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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39248
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39248
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

What you need first is a market.

Who are you publishing comics for and how will you pay for it? Lots of people create comics anthologies, for example. These are very popular and can be published as e-books or printed books or both. You can do this as print-on-demand or you can print a lot of copies and use a distributor (harder). Or just stick to e-comics.

If you don't want to do an anthology (which is simply a collection of different short comics around a central theme), then you'll either publish full books or short comics (which are usually 22 pages plus a front and back cover, though with e-comics that doesn't matter).

As others have said, each individual comic needs a writer or a writing team (one of whom needs to be able to put it into script/storyboard form) and an artist team which is 1-4 people doing pencils (sometimes with storyboard), inks, colors, and lettering. The publisher and/or teams need social media, marketing, and sales people to help out (or they do these tasks). Plus a person or a place to contract to that does e-book/comic formatting, digital submissions, ISBN numbers, and print issues/distribution, etc.

Most comic endeavors do not break even. This is not a way to make money. For example, my spouse is publishing a comic series (with a real life publisher who takes care of the e-comics and books part) and does the writing and scripts and many hours of work pulling everything together. Me and the co-writer do the social media, website, promotional materials for free. He only has to pay the artist team (3 people).

Each 22 page issue (plus a cover) costs him $2500. He has to sell 5000 e-comics (for each issue!) just to break even.

If you're doing an anthology where the submissions are finished works and you're not paying individuals, you still need to pay your submitters. Do all anthologies actually pay anything real? No, they don't, and it's disgusting. I've got my first piece coming out soon and it looks like I'll be paid $40 for it (4 pages). But I have to pay my artists a couple hundred dollars. Will I do another one? Not with this publisher _spit_ (note: if the anthology simply doesn't make money, I don't mind accepting low payment; in this case the contract is set up so that the contributors all split just 10% of the profits (net, not gross)). It ought to be illegal. Don't be like that.

So, research the heck out of what you want to do. And be an ethical publisher.

Original score: 4