WAHOO MORRIS: A Brief History...
In July of 1998 I self published the first of three B&W issues of WAHOO MORRIS through my imprint Too Hip Gotta Go Graphics.
Being a self employed free lance artist, I was only able to raise a small amount of capital for the project so my marketing was limited.
I sent out a promo pack through Diamond distributors to the top 1000 indie friendly stores and I took out a full page B&W in Diamond Previews. I really knew little about the state of the comic market at the time so when my orders came in at 1518 copies I was pretty crestfallen. I figured that I needed sales of around 3000 to make a go of it, and as I was approaching self publishing as a job and not a hobby, I very nearly decided to not publish. What I didn't know at the time was that the average self publisher was getting orders of around 500 for a first issue and as I began to meet other small press people I was quite taken aback when they congratulated me on my success.
Over the next few months I received reorders for the first issue that brought the total numbers up to 1792. I'm sure my con sales boosted that number up to close to 2000 but I never seem to manage to keep track of hand sales. Issue 2 came in at 987 copies, which is a normal drop for a second issue. Third issues usually drop again by another 30% so I was mildly encouraged when the numbers actually increased up to 1064.
Unfortunately I was not in the financial position to keep publishing a money losing comic book considering my only source of income at the time was from illustrating comic books. So, I decided to take the book to IMAGE comics hoping that the move would boost sales into the profitable range .
It was decided to begin the IMAGE run by reprinting the three initial self-published issues. That is probably the decision that killed the series though. Orders for the new series came in at below the break even level. We had to drop the paper quality and raise the cover price to get it above break even. When orders for the second issue came in I was told that it was $1000 in the hole and I was requested to send in a deposit of $500. I didn't have the cash and I really didn't want to go any further into debt over a reprint of a comic I still had 1500 copies of in my basement. So I cancelled the issue and the IMAGE run of WAHOO MORRIS died after only one issue.
Disillusioned, I left the comic industry and began a career in TV animation. I kept my hand in comic from time to time doing the odd inking job and short story for an anthology or two. I even ended up acting as publisher for the all-ages series GROWING UP ENCHANTED and the trade paperback collection of SLEEPING DRAGONS.
But WAHOO MORRIS continued to nag at me. I made a few aborted attempts to restart the series but didn't get very far until I began running the old pages as a three times a week web comic. That got the attention of Joey Manley who invited me to join MODERN TALES, the professional web comics subscription site. That reinvigorated me and I began to work on new material eventually publishing WAHOO MORRIS Volume 2 #1 in July of 2005. I entered self publishing with a much different perspective than the first time around. This time I was approaching it as more of a hobby/vanity project. The plan was to publish an issue or two a year as they were done until the completion of the first story arc.
Plans change.... but that is a story for another post.
Being a self employed free lance artist, I was only able to raise a small amount of capital for the project so my marketing was limited.
I sent out a promo pack through Diamond distributors to the top 1000 indie friendly stores and I took out a full page B&W in Diamond Previews. I really knew little about the state of the comic market at the time so when my orders came in at 1518 copies I was pretty crestfallen. I figured that I needed sales of around 3000 to make a go of it, and as I was approaching self publishing as a job and not a hobby, I very nearly decided to not publish. What I didn't know at the time was that the average self publisher was getting orders of around 500 for a first issue and as I began to meet other small press people I was quite taken aback when they congratulated me on my success. Over the next few months I received reorders for the first issue that brought the total numbers up to 1792. I'm sure my con sales boosted that number up to close to 2000 but I never seem to manage to keep track of hand sales. Issue 2 came in at 987 copies, which is a normal drop for a second issue. Third issues usually drop again by another 30% so I was mildly encouraged when the numbers actually increased up to 1064.
Unfortunately I was not in the financial position to keep publishing a money losing comic book considering my only source of income at the time was from illustrating comic books. So, I decided to take the book to IMAGE comics hoping that the move would boost sales into the profitable range .
It was decided to begin the IMAGE run by reprinting the three initial self-published issues. That is probably the decision that killed the series though. Orders for the new series came in at below the break even level. We had to drop the paper quality and raise the cover price to get it above break even. When orders for the second issue came in I was told that it was $1000 in the hole and I was requested to send in a deposit of $500. I didn't have the cash and I really didn't want to go any further into debt over a reprint of a comic I still had 1500 copies of in my basement. So I cancelled the issue and the IMAGE run of WAHOO MORRIS died after only one issue.Disillusioned, I left the comic industry and began a career in TV animation. I kept my hand in comic from time to time doing the odd inking job and short story for an anthology or two. I even ended up acting as publisher for the all-ages series GROWING UP ENCHANTED and the trade paperback collection of SLEEPING DRAGONS.
But WAHOO MORRIS continued to nag at me. I made a few aborted attempts to restart the series but didn't get very far until I began running the old pages as a three times a week web comic. That got the attention of Joey Manley who invited me to join MODERN TALES, the professional web comics subscription site. That reinvigorated me and I began to work on new material eventually publishing WAHOO MORRIS Volume 2 #1 in July of 2005. I entered self publishing with a much different perspective than the first time around. This time I was approaching it as more of a hobby/vanity project. The plan was to publish an issue or two a year as they were done until the completion of the first story arc.
Plans change.... but that is a story for another post.
posted by cat at 7:33 AM
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