People in the comics industry are getting really angry about this lately Colin Kaepernick’s $4 million artificial intelligence comics company Lumi, Felt the money could be better spent building a comics publishing company based on established creators. But I’m here to tell you about another comics company that got $9 million in investment from some of the folks behind Lumi… and didn’t make much headway. i talked about Passionate world.
Zestworld launches in late 2021 with much fanfare An article from the New York Times.
Passionate world will allow comics writers and artists to showcase new work and earn revenue, helping to monetize their creations if they are made into collectibles or adapted for television, film, or other media. Creators will become shareholders in the company.
“When setting out to build this project, we started with a problem statement, which is that this industry is broken for creators; it’s broken in publishing, TV and film; Chris Giliberti, founder and CEO of Zestworld, recently said “It’s also having problems with events and collectibles,” said a phone interviewer. “We wanted to build something that would be useful in all areas of their business—no matter where they generate revenue. “
Zestworld along The Substack comics initiative was a hot topic at the time. The idea is to pay top creators to make comics and distribute them as a newsletter, while also building a website comics platform and allowing creators to earn various revenue streams, including commissions. It has a bit of an NFT flavor, but it’s not so onerous that people would resist. as i was The platform will be launched in 2022. Zestworld Commitment
“Breaking the Marvel and DC duopoly by providing top comic creators with a centralized platform that integrates business, community management, digital publishing, NFT, virtual universe activities and intellectual property rights management. Zestworld’s platform provides a platform for comics A full range of products tailored to formats and industry characteristics.
Techworld talk aside, Zestworld is operating on a subscription model, something like Sub-stacked adventure. A free subscription gets you Creator Conversations, while membership tiers of $7 a month and $249 a year get you comics and more goodies respectively. Zestworld says this is a more flexible schedule that allows creators to release works on their own schedule without having to worry about a “shadow ban.”
So far, so good! Not bad, The Series A funding round, led by General Catalyst, raised $9.37 million. Among the investors cited heavily in early PR, Alexis Ohanian, The most famous is Reddit co-founder Mr. Serena Williams. Ohanian is a lifelong comics reader and has been involved in many comics-related causes over the years, notably bread piga now-defunct geek marketing company, published Thick CD for a while.
Ohanian is one of the major investors in Zestworld and an investor in Lumi. With a net worth of $150 million, he’s also invested in startups like Instacart, Patreon, Daily Harvest, and Clubhouse, so he’s definitely had some success in those areas. I don’t mean that as a disparagement – it’s actually cool that he keeps supporting the comics, even if things don’t quite work out yet.
The main people running Zestworld are Chris Gilbert Formerly the global head of TV and movies at Spotify. I met Gilberti for coffee shortly after Zestworld launched and he was very friendly. He really has a lot of ideas to help creators do all of the above and seems very genuine. No notes. However, during our conversation, he did say one thing that stuck with me. His tenure at Spotify coincided with the “podcast boom,” when the platform threw money at the likes of Prince Harry and used podcasts as IP fodder for movies and TV shows. Gilberti noted that the idea of podcasts as IP has faded, but comics seem to be a more fertile area of ideas to exploit. I suppose this could be a full article, but platforms come and go, but comics remain.
Zestworld’s launch creators are an exceptional group of people: Eric Canette, Amanda Conner, Phil Jimenez, Joel Jones, Jimmy Palmiotti, Alex Segura and Peter Tomasi, Among other things. Many of the launch games came out in some form, and you can still read about them on the Zestworld website.
Of course, this wasn’t my first time working with a new comic book company, and Zestworld followed the usual path: it started with a PR and interview blast, and created a buzz. New York Comic Con 2022. Then things got much quieter. have C2E2 life moments There are also some really good pins for 2023:
So excited to debut these pins @VonGormanArt , @ComicUno and @PhilFalco wrote via zestworld at @c2e2. They’re free, so stop by our booth to learn more! @ enthusiastic world comics 💙👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/LiBEIFkrf6
— Liana Kangas (@lianakangas) March 23, 2023
Zestworld has also won our eternal love through publishing The legendary lynxcomics from Alex Segura Award-winning suspense novel, secret identity. Set in the 1970s comics industry, Bobcat is the protagonist of the fictional Triumph Comics, Segura and Artist Sandy Jarrell Created a retro series to get super meta about it all. (The legendary lynx is Now published by Mad Cave!)
Of course, as time goes on, I’m curious about what happens to Zestworld, because… what do you do with $9.37 million? It looks like you can do more than just make some pins. The Substack experiment has largely dried up — many people left the platform after their contracts expired, even though it provided James Tynion IV and Jonathan Hickman. It seems current affairs comics are not the future after all. (Someone should definitely write the history of the Substack experiment, though—if you ask me, I’m glad the comic creators are making money.)
I contacted Gilberti a few times but he said they were working on it. Earlier this year, many creators told me that the platform seemed dead, and when I asked Gilberti if they were making any progress, he said “there really haven’t been any announcements on that front.”
That seems to be it. Yet another comic book company launching with some great ideas and pitches, only to disappear without a trace – the last post on Zestworld Twitter was in June 2023.
However, when I was researching this story I did some googling and found some sort of actual announcement. October 2023, in a post by BlueSky Ben Gilfoy He casually mentioned that with the closure of Zestworld, he would be moving his work to Patreon. he even Intercepted an email he received:
Dear Zestworld Creators,
We’re making some changes to Zestworld and we want you to be the first to know. On October 27th, we will transition zestworld.com to “read-only” mode and remove all publishing and transaction functionality from the site.
Why? We set out to build digital tools that enable artists to earn revenue directly from their fans. After more than a year of experimentation, we have yet to find a sustainable profit model for creators.
We’ve learned a lot along the way – and we believe the future of comics is bright, just not in the way we imagined. So it’s time for us to bow out gracefully and venture down a new path.
Fortunately, the way we’ve built Zestworld should make this transition very seamless. You can take your contacts and IP with you. For your convenience, we will make this transition gradually.
Here are the most important things you need to know:
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- On October 9th, we will turn off the ability for fans to request new digital commissions. Fans who have purchased digital commissions will still receive previously paid commissions on the site.
- Until October 27, creators can still email subscribers, export contacts, and publish free-to-read comics. After this date, publishing functionality will be turned off site-wide.
- After October 27, fans who pay monthly subscriptions will no longer be charged. Fans who subscribe annually have their second year’s fees refunded. An email will be sent soon to all fans who have paid to subscribe.
We know many of you have questions, so we’ve put together an FAQ document linked here with more details on how these changes will affect you.
The screenshots don’t include a link to the FAQ, so I guess that’s all we know.
Here are a few things that jump out at me. One is that no one leaked it to me or any other comics site…which is rare. No one seemed to mention this on social media enough that no one noticed, no subscribers were upset…it just ended. Or as the email puts it, “We set out to build digital tools that would enable artists to earn revenue directly from their fans. After more than a year of experimentation, we have yet to find a sustainable monetization model for creators.
So, another person fell into the dust.
But in fact, like failed comic plots, the story of “Passionate World” is actually quite positive.
Everyone gets paid well.
Everyone retains their rights.
Some people start making comics and get paid, and then they move on.
The Zestworld website is still up and you can read some comics there (in its portrait state, it’s a rather strange mix of comics from mainstream creators and a few webcomics like “I built a harem to save the world.”)
So there are no losers, no victims. Everyone has good intentions.
Gilberti and the rest of the Zestworld team have actually started a new venture, Availablean AI-based script coverage company Launched late last year.
For many script readers, executives, and assistants, reading a script and taking notes can be a lengthy process, sometimes taking more than two hours to complete. On top of managing other tasks, it can be overwhelming to see an inbox full of 100 pages of scripts waiting to be opened.
“As an executive, deciding how to allocate company resources on content, you have so much content across your desk,” co-founder and CEO Chris Giliberti told TechCrunch. “Really. It’s hard to keep up. Unfortunately, if you miss something, it can be a million-dollar mistake.
Avail has raised $11.8 million in funding. Everyone walked away happily.
I know what you are all thinking. What would you do if you had $9.37 million? I can think of a lot of things, but the gist here is that fashion tech startups can raise tons of money off of buzzwords, but starting a comic book publishing company requires long and hard work. I guarantee some of the best ones will start around $90,000. Even $9,000.
