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This is What Happens When You Buy Consumers Digest...
11 years ago
In case you hadn't heard, Consumers Digest is now officially on sale! Two magazines, 50 pages each, all unique content in each issue! You can drop on by our website to pick it up right now if you're so inclined:
http://www.swallowtailproductions.com/
Now that that bit of self promotion is out of the way, on to the real question at hand: Why should you buy it? What's in it for you? What's in it period?
Well over the next couple of days we'll be posting more teasers of the content inside, so although we can't reveal whole pages we will certainly be giving you a good sample size of our Sampler Platter to help you make up your mind if you're still on the fence about buying.
In this world of modern internets technology, though, some of you may be wondering if there's really a point to buying anything at all. There's more art than you could ever see in your lifetime on this site alone, and certainly there is no shortage of vore content on the horizon. If you just want new content all you have to do is refresh a page, and as far as we're aware of that doesn't cost any money... YET. And then of course there is the emerging idea that all media should be available for free, and while we aren't trying to dive into that debate it's certainly fair to say there is validity to the concept.
We're not trying to insinuate that any of those thoughts are wrong. We aren't saying capitalism is good, and we're not even trying to make you feel guilty for not supporting artists. Instead, we will simply tell you what happens when you buy our magazine, and we'll let you decide from there if that's worth your investment. It's as simple as that!
The first thing that happens is we pay our artists. 75% of our profits go straight to the contributing writers and picture-drawers, divided up evenly by their page count. We do not post restrictions on our artists (we kept things clean in the Mild version, but that was by the artist's discretion and we censored nothing) and we allow them to draw whatever they want. Traditionally artists in the furry and/or vore community have a difficult time making a living off of their own work, instead most rely on other peoples' ideas in the form of (sometimes private) commissioned work, so this is a rare opportunity for a lot of creators to pursue their passions towards the promise of some real reward beyond links and comment accolades. A system like ours gives some of your favorite content creators a chance to make what they want, on their terms, and makes it all publicly available. In the future, with success, we'll be starting long-form series, facilitating big ideas that otherwise would not have the infrastructure to prosper. We acknowledge this magazine will probably be available for free via pirated means before this journal is even posted. If that's how you wish to read it we can't do anything about that, but we can ask you to support the artists if you enjoyed their efforts. We'll soon be putting a 'tips' button up on our website for that purpose, and 100% of the money donated through it will go to the artists. We at Swallowtail won't take a cent.
The next thing we do (after we pay our bills) is we reinvest in content development. Swallowtail will not be complete with the release of this first mag, instead this is just our beginning. In addition to the aforementioned series development and future editions of Consumers Digest (some perhaps with crazy themes!), we will be pursing interactive entertainment, innovative applications, and yes some fun toys and merchandising. These are currently in various stages of production, so we can't go too deep into details without running the risk of stumbling into false promises, but that's also a good thing! Because we can't reinvest in the community without hearing from the community first. We'll be posting plenty of polls and questionnaires and otherwise opportunities for you to tell us what you want, but right now in this comments section is as good a time as any to start giving us your feedback and ideas.
There isn't necessarily anything wrong with the way we have things now. Free art, lots of content, some artists managing to pay their rent. But, in terms of resources, this community we all love is quite disorganized and running on fumes. With more investment comes more growth, and with more growth comes even more content. Bigger content and better content, content you've always wanted but haven't had the ability to fully fund by yourself. We may not change your mind with a journal, but we hope we'll be able to change your mind with our results to follow. Or maybe you just don't care about anything other than seeing some cool new artwork and all of this seems excessive for a little fetish magazine. If that's the case, well, did you miss the link at the top of the page? ;)
http://www.swallowtailproductions.com/
Now that that bit of self promotion is out of the way, on to the real question at hand: Why should you buy it? What's in it for you? What's in it period?
Well over the next couple of days we'll be posting more teasers of the content inside, so although we can't reveal whole pages we will certainly be giving you a good sample size of our Sampler Platter to help you make up your mind if you're still on the fence about buying.
In this world of modern internets technology, though, some of you may be wondering if there's really a point to buying anything at all. There's more art than you could ever see in your lifetime on this site alone, and certainly there is no shortage of vore content on the horizon. If you just want new content all you have to do is refresh a page, and as far as we're aware of that doesn't cost any money... YET. And then of course there is the emerging idea that all media should be available for free, and while we aren't trying to dive into that debate it's certainly fair to say there is validity to the concept.
We're not trying to insinuate that any of those thoughts are wrong. We aren't saying capitalism is good, and we're not even trying to make you feel guilty for not supporting artists. Instead, we will simply tell you what happens when you buy our magazine, and we'll let you decide from there if that's worth your investment. It's as simple as that!
The first thing that happens is we pay our artists. 75% of our profits go straight to the contributing writers and picture-drawers, divided up evenly by their page count. We do not post restrictions on our artists (we kept things clean in the Mild version, but that was by the artist's discretion and we censored nothing) and we allow them to draw whatever they want. Traditionally artists in the furry and/or vore community have a difficult time making a living off of their own work, instead most rely on other peoples' ideas in the form of (sometimes private) commissioned work, so this is a rare opportunity for a lot of creators to pursue their passions towards the promise of some real reward beyond links and comment accolades. A system like ours gives some of your favorite content creators a chance to make what they want, on their terms, and makes it all publicly available. In the future, with success, we'll be starting long-form series, facilitating big ideas that otherwise would not have the infrastructure to prosper. We acknowledge this magazine will probably be available for free via pirated means before this journal is even posted. If that's how you wish to read it we can't do anything about that, but we can ask you to support the artists if you enjoyed their efforts. We'll soon be putting a 'tips' button up on our website for that purpose, and 100% of the money donated through it will go to the artists. We at Swallowtail won't take a cent.
The next thing we do (after we pay our bills) is we reinvest in content development. Swallowtail will not be complete with the release of this first mag, instead this is just our beginning. In addition to the aforementioned series development and future editions of Consumers Digest (some perhaps with crazy themes!), we will be pursing interactive entertainment, innovative applications, and yes some fun toys and merchandising. These are currently in various stages of production, so we can't go too deep into details without running the risk of stumbling into false promises, but that's also a good thing! Because we can't reinvest in the community without hearing from the community first. We'll be posting plenty of polls and questionnaires and otherwise opportunities for you to tell us what you want, but right now in this comments section is as good a time as any to start giving us your feedback and ideas.
There isn't necessarily anything wrong with the way we have things now. Free art, lots of content, some artists managing to pay their rent. But, in terms of resources, this community we all love is quite disorganized and running on fumes. With more investment comes more growth, and with more growth comes even more content. Bigger content and better content, content you've always wanted but haven't had the ability to fully fund by yourself. We may not change your mind with a journal, but we hope we'll be able to change your mind with our results to follow. Or maybe you just don't care about anything other than seeing some cool new artwork and all of this seems excessive for a little fetish magazine. If that's the case, well, did you miss the link at the top of the page? ;)
(I am SO PSYCHED for this.)
I’ll try to be professional about this in my capacity as a writer, myself. Do forgive me if it sounds a little snarky. I’m really going to try to be constructive here where possible. Mostly.
Enter Pepper – There is far too much text in this, (though it makes me feel less bad about putting far too much text in my own comic). The problem is, it’s not particularly interesting text. Everything could be said with one-third of the verbiage.
The gold-furred canine kind of pops up from nowhere. I guess there’s a slight silhouette and red eyes as some foreshadowing – rather hard to spot on the first go. Much like how I didn’t spot that Pepper was holding a box of Ick Tacs to explain the first three panels. Or maybe I’m just horribly unobservant. It’s possible.
All the punchlines are kind of forced. The vore is too obscured and at weird angles. Granted, I will say I’m extremely biased in that I don’t like any of Stank’s work anyway, but this doesn’t change anything.
All In – No complaints, since this has plenty of likable things. Hungry, teasing snake; edible, scared critters. That’s always good.
Nutritional Guide with Jacqueline – I don’t like it, but it’s probably just personal preference. Maybe a better layout of text and panels would help – like, singular close-ups of each critter being commented on. There’s stuff and text all over the place in panel 2. Maybe some symmetry would be better.
Willow’s Wish – No professional complaints. It’s an amusing story, though unwilling predators make me a little sad at the same time.
The Day I Didn’t Get Eaten – I kind of skimmed, but it was kind of bland. If Viktor was genuinely interested in my commentary, I’d take the time to do it right.
Aardvore – I like the story. The salamander seems a bit like a refugee from an 80’s cartoon. Maybe that’s intentional, and obviously the author was trying to establish moral high ground for the aardvark, but it also makes the salamander seem brutish and thuggish.
Also, having the aardvark think “I don’t know how to use a gun,” seems a bit out-of-character as well, and hurts the pacing for what should be a fast-moving progression. If he did know how to use a gun, would he use it? It’s already established that he’s pretty meek. I doubt he’d have the nerve to point a gun at anyone.
Terrible Sub Service – Don’t like, but that’s almost purely personal preference.
Are You Lost? – Don’t like, but that’s almost purely personal preference.
Renasencia – I’ll include the spicy portion. First, I have a big thing for spitting out a digested prey’s bones, so you already won me over, there. Were it the art without text, I’d have nothing but praise.
Now for the bad. The intro text runs a bit long. But admittedly, I can see you want to get all that info in. It’s also not 100% clear at first that it’s all coming from the otter. The wording used at the bottom center of page 2 is also kind of awkward. Who talks like that? Also, repeatedly saying “dead” bothers me. But that’s personal.
The spicy pages are very hard to follow. Maybe you’ll keep this storyline going every issue and all will eventually be revealed… but we’re reading this now. It breaks willing suspension of disbelief when something impossible happens with no explanation. A small change of wording would help immensely, even something slightly cheesy like being just that much of a Determinator.
Epic Quest – Don’t like, but that’s almost purely personal preference.
Vagabond Stew – Don’t like. Everything looks weird. Hard to enjoy vore when everything looks weird. On the bright side, there’s not too much text in the way.
Auxiliary Warriors Association – No. Not touching this with a ten-foot pole. And why is this even in both versions?
The Intruder – You know, if you just had 50 pages of dragon-lizard things licking and eating each other, I’d buy every time. Add some giant bugs too, though.
With that out of the way, I do have some questions.
1.) What exactly are your goals as far as the community is concerned? You mentioned that the community is disorganized, and while I agree with that fact, I'd like to hear what that means to you guys and why you mentioned it. You also mentioned growth. Is organizing and growing the community part of your goals? If so, in what kind of ways do you plan on doing this aside from providing art, stories, and other vore-related content for folks to see? I'm not looking for details. Just a general idea. :3
2.) Along the same lines, what is your definition of a community? With regard to the furry vore community in particular, do you feel that it is solely driven by content?
I'm sorry if these questions seem irrelevant to the topic or excessive for something relating to a fetish, but when you start talking about the community itself and implying that you want change, I've got some vested interest in this. I just want to see where you all are going with all of this, and also, how serious you all are about this. :3
1) Our goals for the community are purposefully unrefined, because we don't pretend to know what is truly best for the community. Instead of trying to guide it or sculpt it towards any particular goal, we instead are looking to fix some problems and provide the community better tools with which it can grow itself. In order to do that, we believe investment, organization, and variation are key. With the right resources, communication platforms, and options the community should be able to grow itself into something far bigger and better than we at Swallowtail could ever have imagined it to be. Each of these three keys are somewhat interconnected, and they all tie in to our business plan in a cycle of potential growth. Variation in offering artists a new method to make money other than commissions turns into organization in the form of a noteworthy item of conversation that connects community and leads to investment through sales that we will reinvest in a greater variety projects that offer even more options to even more artists and so on. However the cycle of new media will only go so far, and that's where Swallowtail's other plans come into play. Unfortunately we can't go into the details of these plans at the moment, but we can say that it's time our community caught up with the modern age.
2) 'What is our community' is a very good question, because even with something as specific as 'vore' or 'furry' members of that community will give you different answers. A community isn't a defining feature then, it is instead defined by the people that choose to be a part of it. Qualifying preamble out of the way, we will say that Swallowtail's community is best defined as 'Alternative Furry Entertainment.' But those lines may blur even more, and we welcome that. We want to encourage new perceptions (furry), new media (entertainment), and new experiences (alternative). We want to provide a home to open-minded artists and audiences, a place where you are comfortable being who you are, and a place that facilitates your pursuits of enjoyment no matter how 'alternative' they may be. That is our planned community, and though it may sound vague, that is because our planned community is only defined by those that want to be a part of it. You won't like everything we do, but everything we do supports everything else. Open-mindedness for others' things will be rewarded with more open-mindedness for your things, and thus everybody gets more content together than they ever would have separate. If you participate in Swallowtail you are a part of our community. We will work to give you what you want, and we will show you didn't know you wanted. It only takes one crossover to realize that a collection of diverse interests is actually a web of connected community, and as long as you give us feedback and support we'll keep weaving that web and trapping more people in our communal clutches.
Anyhow, I don't usually toss money at these things, but between Roco's project and this one I've sprung twice. I think I'll take the "wait and see" approach with the next one; I think with the sheer amount of art in this there will be enough nibbles like mine to -make- a next one.