Working for a Living

When thinking about the crazy world we live in today, where The Walking Dead is the most successful thing on TV and Marvel is the most successful thin in movies, I often think back to a seminal moment in the debate between creator-owned and company-driven: the 2008 debate between Robert Kirkman and Brian Bendis which took place at that year's Baltimore Comicon. The think kicked off when a pre-Talking Dead sharpened Kirkman posted a video editorial calling for more creators to band together to make creator owned comics more of a thing, He even had an agenda for the process (emphasis mine.):

A couple of incidents this week of creators who spoke out, and editors who took offense at the speaking out. First off, we've noted many times that Jim Starlin and Marvel seemed to have reached a happy place in terms of Starlin created characters Gamora and Thanos getting the big screen treatment in Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Starlin, whose various cosmic works such as The Infinity Gauntlet have been hugely influential in that end of the Marvel Universe, created a new Thanos graphic novel for Marvel and all seemed to be well. But then....things weren't. Newsarama has a full rundown of the matter but The Beat first noticed something might be up when Starlin posted this on his FB page:

After spending a year chairing the Society of Illustrators' annual illustration show, Jillian Tamaki pens a rah rah intro for the annual, but...

It's hard to believe in the era of Tumblr and Imgur and gifs and all that, but in comics artists seem to be getting...

It's a brand new year, and everyone is looking back on all the great comics that came out and all the great things coming...

Webcartoonist Ryan Estrada (Plagued, Aki Alliance) has a tutorial complete with widget on how to make an ebook out of a webcomic, and...

I'm sure over the holiday you heard about how graphic designer Juan Luis Garcia presented pretty compelling evidence that his striking design for a...

Cartoonist C. Spike Trotman is one of the most self-assured creators we've ever met. Whether it's her long running webcomic Templar, AZ or her...

I have a number of panel recaps to write up for you all, so you should expect them to occupy the next few days...

The unthinkable has happened. A cartoonist has been hired for a job that pays a living wage. Instead of heating up old shoe leather...

For some reason, this post I wrote in February 2012 popped up on my feed; it was called Comics Crisis: Doujinshi Nation and at...

Even as Matt Bors has been making the rounds telling us how editorial cartooning is dead (which is it) enterprising cartoonists such as Ruben...