The day is finally HERE! Today marks the retail wide release of Burden, the first major comic book release from Monochrome Mythology. It’s been an interesting journey complete with many lessons and reflections along the way.
Decades of History
When my twin brother Andrew and I first started this project, we didn’t know it would take us into the self-publication route. Andrew had been out of the U.S. Army for nearly 20 years at this point but the stories were ones he could recall in detail. You can imagine the emotional resonance that overseas combat can have on a person, especially someone fresh out of high school. Thanks to an amazing final project at Middle Tennessee University, we created the first version of Burden and continued to plan what it could look like published for a general audience. Fast forward over a year later and we were ready to go with the version you can now buy on Amazon.
The above drawing of main character Andy defines the sort of moral or psychological injury that someone might encounter while serving in the military – a good synopsis of his attitude throughout the story. It’s based on a photo of Andrew while in the Iraq in June of 2004:
Lessons
Just like anything new, there is a lot to learn when it comes to the publishing business. One advantage we have in today’s modern world is how quickly some parts of it are, such as getting proofs of the book, gathering a Library of Congress number, and other smaller tasks. Of course, the largest time commitments are the creation of the final product and formatting it for both paperback and eBook versions. Learning how all of these items fit together and the actual time behind them is one that I believe must be learned through experience as traditional advice around publishing standard novels isn’t quite the right fit here for a comic book. Thankfully, there are some great resources and creators out there who know their stuff – people like the NASH Illustrators.
Wrapping Up
Andrew and I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported us along the way! I can’t imagine trying to fashion a complete project like this one without them.
Keep telling stories,
Jeremy (and Andrew!)