May 8, 2010
10:00 am	to	6:30 pm

What do you get when you cross a sleazy Spanish octopus with possible underworld connections with a sweet 16 year old girl who’s a former goat herder now living in the big city, but recently got kidnapped by people from Adelaide? (more…)

Twist recently pointed me at a rather interesting article by Paul Duffield, one of the artists working on the Freak Angels comic.

He writes about marketing decisions behind content, but as someone who’s been both a creator and a publisher, I feel he misses a vital point: It’s not his money if his product is a major fucking flop.

You know what I really love? Quirky art-house movies, novels that have an amazing amount of exposition and social commentary, and weird trippy comics… All things that are usually massive market failures, only propped up by the commercial success of other intellectual properties! The music industry is the primary example of this, but it exists across all content/creative industries, from movies to video games.

As everything pretty much has to balance the budgets, you’re only going to see the big titles, unless you’re going to a specialist book shop, such as Science & Swords (Ask for Ruz, tell him I sent you) and actually getting a recommendation from the guy behind the counter, because sales are so low on obscure titles that they’ve got few customers as all the big books are on sale for 30% below RRP at Borders and Kmart anyway, so these guys have nothing better to do but read their obscure books all day. It’s part of the reason they work at those kinds of shops in the first place.

If you’re wanting to make a title that you’re just wanting to have put out there as a piece of art, that’s fantastic… But if you’re expecting someone else to pay for it, it’s also the height of vanity, and you’ll just end up in fights between creative and bean-counting types. See picture above.

Nowadays, even this vanity publishing market is well catered for, thanks to eBooks and print on demand publishing services like LuLu.com. Authors don’t have to spend any money on publishing themselves. No money on marketing, either, if they don’t want to.  The only time a cost is incurred is when a customer orders a book, and they pay for every part of the production process with these P.O.D. books, with authors getting a similar amount of royalty.

It’s win-win for authors and publishers, but lose-lose for non-chain bookstores and readers. Non-chain bookstores simply can’t afford to be a part of this process, and customers aren’t going to hear about any of these authors that may be good,except via word of mouth. Consumers can’t do any due diligence as they can’t check the actual book out, flick through it like they might at a store. The only way to see is if the P.O.D. site has No# of sales listed, or allows for other customers to do reviews… And even then, avaricious authors can game the system by writing their own reviews.

With that said, a good independent author will often put their work up somewhere else for people to see it before hand… quite often a blog.

For those that like David’s post though, and wish to follow up on it, his blog is here: http://spoonblog.blogspot.com/

Every year, on the Queen’s Birthday weekend, there is an event known as the Comikaze 24hr Challenge.

It’s basically an endurance challenge for cartoonists. As a breed, we tend not to exercise, or go outside much, so we have a different kind of endurance challenge.

We attempt to make an entire monthly publication’s worth of comic in a single period of 24 consecutive hours. This is hard enough. To make it harder, it should be noted that Queen’s Birthday weekend is the same weekend as my birthday. So I am basically guaranteed to start this event with a positive BAC reading. But just to make sure that I stay evenly juiced up with the “creative process”, there is generally about 6 liters of energy drinks, and a bottle of vodka, to keep me going.

The idea was originally floated by comic artist luminary Scott McCloud, but the American challenge (which produces a book of the winners each year) falls on a really suck date, so we started our own down under a number of years ago.

OzTAKU and Pulp Faction are the two largest groups that enter, alongside numerous individuals who have no affiliation with either, with Pulp Faction hosting most of the content.

My submission effort this year has probably been my best yet, although I really didn’t push myself, having only done 14 hours of work on my entry, and getting 11 pages done (as one seems to have gone missing, and all things considered, I’m far too tired to simply redo it as I already had the handicap of my birthday hangover). The story came to me while I was having a conversation with a friend on MSN the other day, and has been playing on my mind ever since. The idea that we are going to reach a saturation point with these devices, and the wireless network accessibility to allow people to be permanently Wired is a little frightening in some ways, honestly.

Already our generation has a preference to communicate via text instead of face to face, or even voice to voice. That I am telling you this via a blog, and you are reading it, and we might have a discussion about it in person, but far more likely to over MSN or Facebook is rather telling of that already. Now think about what it will be like when you can access the net quickly, and for free, while you’re on the go. You’re probably going to be so busy typing to 3-4 people at once, tweeting, updating statuses on various social networks, that a phone call is seriously going to throw you off your game. Better to just text the person to MSN you. Likewise, how much original content do you have to talk about when you see people in person, that you haven’t already said on one of your many social sites? And did you a raise an eyebrow when I just said “content” instead of something more “natual” like “fresh conversation”? Because if you didn’t, you’re already thinking about your social interactions with other people in terms of computer mediated encounters, or even just exchanges of information, instead of an actual honest-to-man conversation.

Anyway, enough blabbering on about my perfect future where personal space is broken down to the point that groping a tit is more acceptable than a handshake, and everyone shuts the fuck up. Enjoy Say Hello.

If you’ve got a few hours to while away, I recommend you go and check out some of the other entries.

So finally leaving Black Widows at arond 3am, we make our way home so sleep may be had before an important meeting. The Manifest Organising Committee meeting.

Only slightly less corrupt, and with substantially less money than the International Olympic Committee, MOC put on Melbourne’s best anime convention, Manifest, and I am the titular head this year… Go me….

If you have suggestions, or simply like to draw pornography involving our mascot, Peppa Chan, by all means please send that in by email, or just comment down below. Here’s a picture for reference purposes if you’re doing the porn. Preferably somethign with tentacles please.

In the past these meetings have been an exercise in tedium. To most extents, they still are, only now thanks to my iron fist, we don’t spend 150 minutes arguing about who was meant to pay for a fucking P.O. Box.

But the whole point of mentioning this? Seriously. If you like anime, and have some suggestions of what we should do at the largest dedicated anime festival in the country, I’m open to suggestions…
I may also be attempting to rank for longtails in SERP, but that’s a tech joke… or is it?

With the meeting over, I met up with Wade. For those of you that are unaware, Wade is one of my three dopplegangers (see photo). If you are interested in some Dr. Manhattan Action, again, the comment box is below… I’ll be the one still working in the tool shed. 

To explain, Wade is what I would have become if I remained single and never went to university.
Much like J.L. is what I would have become if I gave a crap about career climbing, or that guy in QLD is what I would be if I hadn’t aged for the last decade.
That is to say, amazingly sleazy and with a bizarrely fucked up, yet compellingly hilarious, sex life, which is soon to be turned into a web comic, line of merchandise, and perhaps children’s book.

The comic will be called Wadeing in the Gene Pool. Technically, there is meant to be a site for it, but I haven’t had the time to go through all the shit to set it up, as my hosting has sent me through all kinds of shenanigans lately. Wade & I  sat for an hour, over some Nandos because hot stories require hot sauce, and discussed. I would offer you an excerpt now, like I promised yesterday, only I also have broken my only 3.5mm Male/Male audio lead, and will be getting a new one this weekend… Oooh, anticipation!

We’ll be attempting to make the audio a weekly podcast the moment the site is up. Ladies, or Lady Boys, if you’re interested you can even become part of Season 2.

Finally I decided it being the last night of the Comedy Festival, I should try to get in one more show. I am now horribly horribly morose because there’s nothing, NOTHING, funny in my life now… My art career can now continue apace. This is especially important in light of the show’s title: Comicide.

No, they weren’t killing Communists. It was a series of running sketches about those socially awkward moments that kill your social life and any chance you might ever have at having happiness. Fucking hilarious… Especially the sketch about a guy having to flee to Siberia for getting the Transformers transforming sound wrong. If you have a chance to see these guys, sink a few drinks, and get in there.

And then, home again home again cry myself to sleep…

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