We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Travis Huffman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Travis , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I believe it takes determination, passion, and clearly defined goals. This includes small goals and lofty, long term goals. A lot of people dream big, but then when they do not reach their big goal, they have a sense of failure that they never recover from. By setting a huge goal, or as I like to call it, a “big dream,” which is filled with small goals that are achievable, it acts almost like a step ladder to achieving your ultimate goal. Many people base success on what they see others accomplishing on social media, but a lot of these successes aren’t true successes. Instead, they are a lot of fluff with no substance. True success is creating a series of goals that are accomplished one at a time. The old saying is, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” And that is how I see success.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Last Sentry Comics is a comic book and children’s book company based in Texas that was founded in 2005 and currently publishes multiple comic book titles. We also produce custom comic books for businesses and individuals who want to tell their stories to amass an audience. When we began our journey producing comic books, it was simply designed to tell our stories, but as time went on and we began interacting with people, we learned that there were so many creatives that needed to tell their stories too. We understood how difficult it was to spend years learning the process of creating comic books and children’s books. It’s more than knowing how to do it, because it also takes building relationships with creative teams and other important procedures to make the best product possible. We were always told to just create, to just put something out. I never did like that philosophy because I believe when you put your name on something, it should be the best that you can possibly do at that moment in time with all of the tools that you have. Last Sentry Comics is that tool, and we have taken the guessing game out of the process for anyone who wants the world to see what they can imagine.
We also want to assist businesses who want to provide something unique to their customers through comic book style advertising designs. We create traditional paper ads that can be converted into digital ads for social media. We are a full service creative team and we can create anything from mascots, to logos, to full blown comic books for businesses.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Producing independent comic books, which is considered anything outside of major publishers like DC or Marvel, is an expensive undertaking to say the least. We have used different methods to pay for the creation of new comic books, such as saving money, getting business loans, using tax returns, and crowdfunding. Over the last year we have branched out into the marketing world, helping businesses create comic strips that provide information for their customers through storytelling. This is not something we would have ever thought about a decade ago, or even five years ago. We saw that businesses needed an alternative to the bland, cookie-cutter advertisements that are commonly used. Because of the pandemic and inflation, a lot of businesses are struggling to survive. What we are trying to do is help those businesses by providing cost effective advertising options that are special and unique. We have pivoted to create additional revenue streams while helping other companies through our services, providing them with high quality advertising materials. Comic books will always be at the heart of Last Sentry, but we are excited about where this new path will also lead.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Our first major comic book convention was Comicpalooza in Houston, Texas, in 2014. This was also the year we produced our first flagship title, the comic book series called The Stalker. When we arrived, we realized our booth was buried in a location that was not visible to customers. On day one, we tried our best to sell our products but were unsuccessful. The next day I woke up, laced up my tennis shoes, went to our booth, and stood outside of it, directing customers to our display where my teammates could explain our products. Over the course of the next two days, we sold four hundred copies of our comic book. We could easily have allowed the poor location to defeat us, but my team and I took it upon ourselves to rise above the circumstances. Sure, by the end of the weekend, we were all exhausted, and my feet were killing me, but getting our comics in the hands of excited readers was worth it. This small moment is just an example of how these types of roadblocks can always be overcome with the right attitude. Finding solutions to any problem we encounter is something we continue to do in our business to this day.
Contact Info:
- Website: lastsentrycomics.com
- Instagram: @lastsentrycomics
- Facebook: facebook.com/lastsentrycomics
- Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/lastsentrycomics
- Twitter: @lastsentrycomix
- Other: https://www.stimulus.com/lastsentry