Middle
Kurt Vonnegut described unusual travel arrangements as dancing lessons from god… and if that’s the case I should be pretty quick on my feet by the end of the week.
So, where was I? The Nativity…
I’d nearly finished making The Flowfield Unity book when I decided to put some of the strips up online, for marketing purposes. At first I used a freewebs site.
That’s when the idea of turning my print comic into a webcomic occurred to me. I could easily draw a strip a week but maintaining my site (it was straight HTML) took ages, time I didn’t have.
It wasn’t so much that there was no room in the inn, more that there were quite a few inns to choose from.
So, I tried Keenspot, but I found the people running the forums there were a bit ignorant and well, quite petty and offensive… especially one admin that had their own comic and used their forum presence to promote it by slating everyone elses. It was at this point that I decided I would never say a bad word about another comic – mostly because I knew how much effort went into making even a quite bad one.
Time to find a new home… and start a journey that made The Flowfield Unity into a peripatetic webcomic.
The next stage was SmackJeeves. They were great there, they provided me a steady home, some nice readers and that gave me the time and inspiration to really start as a webcomic – not just recycling the strips from the book, but making new ones specifically for the internet. I’ll always be greatful to the folk there for starting me on my way.
But, I wanted more, I wanted my own site, and that’s when I bumped into Transplant and it was here that my comic finally made the transition to a proper webcomic.
I’d like to think that again, it was all part of a plan, a grand design, but the truth is I pretty much just fell into it. That said, I did have plans for Anton…
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
What you need to do tomorrow is post a link to “The Flowfield Unity” at Lulu, along with a message saying “If you want to find out what happens to Anton…”.
Naah, I’d never seriously recommend such sleazy marketing techniques, but everyone reading this should go pick up a copy of the print version anyhow. It’s very nice to have all the strips in physical form, and having some black and white indie comics in your bookshelf can increase your coolness factor by up to 500%.
You can’t go too far when marketing it turns out… and I would do something like that, but the truth is that I’ve stopped using Lulu to print my books:
The problem was that about one in every five books they sent out was mis-printed or suffered from some sort of defect.
Whilst I didn’t mind them sending me defective books (as I could just return them for a new copy) I really didn’t like the idea of them sending one out to my readers…
So, I complained about it – I’d worked at a publishing house and I figured that I knew what I was doing – and they offered me a job… and promised to feature my book in their newsletter.
However, I think that it was just to placate me since when it finally came to setting up an interview to sort out the contract, they kept putting it off until they finally just ignored me. They won’t reply to any email I send them either. Plus, and far worse in my opinion, they didn’t even feature my book in the newsletter.
And that, all together, is why I stopped using them.
I figured that I might as well re-publish my first book at the new printers when I… wait a minute, I’m getting ahead of myself… so, yeah, that’s what happened to the book.
Ms-Em and I wish you a very merry christmas (I suppose a lot of the food is off the table now, right?)… and I’ll speak to you soon,
Ad
Not only do I not have any drawing skill, I don’t have thoughts that fit conveniently into panels. So I have a deeply abiding fondness and respect for anyone who can maintain a comic strip in any sense.
Except Lynn Johnston. She needs either to pack it in or stop being so damned “I don’t give a crap anymore and let me prove it to you” about her characters.
I have to crowbar them in occasionally – starting the single strip ones was a godsend really, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier since it gives me room to use ideas that are unworkable in the three-cell format.
I’m off to find out who Lynn Johnston is…
I can’t draw but I pathetically scrawl no fewer than FIVE webcomics. Only one of them is drawn by hand from scratch, though. I really want to get with an artist and do something more in depth, though, since I’m actually supposed to be a writer.
Have you tried the various comic forums? I know it can be hard persuading an artist, but I’ve read you stuff and I’m sure you couldpick one up… I’ll ask around if you like as I know some people that are currently on the look for a project.
Falling into something is much better
than having something fall on you. It
implies you were at least looking for
a direction to fall. Most people don’t.
(Sorry about the double post, I accidentally touched the [Enter] key.
Falling into something is much better
than having something fall on you.
True genius. Though I’m not sure I would want to fall into a piano either.
i remember how i found you. there was a great big star on the northern side of the interwebz that i felt compelled to follow. i treaded through the pron and get rich quick schemes, keeping my eyes locked on the star, never losing faith that i would be led to greatness….sniff….and finally i found the Flowfield Unity wrapped in a swaddling cloth in a manger.
*leaves offering of nagchampa because i ate the frankincense.
Good grief, I’ve heard that stuff tastes terrible…
How are you doing? I hope you’re up for the festivities or at the very least some humbug…
Have a good Christmas, and remember, next time you follow a distant light, make sure that you’re not walking towards a flamethrower.