Why is the layout so important? Because how you present your comic will dominate decisions regarding what you can do with it, for long-form comics especially. If you use a typical print format, the comic’s future is heavily linked to the web and print – mobile phones and eReaders will require a lot of effort to slice and dice the pages for that smaller screen. If you go to a three or four panel strip, you are great for web, newspapers and magazines, but may have trouble with mobile phones due to width. Here’s some examples:

Right to left these are finished pages from Dreamless (Ellerton and Crosby), and Freakangels (Ellis and Duffield), along with the pencils from SOLDIERS (McClellan and Montiel). All three images have been formatted to be the same width on this page. The differences in panel usage and size are obvious.

Dreamless is clearly made for print – to put it on a phone, you’ll have to slice it up and a good bit of Sarah’s beautiful artwork will be altered. The top half of the page might be OK, but the bottom half would have to be truncated to fit. The page from Freakangles could transfer – each half is really close and the trimming would be minimal (maybe 10% of each half page). The page from SOLDIERS is just right for mobile devices.

I decided to format SOLDIERS to give it the most freedom in forms of delivery. This format is what I call a Frame, which has a 2:3 ratio that can be scaled up or down. If we want to use it for phones, we scale it down to 360×240. If we want to use it for the web, it’s 800 pixels by 533 pixels. For print we can mix and match sizes to best fit that page.

What else is different? Scrolling. I’ve never been able to read a page oriented comic without scrolling, which I found interrupted the reading experience. If you go to a Frame system, the scrolling goes away.

There is also a third difference, which needs a little demonstration to appreciate.

Print is print. We all know it, love it, and spend each Wednesday reveling in it. But the web is not print. The web can be anything – as static or dynamic as we want. In my research I came across this on Deviant Art by Yves Bigerel (Balak01):

About Digital Comics

Go ahead and click on it, its a great demo on the possibility of using flash to present web comics. I didn’t embed it here because I think it will be a better viewing experience on his page – plus, I want him to get the recognition. Feel free to give him a comment and tell him what you think. He did it again in this fantastic “How To” piece:

About Digital Comics: How To

Yves demonstrates perfectly the incredible difference between a passive reading experience and an interactive dynamic one. And I have to tell you, I really liked reading comics that way. I’ve heard a lot of comments from readers regarding Zuda being so slow to load pages which they blame on Flash (in actuality, it’s the huge graphics files they’re using). Seeing Yves’ demo, I think Flash has a lot to offer.

As a matter of fact, I liked it so much that I decided to bring a similar experience to my webcomic SOLDIERS. It required some script changes, but it was worth it and already being in a Frame format made it that much better and easier. It’s one more thing that sets digital comics apart from boring old print.

You can format you comic any way you want – just be sure you realize what each format type will, and won’t, get you.

P.S. Making a Flash reader like that isn’t hard to do, either – look for a free Whitepaper from us in two weeks with details on how to do it.

1. Wow, That Would be Awesome! So often I hear about what a cool idea this is, or what a great opener that scene would be. And then… Nothing. Your comic has to have a focus. A scene isn’t a story. A cool idea isn’t a lasting comic. The basis of your comic doesn’t have to be huge or world changing, but it has to be there. Whatever it is and in whichever form you choose to tell it, your comic’s premise must be a well that you can keep going back to. Don’t be a one trick wonder.
2. Does the Carpet Match the Drapes? Comics have two components –art and story. And, like peanut butter and chocolate, they need to go great together. So, if you’re writing the next rocking sci-fi adventure and your art is little more than a scribble, you’re going to have a problem. Bad art can be very successful – some of the best webcomics out today are little more than stick figures and doodles. They work because the writing takes advantage of that. The trick is to take your Big Idea and make a conscious decision on what kind of art you need to make it work. If you can do it all yourself, great! If not, don’t be afraid to find a partner.
3. Dude, It Stinks in Here! Have you ever been to a restaurant that had great food but a horrible location? Or maybe a really, really dirty bathroom? Did you want to go back? The website is your restaurant, and it will make or break you. If your comic is fantastic, but it’s too hard to navigate, people will simply give up. Just like hurrying out of that nasty restaurant, people will quickly move from your site to the next. The comic brings them in, the website keeps them coming.
4. Really? You Have a Webcomic? “If you build it, they will come” is a Hollywood myth! If you build it and it’s good, they might eventually find it is more accurate. You need to take control of the game here, my friend. You need to market! You can advertise, if you’ve got money. You can also post on forums, hit social networks, use content sites (del.ici.ous, stumbleupon, digg), send strips in for review, go public with your newspaper, talk it up, hand out business cards – a million ways. There are tens of thousands of webcomics out there, with more created every day. The only way for you to stand out is to stand up and be seen.
5. Own My Own Business? Every single person who makes a webcomic is a business owner. That’s right, you heard me. If you make a webcomic, you are a business owner. The combination of words and art produces a product that has value. Now, what are you going to do with it? Do you have a plan? Nearly all failed webcomics lost it at the starting line – no business plan.
6. That Is So Money! It’s amazing how many people start a webcomic with no idea how they are going to monetize. What is monetize, you ask? It is just what it sounds like: money. What are the revenue models for your comic? What are the revenue models of your brand? What about your forum? Your website? Advertising, merchandise, affiliates, sponsors – tons of ways to make money. You don’t need to take over the world here, but you really should think about how your webcomic will at least pay for itself. Who knows, if you handle it right, it might pay for a lot more than just hosting costs!
7. It’s a Bunch of Tubes, Right? How much do you know about the web? Not HTML – the WEB. Another top reason a webcomic doesn’t last is the creators didn’t understand the web – they kept trying to recreate print. A webcomic isn’t a magazine. You can’t go down to the store and look for it on the rack. You go to a search engine. How does that search engine work? Keywords, quality links, traffic volume, relevance – these are the terms of Search Engine Optimization. And that’s just for starters! If you want to SUCCEED on the web, you need to UNDERSTAND the web.
8. I Didn’t See That Coming. Inflated expectations are a surefire comic killer. Often times a creator starts a comic full of excitement, and then, a few weeks or months into it they just give up. Why? Because they wanted their voices heard and their readership wasn’t getting any bigger. Look, it takes a while. Don’t give up – dig in! Work it! The more effort you put into your comic – in terms of art and business – the better you will do. But it won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy.
9. I Don’t Need no Stinkin’ Partners! Going it alone is almost a guarantee of failure. You need to partner. And that is more than artist and writer. I’m talking web designers, marketers, print on demand services, newspapers, bloggers, even competitors. All of these people can help you to succeed, so don’t be afraid to ask for help. Learn to leverage other people’s skills – you’ll both benefit.
10. Yeah, Whatever Happened to Him? Two words for you: Update Regularly! This is so basic it should be a no brainer, but failure to update happens over and over, time and again. It’s heartbreaking, really. A reader will check for two weeks on average – no update, no reader. Just that simple.

So read and heed, my friends! Take this to heart, avoid the pitfalls, and you too can reach webcomic success.

What Do They Really Do?

Large book/novel publishers pay an advance, provide editorial services, publicize you, arrange the book tours – the whole nine yards. That’s what we all envision publishers do. Comic publishers rarely act this way, except the Big Two and then only for their top talent. Smaller publishers? Forget it. Back end payment, “self publicity” and little to no editorial help. True, some of the new “boutique” publishers offer a few more services – but little payment. Back end rules in small publishing.

So, if you’re not getting paid and you’re not getting editorial support, and you’re not getting publicity – what are you getting? One, you’re getting in Diamond’s Catalog. Two, you get some safety from name association – retailers know that Image or Oni Press won’t take just anyone, Three, they’re handling the printing and shipping arrangements, which is a large up front expense.

Well, that sounds like a lot, you say. I mean, printing can be thousands of dollars! And it’s hard to get into Diamond on your own (especially these days). That’s all true – it’s only worth it if YOU get a return on your investment. So, are you?

Show Me The Money!

Publishers put up the sizeable up front cost to print a comic – and they assume a great deal of risk if the comic doesn’t sell. In return for that risk, they get paid first. You get a part of what’s left.

However the pot is split (percentage or fee are the traditional methods), everyone is fighting over the profits. If you go percentage, around 8-12% of cover price goes to the creative TEAM (not you, the TEAM), and that equals 23-35 cents per copy sold – provided you sell the entire print run. At that rate, you need to sell a lot of comics to make anything other than beer money. The alternative is to go flat fee (Image is reputed to be $2,500/comic). This method is a lot like a small loan – they front the money for printing and distributing and you pay them back plus interest (the fee). So, again, you need to sell a lot of comics to just break even! There is a fantastic analysis of this over at Publisher’s Weekly.

The bottom line: there is no back end. With a small publisher, more often than not, you and your team may work for several months to earn very, very little – if anything at all. Unless you have a runaway hit, your per hour earnings for making a comic will be far below minimum wage.

So, why do it? The only logical reason is to build an audience and hope to get picked up by a larger publisher who will offer you a paid project. Though some do it purely for the vanity of having a published comic and the bragging rights that go with it.

Kirkman/Bendis – The Third Option

The famous Kirkman/Bendis debates (I actually saw the one in Baltimore), pit Big Publisher books against Creator Owned books (through small publishers). I make the case for the third option – self publishing on the web.

That’s right, you heard me. I can tell you, honestly, that you will earn more and get greater exposure on the web than you will through print publishing, and here’s why:

First, less start-up cost and lower price point equals higher return. Print books go for $2.99-3.99 each – in this economy, that’s cutting down the willingness to experiment on new titles, regardless of the publisher. But a dollar is still throwaway money. As a digital comic doesn’t need to be printed, you save a huge chunk of change right there. If you have your own iphone/Android app, you’re looking at a 60% return, if you go through Uclick or iVerse, somewhere around a 30-45% return. That is already beating your print return at a much more accessible price point.

Second, digital books have infinite stock and infinite distribution. A print book has to have a print run and it has to be ordered by a vendor to get on a LCS shelf. When you look at the shelves in the indy area of your comic shop, how many copies are there compared to the X-Men rack? Not that many. And, unless you had a really, really good run – that’s all there is going to be. Digital distribution is infinite. A copy will always be available for anyone who wants to download one. Print comics are like movie premiers – you get that first week only, because next week the new books are coming to take their place. Digital is always there. If it takes 5 months to catch on, well, the first 4 issues are right there waiting for all of those latecomers. A year from now? Yep, still there, ready for download.  It’s entirely possible you will still be earning money from an issue a year after it first comes out. Can print say the same?

Third, a digital comic can go viral. It’s digital! Give it away for a couple of months to get people hooked. As word of mouth builds, change the free downloads to paid downloads. You have much more marketing flexibility when your product is digital. Your reader doesn’t have to go through the hassle of searching through bin after bin of back issues, they just need to go to iTunes/Google/your website and download it. What could be easier? Combine that with the infinite stock/shelf scenario and you have a powerful income generator. Unlike royalties, where an author gets a percentage of reprint sales – this is the actual sale! Your percentage stays the same! The long term income ramifications of the digital system have yet to be truly experienced, but you can easily see it has a great deal of potential.

I have gone the third option and never looked back. If I ever return to print comics, it will be on my own terms cutting my own deal. For now, though, digital gives me better control, freedom, exposure and income than I ever would have gotten from my old publisher.

So stop praying for a call back and register for a website. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Wednesday’s unveiling of the Amazon Kindle DX has caused a lot of speculation – both in and out of the comics community. The salvation of newspapers? The beginnings of the paperless society? Lightweight textbooks? Comic Reader? Here are our comments on the DX and the opportunity it presents for digital comics.

Comic Reader?

Outside of a great 14” tablet computer, there really isn’t much out there for reading comics digitally. A laptop or desktop, while powerful, are fairly unwieldy. The iPhone or Google Android are small and capable – but too small for a number of applications (splash page, anyone?). Netbooks are OK, but again, not exactly right. In all honesty, there is no perfect comic reader – and probably won’t be for a long while. Even the vaporware of the ipod tablet may or may not emerge as the holy grail of comic reading.

These facts boil down to one simple takeaway: If no reader is perfect for comics, then every reader is perfect for comics.

Heresy, I know. But let’s stop looking at this as fans and start looking at it in a business sense.

Good Size

The defacto standard for long-form comics is the portrait format favored by print. While I disagree with this format for digital, let’s face it – a lot of people make their comics in that format and a heck of a lot of print comics are obviously already there. The DX is just the right size for easily bringing print comics to the screen. Being able to directly transfer the comic to the Kindle DX, makes it a lot easier to convert and cuts out the need for slicing and dicing a comic panel by panel to get it all to work. Those two items alone make it superior to the smaller mobile devices.

“But it’s not in color!” the purists scream. That’s right – it’s not. Neither are a whole lot of comics. “No good ones,” the naysayers cry. Really? How about Sin City? Brian Wood’s early works Cous-Cous Express, Couriers, The Tourist, and a little gem called Demo are all B&W. John Byrne did a bunch of black&whites in the early nineties. Love and Rockets? Cerebus? Neil Volke’s Eagle (awesome, by the way). Something more recent, you ask? Terry Moore’s Echo. Queen and Country. Whiteout. Ellis’ Aetheric Mechanics, Gravel, and Crecy. What about the extraordinary new book by Emmanuel Guibert, Alan’s War?

Do I need to go on?

Black and White

The truth is, color comics are expensive to create and expensive to print. As a result of that, most of those who can’t afford to color their work get looked over on the sales table at their LCS. After all, why pick up that B&W when I can get that Cassaday Covered Extravaganza over there for the same prince? But on the Kindle DX, all comics are the same. It is a fantastic equalizer and a terrific chance for a new generation to read some really great stuff – both older works and newer ones.

The Price

“But, it’s $489! I would never pay that to read comics!” Neither would I, to be honest – I just don’t have that much disposable income to devote to comics. But what if you were buying it for another reason? What if someone gave it to you? Part of the Amazon Announcement was the little bitty part about partnering with colleges. Catch that little bit? How about we say it this way: Amazon is going to give the students at four universities their own Kindle DX to jump start the platform. So, that’s what, ten or twenty thousand students with a Kindle in their hands? 80% of the comic reading demographic is 17-29 and college educated, think they’re only going to put textbooks on those things? What about business professionals? Engineers, Lawyers and Doctors are renowned for reference material they have to maintain – the Kindle DX is looking pretty good to them right now. All their references books, tables, charts, case notes all in one lightweight package. How many of them read comics, do you think? How many might be willing to try it now that they don’t have to find and navigate an LCS?

My point is a simple: people may not buy a Kindle DX just to read comics, but it’s a safe bet that people will buy one for a combination of reasons. Maybe comics will be one of them.

As I said at the beginning, no reader will be perfect – at least not for a long while. But the Kindle DX is pretty good. Don’t let it’s flaws prevent you from taking advantage of what it does right. I truly hope that I see a lot of Indy books in the Kindle Store really soon. I look forward to being able to bring a lot of those comics along when I travel. But what I am looking forward to most is for all of these overlooked B&W comics to get the recognition and the distribution they deserve.

All you indy creators would be well served to dig out those old pages, get them professionally scanned, and put your books in Amazon. As soon as my Kindle DX arrives, I’ll be looking for them. I’ll bet a few thousand others will be, too.

The books are already made – go ahead and set them free and see what happens. The results might surprise you.

CNET Review

Click here to view the embedded video.