Art for Cheap!

Yeah--I can write and draw you a comic book, sell you original art from other published comics, and I do commissions--and you won't have to refinance your home!
http://jamesritcheyiii.deviantart.com/gallery/

VERY competitive prices, email me if you see anything you like.

Thanks, Jim

JamesRitchey.Com goes live, and Spark Comics Quarterly.

A quick word, boys and girls:

http://jamesritchey.com/ went live last night..Mostly laid out the way I want it, I'll have more art up over the next few days, and a 'news' link to this blog for the time being, until late Summer--when I'll add another site--for Spark Comics Quarterly.

 I'm puzzling over what to call this publishing company I'm starting at this point, but I have some favorite names I've been tossing about for half a decade and longer. Want more 'general' than Spark Comics, because I do not want to only publish golden age reboots the rest of my existence.

Got a mess of very interesting original characters, and I'll seek out other creators who are innovative and  willing to take chances. After a decade of screaming  "Superhero Comics need an 'Al Feldstein'!", I intend to be that level of nurturing to comics creators and their desire to express themselves--and we will be ALL about 'creator-owned', besides percentages instead of page rates for 'work for hire'. Any cut of profit there is, will be split in an egalitarian manner. We'll split rewards and responsibility. Quality, intelligent writing and artistic originality will be our paramount creative goals. Zero tolerance for 'flavor of the week' clones. We'll start small, and be sensible and thrifty--whatever works, no big offices as overhead, no cult-like communes in Florida, and no screwing of creators.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to, besides writing and drawing. How 'bout you?

"Where Do We Go...From Here?"

Homage to Mr. Whedon there, for his much-deserved recent success. But this is about COMIC BOOKS.

Are Comics overpriced? A 'Linked In' question made me go tangential.

Maybe not really... :D

I can only judge from my own experience, but I'm sure overhead at the majors is probably pretty restrictive (leading to many bad ideas--'the cloning experiment' as I like to call it--a general narrowing of what constitutes 'good'--but that's another story). Diamond won't even carry comics if they aren't a certain price, and if they don't follow minimum print runs/pricing ratio, while the difference actual print/paper costs have remained fairly stable for over a decade--paper increasing with inflation, printing cheaper. KaBLAM! and others provide an excellent, quick way to get the stuff out, but if people bunched print runs together for major catalog printing companies (as an example), they'd cost something like 40-65 cents per copy to print and ship. Promotion is a bigger problem, and is a nightmare for any upstart.

Having a Direct Market monopoly serves, unintentionally perhaps, to tamp down the Indy Market--providing endless variations on metaphorical Vanilla Ice Cream, because the powers-that-be think Vanilla Ice Cream is all that will sell, and are unwilling to promote, Chocolate or Strawberry, or the other 28 flavors. But EVERYTHING in our economy for the last decade seems to solely serve multinational corporations, and seems designed to neuter REAL 'Free-Market' entrepreneurship and creativity.

I might stay on this theme for a few days--dunno.

--JIM