In looking over the blasted landscape of the Media Apocalypse, it’s notable how often the word “billion” comics up. 

Why does RELX, a multinational data corp with a current market cap of $58 BILLION decide to shut down Popverse, a small unit that hit all its traffic benchmarks and showed continued growth? 

Why does Kakao, a Korean with a market cap of $11 BILLION, shut down a successful, popular and once profitable webtoon platform without even allowing readers to buy enough Ink to finish reading the stories they discovered there?

Shaving things down a decimal point, what is David Zaslov going to do with his golden parachute from ruining Warner Bros, a payout between $500-800 million depending on how you count it. He could feed hungry children, support libraries, save trees…and somehow, we know he won’t. 

Looking at all the money people are hoarding away, George Lucas spending $1-1.5 billion of his own money to build his own (undeniably cool) vanity project museum is the kind of public philanthropy no one seems interested in any more. 

I was talking about this with a comics lifer at Baltimore Comic Con’s post Ringo Award BarCon (perhaps the best BarCon on the circuit) and he noted that when the comics world talks about being a $2 billion industry…$2 billion is not really much money in today’s world. 

And then he said something that has stuck with me ever since. 

“But then, look what we’ve done with $2 billion,” he said, gesturing around the room. 

Although the activity of the industry at that very moment was drinking and schmoozing, I knew exactly what he meant. 

All the different publishers, so many hundreds of creators making every kind of comic, crowdfunding, webcomics, comic shops, collectibles, all the comic cons, all the awards, all the BarCons, all the panels, parties, symposiums, all the websites, YouTubes, discords, fanzines…

$2 billion can buy a lot. 

(In case you’re wondering, the European comics market is estimated at around $3.5 billion and Asia at about $9 billion. (Source.))

I was thinking about this when I came on Josh Johnson’s latest comic shop review, Fantom Comics in Washington DC. 

Johnson is one of the hottest comics out there, and apparently a big comics fan. He’s been making time on his tour stops to go into comic shops, just as a fun thing to do and to promote something he likes and enjoys. 

But I was struck at how natural and normal this seems now. It’s not like the old days when any attention to comics from a celebrity was cause for celebration in the fanzines and message boards of the time. It’s perfectly normal for people at every level of society to like and read comics and graphic novels. Johnson doesn’t have to explain what comics are, or explain why he likes them, or apologize for being a nerd, he just does it. 

Comics can just do it now. We’ve moved past the perhaps justified inferiority complex of the past and into a place where reading or making comics is a source of pride and not something you have to hide. Comics aren’t a guaranteed heartbreaker anymore. While I was doing my reading as a Sophie Castille Award judge, I was astonished at how many great comics I had never heard of, and how good they were. We’re telling better stories and making better art than we ever have before. 

Still, $2 billion isn’t enough. It’s not enough for creators. Making a LIVING doing this is still hard and uncertain, and every penny is hard earned. People stay in comics because they love it, not because it’s a goldmine, and that’s both it’s greatest strength and most glaring weakness. The US film industry is roughly a $94 billion industry in overall economic impact (according to Gemini), and the MCU alone has taken in $35 billion globally. That’s $35 billion derived from men and women who were making $100 a page, one page at a time. 

Looking back at my 40+ years in this industry, a lot of the things I dreamed about as a kid have come true in a more spectacular fashion than I could ever have imagined. (Yes I dreamed about graphic novels becoming the dominant format for comics as a teenager.) The US comics market is in a shockingly good place right now, and all the bankruptcy and tariffs haven’t put a crimp in it, yet. 

I find myself wondering how we can close the gap more, though. How can comics creators benefit financially from the tremendous potential of their imaginations and hard work? 

The system still needs a shake up. 

What would that shake up be? I have my own ideas, which I may or may not be able to write up before I get caught in the maelstrom of NYCC – which is estimated to have an economic impact of $80 million by the New York City Tourism + Conventions. Bureau, by the way. 

But what are your ideas? Where do we go from here? How do we make it a $4 billion industry? The comments are open. 

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8 COMMENTS

  2. I’d like to see more comics publishers think globally, beyond the comic shops while getting the comic shops to think and operate more like traditional bookstore retail. I know, there are some really great shops out there who are waaay ahead of the game. But in general, we will be in a Diamond Dependency Recovery for longer than anyone wants to admit. For the publishers, look at how First Second, and Scholastic Graphix promote and market their books. Not really that hard to steal their ideas. You cant afford to drop a book into the market 3 weeks before pub date. Why? Because you are competing with EVERYTHING. Here in this bookstore I constantly teach authors about the market competition: THERE ARE 407 NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY. Why is your book better? What are you doing to promote? And NO Just because ALEX ROSS did your cover does it mean the book is any good. Learn how libraries buy their books. They buy buckets of graphic novels from publishers who know how the system works. Those books are also non-returnable. And by the by, libraries are the reason we are even having this conversation. Back in 2003 the market was 35 million dollars and libraries were pretty much 95% of that revenue. It’s time to learn how the traditional publishing formulas work so you can figure out how to bend or break them.

  4. This is rich coming from a webcomic cartoonist but… webcomics have devalued comics a lot. Every time I bring this up I get piled on, and I don’t like the idea myself being in it, but we’re in a world where everyone under 20 has grown up in a world of free webcomics. AI bros themselves tell us we were idiots for filling the net for years with our stuff and making it so easy to scrape – hate them, and you should, but they’re not wrong. You pay for ALL other media, even comics off the shelf, but webcomics decided to skirt around the gatekeepers and in doing so, maybe broke a fence or two.

    It’s not hard to imagine a lot of younger people thinking “why would I buy comics when there’s so many free ones online?” Everyone always says they’re different audiences, okay, sure, but they don’t exist in a vacuum either.

    I read a LOT of webcomics (and I wish I could support ALL their patrons but I’m a webcomic artist myself) and the biggest argument for what webcomics does best is bringing us voices we would have never heard from before, specifically traditionally underserved groups. That has nothing to do with a healthy economic ecosystem though.

    Anyway, with Tapas going away and their corporate overlords going all in on AI, if Webtoon isn’t next I’ll eat my three day old underwear. A lot will get their own domains, a lot will find some other host, a lot will give up. AI is a part of webcomic fatigue I see settling in with so many creators, also social media making it hard to market yourself has forced people to get savvy or perish, but I think webcomics were almost at the point of collapsing in on themselves anyway. At what point is it too much? Just Webtoon alone offers too much.

    You can see creators now shifting from “like what you see? Join my patreon for exclusives!” To “Want to read ahead of everyone else?” As their main model to earn. It’s what I’m doing. Honestly, I wrestle every day with whether to keep them permanently behind a paywall. It makes it easy for others to undervalue me if it starts with me.

    Anyway. I think the Euro market is healthier because they pay liveable wages for artists to make gorgeous painted volumes once or twice a year that will be printed and reprinted over and over. North America has a glut, with a focus on “read now or miss the nerdy conversation!” And quite a lot of it is free.

    No need to doomscroll now. I have fulfilled your quota.

  5. I think a mature and diverse comic output is what will grow the market. If you look at the Japanese and Franco-Belgian manga/BD industries, you see titles to suit all tastes and a range of readers don’t think twice about picking a book up to read.

    At the moment English-language comics are dismissed as just superheroes (US) or for kids (UK). Metal Hurlant was a massive influence on the adult comic book boom, but we really need to take inspiration from the whole range of titles being produced elsewhere as that model is working.

    It’s something Pat Mills has been banging on about for decades and he has released French and German-language comics. Ram V’s Deicidium deal seems like a real game-changer, Image is just the partner for releasing the graphic novel series in English and other publishers are getting on board. Ignition Press’ output is also very diverse, there probably aren’t many people pulling the lot but they’ll soon have a back catalogue with something for most readers. Their business model seems focused on media adaptations but they have titles I could see doing well internationally – Prima Apparata seems suitably high concept with great art.

    The oil tanker of public opinion turns slowly, it may even require a generational shift, but the examples in the article suggest it is happening.

  6. cont….

    And on the generational change front: I was saying to a friend the other day that it looks like the next evolution of the comic book industry may come from the generation of writers who grew up reading the adult comic boom, like Ram V, Si Spurrier, Al Ewing, Dan Watters and Deniz Camp.

    One of Alan Moore’s main laments about the state of the industry (other than everyone seemed to scramble to exploit him) was that no-one had taken up his baton to and pushed the medium. There are counterarguments (he had first mover advantage, for example – there’ll never be another Watchmen) but he does have a point.

    The, mainly British, writers crafted in to widen his beachhead saw it as an opportunity to tell their own stories but the demands on them were for more of the same. They pushed back against it, subverted it, but they were always operating in Moore’s shadow. Other, mainly American, creators took a very surface reading of the success of works like Watchmen and doubled down in the “mature” grim and gritty feel, we know where that led us.

    As they say in science: progress happens one death at a time and perhaps it needed a new generation to come through with Moore in their DNA but also a feeling like “that was great and all, but 40+ years ago. How about we do it this way?’ This is what gives me hope for the future of English-language comics.

  7. The new gen comics creators did not grow up on capes and tights, they grew up on webcomics. They have created their own industry that has now become a farm system for the traditional publishing houses. For this current and the next gen comics creators it’s a wide open game. For the comics publishers who continue to follow the old rules, it’s time to tear up that play book. You can no longer ‘hope for a positive review from media outlets like The Beat, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Book Report, etc because the you need to earn them. Marketing and promotion are a critical line item in your production budget. Not a ‘maybe’ but a MUST HAVE. Otherwise, those outlets will continue to support publishers who buy advertising. Is that pay to play? To a certain degree, maybe. It’s part of doing business and it’s also an element that will mean better pay for your creatives and greater success for your house. Invest in the publications and you will have a better chance of thriving.

  8. Hi Heidi, thanks for the article, and for pushing the good vibe. This is an incredible time to be in the comics business, and I’m happy and proud to be a small part of it as a retailer.

    I do have some reservations about the $3.5 billion figure for Europe. The linked website looks rather carelessly assembled, and I couldn’t find clear sources or a transparent explanation of how those numbers were calculated. As a European retailer who regularly tries to find reliable market data, that estimate strikes me as much too high. France and Belgium obviously have a very strong comics market, and Italy, UK, Spain and the Netherlands are solid but most other European markets operate on a considerably smaller scale. I’d love to see a properly substantiated figure for Europe as a whole.

    I completely agree about comics’ enormous and continuing impact on the wider entertainment business, especially relative to the money in our own industry. On creator pay, I understand the $100 a page reference as a historical one. As a picture of current rates, though, I’d be cautious with it. I know quite a few creators earning considerably more who are far from the very top earners. My impression is that things have moved forward in that regard in recent years, too. Conditions at smaller publishers can certainly be rough, and creators absolutely deserve better compensation. But I’d also like us to give more attention to the growing business savvy and agency. Many creators have become very good at building audiences, marketing their work, and reaching readers directly through social media, newsletters, and other channels. Those tools existed five or even 10 years ago, of course, but I see more creators making effective use of them now.

    And one slightly contrarian point: I’m not sure the industry needs a shakeup. We’ve been hearing some version of that demand for as long as I can remember. When will comics finally break through? When will the thing that changes everything finally happen? Meanwhile, a lot is already happening. The growth of 20 or 30 percent year over year in physical products that Milton Griep mentions is extraordinary. And we’re seeing momentum across formats, including the ones that have supposedly been dying forever. Especially those! The monthly comic, pronounced dead a thousand times, is built around exactly the kind of recurring subscription model every app and business now wants. Sometimes you just have to stay outdated long enough to become fashionable again.
    One especially encouraging development over the past year or so is seeing readers cross over from manga to Western comics and vice versa. We’re also seeing more people mix formats: single issues, a manga volume, and an Absolute edition, all in the same order. A few years ago, we barely saw that in our orders. I wouldn’t call it the norm yet, but it’s definitely becoming more common.

    I think comics are well equipped for the future. And on the retail side I see enormous potential. Our job is to meet readers where they already spend so much of their time: online. There’s still a great deal of work to do in making comics easier to discover, buy, and keep coming back to. That’s something we’re working hard on at Walt’s, and I feel we’re helping open up some of those possibilities.

    Anyway, this is getting long, and I’m not here to advertise the shop ;). Your central point really resonated with me: we should be proud of what this industry has achieved. You also do great and important work, and I appreciate your dedication.

    Pity I missed you at NYCC. I would have loved to say hello. Heading back to Germany, but hopefully we’ll catch up in Glendale in February!

    All the best,
    Cristian (owner of Walt’s Comic Shop)

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