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…so our thought was that the only way anyone would believe us when we said our book would be coming out monthly would be to wait until the art was completed, and then solicit the first one. That meant that, to me, by the time readers had a chance to buy #5 in the stores, #1 would have been completed for a year.

That was a long twelve months for me to wait to get feedback on our comic, believe me.

How does this not wholly self-indulgent walk down memory lane have any bearing on the jumbled discord that is the Comic Book Industry 2001?

Simple: just remember that there is a whole army of people each trying their damndest to entertain a comic book reading audience. From the writer of Crapfest Monthly , who’d always dreamt that he’d get paid to think up adventures for his favorite characters, to the artists and inkers, to the colorists and letterers, to the graphic designers and marketing pitchmen, to the ad sales guys, to the copywriters to the fulfillment guys to the administrative folks to the printers and their team and the distributors and their guys and the retailers all across the country still braving an uncertain economy....

…all because they love comics.

Well.

There aren’t a lot of oil can store owners waking up every morning who can’t wait to get to work because they love the oil cans.

There are a whole lot of people working together to seamlessly bring you your top-quality comic books, and there are a whole lot of pins that need to fall just right to make it smoothly from an idea in somebody’s head to a finished comic in your hands.

But when that happens, it’s like bringing Order out of Chaos.

I love it when a plan comes together.

How Comics Got Their Groove Back May 18, 2001

If you’ve read Steven Grant’s excellent column this week, you’ll remember that we had a meeting in Las Vegas.

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