Comic Industry Quotes

There's nothing that could get me interested in Hollywood again. And, increasingly, there's nothing that could get me interested in the American comics industry again.

This is a profession for me, but I started off as a self-publisher working on my own schedule and my own stuff before moving on to graphic novels with First Second Books, where there was definitely a schedule, but it was very different from monthly comics.

Comic books themselves are getting more literate. And there are people who are screenwriters and television writers and novelists who are writing for the comics, for some reason, they love doing it and some of the art work in the comics, I mean it rivals anything you'll see hanging on the walls of museums, they're illustrations more than drawings and all the people are discovering this and they're turning on to it.

I've been a Marvel reader since I was just a kid, and I've dreamed of being a Marvel writer for almost as long, so being tapped to officially join the team is truly something.

The people who worked in comics were terrific guys. I had a good association with them, and I enjoyed comics for that very reason.

One of the things that kept most comics from being monthly was that very few artists could produce 24 pages per month. Jack Kirby was very much the exception to the rule, but his towering presence at Marvel started to dictate the whole shape of the industry - and that's where problems set in!

Being able to work in comics at all - I know I came into it from a different medium, but I'd like to stay here. It's not like a weird touristy thing for me.

I am the product of Denny O'Neil in many ways, I carry forth a lot of what Denny instilled in me.

There's immense fun to be had as long as you can sort of sneak it past DC. I have been told on occasion that I need to have more respect for these characters.

As a fan, I'm distraught, but as a cartoonist looking at new vacant spaces in 2400 newspapers, well, behind me, my cats are dancing a conga line.

The '90s was a great period for the fans that were collecting at that time. Comics sold at an all-time high and reached the largest audience in our modern age, and the energy in our business was fantastic. Any bad feelings from fans of that era were a result of the poor delivery of the product we sold them.

Did Alan Moore get screwed on his contract? Of course. Lots of people get screwed, but we still have Spider-Man and lots of other heroes.

Look at related industries. Concept art for games and film. Animation. Lots of places to hone your skill as an artist and still earn a paycheck while you're waiting to kick the door down. If you're stubborn though, and you absolutely must draw comics because it's your life's dream (and I don't blame you...) you just better make sure you've got something special.

Ever since I'm done with Zim everyone thinks that I'm going to go back to comics. I've been flooded with emails asking me if I'm working on the new Johnny over and over again.

I do enjoy them. I get to meet the next generation of comics and help them out. Big comics doing small shows was something that used to happen a lot more back in the day. I wish there was more of that.

I never thought I would work in mainstream superhero comics or Valiant or Marvel. I just set out to make the kinds of stories I wanted to make, which at the beginning was small personal stuff like 'Essex County.'

I knew I really wanted to work in comics in 1979.

My wife, Caroline Spector, and I pitched some comic ideas to various publishers back in the '80s, but nothing ever came of it.

I'm going to take over on the Techno Comics so I'm going to be dealing in the children's merchandising type department. But that's just setting it up and having somebody run it.

Some people are worried about the future of comics and some people are busy building it. That latter group are my heroes.

I want to point out to adults that there is a world of good material available to you now in comic form - in this medium - and learn to give it your support because the more you support it, the better the material will be as it comes out.

When I first came to comics, it was, like, dudes. The feeling, the air, the presence is overwhelmingly male.

There are a lot of people in the medium who came and got into the industry and work in the industry, and these are people who were raised on comics and loved comics. Comics are their religion. To such an extent, that they don't know anything else.

In real life, I knew that fandom was made up of women, and women of color, and women of all ages. But on the publishing side of comics, it was a lot of white, straight men. It was often jarring to me to be the only women at a meeting or at a panel at a comic-con. Fortunately I had mentors who were not blinded by my gender and who said, "Yes, we know you can write these books." That hasn't been the case for everyone. What gives me great hope is that in the eight to nine years since I've started, I've seen tremendous growth.

I'm only 24 so I like to think I'm still close enough to 17 to still remember what it was like. Besides, I could just fake it and get away with it... it's not like there are any teenagers that still read comics.