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We lost another one yesterday. David Harper of the oft-linked to and discussed Sktchd sitecalled it quits after a year of think pieces, surveys, podcasts and charts. He'll continue doing his podcast after a break for the warm Alaskan summer, but those long investigations are a thing of the past. The reasons were the usual: burnout from writing about what you love.

© Disney, DuckTales

Crowdfunding isn’t a new idea, but we haven’t spent much time discussing it here at Pub Crawl– and I think it’s becoming increasingly relevant to writers today who have more options than ever to publish their work.

Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been around for more than seven years, and by far have become the best known way to finance projects and products by appealing directly to the consumers who want them. In comparison to the old standby of PayPal donations, and its many limitations and hassles, if enough people are interested in your Kickstarter project, you will raise enough money to hopefully deliver on your promises. But if you don’t have enough support, your proposed project usually goes away quietly.

Many authors have successfully used Kickstarter to self-publish books, using the funding to hire editors, proofreaders and artists; distribute them in print and electronic forms, and even market them. Considering one of the largest hurdles for self-published writers is spending the money to make their books as polished and professional as traditionally published books (or perhaps even more so), this is a fascinating and exciting way to get work out to readers, as well as promote books before they’re released.

Slightly newer to the scene is Patreon, which has quickly become “the world’s largest crowdfunding site for artists and creators” since it was established in 2013. In a nutshell, Patreon allows people to provide ongoing support to an individual–not necessarily for a particular project–through a monthly commitment of as little as $1. As implied by its name, it’s evoking the old patron model of enabling creative work, while offering supporters incentives like exclusive content, early access, and sometimes even a voice in what work gets produced.

(Another site that has recently appeared is called ko-fi, basically an online tip jar that lets fans buy you a cup of coffee with the click of a button, perhaps more as a sign of appreciation than a viable, continuous income stream.)

Essentially, what all these crowdfunding services offer is a way for fans to buy time for creators to make more of the thing they enjoy, and let them know their work is valued and in demand. As a writer with a job and a toddler, a sink full of dishes and piles of dirty laundry, I often must be picky about what projects I sign up for and prioritize the paying work — contracted books and stories — over the shiny ideas I want to play with, or the unpaid blogging I might want to do. So getting “paid” by patrons to write a fun short story that I may not be able to sell (or the novel I may not be able to sell, yikes)  has a certain appeal. My friend N.K. Jemisin recently launched a Patreon that will allow her to quit her day job, the dream of many a writer, so far attracting more than $3800 in less than a week as of this writing.

The simple fact is most writers can probably produce more if they only had more time, and 40+ hours a week is a lot of time.

If I ever did a Patreon or something similar, I suspect it would be to raise funds for a babysitter so I can write more and do more events.

— Ecto Cooler Myers (@ecmyers) May 20, 2016

Every $15 buys me an hour of writing, which is roughly 1,000 words. 7,000 words is a story. 80,000 words is a novel. Creative math.

— Ecto Cooler Myers (@ecmyers) May 20, 2016

As more writers I know create Patreons with a wide range of success, I’ve been thinking more about this phenomenon. (Interestingly, as far as I can tell, not many YA writers have embraced Patreon, but it seems to be gaining popularity in the science fiction and fantasy community, of which I am also a part.) The truth is, I personally have a difficult time separating the idea of crowdfunding from charity, even though intellectually I know that people are buying something they want or rewarding you for something only you can provide. Part of me also imagines this as creating yet another array of deadlines and expectations and obligation to your supporters, who are basically making an investment in you and your work. You have more time, but on some level you’re also more accountable, potentially to dozens if not hundreds of people. How much do you ultimately owe them for helping make it possible?

But I am also aware that one of my hangups is the fear that I won’t get much support, or that I’ll be “competing” with all the other Patreon creators out there for the same dollars. Who needs an additional metric for comparing their own success to that of others? And before you remind me that you shouldn’t compare yourself to others, and that writing and publishing isn’t really a competition, allow me to suggest that this isn’t an entirely irrational consideration. I think a solid fan base is essential to a successful Kickstarter and Patreon, so your newer writers, less published writers, and debut writers probably won’t benefit from them as much — or at all.

What do you think about crowdfunding creative efforts? Have you supported any Kickstarter or Patreon campaigns? What would get you to donate your money to support a writer beyond buying their published work?

Jason Shiga, known for his multi-path comics such as Meanwhile, is scheduled to publish his next title, Demon, with First Second in October 2016. It say’s “Book 1” in the catalog, and given the description below, looks like it will run about six volumes. What’s the comic about? Well, from his patreon website: I’m currently creating […]

Irish cartoonist NHOJ (John Cullen) has been posting his Daily Comics for over 650 days at this point. They are often funny, sometimes poignant and always beautiful and entertaining. Here’s a look at his process. Fascinated by the kind of dedication such an effort takes, I asked NHOJ some questions about such topics as his […]

Rarely do I get to learn the story of people who have moved away from the comics industry. Artist and creator Thomas Boatwright is an interesting example of someone who did the comics thing for awhile but eventually, initially not entirely by choice, moved on to other ventures. As a fan of his comics I’ve been […]

After making some noises about it for a while, Tom Spurgeon has joined the crowdfunding world for his award-winning Comics Reporter site with a Patreon that is up to over $500 in less than 24 hours. I think I might have been in the first 10 supporters, and I urge all Beat readers to go over and pledge their support. Spurgeon, who also runs the CXC show in Columbus in his spare time, explains his reasons in a post that it was time for a new way of covering comics. but future goals include a return to long form reporting and on general doing it better. But your $2 doesn’t just support Comics Reporter, it gets you whole new thing: a PDF magazine:

I’m going to try and do a monthly publication — The Comics Report — that reflects my best ability to put together a PDF-style magazine. I plan on keeping The Comics Reporter much the same as it always has been. I think I can make site and magazine independent reading experiences with very different purposes, experiences that key on what each form has to offer. I think this will lead to better coverage, and I hope it may serve a growing need for a way into comics that doesn’t count on your full immersion every second of every day. I hope it becomes destination coverage.

Everyone that signs up for the Patreon at $2 or over will get the next month’s issue: starting on September 1 with #1 (there will be a scattered “bonus issue” #0 on the first of August; it will be cool). You can also just send me the cash direct via pay pal for a sub as long as you want one. (send me an extra dollar, too: so $25 for a yearly; $13 for six months, etc.).

The other thing I that I noted was that Spurgeon had not contributed to any other Patreons, which I thought was interesting given that participating in crowdfunding is thought to be the best groundwork for running one. He told me that would soon be changing though.

You can also just paypal Tom (at [email protected]) if you want to support him without Patreon taking its cut. I support about 9 other patreons and it’s a not insignificant cut of my monthly takings, and some of the people I support also support me, so we’re literally fassing the same $5 back and forth, diminishing with each transcation as micropayments extracted.

Does that make any sense? I think it does for several reasons. I feel Patreon and Kickstarter and the other crowdfunding platforms are valuable institutions and giving them a cut of that single $5 that circulates endlessly to support the comics industry seems beneficial to me.

Also, less altruistically, there’s a certain aspect of the crowdfunding world that’s built on getting in on hot stuff, so the more money that’s spent, the more people think it’s worth spending money on. So the $5 buys some prestige as well.

Anyway, my campaign in about a year old so I’m going to look at it in another post, what worked, what didn’t, what I’m doing next.

Also, please support Tom and Zainab when you have a moment and a dollar.

I first learned about Dan Berry due to my insatiable hunger for comics podcasts. Make It Then Tell Everybody consists of intelligent and insightful conversations with comic creators you may or may not be familiar with, each a great lesson in art, storytelling and the process of making sequential art. From Make It Then Tell Everybody, I branched out to Berry’s comics. I was impressed by the stories that felt iconic and the watercolors that showed the benefits of creating art by hand in the digital age.

Read my conversation with Dan Berry about the man’s art, podcast, Patreon and much more.

What prompted Make It Then Tell Everybody?

In 2012 a British artist asked me to host some panel discussions at a festival. I said yes and we did two panels discussions and they went really well. Someone said, “Oh, you should podcast these!” I took his advice and in the weeks following decided to carry on.

Has it had a noticeable effect on your career?

Oh, yeah. Way more people know who I am [laughs].

What do you think of the Patreon model. Do you find it viable?

Yeah, absolutely. It’s been essential to what I’m doing. I talked about doing a Kickstarter on the podcast, which I guess is a really good model for a book, but for these enduring projects I need that slightly slower burning funding model.

I love the way you have different tiers offering the same thing. I found that really clever.

[Laughs] Well I’m basically giving it away for free. No one really gets anything. It’s really about this idea of altruism. It’s people’s own good will that I’m spending here.

What are your general thoughts on digital art, both in terms of your own work and the work of others?

What do you mean by digital art?

Anything done on a computer. Something done on a Cintiq, for example.

Oh, I find it great. It’s absolutely great. I don’t have any problems with digital art. My background is nearly entirely digital I only came to working with ink on paper much later on. I like working traditionally because I feel I can do it faster.

I think this is a psychological thing for me rather than anything to do with the technology but I find when I’m working digitally and have the infinite safety net of the undo button I’m going to keep using it over and over again. I think my style has developed not from avoiding my mistakes but embracing them and making them part of the style. I have a very loose what I hope is a spontaneous and expressive style and I can’t get that same level of spontaneity [digitally] because I know there’s a safety net there. Whereas with traditional media forces you but also embrace them.

I don’t think there’s any artist I can think of who would lose more from working digitally than you. Your work is so natural. Do you think you could achieve anywhere near the same effect on a computer? Especially the watercolors?

Oh not the watercolors. I’ve tried a bunch of different watercolor brushes for Photoshop and it’s not the same. At all. I haven’t found anything that vaguely approximates what you do with watercolor. There’s an element of chaos that you can’t really control and I really like that. You don’t get that chaos from a computer.

You don’t sell your comics digitally, do you?

I do a couple of PDF downloads and I think there’s stuff on ComiXology.

Oh, you do. I didn’t see any when I looked.

It was with a British publisher named Great Beast. My book Carry Me was with them and they had it on ComiXology and they recently folded shop so I think it might have gone down now.

Are you planning on putting it back up?

Yeah. I’m trying to figure out what to do with that at the moment because it’s reaching the end of its print run. It sold really well and the digital stuff seemed to pick up pretty well. I had a lot of excellent response from the ComiXology stuff. I might reissue it under my own name I might collect a bunch of things as an anthology I haven’t really decided yet.

How long is it?

24 pages, I think?

You said you’re going to work on a longer project in the near future?

Yes, I am.

Is that an adjustment, after working on so many shorter ones?

Not really. It all feels pretty much the same at this point. My schedule doesn’t change depending on how long the project is because I don’t really take breaks between projects. So I’m just basically always working so I don’t see any difference.

You don’t get impatient?

No. I used to. I used to want it to be finished and it to be done but I think as I get older patience is one of the things I’ve managed to develop. I think patience and being able to sit down for 4 hours at a time and do one thing.

I have one final question, the one everybody hates to be asked on Make it Then Tell Everybody: where do you get your ideas from?

All over the place [laughs]. Basically I like to fill my head up with as much stuff as possible. I like to listen to nonfiction and fiction books, audiobooks in the car, I’ll read articles, I’ll talk to people I’ll try to experience as much stuff in my head because I know that the more stuff I have in my head the more ideas I’m likely to have and once I’ve had an idea I have to capture it. If I don’t capture it dribbles out my nose while I sleep and its gone forever. So it’s not so much having ideas or where they come from I think it’s taking the beginning of an idea and turning it into something that’s the difficult part. Having ideas is relatively straightforward relatively easy I don’t have any problems with that it’s finding the time to do something with it or actually doing something with it.

Follow Dan on Twitter and Tumblr and read his comics, listen to his podcast and consume anything else he puts up for consumption.

A lot of cartoonists—and many blogs, ahem—have taken to PAtreon as a means to finance the creation of comics. There are quite a few (a round up post is called for, maybe later this week) and Patreon doesn’t make it clear who makes the most, the way Kickstarter does, but Jason Shiga recently hit $1000 a month for his Ignatz winning webcomic Demon. Given his analytic background, there’s much of that in the post, but here’s an excerpt:

I know it’s an arbitrary number, but the $1000 mark is significant for a couple reasons. First, it amounts to the opportunity cost of not going with a larger publisher for this project. Second, someone could theoretically live on $1000. They’d have to be childless, live in a hovel in Detroit with 4 other dudes eating beans and rice 3 times a day. But man, if you were to describe that life to my 20 year old self, I’d tell you that sounds pretty nice. I know a lot of my readers here are cartoonists so maybe you can relate to that feeling of knowing so clearly in your bones that you were meant to do this one thing. But then there you are screwing in widgets all day, waiting for that whistle to blow so you can bike home and draw again. When I started out making comics, I didn’t want to be rich or famous. I just wanted to make more comics. I still do.

The lifestyle that $100 a month affords you is not a very appealing one, but, as he says, it makes the project officially a success. As he explains, he started out with usual business model of selling print editions, art and digital subs. This level of income for a regular webcomic would thrill many cartoonists, but given Shiga’s 15 year career, and the success of Meanwhile (which led me to coin the term The Shiga Index when analyzing sales charts.)

My own Patreon is nearing $700, which is a pretty good number all things considered. I’m very fortunate to have this level of success and appreciate each and every patron. Obviously it isn’t enough to live on, but it had taken care of paying for the backend, investing in the site more, and yes, paying some of those New York City bills. Patreon still doesn’t have the “excitement” level of Kickstarter, but it is beginning to afford a bunch of people at least some return on their work.

PS: Demon is totally dope. It’s a cross between Unbreakable, Groundhog Day and Shiga’s own classic Fleep. READ IT.

A lot of cartoonists—and many blogs, ahem—have taken to PAtreon as a means to finance the creation of comics. There are quite a few (a round up post is called for, maybe later this week) and Patreon doesn’t make it clear who makes the most, the way Kickstarter does, but Jason Shiga recently hit $1000 a month for his Ignatz winning webcomic Demon. Given his analytic background, there’s much of that in the post, but here’s an excerpt:

Jason Shiga’s Patreon for Demon reaches $1000 a month was originally published on The Beat

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

To download this story for your devices click the links below.

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Princess and Dragon

A Short Story By Manelle Oliphant

Text and illustrations © 2014 by Manelle Oliphant

 stood under the bridge and clenched my sword tighter. I took a few breaths and tried to relax my hand.

“A sword in an iron grip can’t move.” Keegan’s taunt, from the three short weeks he’d spent training me, rang in my head.

I pushed it from my mind. Here in real life I didn’t see how a relaxed hand would help. My body trembled. I gripped the sword tighter. Iron grip or not the sword would be more useful in my hand than on the ground.

I put my free hand on the damp bricks, and slowed my breaths.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

The trembling stopped. I listened.  I tuned out the river and heard It on the bridge above me.

It’s not a big dragon, about the size of a peasant’s cottage. I took another deep breath. It’s not a big dragon, I told myself again. It didn’t help. It meant if he wanted to eat me he’d have to do it in pieces rather than all at once.

Breath in.

Breath out.

Don’t think about being eaten.

I tuned out the water again and listened to the bridge groan every time It took a step. I heard It breathing and It’s tongue slither in and out.

Ssss.

Ssss.

Ssss.

It tasted the air for a princess taste. I hoped the damp covered my sent.

Thump, creak, It stepped closer.

Ssss, he tasted the air again. “I know you’re there princess. We killed your parents. Your brother doesn’t have long for this life and I plan on sending you to join them.”

It spoke the truth. The dragons killed my parents three weeks ago. Keegan lay sleeping in the castle sick ward with burned leg and missing arm. If It killed me and Keegan died, the dragons could claim these lands, and the people in them.

I gripped my sword with both hands and crouched. Another thunk as he stepped closer to me across the bridge.

Breath in.

Breath out.

I stood, ready for an attack from either side.

Breath in, glance left.

Breath out, glance right.

I saw It’s shadow above me. It moved. My heart beat. Dragon face in front of me. Time slowed. My death in his eyes. His big dragon mouth opened and heat surrounded me. Keegan’s training kicked in and my body reacted. I slid to the left  and swung my sword, two handed, strait down on his neck. Hot dragon blood splashed my arms. I swung again.

Thunk!

The head fell to the ground at my feet. I took a breath and lowered my arm.

Splash!

Fizzz.

I jumped and yanked the sword back up. The dragon’s body fell into the shallow river. Water hit my face and arms, cooling the burns from the dragon’s blood. Steamy fog surrounded me. Still holding my sword ready, I peered through it until I saw It’s body. No movement.

I killed It.

My body started to tremble again but I controlled it long enough to climb out of the bridge’s shadow into the sun. I collapsed on the riverbank. My body trembled more. Tears came so I sat up. They gushed up through me and out of my eyes. Unstoppable. I sobbed and sobbed.

“Princess! Princess Nora! Are you okay?”

Footsteps ran toward me.  I turned and wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve. Bran, our captain of the guard, squatted beside me. He saw my tears and burned arms. His hands, like birds, fluttered around my head and down my arms as he checked for injuries. “Are you harmed princess?  I’ll call the doctor.”

“Bran no, I’m ok.”

Bran nodded but looked me up and down once more. I still held my sword in one hand. I had forgotten about it. He took it from me. I let him.

He noticed the dragon. “By all the saints!” He took a deep breath. “Princess, I’m glad you’re alright! When we got separated I… your brother will never forgive me…I’m glad you’re alright!”  He ran his hand through his hair and stopped talking.

  He sat. Water splashed around the dragon’s body in front of us. I took deep breaths until my body calmed.

He stood, helped me up, and handed me back my sword.

“We’ve driven them back for now, my lady. We’ll have a few days before they attack again.” He looked at the dead dragon again. “I think we should celebrate tonight.”

I looked at it too. It was dead. I was alive.  I nodded at him. “Yes.” We needed to celebrate this small victory.

We’d won the battle, but the war had just begun.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this story share it with your friends.

Learn how you can support the author and the creation of other ebooks like this at http://www.patreon.com/manelleoliphant

The post Princess and Dragon appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

150 episodes in, and the Wait, What? podcast is undertaking a huge shift. No, it’s not relaunching, although it is spinning off in a whole new direction, and nothing will ever be the same again.

Why? Well, because hosts Jeff Lester and Graeme McMillan, who have spent the last few years dissecting and reviewing all kinds of comics on a fortnightly basis, are moving the site to a base of its own, and running it under their own steam. Formerly hosted by the Savage Critics website, Wait What will now be hosted on its own website, run by the pair.

Alongside the move, the pair have set up a Patreon in support of their podcast, which you can see here. The Patreon, which I’d suggest is one of the first times that comic critics have established a crowdfunding page of their own, has been a tremendous success thus far. They’ve hit several of their target goals, meaning that on top of the fortnightly podcast they will also be writing reviews for their site, and populating it with content.

Considering that both are established writers in their own right – Lester has written extensively for Savage Critics, whilst McMillan writes for Wired, Time, The Hollywood Reporter and more – that’s pretty good news. And on top of everything else? The podcast is teaming up with Oily Comics for a giveaway which is going on RIGHT NOW.

To find out more about all their plans, I spoke to them both about how the podcast got started, how it runs, and what we can expect in future months.

Steve: How did you two meet, to begin with?

Graeme: We met because I ripped Jeff off. That’s maybe not completely true — Jeff and I both knew Brian Hibbs, who owns San Francisco’s Comix Experience store and we’ve both worked for him at various times in our lives — but when I created the Fanboy Rampage!!! blog those many years ago, I subconsciously ripped the name off from the monthly column Jeff wrote for the Comix Experience newsletter.

It was so subconscious that, when Jeff got in touch to politely ask if I’d done it, my first response was “Of course I didn’t, what are you talking about?” It was my first experience with riding on Jeff’s coattails, but not my last.

Jeff: Mine is the Fanboy Rampage of Earth Two:  technically, it came first, but it’s mostly a footnote to Graeme’s.  I’m just glad I get to team up with him more frequently than once a year and I don’t have to have the rest of the JSA in tow.

Steve: When did the idea for Wait, What come about? Were you aware of other comic podcasts around, and wanted to get involved yourselves?

Graeme: The short version is, we wanted an excuse to talk comic stuff to each other. I was definitely aware of other comic podcasts, but not that many. We started five years ago, and I want to say I was only really aware of something like Word Balloon at the time? Definitely nothing as conversational or, for that matter, honest as what Wait, What? is.

Jeff:  We actually owe a debt of gratitude to David Brothers, who as I recall shamed Graeme into finally buying the headset so we could actually start recording.  And David’s 4th Letter podcast with Gavin Jasper and Esther Inglis-Arkell, along with Funnybook Babylon, were the first real podcasts I checked out.  But Graeme was way more aware of other comic podcasts than I am—between having a really short commute and an inability to multitask, I can’t keep up—and that’s pretty much been the case ever since.

Steve: How did you develop the style of the show? Was the interest always in having a show which could run at length, and talk about any aspect of comics you wanted?

Graeme: The style of the show developed… unintentionally? I think that’s fair to say. When it first started, it was far more organized and compact than it’s become. We used to edit the longer conversations into shorter episodes, so that one session might make two or three episodes, but there was something about that that felt very artificial, and arbitrary — and also problematic, when we’d refer back to things that we’d said earlier that conversation, but two episodes back to the listener. It’s been a slow evolution, and one that’s reflected our learning curve as podcasters.

Jeff: We were very lucky to get feedback early on from listeners, and enough of them preferred the more organic approach of a longer conversation.  It gave us the courage to really commit to that approach.  Sometimes I worry it makes it difficult for new listeners to start listening to us—it seems like it’s asking for a big commitment up-front, but we have dedicated listeners who occasionally say things like, “man, if you just did three hours every other week, that’d be perfect!”  And I think Graeme and I enjoy the freedom now, even if it still makes us feel “unprofessional.”

Steve: Being a completely visual medium, you’d think comics wouldn’t translate well to podcasts. Was it difficult, especially to begin with, to find ways to talk about them?

Graeme: It’s still difficult. We’re still guilty of concentrating more on the writing than the art, although having the website to post images/artwork when we’re commenting on a panel or sequence in particular has been a great help. I was going to say, it’s no different from writing about art, but that’s not true: depending on where you’re writing for, there’s the chance to feature the images RIGHT THERE beside the text, so it’s immediately put in context. You can’t do that on a podcast (or, at least, an audio podcast).

Jeff: Unfortunately, talking about the visual elements in comics and the artist’s role as a creator in Big Two bullpen-style comics is something a lot of comics criticism on the web has been kinda terrible at?  Speaking for myself, that comes from having learned from my literature classes to talk—in a rudimentary way, at least—about what the writing and storytelling might be doing, but having far fewer tools for talking about, I dunno, what the artist is achieving by using a foreshortened perspective.

I think the podcast makes it easier for me to talk about the visual elements because I can do so conversationally, imprecisely, in a way I’d be too self-conscious to do in print.  And it helps that Graeme will either help me out when I’m not making sense, or mock me for his own amusement.  It’s a win-win situation…at least for him.

Steve: Do you think that the podcast has improved your ability to talk and analyse comics in general?

Graeme: Talking to Jeff has, more than doing the podcast, if that makes sense? He approaches things in a way that I just don’t, and it’s helped me appreciate what I’ve been reading more, and also question my assumptions on any given text.

Jeff: Yeah, I’d agree with that.  Definitely.  Although I think the standards are changing overall about how to talk about comics—there’s been a real push from online writers to change things up, and I think that’s helped me a lot as well.

Steve: How has the podcast developed over the years? Do you think you’ve changed as time has gone on – moved away from certain companies, moved towards certain kinds of stories, and so on? 

Graeme: To an extent? As I said earlier, we started doing shorter episodes that were segments of longer conversations, and now listeners generally get the longer conversations more or less complete. Part of that’s being more comfortable doing what we do, but there’s also an element of us just KNOWING what we’re doing more now. There’s also been a bit of making mistake and then learning from them, too. I’ve said things in the past — reading into creators’ intentions, especially — that I try not to do now (Note the “try” — I still forget myself occasionally).

Jeff: I went through a couple years there where I refused to support Marvel financially, and I was worried that might modify the tenor of our conversations or what we could talk about and stay interesting.  But it didn’t change things as much as I thought.

What has changed, since we started doing the podcast, is how digital has really grown as a market, and libraries carrying more graphic novels and collections than ever. I think those two factors have influenced the podcast tremendously, as it’s easier for me to stumble across material I might have missed, or to revisit material I had no interest in until it was ninety-nine cents an issue.  I never would’ve ended up talking about Daddy Cool, for example, or what a thematically unified statement The Boys is for Garth Ennis, if I wasn’t able to supplement my staid comic book shop purchases with more experimentation.

Steve: A recent feature which has taken over a good hour of discussion each episode is your run-through of the Avengers books – starting right with issue #1 and tackling ten or so issues at a time. What made you want to go back and start reading and reviewing those books?

Graeme: I honestly don’t remember. I think it just seemed like a good idea at the time, and sounded like it’d be something fun and different for us to do? Jeff?

Jeff: Graeme doesn’t remember because it was his brilliant idea! I’d bought those amazing GT Corp. DVDs off eBay that contain 600 issues at a go of specific Marvel characters—Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and The Avengers—and I’d been moaning about how I hadn’t made any time to read them.  And since Graeme also had the Avengers DVD, he said, “If we make it part of the podcast, you’ll have to read them!”  And he was right.  (Thank God we’re only reading the first 300 issues, though.)

Steve: Has that changed your view of the characters, or the series as a whole? Do you have a new favourite Avenger, for example?

Graeme: Not so much a new favorite Avenger — I think that’ll always be a tie between the Beast, Hawkeye or the Wasp depending on who’s writing at the time — but it was an eye-opener to go back and realize how bad the Lee/Kirby issues actually are. You think of the two working on Thor and Fantastic Four, and they’re capable of such amazing stuff, and their Avengers just doesn’t work. It’s kind of surprising how long it is until the series DOES work, to be honest — and just how quickly it all comes together when everything falls into place.

Jeff: I ended up loving The Wasp during the Stan Lee and Roy Thomas years: they both wrote her as kind of flighty (pun intended, probably) and with more than a little condescension, but she was the only one who seemed to be having anything like fun…or resembled anything like an actual human being.

Steve: Are there any types of comic you wished you spent more time on – you tend to talk about any comic you want, without a particularly heavy DC/Marvel/Image bias. But are there any comics you wish you could discuss in more detail?

Graeme: I think we talk about what we “want to” talk about — as evidenced by the amount of time we spend on 2000AD on a regular basis, or Top Shelf’s Double Barrel when that was coming out. There’re certainly comics I wish I knew more about so I could talk about them more, if that doesn’t sound too odd. I should be reading and talking about more Fantagraphics books, you know? Or Drawn & Quarterly, Nobrow, SelfMadeHero, and so on. I need to get outside of my Direct Market comfort zone more.

Jeff: Man, it can be hard to follow Graeme McMillan without just saying “Ditto!” and “What Graeme said!” after everything.  As for what we cover…when the only limitations are our imaginations and our budgets, it’s not long before you get really frustrated with both.

Steve: Wait, What is particularly notable because you’re “candid”. Or, to put it another way, you don’t pretend that books are good just because everybody else says so. Do you think the ‘of the moment’ nature of podcasting allows you to offer a more honest review of comics than sitting down to write a review? Once something’s been said, you can’t so easily press the delete button?

Graeme: Yes, for better and worse. There are times I would love to take something back, but there’s a lot to be said for the immediacy of the whole thing, and the way in which it gets past a lot of the inner editor for the good, as well. Plus, having someone like Jeff to bounce half-formed ideas off, knowing that there’s something about the conversational format that gives you license to be just outright wrong is pretty great, too.

Jeff: For me, this is really where Brian Hibbs’ influence shines through:  I started writing reviews for comics over at the Savage Critic website and I followed his lead in never being afraid to say what I thought.  So I don’t think the “of the moment” nature of podcasting affects me, at least in that regard.

What’s great is that Graeme can point out my biases, suggest alternative readings, or just flat-out call me on my shit.  Also great is that the organic nature of our podcast means I can revisit a work and talk about if my opinions change, and why.  That’s an aspect of criticism that gets overlooked in the written medium—the idea that these works are part of our lives and as we age and the culture ages, what they mean to us can change.

I guess it’s easier to address how art is an ongoing conversation between the work and the beholder when you’re having a literal ongoing conversation with someone?

Steve: Do you think there can be a tendency to offer better reviews to creators you like as people, or to find conflicts of interest start to influence your discussions? Graeme, you’re always quick to let people know if you received a review copy of the books you talk about, before you talk about them.

Graeme: Am I? That’s maybe self-consciousness, rather than any intentional idea of what I should do in the name of transparency. I think there’s definitely a tendency to find yourself biased when you’ve received something for free, or know the people involved — more than once, we’ve talked about a particular comic being good for something we didn’t pay for, but not worth the official price, or something similar.

It definitely feeds into not only what you say publicly about a work, but also how you read it — but then, so does whatever mood you’re in when you read something. I’ve been incredibly guilty of writing something off when I read it the first time, then going back and having an entirely different experience when I revisit it. There’s a lot that’s in there beyond the objectivity we’re always supposed to show when we’re reviewing something.

Jeff: Damn it, Graeme!  “Ditto.”

Steve: You’ve taken the podcast to Patreon and gone independent, moving away from the Savage Critics website. Was this because you wanted to take more ownership of the show?

Graeme: Yeah, and also because we wanted to do more with the show — and also see if the show could give something back to us in terms of the amount of work involved.

Jeff: To be clear, Brian was always incredibly supportive of everything we did and never put any kind of restrictions on our content or anything…but he’s also a busy guy with a lot of irons in the fire.  Sometimes we couldn’t change things as fast as we’d like or feel like we could experiment easily.  Or a lot of times the site would be content-light and then all of a sudden everyone would contribute at once, and I’d feel like we were stepping on toes.

Paring it down to just us—as tough a decision as that was, because I think Graeme and I are both really loyal—seemed like it would be the best way to figure out what we could do, and if people were willing to support us doing it.

Steve: What were your goals with the Patreon? What did you want to use the funds for, and have you been surprised by the response?

Graeme: The goals have always veered wildly between our natural pessimism (“It’ll be great if anyone even notices us”) and wild optimism and ego (“And then, when we’re making thousands of dollars every month!”). Realistically, we wanted to see if there was some way we could use the show as the basis for something more ambitious, which we also owned and controlled. We’ve been very, very surprised by the response. It’s way beyond what either of us were realistically thinking would happen.

Jeff: ARGHHHH. “What Graeme said.”

Steve: You’re one of the first high-profile ‘comics media’ places to take to Patreon, although I’m aware several other sites will be trying it soon. Do you think this is where comics criticism has to go, now? Fewer and fewer places are paying for digital content now.

Graeme: I’m not sure if this is where it HAS to go — I got started doing this for myself, for nothing, just to get it out there, after all, and that’s as valid an aim as ever — but it’s certainly one of the directions it can go in, especially if you’re looking to do this as a way to earn money (or even just break even from the cost of buying all those comics in the first place).

The future of paid online journalism is all over the place right now — not in terms of comic stuff, although if you think about what’s happened to Comics Alliance, iFanboy, MTV Geek and other sites over the last couple of years, that’s obviously in flux as well — but in general, there’s a lot of change and turmoil right now. No-one’s worked out what “the model” for this as a business really is, yet, and they’re still trying.

The last six months have been crazy, as someone who works in this field, and I doubt it’s going to get any less turbulent any time soon.

Art by Julia Gfrörer

Jeff : I’m super hand-wringy about the state of comics criticism:  I think people can only write it for so long as a labor of love before they move on to something else, because they have to eat or the pain of feeling like such a small fish in an even smaller pond gets to them.

And although I think there’s a very good case to be made that there may not be anything to write critically about comic books that weren’t written in the first hundred issues of The Comics Journal, I feel like the two biggest impediments to comics being considered the important medium they obviously are has been an inability to keep books in print long enough to become “canon,” and our inability to have someone professionally writing about comics over the decades—without both of those things, I think every generation ends up having to re-create the wheel.

We’re finally in a situation where a canon is accumulating, and access to that canon is easier than ever.  And we have Understanding Comics, and writers like Heidi and Tom Spurgeon who’ve been covering things for a stretch of time now.  But I think it’s super-important to find ways for the next generation of comic critics—the people who are out there now—to get paid, and paid enough so they can think, “well, I can make a living at this—a bad living, but a living—and I really care about the art form, so maybe I should give this a shot.”

Steve: What sorts of rewards are you offering?

Jeff: Since everyone who is reading this is on the Internet already, I invite you to go to http://patreon.com/waitwhatpodcast and see!

Steve: You’ve already hit several milestones for the Patreon, and will now be writing content as well as recording the podcast. Is this your ideal for the future? That Wait, What spins into a whole, affordable website of its own?

Graeme: In a perfect world, yes. Quite how workable that would be in practice remains to be seen, of course…

Jeff: Yeah, that is totally my crazy dream: that enough people will believe in us and between that and the content we’re generating, we can get enough traffic to make something like a full-fledged comics website, one that doesn’t have to rely on exclusive previews or softball coverage.  We have a few of those sites.  We need more.

Also—and I know he’ll hate me for saying this—but Graeme McMillan is one of the smartest, most knowledgeable writers about both the business and artistic sides of the comics industry currently working, and I know he’s also a hell of a good editor.  Who doesn’t want to see what he could build if he had the funds and the support to do so?

Steve: Does this mean, ultimately, that you’re now rivals with The Beat?

Graeme: Sure, why not. (I mean, no, not really; we don’t do a fraction of what the Beat does in reality, but professional feuds are meant to be good, right? Hey, Steve! Pixie sucks! YOU HEARD ME.)

Steve: Graeme, you are BANNED from The Beat as soon as I ask this one final thing: Where can people find you online? What are you up to at the moment?

Graeme: The podcast can be found here, and it’s on Twitter here (individually, we’re also on there as @graemem and @lazybastid). Right now, I’m typing this between deadlines for the Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog, where I post every weekday, and Wired.com’s entertainment vertical, because I clearly have a lot to say on the Internet.

Jeff: And I just got back from walking on the beach!

-

Many thanks to Jeff Lester for his time! And NO THANKS AT ALL TO GRAEME for his harsh and inaccurate and wrong and WRONG opinions regarding Pixie. You are now officially banned from The Beat, grr.

On top of the links above, you can find the new Patreon site for Wait What over here. I’m pledging myself! You’re in good company if you choose to as well.

Artist Al Davison, best known for his work on comics like The Unwritten, Hellblazer and The Spiral Cage, has set up a Patreon campaign this week to support his new project. Called ‘Muscle Memory’, this story is a follow-up to the autobiographical The Spiral Cage, the book which first made his name. You may have seen the project mentioned on Twitter, as he has been extensively promoting it and sharing it with fellow creators. As of today, he has only had two backers. Let’s change that.

A frequent presence at conventions over the years, Davison has been a ubiquitous and engaging presence for comics in the United Kingdom and abroad. The Spiral Cage was one of his first pieces of work, in which he wrote and drew his experiences of growing up with Spina-Bifida, a birth condition which he says was expected to kill him – and yet decades later, after over twenty-five years of making comics, he’s still going.

Having made a name for himself on a series of one-off issues of Vertigo projects like Hellblazer, House of Mystery, The Unwritten and others, he’s spent most of his time working under the alias ‘The Astral Gypsy’. Last year he released ‘The Alchemist’s Easel’, billed as being a guide to drawing the unconscious.

Muscle Memory has been a long-awaited follow up from Davison, as he talks in further depth on his life and childhood – looking at his childhood attempts to deal with disability, as well as accounts of abuse he received from his father.

I want to make it clear that this is not a story of victimization, but a story of survival and of winning against the odds. Their will inevitably be distressing scenes throughout the series, but it is also an optimistic and often funny look at my life, because that’s how I am.

One of the great talents of comics, Davison deserves as much support as the industry can offer. Please go take a look at his Patreon today.

If you’ve ever perused the online web comic community Tapastic.com, you’re sure to have seen the slice of life webcomic “The Danemen” featuring the DaneMan himself. The silent (word-less) comic transcends language through the use of visual queues that brings drama and comedy to the viewer. It’s like watching a classic Chaplin act and waiting for the finale, which never disappoints and is almost always unexpected.

In the video below, David shows us his work process and how it defines his unique style. Make sure to take notes, and don’t forget to support his Patreon campaign so he can make comics until the end of days!

http://www.patreon.com/DaneMen

http://danemen.com/

There are countless crowdfunding sites nowadays, but none have offered a viable alternative that challenges Kickstarter and Indiegogo's dominance. Patreon may change that though. The crowdfunding site offers a twist on the crowdfunding model that may prove attractive to filmmakers who want to produce content regularly.