It’s a weird time in comics retail, and maybe even a weirder time for those making original comics. Where it gets even more challenging those two spaces is when the two are fused together, as it’s an increasingly tough sell for retailers to buy into original ideas in comics that don’t come with baked in … Continued

The comics you read and the comic experiences you have early on in your life often form the building blocks of your relationship with the medium. Obviously what you’ll enjoy expands from there, but for readers, those earliest experiences can be enormously influential on you going forward. It’s the same for our favorite creators. Some … Continued

James Tynion IV might be the winner of three straight Eisner Awards for Best Writer, but he’d be the first to admit it: he wouldn’t be where he is without his collaborators. Tynion works and has worked with some of the most electric talent in comics, whether you’re talking Álvaro Martínez Bueno on The Nice … Continued

It’s an interesting time in the comics space, and certainly an interesting one to lunch a new publishing venture. There are challenges facing each level of the industry — especially on the direct market side of things — and it can be difficult for anyone to find the right answers from the menu of options … Continued

There has been a lot of talk of late about the challenges the direct market — aka the side of the comic industry comprised of comic shops — is facing right now. That’s for a good reason: it’s a super weird time! Discussing the problems of the industry is a good and important conversation to … Continued

Sales charts have been a big topic of conversation in comics of late. That’s for a good reason. In this multi-distributor era, they simply don’t exist in the direct market. That means publishers know how much their titles are being ordered, but they don’t know how they’re doing relative to other publishers or how specific … Continued

It’s time once again for one of my monthly chats with writer James Tynion IV, as the ongoing SKTCHDxTiny Onion interview series continues with a subject both James and I have thought about a whole lot: first issues, and what goes into making one of those pop. This conversation explores the crucial elements of a … Continued

Being a comic creator is a job. That’s something we as fans and readers can forget sometimes. It isn’t the totality of your being. Writing Batman or Spider-Man is not your identity. It’s a thing you do. We know that, of course. But sometimes it feels forgotten that creators are people, first and foremost, and … Continued

On Panel is a recurring text-only sister series to Off Panel, my weekly comics interview podcast, in which each interview features two or more guests as I attempt to simulate the idea of a panel conversation from a conversation. By that I mean it’s a moderator – myself – guiding a free-flowing conversation between multiple … Continued

This one’s been coming for a bit. Variant covers are one of the most polarizing concepts in direct market comics, and writer James Tynion IV is one of the deftest deployers of the concept on his varying creator-owned projects. That’s why when James first pitched me the idea of our SKTCHDxTiny Onion interview series, “variant … Continued