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| 803 doing her thing at Melb Supanova |
Go hand in hand, in my opinion. My love of comics and story telling has always had a logical conclusion that sooner or later i would attempt to publish my own comic book. I won't go into all the doom and gloom of the current comic industry and how much tougher it is to produce and keep producing in Australia.. with pacific oceans, distribution and printing costs being very very persuasive reasons not to publish. I shell go straight to the book that i have in my hand.
When putting together GloomMACHINE my thought was that it needs to be as good a quality if not better then any product on the market.. including the US market. There is no point in releasing issue one in A5 size, in black and white and having everyone imagine how cool it would look full size, in colour if I invested some hard cash to do it properly.
I printed it full size A4 (cause I just love the size of the 2000AD mags), and because it is a cross between a magazine and a comic with it's photo spreads inside.
I printed it full colour.
I printed it using offset printing.. not digital printing. For the best print quality.
I selected the perfect paper, at extra expense. 100% recycled quality local paper. Which added almost $2k to the print cost alone.
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| Page from issue One |
Next came the price of the magazine. I didn't look at my total print cost, and add 200% on top so that i can break even as soon as possible. The price has to be competitive with magazines and comics of similar value. Just because I decided to spend a small fortune printing a high quality magazine doesn't mean I was going to charge $25 for a 44 page magazine.
The cover price is $8.95. And everyone that has seen the magazine, from comic store owners, creators and fans, have told me the price is way too low for the quality of the magazine. Maybe so, but I thought, how much am I willing to spend on a first issue comic that I know little about? Probably not much more then $10.
The comic was released at the Brisbane Supanova con in 2011 and on sale at the Melbourne Supanova con as well. It was wonderful and satisfying to be back behind the table, selling my own comic, talking to fans and hearing everyones feedback on GloomMACHINE. And the feedback told me that I was dead on target with the concept, the mixture of comic and live photo shoots, and is what has made it all worthwhile and makes me keen to continue.
My sales at both Brisbane and Melbourne Cons from general creator owned expected sales, was quite impressive for a first issue. The magazine found interest and fans in both males and females. 'Beautiful Girls, Big Guns and Evil Zombies' was my selling tag line... "What's not too like?" said one girl, as she approached the table and bought a copy.
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| 803 taking care of the local zombie horde at the Melb Supanova |
My promise to everyone that bought issue one was that this was not a one issue wonder and that you can look forward to issue two very soon and lots of online content. With all good intentions, life always gets in the way of a big boys comic book dream.. so delays were inevitable.
Now issue two is due, (over due actually)... and those silly ideals come into play again. Even though sales for issue one started strong, they are not even close to covering the print costs.. and my ideals are not to compromise on quality. Do I bite the bullet and release issue two cheaper and at a higher cover price? Do I release a cheaper product now, or the better product, but it will have to wait. That is where we are currently at. Have considered the kickstarter/indiegogo option... and it could be an option.
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| 805 turning her attentions to Dr Gloom himself. |
Everyones support, in purchasing issue one, sending those feedback emails, drgloom[at]gloommachine[dot]com and pressing 'Like' at the facebook page, goes a very very long way and is greatly appreciated. 'Cause as much as I love producing comics, my aim is to give you guys and girls the coolest post apocalyptic shit on the interwebs. But in the meanwhile, I will bring to you a free online comic story, more pretty girls and photos to drool over and a promise that GloomMACHINE will remain Undead.
This is what indie comics is all about, these are what silly ideals sound like.
Oh yeah, you can buy issue one at the facebook page here
Dr Gloom.
LIKE GloomMACHINE facebook PAGE HERE
