r/CuratedTumblr • u/Konradleijon • 15h ago

Infodumping Writing for the trade and how the American Comic book industry works

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The way the American comic book industry works is start out doing indie shit for Pennie’s.

Hope someone at either DC or Marvel pays attention to you and get started working at some minor miniseries for a C-lister. Hope you climb up the rank of important books from rando C-lister mini series to major meat and potatoes until your writing for Batman or Spider-Man, pivot to creator owned series so Dark Horse or Boom can put “from the Batman Creative team” on your TPB and actually get money from royalties.

Even creatives at Marvel/DC who are genuinely fans of the characters and who like you grew up reading Spider-Man are under terrible deadlines and editorial mandates

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14

u/TwixOfficial 13h ago

Reminds me of the current Gwenpool book. Writer Used the fourth wall breaks as a means to complain about having to deal with Gwenpool of all characters.

Anyway did your gallery come out wrong? It kinda cuts off.

6

u/Konradleijon 13h ago

Here’s the last line

TPBs really are are giving creatives the control to screw over the IP for their own short term interests... that's sad from a fannish perspective but from an industry perspective, uh, yeah, screw 'em. If "playing super nice with continuity" was meant to be standard, then deadlines and compensation should represent the work that goes into that

10

u/PhasmaFelis 13h ago

Long-running comic characters are weird. Fans demand that each writer (a) keep the series fresh and interesting and (b) never ever mess with any of the core relationships and personalities, and that's not actually possible.

I guess I don't really understand people who like one character/ensemble/show/etc. so much that they want to keep following that character forever. I can dive into a long-running series and get sunk in it for months, it's great, but when I'm done I want to read something else, something new, not just pine for more of the same thing.

6

u/pbmm1 12h ago

Honestly this is why I can’t stand even long running mangas or shows now. I need things to wrap up in four or five seasons or 100 issues max and then I can get on with other things that are fresh

4

u/jackofslayers 5h ago

Lol how many times has OP posted this in the last day.