On the whole, and this comment can get me in a lot of trouble, I find that retailers in the comic book business are not business people. They're fans who've gotten themselves shops.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Comics are printed on paper, which is expensive, making it tough to stay in business.
The comic book world is a tough business.
It may be true that the only reason the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise.
Alternative cartoonists have to rely on comic book stores to get their stuff in the hands of readers.
At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, after as much success as you can get, is really interesting.
I love the medium and I love individual comics, but the business is nothing I would be proud of.
I don't buy comics anymore, for the most part. I eat my lunch off of them.
In America, there's a very long tradition of a comic strip that comes in newspapers, which is not true all over the world. To sell papers, they put color comics in.
I've never been to Comic-Con, but I'm certainly aware from this side of the Atlantic that it's a very important part of film marketing now, even when the films are not directly linked to a comic.
It's business, selling comics, you work out what sells and you don't want to muck about with it too much.