Divining ComicsImprinted Image: Comics Link Roundup March 27
Let’s do writers versus artists discourse again!
Spurred on by a controversy around the new Nebula Award for Best Comics, which only credits the writer of the comic, we’ve been getting another round of writer versus artist discourse. While I’m not interested in relitigating the particulars of the conflict (my general take is that artists are more important, given that this is an artistic medium, but writers are also important), I do think certain elements of the comic creation process could be clarified. Consider this an intervention and a plea for better discourse.
First and foremost, I want to argue that the roles of “writer” and “artist” are not as neatly binary as many like to present them. Even with a script that has Alan Moore’s level of detail and specificity, the artist is not merely illustrating the concept from the writer’s brain. Artists aren’t an AI image generator that you prompt. Rather, they are more akin to a translator. They process the script and then translate it into a visual image. And just as translation can never be one-to-one, the artistic process will never be a one-to-one adaptation of a script. I’ve heard this is even true when an artist is writing their own script! They’ll discover certain things do or don’t work only once pen is put to page. The artist is, in a very literal sense, “writing” the comic but with pictures instead of words. They can, through the composition, framing, detailing, colors, and every other choice they make, give importance to certain story elements, downplay others, and control the pacing.
Secondly, because of this blurring of who actually “writes” a comic, giving credit to only the writer is inherently fraught. Unless you are reading the actual script for the comic, it is impossible to know exactly who came up with what idea (idea being a stand-in for story beats, character moments, dialog, anything really). There are many examples in which an artist adds something to the story to make it work better. Further, the collaborative nature of storytelling complicates that further. An artist might, in reading the script, be inspired to do something in a manner unexpected by the writer. This might then inspire the writer to add something that they never would have been able to come up with on their own. And so on and so on. This is why Kieron Gillen once wrote about the “faux-cartoonist”, when the writer and artist are collaborating so tightly that the comic might have been composed by a single person.
Enough of that.
Welcome to Imprinted Image, my semi-weekly comics newsletter. If this is your first time, welcome! This is the best way to keep up with my comics blog. After links to my most recent writing, I’ll provide a roundup of comics industry links. This can be news, media, criticism, or anything that I personally found interesting.
Please don’t forget about the resources tab on this website. It’s a collection of reading guides, tutorials, and free legal resources like public domain image archives. I want this to be as useful as possible, so if you have any additions please send them my way.
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Support Divining Comics on PatreonComics Challenge YouTube
I designed and am participating in a comics challenge this year, alongside some friends in the My Marvelous Year community. I have picked 52 comics from 52 categories, shown below. I’d love for you to participate and comment along as you are reading! Note that on this list, categories that match with episodes from the Extra Issues podcast.
Comic Challenge Extra Issues Edition 2026DownloadI decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey! MAGAZINE MARCH has almost concluded. Last week I published a video on TBO from Spain, and I’m late uploading it but soon I’ll have a video on WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP from Japan.
I’ve also been doing little shorts where I poorly read a scene I liked from these comics. I guess shortform video gets juiced in the algorithm because they have been blowing up. You can check out the playlist of them here.
It would mean the world to me if, in addition to watching this video, you subscribed to my channel and gave the video a like. No one knows exactly how the black box of social media algorithms work, but I do know that if you interact with the video in different ways, YouTube might show it to more people who would be interested. The other easy way you can help is by sharing this video with a comic fan in your life!
Link Roundup
News:
Artist Sam Kieth passes
Sam Kieth passed away last week. He was met with widespread appreciation of his work, from bloggers, The Beat, other creators, and his former boss Jim Lee.
Boom Restructuring
Penguin Random House is restructuring Boom, the comics company they purchased. This includes a number of layoffs.
New Comic Awards
For the first time, the Nebula Awards are giving an award for Best Comic. Their rollout didn’t come without controversy, as they only credited the writers of the comic, even though the award is not for Best Comic Writer but rather Best Comic.
What’s Up with Digital Comics?
GlobalComix is making moves. They have secured a new round of venture capital, hired a new CEO, and acquired INKR, a manga platform that includes a suite of AI translations, though they have reversed their prior policy and now do not allow fully AI generated comics. Beanstack acquired Comics Plus, an app for reading comics with your library card, to form the Joyful Reading Co. Webtoon is trying to expand their independent creator services, including AI translation. The Beat has an overview of the digital comics landscape as it stands today.
Silver Sprocket, No Longer In Person
I was lucky enough to visit Silver Sprocket’s storefront in San Francisco a couple years ago. It was a really cool space that had tons of original and unique comics, from zines to titles they published. Now, while still publishing original works and selling online, they are closing their physical storefront.
Writing:
SKTCHD wrote How to Sell Comics from a retailer’s perspective and a Double Take column with critic Oliver Sava looking at Mike Mignola’s new From Lands Unknown universe.
Shelfdust had a number of interesting articles. One on Alan Moore / Jacen Burrows’ PROVIDENCE and Iron Man comics’ relationship to Vietnam.
Zack Quaintaince has a new series at The Beat where he looks at self-published comics. This edition, he’s writing about THE JUMP.
How To Love Comics has a great explainer of how comic book solicitations work and a Jim Starlin Thanos reading order.
The Comics Beat has a list of crowdfunding projects (and another!) you may be interested in backing.
Humble Bundle has a few packs of digital comics you can buy for cheap: Love and Rockets. Joe Hill comics. DC Vertigo. Indie Comics.
Other News Roundups:
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 3/20.
Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 3/17. 3/20. 3/24. 3/27.
The Comics Journal’s weekly links to New, Reviews, and Interviews: 3/20. 3/27.
Very Limited Data Bestseller Lists from the past few weeks:
Weekly Top 400 Bestseller List from Prana / Comic Shop Assistant: 3/20.
Weekly Bestseller List from Bleeding Cool / ComicHub: 3/22.
Weekly “Hottest Comics” from Bleeding Cool / Covrprice: 3/17. 3/24.
Most Anticipated Comics from Bleeding Cool / League of Comic Geeks: 3/23.
Top 20 February Graphic Novels from ICv2 / Circana: Author, Manga, and Superhero. Adult.
ABSOLUTE BATMAN is selling over 300,000 copies of the first printing of each new issue, month in and month out. That may partially come from retailer-exclusive variant covers, a popular trend from the bast decade.
IDW is a publicly traded company and thus we get more of an insight into their finances than many others. They have returned to profitability, but at the expense of comic book creator’s salaries.
A number of Image comics titles have been getting a major sales boost, atypical for existing series.
My favorite video and podcasts:
Podcasts:
OFF PANEL had on Scottie Young to discuss LOBO # 1 and Aditya Bidikar to discuss IN YOUR SKIN # 1.
LET’S TALK COMICS had on Lorenzo Di Felici to discuss his upcoming series RED ROOTS, as well as past work on VOID RIVALS and OBLIVION SONG.
MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted a special edition look at John Byrne’s ELSEWHEN X-Men fan comics and 2014 pt 1, covering the end of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN and the continuing Hickman AVENGERS era.
YouTube:
MATTTT (that’s Matt with 4 Ts) has a new channel, MATTTTTTTT (Matt with 8 Ts) where he posts more casual videos, like his love of Lynda Barry’s comics, a look at recent bookstore sales numbers, and a retrospective on Sam Keith’s career.
COMICBOOK COUPLE’S COUNSELING continued season 2 of their miniseries “The Stacks,” where they have industry people select comics to talk about from the shelves of Third Eye Comics, like the Criterion Closet, with Tyler Boss and Nick Dragotta.
SKTCHD published Four Favorites with Patrick Horvath, Tiffany Babb, and Tony Fleecs and the third Chip Chat with Chip Zdarsky.
What the hell, I’ll plug my YouTube again. Watch me talk about TBO.
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