Broken Frontier

Even for a fan of small press like myself who actively seeks out new publishers, it’s a difficult task to find the ones worth checking out or to become aware of what they’re producing. That’s why I considered myself lucky to come across Th3rd World Studios during their first year as a publisher.

I had some help with this one though. At the Baltimore convention this past September, I ran into an old friend from our days at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Comic Art. He showed me the penciled pages he’d been working on for a new series to be published in 2009 by Th3rd World Studios. I had him take me to their table, as I never would have found them on my own.

What I found was some pretty cool stuff. My friend’s book wasn’t out yet, though there was a print of his phenomenal cover.  But I got to see what Th3rd World had managed to publish during their first year. They had some really cool sci-fi/horror titles such as Space Doubles and Creature Feature. Not that this is a totally untapped market, but it was clear they knew what they wanted to do and they did it well.

I introduced myself to co-publisher Michael Devito in order to find out more about the company and how it operated. He was nice enough to answer some of my questions and return my emails so that I could put together this column.

What I discovered was that even though 2008 was the first year that Th3rd World had been a publisher, they have actually been a creative studio since 2006. Their strategy was to give their titles the development time they needed before ushering them off into the strenuous comic market.

And this really comes down to Th3rd World’s policy of working closely with the creative talent. This is an interesting point that shouldn’t be overlooked. Different publishers have different approaches to their relationships with creators. Some only look for fully completed work ready to go straight to press. This works for many creators who don’t want any editorial interference. But then there are also comics that may very well be strong in the creative department, but still need help on the editorial and production end. This is the way that Th3rd World prefers to work. As Michael put it,

Every single project that comes through the door we have personally collaborated with the creative teams in some form, from lettering, to editing, to coloring, to design. Not just a token credit either, we get right in there with the creators working on the books directly. Our varied backgrounds in design and production have helped us to offer assistance in areas that most publishers would have to outsource for. I talk  to almost all of the creators who are working with us on a daily basis, acting as a sounding board or checking out art, or scripts.

And when Th3rd World did make the switch to publisher, they made sure not to over-extend themselves. They began with a combination of 3 webcomics available at their website and 3 short print series to be distributed in the direct market.

The webcomics are led by a strip about elderly super heroes, SuperFogeys. There is also the animal-themed Pinkerton and Eskimo Dave, which is now on hiatus but past strips are still available. And a SuperFogey spin-off series will soon bring the active count back up to three.

Th3rd World’s approach to these webcomics is to continually collect them in trade paperbacks once they’ve amassed enough material. This is a relatively common web-to-print publishing plan. What’s less common is what they’ve been doing with their print-to-web plan. After they’ve released a series run, like what they’ve done with the three issues of Space Doubles or Omega Chase, not only do they collect it in trade format, but they also post the issues up on their website.

The question that’s often asked about this is how a publisher would expect people to pay for comics when it’s free to read online. Michael’s answer to this was,

The print-to-web model is something we are testing the waters with, our general sentiment is that there are two different audiences. Those that are going to buy and those that aren't. Hopefully the ones that don't buy, tell their friends that do.  Especially as a relatively unknown publisher we don't feel like it can hurt to show our offerings to audiences online, as even if it gets a little bit of word of mouth going, it is better than nothing. We have to constantly be trying out different strategies to see what works and what doesn't. At the same time we are being very conscious of the market and retailers’ sentiments when developing these strategies.

I have to agree that the best approach for new publishers it to get the material out there. Once you’ve built awareness and an audience, ways of making money will come. If you’re never able to reach enough people, the small amount of sales won’t be enough to stay in business anyway.

As far as their plans for marketing in the future, Michael told me, “We had been going with traditional wisdom whereby you make a big marketing push the month before previews hits, overlapping into the solicitation month. That might work for the bigger guns, but it was definitely not a great idea for a publisher of our stature, even with recognizable creators on the books.”

This year they’re starting much earlier and they’ve got a great book to start with. Their first comic for 2009 is The Stuff of Legends. I’m not overhyping the book, that’s its title. This is the one drawn by my friend from school, Charles Paul Wilson III and I’m not being biased when I say that it looks amazing. But don’t take my word for it. Th3rd World is releasing the first 20 pages of it for Free Comic Book Day.

And there’s no reason to take my word for the rest of their titles either; webcomic or print formatted, they’re all available to read at Th3rdworld.com. Take a look at the site and watch out for them in the future.

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Tyler Chin-Tanner started his own publishing company, A Wave Blue World, and writes and draws layouts for Adrenaline, its flagship series.
© 2008 Tyler Chin-Tanner.  All rights reserved.
Email: tyler@awaveblueworld.com
www.awaveblueworld.com