The Business of Comics for June 1, 2026
Marvel Loses Publisher: One of the big stories in the comics industry around the Memorial Day weekend was the continued changes in the management of Marvel Comics. In the last episode, we talked about the downsizing of the staff at Marvel, and shortly after that, it was announced that Dan Buckley, the longtime publisher of Marvel, would be stepping down in 2027 to be replaced by two Disney executives reporting directly to Kevin Feige. Now while some commentators online have linked this move to the fall in market share Marvel has had over the past year relative to DCs Absolute Line, I think that view ignores the reality of conglomerate comics. Because of the size of these companies and the levels of decision making that have to be worked through, changes at Disney don’t happen quickly. Consider this, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige added publishing to his portfolio in 2023, in the aftermath of Bob Chapeck leaving Disney and Ike Perlmutter leaving Marvel. Industry observers have been waiting for Feige to put his imprint on the comics side of the company, but from a financial standpoint, that was a lower priority compared to the film and television aspects of Marvel. If you’re an independent comic book publisher, you have the ability to adjust and react to industry changes and your competition quickly. Companies like Marvel and DC don’t have that luxury, precisely because of their size.
Dark Horse Moves to Unionize: Employees of Dark Horse have started the process of forming a union to strengthen their position in the face of recent layoffs, wage freezes, change in leadership power, emergence of artificial intelligence, and return-to-office policies. This follows recent moves by employees of Image and Seven Seas in the past five years. There’s been a major push for unionization in comics for years, and creators and readers alike seem to be in full support, but as I discussed at a recent presentation at MomoCon and was discussed in the Business of Comic Facebook group, this union will not include freelance comic book creators. Artists, writers, and other creators do not have a union, in spite of efforts by icons like Neal Adams. One of the major obstacles to a creators union has always been a lack of solidarity among creators, and that issue has become exponentially larger because comic book production is a geographically dispersed process. It’s one thing to get all the theater actors on Broadway or construction workers in a city to meet and agree on a platform. But even if every comic book writer and artist in America refused to work for Marvel or DC until their demands were met, those companies would simply pull more talent from India, Italy, Indonesia, or anywhere else where the reduced cost of living makes the current page rates more attractive. Freelance creators looking for better working conditions can’t rely on unionization, at least in the short term.
NSFW Safer at Kickstarter: In our last show, we talked about a new policy from Kickstarter restricting NSFW comics in crowdfunding campaigns. But a little more than a week after that decision, a new press release confirms the company is reversing course. The initial move was designed to reduce friction between Kickstarter and Stripe, but the backlash against the move, and the profitability of this content, forced Kickstarter to backtrack. This is another example of the power of adult content in media. Historically, the growth of various types of media, including the printing press, photography, film, cable, online video streaming, and virtual reality has been stimulated by adult content (the pun there was intended) and it appears crowdfunding is seeing the same factors at play. Even with this win, independent comic publishers of NSFW content will still have to deal with potential blocking from Stripe, so keep that in mind before you launch your campaign.
Crowdfunding Expansion: Recent hires for a crowdfunding division at Prana Marketing suggest that the comic book marketer will be moving into handling campaigns for their clients. Prana is a client of mine, who is known for having substantial influence in the direct market, launching Comics the Magazine, the Comics Industry Insiders Podcast, and leading the efforts to develop new sales metrics in the wake of the Diamond bankruptcy. The move into crowdfunding is significant because it suggests a further shift in the position of the direct market for crowdfunding. In the early days of Kickstarter, some comic shop owners saw the platform as a competitor and refused to carry books that were crowdfunded first. But the idea that the crowdfunding buyer and the comic shop buyer are two separate groups has become more prominent. Major publishers have developed a crowdfunding to comic shop pipeline, and many campaigns now include a retailer backing tier. It may be too early for Kickstarter to replace newsstands in creating a reader funnel to comic shops, but Prana could help lay the foundation, especially for smaller independent publishers.
Death by High Prices: There was a recent article on the website Fair Observer that looked at the impact of cover price on the comic book industry. The author pointed out that market for print comics was growing, but that continued growth was at risk because of the ever increasing prices of comics. Now I’m not going to be the Gen X guy who says back in my day Giant Size X-Men #1 was fifty cents, but the average price of a single issue comic today, not counting variant covers, is anywhere from $5 to $10. This might not be sustainable for larger publishers, but it can be even worse for independent publishers who can’t rely on popular IP to justify their cover price. But keep in mind that as an independent, you don’t have to price your book on the same level as other publishers. Basic pricing theory suggests that there are three general ways to price your comic relative to your competition. You can have a discount price, where your comic costs less than the competition, you can have a premium price, where you charge more, or a competitive price, where you charge the same amount. As we stated earlier in the Marvel story, you have the speed and flexibility to change price based on the distribution channel and your place in the market. For example, your comic could have a premium price for crowdfunding, a discount price in comic shops, and a competitive price at conventions. You can be more nimble and flexible in your pricing than the competition, as long as you don’t print a specific price on your cover, because that will not be helpful.
Long Vs Short Runs: An analysis from Publisher’s Weekly in favor of more long running series as opposed to limited series. According to the story, there’s a marketwide conviction that long-running series are good for business, boosting sales of earlier volumes, sowing faith with booksellers, and pulling in new readers. Historically, there is some validity to this position. If you look at Perez’s five-year run on Wonder Woman, Claremont’s sixteen-year run on X-Men, or McFarlane’s thirty-four year run on Spawn, you can make the argument that longer runs are better for character development, media opportunities, and overall sales. Now there are several reasons why major publishers don’t commit to long runs that I won’t speculate on here, but independent publishers should think twice before committing to a 60 plus issue run of their titles. First, the typical sales drop from issue one to issue two of a comic is normally fifty percent. The drop from issue one to issue three is seventy-five percent, and the drop by issue four is eighty percent or more. Without a strong narrative hook, sales might not be sustainable for a long run. Second, sustaining a long cohesive narrative is not easy, even for experienced creators. It doesn’t make sense to drag out or pad a story just to create more issues that might not sell anyway. The best business and creative compromise might be to create two to four issue arcs that can weave into a larger narrative while still telling a satisfying story on their own.
Webtoon Alternatives: An increasing number of cartoonists and readers in the vertical scroll space have become dissatisfied with how the large, established, corporate-backed webtoon publishers have been running their platforms. A number of new platforms, including Comic Cleric, Spider Forest, and ComixFury are trying to offer alternatives. I’ve negotiated a number of contracts for creators with Webtoon over the past six years, and the nature of those contracts has changed considerably since the company went public in 2024. Creators in the vertical scroll space need to compare the revenue and discoverability potential of established platforms with the viability and potential profit of these new platforms before deciding where to drive their webtoon traffic.
DC Blackout: A group of creators called The Black Comic Alliance is calling for a boycott of DC comics in response to a repeated pattern of underinvestment in Black characters, inconsistent publishing support, and the marginalization of Black creative voices. Underrepresentation or negative representation of historically marginalized groups is not a recent phenomenon or unique to DC. Many comic creators, including several of my clients, specifically built their publishing companies in response to this underserved segment of the market. The boycott is demanding new ongoing series in DC’s mainline continuity, featuring black characters and produced by black creative teams. I don’t know how a creator-led attempt to dictate the publishing plan of what is ultimately a minor division of a global conglomerate is going to end, but the more interesting question to me is why focus on demanding more IP for a conglomerate. Why not focus that energy on supporting diverse publishers who are already in the market, or developing the type of IP that you want to see from a company like DC? I understand that comic book readers, especially superhero comic book readers, have an emotional attachment to the characters they enjoy. But Toni Morrison said it best. if there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you have to write it. That is just as true for comics as it is for any other type of book.
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