So, firstly, there’s this long-time digital artist named Kez. Now, this Kez person, she has never really made anything for print. Her main comic cannot even BE printed, because she designed it that way, because it’s meant to be a webcomic only (infinite canvas and all that jazz!).  But, Kez wanted something to sell. How could she go to a comic convention, or in her case an arts festival, AS a comic artist, if she did not have comics to sell or show? (She couldn’t, because then she’d be a poser, and no one buys anything from posers, unless she had a mad-cool digital set up with a projector, which she can’t afford, so that doesn’t matter anyways.)

Well, Kez had this convenient little short-story with which to experiment in print called Not Alone. Not Alone capped out at 49 pages, with a 3 page epilogue. It was grayscale. It was a stand-alone comic that also was related to her other, longer, work, The War of Winds.

So, Kez headed over to Ka-Blam because she wanted an on-demand printing, no minimum. She wanted people who handled COMICS. On a regular basis. Kez got what she asked for!

Enough of the third person.  Overall, I had a very positive experience with Ka-Blam. There were a couple problems starting off though. First, there was some really ODD quirk on the order page. No matter what I ordered, it said I ordered something ELSE. After a day of biting my nails, “Holy heck, do they know what I want? Was I sent the wrong invoice, but they got the right one?” I grabbed hold of myself. Rule one of spending money: you have a right to have your fears allayed.

So I sent in an email asking what was up using their message center. I guess I was the first one to mention this problem, because they had me order everything AGAIN, asked again if I followed their instructions, and then finally they just let me SEND them a message for what I wanted. That whole process took about a week. Since I was on a tight schedule, I began to freak out a bit.  They want 4-5 weeks for normal printing costs, and all the sudden, I was down to THREE. And Kez realized this, and Kez spazzed.  So, if you’re considering your own print run, give yourself a good 6 weeks of room.  Good news, they get back to emails within a day, sometimes multiple times a day. That’s good service at a small company!

But the Ka-Blam folks realized this was their goof, and offered a rushed printing job at no cost to me. Which I appreciated, because I would have asked them if they had not offered. It wasn’t my fault, even if I should have given myself more time in case something went wrong. I assume they have since corrected this ordering goof.

Kez will now admit to some REALLY STUPID GOOFS she made in ordering. First, the order sheet at Ka-Blam. I went for the Trade Paperback, Standard Sized, Perfect Binding. Now, I’ve always had issues filling out paperwork. Ka-Blam was no different.

Okay, I swear I stared at that field for 10 full minutes. By 2-page increments, I took this to mean “sheets.” Okay, number of pages divided by 2= how many sheets of paper you are going to need. Keep in mind that the more paper you need, the more expensive the final order, obviously. But nooooooo. This means actual PAGES.  Numbered pages. Uh duh. The 2-page increment thing REALLY tripped me up (I don’t even want to think about how many emails were sent with me sounding like a dumbass about that!). I would suggest that be changed to an extremely simple “If each page, not counting the covers, were numbered, how many pages would you have?” Obviously if it’s an odd number, the back of that page will still be there, it’ll just be blank. Feel free to ignore me if I’m just being totally dense. Yes, I was one of those kids who always over-thought questions. It’s a habit I’m trying to break. The Ka-blam staff dealt with my idiocy however and refrained from yelling at me. I know they wanted to. I could feel it. I don’t feel too bad though, since I dropped a bucket-load of money off at their place. Dealing with customers, regardless of their intelligence, paranoia or neurotic tendencies, is part of the business. I deal with it myself on a daily basis. If one more person asks me how to insert a link into a post, I swear I will scream.

ANYWAYS.  So, I received my books today! I ordered them June 14, they arrived July 8th. I received a digital proof of the page order and set up on June 24. For 50 paperback books, 56 pages long, color cover with lamination, blank inside covers, Ka-Blam full page ad, and 70# glossy paper inside with grayscale comic pages, the price was $349.43 ($324.25 Printing Cost + $25.18 S&H -$20.00 in credits, I think for the ordering goof, but I’m not going to count that here since I don’t think anyone else would get the credits when they ordered), meaning each book cost me ~$7.00.  I actually had my math wrong before when I was calculating price per book (to sell) on my end. I was going to sell it for $10 even. I may go for $9 now, maybe even $8.50. Not sure!  I still don’t know myself how much people will spend on this little book of mine. I will have to sleep on it.

So how about the quality? It’s….good. Not top quality, but rather good. I’ve heard complaints that pages fall out on perfect bound books. I personally have not had that experience. I own another book from Ka-Blam, Kate Sweet’s Juathuur Vol 1 actually. It is 100+ pages, and all of the pages are in there quite solidly.  I even pulled on a couple to be sure. I could easily see volumes a couple of hundred pages long have that issue, however. I have paperback novels that do that, but only the big ones. Barb Jacobs mentioned that people are much more satisfied with their saddle-stitch comics (staples).

My biggest issue with Ka-Blam is their lamination on the covers. It comes off, starts to peel after a bit. I personally like to play with covers, fiddle with them as I read, so that does not help matters. On Kate  Sweet’s book that I own, the lamination also started to come up a bit around the spine.  This does not affect readability, but it greatly irks me as an artist. I think next time, I will go with hardcover. It is also important to note that upon closer inspection, not all books are the same size, and the trim area can differ between books by a margin of 1/8 inch. So, some books are taller than others, and some are wider. Make sure your bleed area is uniform, or at the very least, that you have no unfinished art IN the bleed area. Sometimes it can show up.

The box I received was also battered to hell. It was basically ROUND when it arrived. No more corners. The top 5 books in the pile all had their spines squished. I guess I’ll keep those as give-aways? However, the books were nicely packed in bubble wrap inside, with some extra shredded paper padding.  Care was obviously taken, though I would have greatly appreciated a sturdier box, or a “do not drop-kick me into an airplane” tag.

In conclusion, for the customer service and quality, Ka-Blam gets an 8/10. They held up their end of the deal, corrected and took responsibility for their goof, dealt with ME, and earned my respect as a great place for the beginner/self-publishing comic creator. I think they still have some real issues to work out with quality, but for their prices and exemplary service, I would highly recommend them.

Here’s a few more important things I learned doing this:

1) Design for print from the beginning if that is your goal. Frankly, I’m one of them “weirdos” who thinks the web has far more to offer a comic creator than print. I had never tailored my pages to print dimensions before.  I didn’t even decide to print Not Alone until I was more than half-way through. This meant I had to REFORMAT all the pages, which took 16 hours a day for 8 days straight. Now, imagine doing that with a longer work. It was quite horrible, and I don’t recommend that.

2) If printing in color, keep in mind the colors will be DARKER in print. Lighten them up a bit from what you see on your screen to get them the right lightness in print.

3) Work between 300-600 dpi. 150 dpi is the so-called minimum, but it will probably look horrible, especially if you’ve got color or gradients of any sort. Gradients look best at 600dpi or above in print or else you’ll get “stepping (visible bands).”

4) Get friends to proof read for you. Sarah Sawyer of The Gods’ Pack was the only one of three to catch a typo I missed myself–after reading the whole thing through about 50 times.

5) Give yourself PLENTY of time in case something goes wrong. If Ka-Blam wants 4-5 weeks, next time I want to be done with 6-8 weeks to spare. Keep in mind the second printing job goes faster if they already have your files though.

6) Read the technical specs VERY carefully to make sure you are doing everything right. Ka-Blam provides templates. Download them. They are invaluable. Pay special attention to the file format they want. Ka-Blam wants LZW-compressed TIFF files in RGB mode. Most places want PDFs in CMYK. Keep this mind!

I’ll be posting a video on youtube tonight that has a bit more about the books, as well as other stuff I’m doing to prepare for the festival. My youtube account is here. If you have any questions, let me know!

————-

Okay, a short follow-up here. I started sending out my books about a week ago, and have noticed a few issues/received a few complaints. First, I’ve found 2 misprints in my order of 50 books. If each book cost me $7, that $14 down the tube (and I WILL be asking for credits, as these misprints were not my fault).  This misprint was, for example, page 12, blank page, half of page 32 upside-down, blank page, blank page, page 13.  Second, it seems there is an issue with the perfect binding and pages falling out. One reader let me know that because of how he holds the books (thumb in the inside binding) it has caused some splitting. Because of these issues, I’m revising my score of Ka-Blam from 8/10 to 7/10, and highly recommending them for saddle-stitch binding, but only moderately recommending them for perfect binding.

Second, a VERY IMPORTANT TIP FOR PEOPLE AUTOGRAPHING THEIR BOOKS: Do NOT use gel pens. They smear and can ruin a copy. Use sharpies.

—————

A second follow-up (Dec 2009): I ordered a second batch of books from Ka-Blam, again with short notice, since I seem incapable of planning things out. I used the “reorder” option, and was flabbergasted to find the books were all on the wrong paper! I had to email to find out they could NO LONGER PRINT on the thicker paper stock that I loved in my original order. Not only did they not notify me of their inability to print on the paper that I wanted, but I had to notice this myself and ask for a refund on the price difference–which was sizable. I worry that I might never have received the refund if I had not asked. The Ka-Blam folks are VERY nice and helpful, but seemingly very disorganized. I do not think I will be ordering from them again. I do want to order more books if they can’t print on the right paper for my book.

It’s the weekend, when I’m supposed to post story extras and stuff. Trying to keep up with that. Those of you not interested in this, come back on Monday. I’m working on slew of informative articles that ought to be right up your alley (collectives, adding PW to ad chains, world pages, website extras like chat boxes, and a discussion about webcomic title images).

Part of the reason I’m taking a hiatus from The War of Winds this month is so I can focus on editing the novel that the comic is based on. Here’s a snippet from Chapter 7: Lesser Evils, and the corresponding comic pages.  The “lesser evils” title refers to many things, but mainly about past and present choices that 3 characters (Vrin, Ravar and Mersnai) have made.  I would of course welcome thoughts on what you think those decisions were, but I think the hints I laid down in this chapter were too vague yet. A sharp mind ought to be able to connect the dots, however.

I find it amazing how much my writing style has changed over the years. The original version of this chapter was written in 2003 or so. At the time, I was heavily into The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, obviously a maximalist fantasy work. I now am much more minimalist, preferring to hint at rather than be explicit. Minimalism also makes everything MUCH shorter, and the few descriptions I use stick out much more. I still love WoT though, that’s for damn sure. I also have quite the fondness for em-dashes. I find they replicate speech patterns much truer than more traditional methods.

Also, a note about Ravar’s syntax: Ayenroki try never to use contractions. When they slip up and use them, it’s supposed to be a very big faux paus. Ravar loosens up as you get to know him, but at this point he’s still pretty rigid.

—-

(Corresponding to these 2 pages: 1, 2)

“Where is the thief?” he asked again, growing vexed. Her arms twitched as he increased the level of pain she felt; he frowned. She should not have been able to twitch.

In a voice different than the one she had previously spoken with—deeper, more guttural—she replied, “You’re not very good at this, are you, half-man?”  Ravar felt his hackles rise at the sound of the voice, though he could not reason why. “A real Rrah’ashī Master could reach into this mind and pull out the thought he wanted. But you…” the voice trailed off, chuckling darkly. “You rely on brute force and pain, child of the destroyers.”

“You seek to mock me, human?” the half-man snarled.  “That is unwise, considering your position.”

“Mock you? I speak only truth, Ravar. An interesting—true—name, that,” the voice mused. “Said the same, front as reverse. Did anyone ever tell you what that meant? Half a name, mirrored on itself?” The Ayenroki felt his mouth go dry as the voice continued, answering its own question, “It means you are only half, half-man.” She paused, then smirked, still not looking at him with the rolled back eyes. “I made a joke.”

“Do not try to play with me,” Ravar warned, narrowing his eyes.  He felt his alignment slipping, and righted himself.  The voice grunted as the Ayenroki straightened the fingers on Vrin’s forehead, as though rotating a very small, very sharp, invisible knife.  “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” the voice repeated. “Ayenroki, you chose the wrong head in which to muck around.”  Ravar’s fingers, mere tools of physical alignment, jerked as something pushed against him-something he could neither see nor sense, but it existed nonetheless. He felt his fingers slowly turn clockwise, and despite how he strained, they would not straighten. Vrin’s hands raised themselves up as though pulled by invisible threads, every muscle and fiber in the arms starkly showing, flexed and strained, beneath pale skin.  Even in the darkness, Ravar could see the rows of scars that stretched vertically down both wrists, thick and white scars that stood out against the shadow-scars that should have killed. “Get out of it, now.”  Her lips were pulled back to reveal her teeth, held by bloodless gums.  The force that pushed against his ashī strengthened further, testing.

Ravar narrowed his eyes, confused.  Holding to his tenuous alignment, he asked again, “Who are you?”

“I am but one,” she replied, the joints of her fingers popping and clicking as she clenched and unclenched her hands. Her body seemed pressed against the wall by a force larger than Ravar himself, something invisible.

“That was not what I asked, Vrin,” he growled.

“You may think you know my name, I know your name, Ravar.”  Her mouth grinned, completely incongruent to the strain her body showed. A bead of sweat ran down the contour of her cheek, passing rolled-back eyes and catching on the edge of her lip.  The Ayenroki glanced down at the sensation of heat on his chest as saw his kireken, his crystal talisman, glowing a muted red like a nearly doused coal. It had never done that before. “You’re still in this head, Ayenroki,” the voice brought his eyes back up.  “It’s not a place you want to be.”

Ravar felt himself growing frustrated. “I do not care for your games! Tell me where Talon is!”

The woman sighed, unfazed by the anger in his voice.  “You are not welcome here, bastard child of two forms. Leave!” she hissed, baring teeth. “And do it skillfully. I will be very unhappy with you if you damage this mind.  Hurting her, or trying to kill her, would not serve your well.”

“Kill you?” Ravar growled, finally releasing the hold on her mind and instead snatching a wrist, “I have no need to kill you.  It looks like you have already tried enough.” He tossed her scarred forearm down, withdrawing all that he had done. Vrin dropped to the floor limply, a tangle of confused, shaking, limbs. “You are unnatural, whatever you are. From one second the next, you are different. It disgusts me,” the Ayenroki spat. “Slesseneġ.”

Here are the inks for The War of Winds, Chapter 7 Lesser Evils Page 40. I’m actually on schedule this week! Whoo! I have a kickboxing bout next weekend, hopefully I’ll be well enough afterward to complete the next page on time too. If the page doesn’t go up and no one hears from me, I might be in the hospital. Umm…no joke.  I try to keep my audience up to date on happenings around here, and if I don’t, it’s because I’m kept from it for some reason.

For those of you who read this blog for the how-to’s, those will happen M-F. I will update with stuff about my comic or my novel on the weekends.  So…check back Monday!

Here are a couple topics I plan on covering next week:

The links page, gallery page, webcomic news, ad placement vs. revenue, and how to make good banners/advertisements.

Well, I said I would post excerpts here, so here one is. For the first excerpt, I chose the introductory chapter for Relan and Fen Aya Zen. I figured this would be popular-ish due to Not Alone. I’m not going to include a spoiler warning here mostly because it’s obvious how Not Alone is going to work out. I’ve already said both characters appear in the comic rather soon, so it’s obvious they at least LIVE. Enjoy, but please note this chapter has not been edited since writing it…oh…2 years ago. :3 I’m probably going to take out some of the detail, as I wrote this in a slightly maximalist stage.

Here’s an old sketch of the two also:

——–

Chapter 10 – Face to Face – part III

Domain West: Ci’Endis: Seshen’a Tsa

The leaves softly crunched beneath Relan’s doeskin boots as she tightened the single bracer on her right wrist, trying to pull it back into place with her teeth. With a soft grunt at her failure, she sat lightly down on one of the many furred, moss-lathered rocks next to her, a boulder that had been warming in the streams of golden sunlight since the red dawn.  After admiring the great trees that surrounded her in an ageless beauty, born down with the weight of spider-webbed vines and leaves the size of a man’s head, Relan relaxed slightly, taking a deep breath of the jungle air.  The magnificence of the Seshen’a Tsa, the Forest of Stones, would never cease to amaze her, but the stones hid secrets, deadly secrets, and Relan refused to be caught unawares.  To do so would mean her death.

She laid at her feet lay a silver-wooded staff nearly as tall a she, and tight, leather wraps encircled the areas where her hand usually rested.  Up its length were a series of engravings, shallow crevasses in the light wood that chronicled her past, her present, and perhaps, her future.  Near the top end, the numeral “three” stood boldly out on the hub, three rings, one inside of the other, just touching at the bottom.  Next to it, climbing vertically, was her name in the same alphabet, and after, her title of Na’shan. Interspersed between, and sometimes in, the carvings were many indentations, forceful dents whose origin could only be from its use as a weapon on its travels.  The woman focused on tightening the straps of her bracer, cautious lest it become too loose during battle and foil her hands.  Relan unconsciously flickered her long, loose hair behind an ear, unaware of its annoying nature in her current struggle as it glowed auburn in the late evening light.  A wide ring of tooled, golden metal gleamed brightly in the misty air of the Seshen’a Tsa, the only real symbol of rank she chose to wear.  The ear cuff proclaimed her to be a protector of the borderlands, a self-professed outcast of cities, and half of a Shan pairing.

A sound tickled the ear she had just freed, and she stilled, slowly sinking off the small boulder to pick up her staff with her left hand.  Brown eyes tinged with green picked her surroundings apart with a trained ferocity, skipping over nothing, and yet, focusing on nothing.  Relan had learned early that putting one’s attention in only a single place meant being oblivious to everywhere else.  A small stream gurgled behind her, and a bird flew overhead, squawking loudly.  The wind blew and the great trees rustled, dropping a few leaves in a quiet, unobtrusive, lazy way.  A twig snapped, and her head whipped to the right, searching the area behind the many, clustered rocks, but deep shadows hid any forms.  Her eyes suddenly shadowed over, a passing flicker of doubt, and she whirled around, her staff at ready.

An enormous beast stood only a body-length behind her, one wide paw above the ground, ready to slowly release its mass to the earth.  Its fur was of a dark, reddish hue that faded first to a light, and then to dark gray in stripes, and a large, curled tail stood prominently white over a wide back.  It wore an odd harness, a metal skeleton that wrapped around the thick neck, underneath a bearish, barrel chest and then around the strong back.  Chain-linked armor filled in the spaces not covered by the harness, and it effectively protected the beast’s vitals from harm. The body shape most closely matched that of a wolf, though its bulk would overshadow two wolves, and a pair of curled horns proudly adorned its immense head.  Neither it nor Relan moved.

Suddenly, it pounced, and Relan brought up her staff as giant forepaws landed on her chest and pushed her to the ground.  She used the momentum to flip the beast behind her, and she then rolled to the left just as a dripping, fanged mouth lunged for her neck, barely missing.  A tendril of hot drool landed on her cheek, and she flinched, but did not pause to wipe it away.  On the ground, she flipped her legs around and tripped the wolf-like creature before it could regain equilibrium from the unsuccessful attack.   It fell heavily to the soft earth, digging a deep trench with its strong muzzle, and coughed as soil invaded a mouth used only to raw, bloody meat.

Neither fighter moved for a moment, until a rich laugh disturbed the aged silence of trees and growing plants.  Relan rolled on the ground, laughing at the beast whose tongue rolled disgustedly in and out of its large, fanged mouth in a clear show of distaste. She had to hold in her sides as laughing cramps became only a slight hindrance to her humor.  The animal moved into a more dignified position, large head arrogantly high and forepaws extended in front rather than embarrassingly behind.  It growled low when Relan refused to stop, but the sound only encouraged the woman to laugh louder.  Finally, her sides worn out and tears leaking from her eyes, she levered herself up with the help of a nearby rock, still chuckling.

“You deserved that, Fenni.”  He seemed to grumble as a clod of moss fell from the roof of his mouth and golden-red eyes scrunched in distaste.  “And I’m not sorry in the slightest.”  To prove her point, she kicked some leaf litter at him, aiming for his shoulders. Her eyes squinted as she held in her mirth in a late, vain attempt to soothe her companion’s sore feelings.  Fen Aya Zen’s eyes narrowed and he sent a thought to her, though it was more of an idea and less of words,

« You’re getting faster. »

She grinned, and the beast did not flinch at her bared fangs.  He had long ago become familiar with human ways, and he instead grinned back, black dirt marring a sinister smile. « For a human anyways, right? »

Of all secondary pages to have, the archive page is the most obvious one, and indeed, about 99% of comics have it. However, the format of the page seems to be beyond some people.  First, I will list what you should not do:

• Do not have your archive be a listing of “calendars.” This is most often seen on Comic Genesis sites.  A calendar contains no information about chapters, page titles, or filler pages you may have. The only thing it’s good for is showing people what your update days are, and/or how often you miss them.
• Do not list your archive by text-link, date only.  This is most often seen on ComicPress sites that have not been personalized.  This is just as bad as the “calendar” feature on Comic Genesis.
• Do not list your archive as shrunken-down “thumbnails” of the original comic files (make real thumbnail images instead).  It’s called a “thumbnail” for good reason: it’s small, and it loads fast! You may think you are being innovative, but you’re really being annoying, taxing your bandwidth, and taking up people’s time.*

When people visit your archive page, they are looking for a couple things. First time readers may want to know how large your archives are. For example, “This comic looks great, but I don’t have the time or energy to read an epic. I will check the archives to see how big/small it is.”  First time readers may also being trying to find a link to your first comic page, and this is often the fastest way.  Loyal readers will browse your archive to pull up a specific page they are looking for, or to re-read a part they liked a lot. This is why you should not have your archive set up by date or calendar. No one can find anything! Remember KEZ’s #1 webcomic website rule: make it as easy for the reader as possible. Not easy for YOU, for the reader.

Now that you have the “do not’s,” how about the “do’s?” When in doubt, go the archives of the most popular comic you read.  I choose you, Phoenix Requiem! See how the information is presented in a chronological AND chaptered way? What about Tales of Pylea?  Date, page number, chapter and page title, though ideally, the formatting of this page would be a little improved.  It can be hard when it’s automated, I know.  What about Xylia Tales?  Chapter cover image, chronological and chaptered order.  Ok, now what about my own archive?  I’ve taken everything I like about the previous examples, and then added my own flair: The War of Winds’ Archive.  I have a thumbnail image, chronological chaptered order, each page text linked, AND a written synopsis.  The written synopsis serves three functions: it is a refresher for long-time readers looking for a specific page, it gives a better idea what the story is about to new readers, and lastly, it provides textual content for context-based advertisers and search engines.

How could I improve my archive? I could add page titles as link titles and alts, as discussed in a previous article of mine.  I have the chapter cover image, the chronological order broken down by chapter, but I don’t have titled pages. If I included link titles, the final piece of information my own archive doesn’t offer, the page title, could be seen whenever you hovered over a page number. Why haven’t I done this? Well, I’ve got 270+ pages. That’s a lot of work. It’s on the list of to-do’s though!

So, to repeat myself in a coherent manner, for your archive page, do the following (only the first two are definitely necessary for 99% of comics out there):

• link every page. This can be done with a collapsible menu if your archive is extremely large, or be broken down into multiple webpages so as not to be overwhelming.  The only comic I know of who can get away with NOT linking every page is Sluggy Freelance, because there are thousands of comics.  Sluggy has an expandable dropdown instead. Be aware that an expandable dropdown does NOT replace an archive page!
• split up the page links by chapter or story arc.
• provide an image to represent each chapter or story arc.
• provide page titles to differentiate between separate comic pages.
• provide chapter synopses.

*ComicPress has an option for “archive by thumbnail.” If formatted correctly, and if your comic files sizes are rather modest, then this may be the option for you–especially if you have a black and white strip comic.  You could even set up the archive by week (well, past 7 strips), if you know how to do it. HOWEVER, you should also have a chronological and chaptered archive as well, especially if you have a large archive.