moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Henry Vogel) (07/16/85)
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THE JOYS OF SELF-PUBLISHING
BY
HENRY VOGEL
Someone (I'm afraid I deleted the message before remembering to get your
name) asked - through Jeff Meyer - about the joys of publishing a comic book
yourself. I don't know how well this will work out, but here goes...
ARTISTS
Every comic book needs at least one artist - two if he doesn't double as an
inker, too (the inker doesn't need to be as good an artist as the penciller,
but he should be able to draw). We've had more than our share. Our first one
was Butch (now Jackson) Guice. David (my partner) and I didn't begin publicity
for the book until after Butch signed a contract with us. We sent out announce-
ments giving a June release date. In response, Butch broke his arm. The book
came out two months late. Our second issue was late too. This time it was
because Butch just wouldn't meet our deadlines. Marvel was considering giving
him the Micronauts and he drew our stuff when he "had time." After the second
issue came out, Butch entirely ignored our contract. When we called him, he
told us he would send pages "any day now" but they never came. They never came
because he never did them. That pisses me off whenever I think about it. Marvel
may have paid better, but we had him on contract. There are still times I wish
we'd taken him to court, but I think that would have been a mistake in the
long run - probably expensive too.
Our next penciller was Mike Morrisson - now reason for you to have heard of
him, he only did two issues of the Knights and that's all he's ever done in
comics. Mike wasn't as good as Butch, of course, but he did do the work. The
only problem Mike caused concerned a compliment I passed on to him. Our inker
was Sam Grainger who had inked for Marvel previously. One of the people he
inked was George Perez when he first broke into comics. Sam told us he thought
Mike's pencils reminded him of George's earliest pencils. I passed that on
to Mike one day and the next time I talked to him he wanted a raise. After all,
his pencils were as good as Perez's early stuff! We got a new penciller.
Chuck Wojtkiewicz has been our penciller since then and he has - for the most
part - been fun to work with. He draws my stories the way I would if I could
draw and when he adds things to the story, they improve it rather than become
an obstacle to be scripted over. Chuck has caused his share of problems, but
he has also usually been reasonable with us when we worked toward a solution.
DISTRIBUTORS
No comic can succeed without distributors. Unfortunately, I've gotten the idea
that many distributors think they can succeed without comics! Considering that
they are in the business of selling comics (or selling in general) you'd think
these people would know something about comics (and selling in general). Some
of the distributors do know what they're doing - like Diamond and Bud Plant.
Some of them don't seem to know anything (I won't mention any names here).
One distributor sent us an order for #1 several months after its release. We
no longer had enough copies to fill the order completely, so we filled it as
best we could. We assured the distributor that this wouldn't be a problem with
the next issue as we were going to increase our print run significantly just
to make sure we could fill their order. They, of course, didn't order the next
issue. Their reasoning? We couldn't fill their order before, so we wouldn't be
able to fill it now - even though we had TOLD them we were increasing the
print run just to fill their next order! The biggest pain is getting paid.
Diamond shown out like a diamond in mud here because they paid within a month
of receiving the books. They are the ONLY distributor we never had to send a
reminder to (Bud Plant only got one, but he also took his time paying). There
were times we lost all our profit through phone calls demanding payment.
Seagate was extremely bad about that! A few times, we heard from stores that
wanted more copies to the Knights but couldn't get them through their distribu-
tor. Not wanting to undercut the distributors, we would call their distributor
and tell them about it. Even with a guaranteed sale, many times they wouldn't
re-order. They would sell out of the book within a day and were thrilled. Look!
We sold them all - now we won't be stuck with any! So what if there are orders
for another 400. This sounds rediculous, but it happens a lot. From the point
of view of the publisher, the people least capable of distributing comics are
the ones doing it.
THE FUN
Lest you think publishing a comic is all problems, rest assured there is a lot
of fun involved, too. Your first favorable review (which we got for our first
issue) is great! There is no way I can convey the way I felt when I read that
first review. We didn't see another review until our fourth issue came out.
Between those reviews, though, we became local celebrities. A friend of my
partner wrote and article about us for a local newspaper which spurred the
other (much better) local newspaper to send a reporter to interview us for
an article for their paper. That got one of the local TV stations in on it
and we appeared in a short spot on the evening news. Then a local TV freelancer
(he did work and then tried to sell it to various stations in the area) got
in touch with me and did a rather long story on me which, I'm told, was quite
successful in Atlanta. Andy Worhal (sp?) says everyone is famous for 15 minutes
and I guess I've had mine, now... Eventually, we saw another review of the
Knights. This time by Don Thompson of the CBG. In the review he called us
one of the top five or six super-hero team books. I walked on air for a long
time! I could easily think of five other super-hero team books that I read and
enjoyed - and he was putting US in with them! Wow! He also continues to give
us good reviews.
The most fun, though, is fans. We meet them periodically at conventions and, of
course, through fan mail. It's one thing to know people like your creation,
it's a totally different thing to find out they CARE about it, too! They take
time to write and discuss the characters and how they feel for them. They
take great pleasure in speculating what will come next or what you've got
planned for certain characters. Fan speculation may be the best part - it's fun
to know just how close they actually come to the truth (sometimes very close,
sometimes so far off you have trouble keeping a straight face).
IS IT WORTH IT?
Are all the problems I've discussed worth the fun I've mentioned? I think so!
For all the problems we suffer through (and there have been many) nothing can
replace the feeling of actually taking an idea and turning it into something
tangible. I don't regret doing this one bit. Even if it all folds up and dies
in the near future, I've done something most people can't or won't. I've also
discovered an aptitude for comics and hope to make a career of it. Too many
people who are knowledgeable about comics say I'm good for me to ignore them.
Whether I succeed or not, I've at least given it a shot (God, that sounds
corny)!
Henry Vogel
henry%clemson.csnet@csnet-relay