Comments on: Comic Creator Services

By: Caleb Monroe

Caleb Monroe — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:13:36 +0000

Asaf, sorry for my delay here. A “visual genre” separation might be an odd mix with the currently more functional separation, plus there are publishers who publish both manga and non-manga, but the manga publishers are relatively easy because there’s so few of them: Tokyopop, Viz, Dark Horse, CMX (DC), Del Rey, Seven Seas, Go Comi!, Yen Press, Digital Manga Publishing are the majors. Some of them don’t do original material, just translated imports. Tokyopop offers a notoriously bad contract.

By: Asaf Gilad

Asaf Gilad — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:38:27 +0000

Can you extract from the list the MANGA focused publishers?
it will be very helpful for those making the “right to left” comics
Thanks!

By: Caleb Monroe

Caleb Monroe — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:36:10 +0000

I removed that section because I think there’s too many ways to define “best.” In a “comics mainstream” sense, level A is Marvel and DC, level B is Image and Dark Horse and level C is a bit broader and therefore harder to define, but I would say includes the likes of Avatar, Boom!, Desperado, Devil’s Due, IDW, Oni, Top Cow and Virgin. I’m speaking mostly in a market share sense here. While DC has a much larger market share than, say, Boom!, it does not necessarily mean their books are better quality-wise. In a less “comics mainstream” sense (and therefore more literary mainstream one), you’ve got Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, Drawn and Quarterly, etc. The shape of this side of the business, in particular, is changing quite a bit right now as most mainstream American book publishers have opened up graphic novel divisions. See my first comment above for more on that. Then there’s manga. Tokyopop, Del Rey and Seven Seas are probably the largest publishers that put out original manga in addition to translations. The best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with the business, find the comics you like to read personally, see who publishes them and go from there.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 17:51:55 +0000

Where’s that old “cream of the crop” section? I’m not that familiar with the business and would like to be able to separate Mom & Pops-esque publishing companies from the Marvel Inc.-esque ones.

Thanks.

By: Caleb Monroe

Caleb Monroe — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:52:42 +0000

I will be updating this page further as soon as I get settled in NY, but in the meantime there are some links I don't have up here yet at this thread.