[wintersforge]

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

Writing comics? Still the best job in
the world. I sit around all day making
shit up and see it illustrated, in 99%
of cases, exactly as I imagined it,
if not better. I've been doing this
a long time now, and I'm going to
do it until I die. Which probably
won't be long, given the constant
insane deadline pressure. But fuck
it. Anything worth doing takes work.
Some people do question if it's worth
it, given that the industry makes no
friends and takes no prisoners and
is not kind to people without the
chops or the commitment or a
thick skin. You know what? I've got
forty books out there that some
people wear on their fucking skin,
and I didn't manage that by arsing
around on the internet all day.

That's right. I managed it AS WELL
AS arsing around on the internet all
day. I have powers.

I had a good year in comics. FELL
worked. JONES reached its audience.
The Apparat books all sold out.
That's enough for me. I feel like I
achieved something this year. No
doubt people will argue, but fuck
them. Where's their books?

(Only in comics will a small amount
of pride in a year's work be taken
for stark arrogance.)

Did comics have a good year? It's
seemed slow, hasn't it? I haven't
seen a lot of stuff. But, this year:
SHARKNIFE? Rey just released a
preview of a new work on The Engine
and his LJ, and it's a quantum leap.
Hope Larson's SALAMANDER DREAMS.
The first issue of LOCAL. THE PUSH
MAN in an English-language
collection for the first time. I've
only skimmed the new Renee French,
but it looks gorgeous. Continuing
superb work on the web from Jeff
Rowland, R Stevens and PERRY
BIBLE FELLOWSHIP, FETUS X and
a bunch of others. And all of that
is just scratching the surface.

Not a bad year. I ask a lot of my
medium, and certainly a lot of things
could have gone better. But not a
bad year.

I'm still getting my arms around it,
to an extent. I still have concerns
about the major companies, and
even more about the indies. I have
the feeling that ground was laid
this year for some truly horrible
things to happen to the indie market
next year, and a lot of it will be of
their own doing.

And there have to be a lot of
conversations about marketing.
The old toolbox -- some of which I
helped create -- doesn't work so
well anymore. You can't just hit a
few message boards, get a
Newsarama puff piece and wait for
the money to roll in. I became more
aware of this a couple of weeks ago,
talking with Josh Fialkov, the writer
of ELK'S RUN, on The Engine. It was
the work of five minutes -- and
probably 15 years experience -- to
write him an ad that actually
communicated narrative context.
No slight on Josh -- not everyone's
mind works that way. But something
clearly must be done.

Anyway. Out of time. Ramble off.




---
Sent via mobile device
probably in the pub