Best medium; worst industry

A comics maxim, more breakdowns and an explanation of why I'm doing them in the first place

Anyone who has worked in or been a fan of comics for any length of time feels the same undeniable truth on a visceral level: Comics, while indisputably the best medium, is also the absolute worst industry. We all have our horror stories and battle scars, our gnawing regrets and unnavigable grudges; it’s profoundly disingenuous to claim otherwise.

When it comes to comics, I certainly have my share of resentments. If we’ve chatted in the past few years, there’s a not insignificant chance that I’ve enumerated them for you, as I far too frequently do to myself, like a cut-rate Byronic hero, inclusive of dark curly hair and mercurial temperament. But here’s the thing: Being consumed by bitterness, worse than useless, is actively harmful and counterproductive.

I worked mightily to move beyond it during the pandemic, throwing myself headfirst into a bevy of projects and consciously choosing to project an image of unbridled enthusiasm and optimism. But when things failed to pan out how I’d hoped, when the next stage of my career failed to arrive, I found myself exactly where I started, wrestling with those same resentments and regrets.

Wisely, I stepped back from social media, which – for me, at least – only ever amplifies those feelings while providing an incentive to self-destructively voice them publicly. I then proceeded to funnel that resentment into Jed Dougherty and my next book, letting it drive me to create something different, something more challenging, something unlike any other comic on the racks.

But while I long ago perfected the use of bile as fuel and I am remarkably proud of what Jed and I have accomplished, it wasn’t sufficient. Something was missing. I’d lost sight of the first part of that inescapable maxim: Comics are, in fact, the best medium in existence. Next week I’ll talk about why that is.

On a practical level, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to effectively sell my next comic if I was still so overwhelmingly down on the industry. But beyond that, hating comics made me miserable. For better or for worse, I’ve spent my entire adult life working in comics and the cognitive dissonance created by viewing it as time wasted was just too much for me to bear.

Something I learned while doing my old wrestling podcast STRAIGHT SHOOT was that if you act like a positive, friendly, excited guy enough, eventually you just become one. In light of that, my course was clear: Instead of just reading comics I love and sending images to a small group of pals, I needed to proclaim the Gospel truth from the rooftops.

That’s precisely the reason why I started doing written explorations of comics storytelling in my Substack Notes, for a small but supportive audience. Flash forward a couple months later and, over lunch discussing my next book, Robert Kirkman suggested that I start posting these breakdowns of sequential art as threads on social media. While I maintain a healthy fear of social media, I figured that if he wanted to see more of it, other people probably would too.

Since then, I’ve posted about comics I love, explaining why I love them, almost every single day. I can’t lie to you: I’m still incredibly frustrated with comics the industry and I have to wrestle constantly with my bitterness and my embarrassment at things I’ve said, opportunities I’ve blown, and my general failure to have more to show for myself.

But I also can’t lie about this: I’m more in love with comics the medium than I’ve ever been and it’s a direct result of not just the posts you see sprinkled through my newsletters but the incredible responses that I’ve received publicly and privately, not just from fans but from working pros who appreciate the deeper dive into comics theory and formalism.

Rekindling my passionate, all-consuming love for comics is exciting enough but even better is this: All of the techniques and intentions and approaches I’m discussing form the bedrock of Jed and my new project. And the enthusiasm I’ve seen in response to my posts indicates that there are plenty of people like me out there: Folks who are ready for more from their comics reading.

I can’t wait to deliver it to you next year.

More next week,
Aubrey