PUBLISH OR PERISH

I didn't write this. I stole it from the Trip City website, but every word of it is true and more people need to see it, so I'm re-posting it here.

Written by Dean Haspiel for Trip City -- Comics writer/artist/publisher, Jimmy Palmiotti, recently Tweeted, “Publish or perish.” Maybe it was end-of-the-year blues but I was feeling particularly bleak about my career and was struck by Jimmy’s charge and asked if we could discuss the origin behind those three ominous words and what I got was a pep talk for a lifetime.

Securing work from franchise publishers is harder than ever before and very few other publishers pay livable advance wages anymore. Most deals are made for royalties and back end rewards based on sales. Print is competing with digital and profits are questionable. Readers want archives and new stories but making money at publishing has become a challenging and schizophrenic mess. The risk for a corporation to launch something new has become greater and all the bean counters want to know before they gamble on your idea is the sales of your last three books and whether or not your comic book idea has multimedia legs and if you have a strong fan base. In other words, publishers hardly publish what they “like” and franchise publishers would rather update 75-year old icons every five years [which they've worked hard to maintain] than build and grow new ideas that inspire writers and artists today. I understand why that is but it’s paranoid, lazy, and shortsighted.

Frankly, pitching proposals sucks right now. What if you don’t have three books and your new idea doesn’t translate to a movie or toy? Worse, what if you do have three books and the numbers didn’t inform the zeitgeist and thrill Hollywood? Why does one thing need to yield the other in order to make a cool comic book? Because comic books don’t sell like they used to. I get it. While the internet leveled the playing field it also made everything a niche. However, the comix industry does have a strong fanbase. I’ve seen them and they are us.

Now is the perfect time for a cartoonist to manifest his or her own industry. We have the DIY tools. We have the social networks and viral know how. We have proof that crowd funding works and community is key. We have a cranky comedian like Marc Maron rise from the ashes of every bridge he ever burned and make his own rules with his WTF podcast, and popular acts like Radiohead and Louis C.K. making affordable, direct deposit products; offers no one in their right mind could refuse, and venues like Etsy and Kickstarter changing the ways we consume by supporting work with our wallets BEFORE it’s made so that it can BE made sans corporate fear and scrutiny.

But, what about us? Viva la Michel Fiffe for self-publishing ZEGAS, a print-only experience that reminds us why magical efforts like Los Bros Hernandez’ LOVE & ROCKETS were punk yet vital and stand the test of time. All hail Alex De Campi for recognizing the virtues of the old self-publishing model while implementing new rules with the understanding that in order to hawk your wares you must show up to the party and build sound relationships with the people who produce, distribute, and purchase your wares. Rock out with your cock out Jimmy Palmiotti for having the talent and acumen to keep your feet firmly planted in all ponds while knowing how important it is to be different.

Bottom line: I’m sharing these thoughts to rally myself, too. I count myself lucky to have been paid to make comix and I owe a lot of people my perpetual gratitude. I would love to continue to get hired and occasionally play with the toys I grew up with but I can’t allow over-worked editors to ignore me or my talented friends, anymore. It doesn’t champion creativity and it doesn’t pay the bills. Indifference only engenders ill-will and I won’t be banished to that bitter cabal of disgruntled cartoonists.

“Publish or perish?”

In 2012, I’m excited to see comix auteurs bring their A-game and step up to the plate with a hit in their mind and a home run in their heart.

–Dean Haspiel

GOALS

I don't like New Year's. I mean, I don't like it as a holiday. Generally, I have no feelings about a new year, but New Year's is silly.

That's why I spent my New Year's home sick, watching 30 Rock, writing and thinking. I did a lot of thinking.

I thought about things I accomplished in 2011 and I don't really feel like I accomplished much. I worked a lot, which made doing things I wanted to do much easier, but it also left me tired and without energy for much else. There were some things here and there that I got done, but nothing I'm immensely proud of.

2012 will be different.

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, because I feel those are too easily forgotten and a resolution implies that you need to change who you are. I like who I am. I don't need to change, I just want to focus on doing more of the things I love to do already. That's why I want to set goals instead. Goals for myself that might seem lofty, but shouldn't be and aren't. I spent far too much time sitting around my house watching TV on DVD or bullshitting at coffee shops last year instead of getting things done. I'll still have time for both of those things, but I need to get other stuff done, too.

And rather than make these goals in my head or on a little piece of paper that I'll misplace (or more likely that Harley will steal because it moves slightly when the heater blows on it), I'm going to do it here. I'll just throw it out on this blog, because there's probably only like 8 people still paying attention to it since it never gets updated (see goal Number 4 below).

Here they are in no particular order.

1. Write/produce comics - I can't draw for shit (as we've covered before), but I have incredibly talented friends that can. I've got two in the works. One is scripted and (almost) ready to draw and the other is in outline form that I'll hopefully get to this week.
- Untitled Space Adventure with Gardner Seawright
- Grudge City with Candace Jean

2. Art show at Cathedral Tattoo in July - Gardner and Candace are going to have pages from the books on display and we'll have the books to sell. It's part of Gallery Stroll that month and already booked. Now we've just got to get it ready.

3. Read more - Pretty self-explanatory. I'm setting a goal of one book every two weeks. That doesn't include comics. I think I can do that.

4. Take better care of trevorhale.com - I just want to do more stuff on here. I don't know what exactly, but there needs to be more of it.

5. Make a movie - Andy, Casey and I have been kicking around ideas about how to make a 8-12 minute short over the summer. Well, Andy and I started talking about it and Casey  pointed out that he has exclusive rights as my producer, so he has to be involved. We have no idea what it will be about or where we're going to show it, but we're going to to do it.

6. Make a Zine - Not only do I have a lot of very talented artist friends, but I have a lot of very talented writer friends, too. I want to make an old school, punk rock style, DIY zine. Haven't figured out the content yet, but that will come.

7. Craft Lake City - This kind of involves numbers 1, 4, maybe 5 and 6 from the list above. Craft Lake City, if you don't know, is a DIY craft show put on by SLUG magazine every August. Since I don't craft, I'll have zines, comics, buttons and t-shirts at the trevorhale.com booth. I haven't applied yet, since it doesn't open until March, but I have a good feeling.

I think those are the big ones. I may add more throughout the rest of the week, but those are the ones I've been thinking about a lot for the past few days/weeks/months.

There are a bunch of other little ones, like stop eating dinner after 10 PM—which I've already broken several times and it's only January 9th—and take better care of myself by getting out and going to the gym more and things like that, but those are small potatoes compared to the big 7.

2012 is the year that I bring my punk rock/hardcore Do-It-Yourself roots back full force. It's going to be a good year.

2012

Of course I saw this movie. It was exactly what I expected it to be—completely ridiculous but pretty entertaining. Roland Emmerich has now managed to make the same exact movie three times. Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 all have the exact same plot points, character archetypes, themes, beginnings and endings. And someone at the White House is always the bad guy. If only he'd listened to the warnings, everything could have been avoided!

This one had it all, too. First they drove faster than the earthquake behind them, barely outrunning it the whole time. Then they were able to board a plane and take off just in the nick of time as California crumbled beneath them.

Then you know what? They did the exact same thing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

And again in Las Vegas.

It was kind of like in The Day After Tomorrow when they outran the cold. Remember that? Jake Gyllenhaal can beat cold in a foot race. With wolves chasing him. While carrying a wounded friend in a sled.

That's probably how he became the Prince of Persia.

But you know what? As ridiculous as they are, I'll watch any of those movies any time they come on TV. Because what the hell else am I going to do?

SPACE IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

Way to ruin the fun, NASA.

From Breitbart.com -- The world is not coming to an end on December 21, 2012, the US space agency insisted Monday in a rare campaign to dispel widespread rumors fuelled by the Internet and a new Hollywood movie. 
Sony Pictures's latest big screen offering "2012" arrives in theaters on Friday, with a 200-million-dollar production about the end of the world supposedly based on myths backed by the Mayan calendar.

The doomsday scenario revolves claims that the end of time will come as an obscure Planet X -- or Nibiru -- heads toward or collides into Earth.

The mysterious planet was supposedly discovered by the Sumerians, according to claims by pseudo-scientists, paranormal activity enthusiasts and Internet theorists.

Some websites accuse NASA of concealing the truth on the wayward planet's existence, but the US space agency denounced such stories as an "Internet hoax."

"There is no factual basis for these claims," NASA said in a question-and-answer posting on its website.

If such a collision were real "astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye," it added. "Obviously, it does not exist."

"Credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," NASA insisted.

Initial theories set the disaster for May 2003, but when nothing happened the date was moved forward to the winter solstice in 2012 to coincide with the end of a cycle of the ancient Mayan calendar.

But NASA insisted the Mayan calendar in fact does not end on December 21, 2012, as another period begins immediately afterward. And it said there are no planetary alignments on the horizon for the next few decades.

And even if the planets were to line up as some have forecast, the effect on our planet would be "negligible," NASA said.

Among the other theories NASA has set out to debunk are that geomagnetic storms, a pole reversal or unsteadiness in the Earth's crustal plates might befall the planet.

And while comets and asteroids have always hit the Earth, "big hits are very rare," NASA noted. The last major impact was believed to be 65 million years ago, spurring the end of dinosaurs.

"We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs," the space agency said.