Tokens of Esteem

Hey everyone, Lisa here, Pat’s wife and indie publisher. We're planning a 45th anniversary special edition of Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave! 2000AD & Judge Dredd: The Secret History, with a new intro and an extended, extra final chapter written by Pat. It relates what’s changed for him over the last five years, leading to why he sadly and reluctantly decided to stop writing stories for 2000AD after 45 years at the coalface. It’ll be on sale on Amazon and in comic shops, in paperback and as an ebook.

And we're also considering doing a special NFT (non-fungible token) limited edition of the book with 45 unique copies, digitally signed by Pat. Each NFT would include an individual, signed, AI-generated piece of art based on a photo portrait of Pat.

The NFT would also come with future utility/benefits. In particular, a physical limited edition of the book. This would include the AI-generated art, signed by Pat. So each of these 45 books would be truly unique and one of a kind.

Other utilities would be access to cool stuff, like an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session exclusive to NFT holders. An opportunity to chat with Pat and ask him about any aspect of the book, the writing craft, comics, publishing – you name it! We could offer them twice a year to Be Pure NFT holders. And we could also ‘airdrop’ (send to your digital wallet for free) surprise small NFTs – such as exclusive art or early drafts of new stories – to holders. And If we develop more NFTs, everyone who holds the Be Pure NFT would be on the allowlist, and thus offered a discount on our next collection.

It’s important that our NFT represents genuine value for money through these utilities and this would be reflected in the price we’ll assign to those 45 Be Pure NFTs.  

The Be Pure NFT is a small experiment to see how the whole thing works in practice: minting and selling; the reader experience; how to market it and getting feedback on the product.

NFTs are already happening across the movie, arts, fashion, music  and sports industries. Twitter now offers NFT profile pictures, and Meta recently announced its move towards digital wallet payments and other NFT functionality. It’s clear Web3 is going to be an important part of all our futures. I’ve joined several Discord servers, and got to know some of the people building these Web3 publishing spaces. The artists, writers, poets and musicians I’ve connected with are seeking new ways to create and engage with their audiences without the gatekeepers and barriers of Web2. 

In comics, when it comes to NFTs, it seems how big you are makes a difference. NFTs were recently received with considerable enthusiasm when it was a big corporation like DC Comics producing NFT Bat Cowls, or Valiant Comic’s Punk Mambo NFTs

Both Marvel and DC are listed on the VeVe digital collectibles App, amongst many other brands such as Disney and Pixar. Yet there was a backlash when individual creators announced they were minting NFTs, like the renowned comic artist John Romita Junior. 

When I originally mentioned NFTs a few months ago, I was surprised by some readers’ hostility, which contrasted with the support, curiosity or indifference of the majority of our readers. But for those critics, it was like even just talking about Web3, and starting a dialogue with readers to evaluate the new technology, was strictly verboten. So it’s useful to look at their primary criticisms:

“NFTs are bad For the environment”

As a former field ecologist (with an MSc in Conservation Management), I don’t take environmental concerns lightly. Doing anything on the chain, such as minting an NFT and then buying and selling it, can use considerable energy, particularly as the majority of NFTs and crypto transactions take place on the Ethereum blockchain (Critics also mention Bitcoin, but NFTs are not run on Bitcoin blockchain.)

Click bait headlines abound about how minting a single-use NFT uses the same energy as an average American household uses over nine days. But this is not true on less energy-intensive blockchains (e.g., Polygon, Solana, Polkadot) that use proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work (Ethereum). 

Proof-of-stake blockchains are 99% more energy efficient than proof-of-work blockchains. If you want to know more, Proof of Stake vs. Proof of Work: A Beginner’s Guide is a good place to start. 

So when I looked into it, three contenders to host our first NFT emerged: Soltype, Creatokia and Readl. These are NFT publishing platforms with excellent credentials, run by people focusing on Web3 publishing, NOT investment opportunities. It’s worth a look at these platforms and their ethos if all you have been exposed to is the scammy, get-rich-quick stuff.

I had two key criteria when considering a home for our first NFT project:

1. It must run on a low energy blockchain.

2. It must offer FIAT currency payment so customers don’t have to buy cryptocurrency in order to buy our NFT.

Eventually, these two criteria will become commonplace, but back in the spring, when I started looking at these platforms, only Creatokia, which runs on Ethereum, offered FIAT currency payments. Readl and Soltype, which respectively run on Polkadot and Solana blockchains, did not offer FIAT currency. So I waited and it was worth it, because just last month Readl announced that they now accept FIAT payments on their platform. So I’m thrilled that we can work with Readl for our first NFT project. 

But it bears repeating: NFTs don’t have to be bought and sold using cryptocurrency.

Also, none of the articles I’ve read that criticise the energy use of NFTs compare it with other similar activities that we take for granted.  Digital artist Sterling Crispin's well-researched article focuses on the environmental cost of other, more traditional activities:

“As an artist you might ask yourself, “I need to make $100K a year to survive, what can I do that will have the least harm?” And I’m telling you right now, if you can sell 20 NFT’s for $5k that’s a better alternative for the environment than having a merch store selling print on demand  clothes and objects.”

“NFTs are a dodgy Ponzi scheme“

Speculative NFTs in 2021 and the first half of 2022 – ‘crypto bros’ investing in projects and hyping them up like crazy in order to turn a profit – have led to some high profile scams and ‘rug-pulls’. It’s given the technology a pretty bad press. But most NFTs are not like that. Take the most famous example: the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which has utilities behind the ‘ugly picture of an ape’.  

For example, anyone with a BAYC NFT has the commercial-use rights of that particular character. Hence the success story of Jenkins the Valet.

But the media has mainly focussed on dodgy, elitist, or incomprehensible schemes, all of which are transacted with cryptocurrency. And crypto is scary. Divisive. It’s unclear whether it’ll ever become mainstream. I certainly don’t understand it and I’d rather not have to use it. I’m actually rather pleased about the recent crypto crash and subsequent bottoming out of the NFT market. It cleansed the arena of a lot of speculation and forced creators to think about building deeper relationships with their audience, rather than hoping to ‘make it big’. 

Whatever happens with cryptocurrency, NFTs are already becoming mainstream, as I’ve exampled. I think they’re misunderstood, because they can be pretty much whatever you want them to be, good or bad. Just like the internet of Web2 can be whatever you want it to be, good or bad. In a few years we’ll be using NFTs for cool stuff (hopefully calling them something else, because NFT is a really crap name), and we won’t even think about the fact that it’s all happening on a blockchain. We just use the latest technology to make our lives better. It’s up to us all to find fun, engaging and ethical things to do with NFTs.

Just to be clear, our interest in NFTs is only in the creative and publishing arena. NFTs represent a revolution for creators, be they musicians, artists, or writers. They’re also another  way to support creators, like a crowdfunder, Patreon, or Substack, and for creators to reward that support. Here’s a fascinating piece from journalist Elle Griffin for Esquire, where she imagines the potential for reader involvement with their favourite books and authors.

What if you could own a stake in Harry Potter? What if the book series functioned like a publicly traded company where individuals could “buy stock” in it, and as the franchise grows, those “stocks” become more valuable? If this were the case, someone who purchased just three percent of Harry Potter back when there was only one book would be a billionaire now.

Elle Griffin, The Crypto Revolution Wants to Reimagine Books

Griffin explores some of the ways that NFTs can give authors and creators independence. They’ll enable creators to build more direct engagement with their audience, to have complete control over what they create, how they put it out into the world, and to benefit from royalties on secondary sales of their work through automated smart contracts. Smart contracts can take all the headache out of collaborative work, by directly paying participants when the work is sold. Web3 also opens up possibilities for audiences to be involved in story creation and character development.

The very successful Forgotten Runes Wizards Cult is doing too many exciting things to list them all here (one of them is a comic book), with the direct participation of the NFT holders. Truly, check them out!

‘I right-clicked your NFT and downloaded it. Now I own it, too.’

In our case, all you would have is the NFT cover art. You don’t have access to the book or the utilities I’ve described. You don’t have the certificate of ownership that gives you access. It’s not in your digital wallet and that’s what counts. You can’t legally sell such a jpeg, but you can re-sell a Be Pure NFT, just as you can sell a physical collectable. And if you do, Pat would get a royalty on the sale, which is why it is revolutionary for creators.

If you’re confused by all this, rather than me trying to explain it in more detail from an author’s point of view, let me point you to a great video by indie author and entrepreneur, Joanna Penn: NFTs For Authors: Creativity, Collaboration, Community, and Cash.  It has a handy transcript if you want to browse. And if you already know what NFTs are (and still hate them), you can jump to 7:00, where Joanna gets into the potential for the author community. You’ll see that not once does she mention investment, or WAGMI (‘We’re all going to the moon’).

I’ve tried to keep this article as brief as I could, while sharing our plans and covering some key areas. Doubtless I’ve left out lots of things, and you will have questions and comments, which I’ll do my best to respond to. I know NFTs aren’t for everyone, and there’s no reason for some of you to care. We’ll carry on indie publishing in the traditional, Web2 way, but we’re also looking to the future, and we hope some of you will come along for the ride. 

If you made it this far: thank you and congratulations! And as further thanks, we’re offering a small token of esteem to our subscribers: it’s a certain kind of small NFT, called a POAP: a Proof of Attendance Protocol. It’s our very first toe dip into Web3, and it’s free! We have 45 POAPs to give away on a first come, first served basis.

If you’re new to all this stuff, a POAP is like a digital badge of attendance or participation. They’re cool in their own right as a collectible item and there are all sorts of POAPs created for IRL or virtual events: conventions; parties; webinars; private chats, and so on

They are also a brilliant way for individuals or organisations to identify the holder as a supporter, and bestow rewards, or enter them in raffles for real-world or digital prizes. In our case, our Millsverse POAP will put the holder on an allowlist for our first NFT Collection: you will have first refusal. And there could well be other, as yet unknown perks to holding a Millsverse POAP. Certainly your ‘early adopter’ status will be gratefully remembered!

The POAP gets you in the zone for Web3 and marks the beginning of a fascinating journey into the future!

How to claim your POAP

First of all, you need to be a subscriber to ICONOBLAST. Only subscribers will be able to leave a comment, which is what you need to do to let us know that you would like a Millsverse POAP. I will then check your subscriber status (just to make sure your email doesn’t look like it’s from a bot. I may ask you a question or two about your reading interests just to confirm you’re a genuine fan of Pat’s!)

I will then email you a unique link that will send you to a browser where you can mint your POAP.

PLEASE NOTE: The POAP is available to mint until 29 July, after which the mint is closed and it will no be longer available.

As you’ll see from this short article, the process of claiming your POAP is simple:

https://help.poap.xyz/en/articles/6292511-how-to-claim-a-poap-using-the-official-poap-app

You don’t need a digital wallet to claim your app, as it’s claimed through your email address. But to actually mint it and keep it somewhere safe … yes, you will need a digital wallet. This article is helpful, and has links to two digital wallet options:

https://help.poap.xyz/en/articles/5795237-do-i-need-a-crypto-wallet-to-receive-a-poap

I have a Metamask wallet and found the set up quite straightforward. But if you have any questions at all or run into difficulties, get in touch with me at lisa at millsverse.com and I’ll do my best to help you out – or point you in the right direction to get help!

We’d love to hear from you, even if you don’t want a POAP! Thoughts on Web3 publishing? How do you feel about NFTs? Have I changed your point of view at all?

All the best,

Lisa