We recently connected with Brandon Calloway and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Brandon, thanks for joining us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

At Darkmoon Comics, I create and publish comic books that center Black characters as the protagonist, antagonists, and side characters. There is a huge underrepresentation of the Black community in comics, anime, and fantasy, and we are fixing that by providing authentic and relatable Black characters.

Brandon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have always been a huge fan of anime and comics, but I didn’t always feel represented in the genres I loved. I also had my heart set on being in the entertainment industry from a young age. My first role on stage was in the third grade school play as a flying monkey in the Wizard of Oz. I started writing my own sitcom called “The Brandon Calloway Show” in 5th grade, and I eventually went on to receive college scholarships for theatre. As an adult I got away from acting, but my love for the entertainment industry and comics never went away.

After a conversation with a friend in 2019, I decided to just dive in and give it a try and all of these fantasy stories just came pouring out of my head. Since completing my first script for the flagship series, Black Spartans, I have written over 15 scripts and published 5 books so far, with 4 more in production.

My passion for this shows up in the writing and the hard work of continuing to publish these stories.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Since comic books are a product based business, I was able to crowdfund it through Kickstarter pre sales.

This still required me to grow my audience on social media through paid ads and consistent content output. But it limited how much of my own money I had to put in initially to get started.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The thing that has helped my sales the most has been setting up tables and doing pop up shops. I’ll find local pop up events and book a table at them to sell my books. I’ve found that people love it when they can get the books instantly.

If I can’t find an existing pop up shop, I’ll reach out to a local small business and ask them for permission to set up. They usually let me set up at no cost and it’s a great sales and branding opportunity.

Contact Info:

• Website: Darkmooncomics.com
• Instagram: Darkmoon_Comics
• Facebook: Darkmoon_Comics

Image Credits
Darkmoon Comics