Recently, someone asked me how they can help us out, keeping the comic going and spreading the word.  The obvious answer, of course, is to buy lots of our merchandise.  But, that’s not all you can do by a long shot!  In fact, some of things you can do are free, and they will still help us with our Johnny Saturn business a great deal!

If you have a blog or website, link to www.johnnysaturn.com.  Every link into this site helps our Google ranking.

If you have your own webcomic, trade banners with me.  That way, we’ll share each others’ fan basis and help us both out.

Mention Johnny Saturn (and www.johnnysaturn.com) in forums you frequent—this is invaluable!

If you are an artist, make fan art.  Not only will I post it here, but posting it on your own website (or Myspace, or Deviant Art account, or whatever) will still help spread the word.  (Plus, if you send me the 300 dpi version of the picture, it may show up in the next Johnny Saturn Pinup Gallery).

Thanks! Scott

Hi, Folks:

Consider this particular blog more a production blog, because I’ve got a lot of plates in the air at the moment.

Item: I’m working on next month’s big sale, which will involve new merchandise, digital downloads, and some free stuff.  I had some technical issues to overcome, but now I’ve done so—Yay, me.

Item: The cover to issue seven is quite haunting—it surprises even me, and I drew it.  Benita came up with the original concept, and then I took a symbolic twist on it.  You know, I didn’t leave a space in the online archives for it!  I’m not sure how I’m going to integrate it into the collected web strip…

Item: I’m working on a cover for a future Coscom book about zombies, and it’s coming along very well.  I’m not sure if I’m going to show it off here or not, because I haven’t asked the editor/publisher for permission to do so yet.  Maybe I will.

Scott at the Indianapolis Art Center

Item: The other night, I watched the animated “Batman: Gotham Knight” movie.  It’s gritty and progressive in a way that reminded me of that animated Matrix movie.  I was appropriately diverted, but at the same time I don’t feel the urge to go purchase a copy of my own.  I still maintain that one the best Batman movies ever was the animated “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.”  I also like the Director’s cut “Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.” 

Item: Remember, I’m on Twitter now, and you can follow me at http://twitter.com/SStory.  Twitter has been helpful in keeping track of people I know throughout the comic industry, and beyond, the way Myspace used to.  I still have my Myspace page, but I think I’m going to repurpose it.

I’ve got another busy day coloring Johnny Saturn lined up, plus work for one of my favorite customers, so today’s blog will be short.  In fact, I’m going to resort to the “lists of stuff” approach!  Lazy, lazy, lazy!

What webcomics do I follow most of all?  The list, presented in no particular order:

• Girl Genius
• SideChics
• PvP
• Evil Inc.
• Sheldon
• Frazz
• 9 Chickweed Lane
• Dilbert

What podcasts do I follow?

• Webcomics Weekly
• The Webcomic Beacon
• Comic Related
• Sequential Artists’ Pub
• Art & Story
• Plus, a rotating list of others

What websites do I visit a lot?

• Digital Webbing
• Art Unleashed
• Comixtalk
• Myspace

What magazines do I read?

• Sketch Magazine
• Draw
• Imagine FX
• Watercolor (2 Magazine, I forget the exact titles)

Well, there you go!  Useless information about me!  Out of curiosity, do any of you read, watch, or listen to same material I do?  Do you see something omitted from my lists that I should really check into? 

Scott.

Lots of interesting stuff going on.

First up, today is my birthday.  I was born on an American Air force base forty-four years ago in Seville, Spain.  I’m not sad to see another year come and go, because my forties have been the best decade of my life.

Next up, I changed my old Myspace page into a satellite Johnny Saturn site.  I was more than pleasantly surprised at how flexible Myspace has become!  It was quite fun to format this page!  Through the magic of RSS, the comic strip and the blog will appear on Myspace as it updates, but if the reader wants to see the full-size comic or the comic’s archives, he need only click on the image there and be transported to this site.

http://www.myspace.com/scott_story

It should be noted that we have similar RSS feeds to Comixtalk, Xaviar Xerexes’ excellent webcomic site.

http://comixtalk.com/

Tomorrow, I plan to spend some time filling out the Zen Cart Johnny Saturn Store.  The video tutorials have been excellent, so I should be well on my way to establishing this new hub of Johnny Saturn swag!  If you want to see Zen Cart in action, please visit Comics2Games new site.

http://bluelinepro.com/storecomics2/

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the Amazon.com “I recommend” link in the right column.  It’s not too late to order a copy or two of “Johnny Saturn: Synns of the Father” for Christmas!

Scott.

As 2008 winds down, and Benita and I make big plans for Johnny Saturn in 2009, I think it’s worthwhile to review our year.  In many regards, this year was huge for us.  In other regards, it was a “rebuilding” year.

The biggest event of our year was the publication of our graphic novel, “Johnny Saturn: Synns of the Father.”  It was very heady for us as the book’s listing came up on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and numerous other websites.  Later on, we also published “Johnny Saturn” no. 6, and the “Johnny Saturn Pinup Gallery.”  This latter was particularly satisfying, because artists from all over the planet contributed pinups.

Next up for us was building of the current johnnysaturn.com site.  Prior to this, Johnny Saturn was distributed among Graphic Smash, Webcomicsnation, Comic Genesis, and Drunk Duck, while the blog was located on Myspace.  We had pretty much maxed out the scattershot approach, and now it was time to consolidate.  In June, we discontinued or downgraded all those other sites and established a WordPress-based, Comicpress run site to be our hub.  This was a titanic undertaking, one that involved reformatting all the old strips, learning new skills, and eventually even changing web hosts.

The third biggest coup for the year, and arguable more important than the first, was placing twice in the Webcomic Readers Choice Awards, winning first place for Antagonist of the Year (Dr. Synn), and third place for protagonist of the year (Johnny Saturn).  Many benefits issued from this honor, including the friendship of Phil Hofer, aka Frumph, of the Frumph Webcomic List.

After that, the comic collective Palace in the Sky asked us to join, and we happily did so.  This collective is primarily made up of high quality fantasy comics, but Johnny Saturn, while not a traditional swords & horses fantasy, came to fit in quite well in their lineup.  Palace in the Sky continues to be one of our big referrers, and we are proud to be associated with them.

Also of note, 2008 saw Benita and I interviewed on a Podcast for the first time, and our friendship with Chuck Moore of Comic Related.  I had one article in Sketch Magazine this year, and have submitted two more.  Benita and I joined the Indy Webcomics Group, a local collective of cartoonists who have garnered national attention.

All in all, this was a year to remember!

Yesterday, when I wrote about real world superheroes, I didn’t realize that I might be onto something really interesting here. I’m going to make an effort to cover this movement as it develops. I don’t want to encourage any one to endanger themselves or others, or take up vigilantism, but I think there is something to be said for these colorful people trying to become symbols of justice. As a group, the superheroes have taken to calling themselves “Reals.”

One thing I would like to clarify: As the co-writer of Johnny Saturn, I am quite sure the proper name for these would-be do-gooders is Mystery Men. But, that is an archaic term, and the term “superhero” has more weight these days, so what can I do. I’ll call them superheroes, though they would be better labeled mystery men.

Here is a news story about these phenomena.

Here’s another one.

Here is a website devoted to more of the superheroes, http://www.citizenheroes.com/. From what I can tell, Citizen Prime is funded and has a budget for fancy film intro. They even work some special effects into the mix. I haven’t figured out if this venture is a celebration of public service, or what, exactly. It may simply be an individual or group’s attempt to empower people by making them aware of their neighborhoods.

If you want to go where the Reals are hanging out, that would be Myspace.

More as this story develops.

I’m doing my best to avoid working on the next episode.  And, since I’m a master of avoidance, I figured I would write a blog post.

This last year saw the passing of ComicsXP, a digital comic distributor; Webcomics Inc., a social networking site aimed at cartoonists; and my involvement in the Imagine FX community, because it wasn’t getting me anywhere. Comicspace appears to have gained some new life, but for the life of me I can’t remember the login!  My fault, of course.  Normally I keep a careful record of all those passwords.

This year, we saw the advent of the iPad, and Johnny Saturn is currently marketed through Graphic.ly and Panel Fly, both leaders in digital comic distribution.  I tried every which way to make “Johnny Saturn” look good on the Kindle, but it did not happen.  The screen is too small, the resolution is only 72 dpi, and I couldn’t make it legible. While Indyplanet keeps chugging along, Comics Monkey just didn’t happen for us—it’s too bad, because it seemed like a good idea.  My guess is the price point was too high for comic shops to order comics, but that’s not an informed opinion.

Comic collectives appear to have fallen out of style.  Webcomic Planet, which offered great hope at first, gave up the ghost.  Are Palace in the Sky and the Indy Webcomic Group the only ones we have left? Huh, I guess so. 

We saw Wowio return, this time not owned by Platinum Studios, and it’s a promising platform.  Unfortunately, the wonderful payment scheme they once had, which drove them deep into debt, has been replaced by a much more sustainable payment scheme.  That means we don’t make much money from it.  Yet, I feel it’s a good advertisement for “Johnny Saturn.”

In advertising, this last year saw Google Text Ads, Facebook Ads, and Myspace Ads produce nothing for us.  At this time, the only advertising tool that seems to work well for us is Project Wonderful.  I still haven’t dug into Deviant Art yet, and continual additions to TV Tropes have been a good referrer. Being linked from the guest list of shows I attend also seems to bring in some good traffic.

As you can imagine, bringing new readers to the comic is a challenge.  At one time or another, we’ve run giveaways, contests, and sales to promote readership.  We offered daily content, and the strip itself running three times a week.  The extras don’t seem to account for much, yet determining how to attract readers has remained a bit of a conundrum.  We are good at retaining readers once they get here, but getting them here is the mystery, is it not?

During this last year, I tried every which way I could to figure out how to advertise on City of Heroes/Villains, and Champions online.  These are closed systems, apparently, and they do not offer any advertising opportunities for a small publisher like us.

I can say, with some pride, that reader’s comments have been a high point of this affair for me.  We seem to attract some pretty smart readers, and their range of knowledge and ability to discuss it is astounding.  Benita and I follow the comments every day, and many of the posters have come to feel like “our people.”  It’s uncanny how well some readers can intuit what’s about to happen, especially because we make constant left turns in the plot and love to kill clichés.  Bravo, folks, well done.

So, why do I bring this up?  I mention it specifically because this is the type of stuff a small publisher has to handle.  Day in and day out, I have to search for new sale venues, control my advertising budget, and package and repackage previously released materials.  It’s all very rewarding, but it’s also a lot of hard work. 

Strangely, I still feel happy to live in this period, and have this opportunity to tell our stories and distribute them to so many people.

Scott.