Graphic Novels are about.....

Relating back to my posts about what I think a Graphic Novel is(Graphic Novels are comics with levels, they say something more than the plot); Comics Reporter gathers abunch of people to talk about what Watchmen is about. It provides viewpoints about Watchmen which concentrate too much on the metatextual but that's ok. Mainly it shows that wisdom of the crowd which should be evident when defining a graphic novel.

Blogust is done

I missed one day but made up for it witha couple of extra posts about Sureshot.

It was kind of fun and i'll see if i can keep up a looser schedule.

What's next?
A bunch of reviews of local books.
And maybe an idiot's guide to storytelling (I'm the idiot)

Sureshot Presents - Round Up

A round up of what i've been talking about in regards to the genesis and plabnning of Sureshot Presents and the announcement of Sureshot Comics.

The start, some self introspection and a look at the local scene.
The Spark
The Limits
Why I hate most Australian Comics (a critical look at current publishing in Australia)

Making goals for Sureshot Presents
Importance of goals
Setting my goals
My goals

Money Matters
From a retailer's perspective
From a customer's perspective
From a creator's perspective

Printing
Print Run
The Printing
Design of the book

Quality
Qualifying quality
Reviewing the concept

New Venture
Sureshot Comics

Appendix
Why Self Publish in the first place.

Sureshot Presents - Why self publish?

Owen's response to my what is wrong with Sureshot Presents highlights a basic assumption i glossed over but didn't really discuss. Why go to the effort of putting a book together? I started out talking about effort, considering your workload when starting a new project, but I forgot to talk about the fundamental question; Why should a creator self-publish at all?

And it's a good question. Personally, if you have the skills and the resources why not? I'm one of those boring farts that does his own home renovations that will bore you at dinner parties explaining how to keep your tiles straight. If I can - I do/make myself. I make my own beer, project number #7 is building a woodfire pizza oven (pizzas on me come 2011!). So if i could draw and write and had the time I'd be scratching something out and holding it up grinning goofily. But I can't so I move on do something else (be over-sealous fanboy).

But some people can, some people have the skills and the need to make comics. They are awesome people because they want to share their stories and thoughts with people like me. And honestly its a privlige to have the opportunity to pick up a self published book. Its a bonus when the book is good and for the most i do enjoy most australian comic books.

But enough i why I like self published books, why should people release their own books?

I believe its the only way to build a local industry. Look at cars, a lot of car companies either started as something else and moved to motor vehicles or they were started by guys who tinkered around used and used their own capital to hand build cars, they got a following and the next thing you know you have car companies, car dealers, petrol stations and mechanics. Whilst it is all good to look overseas, looking at established US companies to publish work; that's not going to be that great when US dollar falls or shipping costs increases; local creators will lose out because they'll be earning less and comic retailers and buyers won't be able to afford imported books. Having a local industry will mean that we aren't as beholden to global economic factors.

Culturally it also means we have stories about us, not stories filtered through Uncle Sam.

Look at the local music scene; it would be much easier for any of the Record Companies to just import US music and sell it in local record shops, not bother with Living End, Delta, Silverchair, etc. But for some reason the local arms of these international companies still sign local bands, put on tours for those bands, market them, etc. Mainly because when they have a good success story, they make more money from the local band than the import and it keeps a lot of people in work. Including less "successful" bands. (And before you start narking on about quality "Delta sucks!", without Delta driving people to record shops those stores wouldn't survive so where are people going to find 'good' music?)

At the moment we don't have many comic publishers (Phosphorescent, Gestalt, Local Act Comics) to make the push, to do the hard work in building that industry. I believe once we have that industry, people will be able to write and draw comics as a living, not just on weekends while weekdays are spent doing other work that puts food on the table but not spring in their step. With creators concentrating on creating we'll have much better comic books.

And I think self publishing can be a way forward. It can do something that POD and webcomics can't do. Online and Print on Demand build creators and unfortunately success can be short term. Building an industry provides more avenues when fickle fans fade away.

Yes, self-publishing has been in Australia since the mid80s and nothing has really changed. Yes, people have self-published in the past and from the tattered remains of what can be found in comic shops and second hand bookstores to the hushed weary whispers of veteran comic creators - no one was successful, to any sustainable level.

Sustainable level is an important factor because it builds a foundation, something to build on and facilitate the next step.

On a more creative level, self publishing does two things for the creator; gives them a practice ground for them to learn their craft. An avenue of criticism that extends past just showing the odd sketch on a messageboard. A place to practically learn story telling, and develop a style and build a work ethic while creating a 20, 30, 40 pages of comic.
Secondly, it allows for a portfoilio to be built and shows a work ethic and storytelling ability that can be easily viewed by publishers and editors. Eddie Campbell, Mandy Ord, Bruce Mutard, most of the creators working with book publishers toaday, started self-publishing (Only Shuan Tan stuffs me up and breaks the mold). Even internationally, most of the creators with book deals started out in minicomics and self-publishing.

So why self publish? For the long term health of the industry. Sure now you might have to deal with retailers and printers and the post office. But if retailers start making a buck from you, they'll order more. If the books are good and the readers start bugging retailers for your books, they'll order even more. When you than go pitch a story to a publisher and say "I sold 300 copies of these in Sydeny alone by hand" that may give you some sway. After a couple of books they start a graphic novel division, they have marketting people and distributors do the work for you. And you can just draw and write, get advances.

Sure its a bit pie in the sky, but if you want a a local industry that sustains itself its a matter of building an audience and to do that you need good books and retailers involved. You also want it to be sustainable so you don't lose the shirt off your back.

And I think Sureshot does that, it puts money in retailer's pockets, its not priced too high so customers aren't scared away, there are 1-3 set of eyes that look over the books to make sure it can be considered quality and it puts money in the creators pocket after the very first issue they sell. Why self publish? Because I think it'll be worth it in the long run.

Sureshot Presents - Sureshot Comics

One of the submissions I did receive for Sureshot Presents, was too long at 60 pages. For Sureshot Presents, that number of pages doesn't work; the printing and postage is too expensive meaning i have to work harder to loose less money.

But with the acceptance that the model wasn't working and an interest in still being involved with the local comic scene, i've come up with a new model.

Sureshot Comics.
Upon an accepted submission I'll buy 50 copies of a one-shot comic for $150.

Sureshot Comics is more of a co-production/co-publishing deal. If a propsal looks good, I'm happy to work on the editorial side of a project, readying it for printing, helping formulate marketing and in return for Sureshot badging and 50 copies of the finished book (and the right to sell them) I'll provide $100-$150 to go towards printing (colour cover, better printing), administration (postage, web ads) or just as a distribution deal (I'm buying 50 copies wholesale).

I still intend to keep Sureshot Presents as a avenue of publishing for creators. Both will run concurrently (depending on my workload and finances).

So if you are interested mark_selan@hotmail.com

Sureshot Presents - Quality Assurance (where it went wrong)

When you deal with goals or doing an activity such as publishing a book its always a good idea to have some sort of test to see if you are succeeding. Evaluate some key performance indicators (KPIS) is the wanky business term. Its about quality assurance to - am i meeting my goals.
Most models of production follow a general structure of quality assurance; Plan, Do, Review and Act.
I've pretty much been going through and detailing my Plan in the last couple of weeks. I did publish four issues of Sureshot Presents (the Do bit). So next is the Review phase.

I released four issues pretty much on a quarterly basis. I sold out issues #1 (Crab Allan) #2 (Ordinary Eyeball) within 6 months. Mandy sold out her lot even faster and we did a reprint. I did a small reprint of Crab Allan. Holgate's flipbook boys own adventure will probably be sold out after the next convention (both our shares). Issue #4 (Guide to Australian Comics) did well.

Retailers were reordering.

People liked the books, the smattering of reviews published were good.

But I didn't get submissions. Ok, i did get some (4) one was too big and the other was good but the creator had done much stronger work. The rest weren't good.

Of course this was a bit deflating, i was expecting an avalanche of submissions - but i didn't.

Why? Superficially, the book isn't sexy. It doesn't have the glossy colour cover, its small and nuggetedy. That's a fallout from the model, to make it commercially viable i had to 'cut' corners. I think "zines" are still a dirty word, local creators want to match it with the big boys and most likely end up broke on the other side with unfinished series.

Also in the time that I started planning and eventualy publishing Sureshot Presents we had n explosion of Web Comics and Print on Demand (POD). People who wanted to publish their own comic have access to various mechanisms to do that; sidestepping comic shops, retailers and cons all together. I've talked about my thoughts on POD before (essentially for it to work well it is not a set and forget concept but somwhere to drive customers to in the hope they buy). This is the same issue about webcomics; its very preach to the choir, people don't find it by accident like they would in a comic shop or convention/zinefair. They are vral, the need to be passed on from someone view a link, but if no one is posting links than there is little chance of the audience growing.

Anyway, sidetrack over, Sureshot Presents had competition. Printing was no longer the only way of distributing comics. Plus, I think people who had the motivation to make printed comics, didn't need Sureshot, they went their own way.

So, again, i got deflated - the model wasn't working. It didn't help that i had started some other projects around the house (renovations, landscaping and cellar digging) meaning i just had less time to try and push the books. Also i chickened out a number of times asking for creators directly if they'd get involved - what i say I'm shy.

Without submissions and subsequent published books i can't reach my other goals. It's like I just designed a fuel efficient car that worked and people liked, i just didn't have enough batteries for production.

So it was time to Act.

Sureshot Presents - The Quality

A number of the goals dealt with quality,

1. To get Australian comics into the public’s consciousness to show that Australian comics doesn’t just mean The Phantom (which is ironic). Show Australians that comics are about them.
2. To show comic readers that Australian comics doesn’t equal rubbish.

Now quality can be subjective. I think sometimes people confuse quality with liking something - I don't like science fiction movies but i think that there are quality scifi flicks out there (Gattaca, Sunshine, etc). You can have a comic with strong writing and excellent art that people won't like, similarly you can have a book with rubbish art or writing which people enjoy.

But at the end of the day i wanted good books that people would buy. This could be a book that was targetted at a large mainstream population or a niche book targetted at a small community of people. Personally I prefer the latter, looking at a group of people so gourmet fans and directly marketting a book they may enjoy directly to them.
This is why in the original SureShot Presents post i talk about wanting "marketing plans"; who's the audience, where are you going to sell your copies, etc.

But in terms of quality, again its subjective, I didn't think i'd be a great judge of what was good or bad which was why i was quite please when Daren White (DeeVee) and Douglas Holgate (all things cutesy and wootsy) tossed their hat in and became judges for all proposals. With a group of three personal preference wouldn't be an issue. And only good books would be released.

Sureshot Presents - The Antomy of the book

Some other design features I incorporated into Sureshot was a bit of personal preference, a bit of observation of what i had seen at cons, etc and looking at other local books.


A pet-peeve is books without prices on them. Having bought some local books at various comic shops, it drives the staff nuts when they have to try and find the price. Flipping the book over and over again, looking at the indicia, going to the shelf to see if their are any price tagged copies. So to make my retailers happy i display the price was nice and clear. Also visible for the buyer too - "4 bucks, I'll give that a go"

I didn't want to put issue numbers because i think that scares people off. They're one-shots, they don't need to read any other comics to 'get' them so i used dates instead. I think retailers would prefer issue numbers to make it easier for reordering but in this case the customers lose out to the retailers. I use Seasons and Years instead.

LFW designed the first cover of Sureshot Presents (this one is rare second print variant) and i've kept alot of the elements - like the logo. Nice simple in the corner not taking up to much real estate. I did want to have some branding, as a mark of quality, inline with some of my goals.

Beforehand I had spent some time looking at books on stands. They either get racked overlapping horizontally or vertically. So i purposelly divided the cover into halves. When racked vertically you see the logo and the the title. I picked rather 'loud' fonts for the titles, hping they give a feel of the story. If the book is racked horizontally, such that the books overlap on the vertical axis, then you either see the title or the spot-image. The hope is that you see a whole something; image, logo or title.

In terms of the spot illustration, i picked that as a design element because i wanted it not to look too much like a comic. It was something i thought of based from observations, make it too comic-looking and people won't give it agao. I don't know if its a matter of people thinking the creator is 'trying to hard', comics are still seen as kids stuff or people just don't like full-bleed illustrations on the front of comics. I think from a design point of view having a traditional comic cover on a A5 mini printed in single colour is going to look to full on and unappealling.

Because the stories are self contained and the book will mainly be sold at zine fairs i used the back cover for a blurbs detailing the comic and some panels - like a book or video backcover. For some reason when people pick up the book, they flip it to the back cover and then to the front and then open it up (not in all cases, some open it up straight away).

Internally, they all feature an intro from me, bio pages of the creator and me and some information about the Sureshot Presents concept. The introductions usually recommended similar books to the issue they were holding, in the hope if they liked this book they'd like the others listed. Spread the love as it were.

Overall, i recognise its not sexy but for the cost and honestly my skill level I'm pretty proud of the final package.

Sureshot Presents - The Printing

Doing the OzComic Magazine, I developed a pretty decent relationship with Adelaide Copy, Owen Heitmann had used them before and now a whole bunch of Adelaide comicers use the same printer. Which is good for all we all scatch each others backs.

Well once i started getting quotes for printing, it was pretty easy to see colour covers were out. It would add about a dollar to the cost of printing; that's $300 just for the cover - i would have to be the cover price to $6 because i wanted retailers to get their 50% cut like they do with the Big Boys.The higher price would impact sales, discourage people from having a punt. I could cut corners and have cheaper paper and less pages but again i didn't think that it would be appealing to customers; a 24 page minicomic with toilet paper interiors.

It was a hard decision; colour covers do make the whole book sexy, like an actual proper comic book by a proper actual publisher. But from experience sitting behind a table selling the books most comic fans, raised on DC and Marvel comics wouldn't buy an Australian Comic not matter what; full-colour covers and interiors doesn't mean much when it features chcracters outside of the ones they know and luuuuv (batman, spiderman, etc).
Sure this is the bulk of people who go to comic shops and kind of contravenes Goal #1 but concentrating on just comic fans is just as limiting. i'd never be able to compete with Marvel and DC, so I decided to go for fans of alternative comics and people who like do-it yourself comics.

I saw from experience that they would turn up their nose at anything that looked too much like a Superhero comic.

That's why i went with the spot illustration cover, too make it look less like a comic.

The A5 size was an easy decision and made for two reasons. Doing a comic size meant that i would have to pay for A4 paper and then have it cut down. Of course that cut costs me more (about 10cents per cut per issue so i think 20cents a copy). So i pay more for comic size than A4 and have less "real estate to print on" just for the reason "that's what all the other comic books are printed like". Well since the majority of people i was hoping to grab at cons and zinefairs weren't comic fans - not being comic size works for me.
The other reason is postage.

It was costing me $1.45 to mail a copy of OzComic to someone. With Sureshot I can get away with $1.oo for postage (i have gotten away with 50cent stamp but that was more fluke probably). But when i ship to a retailer i can ship fit about 40 copies in 3Kg Post Satchel meaning each copy is costing 25cents to send to a retailer. With Ozcomics I could only fit half that so my postage cost is for the A5 is 50% better; 25cents versus 50cents per copy. With smaller shipments of 5 copies i can send them in a B4 envelope for $2.50. Its that 10-20 copies which is cumbersome and means that my margin is smallest. i keep thinking i should just send multiple envelopes instead of a parcel but i think that looks a bit naff.

Postage is tricky, being in Adelaide i have to ship most of my comics to other capital cities; Adelaide is my smallest market but i make just as much here because i save on postage. I try and deal with one retailer per state, its better that i ship with volume.

So with some wrangling and designs about paper quality I got to a price of about $1.20 for a 40 page comic with card cover. The cost is probably a bit more now. I went with the colour cardstock with the idea each cover would be different.

Sureshot Presents - Print Run

The print run would be based on how much effort i wanted to go to to sell my share of the print run and total cost. With a bit of pondering and looking at OzComic Magazine sold i decided on 300 copies. Ozcomic Magazine sold a bit more than that per issue and even though i thought Sureshot would have more appeal than a magazine about Australian Comics i didn't want to lose too much money (Goal#5).

It would not take too much effort to sell 150 copies of a comic. Sell about 80 copies at zine fairs and conventions and the the other 70 copies to retailers. There's a principle/rule of thumb i like a bit which i've spoken about before; Pareto's Principle. I cite Tim Ferriss and use the principle to say that 80% of sales comes from 20% of customers (in this case comic retailers) (though i don't like Ferriss' idea of outsourcing work to the poor finding it immoral). So i'd concentrate on a handful of retailers and make sure they are happy. I'd hope people would travel to that retailer to get Sureshot. This benefited me because it would mean that I'd spend less in postage; 20 copies to one comic shop in Brisbane is cheaper than sending 5 copies to 4 shops in Brisbane. And it also meant i'd deal with fewer people.

A print of 300 would be cheaper than a print run of 400; obviously.
Sure you can say i'd make more money in the long run with a larger print run. True but lets put some numbers into the mix and talk about effort.
Lets say printing cost is $1.00 a copy and it wholesales for $2 and retails for $4.
Lets say that if i split distribution in half so i wholesale have my print run and personally sell the rest. Then on average i'm making $3 a comic. (I won't bother with postage at this point)

So if i print 200 copies, it'll cost me $200 - that's not much. I send 100 copies to the creator, leaving me 100 copies to recoup my costs. I can make $300 if i sell-out, which is good. And i only have to sell 67 copies to break even. That's easy. But 200 copies isn't much in circulation to reach Goals #1 and not much of an incentive for the creator to work. Its too easy. With 400 copies, it'll cost me $400 to print and with my half i can make $600 gross profit. But I have to sell 133 copies to break even. Plus shipping 200 copies of a comic can be expensive (around 20kgs of a 100gram minicomic) which eats into profit margins.

With 300 copies, i just need to sell 100 copies to break even and i can gross about $450 each - which is nice and not for much work. If i was a creator and i could print for $1 a copy and retail for $4 then i'm making a profit from day 1 on every book sold.
In terms of the creator, if they sold all their copies they'd make between $300-600 (depending if they sold wholesale or retail). That's decent money for self-publishing.

Sureshot Presents - Getting Creator Love

So i established early because i can't write or draw for shit i would try and entice creators on board to submit work. Unlike the Ozcomic Magazine days I wanted to reimburse people for their work and at the same time try and sell the concept (Goal#4).

Now Goal #5 was that i didn't want to lose too much money so i didn't want to pay for the content outright with cash. Nor did i wanted to go to the effort of selling ALL the comics, that was more work than i wanted to do.

So providing a couple comp copies was too little, giving cash was too much but what if provided a stack of comp copies. The creator could sell them as they wish - they could do the work of spreading the brand and dealing with retailers (and not just comic retailers i was hoping to go outside the normal avenues).

Again, the "Build it and they Will come" ethos of some creators is a pet peeve of mine - go sell it, go sell yourself, be proud of your work - wave into people's faces. Creating is the easy part - its being recognised which the hard part. No one will knock on your door and give you a break. Luck has nothing to do with it, its work.

Breathe, Mark, breathe. Whew.

So by suppling a large amount of comp copies to the creator they could make money from
sales they make. Ranging from $2 a copy wholesale to $4 retail.

Being the egalitarian gent, i am, i would go halves in the print run.

This impacted Sureshot by meaning i would have to print a book costing around $1 a copy, since i effectively lost half the print run. Around $1; there was always leeway because i wasn't going to only sell to retailers at $2, i'd sell at cons and zinefairs and make $4 a copy. I had some wiggle room with my printing cost.

Sureshot Presents - All about the Customers' Benjamins

Having established a $4 cover price i now had to make sure that the product was sellable to achieve Goal #3,4 and 5 (essentially make people want to buy it).

One is quality, make sure its good comics - again that's abit abstract at this point and i'll get to quality later (Goals# 1 and 2).

Secondly is make it appealing economically. Four dollars at the time was more expensive than the regular $2 American comic that was being sold in Australian comic shops for $3.50. So i had to give more value - essentially more pages than the regular 22 pages that come from Marvel and DC. At this point i was looking at card covers, colour covers and trying to do something with at least 40 pages.

Now a local comic costing $4 could be considered good value, the cheapest comic is $2.50US which is about $4.50 Australian.

I liked $4 as a cover price.

Personally i'm kind of cheap so i take a chance on something costing $4. I could have made the cover price for $5 but there's the psychological barrier with $5; you need at least 3 gold coins to buy a $5 comic, or if you use a $5note you don't get any change. With a $4 cover price its pocket change, you'll get change back if you use a note.

So it was a matter of comic up with a comic that would appeal to customers for essentially a $2 cost.

Sureshot Presents - All about the Retailers' Benjamins

Breaking down the goals of Sureshot, they revolve around 2 things; quality and money and most of the time there is a relationship.

In terms of To show comic retailers that there is money to be made from local books

There are two things in play; getting people to buy it and then making a profit for the comic retailer. The former is a bit abstract, its more involved then the bullshit "build it and they will come" but the latter is easy to get into.

All comic retailers buy from Diamond Comic Distributors. They buy in American dollars and have the comics shipped to Australia(predominantly by air freight).

When i was planning Sureshot Presents (2-3 years ago) the exchange rate was 70centsUS for the Australian dollar and the average price of a comic was $1.95.

The wholesale price ranges from 50-60% of cover price (depending on quantities ordered and the publisher). So lets look at using 50% (very few shops would earn the 60% rate) so $1.95 comic book (pretty much average) was bought for $0.97US. So using the exchange rate of 70cents buys one Aussie dollar that equates to $1.35. Air freight is expensive, and while its hard to get a proper figure at the time i figured out it was about $10 a kilogram. A regular comic weighs about 50grams so to ship it over costs about 50cents (local money).

So to buy the comic and ship it over costs $1.85 Austrlian. Most comic shops sold a $1.95 comic for $3.50 meaning they make $1.65 gross. Of course rent, wages, gst and other costs need to come from this as well. But once a comic arrives on the comic shop floor those costs are equal no matter if the comic is from overseas or locally.

Now the average comic is closer to $3 and the exchange rate is .90 for $1AU but frieght is even dearer now at $20 a kilogram. So they make about $2.70 per comic (roughly).

So at the time each comic sold by a comic retailer made them $1.65. To meet my goal i wanted to make them at least $2 a comic. The norm is that wholesale price is half retail.

So I had a cover price of $4.

I got inspired by one of the production strategies of IKEA - they start at with a price they think their customers will pay for a product and then create a product for that price.

So i had to create a comic for $2 that would meet my other goals.

Sureshot Presents – My goals

1. To get Australian comics into the public’s consciousness to show that Australian comics doesn’t just mean The Phantom (which is ironic). Show Australians that comics are about them.
2. To show comic readers that Australian comics doesn’t equal rubbish.
3. To show comic retailers that there is money to be made from local books.
4. To show comic creators that they can make money locally.
5. Not to lose too much money on every issue.

Sureshot Presents – Setting my goals

“Who will print my comic?” is an issue of money. Who will spend money printing my comic? And it’s a very important question. A creator has spent weeks, months maybe even years creating a comic – all that time could have been spent better with friends and family not cramped over a homemade drawing board. And now that creator will have to dig into their pockets 1000s of dollars for a print run of comics. Those full colour card covers are expensive and traditional printing meant a print run minimum of 1000 copies. A comic dimensions are not standard so you have to pay for larger paper and then pay for it to be cropped.

Remember this was before POD so making comics meant

$$$$$

Well I wanted to pay for the costs of printing and come up with a model which other creators could use in the future. Something that didn’t mean much outlay, sold and make money back soon.

“I can’t sell my comics”. Whilst the creators on the OzComic messageboard never where so whiny or direct it was an issue that came up either online or chatting with people drunk at cons. Traditionally you sold comics in three places which all had their pitfalls or obstacles.

Newsagents – Once you enter newsagent distribution everything is out of your hands and you can only make money through volume. Ian Gould, Jase Paulos and Trudy Cooper will tell you the stuff of nightmares. Stacks of comics left in the rain, incredibly poor accountability, poor distribution (one newsagent would be given 10 copies and another only 3; the latter newsagent would sell out every month whilst the former would return all 10 copies). Even with nationwide distribution they were lucky to break even. Though I’ll say that was over ten years ago and I believe that particular distributor was bought out. But then again I believe Oztaku did poorly with their newsagent distribution.

Comic Shops – The problem with comic shops is they lack returnability. A good comic shop owner will want to sell everything the buy. Dead stock is money lost. Unlike newsagents, where if a comic/magazine doesn’t sell, the cover is ripped off and it gets returned to the distributor – no one makes any money but the newsagent and to a lesser extent the distributor has lost any money. Only the publisher has lost out. Comic shop owners want to make money, whilst I wish they saw a bigger picture and supported local comics – wishes doesn’t food on the table. The other problem is every comic shop is different; some will buy local comics, some won’t, some will on consignment so will buy outright some want to make 40% of cover other 60%.

Most of the long time owners have been bitten by those uncompleted stalled comic series or the comics with the shit art that have been sitting in the dusty corner since 2001. Of course that’s another short-sighted view of comic shop owners just because they have boxes of X-force #1 (multiple copies of all 5 cards still polypagged) doesn’t stop them from buying from Marvel so I wonder why just because one Australian Comic they whole “industry” gets ignored.

Conventions – Well you can break conventions down into the Pop Culture fairs like Supanova or Armageddon or Zine fairs. Supanova started out as Comicfest; about comics – but that couldn’t really sustain itself so it turned into everything thing else but comics. Which is fair enough, that’s economics; that’s food on the table and a roof over the head and I don’t begrudge that at all. I still think Artist Alley has a place – it provides a place for you to reach new audiences. I do reasonably well at cons; mainly drinking and carousing but I seem to sell a bit too. But it can be an expensive exercise. I’ve done zinefairs too. I they were better; they didn’t care about colour covers or superhero genre stuff. They liked the cute and the DIY aspect of it.

Newsagents are out – I don’t have the energy or money; nor do I think that its possible to make money from newsagents without having a good revenue stream from advertising. Finding advertisers is a fulltime job in itself. Zineafais are easy to do, just show up make a cute smallpress book and smile. I wanted to show comic shop owners that they could make money from local books.

“No-one will buy my comic”

That’s mainly because

• Readers can’t find it
• They can’t afford it
• It doesn’t interest them
• Its shit

Based on what I’ve sold and what I’ve seen, if a creator can not sell 300 copies of a comic over a year then its because of one of the reasons above. I put together a comic filled with stick figures talking about who they would rather have sex with; its A5, B/W, 22 pages, with fucking stick figures in it, printed for 50c a copy and selling for $2.50. I’ve taken it to 2 cons and 2 zine fairs and have sold around 150 copies; and that’s not even trying.

I wanted to show readers that Australian comics are good.

Sureshot Presents – Importance of goals

Since I wasn’t a creator I could afford to consider grander visions beside creating stories, getting work with real publishers, winning fans, making money, etc. I could have higher goals.

Goals are important; goals a succinct expressions that you want to achieve. All actions you do, all decisions you make are in an effort to meet those goals. They define the product. If a decision is made that doesn’t achieve a goal, you’ve just made a bad decision. Its something I’ve harped on about Doujicon – what are the goals of Doujicon? To get people interested into Self-published comics? – then whats with the mysterious name? To get people into self-published manga? – then what’s with the Anime Screenings? What are Local Act Comics goals? How are their tshirts helping meet those goals? What is Phosphorescent's Web Comic Viewer actually for?

Goals have nothing to do with balancesheets. Goals aren’t wishwashy actions like “Make comics”. “Make good comics” is a Mickey Mouse bullshit goal. How are people going to buy your good comics? Why will they buy it? What makes you stand out?

Goals dictate the product. Lets say my goal was just to work for DC, then instead of self-publishing I’d head to San Diego with my portfolio tucked under my arm. If my goal was advertise myself to the widest audience possible, I’d start a webcomic called “Mark Selan’s awesome dirty comics about Star Wars chicks”. If I wanted to just tell stories for friends and family I’d print a little zine using the b/w laser at work.

At the time I was thinking about Sureshot Presents, it was a frequent lament “There aren’t any comic publishers in Australia! Who will print my comic?”. This presented two problems that I wanted to address.

“I can’t sell my comic”

This presented another problem I wanted to address.

“No one will buy more comic!”

These were all issues i wanted to address.

Sureshot Presents - Why I hate most Australian Comics.

Ok, I wanted to publish a comic but because I didn’t want to deal with groups of people the idea of an anthology was out. Plus at the time you had Guh!, You Stink I don’t, Naked Fella, DeeVee so the hell I’m going to compete with that.

And my pet peeve, probably the thing I believe, that has done most damage to Australian Comics after shitty quality, is mini-series.

Here’s a list of Self Published Australian comic mini series that have finished (that i know of);

• Dollboy (Scott Fraser)
• Pizzaman (I think barely) (Damian Shannahan)
• Level 1 (Loren Morris)
• Anthology of Alvin (Lucas House)

The latter two are very small press Adelaide titles. If you include Publisher comics – you can include The Watch, Dunwich and Eldritch Kid and from Phosphorescent Comics. You could include Hairbutt but that’s more a collection of short-stories not a continuing story (like Basic Wage Kids).

Continuing Series that are still being published (but not anthologies) include

• Platinum Grit (upto issue 16 on the web and POD)
• Azerath (upto issue 16)

Unfinished stories

• Finch
• Diabla
• Greener Pastures
• Knightedge
• Ma B
• Cyst
• Vigil
• Rock n Roll Aquarius Ninja
• Anthology
• The Prophecy
• Zero Assassin
• Local Hero
• Cyberswine
• Surfing the deadline
• Pepe’s Quest
• Rex Helwig
• Another Zero Assassin spin off I can’t remember the name of.
• That pulp batman comic
• A comic with Badower art that came out in the late 90s
• Was the Panther a continuing story?

I’m afraid to go through Tabla Rasa’s site, it’ll make me sad and angry.

Why? Because someone (like me) has bought issue one (like me) in good faith. An then gone out and found issue two (like me) and then is waiting for issue 3 or 4. Eventually that person will get disappointed (like me) when nothing eventuates. There is no conclusion – no satisfaction. It was probably a fluke they bought an Australian comic in the first place and now that reader has wasted money on a product 3/4s finished. They probably won’t be bitten again.

Same with comic shop owners - they can’t sell an unfinished comic so next time a new self-publisher asks if they can have their book stocked; Frank will say no.

And I can understand why this happens; life changes, publishing comics can be expensive, etc. But my only advice is eithe save your opus until someone else can pay you to make it and make short stories in the interim. If you are any good you can make 3-8 page stories for anthologies or do one-shots. Or print cheaper so your miniseries isn't a financial drain.

In terms of me and my plan, whatever I did was going to be self contained. A self-contained comic featuring one creator. A one-shot.

And since I’m a big fan of the Beastie Boys, it wasn’t much of a leap from one-shot to Sureshot (a Beastie Boy song). It was a sure thing; for the creator, retailer and reader.

Sureshot Presents – The Limits

So OzComics was winding down; I had always wanted to do 8 issues of the Magazine but Darren Close (who started the message board, started the 24 hour challenge and got me into Australian Comics – by way of an article at CBR) was handing over the reins to someone else. I didn’t want to hitch my wagon to someone I didn’t know.

I never had a real problem with doing the magazine; I’d love doing the round tables and coming up with ‘themes” for each issue. What I didn’t like was interacting with so many people; the cover artists, the reviewers, the back page comic strips, all the interviewees, the writers, comic shop owners etc. It was never bad, I never had a bad incident but I just felt embarrassed most of the time because everyone was doing me a massive favour and I couldn’t even give them comp copies in return. Coordinating that many people was too much. Plus dealing with comic shop owners was quite hard for me; I have a fear of post offices; not a phobia I can go to a Post Office without hyperventilating or staining my daks – its more a feeling of I’d rather be anywhere else. There used to be a post office near where I lived which was actually part of a hardware store – I felt ok there but then I moved. And I can’t cold-call; I have phone terror so I can’t call and I’m not actually that bright so end up calling the guy that runs Minotaurs Frank for 6 months wondering why my emails don’t get returned.

So Sureshot was born out of things I didn’t want to do.

• I didn’t want to have to sell to new people.
• I didn’t want to deal with groups of people.
• I didn’t want to do a lot.

But I wanted to do things my way.

Sureshot Presents – The Spark

The idea for publishing comics hit me pretty early in my time with OzComics Magazine. Me and Darren Close played with the idea of doing some sort of studio thing, which from my end was too big to realise. But i enjoy Australian Comics too much, not to want to be involved.

To me life is all effort and reward; if you don’t put in the effort, then don’t expect anything. Sometimes effort is its own reward and when you love what you do, you got it made. When you talk effort, you got to understand limits - how much effort am I willing to put in before I start questioning “what the fuck am I doing THIS for?” and end up whimpering.

Me, I’m quite neurotic; I know what I can do, I know how much time and money I can put into a project before I get overwhelmed. And I wanted to do something with local comics. I pretty much discovered when I left uni in 1997 that unless I had a project or a set of goals I was fucked. I’d wonder ‘what’s the point?’, lose a sense of purpose and being and the black dog would start snapping.

I felt it would be worth the effort to publish them.

Australian Comics I’ve read recently

In the last 3 months I’ve read a bunch of Australian Comics which I’ll try and provide reviews for in the next couple of weeks

• The Sacrifice – (A Masterpiece)
• Kate Lawson – (Clumsy but not bad)
• A tricky thing – (sweet and personal)
• Modern Gentleman – (Disturbing)
• Bloodbound – (Solid, fun but dumb)
• The List – (disappointing)
• Hollow Meadows – (Electric but formulaic)
• Azerath – (Solid but lost)