In my last post I brought up Elance or Guru for outsourcing.  This has been useful to know but I almost hate the process of finding the right person, spending money to test them, possibly train them and the whole time wondering if I could just find a more direct route to a professional flatter in the comics industry for a good price.

Enter GutterZombie.

This is an awesome forum started by Dave McCaig, pretty much dedicated to the comic coloring world. These guys really know their stuff and when I asked about flatting they laughed and directed me to a "work for hire section" that is full of Flatters just waiting to get work.  It looks like the going rate is about $10 a page. That's not bad in my opinion.  I can see paying ten dollars instead of using 3 hours of my free time and I don't have to teach them about Flatting.

Here is a link to the work for hire section: Flatters!

There are several people offering their service as flatters but it looks like posting a thread about your project is the best approach.  It seems like everyone finds someone when they post a thread.

I dug through some of the posts and found a few professional looking websites of flatters.  Here are the first five I found but there's plenty more:

Aaron Daly

Alex Petretich

David Burns

Fred Fries

Ruth Lim

I talked to Aaron Daly by email and he offered to flat a page for free to show me how it might work if I hire him for more.  He finished the page I sent him in a flash and it looked amazing!  We talked about a page rate and I must say that it is much better then I expected (sorry I don't want to say his price because he's doing me a favor since I'm paying for this out of my own pocket.) I'll share what he is doing for me in a future post but feel free to check out his samples here.

In conclusion, I'm pretty convinced that finding a flatter through GutterZombie.com is the best approach when looking to outsource. I know I've found my guy and it was pretty easy.

Here is spread 6 along with the pencil lines.  Sorry I'm starting to impose my name and the date of conception on my work.  I've noticed some sites are posting my images which is very exciting but also makes me kinda worried if I don't watermark it from now on. I hope it's not to intrusive into the art.

Here are the final pencil lines of spread 6.

And here is the final colors (I think).  Notice almost a year passed between the pencils and colors.  I'm sure you're also noticing that I'm milking the splash page spreads here.  Don't worry, the whole book isn't going to be like this, although it will have splash spreads throughout. I just wanted the first chapter to be a slower pace to force the mood and feel of the world onto the reader before I jumped into heavy story.

(All this information about outsourcing is my unprofessional opinion only. Please contact your CPA for any tax related questions about outsourcing.)

So I’ve started spending time in art forums these last few months. One of the forum rules is “No Trolling”. I have no idea what this means and when I asked an artist friend he told me it was to sit under a bridge and grant wishes. I looked it up in the dictionary and found that it was either loud singing or a method of fishing. I’m still confused but apparently I haven’t broken this rule yet because I’m still allowed to post.

I’ve never used a forum before a few months ago. To tell you the truth, I am pleasantly surprised with them, for the most part. Growing up, the only way to share my art with others or get critiques was to join a drawing group at the local comic shop (which I did) but joining the local comic shop drawing club had it limits. There were only a handful of us and all our styles were polar opposites. Showing art to the world was just impossible at the local shop too.

These forums, on the other hand, are great for getting critiques from as many people as you can handle as well as helping someone else see something they are missing. Not only that but you can show off your art to the whole world. Since I’ve started trolling I’ve had almost 5000 views of my thread in ConceptArt.org as well as some really great advice on how to make my cover better at PencilJack.com. ConceptArt brought over 200 unique viewers to my blog and PencilJack pulled in over 100. Aside from the numbers I’m totally inspired by some of the amazing artists who post regularly. Some people will start posting as beginner artists and 2 years later their progress blows my mind. It’s been so inspiring to see how people have learned their anatomy through their sketchbook threads at ConceptArt and it makes me want to start doing the same.

This whole idea came about after talking to an amazing illustrator, Ronald Kurniawan, about how to get my artwork noticed. He suggested spending an hour a day in forums both posting work and commenting on others work. He said if you can do that for a month then you will have mad traffic. I started about two months ago and I have…some traffic. But I have to admit that Ron’s work is VERY impressive and I can’t expect to see the same success as he has. None the less, I’ve started getting a small steady flow if traffic to my site which is much better then before when I just had my family visiting once a month.

Now even though I started attending forums to get traffic to my site I have become quite addicted and enjoy it too much to stop now. I can seriously see myself doing this for a long time.

I’ll talk about specific forums next week. If someone knows what a Forum Troll is then please shed some light on the subject.

[Edit] Forum Trolls explained. Thanks everyone!

Artist, Illustrator and Comic Forums

Here we go. This is the moment when I thought to myself, "I need to get this thing going!" I toyed with the idea of making this into two spreads but then the rest of my life flashed before my eyes. Drawing a 4000 page graphic novel is not what I wanted reMIND to turn into. So from here on it starts picking up. I think.

Since I've published my list of artist forums, I've learned of a few more. I need to look into them a bit more before I add them to the list but I'll let you know if I update it.

In starting reMINDblog.com, not only did I want to post my progress of reMIND, I also wanted a place where I could organize information and resources that I've found relating to making graphic novels.  There's nothing more frustrating then digging through a website for an hour before noticing it's a ghost town. All the links are broken and information is just totally out of date and useless.

For instance, when I was looking for information about promoting a graphic novel online, I came across a fairly popular how-to site with articles claiming they had all the answers in a nice simple list.  I started following the advice but as I read I couldn't help but wonder when the article was written because it had advice like "Join a WebRing." I've never heard of a webring before so I did an Internet search but everything I found seemed so primitive.  Even worse, when I looked at comics in webrings, they were so crusty looking and rarely viewed that it made me question the rest of the points on this How-to list.

I ended up joining a webring when I had my Google blog just to test it out. Guess how much traffic it gave me. In four months I got a total of 4 hits from the webring all of whom stayed less then 4 seconds. Worthless.

I asked my IT guru friend about them shortly after and he said webring's are dead. They were popular in the 90's. So basically I wasted hours and hours of my free time following worthless outdated information from a legitimate website. I've come across tons of these by now. One of them had a list of 6 forums for comics creators. About 2 of those forums were still alive.  One of them was completely spammed to the point of no return. It's like people start this stuff and then forget it's there.

Another site that drives me nuts is ComicSpace.com. I was all into ComicSpace back in 2006 when I was experimenting with publishing an old comic called Phobos. I had a number of friends on it and it was tons of fun.  Well, time passed and I forgot about it for a few years. In early 2009, I tried to log back on to update some things and I misplaced my password so I had an automated new password sent to my email. Oh snap! I had changed my email address! No sweat. I'll just email the administrator, Josh,  to get my new email and password fixed so I can login to update my account. That's what I thought anyway.

No response for 3 months.

I did it again, written nicely with a bit of humor this time…….. no response again for 2 months.

I tried new methods every few months for over a year!!

Nothing.

Finally I make a new account so I can IM whoever is running the show to ask them to cancel my old account.  I send messages and never get a reply. It even says they never viewed my message.  That was a few weeks ago. When I look at the updates on the site from Josh, the moderator, I notice he stopped posting anything in 2008.

On top of that, the site is really slow now so updating it is pathetic. I don't know what happened to Josh, but sites like this really bother me when their not maintained. Is anyone else in this same predicament with ComicSpace? Does anyone know what's happening over there?

Here's a funny thread I found about comicspace. Look how old it is too.

Recap: Don't join a WebRing. Don't join ComicSpace.

Sorry for giving you a bunch of worthless links this week.  I did however start a DeviantArt account and I'm trying to learn how to use it.  I'm not sure if it's right for me yet but at least it's being maintained nicely. Become my friend (or whatever you do there) and show me around the place a bit if you don't mind. Here's my page.

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.

_____________________________________________________

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

_____________________________________________________

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

____________________________________________________

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.

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)

I’ve received several emails from writers trying to figure out how to find a good artist to draw their comic ideas or to team up with. I’ve had this conversation many times over the years and it’s never an easy question for me to answer because I’ve never been a writer looking for an artist.

Enter Ian Struckhoff. I meet Ian on DeviantArt and he’s been busy writing tons of stories and finding artists to collaborate with. I might as well let him answer this question since he’s actually having success doing it. Ian is also the first person to ‘guest post’ on reMINDblog. I’ll let him take over from here.

________________________________________

As a writer who isn’t also an artist, there’s a high barrier to entry. Making a comic becomes an exercise in networking, delegation, and project management, on top of the usual storytelling hurdles. Chances are you will be your own publisher, editor, designer, and letterer– plus you’ll be the only person finding the rest of the team. That’s as big a job as any of the rest.

It’s not impossible, though. On July 22nd, 2009 I began writing my very first comic. On August 15th, a team of professional artists began working on the book. Now, I’m working with over a dozen artists on projects including pitch issues for two ongoing series, and short comics for my own anthology.

I have to be clear– I’m not saying I’m special. I’m an up-and-comer (or, less charitably, a wannabe). I’m just dedicated to my stories seeing the light of day. I’d like to share some of what I have learned so far with you.

It comes down to four very simple pieces of advice.

1.) Be part of a community.

I can’t stress this enough. In order to find an artist to work with, you’re going to need to talk to a lot of people. You can’t just walk in cold and say “draw a book for me”. You also don’t want to stick your foot in your mouth by not understanding the context.

Every artist that I am working with, I met via DeviantArt. It’s a fantastic community of literally millions of artists. It certainly isn’t a bad place to start.

Don’t be pushy, and don’t rush the process. Join the club before you hang up your sign on the bulletin board. I happened to be established in the community as a photographer beforehand, but I spent some time getting to know the comics community there before plowing in trying to recruit collaborators.

A good way to get your foot in the door on DeviantArt is to search for some of your favorite artists, and start following them. Then join the Groups (sub-communities) they are involved in, start following some fellow-writers and more artists. Let your involvement grow naturally, don’t make it into a project.

I also recommend getting involved in the comics community on Twitter. Again, just find some of your favorite writers, artists, and editors. Try Googling “Twitter Ian Struckhoff” or “Twitter Matthew Dow Smith” or “Twitter Ron Perazza”– and likewise with your favorite creators’ names– to get started. The same etiquette applies as above, but this will be more about learning the ins-and-outs of the industry and networking with people who you can learn from.

That’s just two examples of communities. I’d also recommend checking out ICCW, Brian Bendis’ Jinxworld Forum, and Warren Ellis’s Whitechapel.

2.) Be prepared, and communicate clearly.

Every now and then, you’ll find an artist who you’d love to work with. Just send them a note or a comment, letting them know that, in the form of a complement. Nobody will mind if you say nice things about their work, even if they are too busy to work with you.

A few of them might reply and give you a chance to pitch your idea. What do you do then? The key is to do most of the real work ahead of time.

The big thing is that you’re going to need to have some scripts for them to read. Before they dig into that, though, they will probably want to start with a “pitch” (aimed at them, not publishers) that outlines the story in no more than a page, and links to supporting materials like character descriptions/bios, a series bible, and so on. Have all of this ready, so when they ask, you have something to show them immediately.

From there, be sure to communicate everything clearly. Be clear about things like your budget, your plans for publishing, expectations around ownership, your ideal schedule, your vision for the project, your thoughts on the team structure, and so on. If you have concerns at any point, communicate those clearly and directly too.

Every bit of this, from the pitch, to the script, to the bios and bible, to the clarifications, should be formalized– not rough notes you wrote for yourself. This is a professional relationship, and the more professional you act up front, the more appealing it will be to work with you.

3.) Be respectful. And get ready to hear “No”.

As an aspiring writer, you’re a much more common commodity than a competent comics artist. It takes far more time to draw a comic than to write it, and it’s a lot easier to think you have good ideas than to think you can draw. They can do this without you, but you can’t get very far without them. Remember that when you’re communicating with the artists.

For every time you hear back from someone who wants you to tell them about your story, you’re going to hear from a bunch who don’t– and there will be even more who you probably won’t hear back from at all.

Don’t sweat it. It’s okay if it takes some time. Don’t expect everyone to say Yes, and don’t be disappointed if many of them aren’t interested. In fact, don’t be insulted if they come straight out and say your work isn’t there yet– Just keep working to get it there.

(On a related note– You’re going to find a lot more artists who want to do covers than interiors. Pick the cover artists last, because your penciller will define the style of the book, and you’ll get plenty of chances to find the right cover artist as time passes.)

4.) Aim high. Just not too high.

Since I’m being honest and direct with you, one more thing– The secret to creating a great comic is the same as with almost any form of collaboration:

Work with people who are better than you are.

Don’t be afraid to reach a bit out of your league to find the right artist. If you don’t think they are intimidatingly good, then why are you trying to get them on your book? Don’t simply decide someone is too good for you.

On the other hand, there are limits to this. There’s no point in asking people who won’t be able to work with you. If you know someone is getting paid more, or working on a much bigger book, it’s probably not going to make sense to ask them to draw your book. Chances are a big name won’t be dropping a world-class book no matter how stupendous your pitch is.

Thanks to Jason for checking out my pitches, and asking me to contribute to his blog– and thanks to all of you for reading all of this.

_______________________________________

If you’d like to find out more about Ian and his projects, here are some of his sites:

Ian_X on Twitter
Ian_X on DeviantArt
Ian-X.com

Thanks, Ian, for taking the time and thought to answer this question for all of us.