Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man | Tagged: dan panosian, dennis barger, mark brooks, Mike Mayhew

Mike Mayhew's Manifesto For Artists – Stop Going To Comic Cons

Mike Mayhew's Manifesto For Comic Book Artists - Stop Going To Comic Cons.... with Mark Brooks, Dan Panosian and Dennis Barger joining in

Mike Mayhew is a comic book artist and illustrator, best known for his highly detailed, photo-realistic cover art on titles such as Amazing Spider-Man, Mystique, Fantastic Four, Star Wars, Batman, Justice League, Vampirella and more, and runs Mike Mayhew Studio, which produces and sells exclusive variant covers, signed editions, original art, and CGC-graded comics. He's based in Glendale, California, but don't expect him at San Diego Comic-Con this year. Or indeed, any comic convention. As he has just posted a Summer 2026 Comic Con Manifesto on Instagram…

Mike Mayhew: Fellow comic creators!! Stop giving away equity in your future and your brand! You don't need these half-ass, part-time, tourists who call themselves stores! Half of them can't handle it and crash into a wall from greed and stupidity and take us with them. Their interests are not in your best interest! You have wings that are being clipped! When you are exhausted after convention season, 60% of your energy will have been wasted on accommodating stores and fans. It's unnecessary. Think of the art you could have made in the meantime. You are the proven innovator. You have extraordinary talent. Don't kid yourself into thinking you need others to justify your success! And double your prices godammit! Your talent and your signature isn't gasoline. You are not a commodity that should be available to everyone. You are special, and all those things "They'll never sell" will be on eBay tomorrow! Running a business is an art that can ignite your art in ways you never imagined! I will not be at any cons. I will be in the comfort of my own home with my family and traveling with love ones for pleasure, while designing and scaling a creative brand with total freedom to do whatever I want. Take heed. Time is running out.

The stores he is talking about here, are mostly online retailers who arrange exclusive comic book covers for major titles by artists, pay the artist, pay the publisher and mark them up significanty for sale, esp[ecially iof they can get the creator, often at comic conventions to sign, "remark" or sketch on their own covers, to be slabbed and graded and sold for even more. Mike Mayhew does all that, of course, but through his own studio. But not everyone sees it that way, and the back and forth began. Including Mark Brooks, with a similar career to Mike Mayhew, also with his own studio, Mark Brooks Art, creating exclusive covers, but he has a different attitude.

• Mark Brooks: My job is singular and solitary which I like. But conventions are how I recharge. I make plenty of money at home doing my thing but the money doesn't buy camaraderie or the motivation I get when I meet the fans face to face that appreciate my work. A successful sale can fill my wallet for another month but it can't fill my spirit. The bond with my peers and fans isn't something I can buy my way into. Likewise, I love my representation and what they do for me. They handle logistics, customer service, and all the stuff that goes along with a successful online sale so I can focus on art. They earn every penny they get paid so I can feel stress free drawing and hanging out with my peers and fans. By doing that I produce more work that I'm paid for. It's a win-win all the way around. Every artist in this business should do what works best for them so I won't ever fault you for your decisions. The least you could do is do the same for your peers.
• Mike Mayhew: I have extenuating circumstances in my life which prohibits or make it value proposition of whether I go to cons or whether I pursue this other really important part of my life that is not public. I'm 56 years old I've been in this industry for 33 years. I have two teenage children and I'm trying to pay for college, get ready for retire, Retirement, etc. Raising capital is a primary concern. I have invested $1 million printing Comics over the last eight years to have a message for my fellow comic artists. That was the nature of my post. I love going to conventions. I love meeting fans. There are decades of stories of me having warm encounters with fans. I love seeing and talking to other creators. I always make a point to tell them how much I appreciate their work. But the reality is that I'm gonna smoke all you guys by orders of magnitude on revenue. I think that's something to think about. Because the convention experience trade-off is going to cost you an insane amount of money. And I'm going to get a foothole in real estate in a marketplace that other people will have a very hard time catching up with. I'm giving people a chance. I don't need to do this. I'm already where I need to be. I'm bored with comic creator, whose respond talking about is cons are fun. People are nice there. I enjoy going. It really does nothing to either counter or agree with my argument.
• Mark Brooks: Trust me, I've been reading your replies. I get the exhaustion. I am doing things very differently than you, quite the opposite in fact. I'm on track to beat your year last year by loving my fans, getting out to see them, and producing work I love. I've also been fiscally minded since the day I began this job. I own multiple properties. I can retire fully in the next 5 years. Quite honestly, I'm exhausted by the cynicism of some of my peers that have grown grizzled and hard by a job that's supposed to be fun. I'm 53. I've been doing this for 25 years. I have a teenage son I'm putting though college. Welcome to life. I too am constantly trying to earn, save, and protect my future. I do better every year ,year after year. I think I'll stick with what l'm doing. You're welcome to do whatever it is you think you're doing. Which at this point seems to be pissing off your fans and turning off your peers. You're a hell of an artist but all of this is really confusing. If you do have a real message I think it's getting lost in a lot of bad messaging and ego. But you don't seem in the mindset to see that. Have fun with it I guess.

• Dan Panosian: I personally love the conventions because it's a great way to connect with the fans and honestly the whole vibe is inspiring. But you gotta find what works for you…. For me, the conventions are a blast.
• Mike Mayhew: I bet if you stayed home for one out of those six cons and did nothing but sketch covers, producing maybe 30 over 4 or 5 days, and sent those into @cgcsignatureseries and got the artist rate of $18….You would have made four times more money than going to that con. If you sold 30 9.8 sketch covers at $1k a piece that's $30k. You can order as many sketch covers as you want thru lunar for $2-3 each. You don't need a store to arrange all of this for you. You could put whatever you want on them. You don't have to wait for someone to tell you what to draw on there. You could do 30 absolute Batman sketch covers and they would probably go for $2000 apiece. I'm pretty sure that is game changing. We both live in LA. This shit is expensive. Traditional business would fantasize about an increase in revenue like that. you could promote them all month and then do one Whatnot stream or maybe two a month. It's the same as having a zoom meeting. Food for thought my friend
• Dan Panosian: I've never tried something like that – but I don't see why you couldn't do both. I'll definitely look into it. I still enjoy the conventions and seeing the fans and the other writers and artists. This is a very solitary job and it's nice to see how the work is resonating with the readers and the other people in the business. But I'll give the blank covers a go!
• Mike Mayhew: Dan, I would love to take you out to lunch, my friend. I need people exactly like you taking the red pill with me. There is no reason at all that you shouldn't be producing your own store variance through dynamite. It's practically free.  Dan you'll love this one… Last weekend I got to hang out with my mentor Jim Salicrup. He's been going to cons a lot and he's a hell of a cartoonist just like Archie Goodwin. He gives away sketch covers because he's a delightful man and it amuses him. I said Jim, if you made 15 venom 9.8 CGC sketch covers a month you'd have an extra $20,000 a month. Jim is the co creator of Venom although it's unofficial. He was tasked with creating a new villain for issue 300 and the rest of his history.

And then there was iconoclastic comic book retailer Dennis Barger, known to Bleeding Cool readers of old. He was very receptive

• Dennis Barger: You are the new comic book Jesus, go into the temple flip those f'in tables and chase out the middlemen who need creators more than they need them!!! Viva la revolutionian
• Mike Mayhew: Dennis, I've listened to you and admired your work this industry for a long time. That means a lot coming from you… Who the f-ck is hive comics and have they been around for more than three years?
• Dennis Barger: exactly!!!
• Mike Mayhew:  This is the mentality I'm trying to break. @damienhirst hurst isn't doing anything for the people. @jeffkoons isn't doing anything for the people. @takashipom isn't doing anything g for the people. but in the comic book industry, comic creators and especially artists are conditioned that they're lucky they're even working in Comics and their gratitude should be on display and overflowing at all times. I think it's a disproportionate expectation on this particular creative segment than you would find in any other creative field. Rock stars aren't writing songs for you., film directors aren't putting you in a movie. Yet, comic book artists are supposed to give away free drawings and sign as many books as you want. I'm speaking in extremes to make a point. The farther I run away from this mentality, the more creative I can be the more great collectibles I can produce and the more happiness I exchange with people. This is my truth. The language and the perspective surrounding the commerce of comics and artists in the comic book industry is severely broken. Just like the gallery system in the fine art world is widely regarded to be a broken, failing system. In the art world a gallery takes a whopping 50% of the top of any art sold. Artists allow themselves to be taken advantage of for decades and then it's too late.

Hive Comics is a company that commissions, publishes, and sells exclusive cover variants to popular comics from a wide variety of artists. They have definitely been around more than three years, Mike. At least six!

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