I missed the opportunity to participate for real, but I really liked Tom Spurgeon’s latest Five for Friday, so I thought I would post my answers here. The prompt was “Given A Multi-Million Dollar Budget (By Which I Mean Unlimited In A Practical Sense But Not Unlimited So That It Allows For The Construction Of Absurd Answers), Name Five Comics Projects You’d Fund.”
1. Fund a national cartooning apprenticeship system – pay travel, lodging, etc. for young cartoonists wishing to work as an assistant for an established creator
2. Pay the high rights fees that have kept Corto Maltese from being published in English, and attempt to similarly bribe Yoshiharu Tsuge and others who have for various reasons refused English publication. Hand off the rights free of charge to the publisher who submits the best book proposal for that work.
3. Establish and fund a network of professional, experienced comics editors available to any cartoonist for a nominal fee
4. Found a press devoted to publishing full runs of alternative comics as they originally appeared (i.e. including letters, ads, etc.) in collected form
5. Create a nationwide distribution system for alternative, small press and self published comics