12 | Online Graphic Novels: A Case Study on

Brittany Melia, School of Information Studies

The following case study focuses on Faith Erin Hicks, a Canadian graphic novelist, who began her career by self-publishing webcomics. Eventually, she was able to branch into commercial publishing, and make a living as a graphic novelist. I will examine how cultivating a passionate fanbase through self-publishing graphic novels online can help support a creator’s transition to traditional publishing for profit. Furthermore, this case study also demonstrates how respecting and remaining connected to one’s online community can be incorporated into commercial publishing, creating a balancing act between the two worlds of creation. Overall, the pros and cons of self-publishing or traditionally publishing graphic novels will be investigated through the lens of one woman’s experience.

Keywords: self-publishing online, graphic novels, faith erin hicks, commercial publishing, fanbase

Introduction

Self-publishing online has become one of the most barrier-free ways to make one’s work widely available. Creators of comics and graphic novels, in particular, are finding a niche in which to garner a greater international fanbase for their work where a traditional publisher could not do the same. Graphic novelists have used their online popularity to transition to the commercial publishing sphere. This phenomenon of online communities for authors and readers to share and develop their work is at the root of successful self-publishing online. This chapter will focus on Faith Erin Hicks, a Canadian graphic novelist and cartoonist who currently lives in Vancouver (Hicks, “About Faith,” n.d). Throughout her career, Hicks has been nominated for and won numerous awards such as an Eisner award in 2014 for The Adventures of Superhero Girl (2014), and her acclaim and talent have since garnered her an artist position for graphic novels based on

Copyright © 2018 Melia. Faith Erin Hicks 110 the video game The Last of Us (2013), and as the next writer of the comics that continue the widely successful animated series Avatar the Last Airbender (2005) (Hicks, November 5, 2017). While Hicks has reached a high level of success commercially publishing graphic novels, her start in comics began by self-publishing graphic novels online. I will investigate how Hicks’ transition from self-publishing online to commercial publishing has been aided by the fanbase she developed at the start of her career, and what part of the self-publishing process is most impactful for both author and readers.

I will also note that for the purposes of this chapter, the terms “graphic novels” and “webcomics” will be used interchangeably. There is much debate about what exactly each term refers to; some argue that comics are stories that are updated serially and use very flat characters while graphic novels are standalone stories that intimately explore the motivations and storylines of characters (Turk, 2012). Since Hicks’ online works were all published serially but each investigated the psychological and emotional arcs of the characters, this distinguishing of “graphic novels” and “webcomics” does not work. This being the case, the terms will be treated as synonymous.

Literature Review

Impact of Fanbases on Online and Commercial Publishing

Although academic works on self-publishing graphic novels online is limited, there are a number of books and articles that focus on the fanbases that arise from self-publishing any form of material online. In his work, Timothy Laquintano (2016) notes that authors who publish online will often acquire a fanbase who will give them the popularity to publish commercially. For example, he explains that commercial publishers began seeking out self-publishing authors who had made a major impact online, writing, “Agents and publishers began to monitor self- publishing for emerging stars to sign … but the commentary also pointed out that there was no guarantee that a loyal readership built on inexpensive eBooks sold through Kindle would translate into a large print readership” (p. 44). While fanbases are clearly not synonymous with

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 111 book sales, the fact that commercial publishers are still willing to take the risk of approaching self-publishing authors speaks to the power of this online phenomenon.

Furthermore, Laquintano writes that, “authors believed that the material and sociotechnical conditions of publishing could eventually recede into the background as they established an immediate and intimate relationship with readers through their books—the kind of unmediated relationship so often fantasized about in the age of print” (p. 94-5). This demonstrates that the key to being successful when self-publishing online is to fully engage with the fanbase that is cultivated both through the work and through the sharing of personal stories. The readership is valued beyond their financial support of a project.

Finally, Maria Walters (2009) focuses on the specifics of communities being created online through author’s self-published works. In particular, Walters explains how these works allow the authors to connect with their readership, but also foster relationships between the readers. She writes:

Another effect of these forums is the relationships formed between readers. Forums allow users to introduce conversations that are not directly related to any particular comic, which is vital to the formation of a true community. … Plus, forums provide authors with the opportunity to get to know their audiences, interact, and answer questions in a public place (p. 1-2).

This highlights the way in which graphic novels self-published online can reach a greater, more passionate audience, and ultimately contribute to a successful commercial career for the author.

Permanence and Impermanence of Material

The fluid existence of the graphic novels that authors self-publish online is a big topic of discussion in articles on the matter. On the one hand, Timothy Laquintano writes that changes made to published materials are seldom to avoid upsetting or confusing the readership. He explains that, “Readers made it difficult for the authors to make any substantive changes to the content of their fiction because they had invested intense emotional resources into a story and its

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 112 plotline. … This problem was particularly acute for one author when she faced the prospect of having to make changes to sell a book with a particular retailer” (p. 105). The author did not make changes out of respect to the fanbase, demonstrating the strong bond that develops between the author and their readership as well as the permanence of the work despite the creator having a greater ability to edit things. However, on the other hand, authors can also make drastic changes at the request of the readers or remove content altogether. Gabriel Romaguera notes that,

Alterations to the text can be done almost instantaneously through this format and affect all readers from that point on. New editions of the text through the updated document of the website automatically replace the previous version. There are no ‘early editions’ of the webcomic available to readers (2015, p. 4).

The ease and speed with which authors can make changes to their online graphic novels means that readers can sometimes lose access to the original versions of the webcomics as they are replaced with edited versions. Readers in the future who do not read the graphic novels in real- time will be at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to seeing all that the author has self- published online. As well, readers can also be at the mercy of the author to continue their graphic novels and keep them online whereas a commercially published book obtains a physical form that exists outside of the author’s control. This is one of the difficulties of self-publishing online.

Diversity in Stories Published Online

Self-publishing graphic novels online also leads to a greater diversity in characters and storylines, be it from the perspective of gender, race, or sexuality. In The World Needs More Sheroes (2017), Jennifer McCartney conducts a case study on graphic novelist Shequeta Smith and how she brought diversity to the medium through a black female lead in her work. She notes that Smith said, “’Women make up like 46% of comic book readers, so it’s a no brainer that we should be creating these stories” (p. 42). Having characters that resonate with different types of people allows for a greater audience, particularly when the material is also available online without international borders or prices separating it from certain fans. This is one of the ways

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 113 that online graphic novels can cultivate such a passionate fanbase as readers are viewing themselves in characters that are not often portrayed in mainstream publishing.

Discussion

In 1999, Faith Erin Hicks, a teenager at the time, started serially publishing a young adult fantasy known as Demonology 101 (Hicks, July 25, 2004). The comic ran from 1999 to 2004 and gained a healthy fanbase online. Discussion forums about the comic were used on LiveJournal, Hicks’ own website where she published Demonology 101, and her personal email was also available to readers. After finishing the series, Hicks wrote a blog post speaking about her relationship with the community, noting that while the passion for her work was wonderful, the heartfelt responses to problems in her personal life were astounding. She said:

One thing I will mention (and then hopefully never bring up again) was the issue of the closing note for Episode 4, in which I told about my parents separating. I felt that I had to explain myself, as at one point I'd considered shutting down the comic, and maybe the readers should know what exactly had been going on then. What surprised me was the outpouring of reader response to my post, as people wrote email after email offering condolences as well as telling me about their experiences with a wayward parent. I don't think I answer one email about that topic. For some reason, I didn't have it in me at that time to deal with the kindness of strangers (July 25, 2004).

Hicks makes the important distinction that her fans are strangers; they have never met face to face, they do not know what the other looks like, and, in Hicks’ case, might not know their real names given the prevalence of usernames online. Nevertheless, author and readership are bonded through their love of the artistic work being shared, and, when a personal tragedy or problem occurs, this connection can reach beyond the graphic novel, and offer real, human messages of support and empathy. This phenomenon has been seen across self-publishing graphic novelists online. For example, in a case study on Rick Burlew and Tarol Hunt’s graphic novels, Gabriel Romaguera noted that both authors were met with wide emotional support

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 114 respectively when Burlew’s comic was put on hiatus due to a hand injury sustained in a car crash, or when Hunt was forced to back away from his work because of crippling anxiety and depression (2015, p. 6-9). These moments of humanity between author and community make the experience of publishing the graphic novel and reading it a more meaningful and memorable one.

Furthermore, the diverse characters often present in graphic novels published online, and certainly present in Hicks’ work, could also be a factor in creating such a dedicated fanbase. Hicks’ works have largely included very strong female leads and supporting characters such as Raven, Poe, and Mac in Demonology 101. That being said, Hicks feels she can do more in terms of representing people. In a blog post related to her work on Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, Hicks wrote that,

I’ve been very focused on women in comics (we are pretty underrepresented), and I feel I’ve been successful in making lots of comics with women and girls in them, and encouraging my fellow Lady Cartoonists. Now I need to look beyond that, and do a better job of representing the diversity of the world around me (Hicks, 2013).

This commitment of Hicks’ demonstrates her willingness to support and accept all types of people or characters as well as fans. In this way, fans are more likely to flock to Hicks’ work as they recognize themselves in her characters. The fact that much of Hicks’ earlier work was published online during the 90s meant that she could sidestep commercial publishing barriers that refused to allow women, homosexuals, or other marginalized individuals to flourish in comics. When artists like Hicks create such an experience for their readership, they are likely to follow when the author transitions to commercial publishing. It also helps that, at present, traditional publishing companies are much more willing to deliver content that displays greater diversity.

Before Hicks got a publishing deal with , she worked fulltime as an animator in Halifax (Hicks, “About Faith,” n.d). It was only when the animation company was forced to let go of most of its staff that Hicks chose to pursue publishing graphic novels commercially (Hicks, January 25, 2012). Her first graphic novel was Zombies Calling (2007)

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 115 and she published her second The War at Ellsmere (2008) shortly afterwards. While both novels did reasonably well and earned Hicks a few awards, her best-selling work came in the form of her third graphic novel Friends with Boys (2012) which she published with . Interestingly, Hicks and First Second Books created a website dedicated to the project in which a page was uploaded daily leading up to the market release of the full book after which the archive of pages was removed. On the site, Hicks wrote,

My roots are in online comics, in the constant discussion that arises from putting your work online, and I’m incredibly happy that First Second is allowing me to do this. So please, spread the word, drop a comment in the comment section, or shoot me an email! I hope to hear from you (2011, para. 6).

Hicks actively invites readers to develop discussion and community around the book, hoping to cultivate the bonding experience that worked so well for her first online comic. Both Hicks and First Second Books seemed to have faith that rewarding readership with free access to the full story and an environment for speculation with the author and fellow fans would ultimately help with the sales and popularity of the commercially released edition rather than hinder it. The fact that Friends with Boys is one of Hicks’ most successful and well-known works perhaps supports their theory.

Hicks and First Second Books continued this process when she teamed up with writer Prudence Shen to create the graphic novel Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong (2013). Shen and Hicks accompanied each new page of the comic with blog posts about their processes writing and drawing it (Hicks & Shen, September 24, 2012). Once again, the interaction between author and readership is prioritized. The insights creators can offer about their work makes the readers feel that they are in a privileged position and valued for their own input on the material. In turn, authors ideally benefit from this by having fans invest in their future commercial work. Hicks is a success story of self-publishing online before graduating to mass market publishing, in no small part, it seems, from her dedication to the fanbase she cultivated with her first online work.

Now, in 2018, Hicks’ first self-published works have greatly diminished. The second online graphic novel Hicks began working on called Ice was last updated in 2010, and Hicks

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 116 confirmed on Tumblr in response to questions from fans that the project was essentially abandoned (December 12, 2012). Hicks continues to create other popular novels commercially such as her new trilogy The Nameless City (2016); however, new projects do not necessarily make up for unfinished storylines that fans have come to care about. Unresolved stories are a danger of self-publishing online either due to authors having less time because of commercial work or other fulltime jobs, or for other personal reasons. In any case, it poses a unique situation for creators to deal with in trying to maintain reader support while also moving on to other material. This is largely due to authors having contracts and deadlines for specific works for commercial publishers but having no fixed deadlines for their online graphic novels. The commercial work must be prioritized while the self-published material online can no longer be updated regularly, creating a juggling of responsibilities between fans and publishers. Unlike authors who self-publish texts in full online, serially published webcomics often result in authors having to put their works on hiatus when it comes to also working in commercial publishing.

Moving on, the most interesting thing to note about Hicks’ online self-publishing career is that Demonology 101, the work that garnered her original fanbase is no longer available online as of the fall of 2017. Hicks deleted the original website she had posted the comic on, but another site agreed to host the comic in its stead (Hicks, November 5, 2017, para. 3). However, when that site also shutdown, access to its archive was lost to the readership. Hicks wrote the following on her current website:

Demonology 101 is 18 years old at this point. I started drawing it in 1999 when I was a teenager. It used to be hosted on another website, but now that host, who very generously provided space for this comic for years without charging me money, has decided to take that site down. So, D101 has passed on into the internet either. As of now, I have no plans to bring it back. I feel like 18 years is long enough for a webcomic to exist on the internet, and I’ve received many wonderful comments from people who have enjoyed reading it. And … well, I feel like it’s just time to let it go (November, 5, 2017, para. 3).

This highlights a unique dynamic of online self-publishing: while printed books that are commercially published can often be found on Amazon or in a library if they are out of print,

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 117 online comics exist for readers at the discretion of the author. That being said, perhaps Hicks’ decision demonstrates that the most powerful component of publishing graphic novels online is the experience of it being updated and discussing it with readers and the author in real time rather than reading the full version years later. Whatever the verdict, Demonology 101 can, in fact, still be retrieved online using The Wayback Machine1, although it requires a lot of sorting through dead links to find all of the pages. Still, this greatly reduces the accessibility of the graphic novel. If Hicks, the author, based on her blog post, does not know of the comic’s continued existence on that site, it seems unlikely that most of its readers will know about it or find it.

Conclusion

Self-publishing online provides an experience that connects author and readership in their shared love of the material. This cultivation of support can bolster the creator into successful commercial publishing; in the case of Hicks, online publishing and traditional publishing can be combined to account for her original fanbase as well as support her financially. For all the benefits of online self-publishing graphic novels, it is possible that the experience in real time is what makes the process truly special and impactful. Potentially, the excitement generated by updating a graphic novel and discussing it cannot be replicated by only reading the finished product. While the story may be strong, the priority is the journey of seeing it realized as a community.

References

Dimartino, Michael Dante & Konietzko, Bryan. (Creators). (2005). Avatar the Last Airbender [Television series]. Hollywood, CA: Nickelodeon.

Hicks, Faith Erin. (1999). Demonology 101.

1 Demonology 101 can be found on The Wayback Machine at the following link: https://web.archive.org/web/20040624024304/http://faith.rydia.net/.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 118

_____. (2004, July 25). So what’s it like, doing an online comic? [Blog post]. Retrieved from the WayBackMachine. _____. (2007). Zombies Calling. San Jose, CA: Slave Labour Graphics. _____. (2008). The War at Ellsmere. San Jose, CA: Slave Labour Graphics. _____. (2011-2012). About Friends with Boys. [Blog post]. _____. (2012, January 25). The financial reality of a full-time cartoonist. [Blog post]. _____. (2012, December 12). Is Ice really abandoned??? [Blog post] _____. (2012). Friends with Boys. New York, NY: First Second Books. _____. (2013). 5 Things Faith Erin Hicks Learned While Drawing Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. Diversity in YA. _____. (2013). The Adventures of Superhero Girl. Milwaukie, OR: . _____. (2016). The Nameless City. New York, NY: First Second Books. _____. (2017, November 5). Two questions and two announcements! [Blog post]. _____. About Faith. [Blog post]. Retrieved from Hicks, Faith Erin & Shen, Prudence. (2012, September 24). Page 001. [Blog post]. Laquintano, Timothy. (2016). Mass Authorship and the Rise of Self-Publishing. Iowa: University of Iowa Press. McCartney, Jennifer. (2017). The World Needs More Sheroes: Publishing and Promoting a Graphic Novel. Publishers Weekly, 264(9), p. 41-2. Naughty Dog. (2013). The Last of Us [Playstation 3 video game]. Sony Computer Entertainment. Romaguera, Gabriel. (2015). Waiting for the Next Part: How the Temporal Dimensions of Digital Serialisation Have Changed Author-Reader Dynamics. Networking Knowledge, 8(4), p. 1-14. Shen, Prudence. (2013). Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. New York: First Second Books. Turk, Savannah. (2012). Graphic novels vs Comic Books: What’s the Difference? The Daily Utah Chronicle. Walters, Maria. (2009). What’s up with Webcomics? Visual and Technological Advances in Comics. The Journal of Education, Community and Values, 9(2), p. 1-15.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)