Robert Meyers and Scott Dunbier
The ICv2 Insider Talks at New York Comic Con brought together two comics entrepreneurs with very different visions and models: Scott Dunbier, Founder of Act 4, and Robert Meyers, Director of Publishing at Bad Egg Publishing, who discussed their strategies in a panel moderated by journalist Heidi MacDonald.
Dunbier is bringing the Artist’s Edition format he pioneered at IDW to his new publishing venture, Act 4. “I signed a deal recently with DC Comics to do some Artist’s Editions,” he said. “I’m going to be doing a bunch of big collections of books, the same kinds I’ve been doing. One that’s going to be coming out next fall will be the complete Darwyn Cooke Spirit, which will include the Batman/Spirit crossover.” Other titles will include a Danger Girl Artist’s Edition by J. Scott Campbell and a new edition of Dave Stevens’ Covers and Stories, which has been out of print for about a decade. “I’ll even be doing some new comics,” Dunbier said. “Walter Simonson and I are going to continue to do new Ragnarok periodicals.”
Bad Egg has a different strategy: “We work primarily with YouTube and Twitch creators,” Meyers said. And how’s that working? “Godslap is our flagship book,” Meyers said, “and we’re over 100,000 copies sold across the first five issues.” Meyers also broke a bit of news at the panel: The company will be working on a YA graphic novel with LaurenZside, whom he describes as “the mom of gaming.”
Creators are key to the success of both publishers, but in very different ways.
For Dunbier, it’s all about the art. Like the Artist’s Editions he edited at IDW, Act 4’s books will be oversized, displaying the artwork in photographic detail, complete with notes and corrections. His readers will be serious collectors and longtime fans of the artists. For Bad Egg content is the focus; the YouTubers work with veteran comics writers and artists to tell stories set in the worlds they create. Many of the readers are fans of the streamers, not the medium, and a Bad Egg comic may be their first.
“Our main marketing channel is the creators we are working with,” Meyers said. “Charlie will do a specific video for each new issue that comes out. Jack has done a bunch of videos within his bigger gameplay videos. JackSepticEye [real name: Seán William McLoughlin] has done a bunch of social media posts. But it’s, it’s very organic. It’s not like ‘Coming on Tuesday—brand new comic!’ It’s like, ‘Hey guys, I made this thing. I would really like for you to read it.’ And that’s every time we see those, we just see our numbers bump up.”
Dunbier, on the other hand, has built an audience during his 16 years at IDW, during which he edited 90 Artist’s Editions. “It’s not as hard as you might think, because there is such a wonderful community of people who love these books,” he said. Typically, as an editor, he would meet one or two people at a show who would know him and his work. “When I started doing Artist’s Editions, I was inundated by people coming up to me at shows,” he said, “a lot of pros, but a lot of fans who would just come up and thank me and say, ‘Oh my god, I love these books!’ That keeps me motivated, that there is such an enthusiastic fan base for these particular books.”
Bad Egg launched in 2022 (see “New Publisher Kicks Off with Comic by YouTube, Twitch Star”) with a single issue of GodSlap, by MoistCr1tikal, a.k.a. Charlie White, one of the founders of the company. “He literally called his business partner/best friend/manager one night and was like, Matt, I want to make a comic,” Meyers said. “He wouldn’t stop talking about it.” Matt was Matt Phillips, brother of comics writer Stephanie Phillips, who wrote the first issue and then connected them with another writer and an artist. The company has grown since then, adding three new series this year. Meyers, a comics veteran with stints at Valiant and Oni Press, helps narrow down the stories and match influencers with creators, and the Bad Egg creator lineup now includes James Asmus, Megan Huang, Aubrey Sitterson, Alejandro Arbona, and other established names.
While Bad Egg initially sold their comics direct to consumers and retailers from their website, in August 2024 they began distribution to the direct market via Diamond. Meyers, who worked at a comic shop as a teenager, said when he saw how well the first issue of GodSlap sold, he decided it should be in comic shops. “I want retailers to also get the success that we’re seeing with the books,” he said. After two solicit cycles, Meyers said, they are getting orders from 200 stores, and in addition to the success of GodSlap, they just went back to press on a new title, Hero Outage, by the New Zealand YouTubers Viva La Dirt League, thanks to orders from the direct market.
Dunbier is still fine-tuning his distribution plan for Act 4, although he said he would be doing “a bit of” direct to consumer selling. “As for distribution, I’m very close to announcing what I’ll be doing,” he said. “I’m not quite there yet.”
Bad Egg comics are priced at $15 for 48 pages, 40 of which are story. The comics have card stock covers, and the interiors are high quality paper, and Meyers feels the higher page count and quarterly schedule work better for readers who are new to comics.
IDW’s Artist’s Editions are priced at $150 for 232 pages, a risky proposition at first. “When I started at IDW, one of the founders, Ted Adams, and I had an agreement that if I ever wanted to do something that he did not feel comfortable with, then I would be able to publish it elsewhere, on my own,” he said. “I fully expected him to say that with Artist Editions, because it had never been done. They’re very big and bulky, and they’re expensive as hell to print. They were untested. And Ted, to his credit, said, ‘Sure, let’s go for it.’”
As Dunbier goes solo with the Artist’s Editions (and Connoisseur Editions, as some of the books are called), Meyers is looking for new ways for Bad Egg to expand its horizons. “We’re going to try a subscription service as well as retail,” he said. “The podcast space is subscription-based, and we’re going to tap into that, because we’re working with a couple of the biggest podcasters out there.”
“The best thing for me is we’re telling stories to people who don’t haven’t seen that story told yet, but once they discover the format, I think they’re going to discover all the other great books that are out there,” Meyers said.
Source: ICV2
