Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence

First of all, we at Fleen were pleased to hear from Karen Ellis, who corrected an assumption made in our posting three days back. Due to luck and prior planning, Ellis managed to save almost all of her original art. The status of her Planet Karen Photoshop files is still in question, but on balance this was about the happiest occasion I can recall where I was told I was completely wrong about something. More on Ellis’s current situation may be found at her comic.

In other news, I have a new graphic for surreptiously installing as the background on random computers. Yes, I am evil.
Speaking of evil, you can now proclaim your status proudly as ComicSpace moves into merch production/fulfillment:

We’ve entered into individual relationships with a number of artists we know. We’ve consulted with them about what kinds of designs we think we can sell (generally, designs that appeal to hardcore fans of a particular webcomic but can also catch the eye of somebody who has never heard of that webcomic). We’ve licensed the right to print a limited number of designs by these creators. We’ve paid 100% of the manufacture/screen-printing costs. And now we’re selling them — at the ComicSpace store, on the creator’s websites, across our ad network (1.1 million potential customers per month and growing), at our convention booths, and sharing the revenues. It’s kind of like Threadless’ model, except there’s not really a contest, and the creators still own their intellectual property at the end of the day, and the individual pay per shirt is better. [emphasis mine]

Interesting. This appears to be a new model (please correct me if I’ve overlooked a previous iteration that’s similar), and one with a great deal of potential for getting around the “could make money if not for the upfront costs” dilemma (c.f.: yesterday’s post). Can’t wait to see how this experiment turns out.

Edit to add: For those that don’t read the comments below, we are informed by Jeffrey Rowland that Topatoco has quietly been in the “front the money for the creators and take a cut from the back end” business for a year now. While it is disturbing that I failed to pick up on this earlier, it’s reassuring to know that my speculation about helpful business services for webcomics (search this blog for “Aduz”) is not completely baseless.

That’s exactly what TopatoCo has been doing for over a year now.

Hey Jeffrey! Didn’t mean to steal any thunder. I didn’t realize that Topatoco was fronting the costs for the merch — will make a post tomorrow on the TAC blog to correct that assumption of newness for the idea!

That’s exactly what Keenspot’s been doing for over six years now! Take THAT, Comicspace and TopatoCo! KA-BOOM!

This fills me with much more confidence — we were thinking we had stumbled into risky, unknown territory. Now that I know that two of the most successful and admirable webcomics businesses around have been also using this model, I feel much less stress! Ha!

[…] In some quarters, there is a move toward getting rid of distracting ads and relying on readers to fund the site. It would be a rare comic where it would make sense to show the weight-loss ads. That is just spam. I mention this because I’d prefer to see less non-entertainment sorts of ads on comic sites. It is doubtful that the average comic site would be able to have a membership push, so I’m considering setting aside an ad space on Artpatient specifically for comic-only features like fun merch or new print releases. And Fleen comments on ComicSpace’s merch plans. […]

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