Form a Band

Warren Ellis via Bad Signal, “Building the Imperfect Beast,” 08-12-2008

Okay, I’m pretty sure I did do this last year, but I
think it’s reconfigured in my head since then. So.

What you need is one writer and three artists.
Essentially, you decide to Form A Band.

And you decide up front that all the money from
the anthology comic is divided 4 ways equally.
This is for simplicity’s sake — people argue this
point with me all the time, but I have had
publishers say to my face that they avoid
anthologies, especially creator-owned ones,
because THE SUMS ARE TOO HARD. Keep
it simple. 25% for everybody.

What you’re going to do, you see, is one writer
writing three serials for three artists.

You’re doing a two-dollar book. That’s FELL format.
A 24pp unit, all on the same paperstock, including
covers. “Guts” of 20pp, with the “cover”, constituting
4pp, wrapped around it, yes?

Three 6pp episodes is 18 pages. Your cover and
inside front cover for indicia etc are 2pp. So that
leaves you 4pp, including the back cover, to play
with. Use them to interleave the serials, use them
as backmatter, let the artists take turns doing
full-page pieces, whatever.

The cover art is a rotating job between the three
artists.

Collect it every six months as a 128pp book (therefore
still splitting everything four ways) or collect each
serial on its own as best fitting (each book therefore
splitting 50/50). (As is blatantly obvious, but people
like to ask these questions instead of thinking for
themselves.)

Go and do it. I need something to read.

Form a band, boys and girls. Form a band.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ellis is nigh a genius. And I know that some people would read this be like, “Well, it’s certainly easy for him to tell others to go make comics.” The fact is, if you have a story, an artist, a scanner, and a little dough and you can make your own comics.

ComixPress is a website that allows indie comic teams, or individuals if you’re that talented, to have their comics made. Not only can you choose the size and format, but ComixPress also allows you to place ads in the comics to make them cheaper for you, and will put them in their store to help you sell them. Beyond that, they aren’t incredibly expensive anyways. Pimp shit, really.

~ by omfgjaron on 24 September 2008.