Confic Art, Community & Culture
by Lack of Lepers
Many in the space may be familiar with the epic graphic novel version of Tanhony's SCP-5000 "Why?". Today, we sit down with the publishers of the successful graphic novel, Dr Gavriel Discordia & Dr Starr Mignon, and ask questions about their company, SCP, and even some useful insight into [DATA EXPUNGED].
You have a few projects going on under the Discordia umbrella; the Thaumiel Coffee Co and the Discordia Culture / Comic Shops. Give us an introduction to your business ecosystem; how & when did they form, who is behind it?
Discordia Merchandising is a multifaceted enterprise. It includes Discordia Publishing, Discordia Culture Shop. And the new Discordia Comic Shop website, which is a new project as we move into comics publishing and offer double standard book rate to other publishers and creators.
Thumiel Coffee Co is just one of our niche websites. There is also our capsule labels like Psychological Industries, Join the Underground, and Pink Nightmare Squad. Populous Ephemera and Discordia Culture Shop are the retail shops that represent all our brands, all of our various in-house productions, and a wide variety of designer toys, designer stickers, and other goods from the Global Underground of Artists. For the Cause.
Your best known product is maybe the "SCP-5000 WHY" graphic novel. First, perhaps the obvious question there: why "WHY"?
SCP-5000 WHY was already fully illustrated by DrDobermann of Korea when I came across the artist. After a translation, some reformatting and lots of additional art, Discordia Publishing was formed solely to publish SCP-5000 WHY as a hardcover book in 2021. From here on out, we are looking for comics artists willing to develop an entire list of SCPs and Tales into graphic novels. We polled the SCP fan base several times and settled on SCP-001 Daybreak for our next installment in the series. We are already 70% complete on the SCP DAYBREAK Anthology, coming in 2023.
How is running an LLC and what advice do you have for anyone looking to start a business or an LLC of their own?
[DATA REDACTED]
You have a new Kickstarter for a paperback edition of the "SCP-5000 WHY". The KickStarter is doing very well and has raised $5,459 with 47 days left, as of the time of writing. Tell us about this KickStarter, and your past KickStarters.
Now that the hardcover edition is nearly sold out, we just had to bring it back in Trade paperback form so we can move it into the Distribution Stage. So we opened a new preorder event on Kickstarter to raise the funds we need to flood comic shops with the first of many SCP Foundation products we have in store for the world. Games and more are already in development. And the first of many SCP Action Figures are already available through the Kickstarter event starting with SCP-049 Plague Dr.
Discordia Publishing publishes the graphic novel, and also offers publication services to independent artists. Would you be interested in publishing books of containment fiction from individual confic authors?
We are currently focused solely on graphic novels at this time and publish works from the SCP wiki only. Discordia Publishing will only be developing works vetted by the SCP Community and Staff.
We noticed that you give proper attribution to the author of SCP-5000, Tanhony, and also responsibly cite the material as CC BY-SA 3.0. Just wanted to thank you for doing that right.
Creative Commons has been a passion of ours long before the first SCP file was ever drafted. So we knew how powerful an asset it was to creators such as Author Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing whose novels have been embraced and translated by fans world-wide. After noticing how few top quality SCP goods there were out there, which we suspect is mostly due to the fringe nature of Creative Commons and a general lack of awareness of how it works, we decided to try our hand at bringing some to life.
We then found ourselves immersed in the demands of the community as we polled them with each purchase over the last 6 years or so. For us few producers out here, who are happy to develop goods with Creative Commons, we can't make SCP stuff fast enough for the fans. We hope to keep the fan base happy in the decade to come.
What got you/your company interested in the SCP Foundation?
We have followed the progress of the SCP Foundation and studied the files for over a decade. As scholars of the community we have a deep understandings of the inner workings of the Foundation and have even taken Site-23 under our wing, utilizing it as the location of many of our goods, as well as the setting of the Attack on Site-23 Deck-Building game we have been developing for several years now. It is an epic undertaking that will also serve as a primer for anyone new to the SCP Foundation. Samples of the game art and cards can be found on Facebook and Reddit by searching for 'SCP Site 23'.
Do you have any other favorite SCPs or favorite SCP authors?
We are huge fans of the strange and unusual ones such as SCP-4971 "The Ritual", the Apotheosis Hub, SCP-3999 "I am at the center of everything that happens to me". We hope to have all these and more fully illustrated for publishing as soon as we find artists ready to take them on. We hope to find artists whose SCP knowledge runs deep enough to take these titles on.
Besides the Creative Commons license, how does the uniqueness of the SCP Wiki project lend itself well to publications such as graphic novels?
Our opinion is that any fan fic authors should not hesitate to allow their work to be vetted by the wiki community for 2 reasons. 1. Tales are not put to the same stress tests as the Files which set the lore of the Foundation and provide the building blocks for Tale authors to work with. 2. You will gain your best critiques and screen your own work for popularity which will help you devise your best possible publishing opportunities.
What inspired the paperback edition; was it requests for something less bulky or just a damn good idea?
Here at Discordia HQ we like to make sure everyone can afford and get access to our creations. This is our opportunity to reach more readers with more affordable books, and get the SCP Foundation into comic shops. With a small line of niche goods in various cities we hope to elevate the presence of the SCP Foundation by making it more real to more people. May this fandom infect more brains with the cognitohazard of its existence.
Would you and your company be interested in a program that kicks back a percentage of your profits to the SCP authors whose works appear in your products?
We do belong to the Patreon pages of several SCP artists and writers and have provided a few gift packages to several creators over the years as thanks for what they do.
We have a core mission of supporting independent artists from many various fandoms and art movements and develop items for artists such as Underground Comics Legend Larry Welz, The Supper Sucklord, and even worked with the founders of Peel Magazine to publish a book of Andre Has a Posse tribute stickers by dozens of artists, that featured an essay by Shepard Fairey of OBEY/GIANT. Our online stores stay away from all manner of corporate goods. And we also donate to causes that expand on the creative freedoms of artists such as Creative Commons, & Electronic Frontier Foundation.
When will the paperback editions of the graphic novel be available?
SCP-5000 Trade Paperback edition is already 100% prepped with the printers. The new cover and improvements to the inner pages are all complete. We will have the financing by mid January [2023], so printing will begin at that time. So books should be reaching SCP fans by February [2023]. However! The remaining Hardcover Copies we are offering are in our studio now and will be shipping out directly after the event ends.
What other projects of yours can we check out? Does DrDobermann do any other illustrating?
DrDobermann has an Art Hub on the SCP Wiki and can be found on Twitter etc. Same for Tanhony.
Are there any ideas for doing graphic novels of other SCP articles?
Fans tell us what they want and we listen, so expect good things!
SCP-5000 is not the only SCP present in the graphic novel. What other SCPs will people see if they purchase it?
SCPs featured in this book include: SCP-579, SCP-096, SCP-682, SCP-2000, SCP-055, SCP-173, SCP-1437, SCP-169, SCP-662, SCP-610, SCP-1370, SCP-1048, SCP-1290, SCP-1440, SCP-1678, SCP-2200, SCP-2241, SCP-2466, SCP-2639, SCP-3078, SCP-3179, SCP-3199, SCP-4290, SCP-4666, SCP-008, SCP-447 & more!
We appreciate the time. Best wishes to you and the projects, we will watch excitedly for any other projects from you.
May the Black Moon Howl.
Check out the following links from Discordia Merchandising!
SCP-5000 WHY The Graphic Novel Paperback Kickstarter:
Thaumiel Coffee Co:
Discordia Merchandising:
Discordia Comic Shop:
Discordia Merchandising on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SCPFoundationSite23
r/Site-23 https://www.reddit.com/r/SCPSITE23/new
Blog: https://undergroundblend.blogspot.com/ Instagrams: https://www.instagram.com/gavrieldiscordia/ https://www.instagram.com/thaumielcoffeeco/ https://www.instagram.com/discordiacomicshop/
The Discordia Merchandising logo is copyright and intellectual property of Discordia Culture Shop / Discordia Merchandising ©2007-2022 / YOLD 3173-3188 / 12007-12022 H.E. All Art and Design remains the Intellectual Property of each Artist.
© Confic Magazine
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