Nothing fancy this week, but there is 14 useful links in BLUE below.

Taking a look at the TOP 300 comics for October, 2006 it's been striking me more and more just how little indie comics sell in the single (32-page) format. When 100 Bullets is only pushing 13,000 copies an issue and full-color offerings from IDW are only moving 7-10,000 copies, what chance does a newbie have in the face of this? Some fanzines used to sell in higher numbers in the 1990s before the majority of those writers moved online or turned pro with book deals.

I read a few weeks ago that James O'Barr was never able to get his Batman project off the ground at DC. And his book The Crow (the most successful independent graphic novel of all time) has sold 750,000 copies. So where does that leave you and I?

Speaking of which…

Luckily there are a host of alternatives. The future is not all doom and gloom, but comics; or rather the alternative indy comic scene will look a little different. It already does. I long ago abandoned the notion of releasing a 4-5 issue miniseries. An affordably priced original graphic novel or collected edition (64-200 pages) is the only way to go for us. There is simply no profit, or more likely financial oblivion awaiting anyone attempting to go toe-to-toe with DC, Marvel, Image etc… in the singles game.

Everything changed for me when I came across a free online book by Todd Allen, entitled Online Comics Vs. Printed Comics. I initially dismissed web comics when first discovering them a few years ago. But after a 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th look, I decided to give it a shot. I have never looked back. Because of our series being up on webcomicsnation, thousands of people have now read our stuff.

Marketing guru, Seth Godin already pioneered the concept of giving it all away for free online and going for sales down the road with an eventual printed edition. His books on marketing are some of the most popular ones ever published.

If you're a writer looking for an artist, or an artist looking for a writer, you can head over to Warren Ellis' ENGINE forum (non-superhero) and go to the STARTING OUT IN COMICS area. Or to the talent section on Digital Webbing to find your partner in crime.

And now there are a few new developments. Joey Manley, head honcho at webcomicsnation, is giving away free accounts now. Hell, a premium one is only a hundred bucks a year. So now you write / draw your pages, scan them, and seconds later, post them for the world to see. Rinse and repeat, week after week. Build an audience and if you're good enough, people will want a printed copy.

There are already groups of people aligning together to form webcomic communities. Act_i_vate has 12 creators pumping out comics. They're here on myspace as well. And Warren Ellis is launching a webcomics portal early next year called Rocket Pirates. There will be 25 webcomics on that one.

And even Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief at Marvel predicts the majority of comics will eventually be online. People will always want books, but the market for 32-page stapled singles with a 3-4 dollar price tag is continually diminishing outside of the superhero realm. Graphic novels and manga are growing in market share every year, and making huge gains in the book store market.

So there you have it. In the paragraphs above you have links to a free e-book on the business and financial benefits of webcomics, a free webcomics account, and where to find like minded souls who want to write or draw your ideas. Take a few weeks to click on all of the links, read them over and you'll be armed to the teeth with knowledge on the future of comics.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm looking forward to reading your pages soon. You no longer have an excuse. They're giving away the keys to the car. Time for you to step up. You could have 4 new books done by 2010. As Seth Godin wrote in his blog, the best time to start was last year. The second best time to start is right now. You are the future of comics.

-Jay