Schedule Changes for Rasputin Barxotka and Dissident Priest
Starting on January 16th, Rasputin Barxotka Will be Updating on Mondays
I mentioned on Rasputin Barxotka that I would probably be cutting back on the schedule for that title. My goals are to ensure enough funding for Mandarr to get paid an appropriate rate for the art we are collaborating on, and to provide enough lead time for the creation of a higher quality presentation. Also, Mandarr and I have our work cut out for us in finishing the redrawing and re-inking the for the first twenty four pages of Bahktale Vasquez Hates Camello. For these reasons, this webcomic is switching to a weekly schedule in about a week and a half from now. New pages will appear every Monday.
Dissident Priest is going into hiatus mode on February 28
Comics are a hard gig. I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen, so I know how hard it is. This industry has very little to do with luck, and everything with constancy, heavy promotion and good word of mouth. Right now, I am dealing with the issue of Dissident Priest, a title that I really believe in, not inspiring the kind of word of mouth it requires to be self-sufficient. My guess is that it’s because the packaging is all wrong. The current style has never felt right. When I unsuccessfully did try selling it in graphic novel form, people generally overlooked it and put it down after the third page. My webstats more or less confirm that phenomenon for the webcomic version.
When people have read all the way through, the response has always been, “I didn’t expect the story to be this good” and often became fans. Unfortunately, if people aren’t expecting the story to meet their expectations based upon glancing at a few pages of the art, I feel that’s a major problem. I am guessing folks expected something funny from loose and cartoony art, only to stop when they found out it wasn’t. What worked incredibly well from a stylistic perspective on Rasputin Barxotka just did not translate well here. Dissident Priest was a spin-off and it still feels like one. It’s time to give this piece its own voice.
