What a week! On launching our Book NFT
Hi everyone, Lisa here. Hope you’ve had a good week!
We launched our first Book NFT, which was exciting! It's a collection of 45 digital limited editions of the 45th Anniversary edition of Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave! 2000AD & Judge Dredd: The Secret History. It's hosted on the Readl platform and you don't need cryptocurrency or a digital wallet to buy one. The price is currently set to 13 MOVR, which should be the equivalent of around £125. If the rates change markedly, I’ll reset the price to keep it at that GBP level. If you later decide to sell the NFT, you can – and we receive a 10% royalty on the resale.
Our NFT includes a major perk: each holder will receive a print edition of the book, complete with the signed AI artwork, making each book a unique edition. The print edition will be available next year.
Alongside the NFT edition we of course published updated Kindle and paperback versions on Amazon. Pat wrote a new intro and a long, extra chapter that details what's happened on his 2000AD stories since we first published the title in 2017. The NFT edition includes a special intro from him. Plus, in what has turned out to be a a controversial issue, each edition has a unique piece of AI-generated art, inspired by Pat's stories.
I've talked here about our interest in Web3 and what NFTs can do for independent creators and publishers, and what's frustrating is that this week, instead of having fun conversations about what we could build for our next NFT project (like an interactive project around our SPACEWARP comic), I've been dealing with a huge kickback on social media about our use of AI generated art. Yes, I would've steered clear of using AI-art if I'd known what a shitstorm it would kick up. I don't need extra drama in my life and the comments are very wearing. But having done it, I can't help but feel bemused by the sheer level of outrage and pearl-clutching that's going on. Given Pat's contribution to the British comics industry and the fact that many artists and writers have a career thanks to him, I think there's a lot of virtue-signalling from people who love a pile on. If we’d used real artists to create 45 images the cost would have been huge (pushing up the price) and the time and effort to co-ordinate it would have added on weeks to the schedule.
There's also a bunch of people very angry about us even daring to experiment with NFTs. Reasons range across the board: we're contributing to needless environmental destruction; NFTs are Ponzi schemes; we're perpetuating corporate capitalist propaganda; we're creating false scarcity. What's striking is how creators in other fields, such as literature, music and certain art forms, appear to be able to experiment with new technology while escaping the pitchfork crowd.
But in comics, there has always a strong resistance to change. This was evidenced when digital comics came on the scene in a big way: many hated them, citing the dangers of piracy creating endless copies that would do creators out of royalties (oh, the irony when you consider the 'false scarcity' argument against limited edition NFTs), the threat to comic shops, and the unpleasant experience of reading on a screen versus holding the paper copy in one's hand. Pat tells me there was a similar pushback when he experimented with photo strip, back in the 80s.
Comics elicit strong emotions in fans, and they have a right to how they feel. I'd never berate someone on Twitter for buying paper comics instead of digital ones, despite the environmental cost: it's their choice. Just as we have a right to experiment and try new things. Pat is a freelancer, after all. He's free to choose what he wants to do. And we have to move with the times. If we never innovate, we can get left behind, and there's no safety net for freelancers.
But I can end on a positive note: we received a significant number of private messages of support for our project, which has been cheering and I thank all those who have been in touch.
Lisa