Chat with online comics creator Steve Conley - June 8th, 2000

Original transcript kindly provided by John Freeman, former VZSciFi project manager who appears in this chat as Mr. Templeton.

The following excerpt is from the VZSciFi website regarding this community chat.

This is a screenshot of the community chat, but sadly it was in a really low resolution so some upscaling has been applied. Apologies for the bad quality of the image.

VZSciFi Live Creator Event: Online Comics Creator Steve Conley
Thursday 8 June, 1.00pm VZT (PST) Space City Conference Centre

VZSciFi played host to its first virtual guest appearance on Thursday 8 June at 1.00pm PST, featuring online comics creator Steve Conley (seen here shortly after he received the prestigious Eagle Award for Best Inline Comic Strip of 1999).

Conley, creator of the multi-award-winning Astounding Space Thrills online comic strip was on hand to answer questions about his web creation and the subsequent print publication, now in its second issue from Image Comics.

Here's the transcript of the Steve Conley event, held on 8 June 2000. This has been edited slightly for spelling, with repetitions removed, and to add additional information where appropriate. Special thanks to Steve for going over it again for us! The event was moderated by Mr. Templeton (John Freeman).

Members who attended included (not all are listed here): An*ee* (HD); au-r@l-b; Bren; Brenegan; Caretaker; The Cat; Charbear; Cherry Pie; Columbus; Cuz; DallasStarsGal, dayce; DelilahJ; FP; The Great Hoo-Doo; Jakk; kellin ; ~Lit~l Starrr~, link; Linsue; Logik; mr.mistree; The Mole; Nikells; NoeNoe; Passion Quest; PC Girl Am I; RJohn223; Rad¨; Robyn; Rocky_Man; Snowflake; Sorsessa; Spazz; Stig Redfin of the Ukrann; tiresias, Tony; VaBelle; and Wings.

Mr. Templeton: OK folks, I am going to bring in Steve now. Before I do, just to say, this is the first time I have done this, so please direct your questions to me by ESP... and we will see how it works! If a person, i.e. an avatar is in the room I will ask them to repeat the question, okay?

Stig Redfin of the Ukrann: Right, I will give my seat up for Steve now.

Mr. Templeton: Hi Steve, thanks for coming

Steve Conley: Cool. Standing room only!

Mr. Templeton: Hi everyone, and welcome to our first ever VZSciFi creator event. We're delighted to have Steve Conley with us here today, creator of the daily online strip Astounding Space Thrills. Just click the poster on the wall for today's instalment!

Mr. Templeton: Steve's daily strip is read by over 50,000 individual web users a month and has rightfully earned him a number of awards including a prestigious Eagle Award, named after the world famous British comic of the Fifties and Sixties.

Mr. Templeton: The success of the online strip has meant the release of a print version of the story, and the second issue from Image Comics is about to go on sale in comic stores. You can also order it online from the Astounding Space Thrills web site.

Mr. Templeton: Steve, perhaps we could start by you telling us about yourself and how you can to create an online strip?

Steve Conley: I'm a 30-year old New York-escapee now living in Arlington, Virginia USA. I earned a useless degree in advertising, which was all I needed to work for newspapers. After working in the news biz at USA Today, I designed and launched their web site in 1995. A few years later, started my own web design biz and made time to do what I love: cartooning.

Mr. Templeton: What spurred the idea for the Astounding Space Thrills universe itself?

Steve Conley: I wanted an environment where I could tell any kind of story, that required throwing the laws of physics out. I'm also a big believer in a bright future! I wanted to do something counter to the Blade Runner dystopian vision, so I went 180 degrees in the other direction. It has the elements of pulps and the classic movie serials.

Mr. Templeton: A question from Link, who is new to your story, what's the potted pitch you give people?

Steve Conley: The simple one is: Indiana Jones in Douglas Adam's universe

Linsue: Lol

Mr. Templeton: That's for film execs, right?

Steve Conley: Yep. It's the Hollywood talk. But it actually more like... Princess Bride with space helmets.

Steve Conley: There was one guy who called it -- and I'm not kidding -- The A-Team meets Men In Black. I almost choked! (but whatever sells it, right?)

NoeNoe: What kind of art training do you have?

Steve Conley: I received a degree in advertising art which had design classes and figure drawing. It concentrated on design

Mr. Templeton: So you write, draw and bring the web page to life by yourself, essentially?

Steve Conley: All by myself!

Mr. Templeton: How long does it take to bring one of your daily strips to the web?

Steve Conley: Maybe two -- two and a half hours from start to finish.

Mr. Templeton: Could you perhaps take us through the process a little? Do you have a plan way in advance for the strip?

Steve Conley: All my work starts in ballpoint pen on typing paper, usually started in a coffee shop

Mr. Templeton: Good place!

Linsue: where would this world be without coffee!

Steve Conley: (producing coffee machine!)

Steve Conley: I scan the ballpoint images and 'ink' the page in a drawing program, then colour and letter it in Photoshop. Some animation is done in the Adobe Imageready program.

Mr. Templeton: Question from RJohn223: What happens if you get an idea for a comic strip when you are doing something else? Like shopping or in the bath?

RJohn223: U added bath lolo

Mr. Templeton: I did!

Steve Conley: I usually have a pad with me and jot it down. If I'm in the bath, I run screaming from the water!

RJohn223: lol

Linsue: Eureka!!

Mr. Templeton: In creating the strip, what sort of problems have you had along the way?

Steve Conley: Overcoming some technical hurdles with the syndication software. System crashes, line drops at bad times. ZIP disk failures. The usual.

Steve Conley: Losing a day's strip that is 90 per cent done due to a system crash still hurts. Finding an audience has been the easiest part!

Mr. Templeton: How quickly did the audience build?

Steve Conley: It was a slow build. It grows at about 15 per cent a month

Mr. Templeton: What sort of things did you do to promote it?

Steve Conley: I came up with a code that let's any person add the comic to their web page and it automatically delivers the right strip, on the right day. That meant anybody could add the comic to their web page as if they were TV affiliate station, broadcasting the comic.

Mr. Templeton: So essentially 300 people carry the strip for you -- so you could be read by millions more than go to your own site?

Steve Conley: Right. The idea was that more people will visit other web pages in a day than will visit mine. Why make 'em all come to me?

NoeNoe: Do you have formal computer training as well?

Steve Conley: No. Just an aptitude, and a belief that the longest distance between two points can be the fastest...

Linsue: How do you know when you have created a comic strip that others will want to read? What is the winning formula?

Steve Conley: Sheesh. I'm not sure about a formula... I just try to maintain the tension from day to day to keep people coming back.

Steve Conley: Sending five strips a week at 40k each is a megabyte a month. That's a bit much to want in your inbasket -- but 1,200 people have signed up. So I must be doing something right!

PC Girl Am I: Yes. I was wondering with your letting people have it free, is there a profit?

Steve Conley: Yep. There is a sponsor position on each comic strip in the upper right. They pay for the exposure just like a TV ad in a television programme. They pay me a monthly fee. I also sell the comics and the t-shirts

NoeNoe: Do you actively seek these sponsors?

Steve Conley: A few came to me. After eight months of doing it for free. I knew the model would work, but I had to build a sizeable audience first. The current sponsor sells game software and hardware. But some were not right for the stripsÉ

Mr. Templeton: -- Such as?

Steve Conley: Such as a site that had some racy content. I try to be kid-friendly. The web is primetime. I need to not scare away the audience.

Mr. Templeton: That reflects your strip in some ways... Adventure, bold, golden age adventure for all.

Jakk: So you put the strip up each day for free until proving yourself?

Steve Conley: Yep. It's still free, but now one company is paying for us all to see it. The Robin Hood business model!

Mr. Templeton: Now it's gone into a print edition from Image, and you did three issues on your own -- what is the reason for that? Was it always your plan to do this?

Steve Conley: Image Comics is now publishing the print comic book. I love creating comics and my thinking is that print is more permanent that digital. If my ISP goes out of business, I have a hard drive failure... and my backup disk burns in a fire, the online work is GONE. Vanished like it never existed.

Mr. Templeton: Yike, talk about your worst case scenario...

Steve Conley: All my work for online will eventually find its way to print. But without the cool animations I've built into the web version.

Linsue: Any chance of a TV series?

Steve Conley: There is a writer/producer who contacted me after an article in The Washington Post. He's pitching it for exactly that. I fear it could be terrible -- but I'll take the money! Most comic adaptations to tv/film are unwatchable. Can you imagine: Rutger Hauer as Argosy Smith!

More money, means more free online comics for everyone.

NoeNoe: Wouldn't [a TV adaptation] also mean loss of control of the content?

Steve Conley: Probably. It's a different medium. It can't do what comics can, so it has to make up for it in other ways. In comics, I have an unlimited budget and a cast of thousands. [For TV] they want one star, two supporting characters and one set!

Mr. Templeton: You've had a few topical digs in the recent strips, with Microshaft as the villains...

Steve Conley: Yep.

Mr. Templeton: Does everyone spot those? Today's [where the Macroshaft boss complained about being called back to Earth for a trial] was spot on, for example.

Steve Conley: Macroshaft has been the bad guys from the beginning, but in the first issue, I point out... that they're NOT Microsoft. Steve Conley: Microsoft was bought out by TY with the beanie baby money. Having worked for a few fortune 500 companies, I figured out. I'm a big fan of capitalism... but don't care much for corporations. So the biggest corps are the biggest bad guys.

Mr. Templeton: Do you have a particular favourite story so far?

Steve Conley: I like the new one. Space Quakes has been fun.

Mr. Templeton: Tell us a little about how that came about.

Steve Conley: When i started all I had was the title. I was putting together a pitch for the Sci-Fi channel and I wanted to show them how far ahead I was and... rattled off the names of the upcoming stories - just making the up on the spot. I hadn't given it more than a moment's thought, so when the first story ended, I looked up what I said was coming up... Space quakes. I thought, okay. I can do that!

Mr. Templeton: Would you consider yourself a strip creator or web entertainment provider?

Steve Conley: Storyteller. Just tying to use whichever medium I'm working in to its best effect. I try not to think about the definitions -- you get painted into a corner

Mr. Templeton: But you are a big fan of the web and its potential?

Steve Conley: Absolutely. But storytelling in unidirectional. A storyteller telling a story to the folks around a fire. The web is more collaborative. This environment is a great example. NoeNoe: Do you consider yourself primarily a storyteller then? Why not novels?

Steve Conley: I like to draw, and I also like the instant gratification of the web. I finish the comic and upload it and the world can see it. I do a novel, it goes to an editor and sits on their desk for three months. Maybe it becomes a book, maybe not.

Mr. Templeton: Do you see yourself creating an even more 3D version of the strip as bandwidth expands?

Steve Conley: The web is only good at a few things right now.

The Great Hoo-Doo: Now that DSL is becoming more publicly available, do you think that the trend will be to push that envelope further?

Steve Conley: Sure, but right now the technology is a pompromise trying to serve 56k modems and DSL. It ends up not working well for either.

Mr. Templeton: So, what do you think the web will throw up next?

Steve Conley: TV is next -- full-screen.

Mr. Templeton: I haven't read your whole archive (fer shame), but have you tried interactivity with your readers? Voting for a storyline, for example?

Steve Conley: No. I think it should be unidirectional. The example I think of is having readers' vote as to whether Sherlock Holmes solves the case or not. I have the same problem when folks add game elements to the story.

Mr. Templeton: What's been your proudest moment as regards working on this strip so far?

Steve Conley: In comics, I've had a good run. Top 5: Posting the 100th daily episode; winning the Eagle award for best e-zine; getting an Eisner nomination; seeing the cover paintings for the first time; and wrapping up the first Image issue that I wrote, illustrated and coloured.

Mr. Templeton: You have gotten a lot of support from some great artists, too...

Steve Conley: The covers have been by: Jim Steranko, The Hildebrandts (who did the first Star Wars poster), Drew Stuzan (who did the Indiana Jones posters); and Kelly freas who has won 10 Hugo awards.

Mr. Templeton: AST isn't the only thing you work on, is it? There's also the comic.con web site, working with writer Rick Veitch?

Steve Conley: Yep. It's an online community.

Mr. Templeton: How did that come about?

Steve Conley: We were trying to create a place outside of the comics industry to get creators together to work and solve problems and figure out how we make money off the web

Mr. Templeton: How many people are involved in that now?

Steve Conley: 150+ cartoonists

The Great Hoo-Doo: Wasn't it also a way to get around some of the problems of distribution?

Steve Conley: Yep. The comic market is shrinking quickly, and the web is exploding. It seems to be the way to go

Mr. Templeton: Why do think the comic market is suffering so much? The talent is still out thereÉ

Steve Conley: The comics aren't written for a general audience any more and they're not available in the super markets, or 7-11s any more.

Mr. Templeton: So lack of distribution is effectively strangling the consumer marketplace?

<ESP from Sorsessa: Tell him it sounds like he knows exactly what us comic shops are having to deal with>

Steve Conley: Somewhat. I don't have THE answer for it, but there are a lot of factors. I think the problems are that the comic shop owner on The Simpsons isn't THAT much of a stereotype, exactly

Mr. Templeton: Soressa says it sounds like you know exactly what a lot of comic shop owners are going through... she is one herself.

Steve Conley: Cool!

The Great Hoo-Doo: Comic shop owners will rather get books that sell themselves.

Steve Conley: I'm very lucky. I have a few GREAT retailers near me. There was a comment made about TIME magazine. They're like a shoe store that only sells shoes that fit the owner. That's why I try to get such great covers, so that the books do jump off the shelves.

Mr. Templeton: When I worked at Marvel we were always told how important a great cover was followed by the splash page -- that still applies?

Steve Conley: Sure!

Mr. Templeton: One last question from me: Steve, if you weren't doing all this great stuff in comics and online, what would you be doing?

Steve Conley: Sleeping!

NoeNoe: Thanks so much for taking the time to visit with us Steve!

RJohn223: Yeah, thanks Steve means a lot.

Mr. Templeton: Steve Conley, I'm sure we all here thank you very much for your time today and I hope you continue to have great success with Astounding Space Thrills.

Steve Conley: Thanks, everyone!

Nikells: Cheers Steve -- You're cool!

RJohn223: Good Luck Steve

Passion Quest: thanks Steve

Linsue: Thanks,

Steve Nikells: Can I ask a quick question? Will you ever use VZones again?

Steve Conley: Sure. I'll be in here!

Mr. Templeton: Thanks to everyone here for coming and making this first event such a success. I have enjoyed it and there have been some great questions!

Stig Redfin of the Ukrann: Well, that was spukiflferopus! I can't draw for Yarbles!

This is a screenshot of the community chat, but sadly it was in a really low resolution so some upscaling has been applied. Apologies for the bad quality of the image.