When I worked as a journalist, I became so very, very tired of hearing that my profession was either dying or dead. I'm experiencing the same fatigue with comics.
No, Internet, comics are alive — and booming. And they will boom more1.
The doom and gloom sayers tend to orbit in proximity to the larger, mass-produced monthlies put out by the Big Two, DC and Marvel, a position that discounts the sheer landslide of small-press and independent operations — like Bad Ink Studios, who I recently interviewed — that carry entire productions on the shoulders of one or two creatives.
Comics are big business and account for a chunk of the creative economy when taken as a whole. The global comic book market was valued at $15.35 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow from $16.05 billion in 2023 to $22.37 billion by 2030.
As for the end-user market segmentation, the adult segment is estimated to lead from 2023 to 2030, but the kids segment is also experiencing notable growth.
The question is, what is “success” when it comes to a grassroots comic-creation business? The answer looks a lot like the model Bad Ink's Evan Schultz and Lydia Roberts have stumbled on, as I pointed out during that recent interview. (Look through the back posts for a valuable and comprehensive breakdown of how they sold out their two-issue run of Interdimensional.)
Schultz and Roberts have used a combination of old and new marketing techniques to make that happen, as he explains in this TikTok, which addresses another TikToker responding (yet again) to the old saw, “Are comics dead?”
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What’s old is new again. But would they have been as successful if they didn’t have that kick-ass product for consumers2? This leads me to …
…
RECOMMENDATION… The Awesome Comics Podcast episode this week has a great discussion about the future of the small and indie press. You may have read my shitpost about tropes I’m tired of; the ACP gents have a deeper, more nuanced take.
As an aside, this intersects neatly with my current obsession with those dull tropes, marketing and selling comics, and, more importantly, why passion for the field itself is so critical in the face of so many creators misusing comics as stepping stones to, say, the next big Netflix series.
But what’s making it so dull? While there are so many creators in the space right now, much of their output is homogeneous, a point ACP co-host Tony Esmond picks up on and illustrates with what he observed on recent trips to conferences around the U.K.
“There seemingly is only a few influences at the moment,” Esmond explained: A proliferation of poorly drawn manga and anime styles, pixelation, and also Steven Universe and Adventure Time-influenced art. (I’d add to this the mimicking of clean-lined superhero illustrations in the house style of D.C.)
“There [were] about five or six tables just about mental health, and I think there's a self-absorbed element to some of that, especially when there's no real raising of awareness of charities or anywhere you can go for help …,” Esmond continued. “And I think there's a self-indulgence evident [in that] at the moment." ”3
Esmond says it better than I can, and to expand his point a little, that sameness is the fault of social media. Artists, seeing other more skilled artists find a level of attention with these popular styles, imitate them, and the social media environment becomes oversaturated with poor copies. (The same can be said for some tropes that are mimicked and so poorly executed.)
This, to me, illustrates why Bad Ink’s Interdimensional anthology has done so well — artist Roberts’ style with Evan’s coloring is so unlike the plurality of what’s currently saturating digital platforms.
The point for those who write and draw comics, if I have one, is this: Be your own authentic self. Don’t chase fads. Don’t measure your success by what others do in the same space. Don’t imitate4. Find your unique voice/style.
Careers in the comic-book industry are a different discussion.
I hate, hate, hate the marketing speak here, but I’ve run out of words for “comic” and such.
One downside of the overuse of mental-health-themed genres is that it can have an adverse effect, diminishing the seriousness of some profound mental health conditions for sufferers. That’s another post of its own.
By “imitate,” I mean the tendency to want to look, tonally, like another artist. (Or, I guess, to try and write like another writer.) I could go into a deep tutorial on the difference between copying another artist as a practice tool to improve (a good pro tip that focuses on technique rather than style) and outright duplication. (For reference, see Bryan Hitch’s work on his early Authority run, which you’d easily mistake for the work of Alan Davies.) The result? Your work will always look like a poor copy.