12:08 PM
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My first reaction in reading his post was surprise that this
was a revelation to anyone. That’s the
way it’s been for practically forever in the comics market. But I have remember that there are a lot of creators
(both published and unpublished) that grew up with independent comics always
there, found on the shelf with creators making names for themselves. Some of us older folks recall when the idea
of independent comics was a “new” thing.
It’s a cyclical trend and the realities for some people are
disheartening.
But comics are no different than film, music, or writing
prose stories and books. Just about all
of those are also unsuccessful financially and the sheer number of entries into
those areas dwarfs comic creators by a considerable amount. Yet, of all those, comics still has the
easiest time getting into the “system” than the others but being part of the
system doesn’t guarantee anything.
I thought the key point in the blog and with many respondents
was that the money aspect wasn’t the most important thing and is not what drove
the creators. This a realistic view necessary
for those creators because the odds are that you’re not going to make a living
doing comics…very few people do. I do
notice that trend of acceptance over the last few years---a lot of creators
just want to create and they know it is not going to be their primary
career. You’ll find the same thing in
film, books, and music. For others,
however, the passion that drives them to create comics isn’t complete unless
they can make a living doing so.
Outside of being driven purely by passion, most creators have
other goals in mind. For some, it’s to
show the “big guys” such as Marvel and DC what they can do and their ultimate plan
is to move to superhero worlds they likely grew up on. Others utilize the comics to build up an
intellectual property for possible exploitation and others yet, work within the
restrictions of today’s market with an eye on exploration into other markets. The hope is that their style, genre, themes,
etc. will resonant with those outside of the traditional comics market. But the majority just want to create with no
illusions of their labor of love spinning off into a life changing revenue
process.
For whatever reasons, it’s all good. First and foremost, creators should create
the best they can and that should be the tangible goal…anything else is an
exception, and when you’re modeling your plan, you always have to ignore the
exceptions because you can’t build a strategy around that. Sure, it happens and in a few rare cases,
someone can plot out their exception place but it doesn’t occur too often. When Jimmy Gownley published his Shades of
Grey through Caliber, his only goal was to get his book out. He had to tell the story and although sales
weren’t great, it was enough to get the material in print. Then he shifted to a new passion and Amelia
Rules! was born. He had no idea at the
time that it would be picked up by a major book publisher for eight volumes and
hit the NY Times best selling list and be signed for a film. You can’t plan that.
At Caliber we had a lot of creators who knew that they
wanted to do comics and so they did. A
lot of them got their project done and they were satisfied and went onto the
rest of their lives. Many honed their
skills and eventually found themselves making a career of doing comics. There are a couple of dozen creators in
comics today who used the early days at Caliber to develop their craft and found
themselves producing comics for the Big Two.
There were a few creators who found success in other avenues because
their property got made into a movie and they continue to feed off of
that.
For me personally, I’ve always looked at the creative side
as just that, a creative outlet. Of
course, I’d like for the comics to sell better and it would be sweet to devote
my full time to writing although I wonder if I would really enjoy it as writing
is a hard and lonely task dependent on motivation and diligence. But I think I’ve
always been pragmatic in my approach.
Even when the first comic I wrote was nominated for a Harvey Award, I knew
that I wouldn’t be able to make a living on just writing comics. I’ve done some work for hire here and there
but for the most part, I write what I want to and I know the limitations in
terms of appeal within the comics market.
Regardless of all the awards, acclaim, and buzz that certain
non-superhero titles get, the sales still primarily go to the spandex crowd. I enjoy doing what I do and my primary frustration
is the time factor, I just don’t have enough time to get to everything I want
to do.
I had a friend that said I was lucky that I had a real job
to fall back on (I teach college biology) but luck had nothing to do with
it. I earned that position as I went to
school at night while toiling at dead end jobs and even after I opened my comic
shops, I continued to go to school eventually earning my Masters. Granted, I left the academic world and
concentrated on the stores, the publishing, and other ventures such as
McFarlane Toys, but at the time, that was the path that was there. When I closed Caliber, I moved into teaching
part time in more of “let’s check this out” and found I enjoyed it. I teach a full time schedule yet still spend
considerable amount of time writing and currently am involved in a few
different companies. I like the balance
and certainly feel more secure knowing that the teaching not only provides me
with a good income (dependent on how much I choose to work) but also a benefit
package and a retirement plan.
Although I’m certainly not a big name in comics, and I
doubt if anyone who rarely ventures outside of Marvel and DC would even be
remotely familiar with my name, I feel successful in the biz even though to
many, I remain an unknown. I’ve been able to write some 30 graphic novels
(some are collections of comics), I’ve had some of my work used in teaching
college classes, been sold outside of comic shops in book stores, Wal-Marts,
and had many deals signed for exploitation whether games, films, CDs, card
sets, etc. I have a number of books that
continue to sell primarily on Amazon that provides a small but steady stipend
each month. I seem to have a pretty
strong base in the foreign markets as I quite often get large orders from
countries that look outside of superheroes.
Simply put, I ain’t got no complaints. Would I like a best
seller? Sure, of course. But that doesn’t motivate me. I will likely never appeal to the market that
determines “success” stories in the comics market---I don’t see myself ever
writing Marvel or DC superheroes---so I
am relegated to that “independent” creator and I’m fine with that.
I think that the creators out there who adopt the same
approach in understanding that the separation of the creative endeavors with
the realities of the market are likely to have more long term success. They may have less of a resume but it’s
better to create out of desire and satisfaction than out of desperation. You also have to take a long range goal…existing
from project to project, especially when you accumulate nothing in terms of
ownership, is likely to land you in a murky situation when you get older. We’re seeing that now with a number of well
known creators who have been discarded, for whatever reason, and have had to go
to charity organizations for help. I
know of quite a few creators who had their time at the Big Two and now rely on government
assistance. Some have gone to have minimum
wage jobs and living on subsistence incomes.
I think fans would be shocked at just how many of them are out there.
Going back to the blog, outside of the surprise part, what I
found intriguing was the attitude that the “creators” were being short changed
because of the amount of money going towards the distributor and
retailers. Well, that’s the system and
anyone that deals with it understands that those are necessary components. When creators make little money on doing
comics, they aren’t getting screwed by the system as a lot of the comments
indicate. Sure, they do all the work and
often times for minimal money and believe me, I know how discouraging that is,
but it isn’t because they’re being taken advantage of in any way. They just don’t have enough sales for
whatever reason.
Sure, you can bypass the system and keep a much higher
percentage but your sales likely will be a fraction of what they could be. But, and this is a big but, you have to
evaluate whether more sales will equal more profit. I have always been someone that looked at
profit over sales figures. I do a number
of titles that do not go into the system and obviously, they sell considerably
less…but they are more profitable. I do
understand though, that sometimes going through the system has other benefits
such as exposure.
There are a lot of creators who are upset that they can’t
make a living doing what they so passionately want to do. Well, passion is not enough. Just think of all those hopefuls on shows
like American Idol who feel that they deserve their shot because they “want” it
so bad. Frankly, the “want” is
irrelevant except in terms of how much it motivates you. Your passion doesn’t entitle you to anything.
I will agree that it’s a shame because even though I’m not a
big comic reader myself, the few books I do pick up and the ones I browse
indicates to me that there’s probably more good books out there than ever
before. It would be great if the sales
reflected that. I’m glad that for some,
their passion continues them to producing comics. It’s what continues to drive me.
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