Mightier Than the Sword #15 - Shiny!

[Paul Carroll]

​ Mightier Than the Sword The Newsletter of Paul Carroll Welcome to a new edition of Mightier Than the Sword, in which one writer has aspires to greatness and the hoarding of shiny things. I'm your pin-obsessed host, Paul Carroll, here with updates on Turning Roads and the future of Red Fox Cards. Turning Roads fund are here! I received an email on Sunday to say that the funds for the Turning Roads Kickstarter have been released by Stripe following the processing of pledges. We dropped five pledges out of over 500, which comes as something of a relief. I had been checking my bank account with a degree of impatience while I waited to receive the money. Now that they're finally in my account, I can move onto the next steps of the process: paying people and purchasing things for the campaign fulfilment. This is the exciting part. The first outstanding invoice - though, it hasn't actually been issued yet - is for the Declan Shalvey cover. He's been patient and hasn't once asked for an update on when he might be paid. He's seen how these sorts of things work in the past, so that's understandable. Still, it'll be nice to have one of the big individual payments sent out. At the same time, I can send the pin for the Kickstarter to the manufacturer! I'm excited to get my hands on this one. ​ The enamel pin tier is something I would have loved to have introduced back when I made Plexus #1, but I didn't have a clue back then where to even start, or how much of a pin junkie I'd become. The third payment I can begin to make is towards the creative teams on the book. This one is the whole point of the Kickstarter campaign, to make up for where outside funding let me down. With 17 teams outside my own to address, the campaign needed to do well to ensure they would be paid properly and on time. Everything else comes later in the year. Thankfully, I learned a thing or two while working in Finance to know how to manage the funds and track expenditure so there are no loose ends. And I have a spreadsheet. Slowly into Despayre The writing on State of Despayre has begun, albeit much slower than I would have liked. I had some computer issues, which were then met with timing issues, so I haven't paid quite as much progress as I would have wanted to. Still, it's happening. I'm determined to have the draft complete before the summer hits. Red Fox Cards Last year, I set up a wee little card shop for myself: Red Fox Cards. Initially I was only going to stock greeting cards, but I swiftly added in stickers, bookmarks and an assortment of writing products, and created some notebooks on Amazon. I also made my first enamel pin. As I approach the one-year anniversary, I'm looking to expand a little bit more. Coming soon to Red Fox Cards: More enamel pins, including the Turning Roads pin Mugs, via a third party website Postcards More zines I'm conscious of the amount of physical space I have for stock, but thankfully the mugs won't be listed on my Etsy store, and I won't need to worry about postage and packaging for them. In an ideal world, I'll get to bring Red Fox Cards to an event in the future. Maybe then I'll have my full range of products to show off. A man can dream, eh? Comix Ireland In 2016, I launched my own comic review site. I still very much like the website, but when I began to create my own small press comics, I couldn't justify reviewing the work of others. Either I would have been pushing people away from my own books, or I would have run the risk of seeming biased against the other titles. I kept the site going into 2018 with interviews, but left it after that. Now, in 2021, as the global pandemic seems to finally be under some control and I've established myself as part of the Irish comic community, it's time to bring Comix Ireland back to life. There will be a very specific shape to the website going forward. No reviews, to avoid bias Interviews, to allow people to meet the creators of comics in Ireland Profile pages of Ireland's comic creators A directory of said profile pages Resources to help comic creators The current content on the site will be archived, and the whole thing will be given a design overhaul. I'm rather looking forward to the whole process, though it's going to take some time. My aim is to have it launching in the summer, with the old content coming down before the end of the month and the new branding occupying the home page. Why am I doing this? Aside from habitually taking on more work than any one person should, I just love Irish comics and I want them to thrive. I also think people should be able to look at a website and see who's doing what. While Irish Comic News does a good job keeping people up to date on things, unless someone is actively releasing stuff that the website covers, their name may disappear from the community's minds. There have been many times over the last year where I've had to direct people to others' websites and social media because they didn't know who I was talking about. Now I want it all to be in one place, so the public can find out who's making comics, so the community can be more aware of who else is working in their field, and so creative teams can find collaborators more easily. I have my spreadsheet ready. I have time. I know what I'm looking to create, and I know what free tools are at my disposal to help make it all easier. I did need another big project, didn't I? Until next time! Paul Thanks for reading! If you loved it, tell your friends to subscribe. 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