Today is the conclusion of Larry Marder's guest blog about the Self-Publishing Movement. In Part 1, Larry took us up to the early days of self-publisher gatherings… 

"It was a heady time. We knew we were onto something, but we were primarily focused on the business model of that time–creating and distributing 32 page comic books; the periodical pamphlets that were the backbone of the industry.

But we also spent a lot of time dreaming about the future of the trade paperback as a new staple of making our living. We started to envision a time when our trades would always be in print. Our books would always be available for a retailer to restock the shelves; evergreen stock that never goes out of season or fashion."

Larry Marder Part 2:

I remember pulling the first copy of my own trade paperback Larry Marder's Beanworld: Book One out of its shipping carton and being struck with the bittersweet realization that “Wow! This is the format in which my work will survive!”
I recognized that the pamphlet comics themselves would fade away and be forgotten.  The letter columns, the Do-It-Yourself Beanworld contests, the fabulous fan art, all destined to end up in the dust bin of history as the trade-book-with-spine replaced the Beanworld pamphlets. On the other hand, a trade paperback was pretty cool with its ISBN number and bar code. Novel things back then.

Around the same time, Peter Laird, co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles created the Xeric Foundation, a private, nonprofit corporation. A Xeric Grant assists a fledgling self-publisher with a financial boost allowing a worthy project to make its way into the distribution/retail marketplace.

While our group was attempting to understand and create change within the system, another idea took root, and flourished completely outside of the established comic book economy. A new generation of young comics creators turned to the freedom of mini-comics. Small and inexpensive, easy to produce at photocopy shops, anyone could make a comic and distribute it for the cost of a stamp. Legendary mini creators like Matt Feazell could literally carry his entire comics inventory to a convention in a shoe box.

Another incredible contribution to the conversations we were having during the early ‘90s was the publication of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. It was often ridiculed and picked apart by Scott's contemporaries, but the up and coming kids absorbed Scott's the ideas in Scott’s book like sponges. The effect that Understanding Comics has had on a generation of young cartoonists can not be underestimated.

Phew, that ended up a lot more long winded than I thought it would be, but from my point of view, that was the ramp up to the Self Publishing Movement.

We were a group of dedicated comic book creators that own our own characters, copyrights, and trademarks.

We published what we owned in our own periodical comics. We picked our own paper, prices, and ads.

We compiled our periodicals into our own trade paperbacks.

We were clearly in charge of our publishing destiny!
Once again, it felt like the sky is the limit!
And once again we were ultimately disappointed.

Why?
We didn’t control our own distribution destiny for one thing.
Due to reasons, far beyond the influence of the hard-working Self Publisher the comic book economy went into a tailspin.

In the mid ‘90s an epidemic of irresponsibly late and canceled titles from major publishers meant that comic book retailers had an increasingly difficult time knowing when they would have the right amounts of cash on hand to pay their distributor bills. Then in an already uncertain marketplace, Marvel Comics purchased Heroes World in order to self-distribute their books. The other distributors, faced with the loss of at least 50% of their business when Marvel Comics walked away. All went into self-survival mode. After a year of chaos and uncertainty Diamond came out on top as they signed DC, Image, and Dark Horse to long term exclusive brokerage agreements .One-by-one the other distributors faltered and fell. It was a hard blow to small and self publishers. Like it or not, the game had completely changed. Permanently.

Marvel’s self-distribution experiment failed and they ultimately ended up back with Diamond. Comics retailing increasingly became concerned with the growing importance of toys and other forms of merchandise in their retail product mix. What it meant to b a comic book retailer radically changed.

As the Executive Director of Image Comics and the President of McFarlane Toys was I an insider participant in the decision making process of some of these trends? Oh yeah, mea culpa. I tried hard to keep unpleasant situations as decent and straightforward as possible. I have no regrets about anything I did back then. But at the end of the day, for me, it was all work-made-for-hire.

But in the midst of all this up-and-down nuttiness, one thing stayed relatively stable. The sale of trade paperbacks. As the periodical business went on a crazy rollercoaster ride, trade paperback sales remained very strong. As we had hoped savvy comic book retailers increasingly learned to depend on the sales of evergreen stock. Sell one and replace it. Sell that one and replace it again. A good trade paperback never goes out of style or out of date.

And trade paperbacks have expanded out of the comic book marketplace into “real” bookstores. Our books are racked next to Japanese manga trades that are of a uniform look and size. Next to that manga projection of uniformity, our smattering of sizes and formats looks a bit ragtag. But, hey, we are there. And I think we shall stay there.

Now, riding shotgun to all of these developments was the home computer.
Followed by the Internet.
Everything changed with the Internet.

On the Internet, all things can be archived and catalogued. And in fact, letter columns, contests, and fan art have been reinvented on the Internet. Its astonishing how deeply involved in one's "community" a fan can become.
And rising up from the roots on the Internet, a new model has been emerging.
Where did it come from?
It has its roots in the black and white alternative comics of the ‘80s and ‘90s. And those roots came from the underground, counterculture comics of the late '60s and early '70s.

The new model also has roots springing from the mini-comics movement where small is beautiful and handcrafted objects are so much fun to behold and possess.

And yes, there are deep roots back into the Self Publishing Movement of the 1990s.

Today’s comics creator can say anything he or she wants, in any format, and retain ownership of it. And through judicious use of the Internet they can find enough people who are interested in their comics to make enough money to produce more comics. That was the heart of the Self Publishing Movement. Make enough money with your business to stay in business. And plow whatever profits you made into expanding the scope of your business by touring and advertising. And I see that specific spirit of independence thriving today.

And there are entirely new things going on too. Creators like Craig Thompson have ploughed new territory with the publication of long form graphic novels featuring all new material never serialized in a periodical format. And there seem to be thousands of online comics that aren’t intended to be viewed on paper. I think the potential of both of these formats have barely been touched so far. Amazing things are emerging from these arenas.

On the Internet, both comics creators and fans have the ability to converse directly without going through the labyrinth of the comics distribution and retail system. This generation of cartoonists has the ability to follow a model closer to the realm of music where bands don't really make so much money off of the content itself (the recorded material) but from touring revenues and licensing royalties

So today we have comics creators making a modest living from their works-on-paper or their comics online. But in addition to that, they also have revenue from self manufacturing all sorts of stuff: posters and prints, coffee mugs, T-shirts, plush dolls, tote bags and every other sort of merchandise one can imagine. And much of it is manufactured and distributed virtually on demand. Today’s creators can sell their artwork and books on personal websites, their goods on eBay and Etsy, and communicate with their fans on their blogs. Comic book creators have always had a close personal and economic bond with his or her cadre of most loyal followers; but nothing in the past has ever been so immediate!

Most of the people who are attempting to develop this model are relatively young. Pioneering is by and large a young person's game. When you take big risks, you hope you don't have that much to lose. But you don't stay young very long and your needs get more complicated as time flies.

That said, do I think that this is the trend of the future?
Yes, I do.
The general public is getting very accustomed to tailoring the goods and services in one's life to his or her needs. We are entering an era that will transition from mass-produced, mass-distributed retailer goods into to an era of direct personal fabrication. I am keenly interested in what effect the developments taking place in the personal fabrication world will have on comics publishing in the 21st century.

After spending eight years completely out of the comic book business in the toy business, and attending SPX for the first time in a decade, I’m convinced that most of the trends I've described above are already deeply rooted in today’s small press community. And expanding at an extraordinary rate.

I don't know when or where the big economic breakthrough will occur. Probably be sparked by the kids of tomorrow being influenced by today's young pioneer creators.

All I know is that I’m really excited to be reintroducing my own work, Beanworld, into this invigorating mix of creativity and technology.
Once again, it feels like the sky is the limit.
Maybe this time it really is.