Crozonia Sales Year 1

Toronto Comicon marks the end of Crozonia Year 1, where I debuted the first full colour issue.
Hope this sales data is usefull for other publishers. It's certainly been usefull for me.

Event	Issue 1	Issue 2 Ashcan Preview	Poster
CORE Sneak Peak! August 2 2005	25	-
Chicago Wizard World August 4-6 2005	184	-
Fan Expo Canada August 26-28 2005	195	-	22
Toronto Word on the Street September 25 2005	87	-	5
New York Comic-Con February 24-26 2006	138	35	10
Toronto Comicon April 24 2006	48	21	7

Toronto Comicon Sales

Yesterday I exhibited at the Toronto Comicon. The exhibitor room (Constitution Hall at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre) was about 1/3 the size Fan Expo (Formerly Canadian National Expo). Fortunately I benefitted from repeat customers for Crozonia having "sown the seeds" in Toronto last summer. Even though I didn't have Issue 2 ready, alot of people were quick to buy the Issue 2 Preview Ashcan. I
Hopefuly this bodes well in Chicago.


Sales:
Issue 1 - 48
Issue 2 Ashcans - 21
Posters - 7

Two Movies, and a Convention.

This weekend, Silent Hill premieres. Look for the grey child transformation. I worked on that shot. Then there's the second weekend of The Wild. And on Sunday, there's the Toronto Comicon where I will be exhibiting Crozonia. Sales data to come.

Disney's The Wild in theatres now!

This is the movie that I worked on for two and a half years! It is the largest animated production in Canadian history! Please check it out!
Official website at disney.com/thewild

Cover to Crozonia Issue 2

Coming this July!

Matchbox Package Illustrations

Some of my Matchbox illustrations from last year are finally appearing in toy stores. Eventually I will have a mini site with all the Matchbox illustrations that I'm allowed to show. Here are some photos:

Production Page

I have posted a production page to track the progress of Crozonia Issue 2. There's only 4 months left to finish up Issue 2, send it to the printers in time for Chicago Wizard World in the beginning of August. Production Page

New York Comic-Con Report

This is the first time my wife, Kijin and I have been to New York. We absolutely loved it! Saw an off Broadway musical called the Altar Boys. Brilliant and halarious. I highly recommend it. Went to Korea Town often and had some great meals there.
As for my overall impressions of New York Comic-Con, I can say it was well run and the organizers at Reed Expo did all they can to make it successfull. In fact, a little TOO successfull. There was overcrowding on Saturday, so people were turned down admission to the show. Even though the show was busy, I found that my sales were down from Toronto and Chicago. This was probably due to a variety of factors. First, I shared a table with another artist. So instead of a 6' table, I was only working with a 3' table. And I had nowhere to put my banner other than behind my seat. That was unfortunate because many people passed by the table, and I had to work hard to get people's attention. By the end of Saturday, I was exhuasted. The second factor is the limited time. I had do leave three hours early on Sunday to catch my flight, so that cut into the sales as well.
Issue 1 @ $3.00 : 138 sold
Issue 2 Ashcan @ $2.00 : 35 sold
Posters @ $10.00 : 10 sold

Eventually I'll add a chart to my website for aspiring publishers to compare sales. Hopefully it will be valuable information for them.

Ready for New York Comic-Con

This week was really busy! Over at Core DP, I am working on two movies, Silent Hill and Firehouse Dog. Then I had a last minute Mattel freelance project that I couldn't turn down. But I still managed to get the Issue 2 Preview printed yesterday, and boy does it look good! It will be onsale for only $2. Comes with an 11 page preview, and some pinups and sketches. The full colour version of Crozonia Issue 2 will debut in Chicago Wizard World.
If there are some books left over from New York, I will make them available at the online store.

New York or Bust!

Oh yeah! New York Comic-Con is only a few weeks away (Feb 24-26). There will be an exclusive ashcan printed just for this show. The cover may be in colour, still crunching down prices.

Some great Comic Book Stores!

Here are some of the comic book stores that picked up some issues of Crozonia #1. I'm greatfull for their support, especially since Crozonia isn't being distributed yet. Eventually, I will publish the retailer list in upcoming issues of Crozonia. Hopefully that list will grow.

Uncanny Comics - 227a First Street South, Kenora, Ontario
Silver Snail - 367 Queen St. W., Toronto
The Beguiling - 601 Markham St., Toronto, Ontario
Comics & More - 1325 Danforth Ave, Toronto, Ontario

Disney's The Wild Trailer now online!

The Trailer is now online! Tell me what you think of it!
www.movies.com

Disney's The Wild Trailer News

The trailer for The Wild will premiere on the internet Monday, January 9, on both
Disney.com and Movies.com. The theatrical trailer will premiere on January 13 with the opening of Hoodwinked and Glory Road.

Coal Cars

Happy New Year's! I'm going to change the purpose of this blog a little bit, and promote anything that graces my artwork. Last year, I worked on a lot of package art for Matchbox. Here's something that finally came out during the Christmas season!

Recovery and the road ahead.

I just wanted to let everybody know that since Bell's Palsy struck seven weeks ago, there has been a little bit of improvement in the movement of my face. My left brow is almost fully recovered, and I can move the left corner of my mouth about an inch. It will still be a long time before I fully recover though. The important thing is that it is only superficial at this point. I was experiencing severe eye stress at the beginning because I couldn't close my eyelid. I still can't close it fully, but I have adapted. I am able to work, and started a new job at CORE Digital Pictures several weeks ago. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Sincerely
Jim

What to look forward to in 2006

February 24-26: New York Comicon - Crozonia Ashcan Exclusive
April 16: Disney's The Wild finally opens!
Spring 2006: Toronto ComiCON - Fan Appreciation Special Event
Late Spring: Matchbox Deeds Dragon Adventure Comic Book
August 3-6: Chicago Wizard World - Debut of Crozonia Issue 2!
September 1-3: Fan Expo Canada
Late September: The Word on the Street (Toronto)

A Minor Setback

It's been a while since I posted. A couple of weeks ago, I was stricken with Bell's Palsy. It is a condition where the left side of my face is paralysed. I have feeling sensation in my face, but I can't move the muscles. A facial nerve has been damaged by what is believed to be a virus. In the majority of cases, there will be a complete recovery. So that is what I'm hoping and praying for. The main priority for me right now is to get lot's of rest and recover.
I will be back and kicking ass in no time.
Jim

The Word on the Street Sales

The Word on the Street is funny because there are exhibitors that pay a huge sum of money to exhibit there, and then there are the littles guys like us who essentially are the "artist alley" of the festival. Unfortunately, the artist alley / fringe beat section isn't on the street, but on grass amongst the trees in the park.

The day didn't start off promising because of heavy rain in the morning. What made matters worse, we were in a dingy tent facing a tree! The time schedule for the festival was from 11am - 6pm. The first hour of the show was slow as usual. I only sold 3 books. The second hour began when I sold 3 books and then decided to break the rules and leave my tent to sell on the street corner where most of the people traffic was. As a result I sold Crozonia like hotcakes and lost track of how many I sold! Eventually some other exhibitors took notice and moved their tables up to the curb, and so did we. Soon there were 12 tables along the side of the road. We kept selling untill some security guard and organizers found out, and pushed us back to our tents. They said it was illegal and would revoke our previledge to sell next year. Yeah right. So we were back in the tent from 4-6 and sold only 6 books.

After deducting our float cash, we ended up selling 87 books! This means we sold about 75 books in 3 1/2 hours! Next year we may spend more money on the expensive tables on the street. The highlight of the day was selling a copy to NDP leader Jack Layton and Olivia Chow. Those two are great and honest people.

And that ends our summer tour of Crozonia Issue One. It's time to get busy and get Issue 2 out for February for the innaugural New York Comicon.

Silver Bullet Comics Article

A great article about Crozonia by reporter Jonathan Encarnacion has been posted at silverbulletcomics.com The interview took place a couple of weeks ago at the Canadian National Expo.
Here it is:
http://www.silverbulletcomics.com/news/story.php?a=773

The Word on the Street

The next up is The Word on the Street in Toronto Queen's Park on Sunday September 25,2005.
Over a half million people attended the one day festival last year! What's great about this festival is that it's free, so the people I will be selling to are outside the comic book fandom.
We will be located in the Fringe Beat section, so check us out!

Canadian National Comic Book Expo Sales

Friday
Just got back from the Convention Center tonight. Although it was packed, it was also slow and comparible to Friday at Chicago Wizard World. I sold 46 books compared to 55 in Chicago, but the 46 number is a little inflated because I sold 12 books wholesale to some comic book retailers. But then again, there were three less hours for Friday at this show than at Chicago. I'm expecting better sales on Saturday. 81 is the magic number to beat from Chicago for Saturday!
Saturday
As expected, Saturday was really busy. But surprisingly it started off slow. The show opened at 9pm, but we didn't sell our first book untill 10:30! In the end, we did sell alot of books, especially in the afternoon. I had to host a panel on CGI for an hour from 2-3pm, so I was not expecting many for that hour, to my surprise, my wife and a friend of mine sold 12 books! Not bad at all! In total, we beat the number for Chicago for Saturday selling 87 books. But far short of the elusive 100 mark. Maybe next year when I have issue 2 out! You may note that around 4-5pm, we only sold three books. By then we were dead tired, and very hungry. We barely made an effort to sell untill we had some food in our stomachs. This is a very important lesson too, it shows that as an unknown comic book publisher, Crozonia as nice as it is, doesn't sell for itself. We really need to make an effort to sell. If all we did was sit back and relax, we would probably have sold less than thirty books.
Sunday
Just like Saturday, didn't sell a single book untill 1 1/2 hour after the show opened. The sales were down from Saturday, as to be expected. In total we sold 195 books. It seemed like we sold more, so I was a little dissapointed. We also sold 22 posters for $5 each. Selling 200 copies remains elusive, it probably won't happen untill San Diego next year.

Time	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
9 - 10	-	0	-
10 - 11	-	4	0
11 - 12	-	16	9
12 - 1	-	6	5
1 - 2	-	11	8
2 - 3	-	12	15
3 - 4	-	13	8
4 - 5	2	3	6
5 - 6	6	13	11
6 - 7	8	9	-
7 - 8	9	-	-
8 - 9	4	-	-
9 - 10	17	-	-
Total	46	87	62