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§ An Entrepreneur.com story on webcomics includes the fact that Chris Onstad makes $250K a year from ACHEWOOD-related activities:

Webcomics cultivate an underground rapport with readers that relies on word-of-mouth, so readers discover the comics–and affiliated merchandise–without the traditional online model of SEO tactics and advertising. When it comes to creating merchandise, says Onstad, 33, whose Silicon Valley-based webcomic earns around a quarter of a million dollars in annual sales and was named the No. 1 graphic novel of 2007 on Time.com, “I do what I feel like, and if it’s in the Achewood sensibility, chances are it will connect with readers and stick as a product.”


§ Meanwhile, Newsarama revisits the wonderful world of micropayments:

Micropayments have been one of the Internet’s most-hyped and least-successful ideas — until now, as virtual world creators and video game companies are beginning to expect, and even depend on, players to buy virtual goods in little chunks. The idea has already taken hold in Asia, where piracy is widespread, making it harder for companies to profit from the traditional model of selling the games themselves. Now some game companies in the U.S. are taking a stab at micropayments as a serious source of revenue. Instead of charging for each virtual item separately, companies sell chunks of credits — through PayPal, credit card transactions or physical game cards bought in stores like Target — usually for $5 to $25 at a time. Users then spend the credits in small installments, which often amount to just a few cents.


§ After years of fighting the good fight, it looks like Cheryl Lynn is ending her blog. She’s also handing off the Ormes Society:

However, this is your last chance to join the Ormes Society before it switches hands. Do it now and take advantage of my productivity period! If you are a black woman with published comics work, please contact me within the next seven days. I am looking for women who have worked on webcomics, comic strips, comic books or graphic novels. If you would like to join the Ormes Society, please email me the following information:

Full Name
Work List
Email Address
Personal Website


The Ormes Society is an organization dedicated to supporting black female comic creators and promoting the inclusion of black women in the comics industry as creators, characters and consumers. [Link via Elayne]

§ George Khoury recalls his time as a Marvel intern:

In January of 1995, I was your basic overextended college student struggling to make ends meet while working almost thirty hours a week in a small investment office in my hometown of Jersey City, writing for the school paper, fulfilling my obligations to my Delta Sigma Pi brothers, volunteering for endless after-school events and letting my parents know that I was still alive. Yet in all of this, I never did lose my head despite having constant nightmares pondering my future after college and the ever-escalating financial debts I was compiling. The worst bit was that I found the experience of working in an office to be an emotionally draining and empty one. At the time, I just couldn’t see myself playing those “mind games” for the rest of my life. So I decided that the time was right to take the reins and work in something that I grew up being truly passionate about: Marvel Comics.


§ David Welsh looks at Red Colored Elegy:

In it, Hayashi follows the relationship of Ichiro and Sachiko. The twenty-somethings are living in a time of political activism and cultural evolution, but their focus is on interpersonal turbulence. Ichiro is an artist, doing freelance in the animation industry, but he’d rather be making comics. Sachiko’s ambitions are less concrete; she works, but she doesn’t define herself by her career, and she seems to want security, but not in the conventional sense promoted by her parents.

1 COMMENT

  1. The article lists a quarter of a million as Onstead’s yearly sales figure. His PROFITS are presumably quite a bit less than his annual sales figures considering he actually has to pay some fulltime employees and doesn’t have a magic machine that generates and ships T-shirts/books/coffee-mugs at no cost.