Why Free Downloads?

A couple months ago I started sharing my work on Threads. Surprisingly it’s been getting a lot of engagement compared to its forefather, Instagram. At the moment there are countless creators  voicing their concerns about engagement being really low. Not to mention Instagram saying that they’re going to support their smaller content creators has really irked some of those who have spent time building their large followings.

Though honestly for me, my accounts have sucked for the past year since I was posting heavily about cannabis, whether it would be educational or not. It was always to talk about our app Chronicle in some way. However a lot of my posts were against their policy. I kept getting notifications from Instagram to take down content or risk being in violation and having my account no longer be shown to non-followers. Countless times I would be wondering why my engagement falls off only to see there are recommendations from Instagram on taking down content that has cannabis in it.

If you want to view the full branding profile check it out here

So with all of that happening and getting burnt out from trying new ways to create canna and Chronicle content and failing. I made the conscious decision of removing cannabis from my content strategy. With that came Coffee and Comics. Coffee and comics is an evolution of the original logo I created over a year ago; coffee, cannabis, and comics. Funny thing is, as I worked on this I realized I liked it so much more. A lot of things were fixed that I didn’t like in the original; for instance like the negative spacing in between the words. Then I was able to keep it to two “brand” marks within the whole logo, which is the coffee cup in the C and then the superhero in the O.

Which leads me to the free downloads on my website. While on Threads I started to engage with the comic community while at the same time X-Men ‘97 was premiering on Disney+. Over the course of a couple weeks I noticed that a lot of people were getting upset because other accounts were posting spoilers and they hadn’t watched the episode yet. So I thought I could jump in on this and help out with providing a variety of spoiler images that people could use in their posts as alerts to their audience.

The community responded positively by engaging with it, thus making it the post with the highest engagement on my account. People were thankful, others were joining in on the discussion if you should be posting spoilers in the first place. I wanted to point out though that there are accounts that are monetizing and trying to be the first one out there; so I get it and you’re not gonna be able to stop those people but maybe we can educate them with some best practices so those who don’t want to be spoiled can scroll right past.

You can download this Cable inspired wallpaper here

Analyzing all the engagement on my Threads posts, I started to think OK how can I start converting all of these engagements into leads on my website. What I decided on was wallpapers for mobile phones customized with an X-Men theme. The response to this was the same as the spoiler images: people loved them, shared them over and over. Once again, it became one of my highest engaged posts. 

What I would do is post an image of a mock up of one of the wallpapers. Let that kind of make its way around with people liking it and sharing it, then I would follow up by posting a link to my website. The other point of this was from and SEO perspective. Now I’m not an expert in SEO,  I’m just a designer, but I wanted to see how I can start getting more leads to my website. So by making things free, anyone that is searching for free X-Men related items will hopefully see my posts and I can begging to capture that audience.

Now you might say, “OK so what’s the point? Why? What are you doing with all this traffic?”

Well there’s a couple reasons for that one. I eventually want to start a coffee & comic shop here in my town outside of Denver. So by tackling and taking over all the coffee and comic content in my area, I can start gathering traffic to the website for when we do open.

Hopefully coming to fruition in the next year or so.

By directing people to the free downloads, I’m hoping to encourage them to make purchase. I want to provide just a few items that people can purchase like stickers, a tote bag, maybe even some coffee mugs. These are all things that I’m experimenting with as I am creating them by hand to save on costs.

Then the third reason is just to try to get subscribers to my blog. The blog is going to be another way to capture an audience and try to bring them along on the journey for starting up this coffee and comic shop. Sharing my experience of what’s going on, how I’m doing it all and honestly just being a sort of journal in which I can hold myself accountable on certain things. Plus serve as a place to air out some ideas or frustrations that I’m having and try to brainstorm with my community solutions.

Storm is my current background, which one is your favorite?

At the moment, my free downloads is the highest viewed page on my website and traffic has grown over 3000% in the past month alone. So now you’re probably thinking, “How can you keep this going?” Well it’s pretty simple, make more wallpapers, share more free downloads and just keep the momentum going, it’s not about getting burnt out. It’s about fun and not some immediate deadline. A part of that has to be the comic community I have encountered on Threads, being engaged with such a passionate group really helps keep me going.

Review: RAIN

Today I’m doing a review on my first indie comic on Coffee, Cannabis and Comics; Rain, a 5 issue run by Joe Hill, David M. Booher, Zoe Thorogood, & Chris O’Halloran + Syzygy Publishing. When I first went to my local comic book shop, I wanted to make sure I picked up at least 2 unfamiliar comics. What I meant was I didn’t want to get the traditional superhero comics and instead try something from an independent publishing company.

I was looking all over the shop for Saga, an indie comic my buddies Ben and Cassie highly recommended, I finally found it but right next to it was Rain. The cover caught my eye, the art and the treatment of the title; particularly the R and A since they were both filled in.

As a reminder I will be basing my review on the following:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

It was interesting how the covers made so much more sense after I read the issue. I felt that they were creative in how much of the story they were giving away as well as how to show it in a minimalist style.

Cover Issue #1 This cover is by the artist of the book as well, Zoe Thorogood and it’s the one that drew me in. I figured it was a love story but what was really interesting was the beam going through their hearts. Zoe Thorogood also created the covers for issues 2-5 which I picked up over the next couple weeks.

Cover Issue #2 Some noticeable changes on here from the first cover, one person is gone and the same color garment is now covered in blood and the remaining person is crying.

Cover Issue #3 The third cover felt the most heartbreaking to me because of the child as the main focus with a beat up, crappy old umbrella, with the reoccurring beam coming through.

Cover Issue #4 This one felt slightly different from the previous three as it was more blues and greens as opposed to the warmth of the oranges and reds. Also we see the person holding a letter and a rope covered in spikes, interesting.

Cover Issue #5 Now the fifth cover was the last issue of the run but also the one that deviated the most from the white negative space of previous issues. But having it covered in red I think was a great idea and still follows the layout from the previous issues.

Check out the covers of RAIN issues 1-5 below.

Rain Issue 1 Cover

Cover art for the comic Rain issue 1

Rain Issue 2 Cover

Cover art for the comic Rain issue 2

Rain Issue 3 Cover

Cover art for the comic Rain issue 3

Rain Issue 4 Cover

Cover art for the comic Rain issue 4

Rain Issue 5 Cover

Cover art for the comic Rain issue 5

Story As I previously stated, I wanted to pick up some indie titles and man what a series to start with. I honestly had no idea what this story would be about going into it. I saw the cover, flipped through to one page that showed a bunch of people dying with what looked like ice rain of some sort. I thought it was pretty crazy but was really drawn in by the art as well as the colors from that particular spread.

Issue 1 We start off in the story with Honeysuckle waiting for her girlfriend Yolanda, to arrive at her place in Denver from Boulder, they were moving in together(it was pretty funny to open this up and see Boulder/Denver since I live in the area). We learn a bit of background story that coming out to their parents were two different stories, one family very accepting, the other not. Luckily Yolanda’s parents were very welcoming to Honeysuckle and said they would be her second family if needed.

Now during this time while we get backstory, Honeysuckle is talking about how the first day of the rain caught everyone off guard… It was foreshadowing that I thought we would learn about later.

Spoiler alert, do not continue if you want to pick up the issues.

The spread right before we see everyone stabbed to death with some weird crystalized rain…

But what happened was as we are moving through the story and Honeysuckle is talking about the rain in past tense, we see it actually happen. It was a TOTAL different approach that I was not expecting. So as we build up and learn about Honeysuckle and Yolanda’s relationship and get sucked in only to have our hearts ripped out when we find out that Honeysuckle is in fact retelling the event. You’re left turning the pages to see Honeysuckle go from yelling, “Yolanda!” to seeing Yolanda get stabbed by the rain and then the next page all black black with a simple message from Honeysuckle as the narrator, “Like I said, when the rain fell, most everyone was caught outside in it.” Cut to the last page of Yolanda dead.

Honestly I should have for seen this happening for how the story was building up the relationship; I just didn’t think it would happen so early in the story.

PHEW! What a wild ride in just the first issue!

I highly recommend picking this up as the rest of the story continues to draw you in and hit you with twists like no other. With Yolanda and her mother gone and no way to let Yolanda’s dad know about what happened, Honeysuckle sets on trek to Denver, Colorado from Boulder to deliver the news. But along this apocalyptic journey we learn more about the current events, could someone actually be responsible for making the sky rain down glass??

One of the beginning spreads of issue #1 in which we get a first instance of weird weather…

Overall Rating I give this a 4/5. The cover designs were great and I really like the art style; I think what I liked about it is that it is different from the other comics I am currently reading. The actual story, I liked it. A lot. I was gasping turning the pages so much that my wife looked at me and asked, “Are you ok over there?”

The only thing that keeps me from giving it a 5 out of 5 is because of how abrupt it ended and left me wanting to know more. There was so much jam packed at the end that it felt a bit rushed. I’m still OK with the ending but just think they could have continued it.

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If you’re a cannabis consumer like me and like to keep track of your consumption, be sure to check out Chronicle below.