Independent Jones: Pj Perez & Pop! Goes the Icon

Welcome back to another installment of Independent Jones. Last week we featured Dan Schkade and his neon-noir (that’s not a typo) book, San Hannibal. While doing research for that interview, I found myself very curious about who was publishing this book. It turns out that San Hannibal‘s publisher, Pop! Goes The Icon, had a fascinating story all its own. From the early days of blogging about comic books and pop culture to a full-blown publishing outlet? Custom printing services for other creators? What? I needed to know more.

So after reaching out to Pj Perez, the editor, publisher, and founder of Pop! Goes the Icon, we spoke for about an hour about how this outlet started, how it evolved, and what the future holds.

Q: How did Pop! Goes the Icon get started?

Oh boy, I’ll try to keep this simple. Even though it’s not.

Pop! Goes the Icon was originally a comics/pop culture blog I started in, I think, 2007 or 2008, as a way of exploring my renewed interest in geeky things after about a 15-year break. But also around that time, my renewed interest in making comics also was sparked again, and I started dusting off old scripts and story ideas.

So when I started working on my first webcomic I had this notion of expanding PGTI to also host that, as well as maybe become a platform for other original comics. Hence, when the Utopian webcomic launched on April 15, 2009, so did PGTI relaunch as a publishing outlet, and not just a blog.

I guess it wasn’t too complicated.

Q: So you run a blog, then it evolves into a publishing house? How much leg work is involved in a thing like that?

Well, it is, but it was gradual. I kind of didn’t expect this to become a *THING*

Initially, there wasn’t a lot of thought. The first print things we published were collections of The Utopian, which were just done in small batches, so really, PGTI was I suppose a self-publishing venture in the beginning. But even then, I knew I wanted it to be more than that, hence why pretty quickly I started laying some infrastructure. But before I get ahead of myself, let me say my background is in publishing. I’ve worked for several media companies. I’ve edited magazines and newspapers, managed web content, etc., and I also spent years in graphic design and printing. So I came into this with a lot more experience than most comics folks.

But yeah, by late 2009, I had a DBA and a bank account for PGTI, we did our first comic show, and I had started putting out online feelers for people to contribute to our then-planned anthology series, which became Omega Comics Presents

Q: Since you had so much previous experience in other forms of media, what were some pros and cons you were expecting, once you really got PGTI going as a publishing outlet?

Pros & Cons. Hmmm. Well, I guess I felt confident in my skills as a creative director, publicist, marketer, and networker, but I have to admit some of the business-y stuff I wasn’t so sure about. I knew very little about the market, distribution, etc. And I made some serious financial goofs from the start.

Q: So, when you started to look for submissions, how did you go about that? Did you send out a “cattle call” of sorts? Did you scout people and approach them?

I did a little of both. I was already using social media for networking and was a member of several online comic creator communities, including PencilJack, Digital Webbing, Panel & Pixel, etc. So I directly approached some people, both online and at comic conventions, and otherwise posted general notices on the aforementioned sites. This is probably why even though we’re based in Las Vegas, we’ve published work from European, Canadian, and South American creators.

Q: What do you look for in these submission? What attracts you and – more importantly – what causes you to turn away a submission?

In the beginning, I guess we had more of an artistic intent, just getting out interesting stories and underexposed creators. Plus, we didn’t have the luxury of choice so much. So I wasn’t too choosy.

Now? We look for unique voices who can tell great stories that are marketable. Still artistic intent but it also has to be commercially viable. It has to be professional. No ’90′s Image-style art. Comic Sans lettering? You’re gone.

Q: OK so what about creators? Are there certain kinds of behavior that cause you to pass over someone and look elsewhere?

That’s hard to tell until you start working with someone. But usually it’s a bad sign if someone off the bat says they have a 100-issue epic planned or start describing the “universe” they’ve connected without telling me a good story.

It’s why I like the anthology format–it forces creators to tell a succinct story in a short period of time. It’s good training ground for new creators.

Q: I see on the site that you also offer custom printing services for creators. Are those independent of your comic book label? Have you ever received an order that you then approached to be printed by PGTI?

We do. And I know it’s a little confusing. Basically, I saw a gap in the on-demand printing market between price, time, and quality, and had been getting so many questions from people about self-publishing, I decided that adding custom printing services could be both beneficial to the community and an additional revenue stream. So with additional capital from my business partner, we launched an in-house print studio.

So in conversations with new clients, it is a little fuzzy to them that Pop! Goes the Icon isn’t publishing their work. We’re not selling it. We’re not distributing it.

But one of earliest print jobs we did ended up selling with other PGTI titles: Christmapus. It’s a twisted children’s Christmas tale / coloring book. And I thought it was so good, I wanted to put it out there a bit more. And I was right, people ate it up. It helps that it was made by two very talented people, one of whom I’ve published before.

Q: You mentioned some mistakes that were made early on with the company. If and when you’re approached by other people looking to get into this business, what are some key bits of advice you’d offer them?

To have realistic goals. To have a plan. To do their homework. A lot of people want to start publishing said epic tale, and get like 500 comics printed off the bat with no audience, no idea how to move them. They go to comic shows and throw stuff out there and hope people like it. Which isn’t a bad thing, but I’m actually pretty shocked how few creators even try to get their stuff published by companies. They’d rather do it all themselves–without the benefit of knowing about design, pre-press, print production, etc., like I did.

Q: What does the future hold for Pop! Goes the Icon? Any plans you’d like to share?

The future of PGTI? One big thing is moving away from “floppies” and toward graphic novels/trades/digital for the most part. We signed our last “series” a few months ago and really want to focus on more library – and bookstore – friendly material. Definitely more all-ages stuff. Hopefully will be making an announcement about that very soon. And otherwise, expanding the PGTI Press division so that we’re doing more consulting and production work to help self-publishers do their best work, and not just printing their stuff.

Excellent! Pj, thank you so much for your time.

Huzzah! Thanks for thinking of me, sir.

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If you’d like to check out what Pop! Goes the Icon has to offer, their comic books and custom printing services can be found right HERE!

Mike Sains

Mike Sains is a writer and the Editor of the Reviews Division for Capeless Crusader. When he isn't writing, he’s podcasting at various places online. When he isn't podcasting, he’s collecting comic books, FunkoPop! figures, and vinyl records. Follow him on Twitter @MikeSains. You can hear him on Geek Girls, Nerd Boys, The Tower of Sour, and The Inverse Delirium, all available on iTunes.

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