Table of Contents
Welcome Back (00:00)
Project Updates
Reviewing 2024 (02:17)
Comics: The Bread & Butter
Crazy Latte Thing Called Love (02:57)
From Parts Unknown 1 (04:24)
A New Frontier: Pulp Writing
Big Smoke Pulp Vol 1 (05:46)
Articles and Short Stories
Chop, Chop, Chop (07:18)
Il Pescatore - The City We Chose (10:17)
Dirt Sheet - Undisputed 1 (12:39)
Voyager 3 (No Audio)
Marketing (13:38)
Tabling and Attending Cons (13:58)
Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast (16:15)
Substack (17:59)
Comics Beat (20:43)
ComicUno (22:10)
Wednesday Night Reviews (23:26)
True North Country Comics (24:20)
Freshly Pressed by Comix.One (24:52)
Comixlaunch Mastermind (25:37)
In Summary (27:00)
Coming Up on Substack (30:26)
Upcoming Appearances (30:46)
Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast (31:03)
Super Secret Epilogue (32:02)
Welcome Back
Merry Christmas!
It's a year in review of Pesto Comics in 2024.
I really appreciate having you here as we look back at the past twelve months. It was an exciting year as we've hit new heights that we've never hit before.
We’ve done a few projects that are totally different from each other - with a career-high performing project in Crazy Latte Thing Called Love.
We launched a short story anthology in Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 and even got a short comic in a TO Comix anthology in Il Pescatore that was very personal to me, but also very exciting because it's with a group that I have been following for a long time.
I also collaborated with a couple creators on Kickstarter. I've been to conventions near and far - tabling all over the place, all with a theme that runs throughout (not necessarily a good one) and will make it interesting for how that all plays out next year.
And, I was able to talk to a whole bunch of creators and fans, not just through our podcast, the Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast, but also this Substack.
I also got to be on other people's programs! It was really a great experience all around. 2024 shaped up to be a wonderful year and I think it'll only be topped by everything we have planned in 2025.
Let's get into it…
Project Updates
Two Weeks Until Naked Kaiju Woman
Before we get into reviewing 2024, I'm going to keep stressing that you please go follow Naked Kaiju Woman.
We will be launching in two weeks. We're really trying to get it to be a huge project for the new year because it's launching a whole new series.
It was written with Kickstarter in mind.
I'm really hoping it gets in front of the right people so that this can be a new record campaign starts the new year off right.
I would absolutely love your support. I'll stop selling you on the future projects for now. More on all of that next week.
Let's take a look back at how 2024 went…
Projects
Comics: The Bread & Butter
Crazy Latte Thing Called Love
This year I had put together my third, fourth and fifth kickstarter projects. It started with the big one, Crazy Latte Thing Called Love. This campaign launched in May, though my intention was to launch it in February.
The three extra months were actually a good opportunity for me to build an audience in pre launch. The number ended up being pretty high. It was close to 200 followers before I ever hit that launch button.
What sold this book, and continues to today, is Mattia Monaco's incredible art. I know this because every time I've given the book to anybody at my table or online, the first thing that say is, “Wow, this art's incredible”.
They're not wrong. I'm still flabbergasted that Mattia was willing to work with me and I'm still hoping beyond hope that he'll work with me again.
He mentioned that he's not terribly interested in doing something too long on the next project, but I'm hoping that maybe I could coax him into something.
I have plans and we can talk about that next week.
From Parts Unknown: Issue 1
The concept for From Parts Unknown was something that was gestating for a long time and it became something entirely different by the time I was ready to launch it.
It was always a story about two brothers that happen to be a tag team in professional wrestling facing some kind of mystical threat. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read the first issue.
There's still time to catch up. I’ll be launching the second issue in February so I don't want to spoil the ending that comes in that final page of this first issue.
They're dealing with something unexpected and I think the way that Daniel and JP have collaborated on this in the art and the coloring, it looks beyond what I could have imagined in the best ways.
It really pops off the page when you see it in person. It's exactly the kind of project I needed to launch a series.
I'm very excited to keep it going in 2025.
Daniel is an absolute beast and getting the whole thing done well ahead of schedule. Although it'll take a while to actually release these issue by issue, we should be done every issue well before it ever hits Kickstarter.
There'll be a lot more to come and we'll talk about that next week, but very grateful with how this all played out and how the project came together.
A New Frontier: Pulp Writing
Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1
The last campaign that I did this year, which was the fifth campaign, was Big Smoke Pulp Volume 1. totally different than anything I've done thus far in terms of Kickstarter campaigns. This project was a 40 author short story anthology that clocked in at about 560 pages when you're looking at the pocketbook paperback and around 400 for the hardcover, which is a little wider and bigger. Nonetheless, it's a big boy.
These stories go across a breadth of genres. It's all pulp. It's what it's meant to be. It's exciting, fun reading. I enjoyed every story that I read and I've read them all multiple times, of course, going through the edits and formatting the book.
It's a good start into this new phase of publishing.
I have a long history in writing short stories and novellas. Prior to that, I was writing spec screenplays. I'm a writer at heart and comics are where my heart is at.Yet, I’ve always wanted to do prose and short stories as well.
I'm an avid reader, so it's a dream of mine to jump into that field too. The goal has always been to do both comics and prose at the same time.
Big Smoke Pop Volume 1 was me dipping my toe into the Kickstarter Publishing arena and to see that it did so well means everything because I know I'm headed in the right direction.
Articles and Short Stories
Writer’s Digest - Your Story #128
Chop, Chop, Chop
In the spirit of getting back into writing prose, it was an honour to be in the Top 5 in the Writer's Digest Your Story competition.
I don't enter every issue. I miss the deadline every time I'm planning to do it. So when I did submit and saw that it got accepted in the top five of all of the entries - I was absolutely flabbergasted. I couldn't believe it.
It didn't get published in the magazine, which is what I was really aiming for. Of course, I want to be the number one out of all entries, but to just be top five was absolutely incredible.
If you look at the voting on that page I was the top three. I think that not having the biggest following when that was released made it an uphill climb. With 1,950+ readers on this Substack now, even if 1/3 voted, it’d be published today.
I been a fan of Writer’s Digest for the longest time. Writer's Digest is the place to go in terms of learning the craft. I've been a subscriber for a really long time it just meant the world to me that I was able to get something noticed by the editors there.
Here's to trying again next year. I'm gonna keep writing stories and keep trying to get something published with them.
Comical Opinions
Are Digital Comics Worth It?
I also like to write articles and non-fiction.
If you’ve been subscribed to this Substack for a while, you know I like to share my opinion articles from time to time. When Comical Opinions was looking for folks to submit some article ideas, I was all for it. I submitted my take on digital comics.
It’s something I’ve discussed on this Substack before.
A couple times.
Given that was a new audience I could reach, I figured I could delve into it a little deeper. It's something I was wrestling with myself given how GlobalComix is really starting to grow.
They do support indie creators as best they can. I really do see that. However, without a library of content, it starts to become questionable if it's worth diving in to digital comics as a creator with only a handful of offerings. It's always gonna be more fruitful for those with huge back catalogs.
Now that the big publishers are coming in and bringing decades of books, it’s going to be very hard to compete with your one or two comics. We're looking at $8 a month and it's being spread amongst everything that reader has read.
If they’ve already gone through thousands of pages of DC and Image books - then they come to read your 24-page comic, you're gonna get pennies out of it. It all depends on the approach you're taking.
I recommend reading the article on Comical Opinions, if you haven’t. They always got some interesting reviews and things coming out of there too. I’m honoured that they accepted my article this year.
Other People’s Books: Anthologies & Bylines
Toronto Comix’s The City We Chose: Il Pescatore
One project very personal to me in a couple different ways. My entry into the TO Comix anthology: The City We Chose.
I did a story called Il Pescatore. It’s a story inspired by my grandfather. He was a fisherman back in Italy and brought his family to Toronto with hopes of joining the “gold rush” of 60s Canada. (Spoilers: There was no such thing.)
That's how it was sold by his family that was already here. And, of course, reality sets in and it's just another place with different challenges. That's the story I wanted to get across.
It was initially contracted for eight pages and it grew to ten, thanks to my editor Kavita. It provided more opportunity to show off the great art by Marzia Migliori.
I'd love to work with her again. I say this to every artist that I work with. She has a Disney-fied style that’s very much her own, but you can see the influence. I don't know that I have a story for her in mind quite yet, but I definitely will think of something cause I love what she's put together for Il Pescatore.
Writing Tools - Archetypes Magazine 1 & 2
In the beginning of the year, I would do daily “writing tools” posts on my socials. It was a collection of everything I've learned of 20 years of my writing experience. That caught the eye of Joey Galvez, who was putting together his new Wizard-inspired magazine called Archetypes.
I was happy to oblige. I was already doing it daily 240-characters at a time. Having an opportunity to expand that and really get into a topic was a great opportunity.
Undisputed 1
With From Parts Unknown being a big wrestling comic, I caught the eye of
. He had a cool idea of having some extra stories in the universe of Undisputed.New since the audio has been recorded: He reached out to me to see if we could get something together. I’ve put together a cool story of an Italian wrestler, possibly inspired by a world-record setting champion from the province my mother hails from, challenging characters from his universe. It’s done in a dirt-sheet style that was a lot of fun to write.
There’s still time to check out the comic here:
We had PJ on the Instant Ink Comic Book podcast too! That’ll be coming out in February.
The world of wrestling comics continues to grow. It's cool to see it happening on Kickstarter. PJ is a big part of that and I'm glad that he's taking me along for the ride and vice versa.
Voyager 3
Another bit not included in the audio!
I got to do an edit on podcast co-host
’s series: Voyager. If I’m being honest, it wasn’t more than a nip and a tuck as Rodolfo and Roberto have a really good sense of where this story is headed without my input.
That said, if you haven’t checked it out yet, I recommend you do.
always has something new coming on Kickstarter and it’s a good opportunity to pick up some back catalog items while you’re there.Roberto’s next project is the Realm Travelers anthology with six stories of fantasy and adventure:
Speaking of getting you to check out books…
Marketing
What takes up most of my time nowadays is marketing. As much as I want to spend all my time writing, it doesn't matter if nobody's gonna read it.
The only way they're gonna read it is if I put the time into marketing. I have all these different avenues that I do it. One of the places I really dove into headfirst this year was going to conventions.
Tabling and Attending Cons
I've always gone to conventions just as a fan, specifically Fan Expo. I would go every year. I'd even go as far as getting the VIP pass when I could. Being behind the table and trying to sell at cons is a totally new experience to me.
It didn't go as I expected at a few of the smaller cons. It was not as busy as I had hoped and I had a very hard time making table. Part of that was just not having that much product to sell. Part of it was that it wasn't very busy in a lot of these cons.
I go in depth with how every single weekend went. Every time I go, I come back, I do a con journal.
San Diego Comic Con
Vaughan Con
Fan Expo Canada
Hamilton Comic Con
A cool thing I got to do at three cons was to be part of a panel or host a workshop. For both the TCAF: Word Balloon Academy and Thought Bubble, I did a presentation about crowdfunding indie comics.
There was actually someone at Thought Bubble that was at the TCAF one. I thought I was safe reusing some content, but I was reassured that I had changed enough to make it worth a second review.
I was also on a panel at Wayside Creator Con with Fell Hound and Emilia Strilchuk.
I had a great time with this. Konrad, of Wednesday Night Reviews and a contributing author in Big Smoke Pulp, is always awesome. He was kind enough to reach out and make sure I was included in this. I really did appreciate it.
My goal for next year is to try to do even more. If not workshops, just getting onto more panels.
Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast
The Instant Ink comic book podcast launched this year. This is an idea that Roberto approached me with.
We went to TCAF together and were having lunch in the food court nearby. He'd been doing these live streams for a really long time, which are really cool. The problem with that format is that he's not a motor-mouth like me, especially when he's focused on drawing. It ends up just being more or less like a silent experience, which is cool if you're really into art, but it's not capturing everyone else’s attention.
With us combined, me being a motormouth and a bit of a carnival barker, and him having the artistic skills that he has, we came up with a really cool idea where we do our one page comic with a guest every week.
I chopped that up into three episodes each time and it turns out really well. (Though we’ve reducing that to twice weekly to give the Shorts/Reels room to breathe.)
We have about three dozen episodes right now with a dozen more in the can. So we're good through May with episodes coming up.
Getting to know people at a con is always great. It’s much easier if you’re table neighbours, but when you're just visiting someone at their table and you have this pressure to sell and all that's going on, you can't really dig deep. It’s not a great way to get to know people in the same way that if you're on a podcast and you got nothing but time while you're whipping together a page..
It's been a wonderful experience and getting to know everyone has just been a lot of fun. I can't wait to do more with everyone next year.
This Substack!
This year has been astronomical in terms of growth. I had a couple hundred followers at the beginning of the year.
We're well past 1950 now which is absolutely crazy to me. The fact that so many people are willing to listen and read what I have to say every week means a lot.
I think bumping it the posts up to weekly has certainly helped. I always see a handful of subs fall off, but I see just as many come back.
If I'm being entirely honest about it: I have been toying with advertising here and there. If you found me through there, I appreciate it! It means it's working. It definitely helps with the audience growth.
You have to cut through the noise somehow, especially with the way socials work nowadays. It's all pay to play, but you do see that once you can get in front of people and they do see it, they seem to enjoy it and support it.
I've seen this Substack grow exponentially this year. Here's hoping I can continue that pace because as more and more projects are coming out. It's going to be very important to have an audience to reach out to and to get that support.
There is an interesting breakdown that seems to almost exactly correlate with the folks that back the Kickstarters. It just goes to show how important having a strong email list is.
With more than half of my backers and subscribers coming from the United States, I always have to keep in mind when American holidays are, being a Canadian myself. Thanks to my American friends. You guys are awesome.
The handful from the UK, also, such a big deal. It was great to meet folks at Thought Bubble. Tt's nice to know that it's not just people from my part of the world that are checking this all out. I really do appreciate that.
Then, of course, the locals. For the Canadians that do follow, it's been wonderful meeting all of you in person at all the various cons. Here's hoping I get to do it again - or for the first time if we haven’t crossed paths yet.
To everyone, I always appreciate your comments and your kind words. Don't be afraid to do it again. Please leave a comment and like the post! It means a lot to me, knowing that people are reading it.
I always appreciate it when anyone does. I see those handful that do it every week. It means a ton for me. I get to know your names very well, so I really do appreciate you doing that. I can't thank you enough for your support.
Articles & Videos
Comics Beat
One of the big things that happened this year was getting media coverage that I didn't actually seek out. Crazy Latte Thing Called Love was really spearheading this.
On Comics Beat, I was surprised to find it headlining the Comic Crowdfunding Round-Up! It got the prime spot on that article. It was amazing to have this book listed with James Tynion IV’s work. This actually did lead to a whole bunch of new followers and new backers.
I read this every week as I’m an active part of the community. Seeing it was an absolute surprise and a surprised again to see that image of Bruno on the crowdfunding roundup when From Parts Unknown was running. That helped that campaign quite a bit too.
It did feel like with Unlimited Udo and Stay Cool, I was shouting into the abyss. Starting to see these comics get some traction out there was a relief. It was really, one of those moments where I felt like I'm headed in the right direction and hopefully I can continue this in the new year with all the projects I'm launching.
ComicUno
The other big one was Comic Uno.
They go through the latest comics of the week, but there’s also the top 10 comic book Kickstarters to back for each month.
In May, 2024, Crazy Latte Thing Called Love was included. Being a top 10 list, I assumed, okay, I'm going to be here at the 10th or the 9th. As Kat kept listing projects from seven to six to five, I thought, “Oh no, I've been forgotten”.
Crazy Latte Thing Called Love was the number one Kickstarter to back that month. That absolutely blew my mind.
I still can't believe it to this day that something that myself and Mattia had put together was gaining this level of attention again. I didn't reach out to Kat to beg to be a part of it or anything. I did thank her after cause it was such a big deal to be part of it. It really meant a lot.
Again, I was just watching it as a routine. It's what I normally do. So that happening was absolutely incredible. I saw the project in the thumbnail and I thought, “Oh, this is really neat.” Then it just became a really amazing moment. Certainly a high point of the year.
This didn’t make it in the audio, but Crazy Latte Thing Called Love also made it on Kat’s Top 10 for 2024!
Yap, Yap, Yap: Podcasts
Podcasts
Wednesday Night Reviews
With Crazy Latte Thing Called Love, I really did the rounds.
I tried to get on a bunch of podcasts. First wasWednesday Night Reviews with Konrad. I've been able to run into Konrad in person a handful of times now. And, as mentioned previously, he's got a story in Big Smoke Pulp Vol. 1 as well. It's been a really cool relationship.
He was working at my LCS Knowhere Comics for a while, if any of you are in Toronto. He's not there anymore, but it was great to run into him there too. He was kind enough to get me on his podcast, for the second time, to promote this comic on Launch Day.
It's always fun talking to him. He's really good at narrowing down questions and really making you think. There's no boiler plate stuff here.
I'm just a fan of the show. Although I don't always get to listen live, I always do catch up cause I find that he's a very good interviewer and he has great guests (myself included!)
True North Country Comics
True North Country Comics is a show that both Konrad and I are huge fans of. John Swimner is a machine.
He's talking to every creator out there and he has a standard set of questions that you know are coming before they come. If you do any kind of research, you can have a well-thought out answer.
I hope I fit the bill I really did try to think about what I was going to say. He's had every level of Canadian creator. I'm honored to be a part of that list.
Freshly Pressed by Comix.one
I was also on Freshly Pressed, which is a platform for indie comics. (Comix.one)
It was a great conversation, being the last of the podcasts that I had done during that campaign. It was an interesting view into how things were going where WNR was still all excitement and nerves and I had no idea that it was gonna launch as well as it did.
This one was me a little more relaxed and just being able to talk comics with ease. I think it ended up being a pretty interesting interview.
ComixLaunch Mastermind
This one technically shouldn't count because it came out on December 31st of 2023.
I actually had done this back in November ‘23, but my episode ended up on the regular ComixLaunch podcast on New Year's Eve- so I'm counting it.
I found that this was huge in getting my name out there. A lot of people didn't necessarily know me. There were more than a few people that said, “Hey, I actually heard about you on ComixLaunch.”
If you launch comics on Kickstarter, you certainly listened to ComixLaunch with Tyler James.
Being on the show, even if it was in this unusual way was a huge honour. The platform that tyler has here is absolutely incredible and he always shares it with creators.
You always can leave that voicemail and push your comic at the end, but having my own episode with Tyler and the group from the mastermind, it did wonders for raising my profile and yeah, it was a wonderful experience.
I haven't reached out to be on there again, but who knows? Maybe with the way that things are going next year, we can work something out. I'm not planning anything, but it would be wonderful to be on again.
We'll see if I could twist Tyler's arm into doing so.
2024 was a Pretty Wild Year
I just can't believe how much things have progressed and changed. If you look at my January 1 post and all the things I had planned, some things shifted.I didn't think From Parts Unknown was going to outpace Naked Kaiju Woman, for instance.
I book ended the year with a couple best performing campaigns. Although I spoke about it last week, in the postmortem for Big Smoke Pulp, I'm doing better than I ever have. There's still some room to grow to make this a profitable endeavor. Right now, I'm still in the red. Every time I launch a campaign, it's not covering everything.
That leads to me going to these cons and hoping to not only make table, but start making some profits so that I can sustain this business going forward.
The big part of the plan is what's to come next year. Next year is absolutely packed. Unlike the plans that I had in 2023 for this year, 2025 is already laid out. If anything, I'm having trouble finding time to launch all the projects that are actually in production right now.
Last year was more of a hopeful setting. The only thing that was really happening at that time was Crazy Latte Thing Called Love and the Il Pescatore for TO Comix. The rest was all wishful thinking and, I may have had scripts for them, but they weren’t actually ready to be launched.
You can take a look at that post if you're curious and just see how many things fell off the schedule.
But if you're interested in what is coming in 2025 - come back next week on New Year's Day where I’ll do a preview of the year.
Until then, if you celebrate Christmas, have a Merry Christmas! If not, just have a Happy Holiday! Whatever you celebrate - stay safe, stay warm.
Thanks for being here and if it's already the new year as you read this, I hope you had a wonderful new year celebration too.
I'll talk to you in 2025.
What’s Next?
January 1, 2025
New Year, New Comics and More!
A Happy New Year and a look forward to what’s coming
January 8
Let's Get Naked (Kaiju Woman)
A comic series with nothing to hide.
January 15
The Magic of Dictation
A writing hack for hacks like me.
Upcoming Appearances
Pesto Comics Release Calendar
Instant Ink Comic Book Podcast
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