Kennel Block Blues by Ryan Ferrier (Sons of Anarchy, Curb Stomp) and artist Daniel Bayliss (Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Dragons, Translucid) is a new four issue limited series from Boom! It comes out in February and it’s set in an anthropomorphic world where bulldog Oliver is sent to prison in the Jackson Kennel and plots to avoid a death sentence on The Table with fantasies about musicals. We’ve excerpted a few pages here and as you can see it is a visually stunning book with an unusual hook. COMICS!
But in a rather dramatic marketing move, the entire first issue can be read for free on Tumblr.
but that move ends today, which is the final order-cut-off deadline for the book. In a statement Boom wrote:
Kennel Block Blues defies genre and summarized in a simple explanation, so, in an unprecedented move, the publisher has partnered with Tumblr to allow fans to read the entire first issue for free starting Saturday, January 9th, BEFORE final orders for the print version are due. This marks the first time a major comics publisher has posted a full, completely colored and lettered issue on the social media site before final orders were due.
“Kennel Block Blues is a series we passionately believe in, and we want you to see why,” said BOOM! Studios President of Publishing and Marketing Filip Sablik. “This is a story that can only be told in comics, and description alone doesn’t do it justice. So we figured, why not let people read it and see for themselves? Once you see what Ryan and Daniel have cooked up, support these innovative creators by reaching out to your local comic shop and pre-ordering it. See why we’re so excited about this.”
The main cover is by Daniel Bayliss; there’s a retailer variant by Nick Pitarra (The Manhattan Projects).
If it seems counter intuituitive to give away copies of somehting you want people to pay for, remember, the customer of the direct sales system is retaielrs. If enough people get talking about this, orders will be upped and that’s all that matters.
An interesting experiment; more to come on that.
