Welcome back (or just welcome) to part 2 of our interview with Pat Shand, creator of “Destiny, NY” and lead writer at his company Space Between Entertainment. Last time we talked about kickstarter trends, Pat’s time at Zenescope, and Cheeky Comics’ success and forthcoming expansion. This time, we’re getting into the crowdfunding landscape, the craft of creating his comics, and conventions, conventions, conventions!
Plus, you will believe a Jim Campbell can cry. Thanks again to Pat and enjoy!
Are there any lessons that you want to give, or you could give to first time creators or even second or third time creators who are doing crowdfunding? I guess in this case, specifically Kickstarter?
PS: Yes. Don’t complain on Twitter.
I see a lot of people on crowdfunding attribute their struggles to other campaigns or to external forces. The truth is, every sale I haven’t made, every book that hasn’t been bought, every dollar I don’t get, it’s because of me. Because one of my choices. Taking ownership of that and how you run your campaign and what your campaign is? It’s vital. If the market doesn’t respond to your book, maybe your audience isn’t as big as you thought. Maybe people aren’t as invested in your idea as you thought. Maybe the covers that you ordered and that you worked on with these cover artists didn’t turn out so great, you know?
There are all these “Oh, Kickstarter is in a rut.” And I’m like, oh, okay, so what campaigns are you saying should have done better? And every time I’m shown this campaign I’m like, “Oh. That didn’t do well because this, this, and that” and it’s so obvious. This rush to jump to blaming external things for something that we entirely control, I’ve seen it a lot. And I’ve seen almost every peer I have on Kickstarter has had that reaction. Even seasoned multiple-campaign pros. And I’m like, what campaign do you mean? And every time I’m like, “Oh, don’t you see it’s because of this?” And they go “Oh, yeah yeah yeah.”
So to me, the more we take control of our own failure and success, the better off we’re going to be, the better off the marketplace is going to be.
Piggybacking off the Kickstarter topic, I was wondering what you thought about these other platforms. What are some of the other crowdfunding platforms that have come out in the last couple years? What are they doing well? What may or may not be?
I think it’s a good thing that there are a lot of options now but it also means it can be harder to build a kind of an audience if you’re jumping from platform to platform without those tools. But I’m also just seeing them slowly pop up. I’m not on the other side.
PS: Here’s the thing. I want there to be competition. I want there to be a choice. I want to be able to look at Kickstarter, and a Zoop – which they should change the name, for sure and that’s obvious – but I wanted to be able to look at these kinds of other platforms and actually feel like I have a choice. The truth is, there’s no choice. An IP that will do a certain amount – say they do X on Zoop. They will do exponentially more on Kickstarter. In every case.
There is no competition right now. There is no choice. If you want to succeed to the best of your ability, you go to Kickstarter. I don’t want it to be a monopoly. I want a choice. I think that having the choice, you know, Kickstarter itself is already making great changes. I would like them to be pushed to be even better. It just hasn’t happened yet.
Do you think it’s a matter of time for these other platforms to kind of build to become bigger, maybe have a more attractive system? Or do you think it’s just Kickstarter is just too big with too big of a built in audience that it’s going to be hard trying to push them out? Or is that like a false dichotomy?
Continued belowPS: No, I don’t think it’s a false dichotomy. I don’t know if it’s that Kickstarter is too big, I think that maybe it’s a mixture of they’re too big and they’re already the best option.
These other platforms have certain ideas that could work. For example, the best take to me, I heard a bit of the Crowdfundr guy talk… but the truth is that Crowdfundr isn’t really in the conversation either, you know? If you’re a seasoned crowdfunding comic book creator, “I should go on Crowdfundr” doesn’t come up. It’s not a conversation that you really engage in.
I do think that Crowdfundr overall has the best approach where they know they aren’t yet a competitor, but they’re working toward it by creating a great platform. That was cool to find out about. But other platforms that position themselves as “Oh, yeah. We’re already a competitor. You’ll do fine on our platform. We’ll do this, this, this and that.” I mean, it’s not the truth, you know? They’re not on the level of Kickstarter and I think that pretending to be is for sure a red flag. I think that I would much rather see these companies take the Crowdfundr approach and be understanding of their place in the industry while working toward something more. So time will tell.
But it would take a lot, because I mean, you have Indiegogo. Indiegogo is obviously, and objectively, the second best comics platform for crowdfunding. But it only works for people who are heavily on YouTube. It doesn’t work for anybody else. The algorithm sucks there. Kickstarters algorithm is exponential, the way that it rewards people who do multiple different campaigns. A one-off campaign I get, maybe, putting elsewhere. But if you’re doing multiple campaigns? Leaning into the algorithm is the most important thing that you could do.
I know that Backerkit has their own platform that they’re trying out, to kind of a poor reaction right now. But I think that how Backerkit works best is how it ties into Kickstarter. Backerkit Launch is absolutely incredible. It’s a beautiful tool that lets you message your active Kickstarter campaigns. It lets you message every backer of a previous campaign in one fell swoop, then messages them again through it and filters out those who pledge to the current campaign so they don’t get annoyed by you. It’s an amazing tool.
So I feel like I would much rather these crowdfunding companies work on ways to answer questions that can actually add to the experience, rather than reinventing the wheel. How Backerkit did that? *Chef’s Kiss*. Beautiful. But I don’t see any other innovation outside of Kickstarter. Not a one.
This is more of an example of something being too big but when everyone thought that Twitter was going to die, and obviously it wasn’t, there was all this talk of follow me this site, you know? And I was like, Oh, well, that’s obviously not going to work. And it didn’t. The infrastructure wasn’t there and the same is true of these other crowdfunding sites. It would be so sick. I want them to do well. It’s just I have not seen it. I don’t see it right now.
I wonder what it could look like in five years. Who knows?
PS: Yeah, who knows?
I was going to ask about conventions – because I met the Crowdfunder people at SPX. They were doing a booth there – because you’ve talked about going back to conventions. One was Long Island Tropic Con and then there was Exxxotica. Do you like the smaller cons?
PS: Yeah. I like the small ones that people go to. You know? Like there’s a few cons on Long Island that have been great. I consider Cradle Con to be our home show. Eternal Con does well. Long Island Tropic Con does pretty well. I really like these shows.
There are some shows that…I’ll do like a local show in a different state and just try it out. Sometimes there’s nobody walking around besides the exhibitors. That, I don’t like. But if people are actually there, if they have enough of an Artist Alley where I feel like if someone’s not there, I could still meet a solid artist I could work with…?
Continued belowFor example, last year at Flame Con, sales weren’t crazy. I don’t personally like how they run their Artist Alley. But Shannon had a table there for my company Space Between and she was kind of walking around and she saw this artist, Celtis. Celtis ended up doing this “Cerulean Dreams” cover for us and Shannon saw her at Flame Con, so I thought well that con is definitely a dub for that, you know? So I’ve got a great relationship with, to me, one of the best up-and-coming cover artists in the industry, out of just appearing at that show. So that worked out well.
The same weekend, I was at Long Island Tropic Con where I met Kat Duran, Crystal Hearted Kat, who ended up doing multiple trading cards for us that are incredible. So cons that can supply both meetings with fans, new readers, and artists, I’ll go to anytime. That, I love. But some cons are a struggle. It’s hard to predict which one beforehand but yeah, I like doing cons.
Didn’t used to.
Was it just because you were going to so many or just there was something about it that you weren’t connecting with?
PS: When I first started going out on my own, my table was 95% work-for-hire. And I dreamed of a time where I could have my stuff, a full table of my stuff. I think it was Baltimore Comic Con last year. I looked at my table, and they had given me two tables for this nice, big space. And I looked and I was like: “Wow. This is all my stuff. And I can’t fit it. I have more.” And I felt so good about it. I felt like this is what I was waiting for and that was nice.
Yeah, so having those kinds of wins at conventions, where – I mean, sometimes I would drive home from a convention or a signing, and be like why the fuck did I do this? I’m never going back, you know? So, to have the opposite? It’s a good feeling. It makes the struggle conventions worth it.
Is there a balance that you’re trying to hit now, like in terms of number of conventions a year?
PS: Uh…no. I’m just looking to expand.
Just keep going to get the word out?
PS: Yeah. What I’ll do though, is I want to try different things every year. Last year, we tried Exxxotica and Exxxotica was great. And back then, we only had “Thirsty.” We didn’t even have “Cheeky” yet. So this year we’ll have “Thirsty,” “Cheeky,” “Steamy.” We’ll have acrylic standees. We’ll have these pins that say Cheeked Up. We’ll have stickers, we’ll have single issues. We will have a full fledged adult booth for Exxxotica.
Now, this year, we’re trying for 420 Expo, put on by the same people who put on Exxxotica, and it is a weed-focused convention. Same as we had for Exxxotica last year, this year we’ll only have two volumes of “Smoke Weed, See the Future.” If this convention goes amazingly, maybe in 2024 we’ll have a Sticky Icky Icky Comics, you know? A full imprint of weed comics. Who knows?
I have more trouble imagining than the Cheeky Comics line. Like what would it be like?
PS: I mean, like, a lot of characters smoke, you know? Actually, I have a friend of mine, she has a good idea for this comic. I’m not gonna talk about it here, obviously, but that could be one that we do. Who knows, you know? Who knows.
Do you think that you’ll reach a point where you’re like, alright, we need to, we can’t expand anymore, titles wise?
PS: I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it because I feel that if there is a need for it, I would feel it. If there is, we’d pull back. I don’t think there’s any magic number. I think that there’s a point where I wouldn’t want to stretch myself thin, and I would maybe have Steve do some more writing, and I would think about bringing on other writers, but still maintain control of the vision.
Continued belowAs far as, you know, it’s important to me to tell character-driven stories and I have a certain way that I want things to go that I think that readers have responded to you so far. So I wouldn’t want to deviate from that where you read a Space Between story and you know what to expect as far as, not the content, but the focus, right? So I would bring other people if it came to expanding exponentially. But no, I don’t see any specific point where I’d say I should end here.
To kind of shift away from some more of the business to more of the content, I wish I could ask more informed questions, but I’m still sitting on all of my volumes of “Destiny, NY” till the short story collection gets here.
But with the long running series, because you said you’re now in kind of the second phase of the main title, is that a book that you see having phases until you’re like, I think I can end this here? Or is it one where you’re like, I think I’ve got two more phases, or however much left and one more phase or whatnot, without necessarily being concrete? Is that one that you think you could keep going or forever versus “Prison Witch,” which is a mini at three volumes.
PS: There will be a concrete ending. I could go out at Volume 11 or into the high teens, low 20s.
Well, that’s exciting! What’s your writing process like for any of them? Is it you know, getting it all done in one go? Slow iteration?
PS: It’s different per title and depending on what I’m working on. Right now, my slate is insane because I’m also in the thick of writing this game. I’m writing a game work-for-hire. I do a lot of ghost writing too.
For “Destiny, NY” I write full script with complete dialogue and then I’ll edit the dialogue down over the artwork when I see the art. But on Cheeky Comics stories, which are a lot more art driven, I’ll write the panels of those and leave the dialogue blank and just have suggestions of what will be said. When I see the art come in, and it’s complete, then I’ll go back in, and I’ll write the story as far as the dialogue.
But yeah, it’s different from IP to IP, for sure. Sometimes I’ll ask the artists. Like I asked Rio Burton for “Azza the Barbed,” do you want me to do a full panel script for “Azza” #5, and do no dialogue and then I’ll go back in and do the dialogue? Or would you rather pieces of the script, complete with dialogue that you’ll get in sections, and do it that way. And she said that she wants the sections so that she can see the full dialogue and have the character acting on the face, which, that’s important to me.
So even when I do not-full-dialogue, what I’ll do is…for the Cheeky Comics stories, I’ll write the full panel and then in italics I’ll say, for example in “OnlyFriends with Penn,” I’ll say in italics “Penn says something like this,” and I’ll say like a super rough version of the line. Even when I don’t fully write dialogue, the artist will still pretty much know what’s going to be said. They know how to construct the facial acting, which to me, having a character act is the most underrated skill in comic book art by far.
I see a lot of art where, you know, what is being shown emotionally doesn’t match what’s being said in the dialogue. And it’s like, man, I wouldn’t have let it fly. I would have either given the note to change the face or I would have adjusted the dialogue. I see that disconnect a lot so that’s what I look for when I looked for collaborators, especially long term collaborators, that they can tell a story not only in the movements, but the characters’ faces.
You’re right. That’s one of the most underrated things in comics and it’s tough to get right. When you are doing your scripts, when you’re sending it in, how much time does it usually take you per script? Or, rather, per page? Because you know, the whole script for “Destiny, NY” is probably 100 pages, a whole script for a 10 page story is, you know.
Continued belowPS: I can do a script for a single issue in a day. I would prefer three days but “Destiny, NY” takes longer. It’s denser. I’m juggling more things. I’m making more decisions. I’m picking focuses because we have a sprawling cast that I like to kind of indulge their different character pathways. Like I’ll follow a character to a place that isn’t exactly plot relevant, that will be important for their character either sooner or later down the road. So, “Destiny, NY” is definitely more demanding with time. But otherwise, I’m pretty quick.
Do you like that meandering when you’re when you’re writing?
PS: Yes. As long as it can be made to matter, yes.
So you wouldn’t just have a scene which is entirely emotional but, like, not relevant to the plot but furthers like something within the character?
PS: No, I’d do that 100%. Character to me is number one, I don’t care about plot very much at all. I just…people hear “meandering,” and they kind of go to a place where it doesn’t matter period. I want it to matter towards character.
Like, someone chases a cat, they come back home and then if you cut that whole thing out, nothing would change on an emotional level, on a story level, on a time level even. That’s not what you want.
PS: Right. To me, I’ll be very brief with how I say this so as not to spoil, but there is a moment in “Destiny, NY” Volume Six, where a character who we haven’t spent much time with is nearly killed. And he goes home. And he goes inside. He greets his wife, his daughter. He sits down and he watches his wife heat up his dinner. When she puts it in front of him, he just has this moment where he looks at regular things around the room. He sees a picture on the fridge. He sees her hands in the sink, you know? He sees just his living space and he is filled with this relief, this grace, like “Oh, wow. This is so normal to me that I never think about it in this way. But I almost never saw this again.”
That moment when I submitted the script, when we talked in editorial, I got the note if there’s one scene to cut, we cut this, because his story could end with this other scene. And I just thought: Nah.
I thought the note was going to be “How dare you do this to us?”
PS: [Laughs] Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Do you ever get notes like that?
PS: Oh, yeah.
What’s your favorite of the those kinds of notes?
PS: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. My favorite actually came from Jim Campbell, the letterer. So in one email, he wrote: “I confess I have a little sniffle while working on that, Pat. I may never forgive you.” And then I said: “Thanks, Jim. It means a lot to know that you’re invested enough to say that.” And then a few days later, he wrote: “I’m working on the last chapter now. I thought you brought all the feels in the previous chapter but no, not a dry eye in the lettering studio yesterday.”
That kind of thing comes up and also what comes up is character choices. I remember Shannon and I were talking about a choice that someone made at the end of Volume Two, where two characters made dramatically different choices, and I was like, “Man, do you think that people are going to still kind of like this character?” And Shannon was like: “Yeah. I mean, she was right, the other person was wrong.” And I was like, “Really? You think that?” I thought the opposite, you know? But that kind of disagreement is cool to me where it makes the story and the characters feel alive.
Who are some of your favorite characters to write for? In specific names, but then also like type. Like the more difficult characters, the more, I guess, upbeat cheery characters, that kind of stuff.
PS: Man, it’s really a mix. I love Taylor Hart from “Destiny, NY” and “Smoke Weed, See the Future.” I mean, easy answer but Logan McBride, the lead of “Destiny, NY” is very important to me.
Continued belowFor fun, Trinity from “Destiny, NY” She’s the lead of “Gangster Ass Barista.” Meadow, from “Destiny, NY.” Very, very fun and cathartic to write. And with Cthulhu right now, the “I Summoned Cthulhu to Fund My Kickstarter” book, I’m writing characters who are parodies of real life comic book creators including myself, which is very fun to write. It’s full comedy so it definitely has Judd Apatow vibes. I’m really enjoying that.
I mean, the truth is all types, you know? I love writing Lilith. She struggles with her morality, her choices, and I get it. You know? I love Arvid from “Destiny, NY” who has probably done the worst things and doesn’t struggle with the morality at all, because he sees himself as a soldier, as a protector, even though other people would see him as a gangster, you know? I mean, the truth is, on “Destiny, NY” in particular I love them all.
What were some of the inspirations for “Destiny, NY?” Were there any works that acted as touchstones for the series?
PS: Yes. Funny enough. Someone described “Destiny, NY” in a review – I wish I knew who off-hand, it could have been Pulp something – called it Harry Potter meets The Sopranos. And that is it to a tee. That’s it. That is the vibe. There’s shades for sure of Six Feet Under, of Leftovers.
What’s funny is I think it’s because we have a big cast, and it’s a female driven cast, but sometimes when people talk “Oh, yeah, like I can see it being a CW show.” And immediately I’m like, you don’t get it. You’re so far from what it is. And no offense to these CW shows. I watch and enjoy some of those. But no, it’s definitely the inspirations come from cite>Harry Potter and The Sopranos.
That’s an eclectic mix? But that’s a good way of selling it.
PS: Yeah. Obviously there’s magic elements. We’re playing with the idea of prophecy. That’s the pitch: the “Harry Potter” of it all comes less from the vibe and more from the pitch. The pitch is, those kinds of stories end when the prophecy is complete. That is the end of that story. Our story begins after that, what happens to the character next, that’s the conceit of the story.
The Sopranos of it all, and the Six Feet Under, comes more from this as an exploration of what it means to live, knowing that everything is going to end. That is the question at the center of all the media that I love. Harry Potter included too.
Sopranos. Six Feet Under. The Leftovers. To me? The greatest – Lost as well – have this core question. I want to have my series that explores it in that way from different perspectives. We have crime elements. We have this mixture of drama and comedy that I feel, to me, evokes life.
A more direct comparison, though, people say “Strangers in Paradise.” I’m a big Terry Moore fan. So definitely bringing him on to do a cover for the single issue number one was a big nod to people finding that comparison. And I mean, Terry is the G.O.A.T., you know? He’s great. He’s amazing.
