#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
It being Wednesday, A Binge at Brinkley Episode 3: Sympathy for the Devil is now live at Webtoons. I like to think that Arkhaven is getting the hang of this new medium. And thanks to all the new subscribers, as we’re already about one-third of the way towards being able to fully support an entirely new monthly series.
DC Comics goes around Diamond in an email to comic book stores:
A couple of weeks ago we told you we were working on a solution-focused plan to address the current climate and help us all get back to the business of selling DC comic books, graphic novels, and collectibles in these difficult times, including the exploration of a multi-distributor model that would help to mitigate any further disruption to getting product into the hands of readers. We’d now like to share the details of our plan and next steps for its execution – which took into account your feedback, the market outlook, and the resources available at our disposal.
Current Orders
First, because of the global distribution disruption, all orders placed with Diamond Comic Distributors for in-store dates of 4/1, 4/8, and 4/15 have been cancelled with Diamond. You will need to resubmit orders for DC’s upcoming titles. To that end, instead of simply “lifting and shifting” the same scheduled titles for each of the missed in-store dates, we’ve made changes to the publishing schedule. The new schedule is designed to allow each of you to begin ordering a limited amount of DC product at first, and then ease back into the number of books that represents a normal release schedule from DC when your business can accommodate it.
This tends to indicate further disruption in the establishment comics world even when the lockdowns are lifted, as Bleeding Cool reported yesterday.
Right now, even though Diamond will be returning to comics distribution in a month’s time, we still don’t know if DC Comics will return to Diamond, if other publishers will copy DC’s moves, set up their own rival distributors or join with DCBS and Midtown. Most publishers Bleeding Cool contacted last night were blindsided by DC’s decision and weren’t saying anything right now.
Apparently the comic stores are deeply underwhelmed by DC’s new distribution strategy, which does tend to remind one of Marvel’s failed experiment with Heroes World that led to the establishment of the Diamond monopoly in 1997.
But all this turmoil is of little concern to Arkhaven, which continues to roll without hitch or hesitation thanks to our much-appreciated backers, and is even creating new series and entering new territories. Speaking of which, it’s Monday, so there is a new episode of Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #1, The Street Rules Episode 3: Zero Paperwork, up at Webtoons for your perusal, and, one hopes, enjoyment.
We’re also pleased to show off some of the work of our new Quantum Mortis: A Man Disrupted colorist, an experienced industry veteran who just joined the Arkhaven team last week. This is the cover of the forthcoming Issue #6, and he’s recoloring the first issue prior to that beginning its appearance on Webtoons. It will appear regularly on Thursdays.
Alt★Hero Episode 2: Job Offer is now live on Webtoons. This series runs every Friday. The comics offensive continues even as the establishment continues to crumble. We’re already being contacted by top talent who had previously worked with Marvel and/or DC. This is further evidence that having a relatively small, but disciplined and high-morale legion is more important than numbers, resources, established brand, or infrastructure.
As you may have noticed from the sidebar, Arkhaven is now running weekly episodes from three comic series, Chuck Dixon’s Avalon, Right Ho, Jeeves, and Alt★Hero. As today is Wednesday, Right Ho, Jeeves episode 2, Regrettable Events, is now live and readable on PC and mobile.
The ride never ends.
A number of people have been asking for some form of Arkhaven subscription for over a year now, and as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been reluctant to commit to that for various reasons, most of them related to a lack of confidence about our ability to fulfil the necessary commitments involved. And I’m still not willing to commit to a new print comic from the same series being released every month, as there are too many moving parts involved in the process to be certain that we can do that, while the collapse of the retail market obviously further complicates things in that regard.
However, the recent developments concerning the ongoing crash of the mainstream comics industry and the discovery of the massive Webtoons market has caused us to modify our strategic thinking, especially due to the way that the latter is presently tied to a certain company with which Replatformers will be familiar. In light of this recalibration, we have decided to make available an Arkhaven subscription for The Legend Chuck Dixon, beginning with Chuck Dixon’s Avalon, which is the first of what we hope will be many of his Arkhaven comics available in episodic format on Webtoons.
There are currently four levels of support for the new comics subscription. Initially, the rewards are focused on utilizing existing content, some of which has never before been released from The Legend’s archives, but once we hit certain levels, the rewards will change to reflect our ability to provide new content, including brand new series from The Legend as well as more of his literary adaptations such as Right Ho, Jeeves, The Hobbit, and A Throne of Bones. The image on the upper left is a sketch for the cover of the first issue of the latter. The levels are stackable, so Collector’s Only will include the other three.
We haven’t set any formal goals yet, but we probably need to be around $3k monthly before we can reasonably commit to providing pure subscriber-driven content, which would result in a) weekly digital episodes, b) gold logo single issues for the subscribers, and c) retail omnibuses (with subscriber’s discount) of the new comic. In the meantime, we have begun the episodic offensive. Speaking of which, I’m pleased to be able to announce the first weekly episodes of both Right Ho, Jeeves and Alt★Hero. We intend to begin with three weekly series, expanding that to five as soon as the relevant artists are brought up to speed on the new format.
This is a critical moment in the war for the comics industry. And while we’re too small to be in a position to win that war yet, this is an excellent opportunity for us to gain ground in preparation for the next round. Even if you’re not interested in comics, or in a position to subscribe, I would encourage you to subscribe to the various weekly series at Webtoons, as that is a free and easy way to take part in this. I realize that this isn’t exactly what some of you have been asking for, but I believe this is a necessary first step towards that.
On a related note, an illustrator and fan of a certain French superhero sent this excellent portrayal of Dynamique contemplating the ongoing collapse of establishment comics. I think it is fair to say that it is a matter of absolutely no concern to her.
One of the things we’ve learned over the last 18 months is how different artists work in very different ways. This tends to pose a range of complications, some trivial, some more challenging, in attempting to assemble the various elements into a complete whole in different formats.
One obvious candidate for Webtoons was Right Ho, Jeeves, but our initial assumption was that it would not be possible to break apart the page files in a manner that permitted reassembly in the vertical format popularized by the Korean manwha comics. However, a little experimentation proved to be unexpectedly fruitful, and has permitted the launch of Arkhaven’s second series there.
So, if you’re interested, have a look at the first episode of Right Ho, Jeeves. We expect to have three weekly series running there on an ongoing basis.
But Diamond promises this three-quarters reduction in payment to the comics publishers is only temporary:
Below is the outline of vendor payments from Diamond Comic Distributors and Diamond Book Distributors. Beginning this week, the week of April 6th, you will receive 25{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} of the weekly amount due under your contract term. Each subsequent week, you will receive a 25{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} payment of that week’s balance due. This reduced payment schedule will continue for 6 weeks. With the remaining 75{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} due in each of those weeks being deferred. Following that 6-week period, we will begin payment of the deferred balance in equal payments over a 13-week period.”
And here I was estimating only a 50 percent reduction. I could be wrong, as only IDW publicly reports results, but I don’t think any of the primary players can afford to stay in business at that level for long.
We’re still contemplating the right way to go about launching an Arkhaven subscription plan. We probably won’t do it very soon, but we have been kicking around some intriguing ideas that I suspect will be of great interest to Arkhaven fans. And speaking of Arkhaven, we expect to release this to the Alt-Hero backers before the end of the month, featuring a new team of superheroes known as The Gods of Peaceful Sleep.
Marvel is cutting up to one-third of its production:
Marvel Entertainment is immediately “pausing” work on – and the release of – approximately one-third of its May and June comic book issues, a spokesperson confirmed for Newsarama. Marvel’s representative said 15 to 20{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} of its solicited titles would be affected, as some of them are twice-monthly in May and June.
The decision to pause work on the affected titles, according to the spokesperson, is “to help spread the amount of publishing product over the coming weeks and months.”
Asked when the publisher intends to resume publishing the issues not affected by the pause, the Marvel spokesperson said “as soon as more information is available, we will outline our longer-term plans.”
IDW has also put GI JOE on hiatus:
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero will be going on hiatus at IDW. Larry Hama has been told to stop pencils on the series as more and more creators are being told to stop work. The Coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the comics industry as a whole for weeks now, and G.I. Joe is just the latest series that will see delays. No word on if this is a permanent end, as Hama was not told anything other than to put “pencils down”, as stated in a Facebook post today.
As well as TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing artist Sophie Campbell to stop production on the series as of issue #105 by IDW. The artist/writer posted to Twitter that once the art is done on the issue, that is it.
In the meantime, some of Arkhaven’s newest creations are just taking shape. You’ve heard about A THRONE OF BONES and SHADE. But those are not the only new series being created; there are four more in the works. The challenge that we’re facing on the subscription side is that the payment processors take such a big chunk of a $1 charge that the only way we can even think about having a $1/monthly subscription is to offer them annually.
We estimate that we need to have at least $3k in monthly subscriptions to make the project worth launching. This probably means waiting until we get the Junior Classics out to do a crowdfunding campaign that is not for a single comic, but for the subscription itself. We do not believe it would be wise to do any more crowdfunding until we deliver the Junior Classics, an issue or two of Swan Knight, and the Rebel figurine.
Day spoke to Bounding Into Comics about the upcoming series describing it as “Arkhaven’s first individual superhero series.”
The series will be written by Chuck Dixon and illustrated by Cliff Cosmic. It will focus on Shade, who appeared in the first volume of Alt-Hero.
As described by Day, “Shade is a member of of the Global Justice Initiative and can be considered something akin to a European Batman, if Batman was not an incestuous Chinese catamite who is afraid of flying mammals and would rather slaughter all his friends than execute justice.”
He added, “Shade is an Austrian aristocrat of the ancien regime, who recoils in disgust at the lack of taste and culture in modern society and believes wholeheartedly in the concept of European Union.”
Read the rest of the article at Bounding Into Comics.
Independent comics creators and their supporters are less than entirely mournful over the implosion of the establishment comics industry in response to the #pencilsdown announcement at Marvel, Valiant, and other publishers.
A group calling its fans Nazis, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, pedophiles, neck beards, virgins, incels, terrorists, racists, and more now think the fans should have
*checks notes*
Been more “kind to pros”
This is why I don’t care that you had to put your #pencilsdown
Given the way that we were treated by BleedingCool and the rest of the mainstream comics media, I can’t say that I am any more sympathetic. Meanwhile, at Arkhaven, Chuck Dixon’s Avalon has just seen issues 5 and 6 released, and the illustrations through issue 10 are already done. Quantum Mortis: A Man Disrupted #5 will be out next week and we just need a cover in order to get Alt-Hero:Q #3 done.
And the colors for A Throne of Bones #1 are almost ready for lettering.
