Dan Goldman on Red Light Properties, Monkeybrain and the Changing Face of Digital

Dan Goldman, the Eisner Award-nominated co-creator of Shooting War, recently brought Red Light Properties–a series of short graphic novels about a family who deal in previously-haunted real estate–to Monkeybrain Comics.His was a unique situation; while other creators have headed to Monkeybrain to find a home for their cool, new concept, Red Light Properties was an established property that had been in circulation for years, first at Tor.com and later available through the digital marketplaces on the Nook, Kobo and Kindle Fire.Now, having brought the old content to Monkeybrain, Goldman is both awaiting the release of the first print edition in October and working on new Red Light Properties content–both for Monkeybrain to release digitally and in other media.Goldman joined ComicBook.com to talk about the book that he says has become the first thing he’s ever done that he feels he could work on for years to come.ComicBook.com: How did you end up at Monkeybrain? You’ve been around for a while, and you’re the first person who really brought something that already existed in the world to Monkeybrain.Dan Goldman: Red Light Properties was on ComiXology in the creator-owned books ghetto for almost a year before I moved over to Monkeybrain and nobody found it. It just sat there. Not only was it on ComiXology, it was on the Kindle, on the Nook and on the Kobo as well. I had tried hand-coding that stuff and that was a disaster and then I used Graphicly’s services and I felt like the conversions were okay but they weren’t really solid. The best experience was with ComiXology, where I already was, but nobody could find me there.With Monkeybrain, aside from the fact that you’ve got this new, shiny seal of quality, I really like the other people who were publishing with them and I really like Chris and Allison very much. Once we really started talking, it was like, “This is going to be really good,” so that’s where the decision came from.My fans tend to be outside of the comics world and I want to fix that because I’m working in comics and it’s hard to get people who dont read comics to pick up comics and get it without having to explain it to them whereas the comics audience is just, “Oh, cool. That sounds awesome, I’m goign to buy that.” There’s a lot less singing and dancing you have to do get them to read it–but that audience has never been mine.