Finding myself feeling frustrated this month. I think it kicked off when I had a disappointing phone call with the Frazettas.
I had been given Frank Frazetta’s phone number by Frank Frazetta Jr. (which was pretty exciting and scary). I was told to speak with Mrs. Frazetta. I called her and told her I’d been given her number by her son, and had he told her about my situation? No, he hadn’t. I suddenly felt so spellbound and confused, I didn’t know what to say, or where to start.
I began to ask about commissions, and she said he wasn’t doing commissions. I started to ask about letting me pay for publishing rights of one of her husband’s previously drawn monster drawings. I began to describe my book, and all the names who had given me pin-ups so far. She asked what company I was with. I told her I was a self-publisher, and told her about my book with Sam Kieth for Oni. She said she wasn’t interested, and that I had interrupted their dinner. And that was my call with the Legendary Frank Frazetta! Oh how humiliating and embarassing. Good work, Chrissy!
* * *
I sent out a mailer, and was given lots of GREAT advice by a noted comics store owner, who really knows the business. It’s so overwhelming, because there’s just so much to do, and I don’t really want to do all this business work. I just want to draw. I just want to write.
So the advice was sobering and frustrating. It made evident all these things I feel like I’m doing wrong, or not doing. Even though it was all good, important advice. I feel like I want to just have someone be able to do it all for me, but whenever I try and go out to conventions, or send out emails to publishers, no one is interested in me as a commodity.
Here’s the advice he gave.
Come up with a concise catch-phrase to describe my book. Always list the book title, size, format, price, and item number. Make advertising tools available to stores at my website, such as flyers, posters, etc. Work with my distributor to offer deals to stores, such as, “If you buy so many of these, I’ll give you one of these.” And basically be relentless and work my ass off about forcing the project out there onto people.
He is the man who gave me an in to what I call the comics secret society. It’s actually called the Comic Book Industry Alliance, or CBIA. It’s a website for comics industry professionals only, including a lot of stores, and I can post when I release books, or have promotions or whatever. So I posted a blurb about my upcoming Lump trade paperback, and no one commented on it, so I posted my previously published Doris Danger monster book, and a couple people commented on it, but no one tried to order it. One person recommended I be careful about offering too good a deal, because then stores will just order through me, and my distributor’s orders will come down and not make the minimums, and then I’ll screw myself out of having a distributor. Too true, except… As it is, my orders suck enough at Diamond that they have a perfectly good right to dump me already. And to slap me while I’m down, no one bothered to take me up on the good deal I had offered anyways.
I just don’t know how to get my books out there in people’s hands. I feel like I try, and no one’s interested. And why should they be? I’m an unknown, and there are so many great, great artists out there doing professional books for big companies, that people actually hear about and are interested in. Am I doomed to just keep trying, and no one will ever be interested, or is there honestly an audience out there that’s just itching to find me, but just hasn’t found me yet?
I’ve been trying to get my humongous Doris Danger treasury distributed for bookstores. I sent a copy and a cover letter to my distributor, at his request, and he said he’d forward it to their bookstore representative. He said it would probably take a few weeks to get word back. After a month I checked in, and my distributor said no word yet, but he wasn’t expecting anything, in part because the bigger format is a tougher sell to bookstores. I replied by saying, “Man, this is a tough industry. There are sixteen big-industry names attached to that book, and you’re telling me bookstores still don’t think they can sell it.” He wrote again to say bookstores are looking for content and a hook. So I read the email a few times. And I’m feeling negative and thinking. Content: there are FIFTEEN PIN-UPS by THE GREATEST ARTISTS IN COMICS, and stories INKED BY THE GUY WHO INKED THE ORIGINAL GIANT MONSTER GENRE FORTY YEARS AGO. Hook? Drawings of giant monsters by MIKE MIGNOLA, SAM KIETH, LOS BROS HERNANDEZ, TONY MILLIONAIRE, GENE COLAN, JOHN SEVERIN, MIKE ALLRED, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, RYAN SOOK, STEVE RUDE… And besides, it’s KIRBY-STYLE GIANT MONSTERS! It’s like, is he saying my books just don’t have any content, and I need to come up with something decent for my subject matter?! He’s my representative. Shouldn’t he appreciate what I’m doing?
And of course, that’s not what he’s saying. But DAMN…
Add to this that I got the order numbers for my Lump Trade Paperback, and they were very low. A piddly 142 sales. It makes me feel like I must personally know every one of those people who ordered it, those numbers are so low.
Keep in mind, this is the first comic story I wrote and completed, and I really think it’s such a hell of a good story. It’s got everything I like to see in a story: lots of shadows, private detectives, mad scientists, creepiness, disturbing images and ideas, mad scientists, a barn full of bodies, mystery, pseudo-intellectual post-modernism. I was very proud of the story’s construction and subject matter. And producing this story is so important to me. And it got nothing.
My wife tries to force me to look on the bright side, and she points out that even though the numbers were smaller, the more expensive cover price made me more money than four of my five Tabloias. But on the other hand, that book cost me $4831.75 to print and get mailed to me. I made back $806.70 from those pathetic 142 sales. So my most personal, most personally important comic was my worst financial hellhole yet, with an utter, instant loss of $4000. That’s a lot of money. I’ve been told by other self-publishers that you lose money on the comics you print, but you can make your money back with the trades. So I’ve managed to make MINUS FOUR THOUSAND on the books that you’re supposed to make your money back!
Believe it or not, I still felt pretty proud that I made that 800 bucks…
* * *
If I settle down and take a deep breath, I’m forced to acknowledge that this month hasn’t been all frustrations. When I stop dwelling on all the failed marketing and poor sales I’m doing.
I went to a wedding, and Sam Kieth was there as well, so Elizabeth and I got to spend some time with Sam. This was a real rare treat, because Sam pretty much never comes out for anything, or lets us see him. He told us about his Batman Joker project, and how that’s going to be followed by a Batman Lobo series. He said that’s it for the Batman stuff though, presumably because Batman Joker hasn’t been selling well. Of course, whenever Sam tells you about anything, he makes it sound like nothing is ever going right.
He talked about working on the next story in the Ojo series, “My Inner Bimbo.” This is the book he had originally asked me to do, before I got bumped over to Ojo. He said he’s tried to explain it to people, and they don’t get it. They think it’s a porn book, or they think it’s a gay porn book. He keeps trying to tell them, No, it’s not that, you’ve got to read it, and then it will make sense.
I bugged Sam, because he wouldn’t let me take a picture of him at San Diego, and I think he felt guilty about it. So I pointed out that he was dressed up now, and could we do a picture. And he agreed this time. We snapped some fun photos, and before I knew it, Sam and his wife had to leave.
I told Elizabeth after, Sam is one of those people, I could spend a whole lot of time with him, and afterwards, still not feel like I’ve spent enough time with him. I was disappointed, when he left, that he had to go.
I wrote Steranko recently. I keep emailing him on occasion, not because I expect to ever hear from him, but just so I can say I tried. And lo and behold, I check my messages, and Steranko has emailed me. So I timidly, carefully brace myself to check it, half expecting his usual playful insults and meanness, and instead he’s the friendliest I’ve ever heard from him. He wrote as if we were ol’ buddies. I think, Who is this, who got onto Steranko’s computer and replied to his emails? But I know it’s him, because the wit is dry and sharp and sarcastic as ever.
He said he’s really busy, because he just landed a job doing Batman and Superman covers. Wow, that’s quite a gig. He says maybe in a few months! Maybe in a few months? Wow! I write him back to let him know I’ll be at San Diego, and that E and I are having a baby. He writes a second letter! He’s still in his friendly mood, congratulates us on our little one on the way, and visits as if maybe he’ll be doing a pin-up for me! What the hell…Amazing.
I’ve decided to pound out some mini-comics of Dr. DeBunko, and I want them ready for Super-Con May 20-21. I had hoped to get three finished, but I’m barely going to have two ready. Just the same, I think it will be nice to have some new merchandise for my third convention in the Bay Area since February.
I’m really enjoying doing these mini-comics. I think the format looks real sharp. It’s one panel per page, 5 ½” x 4 ¼”. I like that they’re so much cheaper than actual comics, they’re smaller and quicker and easier to read, but they’re still twelve or twenty pages. I’m curious to see if anyone buys them and likes them, and kind of excited about doing more of them.
I realize the limitations of Dr. DeBunko at this point, if I don’t ever get into some characterization. The stories are so formulaic. At some point I’ll have to try some new things (of which I have plenty in mind, incidentally). But screw it, I’m enjoying them as they are for now. I just don’t know how long I can sustain it before people get bored of the formula.
I’m going to try to get three actual comics out in stores by the end of the year. I want to do two sixteen page Doris Danger comics, and a 32-page collection of all the Dr. DeBunko mini-comics and stories from Tabloia. I fear the Dr. DeBunko formula might wear thin if people try to read a full issue of his adventures. It makes me wonder if I might need to include a bonus origin story, or day in the life, or something to make the character less one-dimensional. But I don’t want to think about this kind of thing right now.
I assume Diamond would agree to distribute these three books (two sixteen-page Doris Dangers and a Dr. DeBunko 32-page collection), especially if I publish all three on a monthly schedule. But of course I could be out of luck with that as well. It makes me wonder if I should just screw the self-publishing and do a bunch of minis for a while, since I’m enjoying them so much anyways, and they’re not such an enormous financial loss.