Time to Close the Book on the Journals

Due to an overwhelming lack of interest...not least of all on the part of the creator...the series "The Journals of Simon Pariah" is cancelled at AIM Comics.

I've been flogging this dead horse for over two decades now, and it's time to admit that it's just not working.  At this point, all I'm doing...when I'm doing anything at all...is rehashing old material, and I haven't got the fire in me to create any new stories.  There's still a lot that could be done with the series, but I don't see myself doing it, and even if I did nobody's reading it.  I've run it up the flagpole and no one's saluting. 
That's not to say that I've got no creative ideas left at all...I've got more ideas than I have time to get to (that's a problem for another day).  So, it's time to close the door on this project and see if I can't free up some brain space for something that I actually feel inspired to finish.
The existing books will remain on sale for now; they're pretty good in their own way so they might be worth a look.  Other than that, the only project at AIM Comics for the next little while will be my reprints of Ian McDonald's "Bruno the Bandit" series.  At least until I get something else interesting up and running.

That's all.  Move on to something more interesting.  I think I saw some cat gifs around here somewhere.

Now Available: The Journals of Simon Pariah #3!

Available now in print and download options is "The Journals of Simon Pariah" #3.  The story this time around is "Dust and Bones", in which Simon travels to the mountains of Tibet to attempt to rescue the inhabitants of a Buddhist monastery from the onrushing tide of Chinese Communism.  What will he find there, and will he be in time?  You will have to read it to find out.

Warning:  This issue is not for the squeamish.  Not for violence as such but for...well, you'll see.

Issue 3 is available at all the usual outlets.  Choose your option below to order your copy.  As always, comments and criticisms are tremendously welcome, either here or by email at info@aimcomics.com.

Get Simon Pariah in print at Amazon.com.
Get Simon Pariah in print at Amazon.ca.
Get Simon Pariah in digital download at DriveThruComics.
Click below to get buy issue 3 in pdf format right now!

  Buy Issue 3 on Gumroad!

Cover Preview: Journals of Simon Pariah # 3

Here's a preview of the lineart for "The Journals of Simon Pariah" #3, coming up (very likely) in the next week. 
This issue finds Simon in the mountains of Tibet just ahead of the Communist invasion.  Originally published as a webcomic, this was the first story accepted by Diamond Comics for distribution, right around the time that I decided that I didn't like their terms and would rather forge ahead without their help. 
I've reworked the cover slightly for this edition, but the story still works as it is.  The issue will have a bibliography and several pages of notes on the creation of the story.

Look for more details and the full issue coming up soon.

Now Available: The Journals of Simon Pariah #2!

"The Journals of Simon Pariah" #2 is available today in print from Amazon and in digital form from DriveThru Comics!
This issue is set in Scotland in the early 17th Century, as Simon has an encounter with ancient forces in the person of a strange red-haired woman and the powers at her command.  Simon Pariah must stand in the teeth of the wind and face "The Hounds of the Forest"!

This story is one of the original stories run at the old Comic Genesis website, wrapped in a redrawn cover and slightly edited for this version, along with a bibliography (!) and several pages of sketches and notes from the development of the story.  
 It was partly inspired by the film "Braveheart" and the legend of William Wallace, and partly from a dream told to me by a friend of mine, who did double duty as the inspiration for the female lead in the story.
It's weird, it's fantastic and it's Simon Pariah all the way!  Check it out today!

 

Buy Now at Gumroad!

What's Up? Catching up with AIM Comics

Things have been quiet around AIM Comics central lately. That's due to a number of things, personal and otherwise, but mainly because I've been trying to catch up on other, unrelated work. Now, however, I seem to have a steady ship running again (for the moment...nobody look at it wrong), so it's time for an update on the Work in Progress of AIM Comics. Here's what's in the hopper right now:

 -The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit, Vol. 5 is in the works. Featuring a great selection of stories (aren't they all?), and a cover by yours truly. In a perfect world I'd have this one ready for release by the end of October. We'll see...
  -A new version of Brutal Blade Vol. 1 for Kindle. Because the current version is just terrible, frankly. The content is fine, but the orientation on most devices is, at best, wacky. I'm building a new version using Kindle Comic Creator. If that works out, I'll be doing the rest of the Brutal Blades as well as our other books the same way.
-The Journals of Simon Pariah, issue 2. Republishing "The Hounds of the Forest" from the website archives, this one just needs to be rescanned and compiled. In a perfect world, it would be done before Xmas. As with BBoBtB vol. 5, we'll see.
-H.P. Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. All my research tells me that this essential essay is in the public domain, so I'm going full-steam ahead with an illustrated version that will be released in both print and digital versions (although I will highly recommend the print version; there's going to be some detailled work in here). As of right now, there's projected to be 30+ illustrations plus an illustrated cover, with all work by yours truly. This one's going to take a little longer (in my case, "a little" may be read in geological terms) as I want to really make this a labor of love. Check out our Facebook page for updates and preview art as they become available.

That's it for now, but with everything else I'm working on, that's enough. While you're waiting, dear reader, don't forget to check out all our past offerings (including the free ones!) at DriveThru Comics and Amazon. I've gotta get back to work....

Now Available: The Journals of Simon Pariah #1A - Free!

Here's a little something for your to peruse over the holidays.  If you've got a DriveThru Comics account, or are willing to get one, you can now get "The Journals of Simon Pariah" #1A free.
Why #1A?  Well, because this is not a full issue; rather it's a wordless 8 page story I created, partly as an exercise in wordless comics, and partly to develop the idea of "apocryphal" Simon Pariah stories.  Apocryphal stories, in this case, being short pieces that are incidental tales featuring the character that may or may not be part of the "canon" that will be the character's history, and that give me the context to set stories out of continuity or (I hope) to eventually invite other creators to tell their own tales of the character.

Issue #1A contains the story "A Pair of Boots" which originally ran as a webcomic on the Simon Pariah Comic Genesis site.  It's dedicated to Steve Ditko, who inspired the story with his treatment of philosophical elements in works like "Mr. A" and his simplistic yet highly effective art style.

Head over to DriveThru Comics right now and grab a copy.  Then be sure to let me know what you think, either in a review, or in the comments.  Either way, you can't beat the price. Enjoy!

Update: The Journals of Simon Pariah #1

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I've made corrections to the files for issue 1 of "The Journals of Simon Pariah", and the revised versions are now available on CreateSpace and DriveThru Comics.  So get out there and grab the new and improved Simon Pariah today!

EDIT 2 (April, 2016): The Journals of Simon Pariah is now available on Gumroad! Click the link below to grab your copy now!

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Lessons Learned in Self-Publishing: Be Careful What You Wish For

In my opinion, the next best thing to a sale is a review.  I'm always happy to send out a review copy to anyone who writes for a public forum and is interested in reviewing one of the books I publish.  Even better when a reader takes the time, unbidden, to write some helpful comments about something they've read.
So, I was briefly thrilled to check my email this morning and find that someone had both read and reviewed my new book, "The Journals of Simon Pariah" on DriveThruComics.

Very briefly.

Apparently this reviewer was less than thrilled with my book, rating it a mere two stars, an adding the following comments:

"I felt like I had been misled based on what I had read in the description. I thought I would be reading original ideas using past events/figures both real and imagined. This story was basically a retelling of RE Howard's "The Thing in the Crypt" featuring Conan the Barbarian. The author freely admits after the tale his character was inspired by Howard's creations as well as another sword/sorcery author.
The art was good and supported the story but I found the illustration of Wolverine to be unnecessary and detrimental to the feeling of the time period the author was trying to create.
The text could have benefited from a good proofreading. There are numerous grammatical mistakes in punctuation and spelling that could have been caught.
I did like the format. I like comics that are text heavy with fewer illustrations allowing for better fleshed out storytelling.
All in all this might not have been the strongest issue to start the series. Perhaps it might have worked better as a flashback."

 Ouch!

What I'd like to do is go through this review point by point, constructing a good argument to explain how this reader has misunderstood the book, and how what he sees as flaws are the same things I consider strengths.

I'd like to do that, but I won't.

I won't do it because there's nothing to be gained by it.  If I respond to every bit of negative criticism, I'm only going to make myself look worse, and not add anything productive to the conversation.
I also think that no matter how good an argument I construct, I won't change this reader's mind...he's read the book and formed his opinion, and that's that.  Better luck next time.
I won't do it because I think he's right.  At least insofar as to say that his criticism is as valid as anyone's, and whether I agree with him or not, he's got every right to express it.
Finally, and most importantly, I appreciate that this reader took the time to write this review and let me know what he thinks.  It's well written and attempts to be constructive, and balanced with some positive commentary as well.  Whether he enjoyed the book or not, at least he took the time to respond to it, and give me something I can learn from and, hopefully, grow on.  That's worth a lot to me.

The lesson is, if you're looking to get into self-publishing, you'd better grow a thick skin when it comes to reviews.  Not everyone is going to praise your efforts, and people will more quickly jump on the keyboard when they've got something negative to say.  Don't turn every bad review into an argument or it will only weaken you in the eyes of your readership.  Instead, try to appreciate the feedback, learn something from the comments and move on.  That's just one of the ways you grow as a creator.

In the meantime, why don't you try the book for yourself and tell me if you agree with this review?  If you're a blogger/reviewer/journalist, contact me and let me know where you'll be writing your review, and I'll set you up with a comp copy of the book.  Everyone else can grab a copy for under a buck over at DriveThru Comics and then join in the conversation.

Presenting: The Journals of Simon Pariah #1

After a long wait, and a long-traveled road, "The Journals of Simon Pariah" is live and now available on Amazon.
Some readers may remember Simon from his old incarnation at webomics host Keenspace (the files are still up at http://simonpariah.comicgenesis.com for now), or perhaps from my earlier days of trying to get other publishers and distributors interested in the book.  I've been working on this idea for a long time, and although it's been publicly dormant for a few years, I've never let go of it.  More than any other, it's the story that I want to tell and I'm beyond thrilled to finally be able to bring it to the world on my own terms and under my own banner.
For the uninitiated, the book description I've used at Amazon and elsewhere tells you all you need to know for now:

""The Journals of Simon Pariah" visits entries from the career of an immortal adventurer, charting his travels through time and around the world. Encountering figures whose shadows loom large over history and legend, he is sometimes witness, sometimes participant, sometimes prime mover to the events that have shaped our world. 
Written and illustrated by Dominic, this book combines a love of classic fantasy, historical fiction and pulp adventure with a Japanese influenced art style in an attempt to make something that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. Won't you join the adventure?"

Further to that, I can tell you that there is an overarching story to the Simon Pariah books that will unfold slowly over time.  In the meantime, the book will be very episodic, with self-contained stories set in various times and places.  The whole thing will make a coherent whole one day, but I'm in no rush to get there.

The book is 28 pages, black and white with a color cover.  Like anything else I publish, it will be done on an "as soon as I can get to it" basis, but I plan to get out several issues a year, so it won't be a glacial pace.  Regarding the first issue, I can tell you that I don't try to hide my influences in this one, and fans of Robert E. Howard's work will find it very interesting.

So....from here it's up to you, the reader.  It's up to you, in large part, to determine how well this book does, and through that how well I do at producing this book.  And the best way you can determine that is by buying the book.  It's available right now in a print edition for $3.99 USD at Amazon, and in a digital edition at DriveThruComics for just 99 cents.  Get out there and give it a try!  Then come back here and drop a comment to let me know what you think of it; I'll be waiting to hear from you.

Publishing News!

It's been a slow year, both sales-wise and in terms of output.  I have only myself to blame, as I've allowed myself to become distracted with other projects.  Nevertheless, as December rolls in, there is some good news to share regarding upcoming publications.

First of all, The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit will be available early in 2013, now that we've nailed down a fantastic new cover artist for the book. I'm not saying yet who we've managed to capture, but let me just say that it's someone whose work both Ian and I are mad about, and who's been an inspiration to both of us through his art and through is approach to self-publishing.  Heck, he even gave me advice on my computer setup! 
Now that we've got him signed on to do some work for us, it's time for me to get to work formatting the new book.

Secondly, I have just this minute submitted my files for the first issue of "The Journals of Simon Pariah" for review.  If all goes well, the book should be live very shortly, ready for you to (hopefully) devour.  Frankly, this has been so long in coming that I just can't wait to kick off the title and get the work out there again.

While I'm waiting, I'm going to post some previews of the first issue, starting with the pencils below, just to give you a taste of the good things to come.

So, it looks like 2013 is going to get off to a rolling start, and I hope it'll help me build a little more momentum for some of the other projects I want to take on (no details, but there may be some public domain work involved).  Now we just need you, dear reader, to get out there and make it worth our while to do this by buying the books we publish. 

You can start by grabbing any of the three volumes of Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit published so far; just click the links to the right to go to the various stores and buy either the print or digital versions of the books. 

Or, if you want to get the whole story so far, I've just updated the Brutal Blade Bundle over at DriveThru Comics to include the 3rd volume.  Even better, the bundle offers discounted prices on all the books, so you can get all three volumes to date for just $3.00.  That's almost $2.00 off the price of the individual issues!  What are you waiting for?  Go get 'em!

Bad News, Good News...

OK, first the bad news...
It looks like I won't be able to attend Hal-Con this year, at least not from behind an artist table.  I mean, I suppose technically I could, but in order to do so I would have to spend money that I really shouldn't spend right now, and rush some things that really shouldn't be rushed.  So, rather than do a halfway job of it and have my work suffer in the long run, I've opted to take a pass on this year's con and try to ramp it up for next year.
I'll still be attending as a patron, and you'll probably see a report of it, with photos, in this space in early November, so stay tuned for that.

Now the good news:  the pages for the first issue of "The Journals of Simon Pariah" are just about ready to send to the printers/distributors.  I know I've promised this before, but this time I'm certain that I'm about 95% done.  I could probably send the book out as it is, but this is one of those things that I mentioned earlier about not wanting to rush.  There's one page, one fairly important page, that I'm not satisfied with and want to redraw a bit.  Once that's done, the book will be on its way and ready to order shortly thereafter.  Look for it in October.

Of course, while you're waiting, you could check out a copy of Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit.  We've got three of them out now, all of them with some pretty stellar work.  Hit the links on the sidebar for our various stores and give it a try.  Frankly, each copy sold will go a little further to helping me put together a decent presentation for next year's Hal-Con.

Lessons Learned in Self-Publishing 1: Showing Up is Not Enough

February 1 marked the one year anniversary of the official release of the first volume of "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit" and, aside from the limited edition of that book, the end of AIM Comics's first year of self-publishing. 
If nothing else, it's been an education.  I've learned a lot about the mechanics of publishing, from formatting the books to meeting the technical requirements of the different stores, distributing, advertising and all the other aspects of trying to run this like a business. 
When I first had the idea to repackage the Bruno the Bandit comic strips and sell them in this fashion, I definitely thought it would be simpler and quicker to get the books out there.  I enjoy doing the work, mind you, but finding the time to get it done is sometimes more of a chore than it should be.  But that's life, isn't it?

I also thought, quite frankly, that it would be more profitable.  If I've learned nothing else in this first year, it's that the profitability I saw in the venture was based on a false assumption. 
At the time, I looked at my own browsing and reading habits on sites like Wowio and Drivethru Comics, and saw that I enjoyed checking out quirky self-published books, one shots, anthologies and collections of material.  My library, both real and digital, is like a cabinet of curiosities, with samplings from authors and artists famous and unheard of, all acquired because I saw something in them that amused or interested me. 
I assumed that many of the other readers frequenting these services were open to the same thing.  Digital comic stores seem to be built on the diversity of material they have on offer, and I thought that their customers would be looking for that diversity and that, due to the low cost of the products, they would be more open to trying something new than traditional comic book distribution channels.

In short, I assumed that all I had to do was show up to the marketplace with what I think is a decent product and I would attract enough readers, if only through their random sampling habits, to make this thing make money. 

Not that I didn't put any sales effort in.  I advertised through Project Wonderful, hitting some of the finer webcomic and gaming based websites.  I promoted the books in forums, blogs and generally anywhere on the web I could get away with, short of being labelled a spammer.  AIM Comics has a Facebook page (updated less frequently than this site, believe it or not) and a Twitter feed (followed mostly by bots), and a Scribd account.  I've done news releases, held contests and done cross-promotion with other sites.  Not to mention having a physical presence at Hal-Con 2011 with banners literally a-flying.  So, I've certainly done the legwork, but it really hasn't paid off like I've expected. 

Not that I'm giving up.  As I said in a previous post, I'm in this for the long haul, mainly because I've got nothing but time to lose, and I still see the potential for a lot of gain.  However, as the title of this post says, showing up is not enough.  It's clear to me that I've got to do more to promote the imprint and the books if I expect to ever see any kind of real returns from this. 
As I write this, Volume 3 of "Brutal Blade" is still coming together (remember that time issue I mentioned earlier?)  I've got a really good cover artist lined up, and some of Ian's best work to include in the collection.  My own book "The Journals of Simon Pariah" is creeping towards completion, and I've got other projects waiting in the wings to make it to my drawing table.  So I think it's going to be a good year, creatively.

Problem is, I'm kind of stumped promotionally.  All the sources I've read on marketing this kind of product tell me the same thing, and very little of it is new.  What I need is ideas on where and how to best promote our work to make the readers sit up and notice.  I know nothing's ever guaranteed when it comes to marketing, but there's got to be something that will work better than what I've done so far.

If you, dear reader, have any suggestions, any ideas at all on how to help promote AIM Comics, I'd love to hear them.  Comment here or email me and share your wisdom.  I may or may not take your idea and run with it, but either way, I'd love to hear from you.

New Title: The Journals of Simon Pariah

Any astute readers remember this?

That's the logo from my old webcomic over at Keenspace, now Comic Genesis.  Although it's been years since I updated it, the site is still online (you can tell how long it's been from the fact that there's a Will Eisner tribute heading up the front page).
Ever since I stopped doing the comic, I've been looking for a way to get back to it, and to be truthful, it's been one of the driving forces behind starting up AIM Comics. 
At the moment, I'm reworking the first issue of "TJOSP", titled "The God in the Cave", for publication under the AIM Comics banner.  The work is coming along so well that I'm able to predict with a fair amount of confidence that the first issue will be available in time for Halcon in November. 
Anyone who's read the story on the website will not be put through a rehash of the same material...I'm doing all new artwork for the current version, and using a style inspired by a reading of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's autobio, "A Drifting Life".  So even if you've read this before, there will be something new to look forward to.
For the first few issues, I will be redoing the stories on the website in this way.  The order of publication is important to the overall story, so I'd like to preserve that as far as I can.  Once I finish those, I will be moving on to all new work, including finishing up the "Angeline" story that I had begun before I put the strip on hiatus.

"The Journals of Simon Pariah" will be available in both print and digital, just as is "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit".  The book will be black and white with color covers and, like Bruno, will be released on a "soon as I can get it done" schedule.  Keep watching here for more news as it happens.