Krioton Comics

Krioton Comics Bulletin 10/29/22

Hi, Art Galaxy here. I'm getting a lot of commissions done for the next 5 to 6 months, So I'm doing that 4 days of the week, and then uploading inks for Krioton Comics once per week. It's chapter headers for my Dad's book, So I need to be there.

As for future plans, after the commissions I'm going to split my work weeks into 3 projects. Those projects are the always fun and free Krioton Comics, second is what I can start getting subscriptions for in a year that I'm going to call Krioton Comics Supplemental, and thirdly I want to do a crowd funded project, fully lettered, fully colored, etc., which will take about 16 months to complete, not counting any stretch goals expansions.

The long term goals are still questionable, because Deviant art pretty much has a growth size limit, and there's time and money constraints on any crowd funded projects. So what the preliminary long term plans, if I can grow a fan base on Deviant Art for initial capital, is to make a $30 crowd funded comic, of which $10 goes to comic creation, $10 goes towards an additional comic creation, to grow as a business, and $10 of which to go to advertising, to grow as a business. I might need to charge $45 for the comic to cover taxes which is 30% of net income. So basically the business gets taxed 30%, and then anyone who gets paid for work gets taxed income tax also, for social security, etc.

So basically the main problem with mainstream, is that they have no advertising built into their business. So the big 2 went bankrupt long ago, and have been on the brink of insolvency for 30 years. So basically, advertising, and making additional titles needs to be built into the price of the comic. Also the creators need a middle class income to keep happy and keep creating.

Even then though, with the math figured out, you still need an initial audience to make any money at all. Unfortunately, a good estimate of customers for an expensive comic, is about 1 out of 1,000 people who see an advertisement. Partly because not many people like comics, and also you have to be rich to afford a $45 comic, especially if it's 12 comics a year, which is the goal.

So it's a rich people product, like electric cars. There might be a market for quality comics, but you need 2,000 customers to actually be break even. Which is about $2million in facebook ads, or $2million in general mail flyers.

So basically the math doesn't work yet. It might be possible someday, just by having money to invest someday, but until then, all there is is just making 1 crowd funded comic every 1.5 years or so, and getting by on selling $2 subscriptions on Deviant art. If that works, which is still untested.

But for now, things are going good. I have a good schedule into the distant future, and I have the comic figured out, and I'll be done with the commissions within a reasonable amount of time.

Stay tuned for more weird mysteries of the deepest reaches of space. Krioton Comics is on its way into the unknown!

50 Watchers on Deviant Art Celebration!

50 Watchers, Thank You! by Shaubetcha on DeviantArt So it's almost Halloween, and I've got 50 watchers to celebrate! So I thought I'd draw a haunted house. I'ts based loosely on a school project in the 2nd grade where we had to make a haunted house out of construction paper. Well I thought I'd see how I've improved art wise since then. Obviously a lo...

New inks are up on the Krioton Comics blog, for "The Terror of Batoom". They're looking better than past inks because I'm putting in more volume by varying line width. See this, and more, at the Krioton Comic Blog, at:

Krioton Comics #6, "The Terror of Batoom", Inks Also follow Krioton Comics on Facebook, at: https://www.facebook.com/kriotonsystemcomics And follow on Deviant Art, at: https://www.devian...

Hi, Art Galaxy here. I was trying to record an inking stream, but when I was done with recording, there was no video. It's a malfunction with the camera app on the computer. It's basically not fixable, because even if you miraculously find out what exactly is wrong with the code and fix it, you still don't know if it will happen again. It's like being on the phone on hold for 3 hours, no one wants to do that again, and it's better to just go to a brick and mortar establishment to solve whatever problem properly.

Well to solve the problem properly, I need a digital camera with memory card, and good microphone, that doesn't malfunction. Well, the last camera I got malfunctioned. So there's no telling if it will work even after dumping tons of money into it.

So basically I'm just not going to make youtube videos of draw streams anymore because everything is super expensive and always broken.

New Inking Stream, Chill Stream, is up. When there's nothing else to do, just watch work getting done. Was there ever a better reason to watch a youtube creation?

Inking Stream, Chill Stream, Krioton Comics #6, Page 1. Relax, Enjoy. 10/5/22 Startling sci-fi tales from deep space. Aliens, monsters, and space action, with a twist.The newest short story from Krioton Comics, a free web comic. See th...

New Pencils are up for the short story, "The Build Program, from Krioton Comics #6. See this and more at the Krioton Comics blog, at:

Krioton Comics #6, "The Build Program", pencils Also follow Krioton Comics on the page, at: https://www.facebook.com/kriotonsystemcomics Also Follow Krioton Comics on Devian...

New Draw Stream is up, for Krioton Comics Issue #6, Page 22. Watch and Chill.

Draw Stream, Krioton Comics #6, Page22, Pencil, Penciling, Chill Stream, Relax, 9/23/22 Startling sci-fi tales from deep space. Aliens, monsters, and space action, with a twist.The newest short story from Krioton Comics, a free web comic. See th...

Currently doing 2 commissions, so it will be a week or 2 before I get back to Krioton Comics content.

Hi, Art Galaxy here. Just wanted to give an update. I was making youtube videos, And had a great Idea to make searchable drawing streams of random subject matter to grow the page. Then the anomalous thought passed through my head "Do I want to be a public figure on facebook?" Well do I? Then I did some figuring, looked at the variables, multiple times and came to the conclusion multiple times, that "it's not that bad, sure it would be fine becoming popular, no really serious draw backs." But I just didn't feel like it, no real reason, I just didn't feel like it. So here I am a week or 2 later, looking over the variables again, and now I seem to feel like it, it's just fine now.

So my working theory at the moment as to the solution to this random mental block is to just get used to the idea slowly, the totally fine idea of becoming popular, and possibly a public figure some day. It is after all, the only way to make it in the comic book industry, without working for the big 2, after all.

So I'm going to get back on the band wagon, and do some more warm up videos soon, and get used to the idea of Youtube. The searchability of my draw videos is still up in the air, who knows if I'll get any subscribers that way. I'll just put out some content, and see where it goes.

So I'm pretty sure the mental barrier will fade away, and I'll be back in the groove of things. Stay tuned.

"Sometimes the difficult things are the things we should be doing." -Something my Dad once said, paraphrased

New Draw Stream of Page 21 of Krioton Comics #6. Chill stream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujXrD7-emgA

Draw Stream, Penciling Page 21 of Krioton Comics #6 Chill and Relax, 9/6/22 Startling sci-fi tales from deep space. Aliens, monsters, and space action, with a twist.The newest short story from Krioton Comics, a free web comic. See th...

New Youtube video Draw Stream, of Krioton Comics #6, Page 20. It's not even findable on youtube, but here's the link. Just something to chill to, and have on in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKNq_cHc_hU

Chill Draw Stream, Penciling, Drawing a Comic Page, Krioton Comics #6, Page 20 Startling sci-fi tales from deep space. Aliens, monsters, and space action, with a twist.The newest short story from Krioton Comics, a free web comic. See th...

Krioton Comics Bulletin 9/1/2022

Hi, Art Galaxy here. I recently reevaluated the math I did concerning facebook ads, and drawing 2 titles at a time, and growing a fan base on deviant art. The math is lengthy, but a summary would be that I can't draw 2 titles, one for advertising, and one to sell as a printed version, while paying for facebook ads, because at a price of $26 per comic, and $12 shipping, it would still take 14 years of investing in facebook ads for the ads to then pay for themselves. So that's just too long, and too much money, and work for very little return.

Alternately, I also looked at the math of deviant art again, and the business strategy for that site would be to have 1 free comic title for advertising and to grow watchers, and have a second title to sell subscriptions to, or to link to the blog site, and get adsense revenue from views. Well the biggest pages on deviant art are 17,000 watchers roughly, so if in the best case circumstance they all looked in the description of every post, and viewed the blog twice a month, that's 34,000 views per month, and at $1.50 in adsense revenue per 1,000 views, that would be income of about $50/mo. Which isn't enough to be worth it. And if I sold deviant art subscriptions, then what about the circumstance of getting sick, or ever not doing artwork for months for any reason, well the watchers would end their subscriptions, and there's no way to recoup those losses so you'd have to start over from scratch, which is not manageable.

So suffice is to say, deviant art is out, and the only 2 real options there are is, 1. I could draw just 1 comic title, advertise 1 short story for free per issue, and sell a print copy of that 1 title, while paying for facebook ads, which would pay of itself in 7 years. Or, 2. I could do what they seem to be able to do on youtube, and become popular within 2 to 3 years, and then sell crowd funded campaigns.

So youtube seems way faster and way more profitable over time, so
that's how I'm currently choosing to start to advertise the comic. I'll be making the comic for free until it grows. There are a lot of drawbacks to becoming a figure on youtube, just a lot of hassle, but it's the way to grow. So basically all start up comic artists need to be youtubers these days, unless they're able to afford infinite ads.

So the current direction is Youtube, and the show model, is to just do chill draw streams. I might branch out into other content some day though. Also I'm going to be looking at the growth rate, and see if it grows fast enough after maybe a year, but in the meantime it's content, and hopefully people get entertained.

I did a test video, it has low volume, but I might be able to fix that with a stream yards account, and a microphone. So stay tuned for improvements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-xPPxgnxmg

Finding letter size on comic artboard from letter size on comic page Startling sci-fi tales from deep space. Aliens, monsters, and space action, with a twist.The newest short story from Krioton Comics, a free web comic. See th...

New pencils are up for short story, "the New World", Krioton Comics #6. See this and more for free at the Krioton Comics Blog, at: https://kriotoncomics.blogspot.com/

Or follow Kriooton Comics on Deviant Art, at: https://www.deviantart.com/shaubetcha

More stories up, and spacey!

Krioton Comics Bulletin 8/23/22

Hi, Art Galaxy here. It's my page so I'll write and draw whatever I want.

So given the difficulty of drawing comics to completion, there has to be a clear direction for the business, to be able to put in all the work. So in that light, I was doing some math today, 80's math apparently. So the new direction for Krioton Comics, if this information is interesting at all, is that I might be selling the comic on ebay starting by the next issue. The current issue is almost fully penciled, so I'll probably keep that free. The new price of the comic will be comparable with the price of crowd funded comics, and actual silver age comics, at around $26, with $12 shipping. The comics will be mini comics 8.5x5.5, and will be black and white, but they will still have high quality silver age style sci fi stories, and great artwork, utilizing the Krioton Comics quality checklist, as usual.

The pricing was chosen to have a price to earnings ratio of the business to be 10, or 10% return per year, so that it makes more return on investment than an ebay business, and stock market, and gold, to make it the better business model and worth the investment of time and energy. Always do math first before investing infinite work into something, and then figuring out that it never went anywhere later. As long as the math is even correct, which I can't guarantee I'm that smart.

The 80's math I was hinting at is actually that if I just invested in more advertising on facebook ads, into growing the follower base, and hopefully customer base, then if I get 1 out of 1,000 followers buying a comic, then I would earn the equivalent of $100, a year. Which may not sound like much, but if reinvested in ads, then in 7 years the theory is that I would have roughly $100/month income, which if it was interest earned value, it would be the equivalent of apparently the value of a normal house in the 80's. Which would be a good start.

So the growth rate might be slow, but if I continued reinvesting income into ads, then in 10 to 14 years, the business would be the equivalent value of a modern house, over inflated prices and all. Things are so expensive these days, that matching modern expenses has to be a secondary goal.

So it's an investment of time and energy, which I've done a lot of math on lots of different business models, and this is the best I've seen. If you consider a 10 year old business still being a young business, and if you consider most investment are equivalent time and money and energy, and if you consider that if I just made $25 per month it's comparable to the commission work I'm currently doing for R. Roy Lutz's Gods Dice Book.

So now with a good direction for Krioton Comics, I can then choose to put in the work without cognitive dissonance.

In other news, the quality checklist has matured enough, and my art skill has improved enough that I've reached a new level of visuals, that aren't distracting from having mistakes as much anymore. So the comics look more pro level than ever, and I might even do full 11x17 pages by the next issue so that rendering is possible, and so that the word balloons don't cover up the rest of the panels as much anymore.

Last but not least, the next issue is well balanced, and has some great stories. A monster story, some space ship stories, and some philosophical space quandaries, with some twists.

We don't have a fully functioning space industry yet, But we can still go on enigmatic adventures in space with comics. Here's to all you future astronauts!

My spiel having ended, enjoy your week!

Update

Hi Art Galaxy here. I'm looking at whether I want to make tiny pages to save time, or continue doing full page artwork. Well I looked at the numbers again, and it would take 8 hours worth of work to make 4 fully colored and lettered tiny pages, but it would also take 8 hours worth of work to make 4 penciled pages, or 4 inked pages. But if I posted tiny pages, there would be 6 extra process pages I could upload, but they'd be pretty much not really worth uploading.

So really it comes down to a question of what I want to do, since it's about the same amount of work for about the same amount of pages. Right now I think I'd rather be known as a good artist, so I want to work more towards that goal. And I just like the look of full page artwork. Well 8.5x11, but still.

So I might be keeping the format the same as it's always been. It's a lot of work, over time, with no pay until the distant future, at least a year or 2, but it is what it is.

Stay tuned for more eye watering uploads from deep space!

Krioton Comics Bulletin 8/14/22

Hi, Art Galaxy here. I'm thinking about changing the format of the comic, to fit the deviant art algorythm better.
To draw faster, to upload 2 pages a day, I can split 1 piece of paper into 4 pages. Just drawing small saves a lot of time. Then I can ink it, and then I can digitally put in words and balloons, and color. So it would be a fully finished comic, about the quality of comics from the 40s, but still fit the deviant art algorythm.
I would be able to make process postings, of pencils, and inks, and then the final postings of 4 finished pages. So 6 postings every 2 days or so.
All the postings would contribute to views which would turn into watchers, and compound over time, hopefully within 5 years I'll have 2,500 watchers like I've seen other deviant artists have. The example I saw did 2 uploads a day of finished colored pages, however of low quality.
So quality doesn't matter in the deviant art algorythm, it is art after all, which is by definition, subjective. So quality shouldn't logically matter, unless you have a fully functioning profitable company.
The target audience would be people who just want a good story, and the subject matter they enjoy, which would be sci fi subject matter until more titles are added some day. But basically it's just a simple math equation, of if 1,000 people see the comic, there will be a definable percentage of them that become watchers. And then out of the watchers, there's a definable percentage that will buy a second title, or merch, or sign up for a crowd funded project.
I have to take into account that I need to feel comfortable doing all the work, and not fall off the wagon, and I think it's possible to feel comfortable doing the work at about 4 hours of work per day. It would be better if it was only 2 hours of work per day, but then with less uploads, it doesn't grow watchers as fast.
Uploading 1 picture per day is roughly 300 watchers in 5 years, instead of the exponential growth of uploading 2 images per day, being about 2,500 watchers in 5 years.
But if I have 6 images to upload every 2 days worth of work, then I might only need to work 4 days a week to have 6 days a week worth of uploads, at 2 uploads per day. So it might be doable, I will just have to try it out to confirm it's not too much work, or too stressful. Doing all of the lettering while drawing takes time, but if I just draw on a separate day than lettering, then it's less work on the drawing day. So I think it might turn out to be easy enough to perpetuate, to continue with comfortably. So it might only take 3 hours of work per day.
What if I get complaints about the art? Well there's always a certain percentage of critics out there, but there's also the percentage that will enjoy the comic and become watchers.
All of this needs to be tested, to confirm, if the new format is viable. Hopefully the view count per post doesn't go down much, from the quality going down. The quality of the new format would be about the quality of 1940's comics, which was pretty low quality by today's standards, but still was considered high quality back then.

It's a big decision to change art quality, a decision that's mathematical, but hopefully it turns out to be the correct decision, once the new format is tested out, and there's a decision to keep it. Right now it's just a theory. So stay tuned, and hopefully, I can bring more pages to the table every month, and that makes up for any quality issues. The quality of original Marvel Comics from the 40's, hopefully.

New pencils are up for the short story, "Ordinary Day in Space", at the Krioton Comics Blog, at: https://kriotoncomics.blogspot.com/2022/08/krioton-comics-6-ordinary-day-in-space.html

Also follow Krioton Comics on Deviant Art, at: https://www.deviantart.com/shaubetcha

It's a great time to traverse the space ways!

Shaubetcha - Hobbyist, Traditional Artist | DeviantArt Check out Shaubetcha's art on DeviantArt. Browse the user profile and get inspired.

A preview page of pencils from the new short story, "Ordinary Day in Space".

New Krioton Comics ad. It'll probably be in future postings on the blog, just for fun.

New pencils are up for "Dominion of the Super Beings", from Krioton Comics #6. See this, and more, for free at the Krioton Comics Blog, at: https://kriotoncomics.blogspot.com/2022/07/krioton-comics-6-dominion-of-super.html

Also now on Deviant Art, at: https://www.deviantart.com/shaubetcha

Shaubetcha - Hobbyist, Traditional Artist | DeviantArt Check out Shaubetcha's art on DeviantArt. Browse the user profile and get inspired.

The full script for issue 7 is already made. I'm only on the pencils for issue 6 now, so it will be a while until issue 7. It might take about 4 to 8 months to get done with issue 6.

Krioton Comics Bulletin

Hi, Art Galaxy here. A new thing that I'm trying to get good at is drawing pages perfectly. I have a quality checklist, and so I double check the page to make sure it meets all quality requirements. Some artists in the comic industry see themselves as being extremely lucky to be the few that get to draw for the big 2, like Greg Capullo I heard. So to live up to their position they want to draw pages as good as possible, to feel worthy. I think Jim Lee has a similar level of perfection. So I'm trying to get to that level of quality of perfect pages, just to get the practice, and hopefully grow my fan base.

In other news I posted my last short comic story on Reddit, and got a Silver Award. The Reddit user liked my artwork. The silver medal apparently costs reddit coins, and the reddit coins cost actual money. So I said thank you to them. It's good that I'm that level, where people give me an Award.

Also I've been thinking about story telling. Maybe I'm a story teller. The art coming in a close second to the story. I can see myself telling stories for a long time, which is what it would take to grow enough of a fan base to eventually make Google Adsense money on the blog. But either way, I enjoy telling stories. The art quality requirement for effectively telling a story I would guess would be correct cartoons, or line drawing without rendering, which is a lower art requirement than being an artist before story teller would require. If I wanted to be an artist above story teller, I would guess that would mean good rendering and realism. I like drawing, so I'll keep at that, and also be a story teller.

Also recently I resent a card contest submission to Art Thibert's email, for his comic "Black and White", to see if it gets through and to see if I get chosen as one of the 5 winners out of about 15 submissions he's gotten. But he required that people go to the website We Transfer, which is a pay site, so I didn't want to sign up for that. So I just sent him an email of the images. Which they're just images, there doesn't need to be an excessive data sharing site just for 2 regular sized images. So we'll see if it gets through. If not, I don't mind.

I've been drawing 2 projects a day lately and doing some work on the weekend. So If I can keep it up then there should be more posts of pencils and inks. So stay tuned for more wild space adventures, and weird corners of the unexplored universe.

The new pencils are up for "The Terror of Batoom". More strange and interesting adventures in Space. See this, and more, for free at the Krioton Comics blog, here: https://kriotoncomics.blogspot.com/2022/07/krioton-comics-6-terror-of-batoom.html

Cover inks for Krioton Comics #5 are up.

https://kriotoncomics.blogspot.com/2022/06/krioton-comics-5-cover-pencils-and-inks.html

Art Galaxy here. I currently have an over abundance of stories, but not enough time to draw the comic. I'm currently doing tons of commissions for the next 6 months, so I might not be able to make much comic updates for the next 6 months. But I'll try.

But just in case anyone wanted to see one of the future stories slated for Issue #7, here's a preview of the script of "The Consciousness Agenda". The pages are numbered. It's just a vignette, no twist, or moral, but I think it is good sci fi material. Enjoy!

New inks are up for the short story, "The Scourge of Gortor". Sometimes you just need a good monster story. Check this out, and more, for free at the Krioton Comics blog: https://kriotoncomics.blogspot.com/2022/06/krioton-comics-5-scourge-of-gortor-inks.html

A preview of some pencils that should be up in about 3 weeks.

The script for Krioton Comics #6 is written.