WonderCon marked its 32nd year during the 2018 convention March 23 to March 25, inviting con-goers, cosplayers, press, and industry professionals to gather at the Anaheim Convention Center. Con-goers had the freedom to attend special presentations, panels, signings, events, tournaments, and the exhibit hall.

Among the panels that occurred on March 24, one called “Making and Publishing Queer Comics: A Workshop” presented a discussion about how queer cartoonists publish their comics to the world. Prism Comics’ Elizabeth Beier moderated the panel, and the panelists included Jeff Krell (Jayson), A.C. Esguerra (Eighty Days), Sina Grace (Iceman, Self-Obsessed, Nothing Lasts Forever), Viktor Kerney (Prism Comics board member, StrangeLore), and Tara Madison Avery (Prism Comics board member, Stacked Deck Press publisher).

From left to right: Jeff Krell, A.C. Esguerra, Sina Grace, Viktor Kerney, and Tara Madison Avery.

The panel began with the question of how social media enables new followers on crowdfunding sites such as Patreon. Esguerra said that they don’t push people to follow them, rather that their work is there for newcomers to become new followers. Kerney, who’s more active on Twitter, expressed his appreciation for social media and how it allows him to meet and support artists and creators of the queer geek community. Grace is a huge fan of Instagram and stated that, when using social media to make money, you have to view your life as “content.”

“It’s a really good way for you to challenge yourself to create material that actually engages your followers,” Grace said.

Kerney added that creating queer characters of color isn’t something people see often, so when artists and creators do create those characters, they’re building the community.

On the flipside of social media, negative feedback occurs more often than not, and Grace said, “Someone else takes a straight guy, makes him gay, then you write that comic – you get a lot of people who don’t like you.”

The panelists all agreed that they try to focus on nice comments or feedback; such positivity allows them to take part in the community when working as an artist can be isolating most of the time. The positivity also holds value for artists and allows them to keep creating.

Beier then asked panelists what their experiences of self-publishing printed works have been like, along with the expenses. Since Krell primarily produces physical copies of his work, he jumped in to explain that back in the day, he had to submit his work and hope it got accepted, didn’t get altered, and then published.

“Amazon was a godsend for those of us who were self-publishing,” Krell said, “because it was another outlet and leveled the playing field. ‘Can you make money out of [self-publishing]?’ Probably not. I don’t know how many of us are publishing LGBT themes, comics, and graphic novels for the money. I think we’re doing it for the love and for our desire to tell stories that we don’t see out there.”

The most important advice that Krell offered was to never undervalue your work or else you’ll never earn money. Grace also mentioned that you should give about ten percent of your copies as giveaways so you can get your stories out there. He also said that he used to hand-make his comics and consulted Google and YouTube as his guides.

The discussion switched over to Kickstarter, which Avery recommended to narrow down the rewards to items that you wouldn’t mind owning, or else it’d become too excessive.

Questions from the audience closed out the panel, and one individual asked the panelists what challenges they’d faced when they first started out in comics.

Kerney stated that the biggest obstacle was himself because he just kept getting in his own way. Avery responded that there is the “trap of craft,” which is when you evaluate your work and think you have to be at a certain level in order for it to be successful.

“The important thing is to just believe in yourself,” Esguerra said. “Believe you have value, and if you can’t, find other people who will tell you [that you’re valued] and kick your ass.”

Follow the panelists and their works