Yes, my YouTube and Blogger accounts HAVE been neglected unintentionally. Thanks for noticing!

I'll get back to business as usual once the holiday slush is over. Maybe before X-Mas. Maybe After. Who knows really, which leads into my latest theory about life I've been developing in my head for the last 6 hours. But I'll elaborate on that theory later, about "Precision in life", or LACK THEREOF.

How to Handle Criticism of Your Work....

I was very sensitive to criticism early on. I was a delicate flower. Really, I was....Until I got criticized publicly A LOT.

The key is not to "overcome criticism". That will never happen. You never WILL completely get over it. There will always be those one or two slanderous or negative comments you hear on TV or online that will keep repeating themselves in your mind.

The key is managing how you DEAL with it. Coming to terms with public sentiment towards your work. Artists may WANT TO be as respected as Miyazaki or whoever, but unless you have the courage, patience, and fortitude to hold out and wait an eternity to build your career up to that level, which takes dozens upon dozens of years, even a quarter of a century or more, you'll never make it that far unless you have some kind of self-made system going for yourself. Some artists do. Some artists don't. That's just how it is.

But yes. The criticism never does stop. As long as your aiming FOR the TOP, there will be criticism of you. Often from people who have what amounts to the exact same goals as yourself. But if someone is saying something nasty about you, they're that much further from ever achieving their OWN goals. Those who can, do, those who can't, criticize.

Here's the thing about success and fear. And don't be fooled by celebrities who look confident, stable, independent and fearless. Performers who have been performing for 60 YEARS still can be found throwing up in a bucket backstage before a concert every night. Success can and will scare shit out of almost anybody. At some point, if you truly want to be successful, you have to know your  fear. Know what humiliates or terrorizes you, because unless you're one of "the lucky ones", you WILL have to confront your fear and embarrassment. Successful artists must deal with fear. Successful, CONTROVERSIAL artists must deal with fear AND humiliation much of the time. Even if its just people motivated by petty jealousy or sabotage. Be it a fan or tabloid reporter.

Article - "Just what the hell is indie and alternative manga?

Not to be confused with similar, but more popular genres of manga, gekiga / doujin / doujinshi, - drama pictures and dialogue, fan comics

There ISN'T a Japanese equivalent term for indie manga yet, because formerly, indie, independent, "alternative", or underground and indie comics was a largely American term, describing comics made to emphasize innovation, creative experimentation, design, and many storytelling elements outside of the Western Comics mainstream, like odd topics, or black and white panel artwork, for instance.

Well known American indie comics creators include Paul Pope, Jhonen Vasquez, Chynna Clugston-Major, Evan Dorkin, Ted Naifeh, JR Goldberg, Phil Hester, Judd Winick, Matt Groening, Rob Schrab, Jeff Smith, Stan Sakai, Mike Mignola, Andi Watson, Scott McCloud Doug TenNapel, Jim Mahfood, Dave Sim, Jamie Hewlett, Todd McFarlane, Sam Keith, Frank Miller, Frank Cho and many others. Publishers include Dark Horse, Image, Oni Press, and Slave Labor Graphics (SLG). Famous Independent Manga creators include Hiroaki Samura and Katsuhiro Otomo. Artist known for being innovators and pioneers, who have respectable reputations, but often do not dominate retail sales. Not all indie creators online and off must have a small audience overall, but most do not have a large audience.

Techniques and elements: Indie comics have been known to use such elements and techniques as, Decompression, noir, grittiness, horror and macabre, black and white art, literary emphasis, embrace of certain subcultures (like goth, slacker, fantasy genre, alternative music, or hip-hop)

The GEN anthology which recently came out was one of the first Japan based manga trades and anthologies which embraced indie comics culture from a Japan-based perspective, from various lesser known Japanese creators and cartoonists.

Independent Manga Scene

I seem to have an emerging reputation in the national and international independent manga scene. Books like A Drifting Life, AKIRA, GEN.

The national cultures may be different, but I love me some gekiga! I also love independent manga. I'm actually pretty good at drawing it, as it seems to have turned out.

Surtur's Fire-Blade - Mono's Special Move

Number One Mistake

Number one mistake we make as authors. Putting too much weight into your own reputation as a newcomer, or an obscure brain.

Never assume you're audience has already heard of you. Chances are they haven't, but it just LOOKS that way.

"And You Can, Too!" ...Not Really.

The "Anybody Can Do It, Too" Gimmick

Truth is, everybody or anybody CAN'T do it. The minute someone tries to rationalize the success of something I do for a living with "Hey, Joe did it, that means ANYBODY can do it" style sloganeering, head for the hills. Run away, because they're trying to swindle and con you. That's "Motivational Feel Good New Age Hippie" psychobabble, that for the most part is BULLSHIT. REAL success takes talent, and it will NEVER be available to everyone. That's the words of someone trying to make a fraudulent, slogan-based sales pitch profit by trying to take shortcuts to a fatter wallet by liberalizing the truth of what I do, which is you'll never get to my level unless you're as innovative or ingenious as I am. That's a polite way of saying I'm a loser and I "got lucky" and "have no real talent". Further bullshit sloganeering. That's denying me the credit I DESERVE. Nobody said the REAL truth was supposed to be pleasant, or attainable. Success and getting to the top is NEVER easy. And that's how people want to see it happen. "And You Can Too" is classic con-man scam-speak. 

My Management Style

MY particular website management style comes with growth, wealth, communication, transparency, and diversity.

Secrecy About Financial Status Leads To Wealth (probably)

There's a correlation there.

Blabbermouths and know it alls never actually get rich.

Nobody ever gets rich by babbling. You get rich by taking action, and acting upon intentions and habits.

The richer the person is, the more secretive he's forced himself to be.

Nobody ever because a billionaire by being honest about how much money he had.

Don't you JUST LOVE IT.....

When your family openly has household conversations where they project their feelings about YOU, into numerous phone and kitchen conversations that "aren't" about you but really ARE on a subconscious level?

So. Fucking. Annoying.

Ta-daaaahhhh!!!! FORBES

Forbes wrote an article about me.

RIGHT HERE.

Upon the Publication of a Kindle eComic Book

Upon the publication of my Original Kindle eComic, I couldn't help but notice what a little amount of PR and promotion Kindle eComics get. Other than Goodreads and a paid PR website, you're pretty much on your own. And by "on your own", I mean anyone actually discovering your work directly, and that hardly EVER happens with Kindle books. The biggest brands in books are the only ones that see the light of day for the most part.

Ce La Vi.

So Art Manifested, my art book....

Only registered me selling / earning around $7.60 through Amazon royalties....Of which I've seen none of.

Only problem? Amazon "ain't paying me jack shit until I earn $100 or more". And we all know I'll never sell THAT many.

Yeah, good luck with that J

The CALLOUSES. THEY ARE GONE!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!

What have we learned?

Never bother to see a pediatrist or have callous surgery on your feet....

When you can restore  the skin on your heals by restocking the blade in your ped-egg...

Adsense is DEAD! Long live Sponsify

NT

30th Birthday

This day, Sunday, November 17th, 2013, has turned out to be one of my most rewarding, stable days ever.

I've only been 30 years old for just under a day, and ALREADY I'm liking it more than most of my 20s combined. So rewarding. I'm actually enjoying life again. 

Living at home is feeling like less of a prison sentence and more like living at home. 

To me 30s are feeling better than my 20s as there's less conflict and struggle involved. There's been less conflict, well, for the moment anyway.

Well....

So much for the whole "made at the expense of anything resembling a social life" thing you claimed was happening. Now you know LOTS of weirdos!

The Next Generation of Artists. The Publisher-Artist DIY Generation...

What I see: The future of Comic Book Distribution (Artist-Author becomes Publisher)

Nowadays with the current landscape of comics publishing, the support lean towards things like Amazon Kindle, self-distribution (to a degree) and self-publishing through print on demand.

In the future, there's a high likelihood, that in order for an artist to succeed in comics, one will have to be not only versed in how to Draw and/or Write and CREATE comics, but also how to self-print, self-publish, and self-distribute your own comics. It's a business LABYRINTH with many DEAD ENDS commercially in many ways,  but the rewards of success are great.

The line between what's saved in your manuscript documents on your computer and what's on your Lulu or Kindle storefront will become  blurred. Visibility of lesser known literature will increase, much like what has been happening with YouTube and video. That will probably happen with publishing too, in time, depending on the marketing and distribution strategies of the big mainstream publishers outside of Amazon (i.e. Marvel, DC, Dark Horse)

Great options for the DIY generation of Authors and Comics Creators

·        Ka-Blam (Print on Demand)

·        Amazon CreateSpace

·     Amazon Kindle (Worldwide distribution, Amazons in 12 countries across America, Europe, and Asia)

·        Graphicly (Distribution across multiple platforms costs $120+)

MANNNN! The cool police is messin mah chill time....

It used to be there were places in Central Florida to just drive your car to, park at, and hang out. Like Denny's, or Borders, but they closed all the good ones of those.

I miss that local atmosphere where I could just stop by at a local store like Borders, and there would be a whole section of the store for chilling, hanging out, and reading stuff, books, manga, and whatnot.....

I miss that.

People recommend Park Ave, and Park Ave is nice and all, but parking there is straight out of a  New York City Avenue, except instead of tall buildings being on the other side, there's a nice big ol' park.

Maybe I should just go back to art school in Fort Lauderdale, where ALL the cool kids go to chill.

I can always hang out in my garage. Not quite the same though.

Dedication - For a Girl

This comic is dedicated......

To a girl I broke up with.....

Who shall remain nameless. Probably forever.

One of Those Drawin Days

Spent a good 6 hours at the sketchbooks today.

Produced 30 pages out of those 6 hours in total.

Off to a good run....

What is my Literary Style...

It's fairly complex. I achieve MANY things in my literature. But it's impossible to sum up simply. I like the supernatural. I tend to be a masculine-feminine romanticizer of the past and all generations that came before, relying on memory and limited experience to formulate my phrases and ideas. And of course, I always emphasize freedom of expression and imagination, while also condemning crass censorship and hypercapitalist schemes. All while channeling  the revolution and rebellion of a wholesome yet still somehow very rebellious and healthy, non-dysfunctional youth and formative era of my life. 

The Comics and Webcomics / Manga Self Publishing Industry...KIND of needs to get its' ACT TOGETHER....I mean, I know I'm a part of it, but that doesn't excuse all the other people and their shoddy business practices..

Here's a list of Comics Self-Publishing Players of the 2000s and Online...

WCN (Webcomics Nation) --

My YouTube page gets more views than that place.

Smack Jeeves --

Don't know, never used it. Probably not much  better than WCN overall.

DeviantART --

Good. If you like having your property stolen, and getting RIPPED OFF.

Graphicly --

"No refunds". It costs $150 just to make your book widely available

Lulu --

Kind of shoddy in the formatting department. BUT actually one of the best choices on this list if you're just publishing for yourself and people you know. I will admit though. Create Space aside, I consider this one to be the "old reliable" of the bunch. I've published over 5 books with them. Actually, WELL over 5. I lost count. Figuring out how to format PDF Files to the upload page can be frustrating and challenging, but the final result (a printed book or comic in your hands) is well worth the effort. It's important to measure the proportions of the books you already own with a ruler to get a sense of just how big your book will be and look when it's printed up and mailed off to you....I've made some sizing errors in the past with them (or they did, not sure), and the books that got mailed to me ended up being a bit too big. That is why you have to measure the proportions and get a visual on your book BEFORE you print and order it. Good to know. 

ComiXpress -- MIA

They went out of business. PLEASE NOTE, FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR A COMIXPRESS "SUBSTITUTE - REPLACEMENT", I recently found KA-BLAM, which is actually pretty decent in terms of customer service. Still waiting to review their print quality....

ComiXology --

No publishing department. Just comics online retail. Kind of sucks. Selection of comics is okay, but it's HARDLY democratic.

CreateSpace --

This is probably the best choice outside of Lulu. Since it's Amazon backing it, at least they KIND of know what they're doing.

Oh BOY! Webcomics Nation "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS AND NEVER UPDATING OUR WEBSITE FOR 5 YEARS IN A ROW BECAUSE IT SWITCHED OWNERSHIP" Sale!!!!!

So fucking stupid. No one even  bothers to update the fucking INTRO page to that site even, let alone make it compatible with social media...

WCN/Webcomics Nation - You officially SUCK.

Depressed Darth Week

Been kind of depressed today. My parents have really been hassling me and yelling at me a lot around the house, like I'm some little "good fer nuthin" or whatever.

It's weird that my parents have been raggin on me right after yesterday, which was the day I got my  first ever request from a fan for an autograph, and someone sent me a fan email asking if I'd sign a copy of my book he wants to buy. Complete stranger, too. I don't even know who this person is.

That's the first time a FAN, (and not just family and friends) has ever asked for my autograph. for one of my books.

Turning 30 This Week.

I'm turning 30 this week.

Hmmmm....What is it like to be thirty years old, a moderately aged adult, young young people ask?

Well, I can't help but wonder why I'm still unemployed. That one REALLY bothers me.

Art Manifested: Back From the Grade [ (C) O M I N G S O O N ! (hopefully)

Art Manifested went out of print and pretty much disappeared from the market for a year or so. UNTIL someone let me know people are buying copies of it. I was not aware of this fact until just today.

So I'll be releasing a 2nd print edition by next year sometime, most likely.

How to Make an Anime (The Blatant Truth)

There are really only three known ways to get your own anime produced in Japan.

1. Be Rich.
2. Be Famous.
3. Be a local resident and citizen of Japan who is fluent in Japanese business and language.

Stories - A Novella (A Revised Draft)

Stories - A Novella

Only Available at Google Docs

Google Search

Google Search Results for each of my online nom de plums...

SplitAtomBoom

• ·        YouTube
• ·        Social Blade
• ·        Twitter
• ·        Livestream

Joseph Alberts

• ·        Dave Sim Comics Article
• ·        LinkedIn Profile

JM Strebler

• ·        Webcomics Nation (Spindack)
• ·        End Times (Lulu)
•             J.M. Macabre
• ·        DeviantArt Portfolio

JM Matthews

• ·        Amazon Profile

Spindack

• ·        Adult Swim Forums
• ·        My Anime List    
• ·        Webcomics Nation
• ·        Anime Hummingbird

Jay

You shall have your day in the sun, Mr. Myers, my No. 1 fan...

DON'T Move Here: The Most Dangerous Places to Live

Currently:

Florida
Saudi Arabia
North Africa
New York City
Massachusetts
Pakistan
Iran
Connecticut
Kansas
LAX
Africa

America is ALMOST as violent as Africa and the Middle East

I'm Awesome! And Powerful! Finally embracing my Power. I'm actually comfortable with the relatively new concept of Moneyless Power...

That's right. I have Power and No Money. Power Without Money. Moneyless Power. 

Google and Look it UP if you doubt me. Of course, you will find NOTHING!!!! That is how rare my abilities are. Not Even Google has an answer or definition for my level of power.

Thanks YouTube, and Cairo, and online video, and Online Comics and Art.

All of you MADE my reputation. 

Moneyless Power means you have the power to change things, but you hardly ever get any direct credit for it.

Moneyless Power often goes unseen, but not when it is unleashed on the right or god forbid WRONG people. 

It could mean a large  body of work. It could mean revolution and revolutionary power. It could mean Everybody copies you, your look, your style, your contributions, and your work and face or name.

Or all of the above

Or it could mean you've attained immortality beyond your lifetime. Many important people love writing about things like politics, psychokinesis, gods, war, and immortality, as a narrative and fantastical outlet for expressing their own magic and enormous power in society, to reflect their own influential abilities as an author. I'm not different. I do the same thing sometimes, hence lending credence to my claim. 

"How do you make MONEY on the INTERNET??? HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY ON THE INTERNET!!!!!?? HOW OH DEAR GOD, HOW!!!!!"

Listen up, clueless person, I'm only gonna say this a few dozen times, so you better listen up.

People make money online from sponsors, sponsorship, and "ad servers". Yes that is a searchable term...

That's how Google made its' billions of dollars. And that's how I made my $174 online....

.....Through Ad servers, specifically, the most effective ad server for sky high amounts of website visits, hits, clicks, and traffic: ADSENSE.

That's right. ADSENSE. Adsense compensates anyone, you, me, anyone big or small, for the amount of visitors their site gets.

Google made BILLIONS of DOLLARS with Adsense. That's how it made the majority of it's money, the "TV WAY". Through paying sponsor that place ads on your websites and videos.

There are other companies that specialize in advertising the way Adsense does, but they have yet to learn the value of democratized monetization, of paying small dollars to smaller web players, like *cough cough* me. And of course everyone else who's wanted to make money online or who has already done so.

Advertising online works the same way Advertising on TV does. You get paid by the size of your audience.

In other words, if you have a small audience, you make a little bit of money (probably)

If you have a vast YouTube-worthy audience, you make a killing.

Simple as that.

What's not to  get?