Comic Industry – Little Elf in big Pond of Drama, The Comic Industry USA

We Live in a Society….

I have to say I was wow… when I say the movie Joker. It left me speechless. At first it was very daunting because it felt like a prediction. I have been following the “woke” and “metoo” movements. It felt like the Joker was the spark that set off chaos. You could tell thought out the whole move that there was problems with society and it could be set off into chaos with just one little blow.

We live in a society that is very simpler to what is in the movie. Just yesterday I heard of a story where a 23 year old woman is fighting for her right to die because her mental health is so bad and she cannot handle the pain from crippling from her period. We are having more young people who are not able to handle the normal cruel world when they want to give up on living. Children are being raise being protection from the cruel world to the point, they are not prepare for how cruel it really is.

“We live in a society…

Years ago I heard of a story when 2 out 3 people deal with depression or some type of anxiety. And the media does not help with this, it make things worst with fake stories and dividing whole groups of people from others. Now we have more people believes things such as the moon landing was not real but fake. Because if you keep putting out fakes stories than people will start believing rumors and what is on the internet forms.

“We live in a society…

Also, if we think about how the labors workforce are being treating than you would see more problems. They are starting to be treating less than human. Many company human resources departments are a joke. I don’t think telling people to treat each other nicer is going to fix that. I think the problem is many people are not made for the regular workforce such as me. I am lot happier now because I am working for myself and controlling my own future.

We live in a society…

However, it is very hard to start a business when your only way of getting your name out is social media. Social media is turning more pro corporation which is making it hard for small time business owners. In fact, I have been shadow ban on Facebook and Twitter. They are shared my content less and less. I know I am not the only one having this problem, it is starting to be notice by the media. There are expect who came out and say that it is a real problem.

“We live in a society…

And if that was not bad. There is talk about a civil war may happen to the US. The extreme left Democrats in Congress are fighting with the Trumps Federal agencies over border security concerns. The last year, the Democrats have say some crazy things and the media only report “Orange Man Bad.” Like we live in some stone age period where intelligent is left out.

“We live in a society…

Oh, and the trade war with China is getting worst. It is possible that China have their hand in our money too and may have control over a US recession.

“We live in a society…

I think our biggest problem is mental health because if we don’t have adults with mental toughness than many will not be able to deal with the troubles that may come our way in the future. I believe that movie may end up being a wake up call for many. I just hope that it would do that because if we cannot handle failing a test or rejection than we are in trouble if our peaceful times come to an end.

My Hardest Critic Is Me

As an artist you have to deal with criticism. However, for me my biggest critic is myself. I am very impatience went it comes to my art and I hate waiting for people to look at my art and tell me what they think. There is times I feel like I almost cannot breath due to the pressure of waiting to heard people tell me what they think.

I think it have gotten worst in past years for me. It have to do a lot with the many failures I have in my life. Such as getting an degree in Biological Engineering and never really working in my field. As well as having a divorce after 11 years of marriage with two children and losing my children in the process (which I have not seen my children in six years). I have this hidden pressure to be successful. I feel like I am trying to make up for the many failures I have experiences.

You may asked why I am talking about criticism. It is because I have to fight my own feeling that I may fail before I know the results of what kind of impact my art have on people. I was feeling so happy early today right before I release my latest chapter for Nocturnal Orphan. However, as the night went on and I got lost with my thoughts in my head that “Oh no, what if my art is not good?” “What if I did not do all I need to for the story?”

The only things that kept me from giving in to these thoughts is “what if I used this feeling for more content?” I thought of manga that I love very much call Skip Beat. The main character when though a lot of heartbreak and she was an actress in show biz. She used the painful feeling to remember what her face expression look like for acting. She used the hard times toward her professions.

I guess you could say I am writing this to talk myself out of allowing my feeling control my actions. I am not giving up.

If you would like to read Nocturnal Orphan, here is a link for you.

What Is Comicsgate?

You may have heard the term comicsgate which is thought to come from gamergate. However, it have another meaning. Check out the video below.

The most important thing to remember is to never give up on your dreams. If you want to create comics than you should do that. Just know like anything, it take work to be successful. And don’t let a few people on social media determine what path you take. That is your choice alone.

How to Choose between Self Publishing or Publisher Company?

So recent I have choice to pull out of Zazu Zine + Comix Publisher in Oct 2019. This was not an easy decision to come up with, however, it did not sound good for my business. From the beginning, I kept hearing that we will not talk about sponsorship, distribution, and marketing until after we get comic done. As we where getting closer to the deadline for the submitting comic, we start to discuss sponsorship, distribution, and marketing a little.

The conclusion with sponsorship was that it was going to pay for start up cost of publishing and first round of prints of comic. I asked will we have continuously revenue coming in to pay for re-stock and marketing because if we divide up the revenue from sales to all artists, and publisher individual, than where will the money come for paying for re-stock and marketing? However, will you start up a company on the first project without investing money from product to keep it up? The answer I got was we will deal with it when we get there. That answer sound too much like “Lets wing it.” The publisher say that she will pull money from her other business to pay for marketing and more re-stock.

So I made the decision to pull out because I don’t think this will be any different than publishing myself. Yes, I would not pay for the cost of publisher if I do that, however, I would we be doing more work to promote this publisher and not get much out of it. I believe a company need to invest in it self from the very beginning or it will not be able stand on it own very long. I also believe that many investor would not support a company that is not willing to create it own revenue coming in to keep it running.

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I have deciding to look into self publisher or another publisher company. I am working on writing out the first five chapter of Angie’s Adventures. My plan is to still plan for the release in Oct for Chapter 1. I will be looking at digital comics as well. I am hoping that I could get three Chapter done by Jan 2020. For I have plans to go to Mars Con Jan 2020 in Williamsburg, VA.

I would like to hear your thoughts on self publisher vs publisher company. I know there is more work and investing more money when it come to self publisher. However, I feel it is do able and I have the skills to market myself. Also, I would like to hear your thoughts on how long is a series you enjoy reading. I am looking into making Angie’s Adventure into a long series or break it up in parts. I am also thinking about making one shot comics for individual characters such as Fredrick and Alphonse background and Two-bit background. Fredrick and Alphonse story will be very different from Two-bit story. One will be very serious and the other will be more humor. One story will be around tragic and revenge while the other story will be around heart break and money.

The good news out of all of this, I will be bringing more content to the viewer than what I had plan previous. Which Chapter 1, I will be able to add more papers to it than what I original plan under ZAZU.

Archie Comics and My Childhood

My favorite memory of growing up in New Orleans, LA is when I walk to and from school. Between my home and school was Archie Comic Studio. And it get ever better, my middle and high school was call Riverdale, the same school in Archie Comics. So of course, I read Archie comics. And it was easy available for me because they sold the comics in my groceries store next to my house.

I talk with people today and many people did not know that comics was sold in grocery stores. Today is sound like everyone think comic store is the only place to sell comics if it is not a comic con or anime con. In the past, comic was in book store, grocery store, and convention store.

So if you are looking for a good comedy and high school life comic, Archie is a good one to read. Today you still get buy comics such as Archie, you just have to buy them online.

Betty and Veronica are romance rivals for Archie. Archie like Veronica because of her money while Betty like Archie. However, Archie sometimes gives into Betty.

Archie have did series such as Betty and Veronica friends which is focus on the romance rivals relationship of Betty and Veronica for they both like Archie.

In the same world that was created call Archie, there was other fun stories such as Josie and the Pussycats. They was a high school rock band. You may have heard of the movie, well this is where the movie came from.

So if you would looking for comics that have more romances, comedy, and good old fun times than Archie is a good one to read. And who all cannot forget Jughead, the one kid who only thing on his mind is food. Judhead will do anything for a burger.

Not Easy being Create…

This week is one of those week when things such does not go as plan. I had some personal life stuff happen this week that have made it hard to stay focus on create new content. Mostly it is people that got in the way. This had happen to me a few time that I know it is the price for trying something new. Any time when you are trying to start your own business or working on a new project at work, there will be a few that just does not want to see you be successful at it.

When this happen, I allow myself to be flexible and broken my own rules. Just like I say that I would have new design for my sale by Monday, I just decide to delay it a little bit. It is not like I am a large company or have a large follower base right now so I could get away with that kind of stuff. Plus I did not give myself time off in between working on my part time job and working on my business which I am bad at.

However, I did get an awesome artwork of Angie, my main character from my comic series Angie’s Adventures, done. It is a picture of her if she were in school. I believe this picture will give you a little look into what kind of personally she will have.

If you would like to support me, you can like or subscribe to my blog for more post such as this one. And if you would like support my art, you can visit my website: http://www.mariahargis.com for T-shirts, mugs, and prints of art for sale.

Finding Inspiration/ How Do You Find Inspiration?

The video is a update on my business. I have been working a couple of part time job to make up for the missing income and for better camera equipment for more videos. I will be making video for online courses. However, right now I am looking for better video editor software. The current software program I have is not able to do what I want it to do. I want to be able to make fast speed video of me painting on canvas. I want to be able to show you my progress. It have been a learning progress figure out how to make that happen.

Also in the video I take about how I was inspired to make more traditional art from my comics series Angie’s Adventures. I feel like I have a lot of ideas for new painting ever since I starting working on comics.

DuckDuckGo vs Google, Part II

As promise, I am doing another comparison of DuckDuckGo vs Google. This time I am looking at when you search for the word comics. Now the biggest different I found between the two search engine, is one use your location in your search and the other does not. Could you guess which one use your location? Of course you can, we are know that Google use your location for advertisement. Which can get in the way, if you are using search engine to learn about something. We all hear the phase, if you don’t know something, Google it. I guess you could say the best place to learn what a comics is by going to a comic book store. However, comic book store are usually Marvel and DC which mean, if you are not into heroes stories, than it just does not appear to you. Now there are some comic stores that have other publisher and self-publish comics, but it is best to call first before going to found out if they carry them.

DuckDuckGo does not used your location in the search for comics. Now DuckDuckGo will recommended places to buy comics but it is online . So on their first page, you have more link to other website. Google take up most of the first page for map of local comics store, alternate search topics, and topic stories about the topic of comics.

Google provide more source for comics about pop culture that is controversial. Such as one of the Top Stories is Dark Phoenix from a opinion digital news source that is very extreme left. Also, it provide more news blogs that are on the left when it comes to the political side such as the Washington Post.

If you click on a few of the links that Google found on the front page, they will take you to lots of comics that was at one point in newspapers that are call comic strips. At least four of them: Comic A-Z List GoComics, Free Comics – Comic Strips, Comics – The Washington Post, and Comics/ArcaMax Publishing. Now I don’t believe this is all Google fault for thinking that comics are all comics strips and Marvel and DC. There have been some debate in the comic industry that many who work in Marvel and DC have out right say that graphic novel is not comics. So this have rewrite in some people what comics is, because their are graphic novels that starting up popular shows such as Scooby-Doo. I have talk with people older than me ( I am 36) who are in their 40s and 50s, and back then their was no difference between what a graphic novel and comic was. They was the same thing and still is, it is just a few people in the comic industry will not recognize that is the case.

DuckDuckGo have one Ad post at the top. It have 13 links other than the Ad link. It give you more sources for you to look at on it first page. Now DuckDuckGo does have Washington Post listen twice, however, one of the post from Washington Post have describe of example of what comics title are. DuckDuckGo is playing it safer by having only links in their search, it is design different from Google. Google search engine have example of all their features on the first page. DuckDuckGo does have images and map features, you just have to click the tab on the top of the page to look at images and map.

However, I do found a few things great about DuckDuckGo. First their Ad link, Renta! Online – Manga Store, is manga which Google did not ever think was comics. Manga is the Japanese word for comics. Many people in the comics industry does not think of manga as comics;however, manga is growing more popular every day. Which means that DuckDuckGo is keeping up with the trends of comics fans. The second ad is to My Comic Shop which gives you a range of class comics such as Godzilla, The Walking Dead, DCeased (a DC comic), and Captain Marvel (a Marvel comic).

In the search with DuckDuckGo above, I look at around 5 pages under image to see how it look vision when you do the search. In the search, you get a good look at what comics have been over the years. Many of the comics that are not heroes, are pretty well know that I grew up with such as Archie, The Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny, Heathcliff, Futurama, Garfield, and more. These are great example of comics that are not subject around a hero and villain story. If you asked most youth today about these comics, but most likely they would not know they had a comic. The youth today in the US does not know that Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Spider-man came from a comic. When I say youth, I am talking about high school, middle school, and elem school children, the ones that comics was written in the first place for because they did not like reading without pictures.

In the gallery above is Google search in image. The first thing I notices there are a lot of memes mix in the search. Also there is a lot of comic strips as well. The search I did was the word “comics” not memes or comic strips. The second thing is most of the memes and comic strip are one side point of view from the left political party in the US. There are more political comics than anything in the search, many from left wing digital news media. The third thing is Marvel and Dc take up the spots that are not so political and Marvel and DC have political memes as well. I will say that they do have a little bit of non hero story comic in the search but you do not found any until the third page such as Archie. However, the number of non heroes stories are way less. You have to really scroll to found them and this is a problem for anyone who don’t have very good internet. Internet is becoming more expense and many families in low income housing usually depend on their government smart phone or have a low data base plan for their smart phone. My point is most people will go with the first two page in the search because if it become hard or take too long to load, people will go with what they can learn in the moment.

Now you can do the search on your own and see what you get when you search the word comics on both DuckDuckGo and Google. However, from a teacher point of view, I like DuckDuckGo better. It did put some comic strips and meme in the search but not to the point that Google did. DuckDuckGo put mostly titles of comics series in their image search.

I believe DuckDuckGo is a good alternate to Google as far as answering the question for what I am searching for. I hope that this was helpful to you and I would like love to hear your feedback on what I wrote.

Writing from the Heart

You know I have been told that I am too kind for my own good. However, the reason why making comics and create art is so important to me because I had time in my life that was so rough, breathing was hard. It seem like no matter what I did, my situation was not going to get better. However, anime was my saving grace and one anime stand out above the rest. That anime was Fairy Tail, created by Hiro Mashima. Fairy Tail is story of a world full of wizard and magic. It is name Fairy Tail after a wizard guild call Fairy Tail. The story is full of challenge the members of Fairy Tail goes thought and many time they was situation when they was fighting for their lives. However, no matter how hard the situation was they never give up. Some how they would make it tho and gain strength from it. I did not have friends or family members to help me in this dark time of my life. At the same time I was persecuted due to me liking anime. I don’t think I would have gotta so interest in anime like I am now if I was accepting for what I like.

The dark part of my life that I am talking about is right after I graduated from NC A&T State Univ with a BS degree in Biological Engineering with honors. I had trouble found work in my field and I was pressure at the time by my husband who later become my ex-husband. At the time, I did not realized that I was in a deep depression. I did not realized that I was suffering from depression and anxiety until shit hit the fan. I found my self in Duke Hospital over night for suicide attempt, put in by my husband at the time. At the time I was not suicide, but I have many time before than months ago that I have thought about it when fights got so bad between my husband and me. We did not have health relationship and I had no one to talk about the problems I was facing with him. I felt so trap back than. I did have the courage back than to talk to my husband about doing karate for my kids because I was worry for my kids more than my own self. I remember I was a mess many time during karate practices and it was working to help me to deal with the many deep emotions I had bottle up.

Title: Crying Snake, media is acrylic. When you feel so different and people treat you like a monster, it looks like this. You feel trap in a world of death. However, you can made a decide to related on your strength and craw out of it.

However, I did not know at the time, my ex-husband was planning a divorce. At first he play like it was all about getting me help. He was talking with my dad and the rest of my family behind my back. He convinced them that I had schizophrenia for my mom had it. He used to court system to keep me from my children. Also, two day after I got out of the hospital, he met me in a library and had me sign separation pages. I knew what separation pages was and asked nervous, I was not a state to think logical at that time, “what are you wanting a divorce?”

He say,”No, no, no. I just think this would be for the best. You are sick and need help. This is only temporary until you get better.”

At the time I was living in hotel room with little money my ex-husband give me and force to communicate thought my sister indirectly. I was treating like I was some kind of monster. Also, being over night in the hospital was scary. I was surround by crazy people and the bathroom was gross. The doctors was asked me when you watch anime, do you see things between the lines. My answer was I enjoy anime because it express emotions more in the stories. They say they was told to say this to me by my ex-husband and dad. My dad lie to me this day and say that he never talk with the doctors when I was over night. I don’t have a relationship with my dad or other family member, that is a story for another time.

All the people I thought I could turn to during this time, abandon me for they was mutual friends thought both my ex-husband and me. They was church members of the church I went with my ex-husband who was in school to become a pastor at Duke University.

I remember the most important thing, “Don’t Give Up NO MATTER HOW HARD THINGS ARE.” I used the separation time as a way of getting my life back the way I want. I was free to think for myself. I went hiking in the many state parks of NC. I painting beautiful landscape scenery from my hiking. I got a counselor and she encourage to keep hiking and painting. My counselor had a background in child development, I learn thought her about my speech impairment. Speech impairments are a type of communication disorder where normal speech is disrupted.

Til this day, I still consider myself as a traditional artist. When I started to feel really emotions and I cannot focus on my work. I take some time to paint and have anime play in the background of my living room. This is what have work for me.

Now I am happy as I could me for my situation. It have been five years since I seen my children and I miss them greatly. However, I am moving forward toward my goals and dreams. I have not giving up. Right now I may not have a lot of followers on social media but I have a roof over my head, food, and water. I have the things to live and have fun. So I am not living a bored life which is great.

This last Christmas, I got to hang out with friends for the first time since my divorce, I was not alone during the holidays. And I made Natsu cookies and give them to my friends as Christmas gifts.

I don’t feel like I have to be mean or mad to get people attention. I feel the opposite, that if I take a lead and show people that there is a way to have fun in this world. I think more people would prefer to have a good time instead of being upset. So when I created comics, I want to make people laugh and have a good time. I want it to be something they will enjoy. I also feel like I would have a stronger connection with them if I could reach them thought their emotions. That is how it when I read Fairy Tail manga or when I watch Fairy Tail anime. I feel connected to the characters in the story and make me want more. I am now reading Hiro Mashima next manga Edens Zero. I have become loyal fan of his. I would like to have the same connections with my own fans of my comic series.

I can openly talk about my past now and hope that this could help someone else who maybe having a hard time. If this is too kind, than I never want to change. This world need more kindness not less.

Have You Ever Google Comics?

If you have ever Google comics, than the only thing will come up is DC and Marvel, Super Hero genre. When you asked the average adults if they read comics, they may say no or redirect you to their kids. I believe the average adult opinion have been influence by social media betrays of comics. Social media promote most of the time DC and Marvel everywhere. Google search engine will only pull up heroes genre. Many YouTubers will say that it is because of Google SEO system. But I have a feeling that is not the case, because I am sure that I am not the only comic writer who used SEO on their website.

It have been cover in other articles that Diamond Comic Distributors dictate that only DC and Marvel make it into major comic stores across the nation washing the competition. Marvel is own by Disney while DC is own by Time Warner Bros. However, Time Warner Bros is own by AT&T.

While Disney and Google have a huge Ad partnership which gives Disney access to multiple platform. So no matter how good your SEO is for your comic or book, Disney will get first dibs on a Google search if you have something in common with Disney productions.

https://www.inc.com/peter-roesler/google-disney-announce-huge-ad-partnership.html

Quote from article above: “Disney and Google share a passion for bringing quality content and information to everyone, everywhere,” wrote Philipp Schindler, Google’s Chief Business Officer, in a post announcing the partnership. “With this new relationship, Disney will bring its entire global digital video and display business onto the Google Ad Manager, which will serve as its core ad technology platform.”

https://about.att.com/story/att_and_google_cloud_team_up_to_connect_customers_to_the_cloud.html

Quote from article above:“We’re committed to helping businesses transform through our edge-to-edge capabilities. This collaboration with Google Cloud gives businesses access to a full suite of productivity tools and a highly secure, private network connection to the Google Cloud Platform,” said Roman Pacewicz, chief product officer, AT&T Business. “Together, Google Cloud and AT&T are helping businesses streamline productivity and connectivity in a simple, efficient way.”

And if you think that is crazy, Google and AT&T have a partnership over business cloud thought G Suite. So Google have created a separate network that all business can communicate to their employee. They can chat, video, streamline, and more on it. Ever tho Google have not came out and say that they have an ad partnership with AT&T like what they have with Disney, that does not mean that Google would treat Time Warner Bros less than Disney. In business you want to be careful about how you treat your business partnerships so it would not surprise me that DC would get more priority over little known comics and other creators.

It is a little scary how much control Google have over the internet. It is hard for new creator such as myself to stand out and be able to get in front of the right audiences. Google have been often me $150 for Ads for my website but they kept decline my ad but will not tell me why. They keep giving me a general answer and they have no way for me to talk with them about it. They don’t have person customer services for us small entrepreneur. It would not be so bad if they did not speak in code. Speaking code is there way of playing dumb so they can only help their over 1 Billion Club.

I would like to heard your thought on this topic. I would like to heard from other creator if they have similar problems or not. If I am mistaking and you found the Golden goose, pretty share.