The Four Color Media Monitor

CBS13News has a report about a specialty store manager in Ashland, KY, who's published his own comic adventure through a Kickstarter campaign:

After more than 15 years of hard work pursuing a dream, a local writer’s work is hitting the shelves in comic book shops.

Lucas Harbolt is a comic book writer from Lawrence County, Ohio, and works in Ashland as the manager of the Inner Geek, a local comic book shop.

Now, his first comic book is sitting on one of the shelves. The story, titled “Sword for Hire,” was published thanks to a Kickstarter campaign.

Harbolt says this has been his dream for more than 15 years, and to help make it a reality, he had to sell his comic book collection.

“When it came down to wanting to fund my own work versus having someone else’s work, I wanted my own. So, the first run was about 140 copies, and we sold out of it. We’re currently selling out of the second run now. So, it’s a really, really weird feeling, but a really good one,” Harbolt says.

The comic also features multiple artists with unique styles, collaborating with Harbolt’s writing skills to make the story come to life.

Harbolt says that right now, the comic is only being sold at the Inner Geek, but he plans to print more copies and expand to other stores.

What I find admirable about his publication is that it doesn't appear to be yet more superhero fare, but rather, sword and sorcery fare. But depending how it's formatted, seriously, is 140 copies something to celebrate? It has to be more than that to really prove successful, so while I hope he does print more, and realize crowdfunding campaigns can only afford so much, I still think specialists in the medium have to be more realist than this. So I do highly appreciate Mr. Harbolt's taken the challenge of contributing to the medium as a storyteller, but this continued marveling at minor sums has long gotten absurd already.

Labels: indie publishers, sales, technology