Why Comic Books?
Status of the campaign: "I'm getting a pulse..."
One of my earliest memories was my dad reading a comic book. In fact I can only recall him reading three types of literature, comic books, the newspaper, and National Geographic. My mother, on the other hand, tuned out the world every day, reading Harlequin Romance novels. What I didn’t know about my father at the time was that he was functionally illiterate. Comic books were a way for him to read a story and by following the action on the panels, he could figure out what was going on. And, any important written information usually used the few words he could read.
When I got a little older, 5 or 6, he bought me my first comic books. I remember they were “Land of the Giants” and “Marvel Tales starring Spider-Man” #70 (reprinting ASM #89). Land of Giants was lost when my mother found it in one of my “messes” and threw it way. “Marvel Tales” was read to death by me until there was nothing left. But these two books hooked me, and soon I was buying up comics from any grocery store newsstand or 7-11 spinner rack. Soon I had a box of comics that I read and re-read over and over again. I didn’t know about preserving the books in plastic sleeves with cardboard backing boards. I had no idea that anything I was reading could be valuable. I just loved the stories and artwork.
Mom gave me a tall cardboard box to put my comics in, and warned me to keep them in there when I wasn’t reading them, if I wanted to keep them. Re-reading the books got to be a challenge, having to “dig” down into the box and to find an issue I wanted to re-read, but I lived with it until my older sister got me a filing cabinet to keep my comics in. I eventually outgrew that, too.
I remember that my dad would have me read my comics to him. My child mind thought he was helping me learn to read. I didn’t catch on when he didn’t correct me or help me with a word I didn’t know. He’d just tell me to figure it out. I didn’t know I he couldn’t read, and I wouldn’t know until 20 years after his death.
I asked my mother why they never said anything to me about his illiteracy. She said it was so I wouldn’t think reading wasn’t important. I asked her if she had any of my dad’s old comics. She told me she threw them out with the daily newspapers, and that the only reason I got to keep mine was because I didn’t leave them laying around for very long (I had learned my lesson about that rule with my Land of the Giants comic book).
As I got older, only a few books held my attention. Mostly Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s “New Teen Titans” and Chris Claremont’s “Uncanny X-Men.” I’d pick up the odd issue of other books here and there off of the spinner racks, but I had my go-tos. I started hearing about other comics beyond those you could find in a grocery store or on a spinner rack. I started hearing about comic book shops and dreamed of finding one.
Then, in high school, I discovered such a shop just two towns away, and made weekly pilgrimages there. It was in that shop that I discovered the comic book that would change my life. Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan’s “The Question.” I had just started college and found myself considering the wider world. A world beyond my small Utah town, and a world outside the predominant faith of that town. Denny O’Neil taught me a new word: “Zen.” I went to my tiny community college library and found their Asian Philosophy section. Just one shelf of books and I read every one of them. Or I should say, they read me.
This, of course, started my path from Asian philosophy to marital arts and eventually to …
Eventually The Question ended its run, and the comics that used to entertain me were getting, well…dumb. It wasn’t that I was some high-minded intellectual now that I was a college student. The stories and ideas coming from Marvel and DC were pandering to a very different audience. The collectors craze was upon us and it didn’t matter what was written in the books, just that the books looked valuable to this new market. I lamented to my buddy Doug that I was thinking about giving up comics altogether. He told me to read something first, before I gave up completely, and loaned me the first trade paperback of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman.”
As much as my seven year-old self had devoured any comic he could find, I was devouring these trades as fast as Doug could loan them to me. And when I reached the end, he told me I would just have to read the individual issues. I did. A few months later DC announced a new adult imprint, “Vertigo.” Needless to say, I stuck with it.
Eventually, the dumbing-down of mainstream comics ended, and writers like Kurt Busiek, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and Mark Millar brought me back. I’ve also, thanks to my local comic book shop, discovered all sorts of literary gems. And now I’m writing my own. Speaking of…
The Shaolin Nun #4 Kickstarter Campaign
We started so strong, bringing in over $1,000 in the first day and $2,000 by the end of the first week. But this last week was a trial. The campaign flatlined for 48 hours, with no new donors. Fortunately it’s bounced back some this weekend. I’m hoping to end our first 15 days at the $3,000 mark, though realistically it might be closer to $2,500.
BackerKit, which is the program I use to fulfill my campaigns, says that my average donation is $30, and that I’ve only gotten 54 of 235 previous backers to make new donations. If 150 of those remaining backers were to return with that average $30 donation I’d be within $100 of my funding goal!
So I guess it’s just a matter of enticing them back somehow. Or at least getting them to read their email.
So where does that money go?
That’s a good question. The majority goes to paying my exceedingly talented artists. Each one of them pours their best work into these pages and I have to fairly compensate them for it. Here’s a basic graph:
The big blue area is artist pay. The red section is the cost to print the rewards. The yellow section is all the miscellaneous costs I accrue. And that’s just accounting for $6,500.00. The remaining $500 is to pay for shipping costs, shipping materials, and the one hundred other little costs that crop up when I’m fulfilling a campaign. So I my goal this time is $7,000.
If you’re one of those that hasn’t backed us yet, please consider doing it now and not giving me an ulcer waiting until the end of February, thinking “everyone else will back it.” YOU’RE part of “everyone else,” my friend, and I need your support.
If you’re one of the awesome heroes who has already backed issue #4 and wants to help out, tell your friends, family, and total strangers about this offer:
And then hold their hand and help them set up their Kickstarter account, select the “All Things Digital” reward, and back the book!
Appearances this week
I mentioned these in the last newsletter, but as both appearances are nigh upon us, I wanted to share them again:
MONDAY, January 30 at 8:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM PT:
UHS Presents! Is hosted by our talented inker for The Shaolin Nun: Laurie Foster, and Sarah White of Unlikely Heroes Studios. I’ll be joined by my buddy, Charlie McElvy of The Scintillating Spider-Squirrel fame.
TUESDAY, January 31 at 6:00 PM ET / 3:00 PM PT:
The Comics Fu Show is hosted by marital artists and comic book creators, Patrick Lugo (A Tiger’s Tale) and Sifu Kurtis Fujita (Shadow Ghost). I’ll be joined by my amazing artists, Gregory Maldonado and Tiah Ankum.
Both appearances are LIVE STREAMS on YouTube, so you can watch them live or pick them up later.