Posted at

I am a huge fan of the webcomic community, both in terms of the work it produces and the ideology it inherently espouses. To be a successful webcomic, one may have to be adept at more than simply drawing a good comic, one also has to be a marketer, promoter, convention booth slave, t-shirt designer and internet sales guru. I am, of course, defining the success of a webcomic as having enough momentum that the author(s) of said webcomic can work on it full time with relative economic stability.

This is a falacy, essentially. One can be successful at their work without attaining popularity or economic stability, but as someone who wants to avoid the forever "day job", that place of employment that I go to in order to finance my other, more important aspirations, the other definitions of success taste bittersweet.

So, with Anatta, Wei and I have plans. We are producing our new pages as fast as we can, with a fervour that only a new project can inspire. I've also started writing some short stories that will take place in the Anatta world, but will not encompass the characters or major plot arc of the main comic. I haven't decided if they will be written or drawn, but I'm leaning more towards a simple strip style comic.

Our first issue will encompase 22 pages, and when it's complete we will be seeking out reviews, link exchanges and on demand printing. In webcomics, it's all about gaining and keeping the momentum, and being able to identify what your readers are looking to gain from your marketing attempts.

One of my favourite examples of this being done successfully is with Errant Story by Michael Poe. His integration of ways his readers can help him out financially is both sincere and economically sound. He's not looking to exploit his readers as "consumers", but to have them as active participants in the financial wellbeing of the comic. It's a very symbiotic relationship.

I don't want my readers to feel that I'm in it for the money, because if I was I wouldn't really be doing a webcomic. I'm bypassing the publishing process because I feel that it's a broken system, one that is far more worried about its bottom line than its impact on popular culture.