefer that they didn’t write any review at all. Even if a reviewer gets a book and feels bland and vaguely indifferent towards it, I’ll probably be like, ‘how about you review a nice book from me that you thought was awesome instead of forcing yourself to write something vague and indifferent about this book — I’ll find someone else who loves it to cover it.’

To be clear, I’m not stopping anyone from writing a review — if reviewers hate a book and want to write about it, that’s totally fine. If reviewers feel bland and indifferent about a book and want to write about it, that’s fine too. But if a reviewer gets a book from me and doesn’t want to write a review because they didn’t like it, because they feel that it doesn’t suit their audience, because they don’t have time for it, because they can’t fit it in with the rest of their content thematically that week, you know what?

Those are all perfectly reasonable reasons not to review a book, and I’m fine with that.

I’m really glad to hear it, because I think that’s a great statement that makes me feel better about what I’m trying to do, which is talk about good books — or barring that, to talk about things that I felt passionate about in some fashion. Trying to force out a review when a book leaves you feeling “eh” is hard, and the time and pressure spent doing it could probably be better used elsewhere.

A) I’m personally contributing to them, which happens rarely. That’s because most Kickstarter prices are too high ($10 for a comic issue?) and/or I don’t care to tie up funds in something that will most likely be delayed beyond what you’re promising and/or I don’t trust even the most well-meaning creators. Nothing personal, but after learning from Martin Wagner’s Hepcats, I much prefer to buy books after they exist. (Few of you will get that reference, but those who do are nodding vigorously right now.)

B) you’re a friend. I hope you know if this applies to you.

C) you’re doing something really stupid and I want to make fun of you. For example, look! Bluewater discovered crowdfunding! Just what an unethical company needs — more money from other people to play with. And of course they chose Indiegogo, where you can choose to keep the money even if you don’t meet your goal.

They’re doing a four-issue miniseries “in manga format”. (What does that mean? I don’t know. Except that they’re trying to adapt a novel into comics, and other successful attempts by other publishers have been tagged “manga”, so maybe they’re bandwagon-jumping?) In explaining their motivation, we get this information:

Comics cost a lot of money to produce, and we want this to have top-notch talent. Also, Indiegogo is awesome and allows us to go directly to the fans of THE IRON FEY series to make it happen. The campaign funds will go to the comic creators, printers, shipping costs, project management and the army of magic little elves necessary to bring the novels to life and get comics and rewards to your door (or at least your email inbox). Bluewater Productions is producing and publishing the manga comic book series.

Yes, it costs money to make comics (especially if you bother to pay your artists), but … isn’t that what a publisher’s supposed to provide? If other people are funding everything, what, exactly, is Bluewater contributing?

(Update: Wow, it gets better. Thanks to a reader, I found out that this is Bluewater’s second stab at crowdfunding the same project. Their previous Kickstarter failed, getting less than $6000 of a $38,000 goal.)

At least they mentioned the artists up front. There’s another well-meaning Kickstarter for a comic anthology called Anything That Loves that has a great premise (about non-binary sexuality) but isn’t able to pay contributors unless the goal goes beyond simply being met. The Kickstarter target of $10,000 only covers printing costs. (Expensive because they’re using color.)

It’s for a good cause (education), and if artists want to donate their work (particularly since royalties from the publisher are being donated as well), that’s their right, but I thought it was just a bit weird to hope for a windfall in order to be able to pay artists. I do appreciate them being open about it, though, and it looks like they’re on track to meet their goal and more (90% of the way there at the time of this writing). I’m contributing, because the artist list is great and the subject is fascinating.

I’m also going to contribute to Rick Geary’s Elwell Enigma — I just haven’t decided yet if I can afford to buy the level that lets me become a character in the book! (What a great prize!) This true-crime story of an unsolved 1920s murder of a bridge expert should go nicely with Geary’s other murder stories. They’re all well worth reading. This project has already doubled its goal, so you’ll be sure to get the book.

This post is older, from the days when his issues came out quarterly, but it’s still great advice on how to include the basics — names, abilities, basic situation — without stopping the story cold and “No clunky exposition. No flashbacks.”

Longtime friend of the blog Sean Wang wants to bring his webcomic Runners: The Big Snow Job to print, so like so many others these days, he’s gone to Kickstarter. The campaign runs through March 28, but it met its goal of $6000 in the first two days. The first stretch goal of $8500, which would allow printing in the US instead of overseas (allowing for faster delivery), has also been met, with more goals promised to come. Rewards include original art for the “issue” covers, copies of the first collection Runners: Bad Goods, prints, and sketches.

Runners can be read online and is described by Wang as an “action comedy about alien smugglers”. The graphic novel is planned to be available this summer in full color. The book will include a new six-page epilogue not previously posted online, sketchbook material, and pinups by guest artists.

The way I figure it, the more publishers I can ignore entirely in Previews, the easier it is to get through the 400-page catalog every month.

It runs an hour and fifteen minutes, with a number of comic recommendations after the 45-minute mark, so be sure you have time to pay attention to it, because there’s lots of good information here.

It’s also available as an audio podcast in iTunes, but this episode hasn’t been posted there yet.

She asks for ad clicks (which technically violates the terms of at least one popular ad network, but it’s a good reminder), link shares to her content, and help with links to interesting stories she can write about. I admire her for having that discussion in public, and what she’s asking helps out any site you enjoy. Later, in the comments, she says:

It is not at a a level where The Beat is the only thing I do for a living however, and that is a problem.

One thing that didn’t come up in her discussions was how she’s changed the Beat’s RSS feed from full-content to just a small taste, presumably to drive more views to the site, where the visit will count towards ad impressions. For me, that’s changed how I read her site. I follow the RSS feed avidly, but now, I only click over about a third of the time. It’s easier to skip articles I’m not interested in, or that reprint press releases that will show up elsewhere. Before I read all the RSS articles, and if I was interested in the topic, I’d click through anyway to read the comments.

(In case readers are curious about how I run this site, I’ve never felt luckier to have a well-paying day job that means I don’t have to consider such decisions. The ads and sales commissions (through Amazon links) that bring in income here are nice (and useful from a tax perspective), but I can cover what I wish or skip a day or two blogging as I need to. My site is more like a pet to me — something whose attention I find rewarding, that I have loved dearly for many years, and that needs to be fed regularly and cleaned up after (in the comments).)

Since Heidi isn’t commenting on the RSS feed change, I thought I’d ask, just out of curiosity: Has how much you read the Beat changed?

Star Clipper, an outstanding comic shop in St. Louis, Missouri, has been around for 25 years. I can see why, if this kind of creative thinking in response to competition is typical. (I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting, myself, but clearly, I should.)

This year, they’ve created a presale price guarantee. If you commit to preordering a graphic novel from them (and leave a deposit), they will match Amazon’s price on “any graphic novel not yet released”. So you can get great prices and support a local shop. And while you’re in the store, you might find a few other things you can’t live without…

Has your local comic store done anything similar or engaged in other creative marketing or sales practices? Let me know in the comments.

Through Wednesday, January 16, the online Warner shop is holding a buy one, get a second at 50% off sale on TV show and DC Comics t-shirts and iPhone cases.

The discount will scale, so if you buy four, two will be half off, and so on. If you’ve been looking for some branded merchandise to dress yourself or your phone, there’s a wide selection of logos and images — almost 450 shirts, most at $24.95, mostly Batman, Superman, Watchmen, Justice League, but also a few other characters, including Wonder Woman, and 92 phone cases, most $34.95. The cases have some interesting art choices, including Darkseid, a Wonder Woman closeup by José Luis García-López, several Shazam logos, and one that makes your phone look like it’s wearing Superman’s cape.

Emma Alban, a talented fan writer, posts a justification for fanfiction to learn writing. Lots of good points about how it makes for useful practice in the craft.

Fanfiction gives you the flexibility to write original stories, with varied, dynamic, boring, interesting, silly, fun, romantic plot lines, without having to worry about every little detail. You don’t need to make up the rooms, or the characters. You just get to play around with telling stories. And I think that’s a creative freedom that people undervalue. …

Once you have your ‘style,’ and your habits, you step out to create an entire world, from countertops to character traits, with an arsenal of skills you’ve developed while you were busy having fun not worrying about a lot of the mess.

This piece about books about comics to me mostly serves as a sad reminder of just how long most of these books have been on my “to read” shelf.

… why are big publishers churning out serious books on comics now, when sales of the comics themselves are in long term decline? Ironically, I suspect that this Golden Age of historical surveys represents another aspect of the mainstream comics industry’s senescence. Who, after all, is the audience for gossip about comics legends such as Steve Gerber, Jim Starlin, or Jim Shooter? Why, it’s 30 and 40something males who were collecting in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. You know, people like Jonathan Lethem, and Michael Chabon, and me. That said, if you were around in those days then Howe’s book certainly is a lot of fun.

Zub very politely and kindly informs the writer that no, it’s not. (Let me add: there are many more new “talents” out there than anyone can keep up with. There are also plenty of proven creators without enough work.) Zub says:

An editor’s job is to make sure their projects are taken care of by capable people who can deliver high quality professional work on time and, ideally, whose involvement with the project will help sell the work. Testing and nurturing new talent is generally low on their priority list compared to managing current ongoing projects. Trying new people is risky and difficult compared to using people who have a body of work and proof that they can hit their deadlines. I know it can be frustrating seeing writers plucked from other talent pools but if someone has writing work in other mediums (novels, TV, etc.) at least there’s proof they can tell stories, even if it’s not comic specific. Why should a publisher (a business) take a risk on using unknown/untested talent when they don’t have to?

He goes on to give the sensible advice, “If you don’t have a body of work you need to create one and keep building. If you’re not willing to put in the time to create quality stories on your own, then how is anyone supposed to trust that you’ll suddenly be able to do it ‘on the job’?”

That started me thinking. Someone who wants to make a movie doesn’t think they can suddenly bid for the job of directing James Bond, do they? Even the you’ve-never-heard-of-them-before “discoveries” have directed commercials or student films or something available to view in the marketplace. It’s kind of like dating — it’s easier to meet someone when you’re already involved, because there’s no pressure, and the idea that someone else has already “vetted” you makes you a more proven choice.

Yet in comics, people seem to think they can break in to writing Spider-Man or Batman, billion-dollar flagship properties. At first, that’s a ridiculous conclusion, yet perhaps that’s because people have actually done it. (Although a closer look reveals that those people formed close relationships with decision-makers who saw their work, even if it wasn’t yet published.) But those examples are few and far between, and that doesn’t tackle the big issue the request writer was originally asking — what if you don’t have personal contact with editors, either at conventions or other venues? (SVA classes are good for this.)

Particularly in a market where timeliness has become more important, what with the digital same-day release dates and all, a proven commodity is a much safter choice than a newbie. It’s a shame that the venues that used to be open — anthologies, backup stories, and other ways to break in that didn’t require such a serious series commitment — are no longer there, but in their place, we have self-publishing and webcomics. Yes, you will lose money doing that, at least in the beginning, but how much do you believe in yourself, your dedication, and your talent? Moving to New York and pounding the pavement would be just as expensive, without the benefit of friends and family nearby.

Tom Spurgeon has a good take on this as well (plus a record industry story! remember them?):

You don’t need anyone’s permission to make comics; it’s not easy, and it’s not always possible to do so the way you might like it, but it’s a very achievable thing in terms of those opportunities across the spectrum of all the arts.

In short, I think people who think editors should be cultivating new talent just have fantasies of being suddenly discovered and given their dream job on a platter. In another era, this was the same thing that motivated girls to sit in tight sweaters at Schwab’s drugstore. It’s a convenient wish-fulfillment story for the entertainment industry to promote, but it’s not going to happen for you. Do the work instead.

On Sunday, noted comic writer Peter David posted that he had had a stroke that affected his vision and caused him to lose control of the right side of his body.

Long-time readers will recall that my husband KC had a mini-stroke almost four years ago. Every time I hear news like this, I start shaking, because I realize how much worse KC’s situation could have been, and how very lucky we were. The worst symptoms he ever had were a slight loss of control of his left hand and nausea-causing vertigo; his walking, vision, speech, and thoughts were never significantly affected.

During the year after — we were told that, at his anniversary checkup, that he’d recovered about as much as he ever would — he slowly regained most of the use of his hand. He considers it about 98% of what it was, now, and it mostly gets weak when he’s overtired or stressed (so in a way, it’s a warning sign for him to relax). At the beginning, the most frustrating thing was him trying to relearn to type, since his hands were slightly out of sync. He’s only ever been a two-fingered typist, but during his recovery, he’d wind up capitalizing the second letter of words, for example, because he wasn’t hitting the shift key quite when he thought he was. He also had the weird quirk of repeating small words, so I’d have to edit out where he said things like “while I was reading the the comic”.

The most important thing for him was working with a good physical therapist, as he discussed in his column about the event. Luckily, he already knew one, that he’s worked with before on a shoulder issue, so he had a solid relationship with someone who knew how he used to behave. There were exercises for fine motor control and flexibility, with his hand, and the therapist was happy to have KC participate in the process. For instance, since KC’s a game player, KC suggested that he could try playing Operation with his left hand, which would give him instant feedback, and the therapist thought that was a great idea. It was important to find things that KC would be likely to keep doing, since insurance only covers so much, and he was only going to keep improving with plenty of work on his own.

Kathleen David has shared more of the background behind what happened at her blog. My heart goes out to them, because this is a terrible thing to happen on a vacation. When you go to an emergency room, so much of what happens is pot luck anyway, based on who’s on call, and in our experience, the experience and comfort level with the doctors can vary greatly. They often don’t tell you things unless you ask, and my role was to constantly ask “what happens next?”, since they’d just leave us there without much information. I don’t blame them — hospital staff are very busy, and they’re used to all the terms and processes they deal with daily — except for one doctor, who kept giving me the “don’t worry, little lady” approach. That’s all magnified when you’re away from home. It’s so important to get a doctor you’re comfortable with and you can trust.

More importantly, don’t wait when you have signs. It’s so easy to write off a bad headache as a migraine, fuzzy vision as fatigue, and other stuff to flu or stress. No one wants to be seen as a hypochondriac, making a big deal out of nothing — but fast treatment counts. And it may take the medical team some time to figure out what, exactly, is happening. With KC, we actually went to the emergency room twice, because the first day, they attributed his dizziness to sitting up too quickly and waiting too late to eat, which was entirely plausible. It wasn’t until the symptoms worsened on the second day that he was admitted. Bless KC for keeping me informed, both then and now about how he’s doing, when his hand acts up, and so on. It’s scary, but having something happen again would be worse.

As we all get older, this is likely to happen to someone you care about. There are some basic tests you can do to try and figure out what’s going on. If you’re with them, have them talk to you. Check that they’re not slurring or sounding strange. Can they speak the right words, the ones they intend to use? Are their features symmetrical? Have them smile and frown to make sure their eyes and both sides of their mouth react similarly. Have them grab your hands, hard, to check their grip strength, and whether it’s about the same on both sides. Can they walk without seeming unbalanced? Can they see ok? A stroke is a very scary thing, but it’s also recoverable, these days. I hope the Davids have as happy an ending as possible. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

I will be re-reading every comic book that is currently in my collection.

Single issues only. No collections. Original graphic novels only if I find them in a box rather than on a shelf….

This will mostly be in alphabetical order as I work my way through the collection, but if I buy something cool and want to talk about it out of order I will.

Nothing I buy new from this point on will be discussed until I’ve made it through the collection. Cool old back issues are fair game though….

That’s all I can think of for now. I probably have 3000-4000 comics, so this could take a while.

He’s created a tumblr (at the link) to show every issue. I’d like to do something like this, while weeding out the collection to keep only what I truly treasure, but I don’t have the years it would take. Still, it’s something more of us accumulators should do, just to be sure of what we have.

It’s an anthology of comic stories edited by Shannon O’Leary and Joan Reilly “about women, men, and feminism! It’s about the state of equality between the sexes today.” The title comes from the way so many people feel they need to say “I’m not a feminist, but…” since “feminism” is a dirty word (although a valuable concept). However, based on the previews below, the book isn’t about politics in the way the description might make you think. It’s about relationships and choices and struggling to live up to the dreams we’ve had and those we’re taught to have.

Contributors include Gabrielle Bell, Jeffrey Brown, Shaenon Garrity, Justin Hall, Josh Neufeld, Vanessa Davis, Lauren Weinstein, Abby Denson, Suzanne Kleid, MK Reed, Dylan Williams, and many more. (Contributors are being paid for their work, as should be.) If you’d like to see some samples, three stories have been posted in full online:

• Corinne Mucha’s “Spinster”
• Barry Deutsch’s “How to Make a Man Out of Tin Foil”
• Lauren Weinstein’s “If This Is All You Get”

They’re well done, insightful, and thought-provoking. There are some additional samples at the book’s tumblr. Looks like it’s going to be some great reading by a slew of talented folks.

They’ve already surpassed their goal of just under $14,000, so at this point, all you’re doing is preording a book for its February release, but there are some nifty art bonuses available. You have just under three days to get it, so don’t delay. There’s even a Christmas card option.