Mark Millar Workshop, Glasgow Film Festival Quotes

Usually, if you do your own books you lose money. You need to build up your reputation first.

I always thought, you can stay somewhere where the people mean a lot about you and you care a lot about them - or you can move far away where nobody really gives a shit about you, but will give you a lot of money. Comic book writing is transient, and it will always be transient. That's not going to change.

You can do it from anywhere, because all you're doing is writing a book and hitting a button. Geography is history now, it doesn't matter where you stay.

If you're good, you will be sought out by publishers. You only need to take a look around to see that the best stuff is being picked up.

In comics, you can pretty much do anything you want.

For me, film is just another medium, but comics is my home medium.

The thing that I try to impress upon everyone is that some guys do Superman for 3 years to afford to do their own one book, but doing [film], you can fund the stuff you really want to do. Hollywood, in a weird way, is actually our best friend.

There has never been any better time to be a writer or an artist.

Does digital media save us any costs? The costs are the same as a paper costs, but the money is going to different distributors. At the moment, it's not the yellow brick road, but I think a couple of years down the line it'll be a great way of bringing in casual readers to comics. At the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic about it.

All it takes is one idea - the right idea - to change everything.

If you're self-publishing, keep it as cheap as you can. Pricepoint: cheap. That's the best advice I can give.

People tend to say to me, you're writing for Hollywood. If anything, I spot guys who do that and they never sell it on - people can smell it. But if you do something that's a bit unique, that wee edge is the thing that gets your idea picked up.

If you start with your ending and work your way back, for some weird reason it feels more satisfying. Everything connects. It's something that nobody really talks about, but I think a lot of writers do that naturally.

Brevity is crucial in comics more than any other medium.