http://www.minnasundberg.fi http://www.sssscomic.com Minna Sundberg is an aspiring young webcomic creator. Born in 1990 in Sweden to the family of Finnish Swedes, she moved to Finland in 1997. In 2013 she obtained a bachelor's degree in graphic design from the School of Industrial Arts at Aalto University in Helsinki. Aspiring to become a professional webcomic artist, she undertook the “practice comic” (Sundberg, 2019), with a goal of finishing it before graduation. During that time she established the routine and work ethic that would eventually help her reach the goal: story evolved into 556-page webcomic A Redtail's Dream (available online in both English and Finnish language for free at www.minnasundberg.fi/artd.php ). A story built around the concepts of Finnish mythology, along with her distinctive drawing style and rich-storytelling earned her a loyal fanbase and recognition in the webcomic world.
In November 2013 Minna started her main project, the webcomic named Stand Still. Stay Silent (often abbreviated as SSSS), which from the beginning was met with excitement and high expectations from her fans (Sundberg, 2013). Additional recognition beyond the webcomic world came unexpectedly after one of the abundant so-called information pages of the comic (created specifically to explain the universe: geography, rules, traditions, fictional “facts” considered as common sense by the characters etc), the page showing a language tree got out to the social media and got spread around (Young, 2015), gaining praises from linguists and
becoming a catalyst of linguistic discussion, such as one in the thread “Language Family Tree” on the “r/languagelearning” forum on Reddit.
In 2015 Minna has been given a Reuben Award in the category of “Online Comics: Long Form” by the National Cartoonists Society for Stand Still. Stay Silent (Cavna, 2015).
Format
The comic is updated regularly. It used to be updated five times a week, from Monday to Friday. Since November 2016 Minna decided to dedicate one day to work on the City of Hunger , the computer game (Sundberg, 2016). There are hardly any instances in which the comic wouldn't be updated on time, and should such a situation ever ocurre, Minna would use the social media channels to inform her readers about a delay. Each update consists of one fully illustrated page with dialogues. In between chapters (consisting of about 30-35 pages) author would assume a two week break in order to rest and prepare a buffer for the next haul.
The entirety of the Minna’s works is being published for free on personal website (www.sssscomic.com). SSSS website also provides the introductory page, archives, gallery of the works related to the main story (which are drawn as a practice in between drawing pages). Links include social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, also RSS feed), official forum, and merchandise store. Minna also offers a mailing list. From time to time she would devote some time to redo the website’s graphics and layout. As most elements on the website are hand-drawn, it is a very rare occurrence.
Table 4.1 “SSSScomic.com” website statistics
Daily pageviews 83,818 Daily unique visitors 22,057
Alexa rank 52,566
Est. daily adv. revenue $602.33
Source: https://hypestat.com/info/sssscomic.com (2019.7.12)
Fan base
Despite not wanting to meet with fans in person, Minna would actively take advantage of different online channels in order to enable and maintain the interaction.
a) Personal input. Apart from the webcomic itself, Minna would often write short, diary-like comment underneath a posted page, which would give the readers a small insight into her workflow, general events or mood (Sundberg, 2019). She would also often use Twitter to post short info about her daily life and trips, as well as update her followers on the comic progression. This would provide insight into creator’s daily routine and draw the audience closer to the author.
b) Lively comment section. The comment section would provide readers with the opportunity to share their insights and opinions about the webcomic, point out possible mistakes in spelling, comment on the diary posts or indulge into discussion about the storyline. It would often give birth to the fandom-only specific
vocabulary, which would later on be extensively used on the official forums.
Minna would often scroll through the comment section and answer some of the burning questions. By providing a vigilant eye on the comment section, she ensures that the back-and-forth dialogue occurs and thus strengthens her connection to the audience.
c) Fan forum. The comment section quickly became unable to handle all the reader-provided content; also plenty of information provided by the author would get lost. Hence, the fan forum has been launched in late 2014 in order to collect and arrange all the content from the comment section. The forum became an official hub for the fan base activities, although the comment section has been still very active, especially among the new readers, who happened to catch up on the comic recently and/or those who were more interested on providing a direct feedback during the ongoing creation process.
d) Twitch. As a part of her interactions with the fan community, Minna would regularly (usually once a week, currently on both Fridays and Saturdays) livestream her comic creation process and practice sketching sessions, usually (but not always) related to the content of SSSS. Those would include additional graphic content, revolving around the storyline. During livestreams, Minna would open the chat and involve herself into a conversation with fans, using the headset in order to answer all the questions they might raise during the broadcast, or share the insights about her creative process and problems she has to deal with in real time.
As the fanbase created during aRTD progression has largely moved on onto supporting Stand Still. Stay Silent, the scope of Minna’s business activities related to the webcomics would also evolve.
Monetising activities
1) Advertisements on the website. There are some AdSense advertisements around the comic pages, as well as ads posted by the Disqus comments service itself. The RPM (revenue per mille, revenue per one thousand ad impressions) is used to measure ad revenue. It is counted from the formula
Ad RPM = (Estimated earnings / Ad impressions) * 1000 (Ad RPM, n.d.).
2) Crowdfunding campaigns. On September 3rd 2013 Minna launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in order to print the aRTD comic in the paper version ("Redtail's Dream - hardcover print drive," 2013). The initial goal of
$29,000 was reached in less than two days. On September 4th Minna revealed the stretched goals (promising additional value to the main print, i.e. extra pages, bookmarks etc.), which were reached on September 24th ($60,000). In total, the campaign raised $151,684 which represents 523% of the initial goal. Over 1200 copies of the book were preordered. All in all, 2000 books were printed, most of them sold. This overwhelming support from the fan base allowed her to not only provide high quality prints but also enabled her to become a full-time webcomic artist and focus solely on creating her second project Stand Still. Stay Silent for another year (Sundberg, 2014).
In September 2014 Minna launched another campaign on Indiegogo, aiming to print the first book of SSSS,with initial goal of $25,000 (“ Stand Still. Stay Silent - Book 1 campaign”, 2014 ). As before, campaign was met with great support. On October 2nd it passed second stretch goal ($60,000). Overall, 1700 copies of the book were preordered. The campaign raised $124,040, representing 496% of the initial goal. This had also allowed Minna to continue working on the webcomic full-time.
November 20th 2017 marked the third crowdfunding campaign with a goal of $35,000 (“Stand Still. Stay Silent - Book 2 campaign”, 2017). This time, instead of Indiegogo, it was launched on Kickstarter and backed up by Hiveworks Comics (www.hiveworkscomics.com), the creator-owned publisher focusing on webcomics and visual novels. They focus on producing and selling the merchandise, created in close cooperation with the independent creators. Since 2017 they have been an official publisher for SSSS’s merchandise. The campaign reached its goal and first stretch point in 24h after launching (Sundberg, 2017). The second stretch goal would enable the reprint of Book 1, which was also reached soon after, along with other stretch goals. On the closing day campaign was able to raise $250,665 (716% of initial goal) with 3,525 backers.
3) Merchandise. Using the funds from the Kickstarter campaign and profits from selling previous books, Minna was able to work with Hivemill in order to prepare merchandise to either sell in in the shop or include in a bundle for her patrons and crowdfunding community. These are not freely shared digitally and can be acquired at SSSS’s Hivemill store. Those include: stickers, charms, stationary set (bookmarks and postcards), plushies, t-shirts and posters.
4) Freelancing. Minna also occasionally work as an illustrator for various publications. This job is not directly related to the webcomic.
City of Hunger game
In her spare time, Minna would indulge herself in creating a game loosely based on the characters from SSSS, but not directly following the storyline. She would often post the updates on progression of the game on the dedicated website (www.hummingfluff.com) and related Twitter account. She would also post a beta version of her game for a free download in order to gain invaluable feedback from the members of her fan community. The exact role of the game in Minna’s businessplan is not confirmed as of yet.