A travesty of justice!!

Ha ha not really...
Anyway, I am fine about not getting arts council funding for Spandex. I'm actually quite excited, as it will properly my 'baby' and i won't have to include things in the comic that I just said I'd include in order to get funding hehe.
It's quite funny how it's all worked out. I've pretty much finished issue one now, just as the funding decision came through.
So the plan - stick it online as a PDF, but also print up 200 or so copies. 40 pages, full colour isn't quite as exorbitant as I'd feared, and won't break the bank (which means I won't lose all my savings!).
I think my only decision is whether to keep it a5 or go crazy and go a4. a4'll be a lot more money though I think. I'll get a5 and a4 proofs printed up, so I'll see how it looks.
Also need to decide how much to charge for it. It'll prob be a quid for download. Copies will set me back £2.80 an issue...so I should really charge over 3 quid for it... But I might just charge 2 quid or 2.50. This is just an experiment to me, it's more about putting heart and soul into it, I'm not that bothered about being a millionaire (yet). I've never been a fan of expensive comics, and hey we're in a recession people!
If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know.

In the meantime, I thought I'd show you the letter i got explaining why I didn't get funding. It looks like I was a cat's whisker away from getting it - but was under-ambitious in making money apparently (I thought the idea was we couldn't make money - oh well!)


Dear Martin

Your application scored Met Strong in Artistic Quality, Management and Public Engagement, and scored Met in Finance. Grants for the Arts is very competitive and when applications reach the panel stage, decision making can come down to the overall scoring. Your overall score was 11 and as it did not score Met Strong in every part of the criteria, it lost out to stronger applications.

The reason I scored the finance part of the application Met was because although you had good financial controls in place and a well thought out distribution strategy, you did not include a fee for yourself. The Arts Council aims to support artists and wants to see artists receive a fair fee for the work they do. I recommend that you reapply and this time include a fee for yourself. Details on artists' daily and pro-rata rates can be found through Artist Newsletter (AN). Including a fee would increase your ask slightly, and although your what you requested before was reasonable, I would continue to seek partnership funding from other sources, as this can also make your application stronger. I realise that finding other funders for
With best wishes