Year in Review – Part One: The Good Stuff

As 2010 comes to a close, I thought I would put together a three part retrospective on what has been big year for Introspective Comics.  I’ll start with the good stuff, the positive progressive I’ve made during the year.  I’m not doing this to toot my own horn.  I’m doing this to prove that I can be positive about things.  Let’s begin!

The Art of Failing Buddhism

This has easily been the most successful book I’ve ever made.  It’s one of the few books I’ve made that is not only popular with my artist friends but with non-artists as well.

Autobio comics are routinely criticized for not having a market outside of other cartoonists who make autobio comics.  Personally, I’ve never understood how this is different than any other genre in independent comics.  Is there really that much more demand for indie super hero comics?  For sword and sorcery fantasy?  Manga-style romance?  It seems like most cartoonists at least start out making comics for themselves and their friends, so what makes autobio comics so different?

At the same time, though, I have to admit that by webcomics standards, Introspective Comics is not very successful.  I hardly ever get more than a hundred unique visitors a day.  In all the years I’ve been doing this, only two or three comics I’ve made have gone viral.  Part of this may be a lack of self-promotion on my part, but for the longest time I was worried that the autobio critics were right.  I was writing too much about real life, and there are many, many people out there who will tell you that real life is boring, that what happens in daily life is meaningless, and no one cares.

It wasn’t until I made the Art of Failing Buddhism that I realized that I did have a larger audience.  Not just an audience of Buddhists, but of people who felt they had failed at Buddhism as well.  People who liked to think about their daily lives.  People who don’t see the mundane as mundane.  I wasn’t just making comics for my friends anymore, and that was a great feeling.

This isn’t to dump on making comics for you and your friends.  It’s still the main reason I make comics.  It’s just nice to know that your stuff can have a larger audience than that.

Infrastructure Building

One of my big goals for 2010 was to build an organization infrastructure for the things I was already doing.  I still have a ways to go, but here are the steps I took in 2010 to build that infrastructure.

Starting a Business

This was the year I officially made Introspective Comics a business.  That means forming an LLC (although I found out later I could have gotten by with an Assumed Name or DBA), getting an EIN number, starting a business checking account, and setting up QuickBooks Simple Start to keep track of my accounting.  I honestly wish I would have done this sooner, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to set up a business checking account (HINT: Get an EIN, stupid!).  Having the account makes tracking expenses MUCH EASIER, and it gives me a much clearer picture on what I’m doing.

I get asked about this a lot, so I thought I would post this here.  I DID NOT FORM A BUSINESS FOR TAX BENEFITS!  Tax benefits are a nice, uh,  benefit, but the real reason I formed a business was my ambitions had grown larger than my ability to keep track of things.  When making comics, it can be easy to lose track of how much money you are spending and much you are making.  You can fool yourself into believing you are doing better than you are or worse than you are.  I formed a business for the same reason I got into Buddhism:  I wanted to know what was going on in my life.

Getting Better at Conventions

Another goal for 2010 was to be ready for any kind of convention that might come my way.  This meant getting a tent and table for outdoor art shows.  It meant buying the largest suitcase possible for out-of-state shows.  It meant building banner displays out of PVC pipe.  It meant picking up cough drops for the inevitable sore throat that comes from shouting your pitches all day.  It meant keeping a “cash drawer” to make it easier to verify if the sales records I was keeping for the convention were accurate.  It meant getting a SquareUp adaptor and an iPod Touch to be able to accept credit card payments.

I spent a lot of time (and too much money) trying to make my convention appearances as organized and effective as possible.  I’m hoping this will pay off in the future.

Improving the Comic Making Process

I took some time off in March to take a look at my comics process and see where it could be improved.  The biggest improvement was implementing the BPelt plug-ins Multifill and Flatten.  It used to take me several hours to halftone my comics.  Now I can get the job done in under an hour or less.  Seriously, I can’t recommend it enough.

Getting Good Press

I got a lot of good press this year.  I would list it all, but there’s just too much to list.  Seriously, if you made a blog post about my comics, you rock.  Thank you so much.  The same goes for all the video interviews, podcasts, and the occasional magazine article that came my way this year.  I wish I could reach out to you and shake your hand.  You are awesome.

The Wrap-Up

So that’s the good stuff for 2010.  There’s probably more that I’m forgetting, but that’s enough for now.  Part Two of this series will focus on The Stuff That Needs Improving, a list of things I will work to improve on in the next year.