The Tech for Comics Ramble is a weekly digest of news from the intersection of technology and comics.
Crowdfunding
Making Audiobook Rewards Easier with Findaway Voices by Spotify
NFTs
nft.dcuniverse.com
Oct. 26 House of Mystery (1951–1983) #174 Price: $9.99 (Max purchase: 5 per account) Total Editions: 4,000
Veve.me
Oct. 26 Bloodstone (2001) #1 Elsa Bloodstone's first appearance. Published: 2001 Cover Variants: 5 Total Editions: 6,000 List Price: 6.99 (Still Available)
Oct. 24 Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #654 Agent Venom's first appearance. Published: 2011 Cover Variants: 5 Total Editions: 7,500 List Price: 6.99 (Still Available)
Star Atlas
The collectible covers for Star Atlas: CORE Act 2 - Episode 3 are now available.
For a video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1717258843095552326. Time-limited mint. Star Atlas marketplace edition: $20 USD; Magic Eden special edition: 0.6 Sol (~$19 USD)
Any conversions are approximate as the USD equivalent value of any cryptocurrency changes 24/7, in much the same way that the Euro/USD exchange rate fluxuates. In this case, USD is a US dollar “pegged”/backed cryptocurrency.
AI
This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI
The source paper: Prompt-Specific Poisoning Attacks on Text-to-Image Generative Models
To the best of my knowledge, this is strictly an academic paper, not an available tool. If anyone is aware of this research being implemented in an end-user product, please let me know.
Just Charts
Do you sell your comic internationally? If you are US-based, many of your customers are paying close to 10% more than they did two years ago, even if you haven’t raised your prices.
The situation is reversed for creators outside the US. If they primarily sell to the US market and are paid in US dollars, they are getting 8-10% more in terms of their local currency.
(This, of course, is just the gross amount taken in from sales. It doesn’t, for example, take into account cost inflation, especially for printing and shipping.)
Writer Accountability
The production contract for Lump Dog, the next issue of The Lump Sum Saga, is signed! Now comes the fun production part and the not-so-fun fork-over-the-moola part.
Does anyone need a kidney?With my DC “pitch” finished, I finally had a chance to catch up on a lot of small, unfinished tasks. I’m not to inbox zero yet, but I’m getting closer.
It looks like I’ll be using my tech skills to help out a comic publisher. It’s nothing too complicated (mostly data massaging for a database), but the contracting work will help with the whole need-money-to-make-comics thing.
In what may be an industry first, I may have blown out my left knee writing! I sit on a Pilates ball to save my back, but it means my legs get a pretty good workout from balancing. I got pretty engrossed this last writing stretch and put in some long hours. Now my knee is in a brace! Ha!
What I am watching
Invasion, Season 2, came to a satisfying “ending.” Season three, please!
🚀 Can’t spell my last name from memory? Seriously, who can?! 😂
Fortunately, you can now reach this substack via two easier-to-remember domain redirects: techforcomics.com and tech4comics.com.
Just for Fun 😂
Sound on. This little dude has better rhythm than I do!