I spent some time pondering what, if anything, to do with DarkBrain. I still have great love for the work and the stories. Some, like Haunting Ivy, I still find really strong and I would love to produce the follow-up issues that take the trauma journey to a new place.
The worst thing that can happen is a little success
When the concept of DarkBrain hit the market in 2009, it was to deliver animated comics with voice and music in the R-rated space with stories from accomplished novelists and art from seasoned and vibrant new artists. Within months, the subscription model was working, drawing in over $50,000 per month in revenue.
Unfortunately, we spent more than that creating the content and it was deemed a failure. So we went through a long process of change to try to fix that, and every change made resulted in a loss of subscribers. The core problem was not being able to stick to the original vision and lack of capital. We also got “this close” to breakout success. We had good reviews, we had great fans, we had great stories.
After a few years of trying to find a way, at incredible personal expense, I had to shut it down. I did keep it as a possibility to revisit and take another shot at it. Here are some of the larger ideas I worked on:
Animated comic technology?
Apple killing Adobe Flash was such a huge problem for me, sinking years of work in a dead technology. I looked into Adobe Animate, which was basically Flash done in a way that was universally available … then Adobe killed Animate! Wow. But then I found Rive (rive.app), and that one is a better version than Adobe ever did. Great technology. So animated comics with voice and music would be possible again using Rive. So, at least it wouldn’t be technology as a hurdle…
Downshift to PG-13?
In another brainstorming set of months, I considered rebuilding DarkBrain content to be PG-13 and remove all R and X stuff completely, to allow it to surface as a general discussion point instead of a niche effort. This is my largest regret for the project – that I created content that was so off-putting for a wide group of people that I don’t even bring it up in my normal conversations. The amount of work was pretty substantial, but not impossible. But, I wondered if you can ever really re-invent something so charged in one direction?
Go public domain?
For a bit I pondered taking our entirety of work, all the characters, all of the stories, and making them public domain. This would let the artist community have some content with teeth they could expand on, explore, and have fun with. This would also, unfortunately, take away from the impact of the original stories and art. Would that be worth it? Would the work become something interesting and unique in the space? But, would that end with me feeling better about the work done or not? If someone took it and made it a big success, would that feel too bittersweet? This avenue just didn’t have enough upside potential.
3d animation or AI art?
Another brainstorming set of months, I worked on potentially moving into 3d animation as well, rebuilding the content as more of an animated movie approach. This also would pivot me away from custom art, which was very expensive to do. I also pondered using AI to do art. So, I did explore a lot of options. AI failed horrifically, you can’t even keep consistent outfits on characters… it’s not ready yet. All of them had a very different “soul” than the original DarkBrain, which wasn’t clicking.
A moment caught in time
All in all, I decided my creativity is better served on a new effort and to just let DarkBrain rest for good. I should focus on something targeted properly for this phase of my life and allowing me to dig into my strengths. So, this is the wrap on DarkBrain. I have to be ok with the reality that I took my shot, and it almost hit. I’ll keep the site up as long as I can, and I’m proud the work – even though it is very much a moment caught in time.
-Andrew Zar, signing off