Let Webcomic People Do Webcomic Things
Originally I had kind of viewed Manga is being essentially superior to the American Comics form, at least in terms of storytelling. Certainly it seemed like American Comics had many less genres than Manga did. Then I found out about two things: Bande Dessinnees and Alternative Comics. Alternative Comics being “Post Underground” comics. Although this has its own issues: much of these are inspired by Charlie Brown and other comic strips. Which is fine, except the comic strip form has never been a format I found appealing.
I’m finding out about of lot of thing, while Comicsgate talks about the issues present in the American comics industry. Although there does seem to be a lot of smaller genre publishers these days: I already knew about Antarctic and Zenescope. I had recently found out about Aftershock and Heavy Metal. Although while having a similar genres to what I do, I feel like an important element is missing.
It’s sort of like comparing Hollywood Science Fiction and Philip K Dick at that point. So I’m stuck in this weird situation, where the more I branch out and hone my drawing skills, it seems like the more flaws about American and Japanese comic publishers become apparent. But I also absolutely refuse to toe the line with what disgusting people over in Comicsgate are saying, as “political” writing isn’t the problem. Badly written political writing is the problem. Not every work of political fiction is propaganda. And yet it seems like this is who we are leaving the US comics industry too.
Honestly I wish I had solutions, but there doesn’t seem to be lot of options other than self-publishing. And Comicsgate are trying to create a monopoly in the Crowd-Funding space, when Crowd-Funding doesn’t even appeal to me as a creator. Webcomics by their nature take a lot time to finish, and I kind of resent being made to feel like crowd-funding is the only option for me.
Please just let webcomic people do webcomic things.