Aside from spending late nights working on my pages, I’ve been doing research on writing press releases, PR, marketing and distribution.  It’s a ton of stuff to take in. In my search for information I’ve come across a few sites that might be useful to anyone who is making their own graphic novel. Happy trolling! Is that an oxymoron?

Great Self-Publishing articles

This one was emailed to me.  It’s a series of four articles written about self-publishing an anthology comic by Sam Costello called Split Lip.

Sam Costello – On My Own in Independent Comics

Next, I found Lars Martinson, a Xeric Grant winner who wrote some interesting posts on self-publishing. He wrote and drew a graphic novel called Tonoharu: Part One. Here’s his series on How he self-published his graphic novel:

Lars Martinson – How I Self-Published a Graphic Novel

Third, I’ve been reading all kinds of articles written on Midwestbookreview.com. There is a huge resource for self-publishers talking about everything from distribution to marketing your book. Here is a link to the giant list of informative articles:

Advice for Writers & Publishers

Hopefully that can tide you over until I can get around to finishing my next coloring tutorial. Sorry to dash your hopes against the pavement.

- Jason

P.S. Please keep sending in your pin-ups. I’ve received some great ones already that I can’t wait to share here.

P.P.S. Remember, Ian, who wrote a guest post for reMINDblog.com about finding artists for your comic? Well, he started a kickstarter campaign and he needs to raise $500 in order to get the funding for his book. This book prooves that he knows what he’s talking about because he has some great artists in it. Go over to kickstarter and check it out.

P.P.P.S. If anyone wants to join the reMIND monthly mailing list to get your name added to the random drawings, receive email updates, special offers and news, then opt in by clicking below and filling out the form. This is the best way for me to keep in contact with you so please take a moment to join. No spam. I promise! Unsubscribe at any time.

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Last week I said I’d start posting page specific info under the pages but I decided to change my mind again. I’ll keep all my long winded jabbering here on the blog so I don’t have to write two posts. Just trying to keep you on your toes. Click the image below to see the new pages then swing back here for more info below.

This page was one of the last pages I colored before I took a long break from reMIND back in 2009. I made some minor adjustments to it before posting it and was tempted to dial every color around resulting in a completely new piece. I saw myself opening a massive can of worms so I quickly deleted all the new color tests to stick with the original. It’s hard because I feel like I’ve learned so much about color in the last year that some of my older pages feel flat. I used to enjoy making the colors really flat because it was the only way I knew how. Not saying I’m way better now, just more daring I think.

Well, hope your ready to move forward with the story now. I know I am, and trust me, it gets crazy. More stuff will be revealed soon, so bare with me.

This week I finally finessed 6 pages that have been giving me a run for my money. I finally cracked the color pallet and I’m very relieved. To celebrate, I whipped open my sketchbook and frantically scribbled thumbnails for book 2 of reMIND knowing that it still needed lots of figuring out. I can’t do thumbnails very long because they drain on my brain. I’m happy to say I figured out some of the stranger pages.

On the other hand, I’ve been a bit antsy this week because I should be hearing from the Xeric Foundation soon regarding their decision to give me $5000 in grant money to help print reMIND. If they decide to give me the cash, it will relieve sooooooo much financial pressure on this project. Wow.

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The Phoenix Requiem

So last week I decided to be really bold and email two of the top notch webcomics out there to introduce myself. These guys get hounded by webcomics all the time, trying to share links or get free promotion so I knew I could easily just be ignored. To my surprise, both of them responded right away with kind words about my comic. Sarah Ellerton of The Phoenix Requiem tweeted a link to reMIND the next morning sending over 100 visits alone.

Later that day she plugged my comic on the front page of her site sending a massive throng to devour and savor tender Victuals. I’m super grateful for how willing talented people are to support this project in it’s early stages. If any of you are not already coming from Phoenix Requiem, then you’ve really gotta see what an amazing graphic novel she is doing. It’s massive and very professional unlike 99% of the webcomics out there.

I’ll talk about who the other top notch webcomic is next week.

Oh yeah, since Sarah showered kindness on reMIND I’ve gotten so much traffic that I’ve moved up to number 3 on the ComicBlogElite! I took a screen capture just to prove it.

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T-shirt Update

Last week I was emailed to see if any more shirts were left. I still have about 5 medium and 5 large left. If anyone wants one just donate at least $19 and let me know the size and your address. This pays for shipping and handling too. If you are in Europe (as many of my last buyer were) then please add an additional $9 to your donation to cover the shipping charges.

Recap: $19 for US. $28 for Europe. Only Medium and Large in stock. Here is a picture incase you missed it last time. Front and back.

[EDIT]   Only 1 medium and 2 large shirts left now.

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One of reMIND’s true fans, Andy Bailey, sent me an email saying he got his t-shirt. He attached a cool picture of his placement of reMIND postcards at his restaurant in the U.K. Check it out! Thanks for the pic Andy! In case your interested, Andy has a wordpress plugin called CommentLuv. Download it at comluv.com.

If anyone is brave enough, I’d love to see some pics of you wearing your reMIND shirts. I’ll post them here so my 20 fans can appreciate it as well. Come on, you know you want to be internet famous.

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Last but not least, please vote for reMIND at TopWebComics. If you do, I’ll show you a panel of the next page. Here’s a link:

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I’d like to say these pages were easy but… well, I’m still not sure if they are finished. In fact all these back story pages have gone through so many revisions that it’s a wonder I’m even able to post anything. This blog has been one of the key motivations for locking things down so I’m grateful to all of you for reading and coming back expecting more. It keeps me on schedule.

So for example with these pages, at first Victuals was suppose to be a peasant at this part and so I gave him a hand woven bed and nothing special in his room. There was no crab claws in the right side at first either. Originally Victuals woke up to the dog’s warning and then noticed his room was trashed. The following pages were him running to the palace to see if the king was alright but that never made much sense to me and I kept coming back to it wondering how to make it work. I wasn’t planning on revealing a giant crab again until later but hey. So with the changes, I was planning on adding decorative decor to his room much like Cyrene’s room but somehow I imagine Victuals still being humble in his personal life. Plus, hand woven organic mattresses are the most comfortable. It makes enough sense to me anyway.

Now on the left side, I’m still a bit unsure. It seems to me like the SMASH sound should be above the crab hands so you read it first then move down to the crab hands and then to the broken door. I could always move the crab hands down a little to make this work. Let me know if I’m thinking too much about this. Or maybe I not thinking enough. I just like the composition like this with the middle of the panel a bit empty. Any thoughts would be well received.

Coloring Tutorials Finally!

The most common question I am asked is how I color my pages. I’ve been holding off for a while because it’s just too complicated to talk about in one post. Don’t worry though, I’ve been listening and I’ve been writing an 8 part series where I show my full process from the final line art to a finished colored page. There are going to be plenty screen grabs and videos of each stage of the process. I’ll even break down making your own textures and how to best prepare and use them.

I’m hoping to start the series in June on Thursdays if I can get it together in time.

The Lizard Man.

A few weeks ago I got a nice comment from someone named Jenny saying, “I can’t believe you’re writing about the Lizard Man. I’m from South Carolina (origin of one of the tales) and I knew people who took part in the Lizard Man hunt!” I commented back explaining that I made this all up before I ever heard of the Lizard People Conspiracy but now I realize I was talking about a completely different Lizard Man.

You see, there is a conspiracy theory that shapeshifting lizards rule the Earth and take the form of Presidents and high powers and you might catch one of them transforming into a lizard if you look close enough to bad quality video. Just look up Lizard People in Google and you will see how amazing some people are. This is what I thought Jenny was talking about at first but then I decided to do a Google search for Lizard Man and I was completely floored.

There is a whole other set of stories on the Lizard Man and parts are surprisingly similar to reMIND. There’s drawings and images of sightings and 3D models of a Lizard Man head. It’s like Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster but not as popular. Here’s a Wikipedia page about it. Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp. On the Wiki page it even talks about missing cats. That’s so cool! There’s plenty of other old sci-fi shows and comics with lizard type people that must have inspired the early thoughts of reMIND but this one was too similar to just ignore. I really need to plan a trip to Scape Ore Swamp when I finish reMIND. Maybe some specialty shops out there will buy a few copies of my book.

Then I really got to thinking. I need to make a tourist shirt for Cripple Peaks kinda like this one.

Hopefully it wont look as touristy. Thanks again, Jenny, for the comment!

Link Love!

I want to thank all the new webcomics who have taken the time to link to reMIND from their sites. You guys are really helping me out and I can’t thank you enough. Every new visitor you send me is pure gold! I have a few new comics I started reading while bored at work and I really need to add them to my links pages. Some I’ve already talked about in the past but recently I got an email from Travis Hanson who has a webcomic graphic novel called The Bean. I wasn’t expecting to spend much time on his site but it sucked me in and now I’m subscribed. Check it out if you have time. It reminds me of Bone by Jeff Smith but with more gritty art. Reading about Travis’ journey to make this book really hits home. Here is a page from his webcomic.

[EDIT] reMIND is featured on a Podcast!

I woke up this morning and got word that reMIND was featured on a Podcast called Deconstructing Comics. How cool is that! Listen to it here.

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My Top 10 Favorite reMINDblog Articles…so far.

1. Before You Start Your Graphic Novel – This was the first real article I made to try and convey something I learned about the GN creative process. It started as an answer to a question that someone asked me in a forum. I didn’t feel like I was qualified to answer but once I started writing it, it was clear to me that I had some important things I wanted to say and warn people about. I’ve updated it since it’s inception so check it out again.
2. Outsourcing Comic Pages (Specifically Flats) – What I learned in this series of posts on Outsourcing really changed everything for me. I was able to color my last 2 pages in an a hour and a half last night, and it was largely because I learned about flatting and outsourcing. This article has a few parts to it so keep clicking.
3. Interview with Ian Hannin (a professional comic colorist) – It’s not everyday that I get to interview someone working on Batman. Plus it’s very informative of the creative process of coloring comics.
4. Making Your Own Comic Font – When I first started my graphic novel, I didn’t seem to care about my fonts or anything to do with Lettering. After showing some pages on forums, my eyes were opened and I realized that the Lettering is just as important as any other aspect of my comic. I tried to find the right font but had trouble getting one I was happy with that matched my style. Shortly after, I learned how to create my own font and never looked back.
5. Blogger Vs. WordPress – I started out using Google’s Blogger for reMIND but once I starting getting serious about blogging I learned about WordPress and the ComicPress theme. What I discovered completely revolutionized the direction I took with reMINDblog.
6. RGB Vs. CMYK in Photoshop – This has been a tricky learning curve for me because there are so many opinions of the right way to do things. Even so, I never understood the real working difference in Photoshop until I made this video comparing the two modes. Decide for yourself which mode you want to work in but only after you see what the difference really is.
7. 1000 Ture Fans – This is an encouraging article about making a living off your comics or graphic novels. The linking article by Kevin Kelly is a must read and can really change the way artists think about their work.
8. 7 Reasons to NOT use Comic Sans MS in Your Comic – This is by far my most trafficked and controversial article to date. Some hate it and some love it. Before just plopping the first comic font you find into your artwork, check out this article.
9. Easy Word Balloons – I made a quick tutorial a while back about word balloons. I’ve made them many ways over the years and this is the easiest and best way I’ve discovered.
10. Unnatural Talent – I know this is a new article but I think it’s one of my most heart felt posts I’ve written so it definitely deserves to be on this list.

Thank you for all your support and comments over the last 6 months. If it wasn’t for all your warm encouragement I’d still be trying to finish the first Chapter.

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Help me get back into the top 100 at TopWebComics. VOTE HERE!

These pages were a blast to work on because… you guessed it, ACTION! But I can’t help but wonder if I should change the rating of this comic to PG-13 because of crab blood. I guess I’ll find out if angry mother’s comment. Also, let me know if you can think of a better way to write that 3rd narration box. It seems funny to me and I can’t figure it out. It will all be sent to my editor in the end so I guess I shouldn’t stress on it too much.

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This week has been good. I finally finished a lingering page that changed a million times right in the middle of Chapter 2. I also changed up the ending of Chapter 2 and I’m very happy with it now. It was one of those things that I knew I’d have to come back to later. Oh yeah, I also scrapped the first spread of Chapter 3 and sketched a new one adding a pile more work for myself. Yay, the joys of being your own worst critic.

I sent 9 spreads to my flatter, Aaron Daly, and he’s blowing through them like nothing. Do you know how much time that is saving me? Let me think… probably about 2 to 3 hours a spread (at my speed) which equals 18 to 27 hours of work! I can only work for about 2 to 3 hours a night on this stuff so that’s pure gold!

I just remembered, Aaron has an unpublished spread of reMIND on his blog from a while back. Go check it out if you want a look into the future of reMIND.
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I did some reading this weekend.

I read How to Make Webcomics and I must say that it was kinda useful. I might just be overly critical because I learned 99% of the stuff they talk about from just doing research online and taking an educated guess. But anyway, it’s geared more towards a daily webcomic which isn’t exactly what I am doing but I thought it might have some secrets to making one successful. There were a few good things that I’ve never heard before but all in all I can’t say it gave me any breakthroughs in what I should do differently. I’ll write a more thorough review later but for now the main things I learned from it are as follows:

• Buy paid ads on networks and forum sites.
• Make free wallpapers and down-loadable stuff.
• Fliers for campuses, cons, and comic stores.
• Look into a freelance distributor to handle my books.
• Use shipping supply company for cheap shipping stuff.
• Offer my books to a retailer at cons so they can sell my books and maybe get more orders later.
• Make press kit online and hard copy for Cons. For people in the press.

I’m not sure if this bullet point list makes any sense to anyone but me. I’m also not sure I’d recommend buying this book unless you were brand new to everything. If you are brand spanking new and want to make webcomics then, YES, by all means, it’s going to be helpful.

But honestly, I’ve been getting more out of the book called Tribes by Seth Godin. Thanks for the suggestion Kelly!

One last thing. I updated my Top-List Sites article. I added a few more I found and moved the Belfry up on the list.

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To those of you who are still reading reMIND every week, I thank you. I know it's sometimes hard to adjust to changing styles and strange story arcs that seem completely unrelated to the adventure you thought you were having. But I guarantee this story all ties together and I also guarantee that every chapter will lead you in a new direction and hopefully keep you on your toes more then the average American sitcom. 

I'm not sure what new to write this week. I have been chugging away at the coloring of Chapter 3. There are still a few pages of Chapter 2 that I need to tie up but can't get myself to do yet. I've been working on a T-shirt design as well. I'm clueless at shirt designs so it's proving to be quite a challenge. I can't show anything yet because it would be a major spoiler.  Sorry.  

Thanks to everyone who joined the mailing list. It's been off to a slow start though. I found out that I need to put my address on every email I send out to comply with anti spam regulations. This makes my wife and I a bit nervous so I need to get a P.O. Box before I start sending mass emails. This might push back my first official newsletter but it will happen soon.

I also want to throw out an idea to see if anyone would be interested. What if I made prints of specific spreads as incentives for donations? I noticed this webcomic does it every month. For instance, I could have a print of spread 10 for $20 donations for the month of April. May would be a different spread. Would anyone be interested if I start offering something like this? It could help me pay for printing costs of the hardcover book and give you some limited and signed prints at the same time.

Please let me know your thoughts and if I have any takers! Going once, going twice…

Oh yeah…Please vote for reMIND here!

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So as you can see in spread 17, I am going to have a small intermission for a week to repost all the pages of chapter 1 with a few corrections and updated word balloons. So please don't skip out on next Mondays post, in turn missing these much needed improvements. Please call out any mistakes you've seen as soon as you can so I don't have to update them again in the future. 

When I started posting Chapter 1 in November of 2009, my main fear was getting through all my pages before getting an audience. It's really hard to release everything you've worked on for the last 3 years in a few short months only to find 3 people care enough to come back every week.

Here are a few stats since I started:

November 3rd I started posting spreads every Monday and had a steady flow of about 20 visitors a day.  (I'm starting to sweat)

December 2nd, Notcot.org featured reMIND driving massive traffic for a few days but back down to around 30 unique viewers a day for the rest of the month.

January, My new WordPress/Comicpress site was launched with an average of 40 viewers a day. (gulp, is anybody out there?) Shortly after the launch, CartoonBrew featured my new site on the 21st driving 3000 unique viewers in the next 2 days. Suddenly I had over 100 viewers a day and my first handful of subscribers.

February I learned how to start advertising and immediately got over 200 viewers a day along with more subscribers.

March is here and chapter 1 is online with a whopping 117 subscribers and over 275 unique viewers a day at this point. Thanks to all your votes at TopWebComics I am in the top 100 for this month. Help me stay there by voting every day for reMIND. This weeks incentive is an illustration for Vampire the Masquerade that never got published.

I'm not telling you my stats to brag about anything. In fact these could be considered really low when compared to other webcomics. I just know there are people out there who are in the same boat as me trying to figure this all out, wondering what's normal.  I want reMIND to be a completely transparent site instead of pretending I'm something I'm not. 90% of the time I don't know what I'm doing and when I figure something out that works I want to share it. Hopefully reMINDblog is not just a webcomic or a graphic novel to you, but also a helpful resource and motivational tool.

Chapter 2 is nearly completed with just 2 more spreads to finish coloring and I'm very curious to hear your comments on it. It's been my most problematic chapter to date with lots of exposition which I hope doesn't get to complicated for the sake of clarity. There is a fine line between telling a story and explaining a story which I've been juggling since I started this thing. Either way, some questions will be answered and I hope many more will arise. So once again, Chapter 2 will begin on Monday the 22nd. 

Now onto a small list of things I've been wondering about.

What's the deal with Donation Buttons?

So I've noticed almost every webcomic site has a donation button. I think it a complete waste of time to assume someone will just send you money but since everyone is doing it I want to ask if it really works. Does anyone have a donation button on their site and more importantly, does anyone give you money? 

I guess my thoughts are mixed on the subject. For example, if I were to have a donation button with a goal of X amount of money to help pay for the printing costs of my graphic novel, that would make sense to me. Or in the case of the most awesome webcomic I've ever seen, Axe Cop! They have a donation button for a college fund. That's a worthy cause in my book. If any of you haven't witnessed Axe Cop yet then PLEASE go there now. It's written by a 5 year old and drawn by his 29 year old brother (who is an excellent artist). It's one of the funniest and creative, original webcomics I've seen. Check out the first episode on Youtube too. It's amazing!

On WapsiSquare.com (a very popular webcomic), the artist is asking people to donate so he can get his wife a new TV for about $1000. Last I checked he has totaled about $700 in the last week. That's crazy in my mind but it's cool that he's making it work. If he can get money for his wife's new plasma then why couldn't I get a fund going for the printing costs of reMIND. Let me know if I'm crazy to think this might work.

There is also the question of taxes. From what I've seen with Paypal, the person who donates has to pay a little extra percent of what they are giving as taxes. I might be wrong but I'll ask my tax guy soon.

Should I start a mailing list?

Okay, so I have an RSS subscribe button. But I've been wondering if I should have a separate button for those of you who might not think to check back every week to see my progress. You know, to just get a monthly update of things like release dates and convention info. I know people are forgetful of what they came across last week on the net and not everyone likes RSS feeds. 

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Thursday I have a new video about the CMYK vs RGB workspace in Photoshop I'm excited to share. But first I need to fix all the times I said CYMK instead of CMYK. I'm an idiot.

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Updated – April,14 2010

Since I started posting reMIND online I’ve been scouring the internet to find ways to promote my site. One of the ways I’ve seen are “Top List Sites” or “Webcomic Directories” where hundreds or thousands of webcomic creators come to list their online comics in hopes they can get more followers. These are websites designed to organize lists of webcomics by popularity. Each site decodes popularity based on a different algorithm of their own. For some it’s a combination of your hits, page views, etc. Others are based solely on voting while others are a complete mystery to me. I joined a bunch of these when I first started but most of these top-list’s seem to be gimcrack sites. It makes me question if it’s even worth it to list my comic there.

Before I go into details I want to mention the “Pareto’s Law” or more popularly called the “80/20 Principle“. I’ve read about this rule in many motivation books and it goes something like this:

80% of outputs result from 20% of the inputs.

or..

80% of my time at work produces 20% of my finished work.

or in this case…

80% of all websites are 20% effective.

Some push it even further…

90% of all websites are 10% effective.

You can even flip it like this…

10% of all websites are 90% effective.

If you look into this rule more you will see that it can be applied to almost everything in life. If you can figure out what 10% of your life is 90% effective and just focus on that 10%, you can save lots of wasted time.  With all this said. I think it’s a complete waste of time to add your webcomic to every list out there especially if it’s in this 90% that is 10% effective or less. So lets move forward.

As I mentioned, most of these sites have the ability to advertise on their homepage in which I have tried 4 so far and have no reason to try any others yet. So here is…

The 80/20 Principle applied to Top List Sites.

I structured it this way because once you get past the top four on the list it’s just a complete waste of time to try to figure out which one is better.

• Top Web Comics - (90% effective – with ads)

Top Web Comics seems pretty relevant to todays online communities for one. I joined and listed reMIND about 3 months ago and was ranked around #1500 on their list finding it hard to move up because the top comics were getting thousands of votes a week. I tried to remember to log on each day to vote for reMIND, I know I’m cheating, but it hardly moved me up the ranks anyway. I let it go for a while but one day noticed the ads on the top of the page were prime placement so I looked into it more. Turns out you can buy an ad there for as little as $10. (which is a discount for webcomics!) I bought an ad for $35 (300,000 impressions) and waited about a month for it to make it’s way up the queue. So far this ad has brought in an average of 100+ unique viewers a day since it started displaying. It looks like my ad will run for about 3 weeks. From what I can tell I am averaging about 100,000 impressions a week on their site. This could mean over  2100 highly targeted unique viewers by the time my ad expires. Not to mention lots of new subscribers.

But the biggest advantage to advertising at TopWebComics is people start voting for your comic (if they like it). Since my advertisement started, I’ve moved from around #1300 on the list to #320 (as I write this) in just about a week. Because I’m moving up the list, I’m now getting more people to recognize my site. When people goto the site to vote for other comics they might see my ad at the top and decide to vote for me too. So your not just paying for a little advertising, your also putting yourself on the map so people can find you to vote for you which will continue to drive traffic to your site long after the ad expires.

• The Belfry WebComic Index – (85% effective)
  

[Edit] When I first wrote this article I blow this one off thinking it was useless. The nest month I had some traffic from the site so I went there to check it out. What I found was a pleasant surprise. Someone had listed my comic and it was being displayed on the front page as a new comic. Being on this list alone was sending an average of 60 unique visitors to my site. Wow. Then I got another surprise when so many people subscribed to my comic there that I was added to the Most-New Subscriptions list. This shot more people to my site for a few weeks.

I started advertising on the Belfry lately and it’s been a wonderful return on investment, as far as getting new people to notice my graphic novel. So my end conclusion is that the Belfry is the second best Top List site I’ve found so far. Go there and sign up and list your comic if it’s not there yet!

• The Webcomic LIst - (80% effective – with ads)

This site is kinda clunky, but hey, they all are. The Webcomic List is sometimes very slow to load a page and I find it frustrating to navigate. The stats don’t really work on my comic too because it’s a blog but I don’t really need stats. I use Google Analytics. Overall, since I’ve listed my comic here I get about 4 unique viewers a day who somehow find me in the infinite list of burnt out comics. I think they add your page views to their algorithm and since 80% of the comics don’t get updated anymore, you automatically move up the list. As of writing this I’m ranked at 1,839 out of 15,310. That’s allot of comics to dig through!

One thing I’d suggest is to buy a spot in the featured list for $15 a month. This was my first advertising attempt being cheap enough for me to risk. They have other banner advertising but it seems really expensive at about $100 for 150,000 impressions. I’ll let you know when I tap into my Home Equity Line of Credit for this.

When I bought the $15 featured spot, I was sent about 5 to 16 unique visitors a day from the ad. Not bad for about 50 cents a day. Of corse it’s important to make a catchy button to attract people or your precious 15 duckets will float down the toilet. So in other words, this site is pretty good and seems up to date. I’m not sure if I will keep advertising there though. All together it has brought in a little over 300 unique viewers in about 3 months, mostly when I was featured.

• WebcomicZ.com - (10% effective – with ads)

I bought a featured ad on this site too for 3 months because it was only $5 a month. I’ve had a total of 37 unique visitors since I joined. Advertising the WHOLE time. What? Is that possible? But I’m ranked # 210 on their list (as of this writing). It seems like this list is pretty rarely traveled. It seems like a well managed site though but it definitely falls into the 80 to 90% ineffective catagory. Unless this changes in the future, I wont be spending my time there anymore.

Below are more Top List Sites that I found but don’t see the point in listing my comic with yet. If you know anything about any of these then feel free to leave a message in the comments below.

• ComicRank.com
• WebComics Super 100 List
• 100.taversia.net
  
• TopOnlineComics.com
• Mac’s Comic Lis
• Comixpedia.org
• OnlineComics.net (I don’t recommend this site. Slow and unkept by admin)
• Piperka.net
• ComicHovel.com (I’ve heard complaints of this site spamming you so be warned)

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This week was pretty productive with reMIND. I almost finished coloring 4 pages (2 spreads) and I sketched some thumbnails for my Flight submission. I also think I figured out how I want my word balloons to look finally. This spread is an example of what I'm thinking so far. It's more of a hand drawn look to match my art and lettering. I'm also toying with the idea of making each characters word balloon a unique color. I'm not sure if this will help or just make the pages look more colorful. We will see as the pages go. I'll try to incorporate the color balloons from now on.

So, we are approaching the end of the first chapter finally. I think there will be 7 chapters total divided into 2 hard cover books about 130 pages each. It's my attempt at bridging the gap between European and American comics. European comics are cool because they a treated more like books from what I've seen. They are around 40 to 64 pages and they come out whenever the artist finishes, sometimes taking a year or two. There's just something I really like about that. It's more about getting it right then hitting a monthly deadline. My only difference is printing in dimensions of standard American comics and having more pages so it's a nice thick hard bound book. Anyway, enough of my idealistic daydreaming babble, there are several things I want to share today so I better begin.

First of all, notice the new advertisement that is on the left hand side of the blog. I just started this Saturday to see the results. If anyone has a graphic novel related blog then please join Project Wonderful and put your ad up here. It's free until someone else outbids you. Plus if I end up getting a few bucks a month from it then I could use that to advertise on other sites.  Allowing others to advertise on my site brought up an interesting strategy. If you do a search on Project Wonderful for smaller sites without others bidding yet, then you can potentially put ads up on several sites without paying for any advertising. Just have your maximum bid at $0 and if no one else is bidding then your ad will pop up. It's just an idea based on a few people doing that with my site. Another thing I've noticed is how inflated the numbers seem to be in the site statistics for my site on Project Wonderful. This makes me question how accurate the numbers are for some of the other sites I'm buying ad space on. It might just be a glitch so I'll keep my eye on it and let you know how it goes.

Second, I wanted to say thanks for all your feedback last week with the ads. It's been really helpful and has worked wonders for bringing in new viewers. Saturday was my best day yet. I placed an ad for $2 and brought in almost 200 unique viewers with a very low bounce rate.  It looks like quite a few people subscribed as well. Advertising on other webcomics really works for bringing traffic to an online graphic novel.

Third, I wanted to point at a few people out there who are making some interesting comics and blogging about it . I'm going to add these guys to my list of Comic Creator Blogs at the top left of this site. Please note that this list might change solely on how I feel about it. Later on I plan on making a giant list of links on my links page.

Other Good Comic Creator Blogs:

Shane M. Vidaurri

SMVidaurri.blogspot.com - Blog

SMVidaurri.com - Illustration site

I met this guy on the Flight Forum and have been following him ever since. Shane has been making a beautiful water colored comic and posting pages on his blog. Check it out and show him some love. He does some neat compositions and has a great style.

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Yaxin the Faun – Man Arenas 

I don't know to much about this guy because I can't read his blog but his graphic novel "Yaxin the Faun" is so beautiful that I just had to share it with anyone wanting inspiration. He also has a artist blog with other amazing art. His page layouts and compositions are really cool. His colors and character designs are quite good too.

yacinfields.blogspot.com - Yaxin the Faun

man-arenas-news.blogspot.com - Art blog

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Sam Mooney – a Manga Addict

Sam is living in Japan and drawing lots of short Manga stories on the side. He has some interesting compositions and stories techniques. I hope Sam keeps making progress on these and keeps sharing his artistic journey.

amangaaddict.blogspot.com - Manga Blog

nihonniiru.blogspot.com - Main Blog

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I have a few friends who are also starting a graphic novel blog. I'll share them when they have some stuff to show.  If you have a blog specifically about making a graphic novel, showing your progress or techniques then please send it my way. I'd love to check it out and and maybe even list it here.

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