3. What are some of the advantages of funding your comic through a Kickstarter campaign?
We use Kickstarter as a pre-sales distributor. So in essence, it’s our version of Previews Catalogue. From that perspective it has a lot of advantages. While the actual Previews has a larger reach, we’re still seen by a huge number of people who buy comics. And the percentage of revenue we give to Kickstarter is only a fraction of what we would give to Diamond (and currently we are self-published so there’s no publisher fee/cut). Which means we’re making more on Kickstarter per issue than we would on the stands in a comic book shop. Plus, we still own all of the intellectual property rights, so if someone wanted to turn White Ash into a TV series or a movie, we’d again be the ones making the money.
4. What advice would you give a would-be creator who has an idea for a book right now on how to go from idea to physical comic?
I think it depends on what the creator’s background is and how much experience they have with the art form. But let’s assume for the sake of this question that they’re a writer with a little experience and a decent understanding of the medium. If that’s the case, there two things they need: a finished script and an artist/team of artists to work with. And they won’t be able to get the second without the first.
So start with the script. Don’t just hash around ideas. If you want another professional to work with you, you need to show them what you’re bringing to the table. So write the entire script out. Once you have a script in hand that you think is ready for prime time, then you can go looking for an artist. Jim Zub has a website with some amazing advice for writers (and comic professionals in general). He devotes an entire post to finding an artist. I recommend reading that, and everything else on his blog. But where I’d personally recommend someone go nowadays to find an artist is Twitch Creative. There you watch them live stream their art, chat with them, and get a sense of what they like to draw. This is important, because finding an artist for your book is a lot like dating, you need to be compatible. Just because you’re both great on your own, doesn’t mean you’re going to be great together. Then once you find that partner, get cracking, because making a comic book is a lot of work.
5. For fans of White Ash, is there anything you can give away about where the story and characters are headed?
One of the nice things about self-publishing is that we get to tell the story at my pace. And I’ve really enjoyed taking my time over the first three, extra-long issues, getting to know the characters and the town of White Ash. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy good action sequences. And without giving too much away, I can say we’re going to get a lot of action in Chapter Four. It’s the climax to our first story arc and we’re wrapping some bits up with a BANG…and some slicing…and skewering…and, well, you get the idea.