The Future of Charisma Kills Studios?

The Future of Charisma Kills Studios?


As I mention in a CKS facebook post, I have been struggling to keep all of the various projects under control. Unfortunately, I seem to have stretched myself beyond what I can produce. I've taken some time to think of a way to rein everything in. I think I have it. This will change the work flow of the studio and current projects. So, here is what I have come up with.


Webcomics
C.O.G. Comics:( www.cogcomics.thecomicseries.com ) Hopefully this new workflow will allow me to get back on schedule with it. Ideally, the C.O.G. Webcomic is scheduled to be updated once a week, every Friday. Because of everything else that has been going on, this became a challenge. I expect that the new system will allow for it to return to its normal schedule; however, this may take a week or two. One thing that will likely change is the art style. I'll try and make these changes gradual. My personal art style has been developing. Kind of like playing guitar, style and “voice” evolves. I've been trying to keep the C.O.G. Art style the same, but doing so is starting to become a hinderance.


Sweet Dreams are Made of Worms and CKS Chronicles:
SDMW www.sweetdreamsaremadeofworms.thecomicseries.com
CKS Chronicles www.ckscronicles.thecomicseries.com
Since CKS Chronicles is basically telling stories that foreshadow events in SDMW Book 2, I'm canceling CKS Chronicles and moving the Mind Shock story to the SDMW webcomic. This helps in two ways. First, it gives me one less comic to worry with. Second, it provides new material for SDMW which gets over 10 times the amount of traffic that CKS Chronicles gets. The next change here will be color. I swore that SDMW would always be black and white. It has always been a story that dealt with psychology, sociology, and the human condition. Well, color can be a major factor in these subjects. The fact that Ego has two different color eyes and Psychocide is green with purple polka dots are totally lost on the readers. I have 7 pages of Mind Shock already penciled. They just need to be inked and colored. Once I have at least 4 pages of it totally complete, I'll load them into the buffer. That will give me time to work on more. These pages were drawn about a year ago. And done on paper that does not take kindly to ink. I'm not going to mess with them other than add color. After those seven pages, there will be a distinct change in art style and ink.


Apocalypse Pizza: ( www.apocalypsepizza.thecomicseries.com )I'm at a loss with this one. Statistically, it remains the most popular of the webcomics. Even though it has only been updated 5 times in over two years, it gets almost the same amount of hits and more return visitor traffic as SDMW. I can't ignore those numbers, but I don't have time to do regular updates for it. I have two more updates that need to be colored. I'll post them as time allows. Hopefully I'll have a plan for it by the time I run out of material.


Printed Comics
All plans to produce print comics have been put on hold. There are several reasons for this, but for the sake of my own sanity, I'm not going to go into them. I will say, take an hour or two of your time and research the future of comics and Diamond Comics Distributors. Successful self publishing is a shot in the dark. In addition to this, I spoke with a publisher at Contraflow 3 that showed interest in printing one of my comics. If this goes through, I will not have time to dedicate to self publishing. I'll know more about this towards the end of November.


Charisma Kills Radio
I have already invested too much time and money into this project to cast it aside. It only takes an hour or two a week. Plus I have over 20 guest lined up and have started recording episodes. I'm just waiting for approval from media syndication.


In other news, I'm pulling a Rodney Dangerfield. I'm going back to school! I already have an associates in applied sciences, but I need more. So, starting January, I will be enrolled at Southeastern going for my bachelors degree in Art with the concentration of New Media and Animation.
http://www.southeastern.edu/acad_research/depts/vis_art/areas/new_media/


SELU has the best program of this kind in the state. http://www.southeastern.edu/news_media/news_releases/2013/july/new_media.html
I plan to pursue this full time. So, this will be a game changer for the studio. Come January, I'll have to evaluated and prioritize again. I don't know how much time I'll have to dedicate to studio projects.


And that's the News! I'm open to any comments, suggestions, and advice on anything I've mentioned. If you have anything to add, I'd love to hear it.
-Jessie W Craig