Over at Comicon, they’re asking how has self-publishing changed the industry?:

“If thin monthly comics for $3 aren’t the most effective way for Marvel and DC to deliver their product anymore, they’re absolutely a lousy way for hopeful cartoonists to self-publish. And yet, at my local comics shop yesterday, I saw several locally produced comics by various cartoonists … all in the thin monthly format (22 pages or less), part of a sequential story (part two of four, etc.) and priced at $2.50 to $6. I flipped through one at random. It was the second issue of a sparingly drawn (i.e., thin line, not much background, black-and-white) comic. The wordless story was some creature examining a birdhouse, turning the birdhouse around in its hands, examining it some more. That was the $2.50 one, I believe. Buddy, I’m glad you’ve realized your dream of publishing your own comic. But I’m not laying down three bucks so I can spend two minutes on a wordless black-and-white story about looking at a birdhouse. And it was part two of an ongoing arc (what happens next month, the creature looks at a door knob for 12 pages?). If you’re self-publishing a comic on paper, assume that (1) I’m not willing to spend very much on someone I’ve never heard of, (2) I’m never going to see your comic again, so you better give me one complete story right here and (3) this is a visual medium, so if you can’t draw a pretty picture, hire someone who can … the indie comix scene already has plenty of cartoonists who actually can’t draw well. We don’t need more scratchy stick figures. A medium-sized graphic novel — say, 40 to 80 pages, for $12 to $15 — I might try that. Don’t BLANKETS me, though. Your adolescent sexual frustration and religious fear might be interesting to you, but I don’t need 900 pages of it.”

“I would imagine it’s like every other venture in the world- How Bad Do You Want It? Like the sports player who sleeps with the ball. Like the Eddie Van Halen who sits on his bed on a Friday night with the guitar instead of going out… How Bad Do You Want It. (I know that if I had the God given talent to draw no one would ever see me because I would be locked away in a dank, dark dungeon creating visual masterpieces of my imagination.) Does that guarantee that all the doors will be open to you and you will make it- sadly no, like the passage says, ‘Many are called, few are chosen’- but I would imagine wanting it so bad that you taste it when you sleep will get you ready, after that, it’s more or less ‘casting bread upon the waters.’ If you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Paul Smith, meanwhile, gets to be the professional who gets to tell a young hopeful that he’s not good enough for the big leagues. Go and check it out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 9:04 am and is filed under Creators, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.