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| Interview Conducted by Stefan Blitz |
Earlier this week, Humble Bundle launched their latest promotion, centered around one of my favorite comic strips of all time,
Bloom County.
I've made a few purchases from Humble Bundle and personally think what they do is both unique and fantastic. I had the opportunity to discuss the launch of the
Humble Bloom County Comics Bundle with Kelley L. Allen, the director of e-books for the company.
FOG!: For those unfamiliar with Humble Bundle, what is it? Kelley L: Allen: Humble Bundle organizes pay-what-you-want plus charity promotions for awesome digital content such as games, books, and comics, and puts the power directly in the hands of the consumers, offering them fully-featured titles at prices they set themselves.
Consumers pay what they want and decide how to allocate their money between content creators, charity and a humble tip. Among the comic companies we've worked with are Image, IDW, Dark Horse Comics, Valiant and Dynamite.
This week you launched a Humble Bloom County Comics Bundle. What was the genesis of offering this classic strip?
Traditionally, we have offered two week book bundles here at Humble. We have a great relationship with IDW and we often talk about trying different types of experiments with our promotions. One idea that we floated around is starting to create smaller one week bundles.
Thus, our first one-week
Transformers bundle which debuted last week and now the current one-week
Bloom County promotion.
Also, I'm a huge fan of
Bloom County since I grew up reading the strips.
What’s really neat about this bundle is that a supporter can get the entire output of Berkeley Breathed’s comic strips...We noticed that our customers love to acquire the entire collection of series. So, we thought it made perfect sense to offer every single
Bloom County strip.
For those who read the adventures of Milo, Cutter John, Binkley, Steve Dallas, Opus, Bill The Cat and Portnoy, why do you think Bloom County will appeal to younger readers who never read the strip before?
As a Gen X'er, I have a lot of nostalgia for
Bloom County.
There was quite a lot of debate in the office if
Bloom County would resonate with our customers, especially the younger ones. However, once shown the image of the iconic Opus, everyone on my team instantly recognized him.
Even through they didn't grow up reading
Bloom County, the comic still rings true on many fronts -- including the absurdity of politics and finding love.
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| And the absurdity of Star Wars. |
Long before the Kardashians became a household name,
Bloom County was already poking fun at our celebrity obsessed culture.
Can you tell us a bit about what charity Humble Bloom County Comics Bundle supports?
Traveling Stories is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating poverty through a variety of book initiatives.
They have built libraries in book-poor villages around the world such as El Salvador, Nicaragua, Philippines, South Sudan and Cambodia. They also provide free reading support in the U.S. through their StoryTent programs.
Ted Adams, CEO & Publisher of IDW, is a huge supporter of Traveling Stories and is on their Board. He asked for Traveling Stories to be the Charity of Choice for this particular bundle.
Would you still vote for Bill The Cat for President?I'm afraid not. Especially after his alleged affair with Paris Hilton. However, I would so fanboy him if he ever had a Deathtöngue reunion.
After the jump check out the all of the details of this amazing bundle!
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