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There are two parts to being a professional comics creator. The first part, as implied by the "creator" aspect, is to actually create comics. Seems obvious enough, right? The second part, as implied by the "professional" aspect, is to make money from comics. After all, that's really what distinguishes an amateur from a professional -- an amateur, by definition, does not get paid for their work. So to be a professional comics creator, you need to figure out how to create comics AND get paid for them.

Most creators, I think, focus on the creation side of things. In many respects, this makes sense. You have to learn how to create something before you can get paid for it, after all. Furthermore, a lot of creators create because they love to do it; so it makes sense that they'd want to spend time practicing and learning how to do it better. There's also an argument to be made that if you do something well enough, the money side of things sort of takes care of itself. (That's false more often than true, but it's a nice thought if you don't want to deal with the money side.)

But the "professional" side needs to happen too. Whether that's figuring out how to market and sell your own independent book, or how to read a contract from Marvel or DC, or just filing your taxes, it's a significant aspect to making comics professionally.

I have a Bachelor's degree in graphic design and a Master's degree in business. I've been working in marketing for most of the past quarter century. So ostensibly I know a bit of what I'm talking about.

And yet I'll be damned if I do!

There are comics out there that I think are fantastic, and the creator is doing all the "right" things in marketing/promoting their work, and it just doesn't seem to spark anyone's interest. There are others that I don't think are very good and don't seem to be marketed well, but people seem to just keep throwing money at them! And of course, there's all sorts of variations in between.

Which suggests to me that either comics run by different "rules" than anything else that's ever been marketed, or I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Given that I've never been able to make any money off my comics work, I tend to think the latter.

So, my best advice to aspiring comic professionals is to not listen to what I have to say and instead find someone who's doing what you think is a good job. Then don't just try to copy them, but ask them what they're doing and why.
Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: On Business: Room for All

Kleefeld on Comics: On History: Jack Kirby, A Personal Journey Review

Patreon: MTV Geek Classic: Kleefeld on Webcomics #30: Another Start

Kleefeld on Comics: Weekly Comics Links

Kleefeld on Comics: On -isms: Just Ask

Patreon: MTV Geek Classic: Kleefeld on Webcomics #31: Dawn of the Digital Era

Kleefeld on Comics: On Strips: The Royal Gazette
I was in Bermuda recently for a family wedding and, at one point picked up the Saturday edition of The Royal Gazette, the island's only daily newspaper. Naturally, I turned right to the comics and I wound up being surprised and puzzled by what I found there.

When I came to the page labeled "Colour Comics and Games", I saw the following strips: Dennis the Menace, Pardon My Planet, Hocus-Focus, Family Circus, Bizarro, Garfield, Curtis, Zits, Tundra, Mutts, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, and Mother Goose & Grimm. The page isn't particularly unusual or different from most newspaper comics sections, with perhaps Tundra being a slight outlier since it's syndicated by its artist Chad Carpenter and not through a corporate syndicate.

The next two pages were where my surprise started. First of all, that it had more than one page dedicated to comics! Second, aside from featuring a number of puzzles (including two different crosswords!) there was a week's worth of Slylock Fox and a Phantom Sunday strip from about two weeks prior. The newspaper doesn't publish on Sundays, so I presume they wind up treating the Saturday paper as a kind of expanded weekend edition. I know Slylock Fox is available in color, so I'm not sure why it's run in black and white; perhaps something to do with the licensing deal that allows them to run a full week's worth at once? But stranger, if you can see by the photo, The Phantom is also run in black and white, even though it appears they had the color version available. It's not just line art they're running. Further, it looks like they dropped the black plate and ran only the cyan, magenta, and yellow ones... but just using black ink. I can't figure out why/how that might come about, either accidentally or intentionally.

But there's yet another page and half of comics! (With the remaining half page devoted to horoscopes and a third crossword puzzle!) The comics here are: Popeye, Pickles, Between Friends, Slylock Fox, Hagar the Horrible, Baby Blues, Snuffy Smith, Tiger, 6 Chix, Carpe Diem, The Lockhorns, Hazel, Candorville, Calvin & Hobbs [sic], Dilbert, Curtis, Doonesbury, Mother Goose & Grimm, For Better or For Worse, Mutts, and Peanuts. As you might note, I had already mentioned several of those titles. The ones on this page are from different days -- most of these were from the date of the paper, while the previous ones were from three weeks prior! And more strangely, the titles that appeared in color a few pages earlier were run in black and white here; whereas Slylock Fox, which was in black in white on the preceding pages, was in color here.

By my count, only four of all those comics were ones originally intended to run on the day of the paper, one was a rerun from about two and a half years earlier (I believe Darren Bell was off that week and ran older strips), four were reruns from a decade or more earlier, and the rest all came from between two and three weeks before. As far as I can tell, there's no rhyme or reason to why some are new strips and some are old, or why some are in color and some are not. Some of the new ones are in color, some of the new ones aren't. The color strips are from different syndicates and the black and white ones are from some of those same syndicates. The old ones are mostly dated August 21, but there are also ones from August 22, 23, 24, 26, and 27. (Nothing from the 25th!)

For the record, I'm not upset by any of this; I'm actually pleased to see they were able to devote so much space to comics! But I am confused as to how they landed on this particular selection of comics. Anyone have any ideas on... well, any of this?
I get it. You're a cis hetero white guy, and your woke friends and acquaintances on social media are telling you in a variety of ways that you need to be more conscious about making your characters more diverse. You understand and appreciate that. Sincerely. But at the same time, you're nervous because you don't want to fuck it up. You've seen any number of creators get raked over the coals because they tried doing something similar and got it wrong. I've talked to creators who've expressly said that. That they actively avoided minority representation because they felt safer among the mass of other white guys not showing diversity than standing out by putting some diversity in their work that had the potential of coming across as tokenistic or tone deaf or what have you.

Now if you happen to have a lot of friends or relatives who fall into some minority category, you might feel more comfortable with dropping in more diverse characters. "I'll write this guy as if he's my friend Levon, and this other character would act a lot like my cousin Jasmine." Those folks have a better point of reference. It goes back to that study that shows 75% of white Americans don't know any people of color.

So, even if you're well-intentioned, what can you do?

You follow my friend Steve's example...

Within an hour, he had a response. A few more followed over the next day or three.

See how easy that was? If you have a question, just ask! Even if you're off-base, people will respect that you're trying to do right by them and will try to provide constructive feedback.

Maybe this time it's about hair. Maybe next time it's about a dialect. Maybe the time after that it's something about family gatherings. But every time you ask, you get a better, clearer picture and can infuse that into better, more informed, more believable characters.

And that's what you want as a creator, isn't it?
I've been writing for The Jack Kirby Collector for over a decade now, and been studying Jack and his work longer than that. And in all that time, I've probably seen an hour -- maybe two -- of video footage where Jack speaks. He gave plenty of interviews and spoke to untold hundreds of people in his lifetime, but very little of that was committed to film.

Even so, I was skeptical when I heard that Glenn B. Fleming was making a DVD of some of his time talking with Jack back in 1991, just a few years before Jack's death. I didn't doubt that Fleming's footage was authentic, but I thought, "What am I going to get out of it?" as it didn't sound like it was any more than just some random footage of Jack rambling about whatever.

After watching Jack Kirby: A Personal Journey, I think it's smart that's what Fleming is essentially billing it as. The whole DVD is a little under an hour, and half of it is Fleming explaining how he came to meet Jack with the other half being lightly-edited video camera footage as Jack talks in his studio. The production quality of the whole thing is better than just converting old film footage to a digital platform, but not by a whole lot.

Which is perfectly fine for what this is.

Fleming's story isn't critical to watching the footage itself, but it does provide some nice anecdotes and Jack and Roz's personality and demeanor. And the footage of Jack, too, doesn't reveal any great insights about the man or his work. He does relay a few anecdotes I'd never heard before, like flying upside-down over the Chrysler Building and hanging up on NASA, but there's little in the way of great revelations. The video does more to showcase his demeanor and attitude and character, particularly outside a strictly comic setting as most of the other existing footage of him focuses on. It is cool to see his mantle with an Alley Award and a Yellow Kid award next to some fan art and photos of his kids, but the grainy quality of the footage is such that, by and large, you can only make out what you already recognize.

I think Fleming is sincere when he says that he enjoyed reviewing the footage for himself and just wanted to share it with others. It's not designed to be a mass market product, and I think the audience for this is probably limited to regular readers of The Jack Kirby Collector. (After all, if you're just interested in hearing what Jack sounded like, there other videos on YouTube for free.) I didn't get a lot of concrete information that I didn't already know, and Jack doesn't say anything especially profound here, but I still enjoyed spending some time with an amazing talent that I never had the chance to meet on my own.

Fleming is selling DVD copies of the movie from his website for $20 US/£12 UK.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of comic and book publishers out there. And millions upon millions of people who buy and/or read those comics and books. Not every book is for every reader. Not every publisher is for every reader. And whether that's because you, as a reader, don't like the specific content being published, or because you, as a consumer, don't abide by the principles or morals of the writer or publisher is irrelevant. You are not going to buy/read every book out there. There's just too much.

In fact, maybe there's so much out there that there are books being published that literally no one but the author has read. I mean, statistically, that has to have happened, right? Somebody had an idea for a book, sat down to write it, self-published the thing, and then found out that absolutely no one was interested. And while that probably was emotionally disappointing, perhaps even angering, to the author, that really hurt no one. Some lost time and money on the part of the author, but that's pretty much it.

What about those books which have a really small audience? Maybe 100 people or less. Still valid, right? Same for 1000 or 10,000 or 100,000. Unless the book is actively advocating hurting or killing people, what's the harm in any publisher putting out whatever books they want.

So, yeah, obviously, I'm talking about the little dust-up around Yoe Books from last week. I don't know Craig Yoe; zero personal interactions with him. I've got a handful of his books, including some of the Big Boy comics when he did those back in the 1990s. None of them are really "high art" but they're not trying to be either.

I've heard people disparage Craig Yoe for around a decade now. Mostly complaints that he's self-centered, and more interested in promoting himself than anything else. As I said, I've never met him so I don't know how he acts in person, but I can see how his branding efforts look like that. But my thinking is... "Whatever. If he puts out something I'm interested in, I don't really give a shit if I might get along with him in person or not."

When I was first studying comics fandom, I found there was really only one guy writing specifically on comics fandom at the time. I bought some of his books, read through them, and then reached out because I had some additional questions. He did respond, but mostly by suggesting I buy his other books. The handful of other interactions I've had with him were similar, so I don't bother reaching out any more. He comes across as a salesman who doesn't want anything to do with you unless you give him money. I still buy some of his books, but I gave up trying to have any meaningful discussions or dialogue with him.

And that's okay.

He's not doing anything to hurt me or others, so he can keep publishing whatever he likes. It impacts me not at all.

If I find one of his books useful or entertaining, I might write up a positive review. If I find one trite or poorly done, I might write up a negative review. But it's about the work, not the individual. Same with Yoe Books. I might write a positive review of a book if I find it entertaining, and a negative one if I don't care for it. Although, more than likely, I wouldn't bother with a negative review because life is too short to worry about bad comics.

I know some people are out there thinking comics should be universally praised as "high art" and they're still defensive about years of a derogatory perception, but let it go, man! Not all art is for all people; just because a book doesn't meet your standards of what the medium should strive for doesn't mean you should attack those who don't agree with your standards. It's a big enough field that there's room for everybody.