Learn to make comics - from people who don't read comics

Watchmen solved problems for readers
by creating complex characters and
actively addressing popular
critiques of the medium.
It was listed in Time's 100
all-time greatest novels.

There's a saying in the business: to learn to make comics, you must read comics.

But the glaring truth is that even the most popular comics sell around 120,000 books a month. Once in a while, a comic book beats that number soundly, but that's a rare event. More sobering is the fact that the average comic book sales usually never get above 5 figures.

Yes, it's important to learn comics from the pros. But when you read comics, listen to that little voice in your head that comments on what is astounding in the titles and what just doesn't work for you. Don't merely gloss over the scenes and panels that don't do it for you - approach it as a student of the craft who wants to make comics better, not as a mere observer who couldn't care less.

It's equally important to learn from the fans. Learn what moves them, what keeps them coming back for more.  And also listen to their complaints - what turns them off to a title or an author. Try to chart what is universally praised and what elements in comic books are most often trashed. It will make you a better creator. But don't forget, these people already buy comics.

The real juice comes from those people who do not read comics today. That is in fact your largest market.

Do the experiment: find people who enjoy reading books and are fans of superhero movies. Give them a few popular comic books and ask them for their reactions. You already know they love reading; you already know they enjoy superheroes. Your job is to find out if they can become comic book fans. Some of them will be converted, and this strengthens the industry. We need more readers. But if your experiment has the same results as mine did, you will find a lot of people just put the books aside.

This is where you will find the proverbial gold at the end of the rainbow: why do they stop reading the comic books? What are their objections? How do they compare the stories they just read to the books they are already reading? What do they need to find in a comic book in order for them start reading them more often?

At some point, answers will start intersecting; a trend will become visible. In my case, the trends that emerged was that new readers found the books confusing - full of characters with complex backstories that needed explanation, but were never even touched upon. They thought the conflicts were often arbitrary and that the heroes tended to treat the conflicts in immature ways. They also thought that the characters often weren't very fleshed out and that the plot wasn't clever enough and relied too much on coincidental events and deus ex machina resolutions (i.e. the hero all the sudden beats the villain using the same techniques that got him soundly beaten before).

All of this feedback gave me my angle - the problems presented by my audience. If I solve these problems, I stand a better chance to reel them in. What's more, I'll  have innovated the medium with my small contribution. With your readers, you'll probably find other objections than those that I found (you're polling a different audience, after all). And that is all to the good. When you solve the problems stopping your audience from reading comics, you, too, will have contributed innovations to the medium from which all creators can then learn.

The trick is to find those objections from your audience that hold a universal appeal. 60%, 40%, hell even 25% of readers identifying the same problems that, if solved, could convert them into regular comic book readers. Now find out where these universal objections intersect with your unique talents. Which of these universal problems are you especially well-positioned to solve?

Once you've created a work that meets these new, higher standards, you'll not only have created a book that has posed a unique way of making comics, you'll have created a larger market for the greater world of comics altogether.

And if you do that, you'll make the industry better for all of us.