Hi everyone,
We’re coming on the first anniversary of the comic and it’s been a fantastic experience. We have finally found our stride, and finally settled on a great artist, Osiris Santos Junior (what a GREAT name, isn’t it?). The response and feedback have been great and we couldn’t be happier with how the comic is turning out.
Our first year was something of an experiment. We needed to figure out how to produce such a comic, how to raise awareness for it, and how to create a great story experience for our readers. It’s become very quickly apparent that reading a long-form comic week-to-week isn’t the best way to enjoy HWB. The story needs to unfold at a good pace and we can’t (or shouldn’t) create an environment where the story is compromised in order to bring people back every week. Long-form comics need to read like long-form comics, not weekly serials.
Another thing we discovered in the last year is that this was probably the worst time to start a long-form comic and rely on network advertisement. With the great and recent improvements in ad blockers, there’s just no financing left through “traditional” advertising.
So we’re going to do an experiment for Year Two: we’re going to turn to you, our readers. On September 1, we’ll be starting a 30-day crowdfunding campaign to help us produce the next chapters. We’re looking at producing an 8-page chapter every other month (so 48 pages a year), each financed by a small campaign. There’ll be rewards and stretch goals, and some of you may even be involved in the behind-the-scenes of how the comic gets produced. There’ll be stretch goals for additional pages and, who knows, maybe even color!
The comics produced through crowdfunding will be made available first to the backers, and eventually (3-6 months later?) make it onto the website for everyone to read (except for exclusive content that will be backers-only as part of the crowdfunding campaign).
So stay tuned and look forward to September 1, that’s when we’ll announce everything!
Lucien & Jean
5 thoughts on “Year Two: Chain-Spider Needs YOU!”
WookieeGunner
Any plans to either set up a patreon or to include “Be a background non-speaking character such as Innocent Bystander#2 or Thug33?”
admin
For the cameos, it’s definitely something we’re considering, yes, though if we go there, it’ll be fairly limited (maybe 2-3 cameos).
For Patreon, we’re not there yet. It’s a bit more complicated if you’re Canadian (paperwork to fill out) and I don’t know if Patreon (which I’m very familiar with) is the right formula for us.
Archie
I know your artwork and storywork merit being supported. I don’t have a large budget, but I might be able to help in your fundraising efforts. Patreon may be a way to get steady money in. I know if the option was available I’d love you to do some commissions of some of my characters.
admin
Thanks for the kind words. We certainly hope the fundraising will work out. We may consider Patreon down the road, but it’s not quite compatible with the format we have in mind (who knows, though…).
And for the sake of clarity and full disclosure, neither Lucien nor myself take commissions because we’re not comic book artists (though Lucien _does_ draw very well). Our artist is someone we commission to do this work for us, and we love his art to bits.
JC
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