Thursday, March 12, 2009

Future imperfect

CAN'T believe it's been over a month since my last post here. Not that there's been much to report anyway - nothing good at least.

Diamond won't be soliciting mine and Dec's Tim Skinner: Total Scumbag one-shot, which is a bit of a blow really; especially as it's easily the best thing I've yet written and published. And Dec's full-colour artwork is terrific.

I shall probably be contacting Haven Distribution in the very near future to see if they might be interested in picking the book up but, to be honest, I can't see us getting nearly as many orders going that route as we would have through Diamond.

The worrying thing is that if Diamond don't want something as blatantly commercial as Skinner, I really can't see them going for anything else currently sitting on my release schedule (although Brit Force's Glenn Fabry cover might give that book more than a fighting chance).

That means I'm back to square one in many ways - publishing comics to sell online and at conventions. This is something of a backwards step so I'm going to have a serious think about making some changes. I'm currently in the middle of lettering the Brothers one-shot for release at the Bristol Expo in May but, after that, I'm going to take a long hard look at what I do and decide what my next step will be.

It could be that I stop publishing altogether and concentrate 100 per cent on writing and pitching to professional companies, but that would take a lot of the fun out of it for me. I enjoy the entire process of putting a comic together - not just the writing side. And, of course, the problem with pitching is that there's no guarantee any of my ideas would ever be picked up - I could spend years toiling away for absolutely no return.

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit confused about where things are headed at the moment - hopefully I'll feel a bit more positive after Bristol...

4 comments:

jamie said...

you have got to be kidding me,
what a f*****g bunch of c***s,
i'm absolutely f*****g furios at this turn of events,
as you say,tim skinner is your most blatantly commercial and mainatream book so far,and a surefire hit in the making,
i really feel that the pricks in charge don't know their arses from a hole in the ground.
wankers,

on a lighter note,
hi!

jamie said...

i'd like to speak to someone at diamond on your behalf.
i'm in the mood for a fight.

Unknown said...

Thanks for your support, mate, but it's fine - really! Things have changed at Diamond and, right now, lots of tiny indie publishers like me are out in the cold. Eventually, it might change but in the meantime maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

It means I now actually have to get off my arse and start contacting editors at Image, Boom, IDW etc and persuading them to let me pitch for stuff.

I'll almost certainly continue publishing in some capacity but that is going to have to change.

jamie said...

well,it's certainly something i've mentioned to you in the past.
i know if you applied your massive creative muscle to say,a star trek based book,you'd come up with some great stories.
i really look forward to hearing your pitches.