Prism Comics Sees Financial Woes

Prism Comics, for those unaware, is a nonprofit organization set up in April 2003 as a nationwide network of fans and comics professionals interested promoting the work of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered creators within the industry. Their press release today states, "[Prism] is seeking support from the comics community to reduce its debt and prepare for its activities in 2005."

The problems left over from this calendar year stem from printing costs still unpaid from the publication of their annual Prism Comics: Your LGBT Guide to Comics, a bound guide put together to promote LGBT work. 2003's edition saw a circulation of more than 3000 copies. However, Prism was forced to tack on a $4.95 price tag this year in order to help make up costs that weren't being met through donations.

"Prism Comics is vitally important to both the comic industry and the GLBT community," writer Devin Grayson (Nightwing, Batman: Gotham Knights) said this weekend. "In addition to being a social bastion, political spearhead, and organizational triumph, Prism has been a fount of proud, celebratory, and inspiring creative energy and innovation since its inception. What qualities could be more important to our industry, especially now as we prepare to begin a new year with mainstream publishers consistently more self-referential and circumscribed and reliably less willing to take artistic, political, or even marketing risks? We can't let any more of our small, independent factions go under, especially not one like Prism, which in mission and accomplishment is large enough to encompass and support each and every one of us."

In a political atmosphere currently charged with fear of so-called "agendas" and state governments seeing more and more controversy erupting from gay marriage issues, it's important for the comic industry to be conscious of the wide specturm of creative talent it has and see the increasingly diversified representation of characters and themes within monthly titles over the last few decades as a positive evolution and not something to fear.

The group's new donation page is encouraging donations before December 31st in order to help make up their lingering debt.