Kenny Meyers, founder of Sweet, has just launched Bindings, a new software tool for comic creators to streamline their marketing efforts. Drawing on his experience at major tech companies like Meta, Airbnb, and Reddit, Kenny aims to bring the benefits of tech tools—such as those used for marketing in music or e-commerce—to the comic book industry.
Now He has brought to life Bindings, a platform designed to simplify how comic creators market their work, manage their audience, and adapt to challenges like the fragmentation of social media. Bindings combines features of tools like Dropbox and Linktree, enabling creators to share their work, grow their audience, and maintain control over their marketing. Kenny’s mission is to empower comic creators with the tools they need to succeed in a rapidly changing landscape!
The Beat reached out to Myers to talk more about bindings and where they plan on taking this new project!
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
DIEGO HIGUERA: I’m assuming Bindings comes from a love of the media?
KENNY MEYERS: I mean, I love comic books. I was a co-president and co-founder of a digital comic store called Omnibus, which unfortunately closed. I entered the startup world, transitioning from tech into comics, but I grew up reading them. I specifically got back into comics when Comixology and digital comics became a thing. So, when I started working in software for comics, I just fell in love with everyone in the industry—like, everyone in comics has been so wonderful.
Of course, there are occasional, let’s say, for lack of a better word, sleaze balls that just rub me the wrong way. But honestly, I’m also a fickle person, so maybe that’s on me. Maybe I’m the problem, No, wait its the children who are wrong!
But really, I just fell in love. Everyone is so… I mean, you have to love comics to work in comics. There’s not a lot of money in it. It takes, like, a stroke of luck—it’s like lightning striking. You know, the same rules apply to YouTube creators and book authors. And they don’t even get the money to really do it. So my goal is to bring over all these cool tools and software to make this a little less shitty for everyone.
HIGUERA: I have to ask, though—I can only imagine the amount of work you’ve put into this—was this just you? Or is it a team of people? What’s going on?
MEYERS: Yeah, so I have two partners, Tom Carmony and Ben Carr—just the Car boys. Tom is an incredibly talented designer, and Ben is an engineer like me. I’m a software engineer, mostly focused on mobile, while Ben has mostly worked on web stuff. I’ve somehow tricked them into joining me on this journey, and they share a similar philosophy—the ability to support such a cool medium and people who are really trying hard to make it in comics is just thrilling for all of us. I won’t speak for them or their previous roles, but I think I’m the one among us who has mostly worked on consumer products—user-facing stuff.
I think they just really love it. I mean, it’s an awesome opportunity. Everyone in the comics field has been so great, and I’m genuinely excited about what’s ahead. Since I started working as an engineer in comics, everyone has been so lovely. I could ramble on about it forever, but I just love it.
So yeah, they’re helping me and they’re part of the company, Sweet, and we’re going to try to solve some problems and Bindings is our first at-bat.
HIGUERA: I was looking into what this could potentially do because realistically you’re going to have some big heads jump on and want to promote their things and whatnot. But this is gonna open up so many avenues for independent creators, or just people in the business. I wanted your thoughts on that.
MEYERS: My idea is a bit more experimental. It’s really about sharing your work, previewing it, and making sure that when you do, you can capture the people viewing your stuff. Then you can figure out where they are and keep them connected, not in a restrictive way, but in a way that helps you and your fellow creators ensure they know about your next project.
After I left my last project, I spoke with several creators at different levels, and I asked, What do you need? One of them just said, I want to be able to upload a comic somewhere and share it real quick. So that’s what we’re trying to do. You can just go in, upload a comic, and share it easily.
Then, of course, there’s the nonsense that is final order cutoff that is a total mess. We want to address that too. Bindings is really about the comic itself, but we’re adding these widgets, which we call actions, that let people do specific things. For example, one action is helping users find their local comic store. Another shows the final order cutoff deadline directly on the comic, with a note like, order by this date. Those things can be so obnoxious in the industry, and I’m hoping this helps simplify them.
I also hope creators of all sizes see the potential here. While some features are print-comic-store-related, we also support webtoons, which are a whole different world. Platforms for Webtoons spend so much time getting creators’ attention but invest little in helping them retain that audience. It’s all about algorithms, right? So creators need mechanisms to capture their audience and figure out where their readers are coming from.
Most platforms don’t give up the data creators need, though I haven’t looked specifically at their analytics. But that’s part of what we’re hoping to address.
It’s about being able to engage with your audience and not lose them when you’re putting your work out there. Because when you do that, when you put something out on the internet, you’re essentially offering it up to the world for critique and to see whether they even like you. I think it’s really important to ensure that when you do that, you get something in return, so you can keep growing.
HIGUERA: I have to ask, because you mentioned FOC and all these other things—how do you hope to expand on, I guess, print media? You kind of touched on it, but I’m curious. I know everything’s digital, of course, but by doing this, you’re also helping smaller businesses.
MEYERS: Yeah, so nothing to announce for launch yet, but one of the driving forces behind Bindings is to create a way for creators to market and connect with retailers. What that will that look like is still in conversation, but it’s a key goal of where I’m headed. This is one of the weird fractures of the ecosystem and it’s very much like print marketing, but we also have these two sets of creators now, and they’re blending, which is awesome.
Obviously, webtoons and vertical scroll are a thing, and that’s amazing. The community is wonderful, and they don’t have final order cutoffs like print comics do. They do have deadlines, the comic has to come out on their date, so we try to think in those terms to make it helpful for everyone.
But there’s a specific route where we do want to help people who produce print issues of their work sell their work. Of course, series subscriptions and selling individual purchases will also be part of that. I suspect those will be links instead of direct integrations, just because those platforms are very closed off.
HIGUERA: How can people support you? How can people support this process? What’s gonna be coming out, checking out, Bindings.
MEYERS: Well, hopefully, the way Bindings works and gets support is by people starting to share those links, upload their comics online, and then, of course, it does something for them. The goal is for everyone, including myself, to make a decent living doing comics. If my company can accomplish that for people, that would be amazing. Just a nice, sustainable living, not the millionaire, billionaire, VC-funded stuff. Literally just a nice life.
Obviously, the single best way to support a company like ours is through a small fee—we’re bootstrapped. For five bucks, you get 100 images or slices. So, if you upload a lot, we’re not going to do subscriptions because that’s not how comics work. I’ve written a blog post about the pricing, but essentially, and this is a little different, we’re going to do a pay-as-you-go model. If you’re really successful and start uploading thousands of comics, selling lots of them, you’ll pay five bucks to renew once you hit the upload limit.
But we feel that, you know, paying for comics and buying subscriptions is the best way to support creators. I try to do that too. It’s the same for us—we’d love to be able to work full-time on this and other projects. I think it’ll be really interesting. I’m a little nervous, but I think it’s a really nice product, and the work that Tom and Ben have done is fantastic. I’m excited to open it up more to the world.
HIGUERA: I know this must be a bit obvious to ask, however what does this project mean to you? I can only imagine what you’re feeling right now.
MEYERS: So, I’ve had the good fortune of launching lots of products, and I’ve also had the good fortune of being an entrepreneur. Every time, it’s the same feeling no matter what scale I’m at, no matter how many people are using it, whether it’s from one to zero to never using it, or millions, it’s always scary and always fun. It’s like a roller coaster in a lot of ways. I always really enjoy it.
I really hope comic creators use it. I think there are some really cool things coming out at launch that, hopefully, will help them understand where they can be more successful. You know, even basic things like, “Oh, my BlueSky posts perform better in getting views on my comic than my Twitter posts,” or something like that. I hope it helps, and I believe it will. I’m so excited to get it out. It’s so fun. It’s fun to make something, not only for myself and my admittedly big ego, but also to do it with these two fantastic partners and for a community that’s just awesome. I just love the comic community.
I really, really don’t love the economics of comics for people right now, to put it as kindly as possible. I really want more people to be successful, and I know there’s a lot of work that has to be done. I’m just trying to take a chunk of that away from them to make their lives a little easier, Hopefully!
HIGUERA: What’s one of those things you want to help with?
MEYERS: However, my biggest thing that I tell people is that I’m trying to solve the “Scott Snyder problem.”
So, the Scott Snyder problem is this: Scott Snyder signs up for just about everything. He’s on digital exclusives, he’s working with DSTLRY, he’s got books with multiple publishers, and he’s everywhere. But the issue is, you can’t easily figure out where his books are. There’s no clear, central place to find them all. Sure, you can look him up on certain websites, and you might get some clarity, but it’s a hassle.
With Bindings, I want creators to be able to upload their work, and then readers should be able to click a link and easily see where to go to buy it and preview it, without having to jump through hoops or be surprised by things like a ComiXology original that’s only available on Amazon, or the DSTLRY exclusives. It’s about making it easier to find and support creators across different platforms.
HIGUERA: You have done your best to organize the comic industry!
MEYERS: I mean, I don’t think anyone could, that’s an impossible task, but on the bare minimum, at least just for the marketing you can go here and find things similar to how like a linktree would work. It’s just like it’s specifically driven by comics and the creators. So that’s kind of my goal.
HIGUERA: With that being said lets dig into it! Could you give us a more comprehensive understanding of what Bindings is?
MEYERS: Essentially, creators can drag and drop PDFs or images to upload their comics. We also provide a button for easy uploading, and once uploaded, our servers process the files. For PDFs, we convert the pages into JPEGs, so the comic can be shared as a lightweight file—no 200 MB PDFs to download from Dropbox. It functions like a digital comic reader that’s easy to share. If it’s a webtoon, it will slice the comic into smaller parts to fit the format, making it more accessible for reading.
Once the comic is uploaded, creators can add or delete pages as needed. Some users might even use this feature to share works in progress, as it allows password protection, which means they can control who sees the content. You can then create customizable links, known as “shares.” For instance, if I wanted to share only five pages with the press, I could create a specific link just for them. Similarly, I could set up a link for my newsletter or a buy button for consumers. For friends, I could share the entire comic, password-protected, with a different URL.
This system is highly configurable. It pulls in various elements from the internet, such as your profile picture and social media links, to create a more personalized and seamless comic reader experience.
Once the comic is uploaded and configured, creators can share it on the web. Our analytics will track where viewers are coming from and how they interact with the content. If someone clicks on a link or signs up for your newsletter, you’ll get notified. You’ll also get insights into what parts of the industry are popular or gaining traction.
This can be especially useful for regional insights, as many comic creators need to figure out which conventions to attend. With our analytics, they might discover, for example, that their work is particularly popular in a place like Saskatchewan, which could influence their event strategy.
The process is simple: Upload your comic, choose the widgets for your share (you can even include a YouTube interview or a Kickstarter link), and then share it. From there, you can see how the world reacts. It’s a straightforward, effective way for creators to track their audience and adjust their approach accordingly.
HIGUERA: Is there anything else you want to share with readers and fans?
MEYERS: I would just say, do everything you can to support comic creators, preferably with money, join their Patreons, Sign up. There’s a lot of other represented people in comics, and it’s beautiful, and they definitely need your support now. Now, unfortunately, more than ever.
For more information check out the Bindings blog! The project launches today make sure not to miss out!
English (US) · 