Hey Comic Creators,

If you're a comic writer and you're looking for an artist, you need to be as prepared as you possibly can because otherwise you may end up spending way more than you should on producing your comic.

It's very easy to get carried away and what to create beautiful comics that can sit side-by-side with some of the greatest graphic novels ever made. And you should definitely aim as high as you can in that regard.

But.

Comics are expensive. Like, really expensive to produce.

Luckily there are ways to have your cake and eat it too and I covered how in this week's video on my channel.

But because you're a lovely subscriber to my lovely newsletter, I'm giving you more. Lovely.

I referenced mixam in my video because that's what I've used in the past and they ship internationally, so it's a good benchmark to use for comic printing costs.

Go to their site and play with the settings and see how and where you can reduce the prices. Play with the paper type, the page count, the cover style, the size and switch between colour and greyscale to see what's possible.

You can also order a sample pack from them for free (I don't know if that's free for international folks, so double check) in order to see what different paper types feel like when you're holding them.

What I would do is find the cheapest variable you can on Mixam and use that as your template for how much printing will cost. I understand that some people have no intention to print, so let's move onto the next part of the strategy.

You're going to produce your comic with a line artist and nothing else. You're also going to pay for an illustrator to do a cover and that is all the money you're going to spend on your 20 page comic. At most you're looking at $2,500.

Now you're going to do the lettering (spend an extra $50 and download Clip Studio Paint to do this) and, once you've done this, you've got your comic for a fraction of the cost without impacting the quality.

But I want my comic to look good!

I get it. I really do. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

The chances of anyone caring about your first comic is quite slim. Unless you're investing heavily in advertising then the chances are that your comic is going to get swallowed up by every other free-to-read comic online.

But that's okay because one of the things you, and any comic needs, is time. You could release a comic and it has zero viewers for 6 months until suddenly it gains a load of views out of the blue. This is a good thing because it plays right into our hands.

If you can save a few thousand dollars over the course of 6 months then you can hire a colourist to colour your comic for you. If you're really unhappy with the letters you can ask someone to re-letter them too and you can also hire an illustrator to re-do the cover.

And here's the best part.

Your comic has been online for 6 months. You've been talking about it for 6 months and a few people have read it over the course of the last 6 months. But now you've got something new to talk about which is the re-mastered version of the comic.

Whether you choose to re-master the comic one issue at a time or you want to release a few issues first before going back to colour them is up to you. But this strategy of producing your comic means that you get to have your completed comic sooner and in a much more manageable way financially.

It also means that for every comic you make, you basically get two swings of the bat at it in terms of marketing. The first go round is the uncoloured, line-only version and the second time is the fully rendered version. It's a win-win for you and you're stacking the odds in your favour in terms of getting more eyeballs on your book.

Where should I post my comic online?

The short answer is: EVERYWHERE.

Tapas, WebToon, GlobalComix, Instagram, Tumblr... post the comic and talk about the comic as often as you can. I'm going to cover marketing strategies in a future newsletter but I'll leave you with a slight caveat when it comes to posting online.

The real key to posting online isn't necessarily about what you post, but it's how engaged you are with other people online. That means if you're posting to 5 or 6 different places then it's going to be extremely difficult to remain active on each of those platforms. So just start off with one or two platforms and build yourself up if you have the time, energy and patience for it.

What do you think?

Before I go, I'd really love to know your thoughts on the cohort business I'm planning to launch. If you've already filled out the form then don't worry and thank you very much for your feedback. Positive or negative, it's all gold and I appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think about it.

​https://forms.gle/o4TirLzbfHbFqd4y9​

So if you can, please fill out this Google Form so I can get a bit of a better sense of where I need to make improvements or adjustments (or leave it as it is).

Thanks everyone and I'll see you next week.

-John

Get your pre-production comic planner

I'm offering my pre-production comic planner for 50% off to subscribers of this newsletter. Find it using the link below:

​https://brinkleycomics.ck.page/products/comic-creator-planner-pre-production?promo=BRINKLEY​

Use the planner for the following:

✍️ Writing your outline
​🦸‍♀️ Organising your character profiles
​📜 Housing your script
​🎨Collecting concept drawings/references
​💵 Planning your art budget
​📏 Figuring out your comic page dimensions
​📅 A work schedular
​📃 A to-do list
​✅ Recommended tasks

💡 I've also included tooltips throughout to guide you