The Old School Otaku Lounge

Hi everyone, Happy New Year! I'm pottering around on my computer and wanted to post some links to my stuff on the forums

Biomecha
My long running comic (started in the mid-90's) is still going and will conclude with Book 3. They are Tokyopop-sized GNs and are approx 200 pages each! Book 1 (1990's content, you can read the chapters online here) was reprinted in 2015 and I managed to edit and compile Book 2 (2000's content) last year. Book 3 will probably take 2 years to do as it is new work (the 2010's), and I am utilising Patreon to get it done. Hooray!

Patreon
Here's my Patreon page! When I do 8 x pages they are password-visible to readers who want to pledge $1 (or $5 to also receive posted artworks and items a few times throughout the year). I've been on Patreon for two years now and the support has been so helpful not just for motivation and routine, but for helping offsetting digital host fees and printing costs
When Biomecha is complete (Book 3!) I will be doing some experimental colour works based on short stories, try some different ways of drawing and publish that as a US-sized graphic novel, which I've not done yet but would like to try

Etsy
Here's my Etsy shop, with prints and cute stuff as well as my books. There's an anthology GN in there which I contributed to and is £5 which is a bargain. FWIW I ship worldwide!

One day I'd like to throw a few books in a suitcase and sell them at a US con, it would be cool to do that and meet some of you IRL!

Thanks for reading! I will update when work gets moving in 2017

Thanks for this post, this is interesting stuff!

While I've occasionally thought about the idea of self-publishing, it was always as an abstract concept. Plus I'm lazy and not very dedicated as an artist anyway so this is not something I usually think about in serious terms.

Is it hard to make a profit and build an audience through the self-publishing route? Any nuggets of wisdom or advice you can give about what it takes to do it? I remember going to a seminar about self-publishing comics a few years back and I have to say, I just got overwhelmed at how complex it all sounded.

llj wrote:Thanks for this post, this is interesting stuff!

I agree with llj, thanks for sharing. Your art style is fantastic!

llj, Kame-Sen'nin, thank you very much! I've been chipping away at my way of this stuff for a while, it's satisfying to see the slow-grower a few-panels-a-week come out in the form of a print book :3

llj wrote:While I've occasionally thought about the idea of self-publishing, it was always as an abstract concept. Plus I'm lazy and not very dedicated as an artist anyway so this is not something I usually think about in serious terms.

Haha not lazy, a choice to do art and not production or manufacturing I think! My dad had a photocopier at work and encouraged me at 14yo to start making zines, so I did, and I was able to make comics from my early teens which probably planted a seed in my brain for it right there. Not many people have access for that (and believe me I have lost it many times over pagination) but analogue printing was all manual and not mathematical (literally pasting pages together, not doing anything crazy with PDFs back then) so I got a good slow entry level way of working; I would probably be put off by the digital deep end of stuff now, IMO its no wonder people stick to pinups, 1-page webcomics and so on. There are dedicated comics printer companies around now, though, no pagination/PDF exporting required as they do the page layouts for you, so it is a bit more accessible again

llj wrote:Is it hard to make a profit and build an audience through the self-publishing route? Any nuggets of wisdom or advice you can give about what it takes to do it? I remember going to a seminar about self-publishing comics a few years back and I have to say, I just got overwhelmed at how complex it all sounded.

I think if I drew more of what people wanted I'd be more popular and sell more. What I do is very 80's/90's because that's what influenced me to get into doing it in the first place and I haven't really moved with trends (when I tried to do that it felt really awful and looked bad. I'm too rigid about it so decided to focus more). The people (and friends I've made through comics) really, really seem to like what I do though and have supported what I do with each book by buying content and pledging through Patreon for years now. I'd like to concentrate on Patreon and Etsy more instead of slinging my net far and wide to try and get a number of random commissions. I've found my patience wears thin after the vast number of requests. I have repeat clients who just let me do what I do which is idyllic. I have an audience by just being there and doing things people remember from a few cons ago,I suppose! Nostalgia is finally working for me! "Oh it reminds me of Slayers" etc (I've never seen Slayers but I know what they mean xD)

My projects do make some profit but I do tend to plunge it back into print costs and printing thing like Risograph prints to sell on Etsy and at cons. It pays for itself which really takes the strain out of things. It's extremely stressful to rely solely on art for income in a world that expects work for cheap and free, with my joints hurting it was not worth it for the timeframe I worked doing that. I see artists grinding themselves right down for peanuts, getting RSI and ortho problems, and it's painful to see - combined with the overwork culture as well plus the share-without-credit culture, the all-or-nothing is going to destory some people If you can support yourself to do artwork and get some income coming in if people like it enough, that's best for me and others in many ways. Some people are really good at monetising, business, marketing and so on, some people are really technical and have great digital tool skills, but I'm unsure if they consider that any easier as it is all hard work to even get £1 out of people at a con!

FWIW I did freelancing for a while but not only did my health decline so did a number of clients so it wasn't feasible with that combo. SO I'm doing what I did throughout my education and early postgrad careers, drawing the occasional thing (mainly for friends who are clients) and mainly doing my own thing. Weirdly getting more ill means I have been able to just focus on drawing how and what I really want to draw and when I can, so I am hoping to refine that. Slow and steady is my race Today I figured I'd be really good at 50yo haha I will persevere! Or at least get better by then!

I tend to update my Instagram, it makes even my rubbish-est of sketches look ok! Filterfilter!! I'm currently working on this piece that I hope to make into a two-tone Risograph print when I'm happy with it

This should read, "I've found my patience wears thin after the vast number of change requests." xD Some people put clauses in their contracts to limit this, some clients take the mickey.

PinkAppleJam wrote:

Haha not lazy, a choice to do art and not production or manufacturing I think! My dad had a photocopier at work and encouraged me at 14yo to start making zines, so I did, and I was able to make comics from my early teens which probably planted a seed in my brain for it right there. Not many people have access for that (and believe me I have lost it many times over pagination) but analogue printing was all manual and not mathematical (literally pasting pages together, not doing anything crazy with PDFs back then) so I got a good slow entry level way of working; I would probably be put off by the digital deep end of stuff now, IMO its no wonder people stick to pinups, 1-page webcomics and so on. There are dedicated comics printer companies around now, though, no pagination/PDF exporting required as they do the page layouts for you, so it is a bit more accessible again

Ah, that's cool. At the self-publishing artist discussions I've been to, I remember them talking about the various logistics one had to deal with when using comics printer companies, especially when it comes to color codes, book binding, and so forth. I would imagine black and white is much less of a headache anyway.

I think if I drew more of what people wanted I'd be more popular and sell more. What I do is very 80's/90's because that's what influenced me to get into doing it in the first place and I haven't really moved with trends (when I tried to do that it felt really awful and looked bad. I'm too rigid about it so decided to focus more). The people (and friends I've made through comics) really, really seem to like what I do though and have supported what I do with each book by buying content and pledging through Patreon for years now. I'd like to concentrate on Patreon and Etsy more instead of slinging my net far and wide to try and get a number of random commissions. I've found my patience wears thin after the vast number of requests. I have repeat clients who just let me do what I do which is idyllic. I have an audience by just being there and doing things people remember from a few cons ago,I suppose! Nostalgia is finally working for me! "Oh it reminds me of Slayers" etc (I've never seen Slayers but I know what they mean xD)

I can definitely see that. While there's probably better money to be had in doing requests, I would imagine that having to draw characters you have no attachment to would be soul draining at times. I don't presently draw in an explicitly anime/manga style (though I think I can still do it if need be) so I sometimes wonder if I really put myself out there, would people started asking me to draw them a bunch of Batman/Superman/Spider-Mans...I think it'd be a nightmare, lol.

My projects do make some profit but I do tend to plunge it back into print costs and printing thing like Risograph prints to sell on Etsy and at cons. It pays for itself which really takes the strain out of things. It's extremely stressful to rely solely on art for income in a world that expects work for cheap and free, with my joints hurting it was not worth it for the timeframe I worked doing that. I see artists grinding themselves right down for peanuts, getting RSI and ortho problems, and it's painful to see - combined with the overwork culture as well plus the share-without-credit culture, the all-or-nothing is going to destory some people If you can support yourself to do artwork and get some income coming in if people like it enough, that's best for me and others in many ways. Some people are really good at monetising, business, marketing and so on, some people are really technical and have great digital tool skills, but I'm unsure if they consider that any easier as it is all hard work to even get £1 out of people at a con!

Yeah, even if you're doing something for fun or just a labour of love thing, at some point after a sustained amount of time working on something, you want to get at least something out of it, even if it just what amounts to only a bit of spending money. I know there are artists out there who seemed to have found a formulaic system for creating art at a steady pace and making some profit out of it, but one can also see obvious concessions made in the amount of effort put into the art, etc,. And then there's the "rubber stamp" method of making comics which I'm seeing more and more online these days (Matt Groening took that method to its logical conclusion with his Life in Hell strip...)

FWIW I did freelancing for a while but not only did my health decline so did a number of clients so it wasn't feasible with that combo. SO I'm doing what I did throughout my education and early postgrad careers, drawing the occasional thing (mainly for friends who are clients) and mainly doing my own thing. Weirdly getting more ill means I have been able to just focus on drawing how and what I really want to draw and when I can, so I am hoping to refine that. Slow and steady is my race Today I figured I'd be really good at 50yo haha I will persevere! Or at least get better by then!

I tend to update my Instagram, it makes even my rubbish-est of sketches look ok! Filterfilter!! I'm currently working on this piece that I hope to make into a two-tone Risograph print when I'm happy with it

Nice! Me, I can barely do much after the "scan" phase.

Thank you so much for sharing your work and advice, PinkAppleJam.

What advice could you give someone who's incredibly new at trying out a Patreon page?

NorthernKaleCity wrote:Thank you so much for sharing your work and advice, PinkAppleJam.
What advice could you give someone who's incredibly new at trying out a Patreon page?

You're welcome! I'd say just go for it, have a few tiers (I do two tiers now, one is digital access and the other is digital access + posted art and gifts), let it build over a number of years, follow others, and don't expect instant results

I think people get disheartened by these sorts of things early, there's no quick reward and I think people's expectations can be off - I really like the slow ebb and flow of the Patron model. It suits me better than all the immediate admin that many Kickstarters seem to require.

I managed to get that Riso done! I put it online here
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4957980 ... ome_feat_4

Thanks for looking

Did I post a link to Book 2? I can't remember!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4747543 ... ome_feat_2

Naughty hotlink via Etsy (will remove if there are problems =


Thanks for looking

PinkAppleJam wrote:I managed to get that Riso done! I put it online here
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4957980 ... ome_feat_4

Thanks for looking

Wow. Just...wow. If I can find a decent place for it, I think I'll have to order this print. You did an AMAZING job on this!