DCR Comic Proposal 1
This comic proposal centers on a biweekly webcomic that translates Decred’s technical documentation, developments and Politeia projects to a compelling visual narrative.
Hello, we are @pablito and @nachito (on Matrix channels). We have been contributing to Decred since mid 2019. It all started when @elianvisited Argentina and introduced us to the project, its vision and values. From the first day we knew we wanted to contribute to the project from our communications background and at the same time ditched every “vanilla” strategy to focus on creative solutions for increasing awareness. We ended up creating the DCR Comic, a visual guide to Decred.
We have already developed three issues of the webcomic and created Twitter (@dcrcomic) & Instagram (@dcrcomic) accounts for the DCRComic. @pablito is the writer, he deals with research, scripts, storyboarding and messaging. @nachito is the artist and design lead, he is in charge of sketching, storyboarding and making the comic eye-catchy so we can get the reader’s attention.
Executive Summary
This comic proposal centers on a biweekly webcomic that translates Decred’s technical documentation, developments and Politeia projects to a compelling visual narrative. We think a webcomic that can be adapted to multiple formats, even animated scenes or fully animated videos, could provide the perfect channel to reach a broader audience, the younger generation and those who prefer visual information platforms such as YouTube or Instagram over text-based ones like Medium and Twitter where the Decred community has already doubled up its presence.
Why?
Decred’s developers are doing an amazing work and creating new exciting solutions for some of the main issues in the crypto space, from privacy to trustless trading, but there’s much more to be done and this means more coding hands are always desired. To bring more people into the project, we need to reach further.
As mentioned above, Decred has already developed a strong presence in crypto-twitter and Medium, but not so much in other (more mainstream) social media platforms.
Instagram is becoming the most used social media platform in South America and Telegram, WhatsApp and other messaging apps have already developed a wide group-chat ecosystem where visual content, especially static content like JPG memes, is king. Moreover, YouTube is the preferred social network by the younger generation.
According to latest stats published by the Pew Research Center about social media usage, Facebook (69%) and YouTube (73%) are the most widely used online platforms among U.S. adults. Instagram is used by 37% but has showed the most growth in the last 3 years. Twitter is lagging behind with just 22% and has declined since 2018. Among 18-to-24-year-old Instagram’s popularity has reached 75% and YouTube is leading the way with 90%. Twitter usage among this age group is at 44%.
In Brazil, LATAM’s most populous country and one of Decred’s main development hubs, 95% of internet users use YouTube, 89% use WhatsApp and 71% use Instagram, but only 43% use Twitter; according to the 2019 Global Web Index published by Hootsuite.
Social media presence on Instagram, YouTube and most messaging platforms is a must. The webcomic and its derivatives present an opportunity to widen Decred's reach and explore how visual communication can help explain cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology and how decentralized governance works.
Who?
@nachito is the lead designer. He has more than 10 years of experience in Graphic Design. He entered the crypto space worried about user experience and ended up doing much more, from illustrations to logo design. He will be in charge of creating catchy visuals that earn us the reader's attention and making sure every comic fits into Decred's visual system.
Other contributions: Decred: Gobernando Juntos talk slides, DCR/Stakey shirts and stickers for Blockchain Summit UY, Social Media templates for Campus Party Goias, I WANT TO STAKE Poster
@pablito is the writer. He covered technology and business issues for two of Argentina's major newspapers but decided to dive deeper into the crypto industry. He is not a programmer but has experience with web development and loves crafting python hacks during the weekend. He is in charge of researching new topics, writing scripts, and making sure the message is clear at every step of the comic's development.
Other contributions: Rasp-berry-cred: my experience setting up a DCR node, CoinTelegraph interview about Decred
What does the community get?
A GitHub repo with every biweekly comic and every asset used in the making. We will also coordinate translations, work towards expanding the webcomic towards new formats as needed and distribute the comic in every social media platform we can.
We are planning to publish on Twitter, Instagram, Medium, Reddit, messaging platforms like Telegram and Matrix, and region-specific channels like ChainNode (China).
We have already developed comics about:
We will develop several comics explaining issues like:
- Proof-of-Stake
- Hybrid PoS/PoW
- Privacy Features
- Lightning Network
- Full-nodes
- Voting Service Providers
- Consensus Rules Voting
- Atomic Swaps
- Politeia Topics **
** We want to develop comics about new proposals and developments while we advance our main goal of bringing to life the Docs.
How? Webcomic Lifecycle
We came up with the following life-cycle to make translating and editing the comic more efficient by focusing first on closing the English version and only opening up for translations once it is finished. We included a Feedback & Iteration stage so the whole community can participate in its development, but we frequently share scripts and WIP with the corresponding Matrix channels.
- Voting for topics
- Basic scripting / Brainstorming
- Storyboarding
- English script
- Basic design
- Feedback & Iteration
- Final design
- Text translations
- AI file translations
- Optimized image files
- Distribution
The offer
Each webcomic involves research, scripting, pen and paper storyboarding, digital design and polishing, and distribution. While the workload differs from comic to comic, the first three issues could be rounded to:
- Research: 3h
- Scripting: 3h
- Storyboarding: 6h
- Digital design: 15h (+Polishing)
- Feedback & discussion: 3h
- Polishing: 5h
Posting on/adapting to social networks: 5h
Total: 40 hours
We think it would be reasonable to start by publishing two comics per month (biweekly) for three months. We would get paid after delivering each issue of the comic (~$1200 per comic). The total cost of this first three months of work would be $10800, including the first three comics we have already developed, and the community will get six new DCR Comics in multiple formats, ready for publishing in social media. We could charge the treasury after publishing each comic.
Work schedule and payments:
- Already developed ($3600):
- Politeia proposals - $1200
- Proof-of-Work - $1200
- Decred DEX - $1200
- First month ($2400):
- Proof-of-Stake - $1200
- Privacy features - $1200
- Second month ($2400):
- Hybrid PoS/PoW - $1200
- Atomic Swaps - $1200
- Third month ($2400):
- Lightning Network - $1200
- DCR Time - $1200
Total cost: $10800 ($3600 for previous comics + $7200 for the new ones)
Once we generate enough assets, we could expand the project with new proposals to include animation/video editing!
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