Fodongo: A Free Culture Comics Zine Issue #1

To kick things off I thought I'd share this small project with you all; it's a Free Culture Comics Zine that I put together.

The concept is something I have been wanting to do ever since I started thinking of making more Free Culture Stuff, and thinking about how to better approach a creative venture in a way that benefits the creative community at large and also the artists contributing to it.

It works as follows:

1. I commission 3-4 artists to create 3-page comics in black and white an licensed under one of five Free Culture Licenses (WTFPL, CC0, CCBY, CCBYSA or Free Art License). They can choose, and I do NOT own their work, I just commission it and put it together on the zine. Yes, this is a pivotal part of it: I want the artists to be paid before they make the comic and I want them to have a say in what kind of license they use. As part of my personal experience with Free Culture (of which I can talk about at some other junction), it takes a bit to warm up to the concept and realize that in general sharing in the creative process like this is a good thing.
2. I put the zine together using Scribus.
3. I release it at fodongo.jectoons.net, for sale digitally (additionally at itch.io). 50% of each sale is directed towards administrative stuff (paying for hosting, domain, increasing the budget for and paying artists for the next issue, etc.) and 50% is distributed among the artists that contributed to that zine. Forever.
4. Over the course of 8 weeks the comics are published for everyone to read on the website, and then the zine will be available at archive.org. As each artist's comic is posted publicly they can share it on their own socials and websites and such.
5. Rinse and repeat.

It's a different kind of pitch (a friend of mine at one point suggested to allow people to not use Free Culture Licenses, and I thought but... most things already don't have those, and that's a key feature of the project. It's hard to not think in the money-making/capitalistic way of making art, and it's not entirely our fault, I don't think); but I had the good fortune of getting a very good reception from an exceptional group of people I've had the pleasure to meet in the animation sector.

First off is Sprak, a queer Canadian artist who makes the comic Coffee O'Clock. They made a sweet vampire story that made me d'aw quite intensely. They licensed it CCBYSA. It's also already up on the site in case you want to check it out.

Then Zach Acherman, an animator and compositor with whom I worked on a show last year. He made a very short horror story that has some neat twists and turns! He licensed it CCBYSA.

Owen Twaites is a self-described 'aspirational himbo' and overall incredibly friendly guy, and one of the people I started a producer co-op with. He made a short personal tale about being overwhelmed by social interaction and notifications, and licensed CCBYSA.

Finally there's yours truly, and I made a silly comic about a magical singing frog in space. Licensed CC0.

I am incredibly thankful to these artists, and thrilled at how the zine shaped up! And I'm excited to share it with you all, so please take a look if you have the chance, and please share it and make some derivative works. :)

Ok, enough for now, I need to finish the next Duso page.

Talk to you later!