Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hi everyone, Greg here. Today I want to give a quick demo of how to put a comic onto GlobalComix.com. I watched the app demonstration, and it just reminded me how fabulous the platform is [already] in its current state and it just keeps getting better. I thought it'd be a good idea to show you how easy it is to add your independent comic to the platform.
For this demo, I'm going assume that you already have a GlobalComix account. You can see in this case my little icon in the top corner shows it's me. So I'm already signed in.
For purposes of this demo, I'm gonna bring in six pages from an anthology piece that I did with Sterling Martin and Tom Lynott for the Panel Smiths called Alfie's Tale.
Currently, the file formats that GlobalComix supports include JPEGs, PNGs, and collection files like PDFs and CBZ s. Technically, there are probably file limit sizes on these, but GlobalComix [00:01:00] goes out of its way to make it as easy as possible for you to get things online. So generally speaking, if you've put your comic online before as a PDF or if you've sent it to a printer, those duplicate files should be usable in the GlobalComix environment.
And frankly, if they're not, I would strongly suggest you get in touch with GlobalComix because they bend over backwards to make sure that pretty much any content that's available can actually get onto the platform eventually.
Okay, let's get started. We're gonna go under the publish button and then head over to create new series.
And here's where you enter all your information about your series. So you're gonna have a series title. Noticed later, after, in this video, that I ended up making a typo here that I end up fixing later. [Set your] original publishing year and you language status.
One of the things that's [00:02:00] fabulous about global comics is the ability to submit comics, graphic novels, manga, or webcomics.
Here you [also] select the genre for your series. There are lots to pick from here. In this case, we're just picking one.
But under the theme, you can pick [up to six] different ones. This [story] is anthropomorphic and [I] picked a few more. Then [select your] art style - I wasn't entirely sure what to pick for mine, so I ended up picking Toon and Western Comic. [Next, select] the audience... you can pick any number of these and any advisory flags.
[Down here you select the ]page layout [00:03:00] and the reading direction. So you can go backwards if you're doing right to left if you're [uploading] Manga. [] select, for the series, your default access model. That's the default. You can change that on individual comics.
Now we have to set up a new release.
But first, before we do that, the series page [needs] a cover. I'm [] just going to pick page one from this little anthology piece to be [] the series image and adjust this… adjust the size and then upload.
So now we have a series image.
On this particular issue. We're gonna pick up a time. So, in this case, it's gonna be any time in the [00:04:00] future, but there are options to change. You can also give it a couple of tags and notice that the other, there were a lot of things in the were defaults taken from the series. Okay, so let's create a new issue, and we'll start dragging our images in. I've sped this up a little bit, but just dragging them in one at a time.
And we're most of the way there already. I'm gonna fine-tune a bunch of things, but you could actually post this as is. So I'm gonna force a single page cover and save changes. I noticed that it actually didn't [00:05:00] want to do that change until I put in a title, precisely the issue title.
And once I've got that in, I'm gonna go select a number of pages here. I'll show you in a sec. Here. I would like to set all of these to “free to read” as opposed to having some of your pages only available to GlobalComix subscribers. I've selected that I'm actually not going to be receiving any revenue from this, but I'm just putting it in here as a promotional piece, and it's just fun.
Notice now that the first page is a forced single-page cover, and the other pages are side by side. You can see some of the specific [00:06:00] information about this particular page. And note that it says, always “free to read.” You can see what it looks like in different formats or on different setups.
Okay, now we're gonna get into editing each individual page, and this is where we're gonna add our frames. I haven't played with the text tool yet, so I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I definitely have played with the frame option. So let's do that now.
[] Add a frame and [] select and drag across the portion that you want to be an individual frame. Go down to the next one. Add frame.
So I think I'm gonna add Alfie here as one. [00:07:00] [] notice how that word balloon goes outside of the frame. [] I've dragged below that for the frame. [] In a future version of GlobalComix, we might be able to handle strange shapes. []We'll have to see if that comes along in the future. So now I've got two frames on this page. Now a third frame.
You can grab a corner, and actually [put] irregularly shaped frames around irregular panels. [T]hat's our third frame. Just grab it by the corners. Adjust it[00:08:00]. We'll put in the last panel here. So one more panel.
I'm going to do the same process for the rest of the pages, but I'm gonna speed this up. Overall, putting this [comic] in, including searching around for things that I forgot how to do, took about 45 minutes to get this comic up. If I remembered more about what I was doing before I started, it would've been much, much faster.
Here's an example of an irregular panel.[00:09:00] []I'm gonna set this frame to have a bit of an angle to it. There are several on this page that Sterling put in, and I like the look of them here. []
Hopefully, you get the gist there. I'm going to fast-forward through the rest here.
[] So [] I'm finishing up the first draft here. Here I'm going to enable the immersive reader, so that's down towards the bottom [00:10:00] there. That's going to allow me to see how my comic reads frame-by-frame. [You can] do a quick review. I wasn't happy with this last page.[] You can see here I'm just moving around some frames and changing some frames to make it more the effect I was after. Once we've got our frames in, [you can] do a chapter synopsis.
I could copy the private URL if I wanted someone to review it. If you want, you can do your [00:11:00] licensing and monetization. So [for example] your first ten pages of each release. We had those [set on] individual pages, but we can override that here. Default access model. So again, in this case, I wanted it to be free. [This is also where] you can add in different countries.
Super important. I want to be able to honour my fellow collaborators, and so this is where we can put in your artist and letterer, put your own name in. Mr. Writer.
[W]e can also add language support. I suspect that has to do with the text in there. I haven't had a chance to play with that yet.
Also super fascinating is the ability to, on GlobalComix, point to an active crowdfunding campaign. [00:12:00] [] For me, anyways, it's typically going to be Kickstarter, and you can [just] set up all the essential information here, and that will show up on your page.
I just wanted to add a few more details. I correct[ed] the series title typo that I noticed before [] I just wanted to show you that [so you’d be aware] you can change things later. [I]t's quite okay to experiment and see how things are going. it is very flexible.
When you're ready to publish finally - get it out to the public and save your changes. [00:13:00] You can do a preview[] or, when you're ready, you can schedule your release.
It's also here where you have to declare your AI usage. This currently has to do with whether you can monetize your comic or not.
[Once you’ve done that,] schedule and publish - you are live as soon as you've pushed this button and you’ve crossed the date that you set!
Once you've got that, you can start promoting it. So here I'm gonna share on Twitter, you're gonna want to keep [00:14:00] the link the same, but you can change the text.
There you go. Your comic is out in the wild!
How to Post Your Comic on GlobalComix