With issue 50 closing in fast, I figure it's time to finish our "Beginnings" posts, just so folks reading here will have some understanding of we got started. I've posted my history to this point, Publisher Theo (Ted) Valley is working on his beginnings, and now I'm finishing up our history to issue #0.
Ted and I had gotten together again for what was becoming around an annual discussion about what we were doing and doing something together. Coming from my comics background and my association with The Uncommon Sense (See below for "The Beginning Of The Beginning, Pt's 1 & 2 posted below) I wanted to do a comics newspaper. Ted, on the other hand was more into the "Entertainment" side of things. We quickly agreed that a kind of mutation of the two would work best.
I remembered, years ago, getting a comic strip newspaper called "COMIC STRIP NEWS" that was quarter folded, all black and white, and subscription based. It was a product I don't think Diamond Distributors ever distributed, and quite frankly I don't remember exactly where I found issues of the product, but that paper is really the format foundation I knew would work.
It was not a new and unique format, in fact growing up I was a HUGE fan of Steranko's MEDIASCENE paper, that was also quarter folded to look from the newsrack, like a magazine and yet unfolded into a newspaper.
I knew we had to come out made of folded newsprint, folded down to look like a magazine, not just so it would fit into a magazine rack, but to also fit in a comic magazine collector's bag because I had seen, in my experience working for that decade in the bookstores as well as my association with The Uncommon Sense, how "regular" newspapers that weren't daily papers were treated on most newsracks, especially the freebie papers; they were buried at the first oppurtunity. We still ran into that problem sometimes, but that's a subject for a later post.
We quickly settled on a format, and also agreed to make the paper free with the help of advertisers. Now, to fund the paper. We had compared notes as to who we could get to advertise in our paper. Once we settled on a pricing structure, we sat at Ted's offices fror Vertigo Theatrics and made a few calls. We automatically started picking up advertisers, mostly those who either understood imediately what we were going to do, or they knew us well enough to know that an advertising investment in what we were doing would pay off for them, OR they just wanted to back whatever harebrained scheme the two of us were about to attempt. Thank god for those folks, because without them we would not have gotten our first issue out, let alone our 50th.
Now, to go beyond our friends and reach out to the community we felt we HAD to have a kind of "prototype" paper to show folks just what we would look like. Some folks gave us a kind of blank look when we told them what we were going to do and we felt a prototype was the best way to show them, AND get an explaination of what we were doing, plus get a ratecard directly into their hands.
Also going into this venture Ted and I quickly agreed that doing this, and doing it RIGHT would be a three man (or person) opperation: One to co-ordinate the paper, paste-up/layouts and work with the talent, one to co-ordinate with the printer, promotion and oversee distribution, and finally one to co-ordinate and sell advertising. We began at this point to look for a third person to help out and do the advertising. Ted found us a third person, but after a few months their personal workload changed to taking up all of their time and they had to pull out. I'll cover more on that in a later post.
Also going into this venture Ted and I quickly agreed that doing this, and doing it RIGHT would be a three man (or person) opperation: One to co-ordinate the paper, paste-up/layouts and work with the talent, one to co-ordinate with the printer, promotion and oversee distribution, and finally one to co-ordinate and sell advertising. We began at this point to look for a third person to help out and do the advertising. Ted found us a third person, but after a few months their personal workload changed to taking up all of their time and they had to pull out. I'll cover more on that in a later post.
A four page "Issue #0" was quickly laid out and taken to a local printer, fronted by my credit card and paid for by an ad that we ran in the issue (Mott Community College, who took an ad on our back page and have held the folded back page on our paper ever since). It held a standard cover (see above), a comic art illustrated explanation of what we were going to do, our rate card, a few ad samples, and our contact information. If memory serves me correctly we printed 2000 of them and gave them out to potential advertisers and folks we thought would be key in helping us get out to the readers and other potential advertisers.
The cover featured a number of characters we planned on featuring inside the paper on a regular basis, and we were looking at a demographic of around 15-30 to be our primary readers. As mentioned above, doing a prototype issue gave us the advantage of giving folks and potential advertisers a "head's up" on what we were planning on doing. When searching for advertisers we almost immediately ran into serious advertisers and supporters that wanted us to do a "family friendly" paper. Our original intent was a more college level, almost "underground" style of paper made primarily for a 15-30 year old audience. We even called ourselves "Flint Comix" with an "X" as a distinction primarily used for underground, or more adult based commix. By the time decided to go "Family Friendly" it was too late to drop the "X" from our name without it costing us money and hardship, so we left it.
Using a prototype "#0" (normally a gimmick in the modern direct comic market to give collectors an equivalent to a second "#1", that most all collectors know are the most valuable issues in most any comic series), also came in handy when we started lining up content for our first issue, but I will continue with that in my next post when I talk about printing our first issue.
The prototype was only four pages, quarter folded into the format we wanted to print our paper in. The cover illustration (see above), the ad and our contact information were the first page (folded into the front and back covers) opening up the paper like a magazine the inside centerspread were 2 sequential art pages explaining just what we wanted to do with the paper. Thr left side of the page explained what we wanted to do with the "comics" part, while the right side covered the "entertainment" portion of our paper and prompted folks to unfold the paper again to our centerspread.
The cover featured a number of characters we planned on featuring inside the paper on a regular basis, and we were looking at a demographic of around 15-30 to be our primary readers. As mentioned above, doing a prototype issue gave us the advantage of giving folks and potential advertisers a "head's up" on what we were planning on doing. When searching for advertisers we almost immediately ran into serious advertisers and supporters that wanted us to do a "family friendly" paper. Our original intent was a more college level, almost "underground" style of paper made primarily for a 15-30 year old audience. We even called ourselves "Flint Comix" with an "X" as a distinction primarily used for underground, or more adult based commix. By the time decided to go "Family Friendly" it was too late to drop the "X" from our name without it costing us money and hardship, so we left it.
Using a prototype "#0" (normally a gimmick in the modern direct comic market to give collectors an equivalent to a second "#1", that most all collectors know are the most valuable issues in most any comic series), also came in handy when we started lining up content for our first issue, but I will continue with that in my next post when I talk about printing our first issue.The prototype was only four pages, quarter folded into the format we wanted to print our paper in. The cover illustration (see above), the ad and our contact information were the first page (folded into the front and back covers) opening up the paper like a magazine the inside centerspread were 2 sequential art pages explaining just what we wanted to do with the paper. Thr left side of the page explained what we wanted to do with the "comics" part, while the right side covered the "entertainment" portion of our paper and prompted folks to unfold the paper again to our centerspread.
Inside the centerspread was an article explaining who we were and what our goals were with the paper in general, also a few ads to show perspective to potential advertisers, aslong with a rate card that took up the far right quarter of the spread.
At this point we really didn't have any content other than my previous library of stories and a few offers from friends. I always felt that content was never an issue, with the number of newspapers syndicates out there offering content I knew we wouldn't have any trouble. What I wasn't expecting was the initial hurdles we ran into once we started approaching these syndicates. It took doing this prototype for one syndicate rep to really grasp what we were out to do and that's when we started hearing what was quickly becoming our first running gag, as well as my first pet peeve with this paper.
We were "a whole different animal".
Next from me: "Issue One"
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