Written & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Artwork by Joe Querio

From “The Hammonds of Ore City: Deconstructing a Dynasty” by Cyril Linkus, Stanford University Press – Rod Hammond, upright citizen, rich and powerful mine owner ran the Hammond’s Lightside operations, but it was Jeff Hammond, broken as he was, who was the real moneymaker in the family. Rod Hammond might have been the King of Lightside, but Jeff Hammond was the Duke of Rogue’s Deep.

That’s right, a comic book rock band. It is certainly a very specific genre niche; we spent the day listening to songs like “The Call of the Green”, a song about Green heroes, and the full version of the Firefly theme song, “Ballad of Serenity”. We of course got to talking with them (Cliff is very verbose), and after a couple of hours we made an exchange. They got one of those gorgeous (hint hint) printed editions of Orion the Hunter, and we got their debut album “Slight Advantage”. They loved Orion so much that they offered to make us an Orion the Hunter theme song. We thought this was a brilliant idea.

After several weeks of back and forth, we have finally received the final edition of the theme song, which you can listen to right here!

Orion the Hunter by Wednesday Heroes

Also feel free to visit the Wednesday Heroes’ website where you can listen to more of their music and perhaps even buy one of their CDs. Nerds gotta stick together!

Wednesday Heroes

- Caitlin

Written & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Artwork by Joe Querio

Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, citizen of earth: Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death. The undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

Written & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Artwork by Joe Querio

Carl Jung, citizen of earth. – Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

Written & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Artwork by Joe Querio

Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, citizen of earth: To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

So let me get this out there, right off the bat. I love comic shops. My friend Brian Kelly runs a terrific shop in Detroit, and we have a great one called FanFare here in Kalamazoo. I frequent comic shops, I buy most of my comics in comic shops. I LOVE comic shops.

So why aren’t my books going to comic shops?

Well, we are and we aren’t… but I’ll get to that in a minute. First let me answer the crux of the question. Why aren’t we chasing tradition retail (what is in our industry called “Direct”) distribution.

Let’s start by looking at distributors, taking Diamond as an example of how direct distribution works. To start with, I have to give them 60% discount to get them to carry my book at all. Another 2% or more if I want to encourage them to pay in less than 30 days. Another 2% to pick up my product if I’m using a printer they pick up from, or I have to pay to ship to them.

Because neither Joe or I are “names” in the business, I ‘d also likely need to include a few hundred finished books in Previews so I can convince the retailers that we’re not creating crap. This is just about the only way I’ll make the minimums required to even get a purchase order. So after I’ve paid the printer and paid for promotional materials, I’m already deep in the hole.

Another issue (if you’ll pardon the expression) I face is that retailers make money by clearing shelf space and rotating in new product. That’s what keeps most comics being treated like a periodicals. Most don’t reorder and if they do they’ll likely have problems getting those reorders filled. After the first month or so, they’ll sell of the remainders at a loss just to clear the shelf space. We’ll see a precipitous drop off in orders down to zero within a few weeks.

Moreover, we need to expand our market beyond comic shops and comic fans. There are broader markets out there that might find Orion the Hunter appealing. There’s the international market (about 1/3 of Orion the Hunter’s readers are outside the U.S.). There’s Science Fiction fandom, anime fans, and a number of other cross-over niches that are bypassed entirely by too much focus on retail distribution.

Now all that may sound like a criticism, but it really isn’t. It’s just reality, the reality of how direct distribution works in our current day and age. It just is. If I want to play that game, those are the rules I have to play by.

Or I can try to make a new game, change the rules. Not break them, but certainly bend them in my favor. I can sell them direct from my website. Not treat my titles as periodicals and continue to sell them for as long as there is a market. The difference comes down to this. I sell hundreds or thousands of copies quickly and make pennies on each individual copy, or  I sell them a few at a time, but make more per book but accumulate sales more slowly. Instead of selling thousands all at once, we sell a couple of thousand over a year’s time. I (and my collaborators) make a lot more money, but take longer to get paid.

Look at the chart. The blue bars represent distribution to comic shops. The green bars represent projected sales from our website. Assuming we were in Previews in March, we actually see our sales (and get paid) in June. One big burst, then trailing off to nothing.

On the other hand, web sales can continue to grow as the comic and website build. audience. The bigger the audience, the bigger the potential sales growth. Given the nature of the web it is possible to continue to build audience almost indefinitely. We don’t need tens of thousands, we just need a couple of thousand true fans. That model allows us to actually make a living doing what we love to do and what we are good at.

So there’s the rub, for me at least, with direct distribution in the 21st century. I’m convinced that we have to create alternatives if we as small publishers are going to thrive, not just scrape along. The new paradigm is about  building audience, not just pumping out product. Creating fans by telling compelling graphic stories. The new paradigm is also about patience. The hare has had his day, it’s time for the tortoise to take his turn. I’d rather have three works I’m proud of, than publish a hundred mediocre comics a month.

If you are a comic shop and you are interested in carrying Orion the Hunter, you can still order from us directly. Orders of five or more copies get a 25% discount — taken automatically in the shop. You want to rack us, we’d love to be racked. Looking for more significant quantities, contact us and we’ll deal.

Written, Colored & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Penciled & Inked by Joe Querio

From “The Hammonds of Ore City: Deconstructing a Dynasty” by Cyril Linkus, Stanford University Press – Ore City itself was an engineering marvel. 22 tiers scarred deeply into the mountainside. Lightside was the miner’s slang for the offices and apartments overlooking the main concourse, but delving deeper into Ore City’s bowls and you found the rough hewn tunnels and chambers that made up the town’s underbelly; Rogue Deep.

Written, Colored & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Penciled & Inked by Joe Querio

John Webster, citizen of earth: Let guilty men remember, their black deeds do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.

Written, Colored & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Penciled & Inked by Joe Querio

From “The Hammonds of Ore City: Deconstructing a Dynasty” by Cyril Linkus, Stanford University Press – That Rod and Tim Hammond were bullies and cowards, very few people would have disputed. Fewer still would have said it to their faces.

Written & Lettered by Clifford VanMeter. Artwork by Joe Querio

The Art of War by Sun Tzu, citizen of Earth – If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles