Wow, I am guessing that person has never had to write, draw, edit and publish a comic let alone a graphic novel or 500 page book! Let's not get bogged down in the editorial process. I miss the days of slapping art onto a photocopier and job done. Oddly, not just on day business trips but also Westminster Comic Mart days, London copier shops did a fair amount of business with me!
In the 1980s, the Golden Age of the Small Press not just in the UK but world wide, we publishers (oh that sounded so grand) sent each other copies of our latest work and I recall on one occasion asking two publishers if they had 2-3 pages to complete my next project and within a week I had 20 odd pages from people all over the country and all they wanted in return was a copy of the mag with their work in. These days that is impossible and let's not get distracted over the reason why. Let's just say that ego and the fantasy of being the next great creator to see his/her work turned into a TV series or movie has changed things
I still do cut and paste as it allows for a lot of creative freedom and page design. Big Ben Dilworth was someone who tried a lot of design methods and his 1986 Picasso Cafe still stands out decades later. But then so does his Letter To Siberia (1984) and both can be seen on Zine Zone:
Picasso Cafe
A Letter To Siberia
I fondly recall a warm, sunny day on the verge of Dame Emily Park in Bristol as one or two dog walkers stopped to watch us spray paint (car paint) acetate covers using stencils for Previews Comic -which incidentally got more than a few British creators work in comics. Even photocopying on to acetate for his One Bright September Evening (I will need to check that title as it was so long ago!!).
At that time (1980s) we had a number of comic marts in Bath, Bristol and Swindon and when I say comic marts I mean comics with comic sellers as well as Small Pressers -the main one being Zine Zone represented by (if he could lift himself from the chez longue) Paul Ashley Brown, Darron Rolf Travers Northall (who was sadly attacked and eaten alive by frogs on Novers Hill in 1990) and occasionally, Ben Dilworth whose selling techniques were very slick ("Buy this Zine, son and you'll become a goddam sexual tyrannosaurus just like me!"...and it worked).
The Bristol International Comic Expo was another venue but tables costing a lot more than you could make from selling zines.
These days you "have to be on the list" for an event and believe me they are not comic events any more. People all wanting to be the next big "graphic novelist" and selling badges, posters and...well, anything other than comics and zines. Being told that "your books look too professional" and having them rather aggressively pushed about by another table owner is bad enough but when people are visibly scared to touch publications it gets ridiculous. If you watch You Tube (ad crazy money grubbing as it has become) you will see certain people complain that there were a lot of comics but few toy sellers. The clue is in the title of the event "Comic Con" -too subtle?
Also Cosplay seems to take up more time and space than comics.
There are people outside the UK who find it near impossible to believe that, after 40+ years Black Tower is never invited to UK events. I have a couple offers from the United States but that is just far too expensive and I do not fly (except that time I slipped on the top step and I thought I had become Superman).
You can be established and have over 200 titles available, you can have promoted British comics history, comics and the Small Press for decades but here is the reality: it means nothing. Does all of this "rake in" the money? No. Not enough to live on or pay for all the work on the books and pay contributors -my books sell and I pay US taxes as my print on demand company is in the US and they wait until the £-$ exchange rate is in their favour (oh they love us publishers😏
So, no, I cannot just sit back and let all the money flow in unless it is a fantasy in my head. Perhaps we need small comic marts to start again and not ones where only your mates and hangers on can get tables?
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