Question wisdom that you inherit
I've been leaning into this season of listening to interviews with comics creators recently! Here's a section that caught my attention from a recent interview that David Harper (host of Off Panel) did with Christina Merkler (co-owner of Lunar Distribution which handles direct market sales for the major comics publishers):
Christina Merkler: They're all, I mean, between the Absolute Series and the Energon line, like, my gosh, like, we can't. And the thing that I can say has led to that success is that they have been releasing stuff since January. Like, there was no, you know, like hanging out and just like chilling out for the first quarter, which is what I felt like we were doing for a few years there. This year came out and it just came out with like guns blazing and it was great.
David Harper: We've talked about that before where we both like, I don't understand why January to March is like this assumed terrible period. So let's not release notable books. And it's like, it's weird. They started releasing comics that people were really excited about in January through March. And all of a sudden, January through March isn't as bad as it used to be.
Christina Merkler: Isn't that crazy?
What I took away from the conversation is this: "wisdom" that has been passed down also needs to be questioned. When conditions change, we need to be aware and adapt, instead of being content to repeat what made sense in times past. Otherwise how many opportunities might we miss, just like the publishers who were content to wait around for "bad periods" to pass?