The reason is simple: contemporary comics are a highly specialized industry chain, and true all-rounders who excel at everything—artwork, scripting, plot design, character development—are still very rare.

For example, Lucas Carter and David Clark, their strengths lie more in hands-on execution.

The comic by David Clark, featuring a woodcutter butcher as the protagonist, has a plot that, much like himself, comes across as overly plain—so plain that readers simply can't get into it.

“There’s no reason the boss would draw for you all but not for me, huh, found it, Mason!”

Mark Bennett pointed at a scroll depicting a slightly thin man, with fangs faintly visible at the corners of his mouth, his whole appearance exuding a sickly pallor.

His name is Mason, and he is a vampire—a character created by Mark Bennett.

It could be said that Mark Bennett's current success already showed signs back when he was still in the studio. His vampire-themed comic ranked second in studio sales at the time, just behind the boss’s “Demon Maru.”

An Eastern-faced vampire, combined with a cold and unrestrained personality, set against a fast-paced, blood-pumping story—the market response was excellent.

A character that audiences love, paired with a story that ignites their passion, is the key to capturing the market. It is precisely because he firmly believed in this principle that Mark Bennett has enjoyed such great success in recent years.

In the comic, Mason's personality is one of absolute madness—no matter the opponent, he always flips the table and charges straight in.

At the same time, Mason is also lonely. He doesn’t see himself as a vampire, but he’s certainly no longer human. He has few friends, and after every bout of madness, what remains is a chilling solitude that tugs at the heart.

Because of this, the character has many female fans.

Autumn quietly walked past the group from behind.

She seemed a bit fearful, yet also somewhat expectant.

But what must come, still came.

She saw a painting: in it, a man with a slightly bluish complexion squatted on the ground, surrounded by a mess of corpses.

His name is Paul Harris, and he is a zombie.

He craves blood as if it were his life; he is cruel and utterly heartless.

He has lived from ancient times all the way to the present. Time has only made him feel more and more alienated from the world.

And his name is the same as his creator’s.

Paul Harris...

At this moment, Emily Carter had already shifted her attention away from Feng Siniang. When she saw Autumn and the painting in front of her, she too fell silent.

There were seven people in the studio back then.

They were: the boss, herself and her younger brother Lucas, Mark Bennett, David Clark, Autumn, and Paul Harris.

Paul Harris and Autumn were once a couple. They were already together when they joined the studio, but more than three years ago, Paul Harris died in a car accident.

The dissolution of the studio could be said to have originated from Paul Harris's death, but that wasn’t the main reason.

Paul Harris's death left Autumn disheartened about many things, but in a seven-person studio, losing two people didn’t make it impossible to keep going.

The main reason was that the studio had always focused on horror and gore comics—a niche genre to begin with. Coupled with policy restrictions and crackdowns, the studio’s survival became increasingly difficult.

When the studio’s most popular and best-selling series, “Demon Maru” and “Vampire Mason,” were both banned, the studio suddenly found itself in a predicament with no clear future.

At the time, Mark Bennett strongly suggested that the studio should cater to the market and create more positive, or at least less gory and horrific, works. That way, the environment would be better and a larger audience could bring in higher income.

But the boss directly rejected this suggestion.

The boss said that everyone had come together in the first place because of their love for horror and gore, and he didn’t want to taint their original passion.

Because of this, the studio’s operations ground to a complete halt.

First, Mark Bennett left and joined an animation company, starting a new chapter in his career.

Next were the The Carter Family siblings. The The Carter Family family was of modest means; both parents were workers, and Lucas Carter had poor health, with annual medical expenses always a challenge. So Emily Carter had no choice but to leave and choose a different line of work.

The last to go was David Clark. After everyone else had left, he quietly packed up his things, made the boss a bowl of noodles, and went to work at a game company.

Back then, they had come together out of shared interests, weathered five years of ups and downs side by side, but in the end, they couldn’t escape the law that all good things must come to an end.

Next to the zombie Paul Harris, very close by, was another painting. This was the protagonist of Autumn's comic, but not a female character—instead, it was a man with hollow eye sockets.

His name is Nate, a blind man skilled at playing the piano. When he kills, he likes to place his hands in front of him, playing piano melodies in the air while his prey is tortured to death.

This comic was drawn by Autumn herself. The art style is very realistic, but the plot is quite weak. In many of the series, Nate is killing right from the start, as if the entire comic exists solely for the sake of killing.