About

Note: Since Dylan passed away in September 2011, Sparkplug has been run by his wife Emily Nilsson and his friends Tom Neely and Virginia Paine. We are striving to continue Dylan’s vision for this company and keep his memory alive by publishing the work he loved. April 2012

A little bit about Sparkplug Comic Books

Written December, 2007

Amazingly enough I was just thinking that Sparkplug had made it 5 years. Amazing that I was thinking about, since I don’t really like to think of something that has been so fun in terms of its age.

I’ve been thinking, for the past year, about how I’d misstated Sparkplug’s goals (as well as misspelling the word endeavor) in the previous “about Sparkplug” page. So, I’ve decided to reassess my goals, 5 years in.

Sparkplug Comic Books is a small publisher. The intent is to stay small, as small as I can keep it. I like the idea of getting little seen work to a wider audience. I’ve moved on from simply that. Also, it seems a little bit presumptuous and self-aggrandizing.

Most of the work Sparkplug and I’ve published over the past 5 years has been put to print because I liked it, more than any other reason. So, I can’t really claim to be publishing people who’s work hasn’t been seen by a wider audience. Ultimately it comes down to me liking the work.

In looking back, the choice of work seems to have been based on the writing, first and foremost. Emphasizing the “book” in comic book. And yet there have been visually based works as well. My chief requirement being that the work I’ve published made me think and challenged me as a reader, requiring an investment of time and thought.

The biggest change in Sparkplug, over the past few years, has been the decision to take on distributing work by friends and skilled self-publishers whose work I like. I’m finding that distributing is almost as much fun as publishing.

I’m still keeping this bit from the old “About” Sparkplug page:

I plan to eventually provide a career for myself that isn’t drawing comics for a living or working the day job. This may or may not work but it is worth a try, for me.

In order to get someplace with this company or any other endeavor in comic books, I see there being four important steps to follow:

1-Time
2-Good supply system and network (distro/store/reviewers/publishers)
3-Quality of work
4-Consistent output of work (not necessarily by the same person). It just has to be done on a regular basis.

Thank you,

-Dylan Williams, publisher