Research

Research

Introduction

My promotional work centres around promoting both my web comic Hunt - Part Two and also my hard copy comic Hunt - Part One. Hunt - Part Two is my online comic and is easier to promote due to the readiness that the internet provides, I can easily reach an audience and with Facebook I can also encourage people to like and share the link with friends, not just through my illustration page but through my friend page as well which gives me a larger scope. 

Hunt - Part One is slightly more difficult due to the fact that I want to sell this comic which gives me a smaller audience in which to engage with until I have the hard copy in my hand. The best way for me to promote is tied in with the web comic again. With the name Hunt - Part Two it has encouraged people to ask for where Hunt - Part One is which then I can inform them that this will be available to buy, which has given me a strong response with people waiting for the release.

I have also promoted my stand alone art work through exhibitions and on my Facebook page which has  produced a reasonable amount of sales.

Promotional Activity

I have Contacted various companies for work and promotion for the comic book. This has ranged from contacting Uproar comics to being approached to work on a book with a publisher behind it.

Contacting Uproar has proved very valuable and has opened a lot of doors for my work and a way into the Irish Comic scene. From first contact in 2012 with them giving me my first published work to now with them giving me reviews for the work and sharing my web comic they have proved very well worth while contacting.

Uproar Comics - submissions@uproarcomics.co.uk contacted for work on issue 4

Comic Book Creators is a group of Irish illustrators and comic artists that meet once a month to look at each others work and give each help to promote your own work with people of a similar mind set.

This has allowed me to meet some influential people in the Irish comic scene and has brought me the opportunity to work on a collective book based upon scandals in the 19th-20th century political world.

drew.luke@gmail.com Andrew Luke, writer and organiser of the aforementioned book project

Another platform I have taken advantage of is the Irish comic websites, to start Irish Comic News website, this gives reviews and also invites comic Irish comic artists to be featured on the website with a bio and a link, I was recently invited onto this list after contacting them for a review of my latest works.

news@irish​comicnews.c​om 

Additionally I have contacted a number of other avenues in which to get not only my comic out into the Irish comic world but also my name. I contacted a well respected and widely listened to Podcast group from The Comic Cast who will be reviewing this in their next podcast. Hopefully also I will be getting a review and a mention from Follow the Nerd another Irish comic podcast group both of these are based in the south of Ireland so it will open me up to a larger audience.

http://thecomiccast.com/ and http://www.followingthenerd.com/ 

The most successful promotion has been down to perseverance asking for reviews from people, and this has paid off with three reviews coming out on three different comic websites and all are positive. These came from Mike Lynch at Abandoned Comics, Ruairi Coleman at Uproar Comics, Steve Hobson writer for BadHaven, a comic website with a very high unique traffic count. Each of these have written a feature on the respective websites blogs about the Hunt series, Part One and Part Two.

Mike Lynch - Abandoned Comics: wolfabandonedascub@hotmail.com

Ruairi Coleman - Uproar Comics: ruairi.coleman@gmail.com

Steve Hobson - BadHaven: stephen.hobson@live.co.uk

Into The Great Unknown

Strategy

"Wait until the get a load of me" Jack Nicholson 

After University I would like to experiment possibly with the idea of stand alone pieces more and perhaps get some alternative exhibitions on with some of more horror influenced Illustrations and exploring the grotesque and the grotesquely beautiful as I feel that some of my stand alone work is strong enough to stand beside any other artist in Belfast and command the space it inhabits.

 I still would like to work with Abandoned Comics or Uproar comics and perhaps submit stories for some of there characters, for example the Love Never Dies story that I worked on before, but what I am really interested in doing is building up my own comic book company under the name of Lethal Comics. I understand this will not be a quick process and will not reap any real financial rewards for some time but I believe that in time I will be able to carve out a company that tells edgy and interesting stories that will keep people coming back for more. 

Let the Hunt begin...