Regarding single issue sales: they are incredibly important to a lot of Image creators. On Rocket Girl, it’s by far the biggest chunk (of course, we don’t have a tpb yet). And every reader counts. A few thousand copies can make or break a series. If Rocket Girl dips into the 8000s, we’ll start thinking about when to wrap it up. If it stays above 12,000 we can do it forever. At 12,000 copies I can make as much writing Rocket Girl as Hulk; Amy Reeder can make as much penciling/inking/coloring as she would on Batwoman. 8000 vs 12,000 is a significant difference in percentage, but it’s not a huge amount of readers. A lot of Image creators are in the same boat, albeit their individual line might be a bit higher or lower. Certainly collected editions and digital and ancillary media/merchandise contribute as well. But a lot of making creator-owned work is down to financing: and single issues have the biggest impact on cash flow–and the only impact on cash flow for almost a full year when you take into account early production to ‘get ahead’ as well as solicitation. Also: your comment forgets artists, who are forgotten way to much nowadays. A writer can maybe juggle 4 simultaneous projects, but an artist can do just one book at a time. It is much harder for an artist to make the plunge into creator-owned–so consider that when choosing what to support.
Reblogging because the economics of creator-owned comics are of interest to me, and because this is the kind of thing I should probably take into account when it comes to who gets their comic pre-ordered, who gets shelf picked, and who gets trade-waited.
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