Rockin' in the Free World

Hey everyone! Actual Kickstarter update this week! We go live on July 14! That’s less than a month from now! I need people to spread the word. And the word is, “Panic.” Ha! Little comic book movie reference there for the sharp-eyed readers in the audience. At any rate, I’m gonna be kicking off some promotional blitzing – interviews for podcasts and comic sites and such – but I do genuinely need my readers’ help getting the word out there. However! I’m not going to send you into the fray unarmed. I’m going to give you – and everybody who goes to the Kickstarter page for WAYPOINT – the first half of the first issue for free. Just go to the prelaunch page and click the big link below "Preview."

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/waypointcomic/waypoint-1-4

That’s right! Something on the internet for free! A truly novel development!

Yeah, yeah, I know. Big whoop, right? I could go to Swanboy.com right now and read the entire saga of Noel’s epic trip to Hooters for the big price of nothing. Marvel and DC and Image give away a bunch of free comics every May. YouTube has tons of movies and old TV shows and 15-hour long videos about said movies and TV shows you can watch in exchange for sitting through a bunch of Robinhood and Amazon ads. You can go to Reddit or sail the seven seas and find entire runs of comic books as long as you don’t mind infecting your computer with weird Russian viruses.

Here’s the thing: I’m not writing for a big publisher. I’m not a tech company. I’m not a book buccaneer. I’m a dude who paid out of his own pocket to hire a killer artist and letterer and graphic designer to make my comic happen.

The other problem is that I’m not a visual artist. Folks like Stjepan Sejic put up full chapters and graphic novels online (or on Patreon) as they make them, and then people happily buy the collected editions. He’s fortunate because he can draw them himself. It’s a lot of labor on his part, but he’s not paying somebody else to do it for him and then tossing it out to the world for free. He can craft the entire book himself. He’s also insanely talented and writes and draws sexy people in sexy outfits and situations well, which helps build a fanbase. I’m stuck paying somebody else to help bring my visions to life, and I don’t have an infinite pool of money. Also I don't think Claire would be very happy if I put up art of her in bondage gear.

“Why not use AI?”

I dunno, why not saw off my leg and feed it to a kiddie pool full of tarantulas?

I don’t expect to see much profit on this endeavor, even charging Kickstarter prices. But I also know I’m not Daniel Warren Johnson or Kelly Thompson or Kieron Gillen, somebody that readers trust implicitly. So I need to trust in my readers. I need to show them the work that I’ve done and prove to them that I’m not ripping them off. The first half of the first issue works well to introduce the reader to Jakub’s art, Claire’s character, the mystery, the tone, and the world, plus it leaves off on a great cliffhanger (and one of my favorite panels in the entire series). And since we’re trying to sell you the rest of the first issue, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to give away much beyond that.

I know it’s not even that much. My buddy Matt Maxwell recently had a successful Kickstarter for the latest novel in his Hazeland series. The other day I saw he was mulling putting his entire first entry in the series, The Queen of No Tomorrows, up for free to try to get new readers in. That’s a big blow to a writer. He spent a lot of time developing the world and the characters and writing and rewriting and trying to get it published, and now he has to consider just dropping it on the internet with no price tag attached as marketing material. That sucks. That’s a lot of work you’re tossing out there for exposure. Unfortunately, that’s also the future we’ve been saddled with. We’re supposed to just be grateful to have the chance to express ourselves artistically because there’s an entire class of modern aristocrats trying to devalue art.

Maybe someday I’ll have to give away WAYPOINT for free to get people on board with newer projects. I’m not there yet. I’m hoping to exchange my work for a fair market rate. In the meantime, as we all eagerly await the official page launch on July 14, you can download that 15-page digital ashcan for yourself. Then, if you enjoy it, share that link with friends you think might like it as well. Every eye I get on this comic helps. Every person that follows the project makes it more likely to succeed. Drop it in a discord, text it to someone. I don’t care. I want WAYPOINT to exist in this world, and I need your help to do it.

If you want to read some other work I’ve done, you can check out my latest reviews at The Shfl! I tackled three recent releases – from heavy psych trio Slift, industrial rockers Genghis Tron, and darksynth guru Carpenter Brut – that I love and that I want the world to love as well.

https://theshfl.com/album/Fantasia-2

https://theshfl.com/album/Signal-Fire-1

https://theshfl.com/album/Leather-Temple