Lea Hernandez is throwing a fit because she didn’t like my blog post about Tokyopop.

I think it’s great that bloggers in the comic book community are shedding light on bad business practices. We talk about this kind of stuff all the time on Webcomics Weekly and also touch on it briefly in our book.

The point I was trying to make is that we can’t blame the publishers here. The publishers do NOT have the power. They don’t create, they distribute. We create. We have the power. We just have to stop giving up that power.

Let me quote Scott McCloud here, from his page on the Creators Bill of Rights which was written back in 1988 during the black and white comics boom:

“…years later, several top-selling Marvel artists would break from the pack and form a new company called Image. In doing so, they would shift the debate from rights and principles to clout and competition, but both developments would share a common premise, one worth considering even today; that creators already have the right to control their art if they want it; all they have to do is not sign it away.”