Category Archives: COMIC BOOKS

Introduction
My two new e-comics (available for 99-cents each on the iBookstore) were experiments on a few levels:

1. I wanted to see if I could create a worthwhile comic quickly, rather than endlessly laboring over it (like I do with the images in my graphic novel Tonoharu.)
2. I wanted to see if reading a comic could be a pleasant experience on a smart phone-sized screen, if you took the limitations of the device into consideration when you created the art work.
3. And finally, I was curious to see what effect offering the work online for free would have on sales.

I’d like to think that all of these experiments have been relatively successful, but the one that I’ve been the most pleasantly surprised by is the third one.

I started selling the two e-comics on the same day. For one of them, The Kameoka Diaries, I put almost 90% of it online for free beforehand. For the other, Young Men of a Certain Mind, I’ve never put any of it online at all.

I sort of figured that Young Men of a Certain Mind would outsell The Kameoka Diaries, since the former was 100% new material whereas the latter only offered a bit of original content. Much to my surprise (and delight) the opposite has happened. The shared comic has always outsold the unshared one.

Now I’ll admit this is hardly a scientific experiment, and that “correlation does not imply causation” and all that. But the thing is, I like to share my work. And to know that doing so doesn’t kill sales, and in fact may help them, is great.

So I’ve decided to try sharing Young Men of a Certain Mind as well. I’m going to put the majority of it—80%—online for free, and see if that helps/hurts/doesn’t affect sales. I’ll be doing it in four parts which will go up every week, the first part of which is this one.

So without further ado, here’s the first 20% of Young Men of a Certain Mind: Continue reading “Young Men of a Certain Mind” Preview (1/4)→

A week ago I announced the e-comics I created for the iPhone/iPad, available exclusively on the iBookstore for 99-cents each:
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ]

But I still haven’t really discussed the features of these puppies, or gotten into why I think they’re worth 99 of your hard-earned cents. So I thought I’d make my little sales pitch here. Here’s five reasons I think my e-comics are worth your consideration:

1) They Have Exclusive Content.
The Kameoka Diaries e-comic contains a chapter I never put online, and it’s the funniest of the bunch IMHO:

Above: actual, unaltered panel from the exclusive chapter. I swear it makes sense in context.

And the Young Men of a Certain Mind e-comic has never been put online, so that’s entirely new.

2) They’re in HD.
The resolution of the images in the e-comics is twice that of their online counterparts. They’re incredibly crisp, taking advantage of the iPhone 4 and the new iPad’s Retina Displays (though they also work great on pre-Retina Displays too). The difference is striking. Here’s a couple enlarged comparison shots of the the online version vs. the e-comic one:

An appropriately narcissistic example.

The devious, creepy foreigner from the Japanese textbook looks all the more devious/creepy!

3) They Work Great on the iPhone.
Most e-comics don’t work well on smartphones. They were originally designed for large printed pages, so when you try to read them on the smaller iPhone screen, you spend half your time pinching and zooming to read to the microscopic text, and the other half scanning around the “page” to find the next panel.
I designed The Kameoka Diaries from the ground up to play nice with iPhones. The panels are optimized for that screen size. The text is legible without pinching and zooming. You don’t need to scan around the “page” to find the next panel. Each panel is its own page, so you just flip from panel to panel to panel, like turning the pages of a book. It’s a joy to read, rather than a chore.

This’ll sound arrogant, but honestly: no other digital comic (that I’m aware of) works as well on the iPhone as mine do. But don’t take my word for it; you can download a free sample through the iBookstore and decide for yourself: [ Direct iBookstore Link ]

(Side note: They also work great on iPads, in both portrait or landscape mode, adapting to the larger screen size by showing 4-8 panels at once.)

4) They’re Cheap.
I’ve always felt a bit sheepish about the price of my print graphic novel Tonoharu ($20 per book). That’s a significant chunk of change, especially with the economy being what it is, and with all the cheap/free entertainment alternatives out there. But my hands are sort of tied; with the way print book production/distribution works, I can’t really sell them cheaper than that.
Which is one of the reasons the e-comic format excites me. For the first time, I can sell my work at prices that really feel like bargains. I mean, 99-cents! That’s literally cheaper than dirt!

5) You’ll Help Support the Artist / Fund Future Installments.
Okay, obviously I didn’t go into comics for the money (I’d be way ahead financially if I had devoted the time I spent on comics to a minimum wage job).
But at the same time, I’m not indifferent to financial concerns. So I’ll admit: if these e-comics totally flop, I probably won’t keep making them.
If I can manage to sell just, say, a few hundred copies, I’ll consider that an encouraging enough sign to keep at it. I think that’s a realistic sales target, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion by any means. So if you like The Kameoka Diaries and would like to see more installments of it, throwing a buck or two in my direction will go a long way to helping ensure that that happens.

******

Okay! So that’s my pitch. If you have an iPhone/iPad and are willing to give my e-comics a shot, you can get them for 99-cents each (or get a free sample) here:
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ]

And if you have any friends you think might like my work, please let them know about it. Thanks!