This post is for all of the newbies for looking for inspiration, and pros who are always happy to hear about progress.
About a year ago, I started posting on comic book forums and on Facebook, trying to gather as much information as I could about producing Indie comics. At first, it seemed a lot more complicated than I'd ever imagined. I witnessed a lot of conversations, and many more arguments, and even participated in both myself. But after realizing that talk was getting me nowhere, and sometimes questions were more harmful than action, I decided to actually put my money where my mouth is and get started.
I spent a few weeks working out character development ideas with a gentleman that I have met on Facebook. I paid him to draw out the first versions of my characters and to help me develop the idea of how they should look. Eventually we would close that project, and he mailed me the actual drawings (something that I will show off in the future once we get a little further down the line) and I started working on my script.
I originally had an audio drama script that I had written back in 2014. I used that script as the basis for what is now my comic. At first, I didn't realize that the script needed to be reformatted. You can't just hand lines of dialogue to an artist and expect him to fill in the blanks. So I sat down with my voice to text app and started hashing out the details bit by bit.
The first I started with an outline, deciding which actions I wanted to take place. Then I intertwined that outline with dialogue, and copy the entire page into chat GPT. As we all know, AI doesn't do a very good job and will only get you about 85% of the way, but it's still a pretty decent tool for stuff like this. it can also be very frustrating, as it kept trying to steer the story off into strange directions or changing details that I didn't want change, or worse ADDING details that were completely irrelevant and unwarranted.
But I'm a pretty diligent person so I decided to work one page at a time. I would take my dialogue and outline, and run it through GPT, and then I would take the format that it spit out and rewrite it to my liking. Sometimes I would have to redo the whole page, sometimes I just needed to make minor adjustments, but eventually, I ended up with about 38 pages.
From there, I got a few people to proofread my script. I got no major objections, and we did some spell checking and grammar checks before moving on to the next step.
Once I was satisfied with the dialogue and the script, I started sending samples to potential artists on fiverr.com
The reason I chose Fiverr is because I wanted to shop for people's work, seeing what their previous works were and what their professionalism level was at. I am not a very good artist, and I'm not the best business professional in the world either. But I know what I want and I know I don't want to argue with someone who has thin skin. Fiverr serves as a good wall between me and potential clients who may not be right.
I was also able to shop within my price range. I learned on Facebook fairly quickly that a lot of people are pricing themselves out of work. They're just asking for way too much for what they're doing, and it's not very balanced. I'm not trying to scam people, but I'm not trying to pay $175 a page for basic artwork either.
Eventually I would find an artist whose work was really impressive and jumped out at me. So I contacted her and started my order for the first page. Boy was I blown away! The sequential art, attention to detail, and overall skill that was delivered from that first page has me hooked. Her professionalism and ability to adapt and take initiative when needed also made me feel like I was in safe hands. I'm not really comfortable with telling people how to do what they're doing, as long as they're willing to take instruction about what it is that I want, ultimately.
Fortunately with this artist I've made very few corrections in the sketching process, and never once did she try to inject her own philosophy into my project. In the end, I really do feel like this was a work that I produced with the help of a master illustrator. (I'm sure that if I keep praising her work the way I am, I'll eventually price myself out of being able to afford her help).
I also commissioned two other artists for specific parts of the book. I realized that just because you're good at drawing comic book characters doesn't necessarily mean you're good at drawing cityscapes, so I hired someone who demonstrated special ability in drawing cityscapes. I also commissioned a few pages of art from a second artist who would serve as a backup. I wanted someone who could draw in a similar style, whom I could put the work in the same book and not have it be too jarring, even if they'll work was slightly different. I ended up using her for the prologue, separating her style from the main story.
I did a lot more experimentation. I created a web version of the comic as a teaser to try to generate interest on sites like webtoon and tapas. I also started a substack page (thelastdaycomic.substack.com) and launched an Indiegogo campaign to help raise funds for the project. With the Indiegogo campaign I was able to raise about a third of the cost needed to push this over the line. This meant the world to me, as I was going through a lot of financial problems at the time, and my backers really came through for me.
When it came to publishing, I feel like I got off easy. I found an online publisher who was willing to speak with me on the phone and help me walk through my insecurities and ignorance. They were incredibly graceful and helped me to understand how the process worked and how to avoid mistakes or fix mistakes once they were made.
There were some mistakes that I made early on that will be corrected later down the line. For instance, our original art files were scaled for manga books and not for American comics. It's a small fix, which leads to having a wider margin at the top or bottom, but we will adjust for this in the next issue. It's nothing that kills the project.
After all of this, I'm happy to say that I received my first shipment of books about a week ago. I ordered a small batch because I wanted to see if I was doing the printing process correctly before investing more money. And I'm pretty happy with what we got. I was able to sell a few copies of this first printing, autographed for $20. And there were a few enthusiastic buyers right away.
One of my local state reps bought one after his son told him about it, and because I based my character on '80s and '90s Michael Jackson, I got one autographed by Branson's premier Michael Jackson impersonator. I also gave him one to hang up on his wall. So it's a overall cool experience. I'm also in talks with some local comic book shops about carrying the book on their Indie space. Hopefully I'll be able to build a local fan base this year!
I'm on my way to order my second printing, and I couldn't be more excited. I hope this story inspires you to keep moving forward, to stay creative, and to always be innovative. There's a solution to every problem you'll encounter along the way, if only you will see it in front of you.
God bless, and go do something great!
Shae
PS:
You'll be able to get your copy of the last day comic very soon. Release date is not specific yet but it will be available in August. For information on where and how to get copies, follow me on this substack or on my website www.thelastdaycomic.com
I just read TLD. I enjoyed it. Keep it up!