As I write this, the Festival de BD in Angoulême is still in full swing but I’m home again, after having attended the first three days there, which were more geared towards comics professionals/publishers meeting each other. My publisher Seb van der Kaaden from Personalia Publishing and I were presenting the Personalia Foreign Rights Catalogue (which featured four of my titles!) and we had an absolute blast.
I was in an interesting position, as both an artist and a publisher’s assistant: on one hand it was wonderful to see such a celebration of “my” medium (people reading comics everywhere, even on escalators!), on the other hand it was a bit disheartening to see how the publishing side is in decline - with production prices through the roof and an oversaturated market, publishers seek foreign licences rather than paying for new productions. At the Foreign Rights Market, publishers were thumbing each others’ catalogues like Tindr: swipe, swipe, swipe. It made me want to shout: hey folks, that’s someone’s life’s work you’re left-swiping there in a split second!!!
That said: there are so many more ways open to artists nowadays, beyond the “old” system of paper-publishing. Denmark seems to have a good system that’s a hybrid between the old and new: artists printing (and owning!) their own work and having it distributed and promoted by larger organisations. Publishers in Spain still pay a lot of Spanish artists, to produce manga no less! And a lot of new manga has been originally published online, like on Webtoon (where I’m experimenting with publishing Nina).
Online seems definitely the way to go. Publish online, gather an audience and (eventually, this can take years) earn an income through Kickstarter, Patreon or Substack. That’s why I love this newsletter, in which I can directly send my comics to people who are expressly interested and which offers ways of monetising my work if I wanted to (don’t worry, this will remain a free newsletter).
I did a bit of my own promotion in Angoulême by giving away a small booklet containing four of my webcomics (this one, this one, this one and this one) - if you’re one of the people who signed up because of it: thank you and welcome! I try to make my newsletters fun and interesting, with lots of comics of course - except this one, because I’m still finding my bearings after the 15+ hours of driving back.
(If I look a bit exhausted in this picture, it’s because I am!)
Aw that top photo of you has such great energy! An Author Book Bio photo, for sure ❤️
Thanks for sharing these impressions. As a Costa Rican middle grade illustrator and comics artist who's been there not once but twice as a visitor and looking to pitch my wares to international editors (thus learning the rights market is NOT the place for that, hehe) I share your same impressions on the future of publishing for authors — going indie and growing up your own fan base isn't without its big set of challenges and pains, but might well be the only secure route for authors the way things are going. Still, being around a whole village completely consecrated to comics all over the world for a full weekend is an unforgettable experience for anyone with a passion for comics art.
I also have a Substack dedicated to the ups and downs of yours truly making art and my latest issue is precisely about the festival, which I last attended in 2023 and link to an in-depth piece I wrote a year ago about it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/alzamon/p/lad-4-angouleme-comics-festival?r=1vtkkh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true