The future of INTERSECT
So. The INTERSECT vol 1 trade comes out this month, collecting issues 1-6. Here’s the press release about it: https://imagecomics.com/content/view/intersect-vol.-1-to-terrify-readers-this-may
And I ought to say now: the series is ending now. Not because I want it to - I could go on creating this book for quite some time, I think. The plan is and always was to take it to 24 issues, forming four discrete stories. The trade collection of 1-6 is a complete story, and that is where that story was always going to end. There are three more stories yet to tell, still in the notebooks. The next one was to follow the Lady Flock - those blue birds you see in this volume.
But it doesn’t make financial sense to continue. The direct market simply doesn’t support the book, and while I’d love to keep going, I can’t put in a ten to fourteen hour-a-day, twenty day schedule each month on a project that doesn’t generate enough money to survive.
The book is challenging. It’s unconventional, and it requires work on the part of the reader. I love the way the audience that found it engages with it, and I absolutely love the way they talk about the book when they communicate their feelings back to me. I love the debates the book provokes, and the varied theories about its meaning the readers have shared. But a challenging book is also a book that sheds readers, month-to-month, and while I live in hope, and always will, I’m not surprised it didn’t turn out to be a moneymaker. It’s a lot harder to sell a challenging book than it is a straightforward one.
But I’m never going to stop making challenging, experimental books. Because that’s what I want to read, and I truly believe (and have seen proof) that there is a strong audience out there for them, an audience that’s not often served.
Hell, I’m probably not going to stop making *this* book - I just have to figure out how I want to do it going forward. If there’s enough support for the Trade collection, it may well continue at Image after a few months. Or maybe I’ll crowdfund it, or maybe I’ll use the money from one of my other projects to bankroll it.
If you love INTERSECT, please buy the trade - for yourself, or for someone you think would appreciate it. Show me that you want more.
And watch my various spaces - here, Twitter, etc - for announcements about the next project, and the ones that will follow. I’ll *never* stop.
I love this work. Thank you!
