[ VIZ x I'm the Grim Reaper ] Blog 1 - HUMBLE BEGINNINGS (Patreon)

So I recently got the okay from my editor at VIZ to talk about the process going on behind the scenes regarding turning ITGR into a book! So every so often I'll be posting something here detailing how it's going and what the process is like. I was disallowed from sharing any complete images, but I will be allowed to share certain WIPs and process material. A lot of stuff can't be shared because it's intended to be exclusive to the book, but I can talk about it!

Let's start!

So first things first- About this time last year, I was not even remotely interested in turning ITGR into a book. I've never really had an interest in physical versions of books- ebooks are completely fine with me, and I felt like no one would even buy an ITGR book. Yeah, plenty of fans told me they wanted a book, but if you add up all those people, that's like... 100. That's nowhere near enough. So no personal interest combined with no perceived market, and I didn't really think about it.

However, I was looking for more ideas on merch to add into my store, so I did think: What if I did a small print run of my own WEBTOON? So I asked some friends, and they nearly clocked me over the head, saying that I should just get an agent and publish it properly- And honestly, I was really against the idea. Who the hell would want to publish my comic? It's a shoddily drawn WEBTOON. The art isn't nearly the standard of a typical graphic novel because every week I'm rushing my ass off trying to meet the deadline and I have to cut every corner known to mankind. Of course they continued to encourage me and even shared a contact to an agent.

Now here's the funny thing- VIZ had already approached me before at a comic con. However, I completely misunderstood what they were asking me. They mentioned something about wanting ITGR for "VIZ Originals", and I thought they were going to start their own online platform (since WEBTOON calls their online things "Originals") and wanted me to move my comic over there... So I refused, since that is against my contract. I didn't consider AT ALL that they could have been talking about physical publishing, since once again, publishing ITGR physically wasn't even in the realm of a possibility in my mind. I just couldn't imagine anyone wanting that. 

So when I got in contact with my agent, VIZ was interested immediately. Apparently, I got really lucky because anime style is in fact, not in a high demand in the publishing world. It's basically VIZ or bust. And VIZ was interested so... Phew!One last note: Legal mumbo jumbo is hell. There is a so much legal crap going on all the time forever. You can't just do something, you have to get a lawyer and talk with other lawyers and wait for months and months. Obviously I can't talk about it in specifics but all I can say is: Legal matters are beyond exhausting. So even though this stuff was basically decided last year, everything was only sealed very recently. I'm basically an expert at legal crap regarding creative publishing at this point because of the amount of lawyers I've had to deal with which is both useful and sad lol.

Anyway, to be continued in the next entry!