In an interview by e-zine The Beat, Bill Jemas, founder of 360eps and former member of the Marvel team, said: “You can be more creative for less money and less time with better feedback with comics than in any medium I’ve ever been around” (“Interview: Former Marvel COO Bill Jemas Tells Us How to Wake the F#ck Up,” comicsbeat.com, September 13, 2012). This is in line with Marc Alan Fishman saying that he managed the risks of his creative projects by listening to the comments of his true fans (“Everything We Do, We Do It for You,” Marc Alan Fishman, comicmix.com, October 27, 2012).

Without denying the value of fan comments, it’s important to know what changes are being made to improve the product and which ones are done just to make readers happy. Jesse Alexander called the third season of the TV series Alias definitely the series’ worst: “[…] and we’d change up things a little based on viewers’ reactions to certain things. But because we didn’t have any chance to deal with that the year [season four], we’ve been operating in a vacuum where we’ve really been free to craft a story without any outside influence. I think that’s probably helped us stay focused on our goal for the end of the year” (“Revelations,” Alias–The Official Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 10, May-June 2005, p.64-65).

The point isn’t to reject readers’ comments; quite the opposite. But if we write, it’s because we have something to say. As Mark Waid said, you have to please yourself and it all depends more or less on you if down the line your work is read by a lot of other people (Interview #22 – Mark Waid, www.comicsreporter.com, January 10, 2013).