One Banner #5- The Traditional Arguments Against

Whenever the topic of Christian Comics Unity has raised its head again like unto the Loch Ness Monster, usually a few well-meaning, seasoned vets of the movement will attempt to write off the idea in a quick nutshell, like there’s one simple overriding reason. The arguments AGAINST usually go something like this:

Egos are too big.
People all have their own projects and don’t want to work on others’ projects.
We all approach the art differently.
Comic unity won’t work for the same reason that there are Christian denominations.
No one wants to take charge.
No one wants to submit to a person in charge.
There aren’t enough comics to justify a company.
Money.

They’re all true. But they’re all not completely true. And they all should not be true. And there’s a lot more to the puzzle than any one of these individual sound bites.

I want to make it clear that I am NOT a proponent of the “One Banner” idea as it has been suggested, i.e. one ring to rule them all. I am a proponent of self-publishing. While I believe there are business reasons to do work under the heading of a larger company, I more strongly believe that artistic freedom in this industry is key to ensuring the purest expression. The greatest enemy of a visionary artist is a bureaucracy, and the worst kinds of bureaucracies I’ve bumped into have been (sadly) Christian bureaucracies.

However, I do wish to explore the validity of the arguments against the idea of unity, in an attempt to explore real solutions and to address the issue intelligently.

And when I say “intelligently” I mean that I’m not arguing these points on a message board in brief nuggets to be picked apart. “Intelligence” seems to fly right out the window on message boards. This is my little corner of the web, and my little one-sided monologue. So nyah.

“The Elephant in the Room” by the way, is money. I’ll kick off with that one next time.