Add Zestworld to the growing list of places to get new comics
If you’ve been paying attention, comic artists have been getting the short end of the stick for a while now. Low page rates, crazy deadlines added to characters who-once created-don’t even belong to you. They belong to the company: Marvel, DC, etc. Oh, and Marvel Studios is one of the biggest money makers in the industry so when you see your character make a debut or even have an entire feature film made does the writer or the artist see any of that money? Of course not. You can see how this can be problematic.
Well, recently creators have started to take matters into their own hands. The seeds of this was undoubtedly planted when the founding fathers of Creator Owned IP went out and started up Image Comics. It took it a while, but soon the internet caught up to the idea with Kickstarter and the notion that you can appeal to your fanbase and the crowd will fund your creation. Taking a lot of the guess work out of making comics. Along came Patreon, who offered the idea of a sustainable monthly income. 2021 saw the semi-exodus to SubStack, primarily a place for journalists, who offered to partner with comic creators in a win-win deal to make, create, own and control everything and use their site for content creation, sharing, promoting, etc.
It was only a matter of time before others jumped on the same sort of bandwagon. Zestworld being the latest. So, what’s Zestworld? According to a ComicsBeat article, “Zestworld is committed to allowing creators to maintain ownership, and the platform aims to “fracture the Marvel and DC duopoly by providing top-tier comic creators a centralized platform that combines business, community management, digital publishing, NFTs, metaverse events and IP rights management.” Which means…what, exactly?
It means Zestworld is a subscription based model for creators to digitally publish their comics online. If you’re looking for the differences between them and Substack, good luck because there isn’t much. What else it means, though, is that there’s another opportunity for comic creators/artists/writers/etc. to make work they love and care about, and keep the rights. It also means it’s another place on the internet to get new comics!
Now, not to be a Debbie Downer, but I’m not sure I’m too keen on the idea of adding another website to already long list of places to go to for the latest comics. We’ve already got Substack as I mentioned before. So now let’s add Zestworld to the top of the list. Below those two we’ve got Tapas and Webtoon, Patreon and last but never to be least, your local comic book shop to collect your print floppies off the shelves. That’s six different places, online and brick and mortar, to go to for comics you may be reading, though I’m sure I might’ve missed some minor venues. I feel like that’s asking a lot from your garden variety comic book reader.
I’m in full support of comic creators making comics, owning and controlling them, and finally getting their fair share, but I wonder how long this list will grow before it becomes too cumbersome. Will comic enthusiasts be forced to eventually choose one or two and stick with those exclusively? Even financially speaking, subscribing to the bottom tiers of all your favorite comic creators can be a small monthly bill. Subscribing to a couple upper tiers could be a larger bill. Will readers have to wait months for digitally published comics to be made available in print? By that time will they even still be interested?
I know it isn’t as messy as I’m making it out to be, but you have to admit…it’s a little messy. What I’m afraid of is that the trend of “new comics/creator platforms” will slowly increase to double digits, stretching the already thin attention span of the public at large so much so that no one will actually know what’s completely going on at any given moment. This will leave some great stories going un-read which also means un-told, which is another injustice done to comic creators.
I don’t have any answers. I’m just hoping that the comic industry doesn’t get so obsessed with digital publishing, NFTs, new platforms, and subscription based content that it muddies the things we love first which are great comics, epic stories, and compelling characters. On the flip side, it may be a good incentive to tell those epic tales so that, no matter what platform you’re on, we will all be there to hear you tell it.