By Piper Steed
New York Times best-selling comic book author, Mark Millar, recently took to X/Twitter to share his advice on how Marvel and DC can save their industry. In a thread, Millar pointed to poor page rates as the root cause of the collapse in once-popular American comic sales, challenging more common theories such as failed attempts to market to disinterested audiences, censorship, or the blacklisting of popular talents.
Millar suggested that, because mainstream comic publishers can no longer afford to pay living wages, the current talent pool isn’t putting much effort into their work, leading to a decrease in quality books. His proposed solution is to offer a 50% split in royalties to incentivize creators to put more effort into their work. Millar concluded by stating, “Whoever does this first will have a talent migration like the industry has never seen.”