spicy take: this ignatz really has me fired up and excited for a vision of comics not dominated and steered by sales departments and anticipated criticism

the upside of a resurgence of money into comics via book publishing has me fearing two things:

1. none of that money finding its way to the creators
2. corporate publishers unwilling to risk capital on challenging, culturally important work

i think many publishers now jumping into comics are smelling megabucks but do not understand the medium they want to sell, or the readers they want to sell to, and how that medium interacts with that readership

in a sales sense, it can be easy to categorize less "mainstream" comics as "niche". but i don't think they understand that maintenance of work challenging power is essential to the health of comics as a whole. (especially now.)

and i think approaching publishing from a sales-first perspective runs the risk of destroying what appeals about comic work to the general public in the first place: communication and meaning.

i'm not naive: it is a business, and book sales fuel the book publisher. what i do want to question is how the venn diagram of "what is lauded" and "what is marketable" never seem to cross. why look down on the audience like that? why self-fulfill that prophecy?

it behooves us as creators to question publishers on this point. if there is money to be had in graphic novels––and there certainly is, as has been proved––why are those resources not geared towards expanding the tastes of your readership?

sales-first/publicity-first acquisition is dangerous. we're feeding a picky infant here. i don't want everyone surprised when that young readership refuses to eat anything but the limited diet sold to them for years later, when we need them.

and publishing is absolutely squandering relations with a critical audience: the adults that grew up on comics who have very little options, and stop buying comics because they're For Children. there's so many opportunities there.

overall, this year's ignatz especially has me excited. (the talent, the vision, the boundary pushing!) i think there's great promise for comics in future. my concern, as of now, rests in book publishing rising to the ambitious vision of comic artists and comics readers.

comics are a bridge, an astonishing feat of communication. i've always believed that. the question, for me, remains: do they want money or do they want an industry

(and ps: how will you have any of this without properly paying, sustaining, and lauding the people who create these incredibly labor-heavy books for you?)