Interview: Digging Into Graveyard Shift with Jon Malin
John F. Trent
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BIC: What do you make of ComicsGate’s success over the past year? Do you think it will continue to grow?
Jon: It’s astounding! In about 6 months this community raised over a million dollars with just a few titles, good and decent writers/artists in any Indy publisher would kill for what we did while they go broke by passively allowing political zealots to further erode the audience which effects EVERYONE in that publisher/system, when leaders lack backbone in regards to protecting the financial interests of ALL creators and their own company it sets up an environment where no one wants to rock any boats for fear of backlash not just from the publisher but those they view as peers, so the lunatics run the asylum.
That is the current comics industry and by exposing this we had and continue to have no mainstream comic press coverage, we we’re completely blacked out when we did JAWBREAKERS, CBR forbid even talking about us on their message boards, The VP/EIC of Aspen Comics, Vince Hernadez called us “EXTREMISTS” and we had no room full of over paid marketing execs to help get past these burdens or any other benefits of corporate comics that places like BLEEDINGCOOL and CBR kowtow to. We had social media and we leveraged the shit out of it– and won.
As long as SJW representatives of the comics industry as we know it keep telling their customers to essentially get bent, use political intimidation and identity politics to tell everyone where their place is or when they can sit, stand and speak… with no repercussions from the top down we will grow, through the power of YouTube we will expand the comics audience to people who never walked into a comic shop or bought a comic in their life while the castrated comics industry allows a growing handful of political zealots in positions of power to whittle away all customers from within.
BIC: The success has come when the industry at-large is contracting. A report indicated the entire industry shrunk by 6% last year. Do you think they might adapt to tap into the ComicsGate market?
Jon: I think the comics industry still doesn’t understand why they’re failing when they try to bring in people like Zoe Quinn, political dividers to try and continue to bring in an SJW audience of low artistic standards and lower tolerance for wrong think and micro aggressions. They’ll double and triple down on identity politics until they crash and burn completely.
My hope is that the writers/artists leave these companies, take some inspiration from us and help us all rebuild the audience through You Tube channels (Or whatever future social media exists as we grow) and crowd funding, I’d love to reach a point where I, as a customer could pay say $25 on a single campaign and get 5 GRAPHIC NOVELS by industry superstars grouped together pledging their absolute best works because we’ve solidified an audience of 20,000 backers or better. JAWBREAKERS, a comic by relative unknowns will have brought in 10,000 backers so imagine what happens when the energy of top talent leave en masse on a scale SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the Image Comics exodus of the 90’s. I believe without significant change that is coming really fast.
Through this comics and conventions can continue to exist. Publishers and local comic shops as we know them will sadly be a thing of the past.
BIC: Are there any creators you want to work with moving forward?
Jon: Mark Millar is top of my list.
BIC: Where do you see the future of comics?
Jon: Direct Market Marvel, DC, IDW, Image, etc. and local comic shops will die, as we know them, without a drastic change in direction. I believe strong, dramatic action by Marvel Comics can help this industry from top to bottom but they lack true courage to do what needs to be done. It isn’t just the political zealots poisoning the well, it’s piss poor stories, declining art. We need someone with vision in the EIC chair to grab the audience by the throat with fantastic stories and art, rebuild and expand the lines. Marvel is NOT a “lifestyle brand” they are a comic book publisher, not a food channel or whatever else shark jumping they have in store.
Comicsgate has laid out the map for the future of comic books, we built an audience with YouTube by simply talking about something you have real passion for and interacting positively with your fans, treating them with respect regardless of political beliefs and putting ego aside. Do this and should you decide to launch a product I believe you can get 5% of your audience to back it at a $25 entry level and comics will continue in a very real and significant way!
BIC: Do you have an update for us on Jawbreakers – Lost Souls?
Jon: Yeah, I turned in the last page AUG 3rd I do believe and have turned my attention to prepping GRAVEYARD SHIFT, Brett should be wrapping on his end any day now, lettering should be well underway and I’m looking forward to seeing the campaign wrapped and books at my door. I ordered the $50 tier!
BIC: Aside from Graveyard Shift are you working on anything else?
Jon: Yes! I have a goal to massively broaden the comic book readership to larger audiences that may have never read a comic through what I hope to be significantly larger projects, I started by testing Richard’s audience of what at the time was 60k, now I’m going to experiment with others and see what results we can get and how far we can stretch into massive audiences that may not be die hard comic fans. Hopefully more on that soon.
BIC: We will definitely be looking forward to that! How can people keep in touch with you and make sure they never miss an update? Do you have your own YouTube channel?
Jon: I do, it’s @JONMALIN on twitter and MORTAL ENEMY on YouTube, I’ll be ramping up on YouTube in a week or two as we get ready to launch GRAVEYARD SHIFT!
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