Comics Ought to Be More Mainstream:
Why I Chose to Self-Publish With Amazon and How it’s Gone for Me

I have to admit, I don’t always enjoy telling people that I make comic books. Not because I’m embarrassed, but because there seems to be a general lack of public awareness as to what a comic book actually is. So I usually have to do a bit of explaining, and even when I do, I rarely feel like the person I’m talking to ends up with an accurate idea of what I’m describing. I sense that when most people hear the words “comic book”, they imagine the typical DC or Marvel superhero stuff because, well, that’s what dominates the market. Not that there’s anything wrong with those books, but they aren’t the type of work that I create and their audience is not the same audience I hope to attract. You see, I like to create animation-inspired all-ages comedy. While there have been a few great examples of successful all-ages books like Amulet or Bone, I’ve always imagined that such books could find a wider audience. An audience like that of the newspaper strips in their heyday. Largely thanks to Pixar, animated films have been able to branch out and find that sort of broad appeal, but no comic has yet to do so, and I believe this is largely due to the way the public perceives the comic medium. I find this particularly strange because comics, at least comic strips, have been around longer than film. Will comics ever rise to the level of cultural prominence enjoyed by the likes of film and literature? I believe they may and that the current shifts in technology and how we take in media may have a lot to do with it.
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While at the Boston Comic Con Mr. Dante Luna took the opportunity to interview legends Frank Quitely, Adam Hughes, Art Adams and Joe Kubert about working in comics. Breaking in and what it’s like once you are in. Well worth the watch.

via YouTube

As a freelance writer working from home setting up a schedule for yourself is up to you. See how Chew creator and writer John Layman spends his day.

Chew creator John Layman talks about his responsibilities as an editor while he was at Wildstorm and what his life is like as a comic book writer.

Sometimes the path to your place in the world of comics is long and circuitous. For John Layman he was able to parlay a job editing for Wildstorm into writing comics.