With hundreds of thousands of books being published each year and many of those being lacklustre, self-published books are often seen as ones that all conventional publishers refuse to touch — many say for good reason. But over at The Book Standard, Jessa Crispin finds one literary genre whose creators often resort to self-publication — sometimes with positive results.

The genre she speaks of is graphic novels and comics. Pointing to classic examples of self-published comics by Dave Sim, whose 300-issue, self-published series Cerebus recently concluded, and Jeff Smith, whose Bone series has since been picked up by Scholastic, Crispin says that back in the day, when few publishers would touch comics of a non-superhero variety, comics creators who wanted to be published had to do it themselves. But even as graphic novels find their time in the sun, Crispin claims that the spirit of self-publishing rages on in the form of zine-style, self-produced mini-comics produced by the likes of Jessica Abel and Jeffrey Brown, both of whom have been picked up by leading comix publishers. Says Crispin of mini-comics, “It’s a way to get your name out without becoming a cog in charge of inking the latest superhero for DC or Marvel.”

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Click here for Crispin’s article in The Book Standard