TLDR: Nouns Town crew will head to SD Comic Con to gift 2,500 Nouns Activity Books to artists and collectors and commission 100+ Nounish artworks from industry pros + proliferate the meme through friends and peer collaborations. Total cots $57,500.00
SD Comic Con: Connecting a Cornucopia of Creators
San Diego Comicon happens in July of 2023, and is a gathering of fans of pop culture, along with the artists that create content for them. With six figures of people walking through the doors, it has become one of the largest gatherings for talented people in the world. Those that write and draw comics, books, web series, movies and television, everyone goes to connect to the fans that keep them employed and appreciate them.
Bringing in outside artists to Nouns would be a huge boon to the ecosystem. It would bring different creative perspectives to an artistic project, but also bring in a fan base that currently has no real visibility to Nouns. If we engage creators, get them excited, we have already seen that they will then plug themselves into Nouns, engage with Nouns, while still engaging with the medium they are experts in.
Nouns is in a unique position to make dreams come true for creators that would otherwise be dissatisfied with their lot in their industry. If Eastman and Laird (the creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) had access to Nouns, not only would they have brought Nouns iconography to their books, but they would have had an outlet to seek funding, letting Nouns fund the Turtles, which would later become a licensing juggernaut. This is a perfect end use case for Nouns collabs with creators.
Our first step is to go to San Diego, connect with as many creatives as we can. We will get them to do commissioned work (which we will pay for) in a special Nouns sketch book, of which we will print many copies. This will let us open a dialogue with them to discuss Nouns, cc0, the benefits of the ecosystem, and how they might benefit from introducing themselves here.
We will aim for over 100 creators’ commissions, giving Nouns many different versions and interpretations of Nouns and Nounish things from established artists, introduce the artists to us and cc0, and finally create inroads for further exploration in the near future. We will spread our net wide, but go for the premier artists in the industry (Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Geoff Darrow, etc.) along with the more traditional artists. Having been in this industry for two dozen years, I am comfortable saying I can have a conversation with any level of talent.
Nouns Sketch Book: We will print 2,500 copies of a Nouns sketch book, with pages from the Nouns comic book contained within, as well as colouring pages, how to draw Nouns, and blank pages. We will give these away to creators, encouraging them to fill up the blank pages and give them back at the end.
Commission payments: This is the main source of income for creators at conventions, so we will be paying for each commissioned work. We will specify that we wish something to do with Nouns (and the pages containing Nouns will give them plenty of reference material). The rate paid will be dependent upon the work they are doing, along with what their standard rate is. As a rough estimate, we will aim to pay $300 USD for a full sketch of a Noun in the creators’ style.
We will need to have the books printed and delivered to San Diego no later than July 17th of 2023. This means we wish to be at the printer by the last week of June, which is our goal. Having decades of experience making monthly comic books, I am comfortable saying this will be 100% achievable. We have the designers, printers, shipper and storage lined up. It was essential to plot out the viability of accomplishing this prior to suggesting it.
Who: Nouns Town team of Danny Schlitz, Adam & Bennet + Joshua Fisher
How Much: $15,000 USD - Creating, Printing and Shipping 2,500 Nouns Sketch Books $30,000 USD - Commission Payments for 100+ Commissions $12,5000 USD - Adam, Josh, Danny & Bennet will be there manage the facilitation of the books and creators, as well as scanning the art pieces for the DAO afterwards. This covers travel and per diem costs.
$57,500 USD - Total ask sent to ComicsDAO/SharkDAO Multisig
Prop by: @defaulteduser / Adam + Joshua Fisher