Chris Arrant | Comics &amp; Pop Culture Strategist

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Image Comics is well-known for not paying page rates. Creators bring the work, retain ownership, and get the lions share of any profits. But Image has also quietly offered advances to some creators since at least 2008. (1/5)

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Image has also been known to agree to exclusive deals with certain creators. Both advances and exclusivity are interesting wrinkles in its model, particularly as competition among publishers for specific books and sought-after creative talent has ramped up since the '00s. (4/5)

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There's a bigger biz story here about how Image competes for talent while maintaining its co-op, creator-owned identity. Who gets advances, what exclusivity means in practice, & how these arrangements are financed could tell us a lot about how the publisher is evolving. (5/5)

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I've heard three stories about how that financing came together, and the one I feel strongest about is one of the most generous stories I've heard in comics (but its not my story to tell, yet.). (2/5)

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The significance of an advance is simple: it gives creators money before the comic earns it. For a publisher built around creators taking the financial risk, that's a meaningful distinction. (3/5)

A late '90s DC Comics commercial the publisher shared with retailers for local co-op advertising. @dc.com

A Good Ol’ Daedelus Brown. strip by Stuart Immonen.

13h

A Clayface poster by Purgatory Funeral Cakes webtoon creator Sanho.

14h

This weekend, I’ll be participating in SCAD's Comic Arts Forum in Atlanta as I begin a new chapter mentoring their sequential art students. I’ll be sharing insights on navigating the comics industry, building a career, & making a living creating comics.

19h

A 1981 Fred Hembeck comic strip going over the Captain Marvel/DC issues, and the Marvel name being co-opted by Marvel Comics.

20h

Becky Cloonan's art for the second volume of East Coast Rising from TOKYOPOP, which was never finished.

21h

Stepping back, what makes Cannon interesting is his range. From the muscular comedy of Beef Bros to the superhero absurdity of The Schlub to the velocity of vampire vs. nazis in Operation: Iron Coffin, .... (4/?)

21h

... he adapts his visual storytelling to the material without losing his sense of motion, character, or personality. In each, the premise gets you to open the book, but Cannon is the reason people are enjoying the comic. (5/5)

21h

Replying to @chrisarrant.bsky.social

There's a term in comic called the page-turner panel; the idea is that the last panel of every page should work to compel you to turn the page. With Operation: Iron Coffin, he does this in almost every panel, not just the last one on each page. (3/?)

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Now... what to do with this. This week I'll be giving a private talk in Atlanta about my research into being a working comic creator. As part of this, I'll have my analysis of the US pay rates for comics, taken from a survey of 500+ creators.

Chris Arrant | Comics & Pop Culture Strategist@chrisarrant.bsky.social

Question for people who work in, cover, or follow the comics industry: What’s the biggest information gap in the comics business right now? 1️⃣ Sales & market trends 2️⃣ Creator pay & rights 3️⃣ Retailer/reader insights 4️⃣ Corporate strategy & $$$ 📊 Show results

23h

An MTV News interview with Sam Kieth about The Maxx comic, and how it became a cartoon for them.

@explodingarrow.bsky.social

DCU Women redesigned by Mingjue Helen Chen.

Chris Arrant | Comics & Pop Culture Strategist reposted

Tiffany Babb

The Comics Courier issue 5 is coming up VERY soon. Make sure to click on the notify me on launch button on our pre-launch page so you don't miss anything! www.kickstarter.com/projects/tif...

kickstarter.comComing soon: The Comics Courier, A Comics Criticism Journal [Issue 5]A newspaper-format journal dedicated to in-depth comics criticism edited by Tiffany Babb

Tintin and Calvin by Roger Langridge.

An example of a different kind of comic creator signing from Japan. This one is for Daisuke Terasawa (Mister Ajikko, Shōta no Sushi) next weekend at a used record shop/convenience store. $5 gets you in for a pop-up merch store + a hosted talk, followed by an after-party.

mediado.jpメディアドゥ、2027年2月期第2四半期決算を発表 | 株式会社メディアドゥ株式会社メディアドゥ（東証プライム 3678、本社：東京都千代田区、代表取締役社長 CEO 藤田恭嗣、以下「当社」）は、2027年2月期第2四半期決算を発表いたしました。つきましては、関連資料を公表しましたので、下記 […]

Seven Seas' parent just released its Q2 finances. Financial reports on comics publishers like this, manga Big 3, Skybound, IDW, others are rich in raw data. # s tell you what happened; context explains why, what it signals, & what might happen next. mediado.jp/corporate/18...

If you're wondering why the Ringer is driving readers to Substack newsletter over its own site, its because website advertising is dwindling overall. Look at Ringer website and its adload as a free site vs. its podcasts' adload vs. the monetization model of Substack.

An '80s late night commercial for Living Classics graphic novels; collected editions of the Classic Illustrated series.

Manga isn't just fighting for readers anymore. It's fighting for control of the entire fucking pipeline. Who owns the IP. Who controls distribution. Who gets the data. Who gets paid when a story becomes a global franchise. And there's changes afoot. (1/?)

The companies that own that pipeline will have leverage over everyone who needs it. You see that in virtually every other mature industry. (16/?)

And here's the question: if Japan builds a unified manga platform, will it give creators and publishers more power over their work, or create a new gatekeeper with the power to decide what the world reads, and who gets paid? (17/17)

Here's my prediction: manga's next power shift will come from control of the infrastructure, not just ownership of individual hits. Japan could build a shared platform that gives its publishers greater collective power overseas. (14/?)

Alternatively, a few private platforms could consolidate catalogs, data and distribution, leaving smaller publishers dependent on them. Either way, expect more pressure to combine resources, buy catalogs and control the route to global audiences. (15/?)

The real prize isn't just selling another volume. It's controlling the path from manga to anime, live-action, games, merchandise and global licensing. Manga publishers already do that to a degree, to the point several entities in America are copying it. (12/?)

Media Do's move to acquire Seven Seas offers another model: a distribution-focused company connecting its infrastructure to a major English-language publishing catalog. Watch for more acquisitions, joint ventures, bundled rights deals and partnerships in the near future. (13/?)

A shared platform could reduce fragmentation, expand the pool of officially translated titles, & help fight piracy. But who controls it? How is revenue divided? Do publishers surrender customer data or distribution power? (10/?)

A co-op could strengthen the industry, but it would also trigger a new fight over who calls the shots. (11/?)

It's still under discussion, not a finished service. But think about the strategic implications: Japan's biggest publishers could cooperate on infrastructure while continuing to compete for readers and hits. (8/?)

That creates a fascinating tension. Publishers have spent years building their own apps and digital ecosystems, trying to own the reader relationship and the data that comes with it. (9/?)

Meanwhile, piracy eats into overseas revenue and legitimate translations reach only a fraction of the potential global audience. Publishers need international growth; and better ways to capture the money. (6/?)

A recent underreported bit of news is that Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs convened a public-private consortium to explore a shared platform for distributing manga overseas. The idea includes multilingual translation, official distribution, a revenue model. (7/?)

Nearly 20 years later, the question isn't just which companies merge. It's whether the infrastructure around the entire industry gets consolidated, too. (4/?)

The pressure is real. Japan's domestic manga market fell about 2% in 2025, after 8 years of growth. Digital accounts for roughly 75% of that market, but it isn't an infinite-growth machine. (5/?)

Now even the Japanese government is exploring a shared international manga digital platform. This fight is getting bigger than any one publisher. (2/?)

Look at the history. In 2005, VIZ and ShoPro's U.S. operations merged to form VIZ Media; a team-up of two of Japan's Big Three manga publishers, Shogakukan and Shueisha. The third is Kodansha. Two industry giants combined their American publishing and licensing operations. (3/?)

@explodingarrow.bsky.social

Batgirl redesign by Chris Samnee. Created in 2014 for a contest we ran at Project: Rooftop.

Chris Arrant | Comics & Pop Culture Strategist reposted

Tiffany Babb

Speaking of The Comics Courier... our very next Kickstarter is right around the corner. Visit our pre-launch page and click "Notify Me on Launch" to make sure you don't miss it! It's gonna be a great one! www.kickstarter.com/projects/tif...

kickstarter.comComing soon: The Comics Courier, A Comics Criticism Journal [Issue 5]A newspaper-format journal dedicated to in-depth comics criticism edited by Tiffany Babb