Captain’s Quarters: The Next Step…

To start, welcome to The Captain’s Quarters, my personal spot for talking about whatever I want! From Indie Comix Dispatch (ICD) updates to industry trends, to rants, to… well, you get the point. It’s my article for ICD as our line-up, team, and content rapidly expands. Speaking of that…

Changes are happening at ICD. It’s no surprise, really; we’ve been evolving since we started. Changing partnerships early on, adding teammates, creating new features, etc. Social media is continually evolving, and, as a young start-up trying to find our way, so must we. But we’re tired of making the short plays for likes and comments. Yes, those are important metrics of engagement, but we want more; all 14 of the ICD team want more. We want to be here for the longterm, not just the latest meme or TikTok challenge, and, as such, we’re making some long-term plays.

The first change you’ll notice that’s grounded in a long-term goal is the elimination of my Sunday interview series. Instead, you’ll begin to see more print interviews here on indiecomixdispatch.com. Why? In the long run, a well-written article with links to the creator’s work and their store will be more beneficial to the creator and ICD. You see, video interviews are great. Hell, they’re a ton of fun for me, but they’re momentary. They have about a 24-48-hour life span; then, they’re done. Whereas a well-written article with appropriate keywords can, and will, stand the test of time, drive present and future customers to your website, and, eventually, rank your website higher in Google. For ICD, it offers fresh content, which is also good for Google, helps us rise in the ranks of news websites, and generates ad revenue. Win-win. We’re not nixing all live interviews. We will still have plenty of live shows, five to be exact, that will offer live interviews for creators launching Kickstarters, trying to get their name out, or just want to talk comics. These live shows will help draw in new viewers for both ICD and creators and a portion of these new viewers will eventually make their way to the website to read more articles. Again, win-win.

The second and most significant change, of course, is the launch of the ICD Newsroom. I am more than honored and humbled to have Aaron Dowen as our News Editor and Greg Moquin as our first journalist. Real indie comic news, not just a monthly or bi-monthly segment on CBR, is what the indie and small press comic industry deserve. Many creators are striving to become professionals in an industry that hasn’t been recognized as professional by main entertainment news outlets. ICD, as always, wants to build a bigger, better indie comics community, which means treating the community with the professionalism it deserves. That’s exactly what offering a dedicated indie comic news source represents, a step forward for the professional nature of indie comics and for ICD as an organization. And we’re not going to be shy about it. We want to be your source for all things indie comics, and this is a significant step in that direction.

Both these changes will begin to position ICD as a mainstay in indie comic news, but we need more than that to really make this a long-term play. We also need YOU! Writers, artists, fans, etc. We need all of you to send us your press releases, samples of your projects, news tips, and article suggestions. We need you to vote in our polls, read our articles, share our content, and tell others.

As always, thank you for supporting ICD and all of our endeavors over the past 10-months. That’s right, ICD is only 10-months old! But, with the support of this fantastic community, we’ve been able to do fantastic work! As we continue to grow and evolve, we are always looking at the next best step to help indie comics also grow and evolve. Thank you for being on this journey with us; we can’t wait to see where it takes us next!