Visiting Artist: Danielle Corsetto

Danielle Corsetto is the creator of Girls with Slingshots, a recently completed web comic that ran for over a decade. She visited The Center for Cartoon Studies as the last speaker for the 2014/15 year. It was her first time as a speaker where she had to say she “used to” do Girls with Slingshots.

Danielle Corsetto at her board, drawn by Luke Howard ’13

In starting Girls with Slingshots, Danielle wanted to showcase her writing and drawing skills. She was still a photographer, which is what she went to school for. She started Girls with Slingshots in 2004 and quickly achieved 300 views per posting day. In 2007 Danielle was getting around 30,000 views per posting day and decided to make it her full-time work. She needed $800 a month to cover her expenses, so she set up a donation button on her comic and it worked that first month. Then it worked the next month. And it kept working.

Danielle Corsetto with her old intern, Stephanie Zuppo ’15

But this felt like “digital panhandling” for Danielle so she decided to produce a book of her comic to sell. Her number one merchandise sales are still books. She printed the books through an on-demand site. Though it was perfect for her needs at the time, these original books are already falling apart; on-demand books are not built to last. She didn’t sell t-shirts because she wanted to make it like a syndicated cartoonist. She knew that newspapers (she was working at one) make most of their money through ads. So she put ads on her site through Project Wonderful where people bid for ad space on sites.

Danielle’s books for sale at the talk.

In 2009, Danielle was no longer able to fulfill her orders and continue drawing the comic. So she hired a helper who assisted helped out for about 9 months before Danielle moved on to Blind Ferret, a service that took care of both fulfillment and advertising. Based in Montreal, Ontario, they could easily ship within Canada and simply drive to Vermont to ship things within the US. Girls with Slingshots had a large following in Canada, so this was a great setup. At the end of each month, she would get an itemized list of what had sold and a check. All this free time allowed Danielle to start working in color.

Eventually she migrated from Blind Ferret to Hive Works and Topatoco. Hive Works covers her advertising and web hosting. Topatoco covers her merchandising. Through Topatoco, she still lays out her own books, but they do the printing, storing, and shipping.

She decided to end Girls With Slingshots for many reasons: her house was becoming storage space; she was tired of spending five days a week from noon to 2am working on the comic; she ready to write comics that have endings. Upon completion of the strip, she has retained a 50% readership while reposting the original black and white strips in color (by Laeluu). She wanted to keep in touch with her fans that no longer visit the site, so she started an email list. She also has a Patreon where people can pay a monthly fee of as little as $1 to see posts about what she is currently working on.

Danielle Corsetto impressed at Luke Howard’s ’13 introductory speech.

Luke Howard ’13 telling jokes in his introductory speech.

Danielle’s art process has remained the same over the years. She inks traditionally and colors digitally. To ink, she uses a Micron .05 to letter and .08 for boldface, and Zebra pens for drawing. The Zebra pens allow her to get a line anywhere from a .005 to a .08 with one simple tool.

Over the years, Danielle has had three interns. An important point Danielle shared with the students is that you have to be proactive to be an intern, approach those with whom you want to intern and be clear, concise, and professional.  Additionally, she recommended that you not show your insecurities.

Danielle Corsetto giving some good advice.

One of the things Danielle says helped her gain readership and become successful is branding, both of her name and her web comic. She has continuously used the same art, three main characters, and updated the art when the style has changed.

Another tip for getting your name out there Danielle-style is to do guest strips. This is a little more difficult now, but when she was starting out Danielle worked with Scott Kurtz of PVP and Randy Milholland of Something Positive doing guest strips for each other. She also recommends doing interviews and talks whenever possible.

Students from both years with Danielle after the talk.

Be on the lookout for more exciting work from Danielle in the future. She recently won the 2015 Reuben award for Online Comics – Short Form. She is taking a year to restructure and decompress. She will even be offline for an entire month this summer.

Danielle Corsetto…