Ka-Blam

[jwblake]

Greetings, all. 

I'm JW Blake's Dad and biggest fan.  We were invited to a sort of small-town comic-con;  we show up at a comic book store with others, and exhibit our wares, etc.  So, I wanted to try to publish the boy's comics and sell some real live comic books.  I'm in touch with the people at Ka-Blam.com.  Has anyone had any experience with them?

Kind regards,

JW's Dad and biggest fan

[Rob]

Kid Galactus and jennigregory (both members here at the site) both work for Ka-Blam. I am not a customer of theirs as of yet but I've seen their booth at NYCC and I've spoken to Wayne (Kid Galactus), Jenni and the owner Barry Gregory and they all seem professional and eager to please.

I have not heard any "bad" stories about Ka-Blam so I would say they are probably a good choice. But as I said, I'm not a customer myself so I can't speak from experience. 

[jwblake]

Anyone heard of any other publishers out there?  I've been going back and forth with them for two weeks, and have yet to get the publishing started. 

[Rob]

You can take a look at this. I can't vouch for it's value.

http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/extras/podreview.php

[Cary]

I've had nothing but a great experience with the fine folks at Ka-blam. I've printed 8 issue with them thus far, used both the Indy planet service and the Comicsmonkey service, and of course the printing arm Ka-blam, and enjoyed every second. They're courteous, quick, and very helpful, and I completely dig their customer service. They do get a bit slower this time of year answering messages and such, but that's a function of the convention season spinning up and them getting incredibly busy, so hang in there if you've contacted them and haven't heard back.

[TonyDiGerolamo]

We use a printed called Comicbookprinting.com and they do short runs and are reliable.  Also, the quality of the books are very high.  You can check out their link all this month (July) on www.superfrat.com or at www.thewebcomicfactory.com.

[Rob]

Thanks for the tip Tony. Definitely going to check them out. 

[HarringtonAW]

I've printed about half a dozen books with Ka-Blam, and my experiences with them have been pretty uniformly positive. I've dealt with a variety of other printers throughout my years in the biz, and most of my experiences have been negative, so Ka-Blam is an unusually reliable resource in a generally unreliable field, in my opinion.

-S

[Richard]

Just to chime in, Ka-blam is a pretty good service for your dollar starting out. We've done several small runs with them. As long as you get the formatting right with your submitted pieces you're looking for a pretty smooth process.

Just make sure to order your pieces waaay in advance of any convention to keep your costs down.

[sjscomicpromo]

Ka-Blam isn't a publisher. They are a printer for self-publishers. You need to start an account with them and upload your pages.

But for a small print run, black and white comic, I wouldn't recommend them. They are too expensive. For color they are good, though I have found cheaper still.

[ShadowsMyst]

It's true, Ka-blam is a printer basically. An On-demand printer. There are more than Ka-blam, but I've generally compared them on price per book on various quantities and they've all turned out to be about the sameish. I'm curious sjs, are you talking about a local printer ordering quantity? Or another on-demand printer? I thought Ka-blam's prices for black and white (at least the graphic novels) weren't too bad. You could still make a 50% markup and meet market average price for a mass produced graphic novel (a la tokyopop).

The ones I've generally seen are Ka-blam and Comixpress being used. I've seen Comixpress and their quality was okay. I haven't seen any of their graphic novels yet. Lulu is way to expensive to turn a decent profit on their books, I know that.

Generally speaking the best margins per book I've found is when you order in quantity from a local printer you can trust or someone set up to specialize in comics, but still ordering quantity (at least 500-1000 pieces or more at a time).

On demand is good for low overhead, since you aren't paying for the printing at once, but it seems to work out to be more expensive per book generally speaking, thus less profit. I don't see a lot of comic artists forking out the thousands of dollars up front for a big printjob though. Unless maybe they do something like a Kickstarter project.

[sjscomicpromo]

I actually use a POD based in Kansas City, KS, Kester Printing. They are much lower than Ka-Blam for black and white, not color. And they don't do perfect bound. But for us, we do single issues before trade so it works out and I typically receive my books within 10 days from order. Quicker if I am in a rush.

[AsheSkyler]

My first run with Ka-Blam was interesting: http://asheskyler.deviantart.com/art/Exterminatus-Now-451633858