i had to drop my work to deal with a serious situation pertaining to sunstone printed editions outside america.



now, first and foremost:



sunstone has always been and will always be a free webcomic first. this will NEVER change.



having said that, printed comics are a business. and in business you have to deal with legalities of business.



while i was always approving sharing of sunstone and even fan translations of it, i have to limit my approval from now on only to sharing of original versions.



if there is already a translated version published in your country, i can no longer stand behind fantranslations.



reason for it is simple.



comic publishing is not a big business, nor is it a very stable one, so i have to commiserate with their plights and fears on this. they picked up an independent comic which is high risk already and invested in production and promotion of it. they did so in an unstable industry so they have to worry about their investment. it is very easy to lose money in comics and that means people get fired, another publisher goes down and a country loses a comic publisher. my country lost most of them and we have very few comics available nowadays, so i understand their situation well.



if a publisher demands for a fantranslation to be removed i have to side with them on it from now on.

like i said, printed comics come with their own legal issues.



so to summarize: from now on don't ask me if you can translate sunstone, i am not in a position to approve such a demand.



i can only approve of sharing the original version.







Stjepan.













and also to anyone berating the publishers about this:

publishers are absolutely in the right here. you are doing nobody any favors. and you make me have to deal with this instead of working on making more content. i think that qualifies it as all around lose/ lose situation



publishers are not the enemy. because of their investments into their own infrastructure i am able to deliver printed books at 15 dollars per copy.



any other option be it self published or crowdfunded would have me price the books at the lowest price of 50 dollars per copy and i would see the same profits for myself.



yes, i did some extensive numbercrunching over the last few years. mailing individual books is very expensive, as is printing in small printruns, and heaven forbid the shipment gets damaged... point is, it's pricey





publisher's investment include printing, translating additional graphic design, and the most expensive of all, distribution and promotion.



distribution is the big ticket item. vastly expensive on a small scale, and pretty damn expensive on a larger scale.



point is because of publishers involved, these books are printed in high quality at an affordable price. their successful sales are also likely to encourage them to take more risks with oddball books such as sunstone. giving a venue to other creators as well.



i want to see this industry grow and expand and venture into unusual genres. for that i see publishers as my partners in this, not my enemies.



now back to work. ugh...



