Comic Con can be a mind bender in itself, with rows upon rows of artists, promoters, writers, creatives, and more! Not to mention the programming that is non-stop. I was lucky enough to be invited to listen to Donald Lanouette, a Canadian entrepreneur that has been working in the comic book industry for a long time. His most recent incarnation is as the founder of UCreateComics, an online platform that hopes to help writers and artists find an opportunity to build, grow, and promote their talent.
UCreateComics is a place for fans, writers, artists, and freelancers; and with 7,000 members it's a growing resources. It also clocks roughly 100,000 hits in traffic. Not bad for an independent endeavor. Donald had managed to raise a capital of around $1,000,000 to kickstart this company. His vision was simple: give artist a chance to get their first opportunity. UCreateComics has built relationships with independent publishing houses like Valiant and once they develop volume hope to connect with Marvel and DC Comics. They help distribute the created work in comic book stores all across the country.
So how does it work? Well there are monthly opportunities for artist to pitch their story via UCreateComics. Pitch100 is for graphic novels that are at least 90 pages but there are other non-graphic novel pitches. Donald stressed that graphic novels had longevity and allows artist to take their time with the creative process compared to monthly comic books. Candidates who pitch then garner a fanbase on the website and the most votes receive the opportunity of a $5,000 funding. For those who are writers not artists, UCreateComics helps the writer find an artist by creating a competition for artist to apply to. The winner is paired with a writer to help them develop the work.
Once the comic/novel starts selling, there is a 60-40 split between the artist and UCreateComics. This is because UCreate makes the product, help the writer refine the script, solicits artist bids, films, promotes/markets the item, and distributes. Freelancers are encouraged to join the platform for $70 a year, which allows them to enter competitions and build a fanbase. There is also a pay per pitch model where members can pitch their stories as many times as they want for $15 a pitch. This is an interesting platform and funding model, and may just be what the independent comic world needs in order to launch raw and relatively unknown talent.
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