A Great & Terrible Issue #2 is in production!

I’ve been around indie publishing long enough to remember when you actually had choices—and then watched most of them disappear.

Back in the late ’90s, Diamond Comic Distributors didn’t just grow, they absorbed the whole playing field. Capital City Distribution, Friendly Frank’s, Heroes World Distribution, gone or sidelined. By the early 2000s, if you wanted to be in comic shops, you weren’t choosing a distributor… you were choosing Diamond.

To be fair, that helped stabilize things after the ’90s comic industry crash. The deeper retreat into the Direct Market—tightened the focus on comic shops as the primary path to readers. It worked for a long time, but there was never a real plan to come back out of it.

No meaningful evolution. The Direct Market stopped being a strategy and became a holding pattern. We all got used to it. We optimized for it. We played it safe inside it.

Its not gone, but now we have an opportunity to change it… to grow and evolve it.

With Diamond’s collapse, we’re finally seeing new options take shape. Platforms like Philbo Distribution, Comix.one (digital), Kickstarter, other emerging players like Power Pulp, or even IPG are all trying in their own way to answer the call for the comics direct market. That’s awesome.

We’re getting a chance to open things back up; giving creators, retailers, and publishers real choices again.

And that’s the part that matters.

Choice means opportunity. It means you’re not locked into one path, one pipeline, or one way of reaching readers. Not every option will work, but that’s how you figure out what does.

It’s gonna be messy, sure. But it’s also the most open this industry has been in decades.

We don’t have to stand in line anymore, and honestly, we shouldn’t want to.

I’ve been working on this for a bit over a year and a half now, not to just to try and solve some of our problems at Band of Bards, but also provide a real set of services for the creative community as a whole. With the industry finally changing a little, its noticeable that there is still much work to be done. I’ve always believed that we all should have an opportunity to grow and be a part of it… to contribute to the greater good.

InkBridge is going to be a few things (I have a lot in the pipeline), but right now, its all just getting started.

I’m currently looking for clients who may need campaign fulfillment and logistics support.

We have a fulfillment center and warehouse, can provide climate-controlled storage, take deliveries, fulfill orders and crowdfunding campaigns... we even have the means to produce reward items like bookmarks, stickers, keychains, stamps, art prints, and more.

We manufactured these nifty promotional post-cards (below) that were included in physical orders of AG&T that went out to backers!

We offer these Promotional Materials (and more) Professionally Printed In-House!

There hasn’t been a big fancy announcement or anything like that... I’m kind of just going at a pace I can manage.

If you’re a friend or creator who is looking for this type of service, please send me an email at info@inkbrg.com, mention you’re coming from A Great & Terrible Blog and get a discount on your first service!

I have a lot to talk about today… grab your shit and lets get moving!

Issue 2 of A Great & Terrible is written! This was a fun chapter to write, and its been exciting for me to work with my editor Foxboro putting the final touches on the script and firing it off to the rest of the creative team.

Zukupow has been tearing through layouts, has started inks. The project is moving a hell-of-alot faster this go around, and everyone really is just having a fun time crafting Liz’s story.

A Quiet Storm is brewing in OZ, and Liz is being dropped right into the thick of it. This new issue of A Great & Terrible is sure shaping up to be a game changer for our heroine.

This is all I’ve got in me for right now. March marks the 5th anniversary of Band of Bards, so I suppose next time we meet we can talk about some more of the lessons I’ve learned, and maybe a little bit more about where we’re going.

Until then, Peace!
Chris

Next Issue: Accountability and Responsibility in Indie Publishing, Contracts and Gentleman’s agreements (Probably).