Happy
New Year, and thank you everyone!
Dave
& Liz have attained the first stage of our ambitions: Devoting
our labor towards breathing life into the series. For over a decade,
that has been the dream.
Thanks
to the best readership on earth, we are now there. Working full-time
on our original graphic novel saga, with absolute creative freedom as
CEOs of a company we founded, gathering a coalition of talent with
which to advance.
Vivid
Publishing is poised to occupy new territory in 2020, leveraging
creative firepower that exceeds the limits of our own two sets of
hands. Comics, games, animation...
Before
we sound the charge and share the year’s battle plan, how did we
attain this vantage point? Even professional industry artists dream
of having the prerogative to pursue their own projects full time.
Here
at the juncture of decades, it’s as good a time as any to share
some war stories. So before we reveal our 2020 plans, reflect with
us.
Vivid
Publishing and Dreamkeepers started with nothing. No investors, no
ritzy business loans or trust funds, absolutely zero online
following, and not a helping hand from anyone in media or publishing.
Young
David paid his way through art college with scholarships and work
programs, graduating with debt and bills. No parental basement, no
help with rent or food, just an immediate obligation to keep the
lights on using one tool:
A
pencil.
So
how did we get from poverty and a blank sheet of paper to here? When
96% of businesses fail within ten years, what explains Vivid?
A
decade provides a lot of survival lessons- I’ll try to distill some
here, in the hopes that others can benefit from our experience.
So
without further ado- here are ten tips from ten years of business and
art.
1)
Maintain your health.
Don’t
break the only tool in your box.
In
early 2006 Vivid did not yet exist, another company was slated to
publish Dreamkeepers, and I was scrambling to finish Volume 1 for
their deadline. I took four days off from my movie theater job-
which if you’ve ever worked minimum wage, you will realize that
means risking termination. I also took four days off from sleeping.
I
nailed the comic deadline and immediately crumpled with a devastating
fever that resulted in days of delirium. Despite the timely
submission, the publisher decided to push our release date back for
over a year. Their deadline proved pointless, I experienced
unnecessary misery, and my net productivity was down after accounting
for recovery time.
To
cover distance in your career, think like a marathon runner and not a
sprinter. Diet, exercise, and sleep will magnify your energy levels
and result in consistently better output.
2)
Get a job- a smart one.
If
you have financial problems, swallow that pride and get a job.
Advice that nobody wants to hear. More enticing to be the next
crowdfunding superstar, stepping out of school and directly onto a
landmine of automatic internet fame.
To
those fortunate lottery winners of the artistic world, good!
Onwards and upwards, and let’s hope it happens to more of us. But
it’s not smart to assume it’ll happen to you, and it sure didn’t
happen for me.
Most
of us have to work our way up the old-fashioned way. Our customer
base is like a precious baby that has to be nurtured so that it can
grow and become stronger. Feed it consistent, superior value.
If
you’re being eaten alive by bills, it’ll be tempting to hit the
emergency-commission self-destruct button, or find other ways to
squeeze money from that baby in the crib. Extract more value than
you provide, and you can kiss your crowdfunding career goodbye. The
only thing harder than building trust is rebuilding it.
I
wasn’t above getting a joe-job, and if you need one, then neither
are you. But finding the right type of job makes a huge difference.
Fresh
out of art college, I felt it was mandatory to earn income with art.
Otherwise what was the point of all that education?
Working
at a little animation studio and prolific freelancing (kind of) paid
the bills, but left me spent.
I
added a movie theater job to the mix, leaving me with more artistic
energy to spare. But it was suboptimal, so I upgraded to a security
guard job. That was easier, paid enough for me to drop freelance,
and let me brainstorm stories at work. Then a further upgrade, when
I moved to a night-shift position that allowed me to draw
Dreamkeepers discretely between foot patrols.
There
were some downsides. They turned the heat off in the building at
night, when all the people who mattered were gone. They also banned
plug-in space heaters for the guards at the desk. Some Volume 2 and
3 art was drawn through gloved hands in a parka. But the important
part was, it got drawn.
I
could work on Dreamkeepers, pay the bills, and nurture our fledgling
readership in the hopes that one day it would grow to take care of us
in return.
It
took seven years.
Maybe
you can pay the bills with a trust fund, or magic guardian-angel
boomers, or maybe you’ll be the one-in-a-million that stumbles upon
instant fame. But if not, resist the temptation to squeeze the baby.
Just get a job. A smart one.
3)
No More Video Games.
You
can’t get something for nothing- there are going to be sacrifices.
I heard the phrase recently- ‘Find out what the cost of success is,
and then pay it.’
Working
to get Dreamkeepers off the ground, while working to pay the bills,
left no time for messing around. I gave up video games, vacations, a
social life… In my head, I figured I was quite literally gambling
away my twenties, in the hopes that I might secure the career of my
dreams in the next decade.
Even
holidays were forfeit. The security job had time-off limitations. I
had to choose between seeing family over the holidays, or dealing at
Anthrocon and other events to promote our comic.
Holidays
were thrown onto the fire during my time as a security guard.
Now
do you, personally, really need to give up video games entirely?
Maybe, maybe not. I think of it as a vice, like alcohol or sugar.
If you’re achieving your goals and you can indulge, then good. But
too much can derail your life, and ‘too much’ is different for
everyone.
All
I know is, I had to give up video games to get where I am now, and
I’ve never known someone who attained greatness by investing half
their waking hours in World of Warcraft. Is it more important to be
a consumer or a creator?
4)
Don’t stop.
Sometimes
life hits you with a truck.
During
Volume 3, Liz and I had one car and two jobs. My work site was only
a couple miles away, which meant I could sling on a backpack with my
lunch and a guard uniform and hoof it. Knock out exercise and
transportation needs in one fell swoop, not bad. Being in Ohio meant
occasionally jogging through freezing rain or snow, but it beat
waiting for a bus. Who has time for a bus when there are Volume
Three pages waiting at home? Every footfall was taking me towards a
better future, and there was no reason to delay that process.
The
route home was a straight shot sidewalk alongside Broad Street, the
busiest road in downtown Columbus. One day- incidentally, the last
time I would need to run that route- was particularly slushy, with
rush hour traffic blazing the lanes to my right as I numbly lurched
home.
Darting
between cars to make a left turn, a truck zipped at me just as I was
crossing a side road. After a mile in the frozen rain, my legs were
lead. No tricky ninja dodging, but I could choose under or over. I
chose over, hopped up a bit, and got punted about 20 feet through the
air by the truck. The pavement came up like a midnight slap in the
face, but I managed to roll like a drunk octopus. Between that, the
backpack, and the kevlar, my hide was intact.
A
woman popped out of the truck horrified, asking if I was alright. I
had no idea, so I thought, ‘well let’s test everything out.’ I
stood up, tried out all the limbs, and was happy to report no pain.
But the hood of her truck had an ugly David-shaped dent. As long as
she was worried about me, maybe she wouldn’t notice that dent…
I
calmed her down, and we parted on friendly terms before she realized
there was a new birdbath on her hood. I strapped everything back on,
and started walking the rest of the way home. And then picked up
speed, and got back to running. Because I could, and because why
not?
The
moral of the story is, life will throw trucks at you in one form or
another. Bet on it. Sometimes they will cause damage, but if they
don’t, then why break stride? Something truly harmful will happen
soon enough, so if an event doesn’t stop you, keep going while you
can.
5)
Take help, but not for granted.
How
about a change of pace from the pious self-reliance sermons? At one
point we received a life-changing boost not because of any trace of
manly virtue, but rather because it was so manifestly obvious how
pathetic my struggles were. Buckle up, and I will tell you another
tale.
This
was a Tennessee convention, and my rolling collection of spare parts
got tuckered out just as we pulled in to Memphis. At first I thought
the city had curiously loud pavement, but discovered later it was my
car doing a half-baked transformers impression, and dragging it’s
guts along the pavement. Dealing at the convention gave me time to
solve the riddle of how to arrive home in time for my Tuesday work
shift.
Without
the funds to pay a local repairman, I was left to my own devices.
Later I proudly told Liz’s parents how I discovered that duct tape
wouldn’t work. The muffler would get too hot and melt through it.
But when I tore the duct tape into strips and wove them into a
makeshift rope, I was able to keep everything together long enough to
get home.
Liz’s
parents were super impressed and happy with this story, and in an
unrelated decision later, opted to put us into a real car, with all
the bells and wheels. The only reasonable response to that
generosity was, ‘thank you.’
Previously
I had no choice but to haggle for the cheapest possible junkers and
drive them into the ground, trying to balance repair costs against
the need for the next mechanical liferaft. Outside kindness broke us
out of that cycle. It may be unexpected, but you never know when
someone will give you a helping hand. Take it, and respect their
goodwill by ensuring it does not go to waste.
6)
Kaizen.
Get
better. If you’re not good enough now, maybe you can get that way
over time. It’s easy to see visually, compare early Volume 1 and
Prelude art to our current comic pages. Hone your skills whether
it’s storycraft, dialogue, penciling, coloring & lighting,
layout, storyboarding, game design, marketing & branding,
finance, you name it. Things do not stay the same- if you’re not
getting better, you’re probably getting worse.
So
always keep your eyes and ears open for new techniques, keep your
brain turned on while working, and seek small ways to continually
improve. Combining ‘Kaizen’ with ‘Don’t stop’ organically
leads to tip seven.
7)
Adapt.
The
world doesn’t stay still- just ask any professional Youtuber.
Algorithm changes and “adpocalypses” constantly distort the
landscape, and a failure to adapt can mean extinction. Adaptation
sounds good in general, but it has become an acute requirement within
our corporate silicon-valley dystopia.
2004-2008
was the ‘Golden Age’ of webcomics. Internet users wanted their
daily hit of dopamine, and frequent comic updates were a favorite
nostrum. Sites would sport ‘link exchange’ pages or ‘webrings,’
and accessible ad platforms like ‘Project Wonderful’ augmented
the ecosystem. Jokes were nonfatal.
By
2009-2015, times had changed. Internet users broadly abandoned
websites in favor of interacting within social media environments,
during what I call the ‘Open Social Media Age.’ Instead of
visiting websites, now every user WAS a website. Dopamine was easier
to get by indulging in tribal slapfights and endless videos, so
comics faded in prominence, and old promotional techniques no longer
had the same punch. Mobile phones meant smaller screens, smaller
attention spans, and increasingly users did not explore their world,
but had it presented to them by algorithms. Crowdfunding became a
tool, with many demonetized youtubers fleeing to Patreon as a refuge.
2016
initiated what I call the ‘Closed Social Media Age.’ Tribal
pettiness was enthusiastically adopted by silicon valley staff,
feverishly infecting the internet’s brain with a distorting pus of
shame and hate. Blacklisting, whitelisting, algorithms, pay-to-play
and brute bias now control what consumers in the social media sphere
see and think. Patreon betrayed its users at the behest of
Mastercard, while Paypal and other financial institutions swung a
sledgehammer at the knees of competing crowdfunding platforms.
Who
knows where things will go from here? Consumer habits, silicon
valley financial cartels, cultish political blacklisting, it all
impacts the landscape for normal artists and authors.
My
advice at this point is, diversify. Investing your time and presence
on a social media platform, crowdfunding service, or website should
be treated like a literal investment. If you only have a following
on Twitter and one deranged employee decides to erase you (or worse,
blacklist you) there is no recourse. That investment is damaged or
gone. So put your eggs in more than one basket. Things change fast
and bystanders can get crushed in the gears.
8)
Judge people by actions, not words.
Simple,
but powerful. Pay attention to what people do, rather than what they
say, and
you will see past the mask. If you remember this quote at
the right time, it’s a social
superpower.
9)
Stick to your Guns.
Doormats
get stepped on. Well-meaning appeasement is blood in the water to a
belligerent zealot. How many times have you seen a celebrity
apologize publicly, and how does that usually work out for them?
Say
what you want in your work. It can be inappropriate, violent, funny,
horrific, it’s fiction. Don’t let anyone stab their handle into
your cherry red sports car and tell you how to drive- because even if
they knew what a steering wheel looked like, they’d crush your
beautiful ride into a ditch.
If
you’re telling a story that is fun or matters, expect people to try
and co-opt or destroy it. The Comics Code mutilated artistic
expression in the 50’s, the conservatives tried to stamp out sex
and violence in the 90’s, the left is having their decade of fear
and hatred presently. Pander to it at your risk.
Down
that path you become the quivering hostage of your own inquisitorial
readership. One wrong tweet, one political view that was updated a
little too slow, and they’ll be roaring with glee waving your head
on a pike. Another flapping scalp to fuel their open-mouthed purity.
Discretion
is one thing, but don’t ever bend the knee because they will never
permit you to stand straight ever again. A good rule of thumb- don’t
let fear make your creative decisions. To achieve authenticity in
your work, you must be fearless. That’s what your true audience
craves.
A
note on constructive critique- it’s very rare, and often a disguise
for passive aggression. But a critic’s intent doesn’t really
matter. Listen if you want, and use anything that can make your work
more true to itself.
Know
the target you want to hit with your story. Anything that improves
your aim, use it. But when people tell you to choose a different
target, let them write their own story.
10)
Delegate.
This
is the last tip, because it’s the one I need to finally get right
in order to tackle what we have planned. I’ve gotten delegation
wrong the following ways:
A)
In art college, I learned that the only person I could rely on in a
group project was myself. Every other person would drop the ball and
fail to provide anything. But I learned the wrong lesson. I thought
the problem was that nobody was being paid for their work. Proper
compensation, surely, would correct everything.
B)
Freelancing color blocking has been very helpful- but at times Vivid
would run thin on funds, so we couldn’t procure it consistently,
and so I would stop offering work to people that probably still
wanted to help.
C)
I finally had an opportunity to pull in helpers on a major project,
and since I wanted things to go better than college, of course I paid
the contributors. Imagine my surprise when that made no difference
whatsoever, and they vanished without a word, leaving me to my own
devices. The lesson here: Proper compensation doesn’t guarantee
anything.
D)
I HAVE run into a handful of spectacular folks over the years, who-
despite our inability to provide financial compensation- have been
astronomically helpful. So I think at last I have the proper lesson
on how to delegate:
Learn
to rely on good people, and see where that takes all of us.
Then
& Now.
In
2010 Dreamkeepers had Volume 1 and Volume 2 graphic novels, with a
few hundred readers. There were no public pages, and Prelude was
just getting rolling.
Now
we have Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 nearing completion, Prelude
Collection 1, thousands of print editions and tens of thousands of
digital books sold, a manufactured plush, a full orchestral album for
Volumes 1 through 4 and Volume 5, the tabletop game Skirmish with the
‘Ruthless’ expansion, the award winning spinoff novel Wayward
Astronomer, and a talented coalition of new authors signed with Vivid
Publishing and ready to join us for the next steps forward.
Stage
1 of success was for Liz and I to have our full time available: Time
for Stage 2.
Did
you really think we’d rest here?
It’s
time to get the Dreamkeepers Animated Series rolling.
Hazbin
Hotel has blazed the trail, showing that there’s a market for
independent animation- if you can produce it first.
We
don’t have the budget or the team for a full pilot, but that I bet
we can get there if we start smart.
We’ll
begin with a two-minute animated short, placed as a stretch goal in
the Dreamkeepers Volume 5 campaign. The short will feature unseen
storyline that takes place between Prelude and Volume 1 of the
series. Fresh content for veteran readers, and also a punchy
introduction to the series for new fans.
With
two minutes of knock-your-socks-off traditional animation, I think we
can spike awareness of the DK franchise, and use that to crowdfund
the pilot episode.
To
aid in the process, we’re doing a Custom Wallscroll Drive during
2020’s Couchcon (our online annual convention.) If you’ve ever
gotten a commission from David, or Skidd & Phuufy, or Boneitis or
any other Vivid Publishing author- you’ll have a chance to get your
personal commission printed and delivered to you on a full size
wallscroll.
Uberquest
wallscroll proceeds will go towards fulfilling & closing out
their Volume 2 Kickstarter, and Dreamkeepers wallscroll proceeds will
go into the war-chest for funding animation.
Vivid’s
False Start is launching in 2020 as well, with the first book release
of the World’s Greatest Furry Artist, Boneitis. Another author
with an intrepid story of personal fortitude.
In
addition, the Dreamkeepers sidescroller video game is officially
moving onto the front-burner. To solidify our animation techniques
I’ll be completing the asset library for the primary playable
character, Mace. Then we’ll launch playtesting modules to begin
refining the combat, stealth, puzzle, and platforming elements of the
game. If all goes well, we can share a sample environment to explore
this summer.
Volume
5, False Start 1, the Couchcon wallscroll campaign, the Dreamkeepers
animated short, and the video game.
Oh,
and Vivid will be showcasing all of this in a brand-new Toonami-style
animated content block, featuring our very own interstellar battle
cruiser.
We
never would have come this far without you- but together, we’re
about to go even further.
Thank
you for being along on the adventure, things are about to get wild.
