The Beat

The News Site of Comics Culture

Study Group 12 goes digital

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The acclaimed Portland-based Study Group 12 anthology is starting up a web comic portal for several of their contributors, with regular series & one-shots included, in addition to regular blog posts like this one on Craig Thompson’s Habibi process.) From their blog: We’ll be uploading new comics every weekday at noon EST, with the occasional […]

Help Dylan Williams, Buy A Book From Sparkplug

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Via Rob Clough, As anyone who is Facebook friends with him knows, Dylan Williams is very seriously ill and could use the help and support of the comics industry. The cartoonist and publisher of Sparkplug Comic Books indicated that beyond getting good vibes of support from his many, many friends, he could use financial support […]

The Flaws of Kickstarter, part 2

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For artists, (and I mostly mean indie artists) Kickstarter is a blessing and a curse. The upsides for creators have been praised by plenty of others: hey, free money! The downsides mostly boil down to stunting your artistic growth and releasing a substandard product into an overcrowded marketplace. That’s not a practice limited to Kickstarter by any means, but it’s greatly enabled by risk-free money.

The Flaws of Kickstarter, part 1

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So before anyone gets offended: No one is a bad person for using Kickstarter. It’s a tool in our toolbox for these tough economic times, and it has genuinely helped a lot of creators get their work into print who otherwise might not have been able to do that. For groups working on a project together, even better! As a mechanism for fundraising or pre-sales, when the money’s put in the right hands, we can all feel nice about it. Good for you if you’ve been able to make it work, I am genuinely happy for your success.

The Elephant in the convention room

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little elephant from sabahnur on etsy

There have been some rumblings on the internets dismissing complaints about how low sales were at SPX this year. Sales complaints are not a minor problem — these are Troubled Economic Times, and this year, even the bigger publishers at SPX showed signs of cutting back. The show was missing more than a few of the usual faces, and statistically, at least some of them had to have been economic casualties. I love going to SPX, and I have no complaints about how it’s organized, but I’ve questioned whether it’s even feasible for SPX’s attendees to support the number of creators in attendance. So I thought I’d do some math regarding SPX tables in the interest of seeing just how the money in the room spreads around.

Neely talks Glenn & Henry Forever!

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Four guys walked into a bar and decided to write a comic about Glenn Danzig & Henry Rollins… as lovers. Tom Neely answers a few questions on behalf of Igloo Tornado about Henry & Glenn Forever.

An interview with Dylan Williams

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Dylan Williams is the founder of Sparkplug Comic Books, art film/used bookstore owner , and guy behind the scenes in many of Portland’s comic and independent press events. A few months back, I sent Dylan some questions for an article on Diamond for PW Comics, expecting a few short answers, and when I got his responses, I wanted to print them all.

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