Interview with MARROWBONES creator Eric Orchard!

Marrowbones is a new comic book by creator Eric Orchard about a young girl named Nora who lives in a haunted hotel in Marrowbones Swamp. Her story is told in a series of short tales. It is, as described by the narrator (a talking skeleton) - “The tales of a girl who found love and belonging in the most unlikely of places; amongst monsters and dead things.”

Marrowbones is a fairy tale for children of all ages. The monsters are loveable and cuddly and sometimes spooky. The first comic features everything from vampires, humans, werewolves, and ghosts to more whimsical creatures such as a Kitchen Lich and Dough Zombies. The art is charming and slightly reminiscent of Edward Gorey. The world of Marrowbones Swamp is a place of childlike wonder in a dark horror wrapping. It was written and illustrated by Eric and is available digitally at his website: www.ericorchard.blogspot.com for just $2.00 (47 page book).

I recently interviewed Eric and we spoke about Marrowbones, his influences, working digitally, the state of the comics field and much more. I think you’ll really enjoy this interview and hope you’ll help support this terrific project:

Hi Eric – thanks so much for doing this interview. I really enjoyed Marrowbones. For the readers out there, describe the comic briefly, if you would.

Marrowbones is the story of Nora, a young girl who doesn't fit into the world. Rejected by her family because she can see ghosts and monsters she is finally rescued by her Uncle Barnaby and ends up working for him at his inn in the haunted world of Marrowbones.

Marrowbones is a fantasy tale firmly rooted in the world of horror. Were you always a horror fan and what are some of your early influences? I see some definite Edward Gorey influence…

I've always read fantasy and horror and in my mind they're all kind of mixed up. Like Christopher Lee I consider horror to be a kind of fantasy. From very early on I was reading huge amounts of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Tolkien and his imitators, fairy tales, ghost stories, Weird Tales pulp, EC horror comics, Tintin, books illustrated by Arthur Rackham and Edward Gorey and all these things became all mixed up to me, I didn't really categorize them too much. It all filtered through my imagination as something new. Something fantastical and horrific, ha!

So, yes, I've always been a horror fan. It's an incredible rich tradition and I'm always finding something new and compelling.

What was the inspiration behind Marrowbones? I understand it was a story that had been rattling around in your head for sometime…?

I was travelling around Quebec with my family. There was a huge thunderstorm and we were looking for a hotel in a place called Riviere Du Loup. Riviere Du Loup means Wolf River and I couldn't help but imagine the hotel would be run by werewolfs. It was while my wife was driving in the car that I drew Uncle Barnaby for the first time. All of the sudden I had the perfect framework for years and years of supernatural stories I had wanted to tell. I continued to develop it over the summer (last summer) and this spring I finally got around to doing the first issue.

This is the first digital comic you’ve done. What was your general impression of working digitally vs. on paper?

I've been experimenting with digital for a very long time but it was only recently that I started seeing work by other cartoonists that I felt was as interesting as traditional work and was compelled to start seriously using digital as a means of storytelling. I switched from constant experimenting to seriously using it as a storytelling/drawing tool.

My general impression is that it's like drawing on magical glass. Ha! It's a funny medium and it takes some getting used to. I mainly did Marrowbones on my Cintiq which is created for artists and designs to give them a very natural drawing experience. And that's what it is. I've decided recently that when working digitally, at this point, the hardware is more important than the software.

You used Manga Studio and Photoshop primarily to create this, I understand. Is the finished work high res enough that it could be printed out if you ever wanted to, and do you ever foresee that as a possibility or will it remain a digital download?

Everything I do has print in mind. I think it's the most optimal way to read comics.

I did Marrowbones in very large, print ready files and I'd love to see a book some day. This digital launch was a lot of work, so I feel I can only think a little ways ahead on different formats.

One thing that has to be nice about doing an all-digital comic is the lack of a middle man, specifically Diamond Distributions, who I feel is playing a huge role in killing the comics industry (but that’s a rant for another day). The internet is really a powerful tool and a great equalizer for the small publisher, allowing a global delivery instantaneously! Do you see this becoming an increasingly popular decision for comic creators as a way of getting work out there?

Yeah, I'm not consciously trying to sidestep any middleman in particular, it more has to do with being impatient to have more work out there. Traditional publishing works very slowly, and publishers are only able to do so many print books a year. I'm not talking about monthly floppy comics but the graphic novel market. I have no real experience with the floppy market except as a consumer.

What I can say for sure is that digital self publishing is an incredibly exciting, fun way to work. You get a sense of community, a lot of fresh challenges and new paths to explore. It's amazing. I love it.

My feeling is that the comics market should be comprised of individual creators selling work directly to fans as well as larger publisher supporting and assisting in larger publishing ventures. I put Kickstarter in the first category.

I'm not sure what diamond's place should be in this emerging market but I do sense that direct market stores need to shift away from monthly floppy comics to slightly higher end products like nice collections, toys, shirts and other merchandise. I'm not sure the direct market should be attempting to compete with the digital market, but maybe it should be treated as a separate entity and that they mutually support each other’s products.

I’ve followed you on Twitter for some time now but just recently discovered your blog. It is interesting following the creation of Marrowbones as you developed it. I think the reader interaction is a good thing as well. Is that important to you?

I love it but I think it's a tricky thing. The biggest risk is getting the sense that your project is complete before you start it because you're getting feedback on fragments of an unfinished thing. Ive read warnings from creators about sharing too much before you're ready. Stephen King talks about this in On Writing. I think there's something to that. I actually reserved most of Marrowbones issue one before releasing it and I'd never done that before. I found it helpful to sit with the work itself for a while before releasing it.

At the same time I don't entirely agree with the sentiment that you shouldn't share stuff before releasing it. I think you need a balance. The sense if community and shared journey you get through blogging about a project has become an essential part of the way I work. I like to think of it as leaving the studio open a creak and letting some of the weirdness leak out. I think that's healthy and fun and I plan to keep working that way.

I found one post on your blog really interesting: "Another thing is I did it fast. It's a 47 page comic done in about a month. That's pretty fast. But I think it looks as good as anything I've done. I've been talking a lot about developing a strong, fast style. And I feel like I did this here." Working quickly and firmly is really important, in my opinion. So many artists, myself included, work and rework and pick at drawings trying to make them perfect and end up destroy any energy in the work, leaving it lifeless. Talk about the challenge of working quickly, and is this struggle, of fighting perfectionism, something that you ever fight with?

The only real struggle is in the regrets I feel after its released. That's a terrible feeling. Knowing I could've done a drawing better.

Have you read The Art of Maurice Sendak? In an interview he talks about the importance of establishing different styles. This kind of goes against the generally accepted wisdom that a cartoonist or illustrator should develop one look, almost as a sort of branding tool. But what Sendak says makes a lot of sense to me, it's about story telling. You need to have a full set of tools to appropriately tell different kinds of stories. That's my philosophy on my faster, simpler work: it suits the story so it has to be done that way. Some mainstream cartoonists get flack for being able to draw in different styles and it drives me nuts. I see it as an asset.

One thing I found interesting is the fact that your lead character in both this comic and your other current work, Maddy Kettle, (a comic published from Top Shelf comics), is a young girl. Do you feel particularly drawn to female protagonists in your stories, and how does that affect your storytelling?

I think that comes down mainly to my personal experience. I was raised by a single mother, and in retrospect raising me seems heroic, ha! So, it just has to do with the women in my life. Also, it's probably a bit of an influence from Hayao Miyazaki, who creates amazing female heroes.

What does the future hold for Nora and Marrowbones swamp? Are there more adventures in store for her and the haunted hotel?

I really want to do more stories in Marrowbones. I've been carrying around these stores as long as I can remember and I feel a real need to tell them. I've penned the next few issues. But self publishing is tricky, I need to do it while still working on contracts.

About Eric Orchard: I'm an illustrator and cartoonist living in Toronto. I got my start in publishing doing picture books but I've been publishing fantasy and horror mini comics since high school. Comics were always my goal. I've done work for Tor, Top shelf, Scholastic, First Second, ONI and others. I've won the Spectrum silver award for comics and I've appeared in the annual exhibit of the Society Of Illustrators.

To find out more about Eric and to order his comic, go to: http://www.ericorchard.blogspot.com/

Alternative Comic Book Distribution Plan #1 – BRENNER PRINTING/SHIPPING

Greetings Maniacs!

The feedback to my posts on comic book distributors has been great, via email, twitter, comments, conversations and texts. I have never seen a company as universally despised as Diamond Comics Distributors. Decades of screwing over retailers, casually dismissing comic creators, driving up prices and failing to fulfill orders or even ship on time (so I’ve heard from my comic shop owner friends) have resulted in a monopolistic giant that everyone wants to see topple – I know I do. I’m more than happy to play David here… or at least present some alternatives as a champion to the little guy.

If you want to get your books into comic shops there is only one major distributor, and they, as I discussed yesterday, only deal with publishers who clear $2500 monthly (profit after Diamond’s 60% take). What’s a small press Indy comic creator/publisher to do?

Take heart folks – alternatives are out there, and I’m going to spotlight some of them here over the next few weeks.

Interestingly several of these alternatives are coming directly from printers. Which makes sense – they print it – so why not deliver to the shops as well?

Today I’m going to talk about Brenner Printing. Brenner has been in business for 35 years. I’ve dealt with them personally and they are professional, courteous, and deliver high quality work on time. Used to be Diamond Distributors would pick up directly from Brenner’s docks, allowing a nice convenient way for publishers to get their product to them and on to comic shops. Not any more though - that is yet another service Diamond has done away with.

However, notice the name change - Brenner Printing ans MAILING! Brenner has picked up the slack and now offers shipping for its customers! There is no minimum print run for printing and they will ship any amount to any number of addresses for a flat shipping rate. Let me repeat that last part – A FLAT SHIPPING RATE. No arrogant insistence on number of books or amount of money cleared, where you print or don’t print it (POD), no 60% taken off the top, no BS – they simply charge you to take the book from point A to point B. AND there is no limit to what type address they will ship to – comic shops, businesses, people’s homes – it doesn’t matter. They’ll box and ship it for you via UPS and several other carriers at a LOWER RATE than you could get. That’s right – their shipping rate is 30% to 40% lower than what you or I could just walk in and get!!

Want to print only 500 and ship half of them to various addresses and the remainder sent to you? No problem. Print 1000 and ship 400, sure thing!

The key here is hustling to PRESELL those issues – that’s where the great equalizer, the internet, comes into play. You have to be on top of your game, building a website, marketing that book, working those social media outlets, making phone calls, making appearances, giving away free samples and most of all – providing content that people want to buy. I can’t help you there. That part is up to you. But if you hustle to make the product and market it, Brenner can provide a way to get it to your readers.

I recently had a DVD distributor tell me he would distribute almost any DVD as long as it made money. He really didn’t care about content, just whether he could sell it. That’s the way a distributor should operate. They are not content police.

Again, that flat shipping rate is a big deal. I just can’t emphasize it enough. It cost the same amount to ship a book whether its cover is $1.00 or $5.99. Why should the distributor charge more if the cost of the book is more, like Diamond does? They shouldn’t!! Wake up people! This business model stinks, is unfair to the publisher, and is hurting the industry!!

Oh and by the way – the big San Diego Comicon is coming up. Haven’t printed your books yet? No worries – Brenner still has time to get them ready for the show, and they’ll even deliver them right there to the Comicon, so you don’t have to fuss with carrying them on the plane! There is a staging area at the show where you can simply pick up your waiting merchandise – how cool is that?

Check them out at www.brennerprinting.com or give them a call at 1-877-349-4024 and they’ll hook you up.

Diamond Distributions - A Little Clarification

Howdy all. I've been on vacation the past week and didn't spend much time posting here. I recently wrote a series of posts about comic book distributor Diamond distributions:

The Greed of Diamond Distributions
Why Digital Comics should remain cheap
How Diamond is Killing the Comic Book Industry 

Since then I did some further investigation and looked into things a bit more, made a couple of phone calls and turns out I was a little misinformed on Diamond's practices.
Things are actually worse than I had stated.

Diamond Comic Distributors raised its order minimums from $1,500 to $2,500. They charge based on how much money a comic book publisher makes, not on number of books sold. That's an important distinction. It is the amount of money the publisher makes - BUT - that amount is the amount the publisher makes AFTER Diamond takes it's 60% cut for distributing the comic.

So, again, Diamond is encouraging publishers to raise the cost of their books, which decreases the amount of books sold because, hey, this just in - the economy sucks right now!

What Diamond really has done is give a giant middle finger to small press comic publishers. They don't want to fool with them. BUT take heart - there are some alternatives available to small press publishers, and more springing up all the time. I'll be looking at some of those in the next few days, alternatives that are 100% DIAMOND free! Excelsior!

How Diamond is killing the Comic Book Industry - and a solution

I had another interesting comment yesterday to my WHY DIGITAL COMICS SHOULD REMAIN CHEAP post. This one was regarding Diamond Distributions (and I suspect it was actually written by someone at Diamond). I wanted to spotlight it because it brings up another important point. They said:

______________

You do realize that Diamond takes 60% and that most retailers buy from Diamond between 45-55% off cover price? That means Diamond is making anywhere between 5-15% depending on the size of the retailer? I'd hardly call that an "obscene cut of profits".

It's a cost of doing business. And if you can't sell 2K comics (which is basically 1 comic to each store out there)... you really shouldn't be in the comics business.

______________


Okay, two things going on here. First, the Diamond rate…

Yeah, Diamond does take 60% of cover, or more in some cases I've heard. BUT they no longer pick up comics from the Brenner printing docks. I just found this out when I made a call to Brenner today. Nice. Thanks Diamond. Fortunately Brenner ships books themselves and has a good rate.

By the way, I can't say enough good things about Brenner Printing. All my interactions with them over the years have been top rate. Friendly, professional and they deliver on time.

Diamond is doing business like they did 30 years ago - it's a broken model. Makes no sense to pay 60% of your cover to someone to distribute a book. Diamond should be charging a flat rate to distribute your book. Point A to Point B. That is what Diamond does. They take your book to the comic books shops. Period.

This whole routine of charging a percentage of cover is ridiculous. Does it cost them any more to distribute my book if I charge $4.00 for it than $1.95? No, it doesn't. So why should they make more money to distribute my book if I charge more money? All this does is encourage me to charge more, which is bad for the industry.

So what else do you get for Diamond's rate? The privilege of being in their catalog, which is seen by every shop in America - 2000 according to the email above.

Here is a way for Diamond to cut costs. Do away with the catalog. The paper catalog. Lose it and put that sucker online. Make it password protected so only retailers have access to it. Make it searchable, so retailers can quickly find books by company, genre, page count, cost. That'll save you some money right there. Charge a small fee to every company to be listed in the catalog. More income that companies won't mind paying - say something like $20 a month, or $5 per issue. Something like that. More money coming in.

Move to a flat shipping rate based on weight of a package. Eliminate minimum print runs. Now you've suddenly added hundreds if not thousands of small press companies to your distribution routes. You're bringing in new income!

THIS would allow the publishers to cut costs of their comics, because now you don't have to pay 60% off the top to a distributer. Lower costs mean customers can buy more comics. This in turn grows the industry and makes it healthier and perhaps keeps it from dying, which is what it is slowly doing right now. Everyone benefits.

So Diamond makes a small amount off actually delivering the book, and then retailers buy from Diamond between 45-55% off the cover of that book. Now how would that business model be unfair?

Now for the second part –

And if you can't sell 2K comics (which is basically 1 comic to each store out there)... you really shouldn't be in the comics business.

Really? And who are you to dictate that? If I have 500 comic shops out there that want to read my comic book, why shouldn’t I be able to deliver it to those 500 readers? That is arrogance, some sort of entitlement that makes Diamond think they’re the guardians of quality and keepers of the comic book gate. They are distributors. Nothing more.



Again, the entire model is outdated and inefficient. Time for a change. I really, really hope something better comes along, because all Diamond is doing is encouraging publishers to charge more, which in turn discourages readers from buying, which is slowly killing the industry.

Why Digital Comics Should Remain Cheap

I had a reader leave a response to my post about Diamond comics saying that he had heard the argument about keeping digital comics cheap and that he disagreed. I responded back, but afterwards thought it important enough to warrant its own post. So here are my thoughts on digital comics and pricing, and why keeping them cheap is good for the industry:


Hi Eric - good comments. I am not so concerned with what Netflix has done for the HOLLYWOOD movie industry as the independent industry. It has given a HUGE platform for indy filmmakers whose work might otherwise never be seen. I am constantly running across little indy films on Netflix, some good, some bad, and love it!

The digital comics transition is going to be interesting to watch, but my whole point is this - without the costs of printing and Diamond taking their obscene cut of profits there is no reason to gouge your loyal fanbase. And yes, that is who the majority of comic book digital readers will be, people who already read comics. However, by offering lower cost digital books more of these readers might be tempted to check out some newer titles they otherwise might not:
1. Have the money to buy or
2. Even have ever heard of

Let's suppose a company establishes an online catalog of books, makes them available for .99 cents each and says you get one free with every ten you order. That is eleven books for ten dollars. DAMN! Not bad. How many more might they check out - at that rate why not? And if they like it they'll probably want to buy the hard copy, which they can get straight from the publisher, allowing him or her to make more money…

Diamond's business model discourages retailers from taking chances. It also makes it neigh impossible to make money for a creator.

Let's look at a book that charges 2.99 per issue. Pretty commonplace, right? Actually might be low nowadays. Anyway…
They sell 1000 through Diamond. That's 2999.00 - BUT Diamond takes their 60% off the top - 1799.4 - meaning the creator actually gets $1199.6 from Diamond. I know printing costs have risen, but let's conservatively say printing through Brenner where Diamond can pick up the stock off the docks (thus no shipping charges) costs 1200.00 bucks for arguments sake. There is no profit there and you just sold 1000 books.

Let's say that same book charges 3.99 per copy. 3999.00 profit minus Diamond's 60% rape of 2399.40 leaves $1599.6. A little better. But minus your 1200 printing cost you're left with a whopping 399.6 bucks. Average of .39 cents per book profit.

At .99 per book for a digital sale you'd only need to sell 400 books to make the same profit as a 1000 copies of a 3.99 print book distributed through Diamond (and this is using our conservative printing costs - actual printing costs nowadays are, I'm sure, much higher) .

I just do not think people are going to pay much for a digital book. You can't collect it, people can pirate it… but keeping it low encourages people to take a chance on new comics and why not buy it, it is so cheap anyway?

This is why cheaper digital books are good for the industry. If you make it expensive people simply won't buy it - You don't have a physical item that you can collect and it just isn't worth 3 or 4 dollars to buy it. That is an honest opinion. Plus the higher the cost the more you're encouraging people to pirate it. Again an honest opinion.

The Greed of Diamond Distributions

The times they are a changing… so wrote Bob Dylan back in 1964, and that saying is as true now as it was then - change is one thing you can always count on. Technological advances have changed the way we do business in every walk of life, and the comic book industry is no exception. Comic books, traditionally a print and paper product, are turning more and more toward a digital art form. Digital comic books - seems a weird concept. Yet that’s the way things are going for a number of reasons.

As I’ve mentioned on the blog here before, I got my start in comic books. A fan all my life, it was my early ambition to work in the comic book field. I studied art in college and began doing a little freelance work after graduation, and eventually started my own comic book company, along with my friend Chuck Angell. We self-published a handful of comics, most noteworthy of which is BEST CELLARS #1, which featured the first printed work of a young local artist we met named Eric Powell.

While running this company, originally called OUT OF THE CELLAR COMICS and later changed to VOLUNTEER COMICS, I learned a lot about the comic book industry. Deadlines, workflow, hours at the art table were all things I had anticipated – dealing with Diamond and Capital City, however, wasn’t. Capital City? Yeah, they were a distributor who was Diamond’s direct competitor back in the good old days when there was more than one major comic book distributor. Diamond eventually bought them out – and then there was one.

Capital City was always easier to deal with and had friendlier customer service. Once Diamond became the only game in town this became even worse. I’m speaking from the viewpoint of an Independent publisher with low print runs. Diamond had no minimum print run rule back then, although they preferred you kept it over 1000 and would drop you if you had three consecutive issues with under 1000 issues sold. At least this is my recollection of things, as we’re talking about the early 90’s here.

One thing that killed my enthusiasm for the self-publishing venture was Diamond Distributions. I HATED dealing with them. It was bad enough that comics cost so much to print. Paper costs were always rising and it cost 1000 bucks or more per issue to print. On top of that Diamond would take SIXTY percent of the cost of a comic right off the top. SIXTY percent. Unbelievable! By the time you paid to print a comic and Diamond took their cut of sales you were lucky to break even. For a family man working a 40 hour per week job and trying to make ends meet it was a stressful situation. Look, I understand that Diamond is in business to make money. But the whole model sucks.

I got out of the comic book publishing game and turned my creative energy toward my horror hosting gig, which I’ve been doing happily for 13 years now and counting. Over the years since then Diamond has become increasingly unfriendly toward small publishers, and in fact won’t even carry books under a certain order number, or so I am told. Originally 1000 copies, they later raised this minimum to 1500, a difficult number for many Indy publishers. The little guy is simply unwanted by Diamond, it isn’t worth their time, which is a shame. Rather than work with the Indy publishers they would rather push them out and concentrate on Marvel and DC, as that’s where the money is.

I really think this is a large part in the decline of the industry. You are pushing out the very people who are your life blood. I guarantee I am not the only creator who got out of the business and no longer buys any comics at all. This isn’t because I don’t like them, but more than anything else because I can’t justify paying 3-5 dollars for a COMIC BOOK! Ridiculous. I know I sound like a grumpy old man here but I used to pay 75 cents for comics that were way better than anything Marvel or DC is putting out nowadays. And the costs keep going up because of rising paper, printing and distribution costs.

So now along comes the internet, which I call the great equalizer. And you know what? Publishers now have instant distribution to the entire world without any printing or distribution cost! Amazing. The internet is the new distributor and Diamond is sweating. The writing is on the wall. This is the future of the industry. Ipads, ipods, iphones and other digital devices have really opened up this market.

Diamond is trying to take their monopoly into the digital domain, and if they have their way they would control the distribution of digital comics too. They have partnered with iverse and offer digital comics that are available to customers THAT BUY THEM IN THE COMIC BOOK SHOPS. Huh? You mean I have to actually walk into a shop to buy a code to download a digital comic? Yup. And here’s the kicker – they still make you pay 1.99 for it unless you buy a hard copy too, in which case the additional digital version only costs .99.

This makes no sense. They aren’t distributing ANYTHING across the internet. Let me reiterate. DIAMOND ISN’T DISTRIBUTING ANYTHING ACROSS THE INTERNET. The internet is the distributor here. The creator makes it. Iverse puts it online. Diamond simply adds to the cost by making it available in their catalog. As physical print sales of paper comics declines further and further why bother with Diamond? Go digital and forget them. I’m talking to the Indy publishers out there. Marvel and DC are doing their own thing digitally.

The time is ripe for a smart new company to swoop in and knock Diamond off their exclusive throne. Cut out the middle man - What makes much more sense than Diamond’s backwards-thinking model is simply an online catalog or list of comics available digitally that you can download from your own computer. You shouldn’t have to go into a comic book shop to get a digital comic if you don’t want to, and you shouldn’t have to buy anything else to get the cheaper download. Simply have an online catalog of weekly comics. Maybe charge a small fee to be listed, or a yearly fee, that the publisher pays to be listed in this catalog. Make it searchable, by company, creator, genre and style.

Digital comics should cost no more than .99 per issue. There is no paper cost, and no distributer taking 60% off the top. This makes a far cheaper product still financially viable. ENCOURAGE people to order MORE comics - Maybe offer a discount if they order ten or more digital comics. This could grow the entire industry! And best of all no crappy customer service, shipping costs, misplaced or mis-shipped product.

What Netflix did to the movie industry is about to happen to the comics scene. The old distribution mode is outdated. This really opens up some opportunities for publishers. It is time for Diamond to go away. Leave Diamond twisting in the wind like they have done the Indy publishers over the years. Go digital and use the print on demand printers for the few physical orders you have.