There’s been some brouhaha lately around the Internet about a push for more support of creator-owned comics and for more creators to go in a more independent route.
Steve Niles, whom I had the pleasure to meet last year, has been a big factor in this. He’s been blogging and tweeting regularly about the issue. His first post, which is a good summary of his position, is right here. It’s a nice, positive position that boils down to readers spreading the word about what they like rather than trashing what they hate.
Eric Powell, creator of The Goon, posted a video on YouTube that has since been pulled. It was a bit crass, but I think it came across more harshly than Powell intended. For some background on the video and the movement (and the source of that ridiculous image at right), there’s a nice summary at The Beat.
There was also a post from Dean Haspiel that went a little farther:
Being published by someone else does not legitimize your hard work. And, the financial advance hardly pays the rent. Think about that the next time you sign a contract for your original ideas.
I am a comics creator, and so far I’ve only ever done creator-owned work. And there’s some absolute truth to the fact that making creator-owned comics is a hard living at this time, at least unless you’re Robert Kirkman. New people to comics are always surprised at just how hard of a living it is (as I am not Robert Kirkman, I hold down a day job).
I definitely support what Niles and Powell are doing. Any advocacy is great and can only help. But is it enough? And what can we do to get creator-owned comics to a place of being financially viable?
The problem, for starters, is not Marvel and DC. A lot of criticism centers on the big two superhero publishers, but I don’t think it’s deserved. Marvel and DC haven’t done anything to limit the proliferation of creator-owned books in the past 20 years. Yes, they dominate the direct market, but they also provide tons of work to lots of great comics people. And by keeping the direct market viable, they have helped maintain a market for creator-owned books.
The problem also is not diversity. Comics are incredibly diverse today (at least in content, if not in those creating them). In recent weeks I’ve read work by Brecht Evans, the brothers Ba and Moon and the fantastically different Return of the Dapper Men, just to name a few. There are comics being made that anyone and everyone can enjoy.
The problem is connecting with those potential readers.
Estimations are that about 300,000 people make up the core American comics market. A glance at any sales chart from the direct market shows that these people are spending the vast majority of their cash on Marvel and DC superhero books.
Indie books like mine, the Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer series, are considered a success when they sell several thousand copies. Not tens. Just several.
There was a recent graphic novel release — I won’t say which book it was, but it wasn’t from Marvel, DC, Image, IDW or Dark Horse — that sold about 200,000 copies in just its first few months. Two hundred thousand!!! And yet it wasn’t listed among the top-selling books in the direct market charts. In fact, fewer than 1,000 copies sold to the direct market.
So let’s think about those numbers. We say that about 300,000 Americans are willing to buy comics, based on direct market figures. Yet this book sold 200,000, with essentially none of that going to the direct market. So, right there, this one book has revealed another 199,000 people who will buy and read comics.
That’s just one example, and graphic novels like Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen and Blankets each illustrate a similar point. There are millions of people out there who will read comics.
The question becomes, why aren’t they reading comics more frequently?
I suspect that it has a lot to do with Wertham and the Comics Code and a whole generation of American children (and parents) being taught that comics are evil and juvenile. I won’t go into all the details. Just go out and buy David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague, if you haven’t already.
I think we in the comics community tend to lose perspective of the limited place of comics in culture. I still regularly meet people who are surprised that I write comics. They imagine that it’s all superhero hijinks. They have no idea that a work of brilliance and complexity like Eddie Campbell’s Alec is out there.
I remember the book that won my mom over — Drawn & Quarterly’s Aya. My mom spent quite a bit of her 20s in Africa, and the book related to her in a special way. “I didn’t realize there were comics like this,” she said.
And why would she? We in the comics community tend to do a horrible job of reaching out to the uninitiated. Instead, we fight over the dwindling direct market buyers. They’re the safe route, the audience we know.
If we’re to have any success building up the comics industry, it needs to come through creative methods of reaching out beyond that audience (though never ignoring it).
Digital will be part of the answer. Some initial research has shown that the digital readership differs in its tastes from the direct market audience, which means we’re getting to a few new readers. That’s still a nascent area, though, and it will never be a panacea. Web comics, though, are doing wonders in getting more people engaged with comics.
We need to push to get more graphic novels/comics into new outlets. Independent bookstores should be a great fit for comics, though many in that community are still resistant. That comes through partnerships with trade organizations and simple local outreach. There are plenty of places left out there that sell books but not comics. It’s time we gave them a hard sell.
We need to support the push for comics to be part of the cultural landscape. No, that doesn’t mean buying a ticket to see Thor. It means building up more comics-related curriculum in colleges and even high schools. It means creating graphic novel clubs and participating in events like Read Comics in Public Day.
And we need to do everything we can as creators to expand the audience with each one of our books. This comes down to marketing. Yeah, it’s great if your new comic gets mentioned on The Beat, CBR and Newsarama. But that crowd would’ve heard about the book through Previews or just seen it on a Wednesday outing anyway. With the Pinocchio books, I’ve tried to think about what non-comics people might like the books and how I could bring them to their attention. That meant spending a lot of time marketing the comics toward nontraditional outlets like horror magazines and blogs, vampire fan clubs and fairy tale fanatics.
I feel like comics have come an awful long way just in the past decade, but we still have a lot farther to go. Fighting each other isn’t going to make the industry more stable. And simply recommending books that we like — by the way, the all-color Owly book is awesome! — can only go so far. It’s going to take hard work, but it’s well worth the effort.
Very well said sir. There’s a couple of things you said I might take issue of, but I’ll leave that to the more articulate people to discuss. The fact that people are talking about this issue is still amazing to me.
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Great points and totally agree on getting to a new audience. I founded and throw a monthly comic book party called Comic Book Sunday! which is all about bringing in people that otherwise might not read comics as well as those that create or work in comics and growing a community around the appreciation of the form. The greatest memory for me of comics was in grade school hanging out with friends and talking, trading, and sharing in the stories, art, and worlds. This still holds true as an adult but with a wider palette of taste that doesn’t focus entirely on the superhero genre. The convergence of comics and popular culture must not only be in the media but within the communities as well. Its a very exciting time as social media and physical gatherings converge and allow for new ideas to be shared as well as a passion for the medium! The hope always is that the material will speak for itself and find the audience…but sometimes we as the readers must help build the audience for our favorite creators!
-Ben
Thanks for the reply, Ben, and for spreading the good word about comics. Community-building efforts like that are really important. Good luck with Comic Book Sunday!
Well said, sir.
I am a librarian; I work for a book distributor, I consult for a reference book publisher, I work part time in a school library, and I write graphic novel reviews for two journals aimed at library professionals. I firmly believe that you need to reach out more to librarians and teachers, who then become the gatekeepers for the children and teens (and yes, adults) they see and teach almost every day. There is no simple answer, but definitely librarians and teachers need to be part of the mix in the solution to the problem of reaching out to new readers.
For example, I write a graphic novel review column for Voice of Youth Advocates, which is aimed primarily at librarians who work with teens. I include as many independent and small press comics titles as I can, such as the Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer titles, in hopes that librarians will read my reviews and purchase those books for their libraries. I also donate as many kid- and teen-appropriate graphic novels and manga as I can to my school (preK-8th grade) and to my local public libraries as I can. I’m not the only one doing this.
Schools and public libraries are still a fairly small part of the market, but we are part of the market, and one that small publishers should cultivate.
Thanks for recommending the PVS books, Kat! And for everything else, too!
You’re absolutely right, libraries and school are HUGE. Kids will eat up whatever comics they can get a hold of, but we need teachers and librarians to want to give out comics. One thing creators can do in that respect is to make books that are OK for all-ages audiences. The “comics aren’t just for kids anymore” tag line is so outdated it’s ludicrous. There are insanely few comics for kids, which is a major problem. How do you win over teachers and librarians when even superhero comics are way too mature/violent/sexualized?