Free Comic Book Day 2007

Hogan · Post by **Hogan** » Tue May 08, 2007 11:25 am

legostargalactica wrote:NO! NO CROSSOVERS! NO MORE!

::runs screaming into the hills::

*joins Lego and invites him into his hillside crossover-secured fortress*

What da man said...

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:04 pm

ryclaude wrote:having a price would kinda defeat the purpose of FREE comic book day.

We used to have to pay $50 a page to get in the book.

A crossover isn't a great idea. It would end up being thirty pages of inside jokes, and only a few people would be showcased. We could showcase fewer authors, perhaps voting on who gets included, but it's hard to get excited about a book of five people representing all of Keenspace. As for the critics, well, it's hard not to ignore someone who complains that a bunch of amatuers look amatuerish, particularly while stacked up against an army of professionals and their editors (and inkers and colorists etc). There were some great ideas for this new book, though, and we should keep trying to come up with more ideas to make this venture more successful.

Col · Post by **Col** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:12 pm

Man, we're more underground than underground comics! They may be calling us amateur now, but down the line, "amateur" is gonna be replaced with "genius!"

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:30 pm

Gotta start somewhere I guess.

Garneta · Post by **Garneta** » Tue May 08, 2007 4:22 pm

I got mine today! Yay!!! (I'm still on a 'comic high')

Skyman8081 · Post by **Skyman8081** » Tue May 08, 2007 5:08 pm

Kat North wrote:I got mine today! Yay!!! (I'm still on a 'comic high')

Are you sure it isn't the inks used to print it? I know that they do tend to smell somethin fierce.

Keffria · Post by **Keffria** » Tue May 08, 2007 5:22 pm

Actually, I approve of a crossover-type idea. I mean, it would be better than just having a collection of what basically amounts to comic advertisements.

Ideally, though, the next sampler would be something more like an anthology, with each artist submitting a story in keeping with some sort of general theme. Probably, we'd have to narrow down the number of participants, too (higher quality control?), in order to give more pages to each artist, thus allowing them to actually make a "story". It wouldn't even be essential for an artist to submit something directly related to their comic - after all, people who pick up the CG sampler and go on to investigate the comics involved are probably wowed chiefly by the art, and the artists submitting to the anthology would presumably use the same style they always do.

But then, it might be harder to get people to commit to something like this; certainly, it would involve more guidelines/restrictions for people wanting to submit pages... I just think that, yes, it's awesome that my work is in a FCBD sampler, etc., etc., but as a consumer, I'm not sure I'd want to pick something like this up when story comics are free and readily available on Free Comic Book Day.

Tenma · Post by **Tenma** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:11 pm

Got mine today too. Looks great, although now I wish I'd used more of that vertical space.

Ryuko · Post by **Ryuko** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:17 pm

Yeah, that's the problem. Paging through it, it was difficult to see everything cuz some just fell through while I flipped. It would be good to get a book with about five-ten stories in it. With the amount of pages we had, it'd be about 5-10 pages per story. That would work quite well. Unfortunately, it would make for a lot of hurt feelings when people submitted and didn't get in. I would think the best idea would be to submit story ideas and/or scripts and have someone read it over. Conduct it like some sort of contest.

EmergencyExit · Post by **EmergencyExit** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:24 pm

Got mine today, was surprised to get 5 copies, pretty awesome. All the pages look great. Though I'm no longer the artist for SF *guilt*. It's been a great experience though thanks for having me!

The Mortician · Post by **The Mortician** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:32 pm

I must ask, NJ... was that Eleazar near the Naga on the Super Freaks page?

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:33 am

Ryuko wrote:Unfortunately, it would make for a lot of hurt feelings when people submitted and didn't get in. I would think the best idea would be to submit story ideas and/or scripts and have someone read it over. Conduct it like some sort of contest.

To be honest, sometimes you have to say "fuck them" if you are going for a high quality product. If you keep compromising your standards to make John Q. Artist happy, you'll just end up with the same old crap you tried to prevent in the first place.

Col · Post by **Col** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:43 am

Ryuko wrote:Yeah, that's the problem. Paging through it, it was difficult to see everything cuz some just fell through while I flipped. It would be good to get a book with about five-ten stories in it. With the amount of pages we had, it'd be about 5-10 pages per story. That would work quite well. Unfortunately, it would make for a lot of hurt feelings when people submitted and didn't get in. I would think the best idea would be to submit story ideas and/or scripts and have someone read it over. Conduct it like some sort of contest.

I like that idea, as longer stories would only help the book. And setting it up as a contest or voting after everyone makes their pages makes sense.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Wed May 09, 2007 4:23 am

The Neko wrote:
Ryuko wrote:Unfortunately, it would make for a lot of hurt feelings when people submitted and didn't get in. I would think the best idea would be to submit story ideas and/or scripts and have someone read it over. Conduct it like some sort of contest.
To be honest, sometimes you have to say "fuck them" if you are going for a high quality product. If you keep compromising your standards to make John Q. Artist happy, you'll just end up with the same old crap you tried to prevent in the first place.

Depends on your goal.

If you want to just make the best possible comic book, then yes - you pick only the best artists out of ComicGenesis.

If you want to showcase what is available at ComicGenesis, then you should pick from the entire artistic pool.

I think if you only pick the best artists, it ceases to be a ComicGenesis free comic book. The best way to go that route is to go back to charging $50 for a page. The free comic book becomes an advertisement for those comics who want to pay for the privlege of being published.

That way has it's merits. I prefer the way we did it this year though. The art wasn't as good as many of the other FCBD comics out there, but on the other hand, it really was representative of what ComicGenesis is - a gathering of artists of all skill levels that welcomes newcomers.

Cortland · Post by **Cortland** » Wed May 09, 2007 6:48 am

Doing a book with 5-10 page comic stories would be a great idea, and I think it would make a much stronger book for next year, but artists chosen for the book would not only have to be good, but reliable. Several artists who had pages for this year's book wound up dropping out for one reason or another. Others had problems getting their pages in on time due to real-life responsibilities, or whatever reasons. It was easy to find replacements for one or two pages here and there, but if an artist is given seven pages in next year's comic and suddenly can't come up with them on time, it'd going to be a nightmare trying to fill them back up. The best solution would be to start finding artists now and getting set on deadlines to make sure everyone is on track.

As for ads, we could still set aside individual pages for artists who couldn't make it into the book to buy space and help promote their own comics. If we start earlier on selling ad space and promoting the book, I have a feeling we'll do even better raising revenue this time around.

Ryuko · Post by **Ryuko** » Wed May 09, 2007 8:55 am

rkolter wrote: Depends on your goal.

If you want to just make the best possible comic book, then yes - you pick only the best artists out of ComicGenesis.

If you want to showcase what is available at ComicGenesis, then you should pick from the entire artistic pool.

I think if you only pick the best artists, it ceases to be a ComicGenesis free comic book. The best way to go that route is to go back to charging $50 for a page. The free comic book becomes an advertisement for those comics who want to pay for the privlege of being published.

That way has it's merits. I prefer the way we did it this year though. The art wasn't as good as many of the other FCBD comics out there, but on the other hand, it really was representative of what ComicGenesis is - a gathering of artists of all skill levels that welcomes newcomers.

I think you're right, this year's work represented a lot of different interests in CG, and it really was a good picture of who is on CG. And it's not just about getting the best artists, because there's such a variety of styles here. I think that it would also be good to get people who have strong writing skills and not-so-strong art skills. We're all hobbyists here anyway, really.

I really dislike the fifty bucks per page thing, and not only because I don't have fifty bucks. It reduces the book to an equation of more money=better than and it doesn't work at all. Your average person with fifty bucks doesn't exactly represent the community accurately.

It's not necessarily just about getting the best-looking book out there, it's about getting the best-quality book that we can. That means putting a variety of art and writing styles in there. I think this could work, and I think that cort is right. We should start NOW.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Wed May 09, 2007 10:33 am

I don't find that having our best artists at the top of the list would be a problem.

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Wed May 09, 2007 11:49 am

I'm currently downloading a digital copy of the book. (Despite the fact that my shop did order it, I didn't manage to get a hard copy.)

If anyone still doesn't have a copy, I am willing to host it on my site for you to download provided it's OK with Cortland and company.

Mon Ami · Post by **Mon Ami** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:42 pm

I've not gotten mine yet.

Reading through the general masses of suggestions..why not use both ideas. We have such a multitude of stories and genres of comics that are with Comic Genesis, that perhaps it would be good to group like genres of comics and have them collaborate together. That way you can have a good chunk of creators to represent CG in the next FCBD Edition, but still have the benefit of having longer sets for each story.

Hell, if it is a collaboration, that means that you could have the top artists draw the stories, but still have the involvement of everyone that has their character included to help with the story line, and even split the art if they really wanted to between the 'better' artists so that each person gets a page to draw.

For example, there could be a story with Superheroes/heroines that lasts for 5-10 pages where you could have all the hero/ines from the ComicGen Universe get together and kick some majour butt, all collabing to come up with something fabulous and still be all involved.

Then you could have another where all the gag-a-day comics get together and have all their characters joining up in a bigger plot line.

Another could be fantasy, horror, manga, etc~~~

You would still have the longer plot collaborations, but it would not be so intricate as one majour plot throughout the whole book. Nor would it be that choppy that it would be a one page spread for each online comic.

Just a thought ._.:

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:16 pm

I have the digital copy now, just waiting for an OK from Cortland, and I will post it.