Accountability
Just know that THIS is the hard part.
ok, where to begin?
I was checking Facebook at some point last night, when I noticed Charlie 查理 McElvy posting the link to the STRAY: REQUIEM 1-3 Kickstarter pre-launch page. As always, I liked or loved the post, and then I read it…
…”launching next week.”
This was the first I saw a date associated with the Kickstarter. I don’t know when I thought we’d launch, but for some reason, I didn’t think it would be next week (for some reason, I thought it’d be May). So, like a good soldier, I started sharing across socials, trying to get that project follower count up (at 105 currently), and then I started to feel a little woozy. Not like the dizziness of nausea, but more like…being in Denver where the city is above sea level and the air is thinner. As always, the biggest concern when running (or co-running, in this case) a Kickstarter is, “Will anyone show up?” but a new one hit me.
“Will anyone care?”
(Issue 3/Cover A by Benjamin Morse)
We don’t say it often enough, because the reality is there are fewer creator owned comics you HEAR and KNOW about than you think, but every comic is a piece of me that I am giving to someone. There is a chunk of my heart, a hunk of my soul, some tears, a lot of sweat, figurative blood, and probably some skin in every comic I make. The fact is, I don’t do this for a living. I work in retail. 8 hours a day (sometimes less), 40 hours a week (sometimes less). I’m literally sacrificing to make comics. I’m not blessed with having a page rate. In fact, when I run Kickstarters, I don’t pay myself to write or edit. Which is why these things take so fucking long to make. Or ship! Oh God, let’s not talk about shipping when you have a 9-5 (sometimes less) job! When one of your two days off is a weekend when the post office is closed, having to make your one weekday off a trip to the post office is hard.
“Will anyone care?”
(Issue 3/Cover B by Colm Griffin)
I’ll be 53 this June and while I won’t admit it, the time to make comics is probably coming to an end sooner than later (relax, not as soon as you think). I was telling Dean Haspiel that at 53, I’m probably in my second, not third, act in the industry because I started so late. 2003. I was a 30 year old rookie. Most start at 16 or 18. Most reach their peak at 30, either creatively or economically (meaning they make the most money in their career at that mark because they’re still considered young by industry standards). I was just starting. I figure that gives me a 16 year window in each act, give or take1. So my third act should start at 62. Gives me a lot of time (9 years) to get as much Stray out there as possible before I start looking at my last act and winding down by 88. Sheesh. It’s more time than you think, but time moves so fast, you know? My daughter just entered her teens, but I swear I just brought her home from the hospital.
“Will anyone care?”
(Issue 3/Cover C by Cody Conyers)
Weirdly, both my daughter and Stray were born in the same year. There’s a video from the first campaign where I feeding her and she’s not cooperating, and I’m “reassuring her” that Stray will reach it’s funding goal, so she can eat. And that video is so…it makes sense, in a way. You put together a project and you starve yourself to get it done. Doing a Kickstarter is a full time job for 30 days, they tell you. And you have to sneak updates and sharing while on the clock at your REAL job. Then there’s the late nights when you’re trying to figure out how to get that one backer, just one, to put you over the hump of these landmarks and mini-goals you make up in your head (“I’ve got 49 backers; if I can get 50, that’s a good sign!”). And your brain just…it turns to mush after a while. The amount of marketing strategies, and stretch goal ideas, and reaching out to podcasts and news sites…it’s not tiring as much as it is wearying. It affects your soul (there’s that hunk that goes into the comic). And all you want to do, in the purest sense, is make someone stop what they’re doing for a few minutes and read. If you’re putting so much into it, why wouldn’t you want the best for it? Why keep it to yourself? And at the end of the day, it comes down to being accepted and appreciated. As a creator, as a storyteller, as a person…you just want someone to read your stuff and say, “That was good,” as a sigh of relief escapes their mouths.
“Will anyone care?”
(Issue 3/Cover D by Wee Arts’ Huy Dinh)
And that leads me to accountability. I’ve gone on record as saying that I am awful at the fulfillment level of doing Kickstarters. Part of it is the post office runs I mentioned above, but the other part? The part that I don’t want to accept as true, but it is? I overpromise. Therefore, I underdeliver. I’m unreliable. I try to not be. I really do, but it’s hard when all you want to do is lay down. That could be physical limitations or emotional/mental ones. There’s this deep, deep euphoria that comes over you after running as hard as you can, for 30 days, toward a finish line with the goal being to make as much money as you can to make this thing real. Sometimes, you set the goal low, just so you can make the thing, but even after, you keep running, keep pushing, keep running, keep pushing…let’s get a buffer for someone dropping out, or let’s get a buffer so that when Kickstarter takes its percentage, it doesn’t affect our bottom line and we can make the thing. All that pushing and running takes a toll. That euphoria lasts only so long before the reality of it all comes rushing back and you remind yourself that even though people believe in the thing, you still have to make/print/ship THE THING. There’s no staff. If you’re lucky, you can talk your wife into stopping at the post office. Truth be told? It’s not the comic in my case; it’s the everything else. The stretch goals, or the reward tiers that require ways of making the thing collectible or worth the money. Overpromising, see? If Kickstarter backers were content with just a comic, I’d be golden. But my artist(s) lives half a world away. It’s not easy to get them to pony up more for less, especially when shipping from a country without a reliable postal service (and that is high praise for the USPS because they’re not always the best!). I just want to make the thing and sell you the thing. Everything else is just static.
“Does anyone care?”
(Issue 3/Interior Page by Marcelo Mueller & Nelson Redulla Jr.)
Things are different now. Working with Charlie, who has proven time and time again that he is a reliable crowdfunder/fulfiller (that can’t be a word), means that every cent goes toward printing and shipping (where before, all the money was going to the overpromised rewards). The thing, in this case, Issue 3, is done. This Kickstarter is designed for both old and new backers, with the opportunity to get all three issues in an attempt to catch up quick. And the hope is to make enough money on this to pay for the coloring of Issue 4 and get that up and out before year’s end.
This year, if things go right, could see a total of FOUR Stray comics. That hasn’t happened since we were at Action Lab.
“Does anyone care?”
I hope so. I’ve got a lot to say with this character and my second act isn’t over yet.
Separately, but related, the VITO x DINO Podcast has had a few recent episodes that are absolute standouts:
Episode 56 we talk about black creators and characters and attempt to make superheroes realistic in regards to current events.
Episode 57 we talk about Todd McFarlane’s controversial hot take.
Episode 58 we talk with Joe Illidge about Milestone Media and how to recognize “the moment.”
Episode 59 we talk about the meaning of justice.
All episodes are available on our Spotify page (except for 59, which goes up this weekend), Apple Podcasts and Pocket Casts!
-V
For the record, I don’t actually think this way nor do I calculate these things with any sort of accuracy or concrete belief.