Zampano

First of all I’d like to welcome all Englisch speaking readers all over the world. About half a year ago I started Zampano as magazine-style webcomics site to feature mostly my own works in German. I couldn’t have anticipated the overwhelming feedback I received in the German countries, ranging from newspaper articles to television.

Since I spent the last sixteen years of my life in the USA, in New Jersey to be precise (which is chronicled in my autobiographical graphic novel Endless Sky) I feel a certain closeness to the American comic market and it was my intention to launch the site in English as soon as possible. Most of the Zampano comics don’t fit into a particular genre and are therefore perfectly suited for a readership as diverse as a webcomic audience. Due to the overwhelming demand for print issues we’ll be launching an imprint and will be publishing about three books a year, starting in March 2010. Let us know, if you’d like to see the graphic novels to appear in the US/UK bookstores and we’ll look into it.

During this first week we’ll be putting up all the covers of comics on their respective update day and next week we’ll start serializing the actual stories. Since we have a pretty decent buffer, we’ll be able to guarantee regular updates. You will not get disappointed by the webcomic typical hiatus after six episodes. Once we start with the actual comics next week, I’ll give you the scoop on each particular graphic novel, as well as their length and format. If you curious what to expect, just head over to the German site and check out the artwork. We’ve got almost 200 pages already published.

David Boller

The brand-new Zampano Mini-Mags Nr. 2 arrived from the printer today and we’re very impressed. They look awesome and the printer used a glossier paper for the inside section. The magazines are gonna be available at the convention this weekend and for those of you that live in Europe also in the Zampano Store. The issue is free with a sketch in the back of the magazine but we ask you to contribute to the shipping costs. The first issue is at this point out of print and the second one will also not be reprinted.

It’s the end of January again and that means that it’s time for the massive annual comic festival in Angouleme, France. The small sleepy town in the heart for France is again expecting 200’000 visitors that are gonna turn the small town in into the mecca of European comics for one week. After a creative break last year I will be attending the show again this year and for the first time with all the Zampano projects in tow. We won’t have any booth space this time, but we’re gonna try to figure out how to strategically plan our arrival in the pretty important French market. We’ll pobably have a much better idea of our situation after meeting some key people and movers and shakers. There seem to be quite a few possibilities on how to promote and place out graphic novels in this crowded but appreciative market. I also don’t want to exclude the possibility of entering the French market as a publisher ourself (being in Switzerland we’re certainly better suited for that than most other European countries), be it in cooperation with an other publisher/distributor or with some dear colleagues as partners. Definitely exciting prospects…

We are also bringing our cameras with us and you can expect full coverage in the week following the festival (hopefully a better one than the one we did about Munich…LOL). Please be aware that we will not be ablet to answer and emails and phone calls during that time period. If you’re gonna attend the festival and wanna hook up, feel free to contact me a the following email address info[at]zampano-online.com and I’ll send you my contact info.

While we’re at the show the Zampano system will be set to auto-update and all updates will be live at 01:00 European standart time. Let’s hope that it works.

You may have noticed that Bakuba has not been updated last Sunday. We’ve decided to only update Bakuba once a week on Thursdays. Ironically this is due to time constraints caused by the impending release of the German Bakuba graphic novel next month. This is going to be the very first Zampano graphic novel to be published and therefore deserves some special attention, which in turn takes time. There is no word yet on an English version of Bakuba, or for that matter any other of our books. As you may know the American comic book market is pretty much in shambles and we decided to focus our print efforts on Europe, mainly Germany and France. Below you can see the final cover of the Bakuba print edition and please let us know if you would be interested to see this book to be published in the US and the UK.

Today, on March 23, 2010, Zampano turns one year old. In the world of webcomics this is actually quite an achievement considering that most webcomics only last for about two weeks. We busted out butts and it showed. A steadily growing readership is checking out the site regularly and thanks to the positive reception we’ll be publishing the first Zampano graphic novel Bakuba and other African Storiesin the beginning of April through regular book stores. I’m hugely indebted to my co-conspirators Rene Lehner (Don Caneloni) and Rudolph Perez(Katastropolis) without whom this endeavor would not have been possible. I want to also thank all the regular Zampano readers that are visiting the site diligently. We created this site for YOU and are appreciative of every single visit.

During the next few days we’ll be taking a look back. How did we start up a year ago, where are we today and what’s gonna come your way in 2010 and beyond.

Meanwhile, Katastropolis creator Rudolph Perez celebrates our first anniversary with this awesome sketch below. Enjoy!