Wealth & Money Quote by Mark Millar

The bluntness here is the tell: Millar isn’t romanticizing artistry, he’s translating it into leverage. “Their argument” points to publishers or executives framing creative freedom not as a moral right but as a revenue strategy. The phrase “and I think it’s a correct one” is Millar’s quiet flex of pragmatism. He’s aligning himself with the money people while also defending the artists, a neat act of cultural triangulation that’s become standard in IP-era storytelling.

The key verb is “messes.” Not “edits,” not “collaborates” - “messes,” a word that assumes interference is clumsy, ego-driven, and value-destroying. The subtext is the familiar comics-to-Hollywood pipeline logic: the best long-tail profits (trades and hardcovers) come from coherence, momentum, and a recognizable voice. When corporate hands start “fixing” a book, you don’t just risk a worse story; you break the brand promise readers are actually paying for.

Millar’s context matters: he’s a writer who’s watched comics become both prestige objects and IP incubators. In that economy, “creative team” is not just labor; it’s a marketing asset, the signature that turns a monthly into a collectible. The quote reads like an internal memo made quotable - a candid admission that the industry’s most reliable defense of creativity is capitalism’s self-interest. Creative autonomy survives, in this framing, because it’s profitable, not because it’s sacred.