Blue Milk Special

Happy Force of July, USA! Hope you like our pinup even if the pun is horrendous. I had a hell of a time trying to edit and proof read today’s blog due to our neighborhood exploding all around me, so bear with me. Today, we introduce Furbag–oops! I meant Furlag… Captain Mogwhai… Batboy… He appears in the Dark Horse comics, as well as the trading cardsand via the Brothers Hildebrant. I even hear they made an action figure of him! But, as Zuckuss predicts, Furlag won’t be around for long.

Continuing my interview with Brian King, creator of InkOutBreak, we discuss the struggles that the webcomic tool has been through in the last three years. In many ways, I can relate to Brian’s highs and lows with my own experiences making Blue Milk Special.

I summarized what Ink was all about in my last blog, which featured Part 1 of my Brian King interview. At it’s simplest Ink is a tool for readers, more than creators, to navigate through the webcomics you read. It’s a way for a reader to keep track of their place (auto bookmarking) and get notified whenever there’s a new strip. You log in to Ink each day and it makes surfing your wbecomics (and finding new ones) easier. As a creator, you can tailor your listing, add banner images, and communicate with other creators through their forum.

BMS: How much has InkOutBreak evolved since you first made it public?

Wow… to think back its pretty embarrassing , right now we are hitting 3 years. The first idea seems so little to what it is now. I was actually putting together old snapshots of Ink over the years. It is just a laugh. I remember being at lunch with a friend and being excited cause I had 100 unique visits come to the site to read comics. Now we are over 11,000 users. Back in the beginning the features were just not there, everything was very thrown together. I was the only developer, and it was always ideas that you cannot go on Google and search up how someone else did it. Now I work with a developer a little bit, and that is mostly to get an app together this year.

I am trying to get a few things together to release for year 3: con schedules (and who is attending users / creators), a better way to follow all your favorite creators without needing a Twitter / Tumblr account, and we are now trying to create a webcomic wiki because Wikipedia does not consider webcomics notable.

BMS: I think all creators have a point where they question whether it is worth carrying on. Blue Milk Special has given Leanne and myself several moments of deep introspection. How about Ink? What was your lowest point on the journey?

My stomach just sank. I would say that was the first month of creating Ink. I had created the database, algorithms and system to get through reading comics. I knew I was onto something because me and my friends were cranking away and we went from reading 5 comics to 30. Same amount of time, because its just click-read-click. Then after you finished the comics you liked Ink was suggesting other great comics to read. So my friends were like, how are you going to support this? How can you serve this up at a decent speed on a crappy webhosting account? So I moved to a dedicated server.

Now that was a big jump for a STARTING site. My friend said just toss an advertisement in the bar at the top. Now I thought nothing of it, but artists were furious! I removed it within minutes after the first message. I can understand why they were upset, and that has never been an issue again. I got 5 cease and desists emails, which have been reconciled, so there are no hard feelings now, but when it happened…ugh… so low. I had my wife talk me into keeping at it and pushing on, and thankfully I did.

The road of Ink has been a lot of hurdles, mostly because you are connecting peoples’ work with your site. I have gotten thrown through the ringer so many times about making money off people that I have actually removed all ads from InkOutBreak. I now run the service as a donation supported site. I do pretty well, I cover 50-75% of the cost right now. I don’t mind covering it because in my mind this is my hobby and it is something I am very proud of. I aim to someday be 100% covered, and maybe a bit more to cover the cost of some advertising. For me the ad money is not worth the stress, and I like to have creators feel comfortable and respected.

I have to mention that one of the best rumors about Ink was that it had a function that replaced the ads on comic sites, with ads for Ink. Totally not true, but these pop up every few months… I have gotten to the point where I just ignore it cause people who know me know I am no creep. It’s nice when you see artists that I have worked with stand up for Ink.

BMS: So what are the biggest obstacles that InkOutBreak still faces?

Working Alone is easily the absolute worst. I have friends I can bounce things off of for ideas, and some people try and help troubleshoot users. For the most part its always me. It may not seem like a site that takes tons of work, but there are glitches, user issues, politics, promoting peoples comics and Kickstarters. Not to mention keeping the site moving forward.

I attend cons a lot now and those keep me going. I have gotten to shake hands with some amazing people, and share a few drinks with some good friends. We work in an industry with some amazing people. I have almost given up on Ink so many times, but it’s the people it helps that keeps that power cord in the wall.

BMS: I can relate. The readers, the fans, their messages of support, or meeting them in person have been adrenaline shots for Leanne and myself. You know you’re doing something worthwhile when so many people rally around you. When I look at Ink, I get the feeling that support will only continue to grow!

The final part of the interview will appear in Monday’s blog where we discuss webcomics and where Ink is heading.