How's the comic reality/work in your countries?

[Klaustasya]

I'm interested about knowing how publishing comics in your countries works with Pro's and Con's.

Example: I'm from italy and i don't have any pratical experience with italian publishers, but from what i saw in many italian webcomics/comics facebook groups where most of the emergents comic artists gather around i think i grasped a bit of the working situation:

1) Being under a publisher is the ultimate dream of every comic artist of my country, but those who are already in some of them (i'm speaking for the euromanga community) they don't seem very satisfyed, mostly because dealing with publishers is a pain, their selections are strict af and their criterias are a mystery as well, they can be problematic people as well and compromise with them is not easy (if they decide to publish your comic without changing anything is considered the luckiest thing that could happen to you.)

2) Published contents from manga publishers (literally just 6 companies) are...cringy. Favorites one are old manga styles with super bug eyes, spiky hair and no-existent noses (which is kind of an old-fashioned style for me at least) and the plots are so cheap, mainstream and cheesy xD and i don't even wanna talk about the tropes (just read the "least favorite tropes" topic here and well they are all there haha!) So the overall quality of these works is very low in my opinion.

3) Self-publishing, which automatically means self-promoting later, is super hard. Everybody tries that way once and is very stressing because competition is big and strong. You're totally alone in this.

4) Most of the emergent authors just aim to "tell about their personal stories" and i can't agree on this for various reasons, i don't know...surely some readers can relate to this authors' stories but literally 80% of theme only want to talk about themselves.

5) Italy is pretty "dirty" when it comes to get a job, the easiest way is to get it through recommendation, which is pretty unfair. But is a country going through economical crisis..

6) Unless you spread out of the italians boundaries and publish your stuff in other countries as well, you won't become enough famous to make a decent living out of it. You MUST support yourself with other jobs as well.

Can't think about anything else now, if some countrymen here want to add new things or correct me (mine as just assumptions) feel free to do it

Now tell me more about your countries, guys!

[monotone_ink]

In Australia's comic field, there's a bunch of ＮＯＴＨＩＮＧ．
No one in Kangaroo land cares about comics.

[sushy00]

There was a comic scene in the Netherlands but it seems to be slowly dying and it is mostly in the south of the country.

[Shanny8]

I'm in the US, where "skies the limit" on what you can do with comics/webcomics/indiecomics; if the audience loves your product, then you can do whatever. Though indie comic creators & webcomic creators have spent decades looming in the shadows of the "Big 2"(Marvel & DC), the past number of years have been a breakthrough- technological advances(programs like Photoshop, Sai, & Clip Studio/Manga Studio and digital print on demand) have made webcomic creating and indie printing a LOT more lucrative and rewarding...plus the increase in conventions as well. So now you have a group of creators who "dont aspire" to be picked up by a big time publisher or "go work for the Big 2" because they know they can create their own material that will sell itself.

Self publishing is hard here as well, but if you have a comic that readers love, they will support it.

The only downside is a small percentage actually reaches the plateau where they can support themselves full time with their comics and art. The rest usually have to divide their time between working a job that can pay their bills/debts and using comics as a part time career or "side hustle". I'm one of the latter- there are days where it doesnt bother me working a FT gig coz I know I'll always be able to pay my bills and in my case, extra money from my FT job funds a lot of my comics endeavors..but there are times when I wish my audience was more so that I could bask in the glow of knowing that my comic/story can be more than what it currently is. I have days where creating comics is VERY rewarding- and days where it's not so rewarding as well...I'm kind of satisfied with where I'm at in this point, because with careful planning and a little(LOT) of perseverance, I can do more with my comic creating journey.

[Wumbl]

In the UK it's like... yeah there's nothing for us. Our economy is in shambles and we have very few publishing companies. Most creators are self-publishing but without a following overseas it's not easy to make a living on it.
My biggest aspiration at the moment would be my own publishing company - I kind of wanna reignite the love of comics here, and bring out some new stuff. I wanna help artists feel a bit more stable and be revolutionary and all that. (but as I said, my economy is bad... it's hard to even get by on my 9-5 let alone start something up)
One up side for me is that my area (the south-west) is the country's capitol of new business start-ups and there are a lot of success stories. (my parents managed to start their own business in music here) It takes time to get the necessary funding but it helps to have the right environment.

Typically you have to make a place for yourself here. It's a small country and the only way to get ahead is on your own time.

[kalrhungus]

germany is dead! i haven't even read one german publication in years because nothing interesting gets published.

[fleohr]

Seekers Log

This is the only german comic I know on LW

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I agree with @Shanny8. The US is a great place for indie comic artists; the sky's the limit. Besides, the mainstream comic industry still has problems with sexism, I've read...just one more reason to forget the Big 2 and strike out on your own. YouTube and social media are powerful marketing tools, even some DeviantArtists earn good money. It's hard to get there, but it's not rare and certainly not impossible.

[bakasama25]

The only comics I know of that are from the UK are 2000AD (with that Judge Dredd) and Dennis the Menace.

[seru]

I'm from the US and the comic and manga market are getting bigger. If you pick a nice niche, you'll find audience who are willing to pay for your content.

From my experience, you just need to separate yourself from the rest. There's an over-saturation of content, and readers are looking for more specific things.

Conventions play a vital role for self-publishing. We self-publish all our books, and cons are a great place to market and sell our stuff.

So far, we've been very profitable, and we're just starting. Next year, I'm hoping to expand by adding more content and artist under our start-up publishing group.

Good luck to you!

[lunaartemisasama]

Most of the comic authors I know self publish or they associate and print fanzines or similar and sell them in cons.

The only one person I know that works fo Marvel was discovered because of his social media. But I mean he has like 1000 followers no more (and probably part of it after the news that he works for Marvel lol) but his drawings are pretty amazing and detailed.

There are not editorials that specializes in making comics per se but if you are good maybe they can hire you to illustrate books.

The good part is that is cheap to self-publish. You just print some copies with laser and that´s it.

I am not sure about the "recommendations" part, but networking is always good. As long as is not illegal and they don't ask you for things in return XD.

[erma]

I live in Ontario, Canada, and the comic community is pretty large over here! I'm in a city just outside of Toronto, and go there quite often. Toronto's got a lot of events relating to indie comics and creators, one of the biggest ones being TCAF, where comic and zine artists can showcase their work and meet new people. I'm not sure how it is in terms of working with publishers, but a lot of people self-publish and have stuff like Patreon and Ko-Fi.

The Gaming and Animation industry has a lot going on in Canada, and there's a lot of art schools around my area too! It can get really competitive, but for the most part, it's been a positive experience. A lot of students over here have some kind of webcomic or side project in the works - it's really exciting!

[Rowein]

I live in Chile and the comic community is quite active for some years. Small publishers have come out that only dedicate to publishing national comics and lately several artists have joined book writers, so that the market has expanded (many people who come from literature have begun to read comics).

But the environment is very small and publishers usually publish their friends or known people, so you have to make a space between them. In addition, publications are usually made "for the love of art," that is, little money is earned.

There is also the factor that the government finances some projects thanks to a program by the ministry of culture. But to win it, you have to follow its editorial line, which focuses on cultural heritage and historical issues (there are many comics of a political nature or referring to native peoples).

But there are many, many good cartoonists (real good) who have begun to publish online and generally in english to cover more public.

As an experience, I can tell you that I have published a couple of comics with editorials from here, and although it was a very nice job, I didn't get rich thanks to that :_)

[NickRowler]

I live in the US. I walk past a comic book shop on my lunch break. I think the biggest issue is that most of the stuff in the shop tends to be Superheroes, Manga, and kids stuff. Foreign and indie stuff are off to the side and a lot smaller. There was also a comic shop in the mall that only lasted about a year. It was empty most of the time and it could be sort of the problem with the traditional store format. The comic store in New York City had a lot more people but about half the shop was dedicated to non-comic merch.

I read most of my comics at the public and school library, which I think is what most younger readers do now a days. When it came to buying comics, in recent years, I just ordered them online because they were not in the comic shops.