Olaf's comics blog

Tomte has now announced that he’s giving up comics because he feels that people don’t appreciate his works. The reason? He’s been told that his latest album, Lys over Jessej, has sold only two copies so far.

Perhaps I could understand him if that was true, but he’s looking only at a small part of the full truth.

Where does this number, “two copies”, come from? From his publisher’s webshop. So the album has sold only two copies through the publisher’s webshop. That’s bad, right?

Not necessarily.

First of all: Kelpie is a very small publishing house. It’s run by one man on his spare time. Many of the comics and other publications Kelpie has printed in the past, manager Tommy Kvarsvik has literally printed on his printer (though, to his defense, many of them came in new and professionally printed editions when he realized it didn’t work). In a way you could say that Lys over Jessej is Kelpie’s most serious publication so far, but you get my point — we aren’t talking about Marvel or DC here.

Second: This webshop is not the only way to buy the album. It can also be bought at at least three different comic book shops (Outland in Oslo and Trondheim, and Seriebutikken in Sarpsborg), and Kelpie had a stand at Oslo Comics Expo last month. I’ve also bought some copies of Lys over Jessej for my own webshop (even though I’ve been too busy to actually publish it there yet). So obviously, Kelpie has sold a lot more than two copies, and I know so because I’ve bought ten of them.

Third: For many webcomic artists, I’m sure the webshop is the most common way they sell their comics. But Lys over Jessej is not a webcomic. It is a never-before-published science fiction story — from an artist mostly known for his horror stories. I know that if I wanted to buy this comic, I would prefer to find it in a local shop so that I was able to have a look at the comics before paying for it (the price? 50 Norwegian kroner — almost eight US dollars — for thirtysomething pages). And since the publisher’s website lists all the places where the comic can be bought, it is easy to find such shops. Also, if you buy it from the webshop, you have to pay for postage. I’m a big fan of shopping online, and I’m sure I’ve bought more comics on Amazon than almost anywhere else, but this is a small, Norwegian underground comic which is not well-known from the web, and for that kind of comics, comic book shops are still the way to go. Now, if the artist had a webshop, sales numbers there could be higher, as people wanting to support him would do that. But basing anything on the sales numbers of the publisher’s workshop is useless.

Forth: Even though Tomte says the opposite in his blog post, this comic has *not* been heavily marketed. Yes, Kelpie had a stand at Oslo Comics Expo, but anyone who wanted to buy the comic there would buy it there — not go home and order it from the webshop for a price which including postage is 50 % higher *. And the album got a favorable review at Serienett. Apart from that, the album has been mentioned in a couple of blogs and forums and in Tomte’s Twitter feed. Okay, it’s a start. But it’s not enough to expect to sell. Before this album, Kelpie’s webshop hasn’t had any new publications in ten months, so people won’t check this shop for new publications regularly. In other words, there are no real customers to talk about until you attract them, and when that’s the case, one needs a lot more marketing than Kelpie has done here.

I think that comics is supposed to be an activity you enjoy, and if Tomte doesn’t enjoy making comics anymore, I support his decision to quit. But basing such a decision on sales numbers from the publisher’s webshop is just naïve.

* Errata: After writing this I’ve been made aware that shipping in Kelpie’s webshop is, in fact, free. Well, that’s great! But it doesn’t change the fact that most people seeing an album they want on a convention probably will buy it there and not go home and buy it online. I’ve also been told that the album sold eleven copies at OCX, not including sales to comic book shops. So for a comic which the artist wasn’t there to sign, I’d say the sales numbers were decent.

In the early nineties, Disney comics published in Norway was uncredited. Possibly because they were still trying to convince the readers that Walt Disney were writing and drawing all the stories himself. Possibly to remind the cartoonists that they were nothing more than gears in an enormous machinery. Or perhaps to wrap the Disney comics universe in a veil of mystery. Today, these stories have author/artist credits that are so small that I’ve talked to many people who didn’t realize they were there. In the early nineties, they weren’t there at all.

So when you liked a story back then, it was because the story was great. It wasn’t because you were biased to love a certain artist or writer, you liked the story. Of course, many readers learned to recognize certain art styles. But there was no way of recognizing the writer from the story.

When I first got hold of information on who the creators behind my favorite stories from my childhood were, I noticed that many of my favorite short stories were written by the same man.

I don’t think he ever was my favorite artist — how could he be, when Daniel Branca was still active? — but his short stories always made me laugh a little more than many of the others. And then we started getting his long stories, about fascinating adventures in the style of Carl Barks, sometimes even picking up where Barks left off. While I’m personally not sure I appreciate the concept of writing stories about everything Barks chose not to write, him doing it probably saved Disney comics. His stories have helped the Donald Duck magazines not to lose too many readers, and I’m sure that in some way he’s also inspired the folks at Egmont to realize how much more it is possible to do with Disney comics, thus raising the level on Disney comics scripts in general.

Today is Don Rosa‘s 58th birthday. Happy birthday, Don. My childhood would be a whole lot duller if you hadn’t been there.

Part of me loves and part of me hates coming up with names for secondary characters for my comics. Sometimes I use names of people I know. That’s a challenge when I need American names and all my friends are Norwegian, so I twist and bend the name until appropriate. I’m not the first person to do this, of course. Remember Xander’s erotic slayer threesome dream in Buffy season seven? According to the commentary track, the girls were named after the scriptwriter’s mother and aunt. (The only reason I mention it is to make my own name choices seem normal in comparison.)

Sometimes I pick names based on celebrities (of course, especially when I write parodies on said celebrities). Other times I let random name generators like Behind the Name do the job for me (or, I read their lists until I find something appropriate). Behind the Name is especially useful when trying to come up with names from a given nationality (and sometimes I prefer that — for instance, in my 24 hour comic, which takes place on a distant planet, I decided to make all the names Latvian).

And sometimes a name just comes to me. My favorite secondary character name so far is Alexis Silverbeak.

Naming secondary characters is one thing… Another thing is naming the main characters. This weekend, as strange as it may sound, I’ve tried naming an existing Disney character. Why, you ask? Because the character, though used many times before, has as far is I know never been given a name before, and in my story he NEEDS one.

I landed on the name Wolfram Polk. Given name picked from a name generator, surname based on a (long-dead) celebrity. Which character am I talking about? Come on, I won’t spoil that. Wait until it’s eventually published.

If anyone is reading this, how do YOU name your characters?

Wow. Michael Jackson is dead.

I seriously never expected this to happen. Jackson was more than an artist, he was a legend. I wasn’t his biggest fan (not that I hated him either), but he’s always been there. I expected him to outlive me.

What does that mean for webcomics? If you haven’t seen them already, expect tons of Michael Jackson tributes to show up in webcomics you read the next couple of days. And in newspaper cartoons, of course. Some of them will be horrible and make you ask yourself if they’re supposed to be tributes or just badly disguised hate comics. Others are amazing and will make you shed a tear, whether you’re a Michael Jackson fan or not. My favorite so far is this page of Karina Junker Larsen’s Larv.

Rest in peace, Jackson. You’ve earned it. May my life turn out as crazy as yours.

These websites haven’t really been updated for a while. I’ve tried to keep this strictly a business website, but nothing ever happens in my business, and thus I never update. And, let’s face it, my business and I are the same person. My business consists basically in writing comics and running a website. So to my customers and their readers, it’s not Solstrand Tekst og Bobler they have a relationship with. The comics or articles they buy aren’t signed Solstrand Tekst og Bobler, they’re signed Olaf Moriarty Solstrand. When they call me, Olaf Moriarty Solstrand is the one picking up the phone. Solstrand Tekst og Bobler, to them, is just the name on the invoice. The border between Olaf Moriarty Solstrand and Solstrand Tekst og Bobler is blurry. Heck, this domain isn’t named solstrandtekstogbobler.no either.

So I decided to upload WordPress on the server to see what happens.

I have no idea what I might use this blog for yet. I can use it to ramble on about comics I like and dislike (yeah, I strongly guess that this will be a blog about comics). I can use it to report news about Nettserier.no or what’s going on with my Disney comics. Or I can give it up after a couple of months like I’ve done with so many blogs before this. Or something completely different.

Let’s see what happens. Will update pages and things like that next week.