My mother used to take my brother and me to get any books we wanted, but they were second hand books published in the '30s and '40s. I liked scary books. ↗
I have 40 years of unpublished material, the ones they don't pick, and the reason I don't redraw them or use them again is that I like to use my brain every day and come up with new jokes. ↗
Publishing a protocol under the name Atom that tries to capture all of the prior art in this stage and might provide a good basis for winding down the syndication wars. ↗
Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list. ↗