Friday, September 29, 2017

Alt*Hero Rises

As I'm sure many of you are already aware, Vox launched his Alt*Hero project yesterday. Within four hours, it had met its 25k(US) goal. It is currently past the first stretch goal of 40k, and well, if it manages to get all the way to 70k, there will be a second omnibus.

I'm still a bit on the cautious side with my optimism for this project. Not for the funding side, it's already doing really well there, to the point where there's less than I believe 50 similar projects over the years that have done better on Kickstartr, a much larger platform. In fact, I(in addition to many) appear to have underestimated the demand for this type of project. Given that only 11 people are backing just to trigger the SJWs(no comics rewards), people that have been pretty quiet are using their money instead of their mouths.

Why have I been a bit cautious? Vox has admitted it's not his format. This is a bit of a concern if he doesn't understand the conventions of the media. Also, I was not impressed with the art early on. As I see more, it's growing on me, and the world is definitely becoming more immersive. The character designs look pretty good so far.

If the writing and art continue to improve(I mean for the medium, Vox's prose is excellent), this bodes very well for Castalia House Comics.  I'm guessing that Vox is turning in prose, rather than scripts, to his artists, as he's commented that he gave them what he thought was two pages of material, and it came out to three or four. This indicates not thinking in terms of the medium, and might actually be undermining the art. How? Because if Vox learns the trick he can pull if he starts thinking in panels and nonstandard layouts, he can write as though he's directing a movie, detailing each shot. Right now, the panel layout is pretty standard, and looks very much tied to comic strips(modern newspaper) or webcomic ideas.

Vox only recently found out that most work at the Big 2 is done for hire. Now, that's not the way with a lot of other places, because the do a lot more creator owned work. But, Vox finding this revelation might make it easier for him to deal with comics creators down the line, as he mentioned he will pay royalties, in addition to some flat fees. I don't have a clue how the fees will compare, but this will help draw guys like Chuck Dixon in when the time is right.

Given growth similar to what Castalia has had in print, I have no doubt that they'll become a real presence in comics within a couple of years. And I anticipate other players coming into being as well, both on the production and distribution side.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

6 comments:

  1. Have to concur that Castalia is likely a long-term competitor in the market.

    The Current-Year Marvel/DC crowd is frightened by a few upstart companies and some bad words. No testosterone to speak of here.

    What happens when Castalia starts drawing in bigger name talents, or the Castalia author bullpen steps up to write, or other larger players see the market can be taken from the Big 2 with little or no effort other than producing FUN and TRUE things.

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    1. I dunno. What i'm curious about is how will Diamand also react? I can sense some epic collusion to derail althero
      But i'm simply speculating
      xavier

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  2. [Now with better clarity.]

    Castalia doesn't have to use Diamond. Diamond's advantage is that they have an established channel to the existing comic book shops. The trick is to get the info about the book to the comic shops. After that, Diamond is out of the loop.

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    1. Thanks. So basically disrupt the OODA loop. Got it but will Diamnond pressure the comic books store not to carry alt hero?
      That I guess is my main concern
      xavier

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