Comic Book Printing Good News and Bad News for Kickstarter Update

Good News = We are only a few pages from completing the comic book.

Bad News = We are not going to be able to get the physical comic books to you before the end December.

The Good News Explained

The Good news is that we are almost done with the comic book and currently ahead of schedule on getting the final copy ready for printing. We have been working hard to make the changes from the original script to this new and improved one… We are very excited to hear what people think.

The Bad News Explained

We talked to the printers today and it turns out the company we had planned on using has several hidden costs they do not mention in their pricing list online and it turns out their standard turn around time for a order our size is 5 weeks.

We are currently looking for a new printer.

What does this mean to Backers?

More Madman of Magic Questions

I got some more questions via facebook message and YouTube Comments that I felt others might find interesting.  You can see my Last Q&A Session at

jasonloveslife.com/kickstarter-madman-of-magic

Question

How much would it cost to make the comic book in total.

Answer

It is a hard question to answer.
Easily $2,000. According to my research. A starting comic book writer would get paid $1800 and the artist around $2500 (I can find my references on this, but that is what I found online). So for a company hiring people to make the comic book it would be $4,300 (not including a colorist) plus publishing costs, marketing, fixed costs, etc. etc. For us to do it, the biggest cost is our time. For those using kickstarter you have to include Kickstarters 5%, Amazon’s 5%, cost to create rewards, postage, and other costs that pop up.

Not sure if this is what you meant, but I hope it helps.

Question

I love the project, but I am broke and can’t afford to back it.

Kickstarter Madman of Magic Q&A

I have received a lot of questions surrounding my choices with Kickstarter and the Madman of Magic Comic Book project. I figure instead of answering the same questions over and over again, I will share them here for everyone to read.
If you have a question of your own, leave it in the comment section and I will answer them too.

Question

What do you think of Kickstarter?

Answer

Kickstarter is ideal for projects like mine.  My wife and I don’t have any way to raise funding for investing in this project or, at least in our case, not to cover all of it.  With Kickstarter we can pre-sell and see if people are interested in our work.  It turns out they are interested in our project and in a big way.

Question

Isn’t Kickstarter a scam?

Answer

I guess it depends on how you define scam or who’s projects you fund.  I am not sure what happens if a user doesn’t fulfill his backer’s rewards.  Maybe someone could have a project, collect the money, and run.  I am not sure, but the 3 projects I have funded all seem to be fulfilling their rewards

Update # seven: Full Production Mode

Last week we received the Kickstarter funding in our amazon account; which means we can start ordering prints for all of the cool rewards purchased by our backers. T-shirt, posters, and stickers have been put into their appropriate file format and sent off to the various printers. Once the proofs are finalized we just wait to get the final products in the mail. Their has been some revisions on the script for the comic.  We are in the process of creating new images and reorganizing the panels for each page.

The Plan

Brainstorm Mind Map for Story Writing

Now that our Kickstarter campaign has been successful it is time to get into the writing process. When starting the campaign I already had a script for the first comic book, but I am considering doing a rewrite for a variety of reasons.  The main ones being:

1- I am considering not giving away the political elements of the story away in the beginning, but reveal them later.

2- Might want to introduce more secondary characters.

3- Could use more action scenes.

The problem now is that I have to create a script that makes the reader want more, yet feel like a full story in under 24 pages. I am finding the process difficult as I am juggling all the aspects of the main character with his environment and story in my head. I have 30 – 40 pages of notes scattered throughout my notebooks, evernote, and notepad files on my laptop.

Now that I need to get more organized, I have decided to use a technique utilized by several internet marketers; that is mind mapping.

What is a Brainstorm Mind Map?

Comic Book Flow Dissidence

When I was a child I collected comic books. These stories were great for my young mind.  I found them mimicking the fantasy life I lived in my own head. The writing was easy to understand, the plots were exciting, and the illustrations allowed me to see into another world. With all my love for them there was one thing that always turned me against comic books and that was confusing panel order or confusing imagery.

How are panels confusing?

Confusing panels happens when the reader is unsure of what panel to read next or is unable to understand what is happening in between the panel; this does not include bad drawings or where a person is unable to recognize objects in a panel.  When the reader is unable to make an easy decision on what panel, word bubble, etc to read next they are temporarily pulled from the story and causes what I call “flow dissidence”.

What is “Flow Dissidence”?

Digital Image Comics Submissions

I sent a message to Image Comics submissions asking what format is best for them.  This is the response I got:

Thank you for submitting to Image Comics. Due to the extraordinary number of submissions we receive, it is impossible for us to respond to each and every one. We do look at every submission, but in the interest of time, we can only respond to those submissions we are actually considering for publication.

Thanks,

Image Comics

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The thing that bothers me is if they can’t take 20 seconds to answer my simple one sentence question how do I know they are going to actually look at my comic book proposal.  I would hate to waste two days putting together a perfect proposal in return not having them read it.  Are image comics submissions looked at?

I better get working on that proposal.