Pat Shand has been not so quietly making comics on Kickstarter for nearly 8 years now with his flagship series “Destiny, NY” and building out his company Space Between Entertainment. Recently that building has included a new line of erotic comics with character: Cheeky Comics. A runaway success, we wanted to sit down with Pat to discuss all that and more. So much more this is actually a two-parter!
So join us as we dig into kickstarter trends, discuss Pat’s time at Zenescope, and really get into the weeds (and pants) of Cheeky Comics’ success and forthcoming expansion. Thanks to Pat for agreeing to chat!
How did Space Between Entertainment come about on Kickstarter? Because prior to starting that, you were at Zenescope primarily as a writer.
Pat Shand: Yeah. I was a staff writer at Zenescope. I was exclusive there. I always wanted to do long form, creator owned series. And I noticed that the industry was trending toward, you know, these indie companies weren’t really greenlighting series in that long form. We were starting to see less books like “Y: The Last Man,” “Preacher,” you know? “Saga” was a standout. There was an era where we had some good stuff going, it was the mid 2010s, where we had “Sex Criminals,” we had “The Wicked & The Divine.”
But that era seems to be ending and I wasn’t ready to commit ideas I thought worked long form to four issue miniseries for publishers that can barely sell in the direct market, and the direct market itself was suffering. So I saw Kickstarter as a way to bring creator-owned projects directly to readers where they have a longer life. Where it’s not comic shops ordering three months in advance before we even get a number one, they have to order number three – it’s not that. It’s direct to fans. It’s the fans who decide the life of a series. Its fans who said, “Oh yeah. I’ll keep supporting this on Kickstarter.”
So it was that switch to direct from creator to fan that I’ve seen in the music industry, now that I’ve seen it pushing into comics, that made me want to do my own thing and sort of remove the need for third party publishers and distributors.
This is kind of the start of “Destiny, NY,” correct?
PS: Yeah, this is 2016 into 2017. “Destiny, NY” – back then we just called the first volume “Destiny, NY” – I announced as the Kickstarter ended that it was going to be an ongoing thing. But initially, it was just that one volume that I was trying to get greenlit. The plan was always to expand. But I wanted to make sure that it was viable for me, that I could do it, and I did. As soon as it was successful, as soon as we hit goal, I began to shape plans for turning it into a full fledged comic.
Why graphic novels to start then? Because you said you want to tell these longer form stories? What about having 100, 150 pages all at once was appealing, instead of having smaller, segmented books that went up more frequently?
PS: As far as graphic novels versus single issues…Well, I wasn’t really interested in the single issue format back then. Especially because, say I did single issues of “Destiny, NY” all those years ago. Now, six years ago. I would be in the middle of like…because on Kickstarter, right? You have to, especially back then more, but now you have to fund, produce and deliver four individual campaigns before you could start doing overlapping campaigns.
I wouldn’t, for example, ever overlap…Say I had those four campaigns locked and loaded, already proved myself a proven creator. Now I can do overlapping campaigns. However, if I were just doing “Destiny, NY”, I couldn’t do “Destiny, NY” five in May, and then six in June, because people will be waiting for five, you know, so I only overlap different IPs. If I did single issues of “Destiny, NY” right now, I would be, I think toward the end of the third arc, maybe even in the middle or early part of the third arc, six years later.
Continued belowIt’s completely slower than what I do. What I’ve done and what I have with “Destiny, NY” – not even counting spin offs but if you count spin offs, this is one of the longest running indie series of all time – we have over 40 issues of just the regular title. When you bring spin offs into it by the end of this year, we’ll be in the 70s. It’s the amount that we’re able to do with the trades first as opposed to single issues first. It’s a totally different experience. And to me, it’s a better experience.
For single issues on Kickstarter, I don’t dislike those. But that for me is for something that’s going to be less long running. For example, every single issue series that I follow that does campaigns on Kickstarter, I really do wish for more, you now? And there are some that do essentially trade paperback sized single issues, and that’s sick. But personally, I want more. I want to be able to read at least one nice big volume of a book that I read per year and I think that more readers want that. It’s about as close as we can get to the comic shop model of what we had before for these long running series like, you know, “Ex Machina,” “Chew,” for example, where every month or every other month, you will get a single issue that will eventually be a trade, about two trades per year. Doing that on Kickstarter, single issue by single issue, is not feasible.
Do you think you think single issues are really more the realm of the mini series for crowdfunding?
PS: Mini-series or something very arc based. For example, right now with my Cheeky Comics imprint, I have a few series that could be ongoing. We’re going to be launching “Private Dance,” and “OnlyFriends with Penn” and “Amorini: Amateur Cupid” all this year and we’re doing three issue arcs. They’ll build toward a larger story eventually. But every time: Three issue arc. Resolves. Hardcover. Three issue arc. Resolves. Hardcover. And the characters come back and they have character arcs throughout. But for “Destiny, NY”, where it’s an ongoing story that is going to make sort of a…character based mission statement, a theme, I wouldn’t want to do that.
You mentioned Cheeky Comics. How has that been going for you?
PS: It’s good! Our first campaign has launched. It is a venture that I’m doing with Shannon Lee, she is the editor of Space Between overall, the editor in chief, and Steve Jay is the new group editor of Cheeky Comics. He’s a lifelong friend, we collaborated on short films in the past, so it seemed natural to bring him into this.
It felt like a cool way to do a couple of things. One is to just do more, having it as a separate Kickstarter account, as it enables us to run campaigns while I’m still doing my own personal projects on the Space Between/Pat Shand account. Now Steve can run point on the other account and we can put more out, which was always my goal. To do imprints with specific focuses so we can just do more and be a full fledged comics publishing company.
The other thing was to create a branding difference between the main titles and this. Where, you know, obviously, I don’t want someone to pick up a book that has sexual elements in it not knowing that. So the Cheeky Comics logo is essentially saying what it is. This is a story that has more sexual content than “Destiny, NY”, which has, I would say, an HBO level of sexual content but it’s not really about that. It’s just part of the overall story whereas Cheeky Comics definitely has more of a focus on, you know, the “adult comics” side of things.
Like R versus X rating?
PS: That’s a great comparison. I would say most of what I do is R and that Cheeky Comics is X for sure.
Were you scared to launch it? Both because it’s an entirely Not Safe For Work line, but also because it’s something brand new.
PS: I wasn’t. I’ll say that Steve was a bit scared about the account. That it was a brand new account and that my previous NSFW titles, “Thirsty,” “Cheeky” and “Steamy,” all launched on my personal account which has had years of backers watching it launch and following it. But I believed that they would follow over and that has been the case. The Cheeky Comics launch, the annual, is my second biggest day one ever.
Continued belowWow.
PS: So yeah, that didn’t worry me personally. As far as being worried about creating a NSFW imprint…No? It didn’t worry me. I think that culture is shifting toward being more open about this kind of thing. We went through a very puritanical phase in the 2010s. And it’s funny because it’s a very conservative movement that was hidden and sold as a very leftist movement, when it really has nothing to do with liberal politics. It’s truly conservative. So that we have moved toward being more open about that again, and are moving away from this sort of, really, to me, nasty culture, I think it is positive and is definitely happening.
I mean, you see it with Gen Z. Gen Z has fully embraced, you know, horny manga. That is popular and it’s not popular among the demographic that the elder Millennials think it is. They picture these like lonely old dudes in the basement reading comics with sexy covers, when that has never been and could never be further from the truth. You know?
It’s funny. Once there was this Bleeding Cool interview that Mark Waid did, and it was when I was first getting my start. And he said something to the effect of, about Zenescope, he said, “Who reads those?” And one I thought it was, you know, people say punching down. That to me was the definition of it. And the answer is women do. If you go to a convention and you look at who buys the comics in person, the answer is women. For that to be such a point of contention with these older dudes in comics – consistently it’s older men who’re like, “Oh, who’s that for?” because they’re so scared to be looked at as “Oh, maybe it’s for you a little bit, too?” They’re so scared of being looked at as pervs, they’re just shaming who they’re trying to protect. It’s so crazy.
So no, the culture of it didn’t scare me. I think that anyone who thinks that NSFW comics aren’t as valid of a read or something to create as any kind of comic, I think that anyone who thinks that way is very off base.
Do you think there’s a large, untapped market for comics with explicit sexual content in them that’s just waiting to be kind of brought up?
PS: Yeah. I think I’ve proven that. I think that Stjepan Šejić has proven that. I mean, “Sunstone” is the best selling Top Cow comic of all time. And it’s free on the internet. That I mean…that to me is the ultimate proof. That people can get it for free and it’s still coveted enough it beats out “Witchblade” for example. That’s really cool to me and indicative of that untapped market as you said; it’s indicative of Šejić as a creator, that he approaches stories about sex in a way where it’s still character focused. You still have character arcs. You still have themes that run through the stories. That’s what people want.
People will look at comics like this and assume that it’s like a porn video, where it’s all set up, sex, the end. Where my goal personally, and what I like is for stories that have these elements, is when sex isn’t the goal, when it’s part of it; when the goal is character arc, good dialogue story, a resolution that makes sense for the setup. That’s been important to me as a creator and I think that the only negative thing about NSFW comics for me is that people don’t get that and they are a bit more salacious in their telling of the stories. That I’m not interested in as a reader. But also if someone wants that kind of content, cool. Good on them.
To me, I see a future, and a present honestly, where we see these stories told with as much respect to character as any story.
Do you think any of the major publishers are starting to realize that or do you think most of them are still like, no, we can’t put any of this here. We’ll be cut off either by whatever distributor we have. The mail will turn around on us. Our bank accounts will be frozen out for whatever stupid reason.
Continued belowPS: Yeah. Black Mask realizes it. I believe Image realizes that. And to an extent, I think that Boom does too.
Do you think any of them will?
PS: Any of them as in who? Like, I don’t even know who’s going to be around in the next couple of years.
You think the market starting to contract?
PS: I think provably so. Yeah.
That’s true. Aftershock did just implode, and I don’t know what’s going on with IDW.
PS: And I think that there are a lot of these, you know, IP farm companies that are held up by investors. I don’t know what we’re going to see happen with those. But no, I mean, I definitely don’t see any forward thinking in those companies at all. I mean, obviously, Zenescope gets it but Zenescope isn’t trying to do those kinds of books. They have their market that they serve beautifully to a tee.
It’s funny cause people think that they’re doing sex comics, when that’s not true. Zenescope has PG-13, sometimes R, fantasy, horror, drama and sometimes comedy comic books. They have a shared universe that is fantasy based, and it is comparable to the modern Marvel universe. And they market it with sexy variant covers. People interpret that as “Oh, they’re making porn.” They’re not but they do get what I’m saying and they are on that wavelength. I just think that they’re the obvious ones.
And that’s that’s also a trend that I think that I’ve noticed on Kickstarter and also that you’re you seem to be parodying in one of your other new releases.
PS: Yeah. That one’s called “I Summoned Cthulhu to Fulfill my Kickstarter” and that series is about the trends that we follow. It imagines these trends as dark gods that comic book creators pledge to and I parody everything. In that I parody the old 90s trends, the Bad Girl/Good Girl comics, anime. I parody sexy covers, variant covers, both political extremes, people define themselves by so harshly. I think that these trends that define us are worth both embracing if it works for your art and also poking fun at.
Will there be a chromium metal polybag version?
PS: I’ll tell you this. Metal for sure. Yeah, metal is hot right now.
A friend of mine, Arman Nasim, does “Lunar Smoke” – he was just here for the Space Between meeting – presented me this metal print that he did, which is a collaboration. He has our character from “OnlyFriends with Penn” and his character Lunar Smoke, and this is a textured embossed metal. This I’ve never seen before, where it’s actually textured. I think that’s really cool!
What I like about these trends is that there are cool ways to make them stand out and make them beautiful art pieces, because I know that there are people who are very like, oh, you know, my comic book experiences are as a reader 100%. And that’s cool.
For comics, I also am primarily a reader. My collectible angle comes in Pokémon cards and trading cards and there’s a lot that influences me for creating comics for the collector base in those much less than comics. Because comics, you know, metal covers? Cool to do. Certain hot cover artists? Cool to work with. But for me, there’s elements of looking at what becomes collectible and other hobbies and seeing if I can apply them to comics, because my heart as a comics creator is the readers’ experience. The other stuff just makes me think of out of the box. It’s like it’s extra for me.
So kind of like enhancing the experience. You’ve got the core book, and then you’ve got some covers, but primarily the collectible aspects are outside of that. That’s like kind of the parts that you would like to push?
PS: Yeah, and the truth is that I’ll try anything. For example, on the Cthulhu campaign, my operations manager was pushing me to try standees, these acrylic standees. So I was thinking about it, thinking how to do it, got a good artist for it, and what brought it all together was I was hanging out in Colorado for this comic con with my co-creator on “Azza the Barbed,” Rio Burton. Rio shows me this video of a standee that she had made. It was holographic with all the sparkles and I was thinking: Oh, that’s the key. Okay. Not just the standee. Add something extra so it’s a physically beautiful object.
Continued belowI imagine, Oh! I would like it if a Pokémon card looked this way so imagine someone’s seeing a character from my book in this manner. And that excited me, and it was something that I could easily do on the side. But yeah, as far as my role, as much as I want to try everything and be business savvy and think outside the box, A-Number-One for me is always character and story. Character building, especially.
And I guess, speaking of that, of the works that you’re currently making, some of them you’re writing by yourself, some of them you are co-writing with your wife. Are there any that are coming up that are not written by you as you expand?
PS: As I expand, yes. I’m doing a campaign, I believe in June?, called “Vixx the Hunter.” Vixx is a character that we introduced “Cerulean Dreams.” It’s this one shot which sort of gave standalone stories for IPs that we will be working on later in the year. She is post-apocalyptic with her giant four-eyed fox. It’s from my world “Afterglow,” which I created a few years back. It’s a new character in that world. I helped plot the story and create the character. Jeff Massey, great friend of mine, is writing it and in that one I’ll be writing 10 page backup stories featuring a brand new character from the world as well.
So he’ll handle a 22 page feature, I’ll handle the backup. That kind of thing I’ll do, where I’ll sort of spotlight certain writers, but primarily it’s going to be in-house. I could see in the next wave of “Cheeky Comics,” Steve is working as editor, I could see him co-writing a story, co-writing an ongoing title.
I’m very inspired by Zenescope. They brought on writers here and there but Joe and Ralph have always steered the ship. You always see Joe and Ralph’s name in the story section. They break these stories in writers’ rooms. I believe very strongly in my creative vision, and I have a creative vision for the company, so largely I will remain on as a writer for all titles, but if something came up, you know, I’ll be interested.
How do you find your other collaborators? The cover artists? The interiors? The letters? The colors, for the ones that have them?
PS: Yeah, all of our single issue series are gonna be in color. For example, the Cthulhu series is colored by James Offredi. Great stuff. He’s also working on the “Cheeky annual,” on one of the stories. Largely when I do color, I have the main artists do it. But bringing in James for the ones that don’t has been amazing.
How do I find them though? It’s a mixture of things. Sometimes I get a submission, but more likely, I’ll get a recommendation from somebody who worked with them. Like Chris Moses recommended James and often I will see artists on Kickstarter, you know? I’ll see campaigns that look great. Like this new artist that I’m working with, Manos Lagouvardos, I saw him on Kickstarter. And I’ve been working with him on, first “Steamy,” now the annual and we have a bigger series plan as well. Other times, Valeria Del Gatto was recommended to me by Elena Ominetti, who’s the main artist of “Smoke Weed, See the Future.” I saw Valeria’s stuff and thought she’d be great for “Amorini: Amateur Cupid” and went from there.
I always have my team looking as well. I have a book over here, too. Rio Burton gave me this hardcover book of NSFW art that we were looking through, probably bring some cover artists in there. And yeah, I’ve had a lot of great artists come to me via recommendation.
Very cool. One question that’s been rattling around during this: what’s the economics of all this? Because it’s a self employed company and you’re working with Kickstarter, are you primarily funding the books ahead of time? You know, paying the artists and everyone prior to the campaign launching or is it post campaign? Is it a mixture? How’s it all working? If you’re able to speak to it?
PS: Yeah, I’ve never had an artist wait for the campaign to be paid. I paid the same as what I believe a fair publisher would pay, which is upon completion of the work. It just when that happens. For example, “Destiny, NY” is ongoing so that happens both before and after the campaign because he’s going to be finishing work beforehand. Yeah, so I pay upon completion. I believe that I am the fastest player in the entire comics industry. Invoice comes in, pay right away. That’s consistent.
Continued below
With black and white in indie comics do you think there’s been a revival of that movement? Because in the 90s, that’s the last time people were saying that it was the big B&W indie boom. You had “Bone” and you had “Strangers in Paradise” and you had “TMNT,” “Cerberus,” which I guess were more 80s but…
PS: I mean, I feel like in some ways it never stopped. I always think back to “The Walking Dead,” which has been a constant for the past two decades. The biggest indie that there is, and that’s black and white. It’s not even talked about so much because it’s just part of it. The only time I ever hear about black and white is like, “Oh. Like it’s black and white?” It’s someone first opening the book. Someone who’s been reading for years? Never. It’s not part of it. How I do it? I make it feel complete, you know? It never looks like uncolored line art. I make it a complete experience. Maybe one day, I’ll go back and do like a special color run. We’ll see, I guess.
When you originally did it in black and white, was that a choice? Because it would have been more expensive in color? Or you thought it looked better in black and white?
PS: It’s a choice in that it would have been more expensive., and that was the initial choice, and I stuck with it. Now my mode is single issues are color, trades are black and white. The truth is that in the past it was by title. My title “Afterglow,” I originally conceived of as black and white, but then color in the books fits one of the themes, so I thought, nah, gotta color the book. It’s really a case to case basis for me.
You mentioned hardcovers coming up that will those be your first hard covers?
PS: We did our anniversary art book as a hardcover.
Ohhh, right.
PS: Yeah, so we’ll do that probably. I’m thinking a bit of spot gloss for the hardcover for a bit of premium treatment, you know?<
Do you enjoy doing that kind of slow upgrading to the product?
PS: Oh yeah.
I know that it’s built into Kickstarter but not being on the production side, it’s interesting to me how a book will change from initial concept, just with the small additions.
PS: Yeah, it stands out. I don’t want to go overboard. I see people adding things like the cloth bookmark, which is cool, but I haven’t really thought about that. When it comes to spending money, I’m more thinking how can I expand the story now that our goal has been surpassed. But adding things like spot gloss? The truth is that when I do that, that’s generally a goal that I know I’m gonna hit because I want to do it from the beginning.
Have you ever been worried you wouldn’t hit that additional goal?
PS: I’ve rolled out stretch goals that we haven’t hit. Not recently because I have a much better sense of what we get, but I used to just keep adding stretch goals, just to keep pushing. But now I know it looks better if you hit this, this and that. So recently, no, but in the past, probably, yeah.
Are there any that you missed that you’re like, Oh, I really wish we had gotten that.
PS: No. Every one that was important to me, I’ve made it so that we did that, for sure.
I’m guessing it’s a skill you kind of learned over the campaigns of what to expect within what range?
PS: Oh yeah. And I’ve figured out where to draw the lines on certain things as far as, you know, if I make this into a stretch goal, it’s going to be too much work. It’s going to really get in the way of producing the book. And even base rewards. I used to do so many prints. And I always tell a story, because it’s true, and it’s pretty harsh, but it’s just, it’s the truth.
I noticed that I would go to my PO box and when I would get kickstarted package from a fellow creator, that I opened it up, and it was full of prints. Truth is? I would take the box, empty it over the garbage, take the book out and throw out the box, throw at the prints. I’m gone. I don’t want all those prints. Well, most people don’t buy a book and want to end up with 20 prints. Where are you going to put those? You know?
Continued belowA drawer? That’s where mine are..
PS: Yeah. So I realized though, if I’m doing this, and I’m a lover of this stuff, it’s pretty common. So what am I doing all this for? Let’s just make more specialized rewards like these trading cards. A print. Right? And I’ve adjusted my way of presenting these rewards over time.
Join us next week for Part 2!
