Mat Nastos's Blog, page 15
August 21, 2012
Thrillbent – Creating Digital Like It’s 1999
An upfront warning: this isn’t a comprehensive article or intricately mapped-out treatise on creating a digital business. What is it, you ask? Me ranting a bit on a couple of topics I have a lot of passion for – Internet marketing and Comics – and where they are coming together right now.
With that out of the way, I’m going to start off by making a statement that will probably annoy a number of you reading this: Mark Waid’s Thrillbent makes me very sad. For all of its talk of digital revolution and being the future, it is incredibly short-sighted, ill-executed and more of the same thing that we’ve been seeing from webcomics since 1995.
Sure, they are doing some experimenting in terms of presentation and format, but they are absolutely missing the point of digital comics and creating material for the Internet. The comics of Thrillbent, the marketing/PR, and even the format of its website (which looks like every other webcomic portal, or even 2005-era Comixpress.com), are all squarely targeted at print comic book customers.
That’s right, Mark Waid’s great futuristic vision is just a re-configured print project being sold to pre-existing print customers. Almost as bad, all the site gives us is technology and a “reading” experience that has been done as far back as 12 years ago or more.
I will never understand someone who takes their product to the Internet and then limits the potential market to one that has already proven to be small and, for the most part, uninterested.
The real future of digital comics comes in opening up the thought process on packaging, marketing and audience targeting, not just in playing around with advancing technologies – which, to be honest, is all Thrillbent is. It’s a group of guys who have “figured out” that digital is the “future” (of course, we all know it’s the present and even a bit of the past at this point) and have focused on the wrong part of the problem. Delivery format isn’t the problem. Product development, market research and properly branding the work is the real problem. If you properly develop a product based on market need and build a brand around it based on your market research, that audience will move with you through changes in delivery system or format. Due to the speed of technological advancement, digital delivery will always be a business in a state of constant transition and change. What works today won’t be valid in a two years and will be forgotten in five.
What that means is, the problem with Thrillbent is that it isn’t expanding its potential market, it is just trying to cannibalize the pre-existing print market, and that is a formula for failure.
What I’d love to see is an A-List comic creator “Go Digital” with material and realize they have to market and sell the work like any other product – that they are no different than a prose author selling his work online, or someone trying to sell a new “As Seen On TV” style invention. I don’t want to see yet another failed print comic tossed online just because it is cheaper than print. The formats are different, the potential is different and the product should be treated differently.
Spending your time focused only on the delivery system (and one that can’t be patented or “claimed”) is missing the forest for the trees. If you do that, you’re wasting time and resources that should have been spent developing product for new markets and ways to expand your sales and brand reach.
Thrillbent’s problem, as with comics in general, is one of content and marketing, not of technology or delivery. In Thrillbent’s defense, tho, they’re just making the same mistake 99% of the other digital “publishers” are making.
If you’re going to go digital, then take advantage of what it has to offer. It is different and separate from the print comic industry and should be treated that way.
That’s it for now…I’m heading back to the drawing board!
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
P.S. I avoided talking about the website design issues or what I see as specific content problems with the Thrillbent site. I’ve talked extensively about market research, product development and how to target your market in the past. I also focused specifically on Thrillbent, when the problem is with almost every digital comic publisher out there. Very few of them (if any) have realized that the Internet works different for a business than the comic industry does and their game needs to be changed accordingly.
I’ll probably write more on those points down the road.
P.P.S. This rant isn’t meant to say anything about the quality of the work being produced by Waid or his collaborators. I’m a big fan of Waid’s writing and have enjoyed his work for decades.
August 13, 2012
Doctor Who – Justice League Style by Mat Nastos
Someboday call me a Doctor! Or all of them. 
Continuing on my cover recreation theme, along with my Doctor Who addiction, this time around the eleventh Doctor takes center stage on my re-imagining of the old Justice League #1 cover by Kevin Maguire. I’m pretty sure this cover is one of the most “homaged” covers in comics and it seemed like a perfect piece to use with everyone’s favorite Time Lords.
Next time around, I’m thinking I may work up a short comic story just for fun. That way I can focus on the likeness for just one Doctor instead of trying to get them all.
Let me know what you think with a comment, good or bad.
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
August 9, 2012
Doctors of Future Past
I’ve had the idea to do this variation of the cover to Uncanny X-Men 141 for a long time now and I was excited to finally have the time to sit down and do it. I’m a HUGE X-men fan and an even HUGER Doctor Who fan, so this was an absolute blast for me to do.
I’m not totally happy with some of my likenesses, and the ones I was most happy with wound up covered by the standing figure of the Third Doctor in the front of the picture. Ah, well!
Like it or hate it, I’d love to hear what you think of the piece. It’ll be available for sale in the next few days on eBay.
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
August 3, 2012
Marvel Bronze Age Sketchcards – inks
Anyone who knows me at all knows that the Marvel Comics “Bronze Age” is my favorite period in comics – well, not just Marvel, but all comics. 1970 through the late 1980s is the golden age of my person comic book collecting.
When I was asked recently by the fine folks over at Rittenhouse to contribute some original sketchcard pieces to their upcoming “Marvel Comics Bronze Age” trading card set, I was incredibly excited. For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about when I say “sketchcards,” what I mean is pieces of original artwork, drawn on blank trading card stock, are randomly inserted into the printed trading card packs as a surprise or chase-style card for collectors. Instead of just getting a rare printed card, a fan has one chance per box of cards to get an original sketch. It’s a pretty cool idea and it was a lot of fun to be a part of.
Here are a few of the unfinished cards I’m contributing to the set – these are all in black and white, but will be colored with markers when I’m done. I’ll post more information once I get word on when the set is coming out and all that fun stuff. For now, here’s the art!
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.MatNastos.net
July 29, 2012
Laying down the ink: Elfsong and Deadpool & Cable
One of my favorite parts of art is inking. I’ve always loved it and, to this day, I still do. Here are a couple of newly inked pieces. First up is an ElfSong illustration – it may wind up being the cover to a new ElfSong story I have in mind. I did something a bit different than usual with it – it was sketched (or “pencilled”) digitally, then the rough was printed out in blueline at 11″x17″ and inked from there. I’ve never really been a huge fan of doing tight pencil work and something about sketching things out first on my Cintiq digitally has really loosened me up. Inking on the print out was amazingly easy and a lot of fun.
Next up is something very, very different for me. I found a low resolution scan of a pencil piece by Rob Liefeld (creator of things like Deadpool, Cable, X-Force, Youngblood and a bunch of other stuff, and one of the most successful comic book creators of all time). I’m not completely sure what the image was originally for, but I believe I’ve seen it staring back at me from a JayCompany table and think it was a Deadpool trade paperback cover of some sort.
Liebot gets a lot of shit from fanboys about his earlier work or his creative anatomy, but the guy is a great cartoonist who puts out books that people buy. Lots and lots of people. Like Jack Kirby before him, he’s more interested in doing a cool, dynamic and fun piece than in worrying about everything is “perfect.” I had an absolute blast inking this piece and am a new fan in his camp. Fun, fun stuff!
Back to work for me!
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
July 6, 2012
Skullkickers Sketch Cover
click for high-res version
If you’re a fan of fantasy, RPGs, or even anime like Slayers, then do yourself a favor and check out Skullkickers by Jim Zubkavich, from Image Comics. The book is a lot of fun…it’s light fantasy, without much story or depth, but a whole heck of a lot of action. I mentioned the Slayers anime because that is almost exactly what Zub is doing with Skullkickers and it is a lot of fun.
A while back, Zub put out a call for people to pitch stories and art to him in sort of a contest to have your work run in an issue of the comic. The image I whipped up on the Skullkickers blank variant from the Image Expo this year was inspired by the story I had in mind. Unfortunately, I never got around to putting something together for the actual comic (I lost my interest once I saw that he didn’t want completed work by a writer/artist), but you can check out a glimpse of what might have been.
I continue to enjoy the trade paperback collections of Skullkickers and recommend them to anyone looking for good, action-packed zaniness set against a fantasy backdrop.
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
June 21, 2012
Walking Dead Sketch Cards for Cryptozoic
I’ve just been given the OK to show off the artwork I did recently for Cryptozoic Entertainment for their Walking Dead Comic Series trading card set. What you’ll see down below are some of the sketch cards I did for the set – sketch cards are pieces of original art that are packaged in randomly with the standard printed trading cards. They’re a little bonus for card collectors.
I did about 50 cards for the set. Some of them are in full color, some are in gray scale with a spot color and the rest are in black and white. Here is a look at the first 30 or so. I completely forgot to grab scans of the rest of the cards, mainly because I had to move so quickly to get them done (each card takes about 10-15 minutes to do and going through 50 at once is a killer!).
Thanks for taking a look!
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
June 19, 2012
The Cestus Concern Cover Rough
Many, many moons ago, I used to be an artist. I actually went to comic book school (two different ones!), drew comics, storyboards, did work for video games, television, film – worked on everything from “Highlights for Kids” to “Playboy.” A little over ten years ago I transitioned over to writing and haven’t done a whole lot in the way of drawing since. A few comic books here, some storyboards and concept designing there, a couple of illustrations, sketchcards, and a whole lot of art commissions.
Now, even though I’m mainly considered a writer these days, every so often I like to dust off the pencil and give the old artist muscles a little flexing.
In this particular case, I have just finished writing my first solo novel – an action/adventure/science fiction thing called “The Cestus Concern” – and discovered I needed a cover image for it. And it just felt right to go ahead and do the artwork for the book.
For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, I thought I’d post the rough sketch work (done digitally in Photoshop) for you to take a look at. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to the star of my first novel, Malcolm Weir, and the cover to “The Cestus Concern” – due out October 1, 2012!
And there you have it. I’ll be posting the fully painted cover in the next couple of weeks, along with the final cover treatment a bit further down the road. Make sure to check back here regularly for more updates, sneak peeks and giveaways all leading up to the release!
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.matnastos.net
May 25, 2012
Please don’t steal my work!
I’ve had this issue pop up a few times recently and wanted to address it.
While I understand you may enjoy some of the work I post here on my website – heck, I understand you might even hate some of it – especially if it involves me posting a review of something you’ve written. I know I love to read positive reviews of my stuff. And you’re more than welcome to quote the material I’ve posted…of course, I’d appreciate a link back in exchange, but it’s not “required” – just polite.
With that being said, no one has the right to copy an entire article/review/piece of mine and repost it whole hog onto their own site, with or without crediting me for it. Even if it is the great review of your novel ever posted, you still do not have the right to steal someone else’s work. It’s no respectful and you’re essentially stealing my work when you do it.
Now, there have been a couple of cases where I’ve allowed someone to repost or cross-post one of my articles. That’s fine. As long as you have my permission you’re golden.
My gut reaction when this happens to me is to go ahead and post whatever piece I’ve reviewed, in its entirety, for free on my site for people to download and view. I haven’t done it yet, but it has been tempting. I mean, if it’s ok for you to pirate my work then the reverse is true as well.
The point I’m trying to get across is to have a little courtesy and a little respect for the work of others. Treat them how you want to be treated. Yes, I know suggesting respect and courtesy on the Internet is an insane thing to do.
Until next time: don’t copy my sh!t (without permission)!!
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
May 22, 2012
The Ruby Files reviewed
Every so often, I open up my email and find a nice little surprise. This time around it was from genre author, Sean Taylor, with a preview copy of the new pulp detective anthology he’s released with Bobby Nash, “The Ruby Files.”
I’m going to be upfront here and say that I am not a big fan of hard-boiled detective fiction – it generally plays a bit cliche and flat for me. With that being said, Sean Taylor won me over with his short, “Die Giftige Lilie.”
Sean’s work on this story is by far my favorite of his – and I’ve been a fan of the man’s work for nearly 10 years now (since back when he wrote for iHero and Cyber Age Adventures online). Sean’s storytelling voice oozes cool and he had me glue to the page for the entire tale.
If you enjoy the story of a good, old-fashioned gumshoe told with a modern sensibility, then you’ll go head over heels for “Die Giftige Lilie.” The preview copy I received didn’t have full complete versions of the other stories, but on the strength of Sean Taylor’s story I give the work 4 thumb’s up.
You can find out more about “The Ruby Files” over on Amazon
. I do wish the book were available in an e-format, because I’m a cheap bastard and $16.99 seems a bit over-priced for me. At $4.99-$6.99, an epub or Kindle version of “The Ruby Files” would be a must-buy for me.
-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
www.MatNastos.net
