Processing the Negatives

It only took 24 hours for Warren Ellis' advice to creators on marketing themselves to turn into a series of complaints about piss poor direct market stores. Now, I'm just going to assume that none of them are talking about MacGuffin (which is a pretty safe assumption since few of those who frequent the forum have even heard of it). All the same, there's way too much negativity out there people. Yes, we all know the stereotype of the Comic Book Guy, and we've all walked out of a store disappointed not to find anything interesting. But there is so much potential to expand every segment of the direct market and the bookstore market if every person who has a legitimate interest in seeing that happen would just make whatever effort is available to them. Whether it's opening cool new stores or just turning someone onto comics (be it manga, Fantagraphics, spandex or Calvin & Hobbes) we're at the ground level stage and what we need is more people supporting the industry in general and the quality stores/creators/publishers in particular. Guess today's a full glass day for me.