Hi everyone, Greg here. I’m back!
Welcome to season three of Tech for Comics! I hope everyone is doing well.
In this post, I want to talk about my plans for 2024. The TL;DR is that this is the year that I finally lean hard into actually being a comic writer.
Around our house, we’ve jokingly observed that I go through seven-year cycles of intense pursuit. My wife has been a nurse for well over 40 years, and needless to say, she’s the steady one around here. Meanwhile, I’ve pinballed between careers and deep interests ranging from motorsports reporting to being a multimedia software developer to being middle-school teacher, with the application of technology being the common thread between all of these.
Right now, I am neck deep in my comics phase and even this adventure can be broken down into stages.
Stage 1 - The naive stage, where I didn’t even know what I didn’t know, and the Dunning-Kruger effect was on full display. It may surprise people to know that I wrote about 80% of an entire original graphic novel during this stage. In retrospect, I am so happy that that work will never saw the light of day. Ha!
Stage 2 - The education stage, where I dove into learning more about writing comics. To be honest, I will always be learning, but in this stage the time spent learning left very little time to actually write, run Kickstarters, etc. Even though I didn’t get a lot of comics on the shelf during this stage, I met so many of my awesome comic industry friends during this time, so it was time well spent.
Stage 3 - 2023 was my infrastructure year. This Substack mailing list and podcast, my online Shopify store (TLSScomics.com), my first con appearance, and my book (Comic NFTs - An Ethical Approach) have all laid the groundwork for a sustainable comics career.
But what is missing in all of the above? Actually being a comic writer!
Yes, I do have one comic under my belt, but to date, my days have been filled with a lot of prep and infrastructure but very little comic script throughput. The goal is to change that and so far I am off to a great start!
Here are my main goals for 2024.
I Plan to Be a Productive Comic Writer
I am super excited to report that the script for the next issue of The Lump Sum Saga is currently with Sergi and his art has already started to hit my Dropbox. For fans of the first issue of TLSS, Lump Dog will be very different, but I promise the stories are connected. The current goal is to run the Kickstarter campaign this April.
This is exciting enough, but what is different is that TLSS is not the only script I have in development. It’s only January, and I already have:
A super exciting horror script at the “let’s put together a contract” stage with a amazingly talented artist with whom I’ve always wanted to collaborate,
A short anthology piece - one that I am actually helping to draw - that should be complete and ready for submission by the end of the month,
A SciFi one-shot pitch that an influential industry pro recently encouraged me to expand into multiple issues,
An extended DC event pitch ready to go if I ever get “the call.” It will likely never see the light of day, but I had to get it out of my system. Ra's al Ghul and Blue Beetle in space? Heck ya!
Multiple pitches just waiting to exit my fingertips. (If you are an artist interested in collaborating with a writer who knows Kickstarter, please do not hesitate to reach out!)
I’m not going to lie. Last Friday, I had one of those awesome days when so many things fell into place that it gave me hope - hope that I actually might be able to make a go of a sustainable comics career as a writer.
I Plan to Be Helpful
One important life lesson everyone eventually learns is that if you are going to say yes to something, by default, it means that you are invariably saying no to something else. There is only so much time.
So, given that I have a goal to write more scripts, it means I have less time to write elsewhere, and that includes here on Substack. I suspect my cadence will drop to once a week, and even that is probably aspirational. This reality made me think a lot about how I could still be as helpful as possible to the comics community while at the same time actually reducing the amount of content that I produce.
In summary, I’m going to move away from simply reporting news and events and lean into my relatively unique area of expertise - the application of technology to comics. Watch this space for more how-to videos and walk-throughs. At some point this year, I also want to complete my series on world-building through the lens of cultural universals, showing you tools that can help make this process more efficient.
To date, I have mostly avoided wading into the controversial world of AI. Ironically, I have avoided talking about one of the most disruptive and controversial aspects of technology that has ever affected comic creators. And to be honest, I have opinions and some wisdom I can offer, but I’m not entirely sure I’m brave enough quite yet to step into this controversial space. No matter what I say, I will annoy someone, and if writing and crowdfunding are the goals this year, I am not sure it is worth it. That said, I promise that if I do dive into this area, I will do it from the perspective of trying to help your career.
I Plan to Be Authentic
Right about now, long-time subscribers will be asking, what about The Ramble? Many of you have reached out to tell me how useful this industry overview has been. The short answer is that, at least for the time being, The Ramble is going on hiatus. It was taking me the better part of the day to create.
In its place, I will be moving The Ramble to a special section of a new Tech for Comics Discord! Instead of manually aggravating announcements from key players in the industry, I am creating a one-stop access point for announcements using Discord’s “follow” feature. It won’t be the same as a single weekly e-mail digest, but on the bright side, drops and PR announcements will be available to you as soon as they are posted. One of my first walk-through videos will be of this new server once I am finished building and testing (hopefully no later than March of this year).
The Tech for Comics Discord, as well as a Kumospace, will help me with another of my goals for this year. In the age of AI, I feel it is important for creators to connect with readers and colleagues as a real person. You can expect to see and learn more about me as a human being. Many of you already know that I am prone to TMI and certainly won’t be changing any time soon. I hope talking about my health struggles and victories as an older creator will give you food for thought and be a point of connection between us as human beings. #SorryNotSorry
So, yeah, I’m super excited about the year ahead, even if the first month is already behind us!