Living With Insanity

Okay, first off, for those of you not aware, you can now post comments without signing up. I’m hoping this time the spam bots won’t plague the site. If all goes well, any reader will be able to tell us whatever they want.

Right, onto the blog. Today I wanted to talk about webcomics.com and their new subscription policy.

As some of you may or may not know, the site went up a while back as a way for Scott Kurtz and friends (Or as they call themselves, the Halfpixel crew) to share tips and techniques with other webcomic developers, as well as other people submitting articles on making strips, website maintennance and promotion.There are a couple hundred articles on the site, and it seems to be doing well.

So it was decided it would only be accessed by being paid for.

Yes, these wants people to pay $30 a year for articles other people have written, for free, which they will not be paid for. The only compensation any of us will get is that we are allowed to say that we don’t want our articles to be put on the site. We don’t get a share of the profits, we don’t get a small fee for our efforts and I personally think that’s a little wrong. Sure, I wrote six articles and there are about 200, meaning anything I get would be miniscule, plus what I wrote probably won’t be looked at much, but it’s like a magazine. The editors pay every contributor, no matter how many people read the articles and no matter how much money the magazine makes, because people are still paying for it.

And in this case, the profit margin is going to be wide. What costs do they have? The website. So they need to pay for the domain and hosting. If about four people subscribe, then they have enough. More than that? They’re making money. Where is this going? They say they’re going to be making improvements, but what are they? As far as I know, this money is just going to be used to fatten up their wallets, so it makes me a little weary.

And honestly, even if I knew what they were doing, I don’t think I would sign up. Sure, it’s only $2.50 a month, but webcomics.com hasn’t taught me much. I mean, sure, once in a while they gave me something useful, but the rest of it was about conventions, which I can’t attend, merchandise, which I can’t make a profit from until i get more readers, things I can’t afford or tips and techniques I already knew.

And then there’s the fact that, well, I only like one comic from the half pixel people. Aside from PvP, the comics just bore me and don’t really have much appeal. It’s the same reason why I haven’t bought How to Make Webcomics. How am I supposed to take advice from the guys who can’t get me to read their comic and buy their shirts?

But, Scott did link me, which I think is a fair payment, because I could always use some readers, so I’m not going to be demanding any money. I would like another link though, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get anything else out of this.

Anyway, you guys sign up if you want to, but I don’t think I’ll be going near webcomics.com for a while.

Until next time, take care.

~ David

So, it’s finally been year. Holy shit, that went by fast.

Looking back, I think we’ve had a pretty good start. The comic has its own site, a first for me. We get thousands of hits daily. We got linked by some of my favourite comics (One of which broke the site, but that’s not Scott’s fault. That’s Dreamhost’s fault for not getting back to me). And best of all, it’s being drawn by one of the greatest people to collaborate with. Seriously, Paul is not only a great artist, but also the most reliable guy I’ve worked with.

As for what will come next? I’m not sure. More readers, hopefully. I’m looking into the comicpress code and I might be able to come with a customised layout one of these days. Maybe some merchandise, but at the moment I don’t think we have enough people who would buy anything. There’s a thing with webcomics that at most, 1% of the readership will buy your stuff, so for us that’s between 10 and 30 people. Plus, you have places like Cafepress that make you charge $20 which they keep. But, I am always working to get our numbers up on the low budget I have, plus we seem to be climbing all the time, so who knows, by this time next year we might be bigger than Penny Arcade (hah)

Anyway, it’s been a fun year, lots of new experiences for me and I still love doing this. Hopefully, you guys love it as well. 2009 has been a great year, so let’s hope 2010 is even better. Not just for me, but for you guys as well.

Take care.

~ David

Okay, so you guys probably saw this on the Wednesday update, but it wasn’t up long enough, so I decided to post it on the main blog. I finally had a comic published! You can buy it from Indyplanet and also from comics monkey.

Here’s the credits and synopsis from the site if you guys don’t want to click:

Jeremy Scully – Story
Ryan Kent Paul – Pencils
Bill Nichols – Inks
Lizz Beunaventura – Colors
David Herbert – Letters

Hitman Kenneth Brynes is leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Pulling out all the stops he takes on two hits in one night! As he works hard for his paycheck FBI agents Kevin Fries and Dana Jones investigate his latest rounds of chaos. Can they piece together the pieces of the puzzle before the bodycount rises?

FBI Agent Kevin Fries relentlessly pursues an elusive assassin. He now comes closer than ever before but at what costs? In the last five years he has chased this unknown hitman while his personal life has fallen to pieces. Kevin is about to get in much deeper than he ever realized. Political conspiracies and competing hitmen are just the tip of this very unstable iceberg!

So yeah, my first published work. It’s a pretty good comic actually, really makes me wish it wouldn’t cost a fortune to ship some indy titles over here. Oh well, please buy it online, or go to your local comic shop and tell them to order it from Comics Monkey. This is my first work and it’s a good series, so I would love it if it did really well. But if you can afford it, just head over to the comic shop and ask them to get some copies. You won’t have to spend a cent and you’d be helping out just by getting the comic onto the shelves.

Until next time, take care.

~ David

So, I had this idea for a comic, right? It was called Demonic. It was about a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he’s a superhero. He goes out and kills people, thinking they’re criminals. A woman borrows a cup of sugar, he thinks it’s coke and throws her out the window. Stuff like that. You can see more about it here.

Recently, I have been putting that comic together with a bunch of talented individuals. You can see some of the concepts here, scroll down the for the final design and you can see the pencils for one of the pages here. We had an inker and colourist, were ready to go to Image, and then today the colourist sends me a bomb shell.

Here’s a link to Robert Kirkman’s new series.

FUCK! (Repeated ad nauseam)

It gets worse. While the concept may be that this guy actually is inhabited by a demon, while my guy acts like one, I have friends who swear they can see that this will end up being all in the guy’s head. If that’s the case, which part of me doubts it is but you never know, I have a big problem.

My idea was so awesome, Robert Kirkman stole it. (Kidding)

I have so got to get that made as a t-shirt if it turns out to be true, but in all likelihood it’s just great minds thinking alike.

For those of you wondering, I’m just going to change the name of my guy and leave everything else. It’s still my original idea and if anyone wants to accuse me of ripping off Kirkman, I have the proof that I had my idea first. I’m not calling him a plagiarist, I’m just a little pissed off he had to use that name, because I freakin’ loved the name ‘Demonic’. Sure, I don’t own it, but still, FUCK!

Here’s hoping we can still get Image, Dark Horse, Avatar or one of those places to take us.

In conclusion: FUCK!

~ David

Wow, been a while since I posted here. I meant to do this last week, but forgot about it. Sorry. Also, I’ve moved from only naming my blogs after prose novels to graphic ones as well. I write comics, I should probably show them some love.

So, as some of you may have noticed from the latest arc, things are developing around here. I put it off for a little while, but I’ve finally thrown in some drama and character development into the mix. These are the marks of good writing, but as many webcomic fans know, they can quickly kill a comedy.

As I said in my little notes below each strip, the ‘Epiphany’ arc was directed at me as much as it was to other people. Before writing this story, I was suffering from severe writer’s block while coming up for an ending to the ‘Nell’ arc. Around this time, Brad Guigar came out and claimed Writer’s Block didn’t exist, it was just something from laziness. Now, the type of block he was describing is sort of fake, but he completely mis-interpretted the definition of Writer’s Block. It’s when you come to a point where you cannot see what happens next. I got a little angry at him, dismissing a problem I was having as me being an amateur, but it did make me realise something. I was running low on insane, amusing antics. He wasn’t right about his argument, but he did get me thinking.

I finished of the Nell arc and as Paul started sending the strips, I started to get nervous. I had nothing to send him and it looked like I never would. I asked myself why I couldn’t come up with anything, and got no answer. Then, one night as insomnia gripped me, I tried thinking to the ending I had planned out for LWI, and then working backwards. I realised how much character development there would need to be, and as I lay there for three hours, I had a conversation with myself similar to the one David had in his dream.

It brings me to recall the Order of the Stick reference I mentioned in part three. Belkar was ill, due to a curse, and saw in a dream that he needed to become more. But it’s the passcode that is most relevant. “Evolve or Die.” That was pretty much what seemed to be the future of me writing the strip. If I wanted it to continue, it had to rise another level, gain some interesting characters and be more.

Now, some of you might be worried, understandably, that this means the entire strip will change and suck. Hopefully, that won’t be the case. I’m making sure I take this slowly. It will still be the LWI you know and love, just with more depth. Everyone’s still crazy, weird shit will still be happening, but hopefully it’ll be something everyone will enjoy very much.

I said that this is either going to be the end or the beginning, but I hope this will be so seamless you won’t even know the difference.

~ David