Chapter 3: Page 54
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s, and that your 2018 is shaping up to be a great one! 2017 threw Rachel and me a few curveballs to be sure, but it ended on perhaps one of the best notes we could have imagined. I’ll explain.
As I mentioned last week, Beyond the Western Deep is independent once again.
“What does this mean?” you ask. Well, to answer that question, I have to go back a little ways.
So, at the tail-end of 2014, Rachel and I signed a publishing agreement with a creator-owned comics publisher. We had been searching for a way to increase the awareness of our webcomic, and working with a real publisher to get it into book stores seemed like the best way of doing that.
However, after the release of two paperback volumes, Rachel and I decided that the publisher we’d signed with wasn’t really the right fit for Western Deep. There are plenty of reasons why things didn’t work out, but one major reason was that we felt because our comic releases for free on the internet, we needed to make sure any physical volumes we produced went well above and beyond the call of duty.
This meant hardcovers with quality paper stock. Extra content and bonus art. Pinups by guest artists. All things that Rachel and I did in our self-printed 500 book hardcover run. We wanted to be able to iterate quickly on merchandise, experiment with new media like video games, bring in guest artists like Jerome to create new stories in the universe, and more.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of a problem in wanting to extricate ourselves from our publishing contract. Specifically, our contract didn’t really leave much in the way of wiggle room for parting ways amicably. Our publisher ultimately allowed us the option to buy our way out of the contract, purchasing the remaining unsold stock of Western Deep paperbacks, but this number was… shall we say, prohibitive.
It was a lot of money.
Rachel and I were pretty despondent for a while, feeling that we may never get the publishing rights back. But then we got a little help, and that help is how we were able to complete our buyout of the rights.
You might know Varuna from his contributions to our comments section, or from his presence in our official community Discord. I’ve personally known him for well over a decade, and he has been a trusted sounding board since some of the earliest Western Deep content that Rachel and I did. After explaining our situation, Varuna offered to help us out.
And so, it is with great pleasure that I announce Varuna as official financier of the world of the Western Deep, helping us to secure our independence and begin exploration of next steps.
“Wait, what are these next steps?” you ask.
Well, I think it’s pretty clear that there are two absolute must-haves on our list: a reprint of Volume 1 in hardcover, and a special edition hardcover of Volume 2. That’s before we even get to repopulating our online storefront.
However, our plan is not to just print off a run of books and sell them online.
Our goal as a newly-independent IP is to treat this opportunity like a full-blown reintroduction of Beyond the Western Deep to the wider world.
We don’t just want to print a book and hope people find it, we want to engage with people. We want to find new readers — readers that we would find at every single comic convention we traveled to who had never even heard of Western Deep, let alone read it for free online.
Rachel, Varuna, Jerome, and I are still planning out what this campaign will mean and how it will manifest, but suffice it to say, anything we do we want to do right. We want Western Deep to be synonymous with quality. We want people to read it online and still feel satisfied buying it physically. We want it to sit proudly on people’s bookshelves.
We also want people to know it exists. That’s a big one!
So yeah, there’s a lot we want to do, and we’re really excited to put these plans into action. 2018 is indeed proving to be an interesting year for the world of the Western Deep, and we’re excited to have you all along for the ride!
so excited to see what you do next. missed you at bosten last year.
And we missed you! We may hold off on conventions until we’ve got both Volume 1 and 2 reprints squared, but we’ll see how everything goes. We want to make sure we’ve got something new for conventions and loyal fans!
just glad you all of you can get back to what you love. action labs didn’t feel like a good fit for you.
In the final panel eira’s positioning makes it look like she may to try to talk to rathik
Oh, I’m sure she will. But I’m not sure it’ll do any good . . .
Another very nice page, and well worth the wait … and yet that seems to be getting lost in the Bigger News.
Three cheers to Varuna for coming through and allowing our favorite online comic creators to taken this bold step! I was looking at my Volume 1 hardcover just the other day, and it truly is so splendid that I would dearly love to see Volume 2 given a similar treatment. Maybe now that can become a reality. Look forward to all you guys have planned, and to see where “BWD” goes next!
(And if there’s anything any of us in the Salmon Party can do to help take “BWD” to the next level, don’t hesitate to let us know! We may not be able to match what Varuna did, but hey, every little bit counts, don’t it?)
I’ve been checking online in prep of my own comic goals. A lot of people post their comics on multiple platforms. I’d say also check out comic hubs like Tapastic (weird community), Webtoons (potential audience) and Hivecomics (exclusive club with timed openings), to name a few. I know there are more out there it just a matter of discovery. You could also post updates on DeviantArt and main stream s.media platforms just be sure to link back to your homepage.
I’ve heard a a lot of bad things about Tapastic tho
Tapastic is more for slice of life, romance and bromance comics. I prefer Hive comics because they branch out to more genres. Sadly they cater comics for children and adults.
Really great to hear the news that BWD is independent again! As long as our creators are happy, so am I.
Also another great page . . . and another conflict that Hardin has chosen to sidestep entirely and push off to the side. He seems to be making a habit of this, and I have a feeling that it’ll come back to bite him sooner or later.
Its really awesome that you’ll be able to call the shots with your work now. Var is a caring soul haha
And speaking of the comic, who knows how Rathik will take with Hardin and the rest of the group now that he expressed how he feels about them. Hopefully he’s a good boy and manages to stick around long enough to die with the group.
Ok that’s probably not as good of an outcome but at least they’re all together heh.
I like to imagine that the WIP comics are just them playing that improv game where they must re-encact the same scene but with much less time.
That’s great news to hear! I’m glad Var was able to assist you two out of that situation. I don’t normally leave comments, but those heartening news was enough to get me to come out of lurking, lol.
I guess that means you guys won’t be going to PAX East any time soon, but I hope you’ll go next year. It’d be great to see you guys in person.
Comic-wise: Things might be awkward for a while with Rathik in the group since everyone basically said in so little words that they’ll put him down for Hardin if he tries anything funny. No more easy-going camaraderie between them unless he can get over it. I suspect that he’ll be distant from everyone else from now on.
Thank you for the kind words and support, Von! We really appreciate it :)
I used to visit PAX East every year when I lived on the eastern seaboard, though that was usually in my capacity as a games writer. PAX East is where I did my Dust: AET panel with Dean, and it’s also where I met the League of Geeks crew and became involved with Armello! Now that I’m in the Seattle area, I’m a PAX West visitor.
We don’t have any announcements on comic conventions or anything like that — 2018 will likely be a recovery year where we figure out what new things we can bring to the table (both proverbially and literally).
BTWD Tabelcloths confirmed for 2018! Enhance your dinners and picnics with the emblems of the four kingdoms, Ermehn tattoos, or Cain and Yurk’s smilin’ faces! Pre-order now! (Also, I’m kidding.)
I’d buy it.