Abstract
The 2014 output of comics scholarship in English is focused on only a few substantive areas. The predominant focus is on superheroes, and to a lesser degree there is interest in social issues (such as the representation of minorities) and biographical histories and works of individual artists.1 In contrast, other areas, such as the economics of comics publishing, are largely neglected. Yet before the widespread introduction of the internet, publishers were the only way to get a comic mass distribution.2 It was (and largely still is) the publishers who invested their money in the material production, distribution, and promotion of a comic, and even today they take on greater financial risk than all other players later in the chain, such as distributors or retailers. Book publishing remains, after all, “a complex, adaptive, semi-chaotic industry” (Greco 2013, 5).
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Lefèvre, P. (2016). Gatekeeping in Comics Publishing: A Practical Guide to Gatekeeping Research. In: Brienza, C., Johnston, P. (eds) Cultures of Comics Work. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55090-3_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55090-3_14
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