Self-Publishing

In the literary world, self-publishing is looked down upon as vanity publishing. It is believed that the author is truly vain to think that his or her work should be known to others even if he or she has to do the publishing. Then, it is believed that the work is not good enough to be published by anyone save the author.

In the comics world, however, self-publishing was a badge of honor where the creator “puts his money where his mouth is” as Roy Thomas once put it. Indeed, given the glut of superhero books in American comics, the self-published books offered much needed diversity. Coleen Doran who was also part of the critically acclaimed self-publishing group with A Distant Soil, however says that self-publishing is a very risky enterprise with very few success stories. Not everyone can have the same success that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Jeff Smith’s Bone became the poster child of self-publishing in the 1990s. Then again, even Bone was published by Image comics for a while before going back to Cartoon Books, Smith’s own publishing house. Eventually, Bone was published by mainstream publisher Scholastic Books which gave Smith’s creation a wide audience, an audience well beyond the American comic book subculture.

From photocopied mini comics to actual printed books, self-publishing is truly a grassroots oriented endeavor where a budding comics creator’s work can begin to blossom. While not all self-publish works are automatically great works of artistic expression, the freedom that the creator experiences may give rise to originality. Indeed, according to Scott McCloud most of the acclaimed graphic novels began as self-published works.

The freedom and the amount of blood, sweat and tears that go into a self-published comic may truly inspire a creator to come up with his or her most inspired work. So it may not be only vanity that drives a creator to self-publish his work. The lack of diversity makes it a necessity.

In the Philippines, this necessity is even more pronounced.

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