I can tell you what I did for my very first con though.

Back in 2008, I only had 120 or so Capes & Babes strips done. I took the first 80 of those strips and made four individual mini-comic books (Vol. 1, 2, 3 & 4) and sold them for, I think $2.00 a piece.

I had one generic t-shirt design that didn’t have anything to do with the comic. I had 25 of those shirts at various sizes and sold those for $12 a piece.

And then I had my commissions. I was new to the scene so back in 2008, I did 9×12″ pencils for $5, Black & White for $15 and full color for $20.

That’s basically all I had except for really nice, professionally printed postcards that I handed out like candy on Halloween.

I’ve since expanded and tried different things – as I’ve written about here and talked about during our podcasts… things like buttons, 4×5″ prints, books and then, much, much later, sketch cards. It was by accident that i hit on the caricature sketch cards that I now do all the time.

I also took photos of other people tables so i could get ideas for what I might want to do in the future. That helped me quite a bit later on down the road.

I would say start conservative and then grow. Don’t be too disappointed if people don’t immediately flock to your table. What happens a lot is you sometimes have to go to the same show two, three or four times before you really begin to pick up a following. Once that happens, then you can start expanding into bigger and bigger things.

For One-Off commissions, I haven’t heard of anybody having any problems selling commissioned work of licensed characters. These are original pieces of work that aren’t massed produced.

And although you can sometimes find artists who have massed produced prints of their own interpretations of licensed characters at various conventions, it doesn’t seem to be too big of a problem. I think the problem comes in to play when people try and make t-shirts and things like that. that’s when things get really tricky and complicated.

For the most part, whet you will generally find is that artists will carefully select a few commissioned pieces they really like (and that they think will sell well) and have prints made of those pieces. They carefully select in order to keep costs down. That’s what I have done. I select about 5-10 commissions that people always comment about and I make about 10 prints each of those.

Some artists will make more than that if they have the budge. For me, that gets in the really grey area because that’s bordering on “mass production” but they don’t seem to have any problems selling those prints.

Also, my stuff leans more towards satire or parody – especially my mash-up commissioned pieces.

It’s been a while since I read about the Friedrich/Ghost Rider thing but if memory serves, I believe part of the problem was Friedrich was claiming sole ownership of Ghost Rider when that wasn’t exactly 100% true, wasn’t he? Maybe someone can fill me in and refresh my memory about that. No one that I know that sells prints of their own work claims that they are the owner of Batman, Superman and so on.

in fact, it gets even more complicated when you consider the fact that comic book companies mass produce “sketch covers” – comic books with blank covers – specifically so other artists can draw interpretations of their own company’s characters and then sell those books at shows. but again, that’s a one-off situation.

In the end though, as one of my good friends who is a writer and a lawyer likes to remind me… anyone can be sued for anything. So you have to keep that in mind. Personally, I started tabling at shows in 2007 and I haven’t had any problems at all.

Does that help at all?

I’m going to be doing my first convention this fall and this has all been really helpful. I do have a question though… When it comes to making prints to sell, I noticed you had some DC characters in your book. What’s the current climate on that? I have a feeling doing some prints with established characters could help me sell or bring eyeballs to the table but in the wake of the whole Friedrich/Ghost Rider thing, I was wondering how that works at cons now. Advice?

Anyway, thanks for posting this, it’ll be a great help for me and I also love to see your process, always very interesting to se how others go about making their comics!

You mentioned some off the shelf setup to create your own app. Could you give some examples? Would it be that you would pay for a service via another developer and they would publish the app for you? Or are you refering to an aggragate, like the inked app that still hasen’t seen the light of day?

thanks!

I’ll just reiterate what I posted last time.

1. Got my own domain instead of starting off on some site like drunkduck and then having to move it later. I also bought the most common misspelling of my domain and have it forward to the comic (girlpowercomic as opposed to grrlpowercomic) Minor points in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes little things add up.

2. Went in with realistic expectations. Before I stated the comic, I listened to every episode of the short lived Penny Arcade podcast, and Webcomics Weekly. The PA Podcast helped with my writing and taught me that no idea is so precious that it can’t be scrapped if a better one comes along, and the WW podcast said repeatedly to only do it if you love doing it, you won’t get rich on it, and if you ever make money at it, it will be years before you start seeing more than a few cents profit. The other important thing I learned (which should be obvious but sometimes that stuff needs to be said aloud) is if you want more readers, make a better product. Quality trumps all. Begging for RT’s is fine, posting your comic on facebook is nice, advertising is nice, but all that stuff just brings readers in, it doesn’t keep them.

In a way, low expectations is a double edged sword, I’ve been quite surprised by the success of the comic so far, but I could also be pushing myself harder in areas like merch. Expecting that little will come of it has probably prevented me from being more aggressive in a lot of ways.

3. Engage with the readers. I get a lot of comments on my comics (a surprising amount honestly) but out of ~300 comments on a single post, 10-15 of them are mine saying thanks or answering questions and whatever. Now the comments section has turned into its own little community. On the comic I have up now, there are people (one of whom insists he has a PhD in genetics) discussing how super powers could be accounted for in the human genetic code, they’re talking about control and architect genes, recessive traits, junk DNA, it’s great.

4. Built a huge buffer before I started. Not so much to have a buffer, but just to develop my start to finish process of making an actual comic, and to make sure I could keep to my schedule before I actually started publishing. The buffer has almost totally eroded now, but it was definitely the right thing to do.

5. MAKING A COMIC. It sounds silly but for years I wanted to do a comic but didn’t. It’s hard to say why it took me so long to get started. I guess one year I realized that if I had started when I first had the thought, I’d have 500 pages done already. I can’t locate the source of this quote, but someone once said (something to the effect of) “The best way to start doing something is to start doing it.”

…We ARE talking about buffers, right?

(PS: I’m sorry.)

Good on you, hombre.

-Chris

1. Created the perfect comic book and characters to tell the stories I want to tell. The Graveyard Gang is primarily a horror comic with 5 kids as the main characters. But because of the way I’ve set it up I have the ability to tell all kinds of stories from horror to humor to crime to romance to adventure to action to mystery to history.

2. Figured out HOW to do my comic. I labored a long time to hone in on a style and method. I initially started working in PHOTOSHOP as most comic creators do these days. I finally decided to switch to ILLUSTRATOR since that is the program I use at the day job (making maps and charts). While still streamlining the process, I’m getting faster now that I have a ‘way’!

3. Trademarked and copyrighted my work before I launched. I actually finished and printed my first issue and got all legalities done BEFORE I launched my website.

4. Launched my website! I used my design experience to create a look for my home page but I had NO IDEA how to make it. I reached out to folks at webcomics.com and had tremendous help. While not even close to being an expert, I can manage to post blogs/comics and do minor adjustments.

5. Reached out/made friends with other comic creators. After so many years of my art being a personal/private thing it was daunting to have it ‘out there’ for everyone to see. Fellow creators have been there with their praise and encouragement which has meant the world to me this past year. I must be doing something right!

P.S. Here are some quotes that have helped me before AND after I launched my comic.

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly. – Robert H. Schuller

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. – Henry Ford, 1863-1947

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark; professionals built the Titanic
- Anonymous

An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.
- J. D. Salinger

Success doesn’t come to you…you go to it. – Marva Collins

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer

A goal properly set is halfway reached. – Abraham Lincoln

Lots of great pieces of wisdom! Thanks for sharing them, and congratulate yourself for a job well done!!

2. I started with over 100 pages of buffer. I went back and changed a lot of them from all the things I learned about timing along the way, and I’m really glad I had the wiggle room to do that.

3. I made style changes part of the story. I knew I wanted to practice a lot of mediums/brushes/styles, so rather than surprise people later, I let them know it was happening pretty early on.

4. I didn’t wait until things were “perfect” to start. Just getting it out of my head in a way that other people could understand taught me all kinds of things I never learned with an audience of one.

5. I didn’t stick with vector mouse-drawn lineart very long. Good God, that was time consuming.

Here’s to learning more things in the years to come! =D

And congrats at using social media/site traffic to grow your business!! Rent and groceries is no small feat! Well done!!

1. I’ve stuck at my comic (1 year today)
2. I tried to improve my art through copying and a lot of work most days
3. When I needed to concentrate on school, I knew to walk away for a few weeks while I sorted exams
4. I’ve started reaching out to people and have found some other artists who I get along with and have semi regular chats with
5. I’ve started working on my scheduling better so I miss less updates and have longer to work on the comic

1) jumped into the indie comic world as an artist and learned that while it is hectic and full of drama it is none the less fulfilling because there are so many awesome people out there that you meet at conventions and on twitter/facebook/google+ that want all the love you can give them with your art. that’s awesome! they give great feedback and help you elevate yourself to higher places. I’ve definitely done that this year as I see my art and my opportunities continue to rise

2)Finally dug up the courage and nerve to try a webcomic again. this time without compromising myself or my art just to try and give people something they may like. I am almost done with the first chapter (thanks Drezz for this idea of chapter releases) and will be posting it in a few weeks (still ahve colors to do!) It will be a longform comic and yeah maybe these don’t do so great on the web but you know what? This story is awesome and I’ve been really pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone with the art so I think it will be worth it!

3)Met face to face with a ton of creators at conventions and over social networks. got over my whole “OMG that person is a star so i can’t speak to them” attitude and realized we all put on pants one leg at a time. this has lead to some very interesting friendships being made and that lead to super helpful critiques and further improvement of my craft.

4) Increased site traffic, social network followers and consequently my print sales and commission sales went from virtually nothing to an amazing amount per month. Enough for me to help pay rent and part of groceries! I’ll take it!

5) Learned that it’s okay to be a wordy and opinionated SOB on twitter and Facebook as long as I’m not rude, call anyone out, and post LOTS of art and process shots! People love process shots. Process and art posts lead to people hitting me up for advice on what brush i used or what program i like best. It leads to people wanting to talk to me and get to know me on a personal level and that leads to all of the above. So art! hell yeah!