In his most recent column for Bleeding Cool, Warren Ellis shares a quote from Japanese film maker Takashi Miike that really resonates with me.

“We have to change the negative things into positive. In today’s Japanese film industry we always say we don’t have enough budget, that people don’t go to see the films. But we can think of it in a positive way, meaning that if audiences don’t go to the cinema we can make any movie we want. After all, no matter what kind of movie you make it’s never a hit, so we can make a really bold, daring movie. There are many talented actors and crew, but many Japanese movies aren’t interesting. Many films are made with the image of what a Japanese film should be like. Some films venture outside those expectations a little bit, but I feel we should break them.”

One need only look at the sales figures for the majority of prose science fiction and fantasy (and comics, too, for that matter) to start imagining how such a sentiment might translate into other media...