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The comic industry is always in flux, and always evolving — and that’s been especially true in the past couple of years with the collapse of one of the industry’s biggest distributors and the massive success of both Marvel’s Ultimate Universe and DC’s Absolute line. That flux can prove disorienting to fans and creators alike, and it’s that latter group that Absolute Batman and DC K.O. writer and co-creator Scott Snyder was addressing recently when he gave advice about what he believes makes a comic a success to today’s fans.

Writing a year-end wrap-up in his Best Jackett Press newsletter, Snyder made the case that what today’s comic book readers are truly responding to is the unexpected, the urgent, and the appeal of reading a story that can only exist in that particular form.

“[The] thing I’m excited about with this market is is that it feels like there are fans out there that are desperately hungry, whether they’re new, whether they’re returning, whether they’ve been there all along, for things that feel transgressive and dangerous and risky and their own. Above all, their own,” Snyder argued. “They want to feel like they’re getting on the ground floor of something that is only happening here, doesn’t feel like it’s connected to some giant ecosystem of TV, movies, of a million different things.”

He continued, “This last year has been one of the most shocking, invigorating, energizing, inspiring times for me in my whole career, if not the most. because it is the validation, honestly, of a thesis that I think a lot of us have had over the years. When you take a risk and you try something that makes comics feel special and exciting and not safe, not going back to the things that we’ve done before, not trying to sort of give everybody just comfort food, people show up. And you can give them big, safe comfort food also. In a lot of ways that’s fun to do both at the same time. We can give you something that speaks to stories that you’ve loved in the past and repackage those or do classic kinds of stuff while also giving you brand new stuff.”

For creators looking for advice from Snyder, he offered the following: “I think the thing that I would say to creators that bring me their books, whether it’s a DC pitch, whether it’s a creator-owned book, is that you have got to meet the market where it is right now. I read so many books coming out from creator-owned spaces that feel like this is a book that could have launched at Boom in 2012 or at Vertigo in 2009 or 2015. It doesn’t feel like it’s urgent or it doesn’t feel like it’s about this moment or that it was a book you had to write right now. It feels like a passion project that you’ve had in the back of your head for a long time. And here’s the thing, 100%, I love those books and I think they should exist and you should publish them. But what I’m seeing from a lot of creators is the bewilderment as to why those books aren’t doing as well as they used to do in some way.” The answer is, he suggested, that they don’t feel urgent or immediate enough.

“You’ve got to look at the market and be like, ‘what’s my biggest swing right now? What’s my biggest tent book? What is the thing that I can do that says this hasn’t been done? It has to exist. It’s dangerous. It’s urgent,’” Snyder said. “That’s the market right now.”

The comics industry right now, he summed up, is at “a thrilling moment. It’s a scary moment. It’s an inspiring moment. And I can’t wait to see what people come up with in ’26.”

Absolute Batman and DC K.O. continue monthly from DC.

Get ready for what's next with our guide to upcoming comics, how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to Free Comic Book Day 2025.