Let the Madness Begin…

Let the Madness Begin…

In a normal situations, an independent comic is initiated by an artist or a writer. The writer (or artist) finds someone to handle the duties she isn’t doing herself and the team is born. They work hard and finish the piece. Many artists write their own work. This is not that uncommon either.

Like the 3rd word of this post says, that is the “normal” situation. Incubator Press isn’t going about it the normal way.

My vision is to see them progress to the pages of Top Cow, Image, DC, Marvel, etc. I want to see Incubator Press serve as an incubator.

I outlined the release of 9 books. Each book would feature 4 stories. 3 of the books tell an abstract (but linear) history on stuff that happens after zombies eat 95% of all living things (plant, animal, you name it). Those books are titled “Food Chain” for obvious reasons. 3 of the books provide snapshots of a world where vampires have taken over, established something of a government, and attempt to lead “normal” lives. Unfortunately, vampires are predators. “Type O Negative” reflects the challenges faced by predators denied the hunt. The last 3 of the 9 books focus on a city created by Veronica Giguere. The city is called “Charlton” and there is nothing supernatural going on there. These tales are good old fashioned hard-boiled crime tales that remind us anything that can go wrong probably did while we were sleeping. “Never Look Back” dives into vintage noir but refuses to stay in the box.

I announced the plans for all 9 books, solicited writers and artists from DigitalWebbing and ConceptArt, and went to work. Sebastian Piccione stated repeatedly that I was being wildly optimistic. One month later, the artists started dropping like Spidey when his webslingers jam.

I’m pretty glad most of the writers aren’t located here in Florida, but because the scripts they wrote were supposed to be published across a nine month period starting back in April. It’s June now. The current set of artists are promising and I’m pretty excited about them. We’ll see how it goes.

Back to the elephant in the room: Incubator Press (as mentioned previously) isn’t a company. It’s a guy with an idea conducting an experiment to see if his idea will work. Some would say I’ve already failed, as evidenced by the missed deadlines and vanishing artists. I see it a little differently. We have to quit to fail. The writers didn’t quit. The artists that have delivered gorgeous work didn’t quit. The current letterer didn’t quit. To paraphrase Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, I’m not quitting; I owe it to these people to see this through.

And so here we are. I’ll be posting updates on the site and focusing my time on wrangling artists until the work is completed.

2010 has been insane. The anthologies will see the light of day, and I want readers to buy them primarily from the creators. I didn’t write or illustrate a single story. I assembled, printed, and pushed them. The kudos belong to the artists and writers.

I’ll be publishing links to their sites, portfolios, and blogs here on IncubatorPress.com so you can support them above and beyond these 9 books.

-Willie Freeman

Continue reading

How did this happen?

featured-TON01

I was standing in Famous Faces & Funnies with “Old Man Logan” in one hand and who knows what in the other when I decided I wanted to fund the release of several independent comics. By December 2009, Incubator Press was born.

Incubator Press is one part publishing company, two parts experiment. I want to promote artists and writers who could use a little more exposure. I set up certain guidelines and plot points. The guidelines (no explicit sex, no nudity, no profanity) exist because all the money is coming out of my pocket and that’s the decision I made.

The plot points were all tailored to allow a linear progression in each anthology Incubator Press releases. You’ll see the details of those plot points (omnivorous zombies, for example) as time goes by.

Incubator isn’t a company with money sitting around to hire people yet. It’s a multimedia experiment. I’m offering exposure instead of money and peanuts when I do pay. When titles are completed (we’re 10 strong right now!) I’ll make them available online and through ComicsMonkey distribution for the comic shops.

Unpaid creators get 3 free copies of the title their work appears in.

Paid creators buy copies and sell them / give them away / autograph them etc. as they see fit.

It’s been a wild ride so far. It’ll only get crazier.

-Willie Freeman

Continue reading