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Danijel Zezelj’s Rex hit shops this week

May 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Well I guess we’re officially a publisher now. Rex hit stores on Wednesday and I received my pallet of books around the same time. Next week I’ll list all of the various ways that you can get a copy. For now you can still read the whole damn thing over at webcomicsnation.

l 12a631cdb3fda481e51a97a343d47061 Danijel Zezeljs Rex hit shops this week
No I don’t smile for the camera…ever.

DZ now on MySpace

Danijel Zezelj now has a myspace page. It’s quite a comprehensive catalog of all the books he’s done over the last 15 years. There’s still some galleries that need to be put up that contain his Marvel and DC work but it’s a pretty cool page already. Head on over and check it out sometime.

Rex Reviews starting to appear online

A couple of reviews of Rex have already surfaced online and the word is good.

l 97b01628a630347a85f248af2e5a36eb Danijel Zezeljs Rex hit shops this week
We made sure to print it on the sexy paper…glossy as hell.

Lee Newman of Broken Frontier chimes in…

There is almost a lyrical quality to the script. Not so much in the words, but the way it flows… the surprising last few pages make for the kind of story that one can imagine coming from Jello Biafra or even Henry Rollins (if the later weren’t so interested in laughs)… As to the pencils, they are unmatched by anyone working in comics today. As opposed to looking like line art, this book looks like it is made of Xeroxed photographs. The gritty sheen to the pages enhances the darkness of the story, but things look real, even when we know that they are fantastical. It allows for a unique suspension of disbelief that is so cinematic, it really is like watching a film.

Then Avril Brown of Comics Waiting Room takes a shot…

REX is a story of rage and revenge. The dark, smoky art fits seamlessly with the plot, and adds to the blend of harsh realities and dark fantasies… REX swoops in, punches you in the gut and swans on out without a hint of an apology. It can be a bit cliché at times, and not all of the scenes are easy to understand, but Zezelj makes it impossible not to take something from this book. Brian Azzarello, who wrote the forward, put it best: REX is raw. Most certainly not a typical prison break story, REX is nonetheless a powerful and emotional book that leaves a lasting impression.

And finally our fellow countryman Nick Defina over at Septagon Studios gave us the Indie Spotlight this week.

Thanks to everyone for giving the book a shot. We’re just getting started. We’ve only sold 25% of the first printing and still have 2300 copies on hand. We’re in this for the long haul.

You should see the lineup of artists I have for our forthcoming “Masters of Ink” interviews. Hope to have the first one up next week.
-Jay

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LAUNCHING INTO OBLIVION PART 3: DOWN TO THE WIRE

April 1, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I’ll start out this week by sending you on a few scouting missions. First off you need to read the essay, 1000 True Fans over at The Technium. It’s an excellent piece on the nature of how you’ll need to build and structure your readership and fan base to survive the brave new world.

And next is the intro chapter to Chris Anderson’s new book Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business. It’s waiting for you over at Wired.com. Chris Anderson is the author of The Long Tail. Another worthy read.

These essays will help you get into the right mindset about how you’re going to slowly grow your audience by giving away the farm upfront and making your cash on the backend.

The last 3 pages of Rex went up online tonight. It’s been a fun ride. We’ve been putting up pages since October. The page views exploded over the past 6 weeks. All 70 pages are available to read now. We’re anxiously awaiting the numbers from Diamond. We’ll overprint by quite a bit. I have to send out a lot of review copies.

Rex Sampler cover LAUNCHING INTO OBLIVION PART 3: DOWN TO THE WIRE

Rex Sampler

The 4600 8-page Samplers hit comic stores last week. A little close to the wire. I would have loved to have had those done 3 weeks sooner but it was not to be. The glossy paper is the same as what we’ll be using for the graphic novella. From seeing the final product I can’t recommend Lebonfon highly enough. They’ve been awesome to work with.

Maybe if you ask your comic shop owner nicely they’ll show it to you…if they haven’t already thrown it into recycling. It made me realize how much I missed seeing black and white comics printed on glossy paper. And that’s why I got into this in the first place.

-Jay

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LAUNCHING INTO OBLIVION – Part 2 – Marketing Blitz

March 14, 2008 By 4 Comments

By Jason Thibault

New website.
Optimumwound.com is taking form. We almost killed ourselves making it work with Word Press but we’re getting there. Some sections are active with new additions being made every day. My formatting is a little wonky but I have big plans for that place. We’re getting there.

8-page Rex sampler
I had 5000 8-page samplers for Rex printed up at Lebonfon Printing (in Quebec Canada) this week. They’re shipping out as part of the Diamond dateline weekly package that goes out to their 4600 store accounts. Unfortunately they’ll be ending up in shops at the end of the month rather than the beginning. It was a gamble but I felt that I needed to have something in hard copy circulating out there amongst the vendors who do all of the purchasing. A $9.95 cover price is a bit of a risk for storeowners to take on an unproven newbie publisher.

I think we’ll launch with good numbers in May and that we’ll do even better numbers once the book is actually out and a few hundred review copies can be mailed out to magazines and media outlets. Then we’ll do a re-launch in June / July. It’s why I wanted to go books (graphic novels) as opposed to singles. I can think about the long term rather than 30-day shelf lives. Still it’s important to make a strong push come release week. Jay at Diamond did a lot for us by writing this amazing review for the Previews catalog.

Webcomic advertising
I did some heavy advertising for the Rex webcomic over the past 2 days using the Project Wonderful banner system on some like-minded sites like thezombiehunters.com, Marlith.com and postnukecomic.com. We managed to pull over a few thousand people that way. I also took a rather pricey ($40/day) ad over the entire onlinecomics.net network. And Warren Ellis’ White Chapel forum run by Avatar sent over even more traffic.

In total Rex managed to garner over 50,000 page views in the last 4 days. That is f@#king awesome.

Facebook Page
Facebook, which I have a love / hate relationship with has launched some new applications. Most of my local (Vancouver) friends migrated over there last year. You can now start a Page as opposed to a profile. FB profiles are private whereas the “pages” are public. So now Optimum Wound has a Facebook Page. It’s a tiny community (so far) and it will never replace our presence on Myspace but I felt it was important to experiment with.

Press Releases and Knowing Thy Place.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around writing press releases. I started out last year by going to this helpful article How to Write a Great Press Release. I still need A LOT of practice.

I wrote one up, made a few classic errors and emailed it off to a lot of comic news sites. Only 4 picked it up. I’m not sure how many mistakes I made. Bad formatting, sending attachments, too lengthy or reading too much like an advertisement. Don’t know.

None of the mainstream places like comicon.com/pulse, newsarama.com or comicbookresources.com posted it. I’m not sure what their policies are or if their email filters blocked it or if it was just plain unnewsworthy. I’m sure their inboxes get filled with hundreds of missives each week. I do know that newsarama.com was happy to take my advertising dollars last summer. For two months in a row.

…but some of the smaller sites came to the rescue. Some of them are growing at such a rate that they’re becoming the new dogs in town. I have to take the time to publicly thank Broken Frontier, Chuck @ Comic Related, Matt @ Comics Bulletin and Brad @ The Comic Collective for helping us get the word out there. We are extremely grateful for that. And I’ll return the favor once I get our link section running at our homepage.

So you see I’m gradually laying out a marketing blueprint for a new comic and a new company. I haven’t done everything perfectly the first time out and at the end of this 10-week cycle we’ll examine what went right and wrong. It’s always an uphill battle and you don’t sleep much but I’m having a lot of fun. Next week I’ll go over even more aspects of marketing. And try to include a few photos.
-Jay

REX Diamond Order Graphic 450x113 LAUNCHING INTO OBLIVION Part 2 Marketing Blitz

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