Building Your Own Shelf

One idea, one panel, one page, one issue, one trade, one entire shelf... This is the way.

My pal John Lees posted this to his IG the other day, after receiving his big shipment of SINK Vol 3 books (and Mr. Dig plushies!)

See, he has a bit of a ritual, that when a trade collection (something with a spine) is produced, he will insert it onto a dedicated part of his book shelf reserved solely for books that he has contributed to.

johnlees927

A post shared by @johnlees927

I’m realizing that, despite dozens of shelves of books in my house, I actually DO NOT have a dedicated shelf for the books I’ve published… and that is DEFINITELY something I need to rectify.

Afterall, with Grawlgore & Shanks #1, the latest from John Lees, getting funded on Kickstarter this week, ComixTribe his funded our 40th Successful Kickstarter campaign! That’s a lot of books to put on a shelf!

The road to 40 projects, that have spanned single issue comics, one-shot OGNs, trades, original anthologies, children’s books, plush toys and more, has been a long one… though in a lot of ways, it still feels like we’re just getting started.

Grawlgore & Shanks artist Joe Mulvey is really hitting his stride, as an artist, and it’s been a joy to see him stretch his talents on some classic IPs like Thundercats and Terminator… while continue to do great and innovative creator-owned stuff.

And John Lees’ shelf will continue to expand, not just with Grawlgore & Shanks, a series for which he’s already scripted the first two volumes of epic fantasy mysteries, but he also has ORLA! from Mad Cave release soon, which is fantastic.

I’m sure many creators who are early in their journey could look at that pic of John’s bookshelf and think… “No way I’ll ever get there.” But the reality is, John would probably tell you that every one of those projects was harder and took longer to create than he thought they would… He just didn’t let that stop him.

And if you don’t stop either, a shelf like that isn’t just possible… it’s inevitable.

I also know that some Kickstarter backers and comic fans have dedicated shelves for books that they helped produce by backing on Kickstarter. And I think that’s awesome too…

Because most of the books that are launched on Kickstarter simply WOULD NOT EXIST without crowdfunding platforms. And that means that even if you never write a single line of dialog or draw a single panel of sequential art… by backing crowdfunding projects YOU are a significant part of the team.

So again, whether your a creator, backer or just a fan… here’s a bit of encouragement to dedicate some space on your bookshelves to the books that mean a lot to you… and DEFINITELY dedicate some space to books you helped will into existence.