Boumeries – Journal comics by Boum

Don’t forget! There’ll also be a new comic tomorrow. Check back everyday, all week!

Also, I have a little (long) announcement. I need your help.

We were going over my finances (because it’s that time of year) and Pierre-Luc and I came to the conclusion that with a bunch of expensive cons coming up (Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, comics festival in Quebec City, TCAF in Toronto, on top of table prices rising in festivals in Montreal), I really can’t afford to go to VanCAF in Vancouver, BC in late May.

You might know that my main income right now is from selling my books. Comic conventions and festivals are my top source of revenue, with online sales and my Patreon page coming in second. Pierre-Luc is providing the bigger income in the house, but lately we’ve been struggling (and filling up our credit cards).

Of course, I could just cancel VanCAF altogether and save the money. But to ultimately make more money, I have to sell more books, and to sell more books I have to go places and let people know that I exist. (And I also have to pay upfront to print the books, it’s always a gigantic chunk of money. Gah!) It’s a weird spinning wheel where I have to take risks and invest into something to then make a living off it.

I’d be really bummed out to skip VanCAF, as I’ve never been to Vancouver before, and it’s a growing and exciting comics festival full of really crazy good artists. But instead of cancelling my attendance, I’d like to work my way there. But to do that, I’m gonna need your help. I should only need about $1,000 to go to Vancouver and cover the plane and Airbnb costs.

Here’s how you can help:

• I’ll be taking small $10 CAD commissions. I can draw you (or anybody you want) in my Boumeries style, complete with grey shading, for just ten bucks! US folks, the Canadian dollar is doing terribly at the moment, so you should definitely jump on the occasion. Email me directly if you’re interested and I’ll send you a Paypal invoice.
• I’m also selling Boumeries books online. My goal was always to make my books extra affordable, so it’s anywhere between $14 and $19.60 CAD for one book, depending on where you live. These books all have bonus comics that aren’t on the Boumeries website, too! I worked so hard on them, they’re worth it, I swear!
• I have a Patreon page. Every little bit helps, every month. For $2, you can access all the bonus comics I was talking about above, and even those from the fifth volume, which isn’t even out yet. For $5, you get the Boumeries volume 1 PDF, which is sold out. For $10, you get a commission like I described above. For $20, you get one random original Boumeries comic in the mail. And for $30, you get everything I named here. Heck, even if you spend just a buck a month, you get to see a monthly process video of me drawing a comic, a week before the comic goes live! Pretty cool, no? (For those who don’t know, Patreon pages are basically like Kickstarter, except you pledge a small sum of money every month to support the continuous efforts of an artist. You can edit, lower, raise, cancel your pledge whenever you like. The artist gets the money at the end of each month.)
• I have a Donate button. Sometimes people just send me money because they like the work I do for free, and I find this utterly crazy but it makes me feel so loved, so proud, and so damn motivated to keep drawing comics forever.
• If you’re broke (like I am), sharing this is free. Please, please pass this around. I’m setting myself a small goal here, but any money raised beyond the $1,000 mark will go right into paying my stupid credit debt.

There you go, that about sums it all. I’ll be keeping you updated with this fancy little thermometer, on the right.

Thank you so, so much for your support, no matter if it’s just spreading the word or sparing some change. It all makes a huge difference!

PS: I hope my English wasn’t too bad and didn’t make you cringe too much.