Imagine getting your dream project into the hands of thousands of comic shop goers on the comic market’s biggest day. Well, with Free Comic Book Day only a couple of months away (Saturday, May 4th 2013), Tyler James at ComixTribe has been busy getting everything ready for just that. It’ll be the biggest event in their budding little publisher’s history, so far. But seeing as he’s also one of the nice guys in the industry, and nice guys always finish first, he took some time out of his busy schedule to sit down with us and dole out some insight as to how this whole thing works for someone who doesn’t have the big guns of “Marvel” or “DC” behind them. The result was a fascinating look at what goes in to producing a “free” comic book, how you approach the changing comic market in general, and some more about “The Red Ten” #0 – the comic book that he’ll be proudly sending forth into the world on FCBD. Let’s dive in:
What are your main goals when deciding to produce a Free Comic Book Day issue? What do you look for the book to do for you and what do you want it to do for potential readers?
Tyler James: Free Comic Book Day is one of the tent-pole events of the comics calendar. Between 4 and 5 million comic books are given out for free at shops around the world. For many retailers, the first Saturday in May is their biggest store event of the year. Any publisher big or small would be crazy not to want to be a part of that.
Ideally, “THE RED TEN” #0, our FCBD offering, will serve as a great introduction to both “THE RED TEN” series and ComixTribe books in general for tens of thousands of readers who haven’t discovered us yet and hundreds of retailers that aren’t currently stocking our books. At the same time, the issue tosses some red meat to the few thousand fans who are already buying our books and are hungry for more content.
Kingston Lear introduces the team to the attendees of a conference, which seems to be a great way to introduce new readers to the characters they’ll be reading about. I imagine part of that is creating a “new reader” friendly book for FCBD? Had you always planned on doing a zero issue?
TJ: It’s pretty clear to readers of “THE RED TEN” series that each of our “heroes” is doomed from the start – it’s part of the And Then There Were None meets “Justice League” hook of the book. Still, I liked the idea of shining a spotlight on each member of The Alliance, and a #0 book seemed like the perfect place to do that. “The Red Ten” #0 will reach more than ten times the number of people who read the first issue, so making it “new reader friendly” was a no-brainer.
From the production side, “THE RED TEN” #0 was treated as a side project, as I didn’t want it to slow down series artist and co-creator Cesar Feliciano’s progress on the main series. One of the cool things about the book is that it features art by more than ten super talented artists. My challenge was to find a way to weave together the beautiful work of each artist with a narrative framing device that made sense. Thus, we have Kingston Lear, a character who will play a bigger role as the series continues, present his thoughts on teamwork in a TED talk style setting.
I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition to hear the thinking of the guy who put The Alliance together in the zero issue, when “THE RED TEN” series is about that same team getting torn apart.
Did you have to come up with more tidbits about these heroes for the zero issue, or were they pretty fully formed? Who were your favorite characters to design? Who is your favorite to write?
TJ: Actually, I fleshed out the back stories for most of these characters a few years ago, during the 30 Characters Challenge, an annual event ComixTribe runs where creators challenge themselves to create 30 brand new characters in just 30 days. Of course, characters always grow and change as you bring them to life in scripts, but the broad strokes of each character – a recognizable super hero archetype with a dark secret – were firmly in place.
Continued belowNow, Cesar Feliciano definitely added a lot to the design of each character and designed Mazu, Magnitude, and Mold himself. And as far as who is the most fun to write, it’s no contest – the Oxymoron steals the show every time.
Tell me a little about getting Paul Allor to do the Oxymoron back-up story.
TJ: Paul is one of those guys on practically everyone’s “writers to watch” list this past year and I know Multiversity thinks very highly of his work. Well, I reached out to him well over a year ago to be a part of the the “OXYMORON” Hardcover anthology project, because I really liked his stuff.
For the FCBD book, I knew I had 32 pages of content to fill, and that “The Red Ten” #0 story was only going to run about 15. Since the “OXYMORON” book will be solicited to the direct market this spring, it only made sense to give Oxy more face time in this book.
I really loved what Paul, artist Aaron Houston and color artist Vasco Sobral did with their story ‘Quiet Riot’, and the fact that it was dark and creepy, but still appropriate for a broad audience (something the FCBD organizers are looking for) made it a perfect addition to this book.
And if it encourages folks to go on and buy the disgustingly beautiful over-sized “OXYMORON” Hardcover, or any of Paul’s incredible creator-owned and licensed work – all the better!
Another nice touch was the crossword on the back. From the infamous “Scam” billboard to Kickstarter to little things like this, it seems you’re always finding ways to promote the work you’re involved in and include the readers as much as possible. Where does this philosophy stem from and what have you learned about comics as a business from doing the FCBD issue?
TJ: Yeah, one of the things we’ve done is put a crossword puzzle on the back cover of “THE RED TEN” #0. Anyone who reads the comic cover-to-cover shouldn’t have a problem solving it and by doing so, you and your comic shop could win a free graphic novel from ComixTribe. Pretty cool, huh?
Obviously, it’s a bit of a marketing plug for Crosswords, a brilliant new character from Joe Mulvey’s acclaimed “SCAM” mini-series. Anyone who knows Joe knows how passionate the guy is for the comics medium. You’ll find no bigger cheerleader for comics out there than Joe. (Though the thought of Mulvey in a cheerleader outfit just made me throw up in my mouth a little.) Joe and I are always looking for unique hooks to get people to give our books a shot. Now, content is king, but in such a crowded marketplace, going the extra mile and trying new things to get people talking about your books can help small imprints like ComixTribe break away from the pack. That’s the plan, anyway.
How did you come to the decision to release a FCBD comic? Was it the next logical step in your take-over of comics?
TJ: I love Free Comic Book Day. I’ve been doing signings, sketching, and selling books at local comic shops on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY for the past three years, and it’s always a blast. But the ComixTribe is only so big and we can only do so many in-store events. The next logical step for an imprint with a little bit of a foothold in the comic market is to become a FCBD Sponsor and get our books into as many shops as possible during that event.
Discussing the process with Mike DeVito of Th3rd World, another great young publisher that has had a lot of success building interest in “Stuff of Legend” and other titles by putting out a FCBD book, definitely helped. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons ComixTribe was so excited to strike a distribution deal with Diamond last year was the opportunity to take part in FCBD.
How do you go about producing a (quote-unquote) “free” comic book? How does cost of production and timing come into play?
TJ: Great question, Vince. “Free” is a beautiful, powerful thing. And free comics? What’s not to love there, right?
Continued belowBut in reality, on May 4 of this year, about 1 million tons of comic goodness are going to be given away to readers around the world. We’re not talking about digital files here – we’re talking about physical paper books that have real costs associated with them that somebody has to pay for.
Publishers, distributor, and retailers all work together to make the event feasible. We publishers offer our FCBD book to retailers at a deep discount (usually between $0.20-$0.40 per book), and Diamond takes a smaller piece than they normally do on distributing books, which allows retailers to buy these books at a low enough cost that they can give them away for free. So, the real heroes of Free Comic Book Day are the retailers, who are spending real money for those “free” books. Make sure you pick up a trade or two to thank them.
As far as time-tables go, it’s pretty tight. Luckily, I started planning this book a little less than a year ago, knowing I’d be up against the clock. Most FCBD books are at the printer’s right now, as they need to be received by Diamond later this month.
I was thinking the other day about FCBD and digital comics and how that is an experience that feels unique to the “comic shop.” You can have a “free” comic digitally, but it doesn’t bring people into your store and it doesn’t do much for comics as a “community.” Is that accurate, do you think? What is it about the relationship between a publisher and a retailer that is so important? And do you see ComixTribe moving further into the digital comics arena anytime soon?
TJ: A few things: First, the Free Comic Book Day event is a ComicsPRO sponsored event. (Pretty sure it’s trademarked, as well.) And its stated goal is to entice new readers into the local comic shop.
Now, I’m personally excited about the advent of digital. I read a lot of comics on my iPad, and love that as an option for my comics consumption. ComixTribe books are on a wide variety of digital platforms already (and we should have an exciting related announcement very soon.) Digital comics, webcomics, print – I think any savvy publisher will be stressing an “all of the above” approach to getting their books out.
But I still see the comic shop as the epicenter of comic culture. Maybe nostalgia plays a role. Sure, they still had comics at supermarkets when I was a kid, but it wasn’t until I discovered a local comic shop that I fell in love with the medium. I know for myself and many ComixTribe creators, being relevant on those shelves is a big motivator. One of the goals I set for myself about five years ago was to have a book with my name on it in every comic shop in the country. The cool thing is, by participating in FCBD, I just took a huge step closer to achieving that.
Many different artists lent their talents to this issue? Was that seen as an opportunity for them to get their work out there? How did their work make it into your book?
TJ: As I said, I wanted “THE RED TEN” #0 to have a “jam book” feel to it so that Cesar could focus on the rest of the series. So, I reached out to some talented artists on the rise and asked if they wanted to participate. Now, a lot of these are guys ComixTribe fans will recognize. Jonathan Rector, artist of “THE STANDARD” and a massive talent, contributed a piece. I tapped Jules Rivera, Dave Myers, Alex Cormack, Aaron Houston, Carl Yonder, and Rafer Roberts, all contributors to the Oxymoron book, to bring their talents on board. I also reached out to Erik Reeves and Philip Dunne, two artists whose work I enjoy, to join in. After bringing in Hugo Froes, Vasco Sobral and Albert Luciano on color, all that was left to do was tap Vic Moya to ink over my own pencils to tie the whole story together.
I think for all of us, the opportunity to have a book with our work in it out on FCBD was too good to pass up. And with a print run of 31,500, it is by far the biggest book most of us have been a part of. It’s exciting!
Continued belowOn Free Comic Book Day, you can also come out and see a bunch of us at local signings:
Tyler James – Larry’s Comics (Lowell, MA) and Jetpack Comics (Rochester, NH)
Cesar Feliciano – A Hero’s Legacy and Legend of Superheroes (Manchester, CT)
Steve Colle – Alpha Comics (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)
Paul Allor – Comics Cubed (Kokomo, Indiana)
Dave Myers – Yancy Street Comics (New Port Richey, FL)
Rafer Roberts – Beyond Comics (Gaithersburg, MD)
Can you take us through the process of getting a book approved for distribution on FCBD? I imagine it’s not as simple as, “hey, will you take this book and make it part of the event?”
TJ: Having a distribution deal with Diamond in place is a prerequisite, I believe. But they have a pretty streamlined process for publishers interested in being an FCBD sponsor. Essentially, you fill out an application with details on what you have planned for the release, what you’re going to do promotion wise, and details about the book. This goes to a selection committee, and they make the decision who gets in. There are two sponsorship levels, Gold and Silver. Gold is reserved for the big dogs, as there are only 10 Gold books, and participating FCBD stores must purchase a certain amount of them. On the other hand, there are about 50 Silver level sponsor books this year, and stores do not have to purchase them.
As a Silver sponsor, it was still important to get out the work about our release for FCBD, so that our order numbers would be high enough to get the per-unit print cost low enough to offer it to retailers at such a deep discount. Luckily, our orders were great!
