Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Longevity

I was reading on Warren Ellis’ Bad Signal email list this morning that Carla Speed McNeil will be releasing issues of her excellent Finder comic on the web exclusively after issue 38. Printing up the single issues isn’t cost effective anymore. She’ll release them on the web and sell them in a collected paperback.

I love Finder. Not only is it a great story, but it is a comics success story. Carla Speed McNeil had never really drawn much of anything before she started Finder, and she turned it into a business with hard work. This is all she does. No day job, no night job – just Finder. I love that – just up and deciding that comics will be your business even though you don’t really have any business in comics. This is why comics are great! Even if you are not that great, and you keep with it, you will build an audience and become better (her first few issues were a little rough – but man, she got good). I can’t recommend Finder enough: brilliant sci-fi written intelligently (as opposed to the great drek of sci-fi out there today which makes me hate the genre as a whole). Plus, she’s very friendly; I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to her about business at a couple cons before. Very forthcoming with advice and always available to chat – I can’t really find a better example to live up to as a creator.

Part of her success I think is how she’s been able to stick with Finder for the most part, and I think that is how several independent creators have done well for themselves – Jeff Smith with Bone, Dave Lapham with Stray Bullets, Paul Grist with Kane (and now Jack Staff). They started small and kept at it, and they are all where I would like to be by just working on one thing they love over a period of years. I’ve been bouncing all over with new stories and material – maybe it is about time I just hunkered down and told a good ol long form story month in and month out?

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