By César Lador
Once upon a time (because cool stories usually start like that) there was a group of dedicated, passionate and optimistic comic creators who decided to publish a comic anthology together...
And here’s how the creators (myself included) handled one of the biggest hurdles we’ve faced: Coming up with a title for the anthology.
This was huge. We had two committees–both Editorial and Marketing–tasked with brainstorming title ideas. After meeting separately, our committees were to come together and share the top ideas with the entire Anthology Team.
The Challenge of Making a Title
A title is important and the choice of words is critical. We had already agreed on a theme for the anthology so that was the starting point for coming up with a title. We knew that it needed to be kid-friendly and had to resonate with a journey and/or an encounter.
A bunch of us from Marketing came together to brainstorm, digress, diverge and unite. It took an hour and a half to come up with a short list. Below is a visual outcome of our brainstorming session.
I wouldn’t contradict anybody who just sees a joyous mess (and a sailboat) because it was. But at least, it was fun!
As previously mentioned, the Editorial team of comic creators had met to come up with their own shortlist of titles. Then we came together and two shortlists were presented to all anthology creators to vote on. This was comic-making and democracy in action.
The Final Contenders… And Winner!
Thirty-four participants, in all, voted. The results showed that one in four participants agreed on the same title. The rest of the votes were spread over the other eight short-listed titles with another one gathering around 20% of the votes. The distribution of the votes can be seen on the chart below.
Now, for the result–the winning title for the comic anthology is…
(drum roll)…
So sorry but I am unable to divulge that information.
However, you should know that it is catchy, inviting, inspiring, adventurous, kid-friendly, and overall AWESOME. (Even if I did not vote for this one, I will not try to storm the KCU offices, I promise!)
And you should know that these titles garnered the most votes: BUMPS IN THE ROAD, JOURNEY, LET’S GO, and TAILS AND TRAILS. 👏👏👏👏
Stay tuned, friends! We will share the title that got the TOP SPOT in the next KCU Anthology Newsletter, so make sure you’re subscribed at https://bit.ly/kcu-studio-anthology. And if you are a fellow anthologist, we invite you to come to our next All-Hands Meeting where we’ll announce the winner amongst other important and fun stuff.
In the meantime, take care of yourselves, both neighbour and stranger–the world needs it!
César Lador, an anthology “comicstorian”, grew up in a village in Switzerland where he was surrounded by European comic books. After travelling to New Zealand and working there as an environmental engineer for 15 years, he got an offer to illustrate the first four volumes of an action adventure early reader comic book series.
Visit Cesar’s linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/cesarlador_illustration