Very cool — the World’s Greatest Science Adventure Comic, Atomic Robo, is transitioning to webcomic. They’ve done nine miniseries over the past seven years as traditional monthly comics and collected trade paperbacks, but starting this year, new issues will be freely available online, and then collected into for-sale printed trade paperbacks for distribution.
They’re putting the existing nine volumes up on their site for free, starting this week, are opening a webstore for trade collections and merchandise, and have also launched a Patreon for fans to support them. Welcome to 21st century creative business models, folks.
The digital-then-print-for-those-who-want-it thing is a solid plan for comics creators — but the combination of an existing fan base, and a Patreon to help contribute, allowing them to release new digital material for free, while still maintaining collections for traditional distribution? That’s a great example of tailoring your business model to your specific situation — an absolutely essential hallmark of being an Insurgent Creative.
Here is co-creator Scott Wegener talking about their plans, from their blog: