Alan Moore and the Paucity of Ideas -- Eddie Campbell weighs in with a sterling silver retort to anyone who doesn't get what Alan Moore has had to say recently about the comic book industry.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 8:50 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
New ADD Essay at TWC -- Click over to Trouble with Comics to read my new essay, What We Talk About When We Talk About Creator Rights.

Labels: industry, trouble with comics

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:47 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Jack Kirby Estate Seeks Copyright to Kirby's Creations -- Kevin Melrose has the breaking news at Robot 6 at CBR. Needless to say, this will be a very big story, and hopefully one that will end up with some justice being done for the family of the man without whom Marvel Comics would have been a footnote in the history of North American comic book publishing. More to come in the days ahead.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:11 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Matt Springer weighs in with a thoughtful followup on the death of the Direct Market in response to Chris Butcher's think-piece from earlier in the week. Among other observations, Dr. Springs calls Time of Death on the DM as it stands staggers today.

I highlight Matt's piece not because he calls out my frequent references to the current, dying network of superhero convenience stores, but because he makes some good observations about the current state and likely future of comics retailing.

"The experiences outlined by Butcher in his piece are undoubtedly the same experiences many savvy comics retailers are already having. These are the folks interested in supporting a variety of artistic viewpoints and serving readers with the type of customer service that nurtures their habits and embraces their enthusiasm..."

This is the type of comics retailing I have experienced in just a handful of shops, most notably Butcher's own The Beguiling in Toronto and Modern Myths in Northampton, Massachusetts. I often call shops like these the future of comics retailing, because if comics has a future that doesn't look like a dimly-lit crack house for spandex addicts, then it looks like these sorts of stores: bright, open, welcoming, and stocking an astonishing array of every type of comics in the hopes of securing as large a percentage of the community's comics-buying dollars as possible, from as many types of readers as possible within that community. Boys, girls, men, women, gays, straights, and anything and everything in-between and outside those definitions. And they get those comics into their stores by working with not just Diamond, but with any and every good distribution source they can find, resulting in a diverse stock in the store and frequently much-desired titles available weeks ahead of Diamond's sluggish handling of non-spandex titles. It's more work, yes, but ultimately for more money, as well as a wider, stronger customer base and a better reputation in the community. It's the superhero convenience store owner's worst nightmare, and it's the industry's last hope. Embrace it, or go away already.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:05 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Alan Moore and Marvelman: Not Good Enough, Marvel -- It looks like Alan Moore's cooperation with Marvel publishing Marvelman is less an enthusiastic "go for it!" than a "do whatever the fuck you want and leave me alone," as seen in this interview at Mania.com.

Now, Moore does say he's happy with Marvel's plans as long as Mick Anglo and his family are compensated, but as I said when Marvel's Marvelman plans first came to light, "Nothing short of a joint Alan Moore/Joe Quesada press conference in which they shake hands and Moore smiles a lot will change my mind," in regards to my profound reservations about Marvel's stewardship of this particular intellectual property. From what Moore says at the Mania interview, he still sounds (rightfully) bitter toward Marvel, and doesn't want his name on the project. He says he expects Marvel to go along with the idea of leaving his name off any forthcoming books, but man, do I ever have a hard time envisioning that happening. Leaving Alan Moore's name off a Marvelman collection means at least some lost revenue, especially outside the Direct Market, and how often do you think Marvel and DC leave money on the table for ethical reasons? More often than Big Bangs, happen, sure, but far less often than Paris Hilton leaves the house with no undies on.

So, given Moore's obviously mixed feelings about the endeavour, I personally can't get excited about any Marvel Comics Marvelman plans. And listen, seriously, there's nothing more that I would like in my collection than a one-volume complete Marvelman hardcover. But I'd feel far better about laying out a thousand bucks for this custom Miracleman hardcover on eBay than a hundred bucks for an Omnibus Edition "officially" published by Marvel, under what appears to be some pretty unsatisfactory conditions for the writer who made the property valuable in the first place, with his brilliant rethinking of a pretty bland and uninteresting character.

Why is it so fucking hard for the corporate comics companies to just treat their writers and artists well and generate the goodwill necessary to make buying their goddamned books something other than a cringe-inducing exercise in ethical compromise?

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:52 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Saving Your Comic Shop: It's in the Hands of the Retailers -- Comics retailer Ilan Strasser, of Fat Moose Comics and Games in Whippany, New Jersey, has exploded the myth of cyclical comic sales. At least in his experience.

He tells retailer site ICv2 (link via Robot 6) that it's the "Big Two" (he means Marvel and DC, not Viz and IDW, for those of you who actually know what sells these days) that are to blame for decreasing sales.

He starts off, "I have wanted to comment on several stories during the past six months, but had serious, recurring email issues with my computer." Now, one might question the business skills of a retailer who allows "serious, recurring email issues" to plague his business for half a year, but let's let that one pass and get on the meat of it: "Marvel and DC, our big 2, have had to notice the decline in sales over the last six months. Overall, the trend has been steadily downward even when accounting for occasional small percentage increases. If they hadn't noticed themselves, I'm sure that Diamond would have pointed it out to them -- after all Diamond tracks all the monthly, quarterly and yearly numbers."

Tracking monthly, quarterly and yearly numbers, by the way, is called in some circles "cycle sheets," and is considered invaluable in monitoring past and current sales and predicting future growth (or lack thereof). Strasser says "You would think that Marvel and DC, having this serious and depressing information at hand, would revise the manner in which they do business. If they care at all about the future long-term health of the pamphlet comic book, you would think these two companies would take immediate steps to stop the irresponsible behavior they have shown over the last 15 years (at least)."

As much of a critic as I am of the policies of corporate comics publishers Marvel and DC, I have to call bullshit on Strasser here. He is asking the "Big Two" to change their policies so he can continue to operate his business as he always has, when in fact, it is the responsibility of the retailer and the retailer alone to adjust to changing market forces in his or her own retail establishment. In other words, if Marvel and DC believe what they are doing is working (and in the case of Marvel, clearly Disney, at least, believes it's four billion dollars worth of working), then they have no obligation to change their policies.

I would argue, rather, that a sharp businessman -- and Strasser claims to have been in business for nearly three decades -- must monitor the market and change his own policies in order to stay alive and even thrive. This is part of what I was talking about in my essay, A Future for Comics.

Diamond, DC and Marvel are all huge corporations that respond to the needs of their retail clients with all the speed and dexterity of a dying woolly mammoth. Changes, if any, will generally be slow and difficult to understand. I'm all for a healthy, thriving Direct Market for comics, as long as it is vital and alive and responsive to the needs of everyone in its community that is interested in any kind of comics at all. And sad to say, the vast majority of comic book stores that I have experienced are not meeting that standard. Because they have always thrived on selling monthly, floppy superhero comic books to an audience of mostly white guys of a certain age, they believe they don't need to change their business model. Meanwhile, the world's definition of what constitutes comics has moved pretty far beyond simply superhero comics. They'll likely always be a part of the pie chart, but if you run a comic shop here at the end of the first decade of the third millennium, you need to be aware of and expert in the retailing of graphic novels, manga, newspaper strip reprints, and any and all things comics. This is your stock-in-trade, after all, comics, so why stake your entire survival -- your ability to pay your mortgage and feed your family -- on the historically unresponsive and disinterested corporations that are DC and Marvel?

Strasser believes his world will turn bright once more if the following changes are made by Marvel and DC:

* Stop the big event with the multi-part crossover storylines.

* Price comics back down to an affordable level based on real costs and not short-term greed -- comics pricing has far exceeded the increase in inflation over the last decade.

* Solicit and publish their books on a timely basis. There is a world of talented writers and artists out there -- use the ones who can deliver product (let's call it what it is) on time and forget the big name, prima donna basis for utilizing talent, and create a system that punishes said talent when it fails to live up to its commitments.

* Stop publishing more than one monthly title of your major characters and don't produce miniseries that aren't exceptionally high in quality. Stop clogging the shelves with shit.

* Work TOGETHER to raise the health of the industry. Stop endlessly fighting to be first. You will always be one or two and within reasonable percentages in terms of volume and dollar sales. Wouldn't a scenario where a publisher isn't always first, but makes exponentially more money overall be better for either publisher?

* Start treating your retail partners like they really matter instead of conduits for your cash flow.

I would address each of these individually, but the fact of the matter is that each one is written with blinders on and an attitude straight out of The Direct Market of 1988. Strasser sounds like he is either unaware of or overwhelmed by the graphic novel revolution, and not responding to it in a sensible fashion that will help him sustain his business. Marvel and DC aren't publishing multiple titles of the same characters because they want to destroy his store, they are doing it because A) They know they can sell more comics that way, and perhaps more importantly, B) Because it gives them more fodder for the lucrative market for collected editions (what Eddie Campbell hates that the rest of the world calls "graphic novels").

I did find it amusing that Strasser says he is basing his demands and expectations on publisher awareness of the cycles in comics retailing, and then says "this notion that comic sales are cyclical is bullshit and always has been. If you know what you're doing as a retailer, sales, cash flow, and profits can be regulated."

Then prove it, Mr. Strasser. Disregard the cycles, disregard the actions of the companies that have you at their mercy, do nothing to respond to the changes occurring right this moment and for the past ten years in the greater comic book marketplace, and regulate those sales, cash flow and profits. Good luck to you.

How Strasser can say on the one hand that "This kind of corporate behavior has persisted in the 22 years since and shows that Marvel (and DC) care little about their retail 'partners' or about the overall health of the comics industry," and then expect on the other that he can do nothing to save his business except complain about the actions of companies he knows don't give a shit about him, is a question for the ages. It's all part of the cognitive dissonance that is rampant within the worst areas of the Direct Market, unfortunately by all available evidence, the vast majority of places that call themselves "comic book stores" in North America.

---

Download my free new eBook of nearly four dozen interviews with comics creators, Conversations with ADD, by clicking here. A full list of interview subjects can be found here.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:33 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
As I said on Facebook -- I care about Disney buying Marvel about as much as I care about the Jonas Brothers buying an accordion.

But there's a link to the CNN story, if you're so inclined.

Edited to add: I am a bit annoyed by all the fawning over "Stan Lee's creations" in the Disney/Marvel coverage. Stan Lee didn't draw any of the comics he co-created. His most important creative partners, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko among them, deserve to be mentioned in these stories.

And edited again to also add: About the only thing I buy from Marvel these days is the occasional Omnibus or Masterworks hardcover. I'm much more interested in their history than the current egregious state of their "universe," mishandled as it's been the past five or six years.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 11:13 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Borders -- I'll be honest with you, my contrarian streak against corporate chains runs deeper than the Marianas Trench. I'd rather eat at the seediest roadside diner than Chili's, Applebee's or any of those places. Give me a family-owned, single-location small business every time.

I do love independent bookstores, like The Bookhouse in Albany, New York or Northshire Books in Manchester, Vermont, or Crow Books in Burlington, VT. But I have to admit I love Borders. And I love it because of my addiction to comics.

Tom Spurgeon talks a little about the importance of Borders to the comics industry here.

For many years, the Borders location on Wolf Road in Colonie (an Albany suburb) was a nearly-weekly destination for me, carrying a dazzling array of graphic novels and a manga section you could comfortably fit a family of four into. When it closed a few months ago, part of a devastating one-two punch that also saw the closing of the nearby Garcia's (an unbelievably great Mexican restaurant), I was just about moved to tears at the end of an era for me -- my two favourite places to spend money in the Albany area were gone. Sure, there's a Borders down the road a piece in the mammoth Crossgates Mall, but I hate malls more than I hate Chili's (don't even get me started about Chili's in the mall), and besides, the Borders on Wolf Road was right near Garcia's, which is gone too. Garcia's had this one server, Sergei? He was amazing, always remembered what our whole family not only liked to drink, but our usual food orders, too. But I digress.

Borders. I hate that they're in so much financial distress. As Tom points out, you can feel it every time you go in there, at least I can, at least in some of the local branches. The Saratoga Springs Borders seems to be losing more and more inventory, and spreading out more and more of the displays and shelving in the hopes no one will notice the ever-increasing space where there used to be merchandise. If that store is there in a year, I will be shocked. If it's gone next week, I will be saddened. Borders has been so good to my comics obsession.

See, one of the key weaknesses of the Direct Market comic book distribution system has been that Diamond focuses much more heavily on floppy, stapled, 32-page comic books than it does on manga or graphic novels. So at Borders, I would often find a graphic novel I'd been looking forward to weeks before Diamond bothered to get them to comic book shops. This was especially true three or four years ago for publishers like Pantheon, although it seems like Diamond has gotten better at getting stuff into comic shops, as a result of the enormous shift away from stapled comics and toward books with a spine and a complete story. But when Borders had the shipping advantage, man, I'd be there every chance I could in my fevered obsession to see what's new and what's next in comics and graphic novels.

A year-and-a-half ago, I thought Borders was going to change the face of graphic novel retailing in North America. Then, of course, the economy fell apart and their economic woes were probably magnified tenfold. Now I wonder if Borders has any future at all.

As Tom notes, Borders has been pretty innovative and good for comics. I've probably spent thousands of dollars on comics in various Borders branches over the last decade, and despite my loathing of corporate shopping environments, I admit a huge fetish for the clean shelves and high ceilings and wonky, unique individuals you always find working in their stores. If the writing's on the wall and their days are numbered, I just wanted to take a moment to say that I really liked buying comics at Borders, and I've loved exploring the nooks and crannies of their other sections, too. I recently finished re-reading a hardcover edition of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, purchased on a hot summer day a year or two back at the Wolf Road Borders, with a 25 percent off coupon easing the impact of the book's high price, and I think the receipt is still tucked away in the book somewhere. I always save my receipts from Borders, not in case I want to return something, but to remind me of the day and time that I bought it. Because for me, every trip to Borders is worth remembering.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:17 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Burning Bridges -- Frank Santoro has a great piece up about how the Direct Market era has come to an end, signified by the disinterest comic shops had in supporting the new Nexus efforts of Mike Baron and Steve Rude.

This is, in retrospect, a glaringly obvious point, and good for Frank for laying it out so well. My earliest days of weekly shopping (and one summer working) in the Direct Market look, through my rose-tinted specs, like racks and racks of nothing but Nexus, Love and Rockets, Cerebus, Elfquest, and The First Kingdom. Of course, there were many other exciting titles emerging at that time, but those are the ones that really stood out, and your knew if you found those on the racks next to Uncanny X-Men and New Teen Titans, you had found a comic book store that knew what it was doing, staying sharp, looking ahead and looking out for the best interests of its customers and the industry as a whole.

How times have changed. Good luck even finding the best and most vital comics titles at most "comic book stores," these days, one of the reasons why I continue to assert that the vast majority of Direct Market retailers are really superhero convenience shops, servicing the desires of superhero fans, not true comic book stores, catering to the diverse tastes of readers of comic books who seek out whatever genres and styles appeal to them and speak to them as readers, as people.

My experiences over the past couple of years in the Direct Market have been very mixed. There are few truly visionary comic book stores within a day's drive of where I live; the shop I regularly buy comics at is very good at special orders, but there's no depth at all in terms of the sorts of alternative and independent comics that I see as the vital lifeblood of comics at the moment, and if I miss ordering those sorts of books in the narrow one-month window of any given Previews catalog, I'm left to find things on eBay, from online retailers, or often, I'm just, as mom used to say, "Shit out of luck."

That Baron and Rude are "Shit out of luck" within the Direct Market blows my mind and saddens me a bit, because that was a comic I loved when I was 14. I'll admit I haven't read any new issues in years (I have never seen the new run on sale, anywhere, so the news it's failed is really no news at all), but any time I re-read the first batch of issues, they always bring a smile to my face. So much energy, so much potential. For Nexus; for me.

Where did it all go wrong?

Go read Santoro's piece, it's an eye-opener.

Labels: corporate comics, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:29 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Current Discussion About the Direct Market -- Reading various comments about how to fix the direct market, it occurs to me that it's largely a semantic problem. 90 percent of the stores within the DM are, proudly, superhero stores, not comic book stores. I think it was Sean Collins that quoted Spurgeon saying "comic shops are the places you can find comics," or words to that effect, and we should insist that be true. Superhero shops can be the place you can find superheroes (including comics, Heroes DVDs, whatever floats their boat), and the 10 percent of DM stores that actually embrace all of comics and all the people who want to read them (including women and children) can then rightfully be called comic shops and carry Manga and Tintin and all the stuff that is comics that superhero fans (including the ones that own superhero convenience stores) spit on, hate and fear.

Just a thought.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:12 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
My Eisner Picks -- Tom Spurgeon posted the list of 2009 Eisner Award nominees yesterday, my picks are in bold. No choice in a category means either I haven't read any of the nominated works or have no preference in that category.

Best Short Story
* Actual Size, by Chris Ware, in Kramers Ergot 7 (Buenaventura Press)
* Chechen War, Chechen Women, by Joe Sacco, in I Live Here (Pantheon)
* Freaks, by Laura Park, in Superior Showcase #3 (AdHouse) [my review]
* Glenn Ganges in Pulverize, by Kevin Huizenga, in Ganges #2 (Fantagraphics)
* Murder He Wrote, by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto, and Andrew Pepoy, in The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror #14 (Bongo)

Best Continuing Series
* All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
* Fables, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Niko Henrichon, Andrew Pepoy, and Peter Gross (Vertigo/DC)
* Naoki Urasawa's Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
* Thor, by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales, and various (Marvel)
* Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai (Dark Horse)

Best Limited Series
* Groo: Hell on Earth, by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier (Dark Horse)
* Hellboy: The Crooked Man, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)
* Locke & Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
* Omega the Unknown, by Jonathan Lethem, Karl Rusnak, and Farel Dalrymple (Marvel)
* The Twelve, by J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Weston (Marvel)

Best New Series
* Air, by G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker (Vertigo/DC)
* Echo, by Terry Moore (Abstract Studio)
* Invincible Iron Man, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca (Marvel)
* Madame Xanadu, by Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder Hadley, and Richard Friend (Vertigo/DC)
* Unknown Soldier, by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli (Vertigo/DC)

Best Publication for Kids
* Amulet, Book 1: The Stonekeeper, by Kazu Kabuishi (Scholastic Graphix)
* Cowa!, by Akira Toriyama (Viz)
* Princess at Midnight, by Andi Watson (Image)
* Stinky, by Eleanor Davis (RAW Junior)
* Tiny Titans, by Art Baltazar and Franco (DC)

Best Publication for Teens/Tweens
* Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, adapted by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins Children's Books)
* Crogan's Vengeance, by Chris Schweizer (Oni)
* The Good Neighbors, Book 1: Kin, by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh (Scholastic Graphix)
* Rapunzel's Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale and Nathan Hale (Bloomsbury Children's Books)
* Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books)

Best Humor Publication
* Arsenic Lullaby Pulp Edition No. Zero, by Douglas Paszkiewicz (Arsenic Lullaby)
* Chumble Spuzz, by Ethan Nicolle (SLG)
* Herbie Archives, by "Sean O'Shea" (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)
* Petey and Pussy, by John Kerschbaum (Fantagraphics)
* Wondermark: Beards of Our Forefathers, by David Malki (Dark Horse)

Best Anthology
* An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, Vol. 2, edited by Ivan Brunetti (Yale University Press)
* Best American Comics 2008, edited by Lynda Barry (Houghton Mifflin)
* Comic Book Tattoo: Narrative Art Inspired by the Lyrics and Music of Tori Amos, edited by Rantz Hoseley (Image)
* Kramers Ergot 7, edited by Sammy Harkham (Buenaventura Press)
* MySpace Dark Horse Presents, edited by Scott Allie and Sierra Hahn (Dark Horse)

Best Digital Comic
* Bodyworld, by Dash Shaw
* Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil
* The Lady's Murder, by Eliza Frye
* Speak No Evil: Melancholy of a Space Mexican, by Elan Trinidad
* Vs., by Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari

Best Reality-Based Work
* Alan's War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
* Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story, by Frederik Peeters (Houghton Mifflin)
* Fishtown, by Kevin Colden (IDW)
* A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child, by Rick Geary (NBM)
* What It Is, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album -- New
* Alan's War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
* Paul Goes Fishing, by Michel Rabagliati (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books)
* Swallow Me Whole, by Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
* Three Shadows, by Cyril Pedrosa (First Second)

Best Graphic Album -- Reprint
* Berlin Book 2: City of Smoke, by Jason Lutes (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Hellboy Library Edition, Vols. 1-2, by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)
* Sam & Max Surfin' the Highway Anniversary Edition HC, by Steve Purcell (Telltale Games)
* Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by Joshua W. Cotter (AdHouse)
* The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite, deluxe edition, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba (Dark Horse)

Best Archival Collection/Project -- Strips
* The Complete Little Orphan Annie, by Harold Gray (IDW)
* Explainers, by Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, Many More Splendid Sundays, by Winsor McCay (Sunday Press Books)
* Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles (IDW)
* Willie & Joe, by Bill Mauldin (Fantagraphics)

Best Archival Collection/Project -- Comic Books
* Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon)
* Creepy Archives, by Various (Dark Horse)
* Elektra Omnibus, by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel)
* Good-Bye, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly) [my review]
* Herbie Archives, by "Sean O'Shea" (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material
* Alan's War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
* Gus and His Gang, by Chris Blain (First Second)
* The Last Musketeer, by Jason (Fantagraphics)
* The Rabbi's Cat 2, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)
* Tamara Drewe, by Posy Simmonds (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material -- Japan
* Cat Eyed Boy, by Kazuo Umezu (Viz)
* Dororo, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
* Naoki Urasawa's Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
* The Quest for the Missing Girl, by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
* Solanin, by Inio Asano (Viz) [my review]

Best Writer
* Joe Hill, Lock & Key (IDW)
* J. Michael Straczynski, Thor, The Twelve (Marvel)
* Mariko Tamaki, Skim (Groundwood Books)
* Matt Wagner, Zorro (Dynamite); Madame Xanadu (Vertigo/DC)
* Bill Willingham, Fables, House of Mystery (Vertigo/DC)

Best Writer/Artist
* Rick Geary, A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child (NBM); J. Edgar Hoover (Hill & Wang)
* Emmanuel Guibert, Alan's War (First Second)
* Jason Lutes, Berlin (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Cyril Pedrosa, Three Shadows (First Second)
* Nate Powell, Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library (Acme)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
* Gabriel Ba, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
* Mark Buckingham/Steve Leialoha, Fables (Vertigo/DC)
* Olivier Coipel/Mark Morales, Thor (Marvel)
* Guy Davis, BPRD (Dark Horse)
* Amy Reeder Hadley/Richard Friend, Madame Xanadu (Vertigo/DC)
* Jillian Tamaki, Skim (Groundwood Books)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist
* Lynda Barry, What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Eddie Campbell, The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard (First Second)
* Enrico Casarosa, The Venice Chronicles (Atelier Fio/AdHouse)
* Scott Morse, Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (Red Window)
* Jill Thompson, Magic Trixie, Magic Trixie Sleeps Over (HarperCollins Children's Books)

Best Cover Artist
* Gabriel Ba, Casanova (Image); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
* Jo Chen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity (Dark Horse); Runaways (Marvel)
* Amy Reeder Hadley, Madame Xanadu (Vertigo/DC)
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
* Matt Wagner, Zorro (Dynamite); Grendel: Behold the Devil (Dark Horse)

Best Coloring
* Steve Hamaker, Bone: Ghost Circles, Bone: Treasure Hunters (Scholastic Graphix)
* Trish Mulvihill, Joker (DC), 100 Bullets (Vertigo/DC)
* Val Staples, Criminal, Incognito (Marvel Icon)
* Dave Stewart, Abe Sapien: The Drowning, BPRD, The Goon, Hellboy, Solomon Kane, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); Body Bags (Image); Captain America: White (Marvel)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #19 (Acme)

Best Lettering
* Faryl Dalrymple, Omega: The Unknown (Marvel)
* Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! (Renaissance)
* Scott Morse, Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (Red Window)
* Nate Powell, Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #19 (Acme)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
* Comic Book Resources, produced by Jonah Weiland
* The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
* The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael
* Comics Comics, edited by Timothy Hodler and Dan Nadel (PictureBox)

Best Comics-Related Book
* Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, by Todd DePastino (Norton)
* Brush with Passion: The Art and Life of Dave Stevens, edited by Arnie and Cathy Fenner (Underwood)
* Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (First Second)
* Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier (Abrams) [my review]
* The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hajdu (Picador/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Best Publication Design
* Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! designed by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon)
* Comic Book Tattoo, designed by Tom Muller, art direction by Rantz Hoseley (Image)
* Hellboy Library Editions, designed by Cary Grazzini and Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)
* What It Is, designed by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Willie and Joe, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics)

The Eisners will be awarded during the San Diego Comicon this summer. Note that Fantagraphics Books is celebrating its nominations with a 15%-off sale on nominated works, and Top Shelf is offering a free copy of Nate Powell's excellent comic Please Release with purchase of his nominated graphic novel Swallow Me Whole.

Labels: industry, lists

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:04 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Secret Lives of Comic Store Employees -- Wish I had thought of this. A great photo essay up now at Wired.

Labels: industry, recommendations

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:01 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Dismantling of The Bookscan Analysis of Brian Hibbs -- This has been coming a good long time: Dirk Deppey definitively explains why Brian Hibbs is full of shit in his yearly "analysis" of Bookscan's mainstream bookstore graphic novel sales. This comes on the heels of last week's more moderated dismissal/recommendation from Tom Spurgeon.

We suffer through Hibbs's skewed view of the mainstream book world every year (here are my comments from 2008), and I strongly recommend you read all of Dirk's comments in the first post linked above, but if you're short of time, just read the brilliant year-by-year quoting of Hibbs's dogmatic and objectively wrong belief that mainstream bookstores can't and don't excel at moving artcomix product.

In 2008, I spent more on graphic novels in Borders than in any other single store, because the kind I want (non-spandex/autobio) was more widely available there, and because through the Borders Rewards program they regularly offer me discounts of anywhere from 25 to 40 percent off on books I already wanted to buy anyway.

Dirk's piece today should finally put to rest the idea that Hibbs has anything of value to offer to the discussion of graphic novel sales in stores that are not his own. I am not saying he is not a good writer (his weekly reviews are highly readable and often insightful). And I am not saying he does not have something of value to say about sales in his own shop, and to a lesser degree about sales within the dying direct market that he loves so much (so much that he refuses to ever admit it is mortally wounded and needs to work toward a future for comics, a goal it is uniquely positioned to work toward if only it wanted to).

But I am saying, and have said for some time, that Hibbs is at the very least ignorant and at the very worst highly biased against any outlet not within the direct market that is selling graphic novels, whether it's your local independent bookstore or monolithic corporate giants like Chapters, Borders or Barnes and Noble. Like many tens of thousands of consumers, I buy graphic novels in those outlets all the fucking time, which is the very reason why stores like that carry such product. Of course they make returns, it's how their system has been set up and how it has operated for decades. The direct market for comics does not return its unsold merchandise, a fact which creates problems and benefits of its own.

But the biggest problem with the direct market, as I have been saying now for years, is its largely insular and unwelcoming-to-outsiders (women, girls, children, men like me looking for non-superhero reading material) environment. For every comic book store that welcomes me and my wife and my son and my daughter and wants to sell something to each one of us (and carries product varied and diverse enough to meet that goal), there are at least ten (and sadly, maybe more) that actively work to exclude anyone who isn't a spandex-obsessed male of a certain age. And that is the market Hibbs is telling us is better at selling artcomix than any Borders or any independent bookstore.

In short, on this topic, Brian Hibbs is full of shit, and Dirk Deppey has laid out the proof pretty definitively. Anyone who chooses to continue to believe his Bookscan baloney from here on out deserves what they'll be eating: Baloney. And it's been sitting around for years, as Dirk's opening quotes demonstrate.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:42 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Varying Degrees of Salt -- More interesting to me than the piece he is linking to is Tom Spurgeon's heavily-qualified recommendation to read the latest Bookscan "analysis" by retailer Brian Hibbs.

While Brian is an undeniably smart guy, who literally wrote the book on comics retailing within the direct market, he has proved monumentally -- I would go so far as to say fatally, at this point -- blind to the realities of the developed and developing markets for comics and graphic novels outside the stunted, inbred and mostly bumbling direct market. That Hibbs's thunderbolts from the mountain are to be considered with varying degrees of salt is no surprise, but that the mostly tolerant and big-tentish Tom Spurgeon would go to such lengths to explain (quite accurately) why Hibbs's commentary is of limited value but worth reading, seems kind of extraordinary to me.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:35 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Diamond Challenge -- Let's see, Drawn and Quarterly has received copies of A Drifting Life, which I am excited beyond words about, and which I pre-ordered through the Direct Market via Diamond's Previews catalog.

Today is February 17th. The book has been printed. When will I have the book in my hands? How many copies will I see in mainstream bookstores before it arrives at my comic book shop? I'm giddy with anticipation of Diamond falling all over itself to get this non-superhero offering to me with all due haste.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 11:29 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Quote of the Day -- Tom Spurgeon, on Diamond's self-destructive new policies:

"It's as if Diamond is finally admitting that offering the widest variety of comics via an array of ordering options was a marginal game all along. Yet instead of coming to their senses and working to make those books less marginal to the underlying mission, treating a sudden interest in, say, Scott Pilgrim as an opportunity to give their clients another sales anchor as opposed to treating it like some unwelcome party crasher, they're moving to cut them off entirely."

Much more at The Comics Reporter.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:49 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
"Hey, What Are You Reading?" -- It was as recently as two or three years ago that I was astonished by the discipline of friends of mine in comics that started "waiting for the trade," eschewing monthly floppy comics in favor of their sturdier, often more handsome collected versions. I had been making weekly treks to the comics shop (in one form or another) since I was 8 or 9 years old, and the thought of actually waiting months, or even a year or more, to read stories I could read in serialized for right now (well, once a month), seemed beyond the limits of my imagination.

Then bad writers seemed to take over superhero comics, packing once-beloved titles with mediocre (or worse) stories, often tied into "events" that mattered not a bit to me, whether it was House of M, Infinite Crisis, or any one of a dozen other gimmicks that drove me away from current-day superhero comics. These "events" are designed to increase sales, but in my case, the proliferation of truly lousy comics just made me throw my hands up and give up on the North American corporate-owned superhero comic as something I needed to keep up with on a weekly basis.

So it's always a weird moment for me when someone asks -- and they do, from time to time -- "What are you reading these days?" I genuinely have to think about it to remember what I've read recently that I enjoyed. More often than not it's a standalone graphic novel, probably of the artcomix variety, but of course the person asking my opinion is usually a superhero comics fan and is interested in knowing what I think is good in that neck of the woods. "Nothing much at all," would be the answer these days, of course.

But there are regularly-published titles that still jazz me up -- just, very few of them are monthly. The Scott Pilgrim series of manga-sized books is as good as comics get these days, completely deserving of all the hype it gets, and better than sex, pizza and the new Battlestar Galactica combined.

It's easy to take Love and Rockets for granted after all these years, but the new annual format provides an amazing slab of great comics. There are no better living comics creators than Los Bros -- a few equals like Clowes and Ware, but no one is better. Do I love the idea of waiting a year between "issues?" No, of course not. I'd like my L&R fix weekly if possible, and there was a time a decade ago or so when it seemed like that was actually happening -- but I'll wait that year, knowing that in the end I'll be rewarded with comics that are among the best and most entertaining ever created.

I'm looking forward to the Cold Heat collection from Picturebox -- I was just starting to "get" the floppies when they canceled it, due to Diamond's inability to properly market and distribute single issues of non-superhero comics. Frank Santoro (one half of the Cold Heat creative team) is pretty amazing if you like artcomix; Storeyville was superb and Incanto, a mini-comic he did, was beautiful and mysterious.

Then we come to the actual, traditional stapled, floppy, monthly-type comic books. Godland from Image, Buffy from Dark Horse and Criminal and Incognito from Marvel/Icon are about the only monthly floppies I still bother with. I am, indeed, waiting for the trades on Conan (not as transcendent as it was under Busiek/Nord, but still very good, and fun to read, adventure comics).

I'd talk about the horror/detective procedural Fell if I thought it was ever coming out again. And speaking of Warren Ellis, I wonder if the last issue of Planetary will be published this decade.

Labels: corporate comics, culture, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:19 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Today's Required Reading -- Top-shelf comics retailer and advocate Christopher Butcher on how Diamond is accelerating the destruction of the Direct Market, and why it should stop. Read this one, folks.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 11:12 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Your Essential Monday Morning Read -- There's no better way to start off your morning, your week, and your year than reading Christopher Butcher's Future of Manga essay. Butcher looks at where Manga sales are at right now, in both mainstream bookstores and the Direct Market of superhero convenience shops comic book stores, and looks ahead not only at what he expects in 2009, but how the system can be improved for all concerned.

Fact: Many comic book stores could substantially improve their bottom line by wisely developing or improving their stock of Manga. If you own a comic book store, chances are that there is a Borders or Barnes and Noble near you that is selling tons of comics (Japanese comics, yes, but so what?) right out from under your nose. It continues to boggle my mind why any canny businessperson would want to leave money on the table like that, but you don't have to visit too many comic book stores to see that that is exactly what is happening.

Anyway, go read Butcher on this. It's fascinating reading and an easy-to-digest prescription for a better comic book industry in North America. Will comic book stores swallow their medicine? Probably not, but I'm betting some of the smart ones will read Butcher's thoughts and at least start to see where their stores -- and their financial bottom line -- could be improved in the year ahead. In the end, it's a win-win for everybody from Manga publishers, to Diamond, to superhero fans whose stores would be on more solid ground with a better chance of surviving and maybe even thriving in the future.

And think, all they have to do is sell comics.

Labels: good comic shops, industry, manga

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:20 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Ethical Publishers -- Here's Chris Butcher righteously outraged by the lack of decency, honour and ethics at most comic book companies, and taking the time to explain to creators and readers which companies actually don't try to fuck over the people that create comics for them.

I won't name all the companies Chris does, because then you'd have no reason to click over. But it's no surprise to me that Fantagraphics makes the list, because their unsurpassed respect for creators is the reason they attract the very best talents in comics, period. You don't attract, and keep, stellar talents like Los Bros. Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb and Paul Hornschemeier, among dozens of others, by ripping them off every chance you get and demanding vague and usurious contracts of your unwitting victims, like, say, Marvel and DC are known to do. And HINT HINT, those two companies do not make the list of most ethical comics companies, and it's no coincidence that they produce a preponderance of the lousy and mediocre comics clogging up the pipeline every week.

Would-be creators would do well to look at Butcher's post and understand that the companies that publish your work will either screw you or they won't, and that it's in your best interest and the best interest of the work you create to understand what being screwed in the comics industry looks like and how to avoid it. Readers who truly love comics as an artform owe it to themselves and to comics to support the ethical companies and shun the scumbags, and to give enough of a shit to know the difference.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:15 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Virgin Comics -- I've never seen one, and couldn't tell you what their titles are or who creates them. And I spend more time in comic book stores than almost anybody I know who isn't a retailer. Sorry people are apparently losing jobs, but this company never even really existed within the comics industry as I know it, so it's hardly a surprise.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:42 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 7 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Jim Crocker on Kramers Ergot #7 -- I know, I know, I said I was done with this subject. But when the owner of my favourite comic book store in the United States weighs in on a subject as controversial as the $125.00 price tag of the next volume of Kramers Ergot, I have to give him the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Crocker of Modern Myths in Northampton, Massachusetts.

How many will you order for your shelves?
BWAAA HAAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAAA! None.

How many would you guess you may preorder by request of regular customers?

MAYBE one.

Do you think $125.00 for a 96 page anthology is a reasonable price for your customer base?

$125.00 for 96 pages is pure art-house gimmick pricing. It's comics removed from any even remote expectation that they're going to be read by ANY sort of mass audience and reduced to elitist art-world gallery projects. They're not comics at that point, they're basically museum catalogs of contemporary works that happen to have a narrative joining the pieces.

Will you offer it at a discount, either to customers pre-ordering it, or on your store shelves?

I don't offer anything else at a discount, why should I offer this? At that price it's basically a convention/Amazon exclusive in all but actual name.

How do you feel about Amazon's discounting of the book (currently over 30 percent off) and how it might impact your store, or the direct market in general.

Meh. When you've got hundreds of millions in venture capital and can lose more money than I'll see in my entire life for 5+ years, how does the market actually apply to you in any real way? Amazon isn't retailing, it's using something that looks like retail to move stock. Nearly everything they do is destructive to the long-term health of publishing, but the same can be said of most publicly-traded, solely profit-driven companies in any field they operate in. 'Hating' them accomplishes as much as 'hating' aggressive childhood leukemia or those little voles hating the dinosaurs did. We just scamper around scavenging for what they miss and try not to get stepped on.

Bottom line: Amazon discounts EVERYTHING. The impact they have on any individual title is just part of the mix these days, like hurricanes, UPS truck breakdowns, and convention pre-releases.

My thanks to Jim for letting me know his plans and thoughts regarding Kramers Ergot #7. And anyone who has not set foot in Modern Myths has no place casting aspersions at Jim's opinion. He is the savviest and most forward-thinking comics retailer I have met in the United States, and his store runs a very close second behind The Beguiling in terms of being the very best comic book store I have ever set foot in. For him to respond so negatively to the price point of KE7 should be food for thought for anyone involved in the publishing of this book. Modern Myths the most alternative comics-friendly shop I've set foot in in the US, and for him to regard the book with such reluctance, tells me the vast majority of comic book retailers will not be supporting the book at its currently-expected price point.

As for me, and the process of deliberation I've engaged in these past few weeks trying to decide whether to order the book was decided this past weekend, when I re-read Kramers Ergot #5 and #6. Both were priced about $35.00, both had far more than 96 pages, and both had more than 50 percent of their contents flipped quickly through by me as I realized that either they weren't comics, or weren't good enough comics for me to bother reading. The occasional appearance in the pages of KE volumes 5 and 6 by artists like Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch was not enough to offset the self-indulgent tripe contributed by alt-comix divas like CF, Ron Rege and Paper Rad.

So, no, I will find better things to do with my comics-buying money this fall than spend it on KE7. And given the likelihood of a print run in the high hundreds to very low thousands, I'm guessing the creators whose work I do want to read, such as Dan Clowes and Chris Ware, will be smart enough to collect their KE pieces down the line in future volumes of their own work. And like Jim says, if they don't, chances are very few people will ever see those stories. And what would be the point of that?

Labels: art, culture, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:35 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 4 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Kramers Ergot #7 Dialogues -- Here are posts on the subject of the week, at Jason Marcy's LiveJournal and a comics retailing blog called Comics are Serious Business, which I hadn't heard of but now have subscribed to.

Labels: art, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 11:20 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Dark Side of the San Diego Comicon -- Beaucoup Kevin shines a light on some pretty loathsome sexual abuse incidents at Comicon International at San Diego. I can't say this is a surprise, but the seeming widespread institutionalization of it is. I'd say the convention organizers have a responsibility to respond to these claims and police future conventions a lot more closely than they obviously did this year.

Labels: culture, industry, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:50 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Beguiling's Peter Birkmoe on Kramers Ergot #7, and Some Final Thoughts -- There's not a better comic book store that I have ever been in than The Beguiling in Toronto. It's an inclusive, progressive shop that has exactly what I've always said a good comic book store should have, something to offer for every age, interest and gender. And I should have known that they would have an excellent plan for retailing an expensive artcomix hardcover, too. Here's Beguiling owner Peter Birkmoe's thoughts on Kramers Ergot #7 and its $125.00 price point.

While I’m reluctant to give out precise numbers on what we order on any item, I would say that our orders on this are going to be very high, both in high in terms of a anthology and high for something that expensive. We don’t really operate on a preorder basis for item like this that the store supports, and by supports I mean items that we are ordering with the intention hand-selling, offering additional promotion for, and stocking for as long as the item is available. Preorders for us are for things we wouldn’t stock unless specifically asked . . . Tarot, Witch of the Black Rose, Toys, etc. An anthology with new work by Sammy Harkham, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, Jamie Hernandez, Chris Ware, Carol Tyler, and Kim Deitch is not a preorders-only item for us at any price.

We have ordered every Kramers since the first issue, usually pretty deep, and have yet to regret it. Still having stock on now out of print books like that is one thing that helps our reputation as a great store. In all likelihood, we will have some sort of event for this book, further increasing what our initial order would normally be. There is no doubt that this is an expensive book, and out of the price range of many people, but for those that can find a way to afford it, it will be money well spent.

Amazon discounts like that have been around long enough that I would imagine it affects my sales on just about everything I sell, so it won’t affect my ordering on this one any differently than my normal ordering, and I can’t say how great that effect is. I don’t feel great about this, but one can’t lose sleep over it.

Peter Birkemoe, The Beguiling

Thanks, Peter, for sharing your thoughts, and thanks as well to Christopher Butcher at The Beguiling for passing them along to me.

I'm not at all sure why this subject has resulted in such heated discussion over the past few days; when I first posted about the book and its price tag, I just wanted to explore my own reluctance to lay out $125.00 (or $100.00, after a retailer discount that was offered to me) for a book that seems aimed square at the market I have been a part of for most of my adult life -- artcomix readers with a taste for experiment and a willingness to pay a little extra for the sort of comics I crave.

Off the top of my head, I have in the past paid $40.00 for books of sketches by Chris Ware, and $50.00 for hardcovers reprinting Love and Rockets comics I already owned, and I never once questioned such expenditures or regretted them in any way. Last year I spent $100.00 on The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus, but that's not artcomix. At least, not what we typically think of as artcomix. But I bought it, make no mistake, because of the art, by Steve Ditko. If a Volume Two were to be published with an equal number of pages of John Romita Sr. art, I wouldn't even think about buying it. To me Ditko's entire Spider-Man era is worth a hundred bucks. I like Romita's work to an extent, but not a $100.00 extent.

Sorry, there I go exploring my own spending habits and comics interests again, and that's kind of what started off this whole magilla. I do think its very important for all comics readers to think about what they buy and measure their own enjoyment of it -- if we all bought what we truly valued and stopped buying bad comics out of habit or to "keep the collection complete," we would have a better comic book industry in very short order, I think. There's not a superhero title I am a completist about, except maybe Street Angel, but even then, if Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca turned the title over to Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, I would have to call it a day and occasionally re-read my old Rugg and Maruca issues. And how does collector completism figure into this?

Well, I have the last few volumes of Kramers Ergot, you see. I think I have either three or four of them on my bookshelf. And I decided some time ago that, like Love and Rockets and Eightball and some other artcomix titles, Kramers Ergot would be a title I would always support and always want to read, craving as I do "what's new and what's next" in comics.

Then that philosophy met the $125.00 price point of the new volume.

I got a funny email last night from an old internet pal, one of the most well-known comics bloggers and a guy I like a lot. He was having some well-earned fun with the idea that I, who have always subscribed to Tom Spurgeon's axiom "The only comics that are too expensive are shitty comics," had finally met a comic that was too expensive.

I don't think KE7 will be shitty comics. I don't think it costs $125.00 due to greed, or hubris, or cruelty. I hope it costs that much because it has to in order for the creators, editor and publisher to make a modest profit. I don't imagine anyone is getting rich off this book. I do agree with whoever it was at Johanna's blog that said something to the effect of, "it's like getting 96 art prints for 100 dollars." And I'm sure that is true. Except that if I could buy them individually, I seriously doubt I would want all 96. But of course, there is no a la carte option, nor should there be.

I have no doubt Kramers Ergot #7 will be great, progressive comics. A beautiful book that may expand the boundaries of what is possible within the artform of comics. And costs more that what I pay for a week's worth of groceries for a family of four.

I think an expense like that needs to be considered. Weighed. Thought about and pondered. And given my decades of support for artcomix as a medium of expression, I have to believe I am not the only one unsure if it's a wise expense. The economy hasn't even begun to sink to the levels it ultimately will settle at. I ask myself if I have the right, as a father and husband, to be so selfish as to spend $125.00 on fewer than 100 pages of comics. "But they're great comics," I could tell my wife, as she beats me to death with the tombstone-sized hardcover (I don't imagine more than one or two whacks would be needed).

Well, I've been told many times in the past few days that the book will be a huge success. It will be a huge success because people will want to read it. And I'm sure many will want to read it, whatever constitutes "many" in the realm of boutique artcomix hardcover aficionados. 500 readers? 2,500? As a longtime observer of this artform and industry, I can see the book selling fewer than a hundred copies. And I can see it selling thousands. It all depends on the zeitgeist and the marketing, probably much more so than it does on the quality of the work. Because, while I do not believe Kramers Ergot #7 will be shitty comics, neither have I yet been convinced that it, or any single anthology volume of any creative lineup or production quality, is worth $125.00 to me personally.

Maybe as we get closer to the date of the book's release, we'll know enough about the book that my mind will be changed. I'd love to be convinced that this is a must-buy book for me, and that I'll forever regret not spending $125.00 (or $100.00, as noted above, if I buy from the one retailer that offered me a discount) on it. As Peter Birkmoe's comments above prove, the way to make this book worth the pricetag is to make it an event, and I have no doubt that The Beguiling will be very successful in making a big thing out of this release.

But I don't know how many retailers will go to that trouble. The Beguiling can do it because it's the best comic book store in North America, if not the world. I have only set foot in two other shops (in 36 years of buying comics) that even come close to the savvy and expertise and sheer quality of The Beguiling. So maybe KE7 isn't for me or readers like me. Maybe it's for shops like The Beguiling or Modern Myths or Million Year Picnic, who have paved the way for the future of comics and presumably made a nice living doing so. Peter Birkmoe and his crew will make the book something to be celebrated, and I think that is very cool, and a very good thing for comics. I hope it helps make the book a big success in shops forward-looking enough to carry it and smart enough to market it right, to the people that can afford it. I hope Tom Spurgeon is right and that all these factors combine to make Kramers Ergot a monster hit.

Labels: art, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:59 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Kramers Ergot #7 for $125.00: Retailers Respond -- In the wake of the latest discussion of the subject, at Comics Worth Reading, I asked some retailers what their plans are in regard to the $125.00 price tag attached to the forthcoming volume of the artcomix anthology Kramers Ergot. Here's what some of them had to say.

1. How many will you order for your shelves?

JC Glindmyder, Earthworld Comics, Albany, NY: "Unless I get preorders for it, I'm going to get one copy."

Robert Scott, Comickaze, San Diego, CA: "If ordered at all, probably no more than one copy."

Jevon Kasitch, Electric City Comics, Schenectady, NY: "Zero."

2. How many would you guess you may preorder by request of regular customers?

JC Glindmyer: "That would probably be two customers, but the price tag would really scare them off no matter what Tom Spurgeon insists."

Robert Scott: "Probably zero. We sell the Little Nemo Sunday Tabloid books from Sunday Press well enough but this isn't Winsor McKay/Nemo, not to slight the KE contributors. It also doesn't have a historical need to be presented in that format. But I haven't had any input from my regular Kramers Ergot buyers to know for sure."

Jevon Kasitch: "We would preorder as many as customers request. I’d expect that given our sales profile and patterns that number will be zero."

3. Do you think $125.00 for a 96 page anthology is a reasonable price for your customer base?

JC Glindmyer: "No. At the time, Lost Girls was a hard sell for it's steep price tag- and that was written by Alan Moore who has a huge following. There were a lost of Moore fans who said no to the price tag, opting to pass or wait for an inexpensive version to be published. For a $125 anthology to float it has to have some pretty kick ass creators inside to justify the price point, like Frank Miller illustrating a Alan Moore story printed in the blood of Rob Liefeld."

Robert Scott: "I can't see it being reasonable for any customer base, other than folks who want to own limited edition art which seems antithetical to my purpose which is getting as much diverse comic work into the hands of the public as possible. It's hard to look at this as anything but a novelty, like die-cut or holofoil covers."

Jevon Kasitch: "No, the price is not right for this market. Far too high. This is a boutique book that will appeal to a very small number of customers. I wager that there are 3-5 in [New York State's] entire Capital District [Albany/Schenectady/Troy] that might consider buying it. Probably 1 or 2 that would. We do not have any of them [as customers]."

4. Will you offer it at a discount, either to customers pre-ordering it, or on your store shelves?

JC Glindmyer: "[We] always offer a discount to preorders -- although, I may give a bigger one for a larger priced item like this."

Robert Scott: "No. The profit margin on Buenaventura books is already poor and with the size/weight of the book making incoming shipping very expensive, even if I felt discounting was valid, I couldn't afford to."

Jevon Kasitch: "If we carried it, and a subscriber bought it they would receive our traditional discount."

5. How do you feel about Amazon's discounting of the book (currently over 30 percent off) and how it might impact your store, or the direct market in general.

JC Glindmyer: "The one advantage I have over Amazon is that people can actually come into my store and look at the book. People tend to purchase things more readily if they can hold them and look at them. Sure Amazon has larger discounts, but as I'm fond of telling people, the fact they can look at the book before buying it, take into account the cost of gas, and their time, they're more likely to enjoy their purchase(s). And of course it didn't hurt that I had 50 copies of Watchmen to sell while Amazon was backordered for two weeks..."

Robert Scott: "It's a poor business practice and definitely hurts publishers and creators as well as retailers. We already know that many publishers are floundering in the DM and this kind of predatory pricing reduces the opportunity for retailers to support this work as anything other than a charity work because even the most ardent DM customer is not going to spend $50+ more than they have to on a book like this and matching Amazon means that retailers must sell every single copy ordered because even selling 9 out of 10 makes it a money loser at retail."

Jevon Kasitch: "Amazon makes an entire class of product pointless to carry. This includes the huge Marvel hardcovers and the DC slipcase and oversized projects. They often sell them at only a dollar or three more that our cost. Cost-careful customers always buy there first. 30-40% off, free shipping, we can’t beat it. We’ll always get any book that is available that a customer asks for, but most folks want to save $50. We can’t do that. We concede the product class."

Thanks to JC, Robert and Jevon for responding to my inquiries; if other retailers I polled respond, I will post their answers in the days ahead, and I invite any retailers with thoughts on Kramers Ergot #7 and its price point to comment on this post or email me your thoughts.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:29 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Me and Tom and Kramers Ergot #7 -- Is $125.00 too much for a hardcover artcomix hardcover? I've asked myself that question a lot since the price point of KE #7 was announced. Even with a huge lineup of great talent, more than $1.25 a page seems like a lot to pay, especially in the current economy.

In a brief back and forth on the subject with Tom Spurgeon, Tom seems to feel that the awesomeness of the book will overcome any reluctance readers will have to spend a week's grocery money on a big, if likely extremely well-done, funnybook. I have no axe to grind in this question, and I'm still weighing whether to order it, even with a 20 percent discount from my retailer. What do you think?

Update: Christopher Allen has added some thoughtful points in the comments section of this post, as has cartoonist and sometimes-self-publisher Jason Marcy. Have a look, and weigh in if you have an opinion. I'm anxious to see what everyone's opinion on this is. And please note that I really am not trying to rile anyone up or poke anyone in the eye, I really am personally conflicted about buying KE7, which shocks me since I've always accepted Tom Spurgeon's truism that "the only comics that cost too much are shitty comics." I don't think KE7 will be shitty comics, but I do think it may actually cost too much and as Chris notes in the comments, may have priced many interested readers right out of the market.

Update 2: I had forgotten about this May discussion on the price of Kramers Ergot #7 at The Beat. Tom Spurgeon, Heidi McDonald, Paul O'Brien and others weigh in.

One interesting (to me) note is the assumption at some points that Sammy Harkham and Alvin Buenaventura are being accused of greed. I hope no one thinks I am coming at it from that direction. I think they have every right to make it 96 pages for $125.00, or 12 pages for $1,000.00 if they want. I am just struggling, at the moment, with my own commitment to artcomix versus the extraordinary price point of this book. If, as Spurgeon says, it will be a "monster hit" at $125.00, would it still at $500.00? Where do the diminishing returns set in? If KE7 were priced at 50 or 60 bucks, I probably would have ordered it already and would have shut up by now, making everyone happy. I'm just interested in exploring my own reluctance to spend $125.00 on a comic book I am sure I would enjoy, perhaps because $125.00 is more than a week's groceries for my family, and I am not making the phat public radio money I was making circa 2001-2004, when I would have not even blinked at the price of KE7.

Maybe there are more highly monetized artcomix readers than I think, but after thinking about this for a couple of days and talking to some retailers and friends about it, I have come to the conclusion that most comics shops, even the most chi-chi of the chi-chi artcomix-enabling Beguiling-type shops, will order one copy of this for their shelves at best, and otherwise only order them for regular customers who commit to buying it and perhaps even lay down a substantial deposit. I can't for a moment imagine any one of the 90-percent or so of superhero convenience stores within the direct market looking at this volume with anything other than beady-eyed contempt, if indeed they think about it at all, or are even ever aware that it exists, somewhere in a world they have never visited and never will.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:08 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 29 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Things I Care About More Than Comic Books Sales Analysis Based on Diamond Figures -- Liechtenstein. Whether polka music is still relevant. How to sex ladybugs. The Sunday hours of the Kenosha, Wisconsin Public Library. Whether Barack Obama flosses. And if so, what brand? How exactly do they make corrugated cardboard. Why do people say tunafish when they mean tuna salad?

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:57 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Text of Barry Windsor-Smith's Eisner Awards Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech -- This speech was written by BWS upon his induction into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame, and delivered by Fantagraphics Books publisher Gary Groth during the awards ceremony at Comicon International last week in San Diego.

My sincere thanks to the creators, editors, publishers, and retailers who were instrumental in selecting me for this Will Eisner, Hall of Fame, award.

Over the years I’ve strived to create what I think of as GOOD COMIC BOOKS. Stories where characters and personalities are grounded in our collective sense of reality, while their adventures exemplify THE AMAZING and THE FANTASTIC by transcending the cliches known to the general public as super heroes and super villains.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN, The FREEBOOTERS, WEAPON X, ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG and sometimes more traditional characters such as The X-MEN and DAREDEVIL, have allowed me to express myself in a personal fashion not often embraced by the conventions of big business comics, where the disciplines and rigors of writing, penciling, inking, and coloring, are assigned to numerous teams commissioned to deliver products by the month, every month.

Gary Groth reads Barry Windsor-Smith's acceptance speech last week at The Eisner Awards ceremony at Comicon International in San Diego. (Photo from The Drawn and Quarterly Blog)
In the 1970s I was constantly asked when I would “do CONAN again.” In these latter years I receive e-mails imploring me to return to ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG. My short reply is “When pigs fly to the Moon and return home safely.”

But to those who really want to know, I say that the major companies’ standard contract, deceptively titled “WORK FOR HIRE,” is a legal but unethical instrument designed to rape and plunder young talents of every possible prerogative they would otherwise possess if they had the fortune to work for more scrupulous, morally invested, publishers.

“Pause for practically audible smirks and a smattering of light clapping from the back,” it says here.

All that said, I assure you that I am grateful for the privilege of joining the exemplary company of the Hall of Fame award. For this I offer my heartfelt thanks to each of you who made this possible.

Thanks to Tom Spurgeon for making me aware of the speech, and to Barry Windsor-Smith and BWS Studio Manager Alex Bialy for allowing me to post the text.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:44 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Bummer -- The cartoonist Frank Santoro -- whose Cold Heat comic book series suspended publication after four issues due to low sales, and will see completion as a full-length graphic novel incorporating the four issues plus the rest of the material that would have seen print in future issues -- says the fact that people are "waiting for the trade" to experience Gilbert Hernandez's Speak of the Devil is "the bummer of this post-comics pamphlet era for alt and art comics," and indicates he may have more to say on the matter.

I've already asked my retailer to order a copy of the collected Speak of the Devil, eschewing its single-issue format, because I know that works by Los Bros Hernandez work best for me in collected form; but that's not to say Santoro is wrong, at all. I can, and do, totally dig his description of the thrill of the new, single-issue release of a series you love, which is why I am linking to his comments. And a few years ago, I would have been waiting for the single issues right along with him. In fact, I was doing just that with Cold Heat, the unfinished four issues of which sit in the "Santoro" section of my comics shortboxes like an open wound. Damn you, comics marketplace. Damn you, more attractive and durable collected graphic novel format. Damn you!

I kid; Santoro is not wrong. But neither am I for waiting for the trade on Speak of the Devil. I don't want to buy it twice, and a collected version was never in doubt. But in the market as it exists now, publishers should not commit to the single-issue format if they do not already have the resources and wherewithal to see through the single issue-run to its completion whether the single issues sell or not. I'm looking forward to the graphic novel version of Cold Heat, but those four orphans in my collection are an indicator of a real problem that needs to be solved by publishers. They, too, need to decide if the single-issue format is viable for them before ever releasing a single issue, or if it's in their best interest to "wait for the trade."

In the case of Cold Heat, the truth speaks for itself, sadly. The series read very, very well to me in single issues, once I read a few and got a feel for what creators BJ and Santoro were up to; but publisher Picturebox needed to be prepared for the indifferent reaction the series got from the marketplace (both readers and retailers), and needed to be prepared to ride that out and take the hit once they'd committed to single issues; clearly they were unprepared for the reality of the current market. How is Dark Horse and Speak of the Devil different? Clearly it is, although I expect to love Speak of the Devil as much as I love any other Gilbert Hernandez work (and I do love most of them), or as much as I loved the four issues of Cold Heat. It's a fascinating, and utterly unresolved dilemma.

But ultimately, starting a series in single issues is like opening a restaurant; you have a responsibility as a professional to be prepared to take massive losses until word of mouth reaches critical mass and you can expect to start, eventually, turning a profit. In the case of Dark Horse, I'd guess -- and it's just a guess -- that they have the capital shored up to withstand a financial loss on the single issues, and they believe in Gilbert Hernanderz's saleability enough in the collected, graphic novel format to be willing to wait to make most of their money on Speak of the Devil once it is all under one cover and being sold to bookstores and libraries.

And people like me, waiting for the trade. On Speak of the Devil willingly and consciously, and on Cold Heat, against my will and entirely due to the realities of the marketplace and Picturebox's failure to properly gauge the sales potential of single issues of the series. As I have often said, one of the stark realities of any commercial enterprise -- and artcomix are that, oftentimes, and obviously in the case of Cold Heat -- just because you build it, they will not come. There's more you have to do, if you expect to sell your non-superhero single issues through Diamond's almost-entirely superhero-obsessed network of stores. You must be patient. You must have capital shored up to protect against market indifference. You must be prepared to see your project through. Dark Horse was; Picturebox was not. As a critic, and as a reader, I have more at stake in the totality of Picturebox's line of books than I do Dark Horse's; Cold Heat represents the average, excellent Picturebox title; Speak of the Devil is something of an anomaly among Dark Horse's line of middlebrow, licensed titles with a somewhat built-in expectation of financial success (being that Dark Horse has a favoured position in Diamond's Previews catalog that Picturebox is unlikely to share in any universe that I can conceive of).

I was willing to support Cold Heat in single issues, because it's the format it obviously was built for from the very beginning. I preferred to wait for the trade on Speak of the Devil because I knew Dark Horse would collect it as a graphic novel. I would still have ordered the eventual Cold Heat collected edition, no question. But that's down to the fact that Santoro as an artist resides in a higher plane for me as a reader and a critic than Gilbert Hernandez does; I crave his work in all its iterations in which I can find it. I loved the hardcover Storeyville but would buy the newspaper-format edition from a decade ago in a heartbeat if I came across it in a comic book store. Hell, I would likely buy multiple copies. And yet I passed up Speak of the Devil every time I saw it on the stands in a comic book store. And, be aware, I do hold Gilbert Hernandez's work in high, high regard as an entity unto itself; I possess many of his stories three or four times over ("Poison River" being one example).

I have no conclusion here, and I apologize if it seemed I was leading up to one. Santoro's comments fascinated me and I urge you to click through to the link above and read what he has to say. I hope he finishes his thoughts on "waiting for the trade," because as a consumer of comics I am imperfect in my philosophy toward this issue, and I know it. I need more information. I need more good comic book stores that support projects I want without me having to advocate for them to the owner every single time. And I need more good comics like Cold Heat and Speak of the Devil.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 10:31 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Christopher Butcher's Manga Prescription -- Chris's series of commentaries on the state and future of manga gets better and better, and in his latest post on the subject, he hits the home run.

So what do I want the manga industry to look like then? I think that Drawn + Quarterly has a good idea, with one prestige-format (meaning a format with actual prestige, like a hardcover book with lovely thick paper and a beautiful design, and not those flimsy little 48 page superhero comics with a spine) release of “mature manga” per year. If there were 3 or 4 publishers doing that, each with a nicely designed manga release per season (spring/fall), that’d be maybe 8-10 wonderful books per year, which I think that the market could bear, and that’d be lovely. Currently the number of high-end manga releases in a given year is about half of that, which accounts for the loud noises I make when they manage to drop.

Butcher goes on to talk about watching the tastes and purchases of young manga customers mature over time at his shop, The Beguiling in Toronto, and it's a very realistic and hopeful portrait he paints of how easy it can be to use a comic book store to build the industry you want.

I guess my fear is that the worst instincts of the direct market have already done that, that most comic book stores want a marketplace hinging on ephemeral, hyperhysterical junk like what Marvel and DC generally make their nut on these days (Secret Invasion, anything at all by Geoff Johns), with that precious, lofty 5 to 10 percent of comic book stores like The Beguiling or Modern Myths or Million Year Picnic or, closer to home, Earthworld in Albany, actually bothering to take the risk and spend the capital required to stock a truly full-service comic book store that welcomes the presence and buying power of readers of all interests, ages and genders. Those are the type of stores building the future Butcher describes, and they deserve every goddamned bit of support you can possibly eke out of your wallet.

Anyway, go read Butcher's latest post, there's a ton of great ideas and advice in there for retailers and readers alike, and it's absolutely essential reading.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:11 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Butcher on The Shape of the Industry -- Christopher Butcher's been promising something interesting for a few days now, and he's made good on his hints with a fantastic new thinkpiece on the evolving marketplace for manga and graphic novels:

"[O]lder customers would like a different shopping experience than trying to find the latest Tatsumi or Inoue manga jammed in-between Ultimate Spider-Man and Naruto whilst simultaneously trying to avoid the outstretched gangly limbs of sullen teens thoroughly immersed in the Universe of the Four Gods."

Much more, as they say, at the link. And a little bit more from me about Mr. Butcher and his value to the ongoing discussion about comics, on this blog tomorrow.

Update: Butcher has posted Part Two, and it's even more in-depth and insightful.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:24 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Butcher on Convention Sales -- I've been waiting eagerly for The Beguiling's Christopher Butcher to weigh in on the issue of convention sales, and now he has.

Everything Butcher has to say on the subject (or any other, generally) is worth your attention, but here are some quotes I found particularly relevant to the discussion as it has evolved:

* "It’s actually more advantageous for us–as a local retailer–for these publishers to do big launches of these books...because more often than not, it’s these big launches/pushes that help put the books on the radar of our customers on the first place."

* "I’ve worked on the publisher side of the table...at The San Diego Comicon, selling books that had not yet been released to direct market comic book stores...I would say that the number one question I was asked was 'will this be available in comic book stores?' when confronted with a debut book...customers want to honour their preorders and don’t want to lug around books at a show that they can get at their local store in the next month." [Emphasis mine]

* "I’m actually a lot more concerned, on the release-date front, about Diamond’s continuing inability to process books that they receive as a distributor as fast as the bookstore chains. Most bookstores are receiving manga, “mainstream” book publishers graphic novel releases, and magazines like Giant Robot, between a day and a month before Diamond gets them into my store."

What's fascinating to me about Butcher's observations on the issue is that he is, without question, one of the most experienced retailers in North America, working for what remains, to date, the very best comic book store I have ever shopped in. His thoughts on this particular issue echo my own experience and beliefs exactly, despite knee-jerk criticisms from people like "comics retailer" and CBIA overlord Robert Scott that I, as a mere customer and blogger, have no say in this matter, and no worthwhile opinion to offer, because I can't possibly understand his perspective behind the counter.

Trouble is, Bobby, that my perspective and philosophy about what makes a good comic book store and what retail environment I will choose to spend my money in is formed in large part because of my experiences in good comic book stores like The Beguiling, Million Year Picnic and Modern Myths. It's my bad experienced in low-rent superhero convenience stores that has convinced me over the years that most of the stores within the direct market are hopelessly broken and doomed to extinction, while the good stores -- the ones that operate professionally and welcome the money of any customer who wants to buy any kind of comics in print -- are the ones that will thrive long after the Android's Dungeon/Robert Scott model of superhero pandering has marginalized itself into oblivion, or nearly enough so as not to make much of a difference.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:13 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Retailers vs. Convention Sales: Publishers Respond -- Over the weekend, comics bloggers responded (Comics Worth Reading; The Comics Reporter; Journalista; Comics Comics; Dick Hates Your Blog; and me, here and here) to ComicsPRO's allegation that direct market retailers are losing revenue because some publishers sell new works at comic book conventions before Diamond delivers those works to the direct market.

Their Side of the Story

One good retailer point of view can be found at The Savage Critic; while Brian Hibbs and I don't always agree on some pretty key issues, he clearly wants many of the same things that I do for the comic book stores within the direct market.

Diamond's Policies From the Publisher's Side

A former publisher still active in comics as a cartoonist told me of his discouraging experience with Diamond, asking not to be named, but making it clear that Diamond impeded his efforts at every step along the way to trying to get distribution to comic book stores within the direct market. He spoke of building relationships one by one with good comic book stores that want to serve a base wider than that of aging superhero fans, and said those stores -- what I call superhero convenience stores -- are actively disinterested in carrying non-superhero works. He also noted that dealing direct with stores interested in his product saves time and money, because the small publisher does not have to ship to Diamond, which then (eventually) ships to the retailer. He expressed nothing but disdain for any shop unwilling to build a direct partnership with smaller publishers, and indicated that his future efforts will work around Diamond to get right to retailers wherever possible.

Bloggers Enjoy Commenting on Everything, Even Important Issues Like This

Comics blogger Christopher Allen isn't convinced by the ComicsPRO position paper:

"I don't buy the argument that retailers just don't know what books will debut at conventions. Nonsense. Marvel and DC don't debut books there. Dark Horse and Image may have some sort of preview samplers, and Avatar and other genre publishers may have a convention edition or two every year, but for the most part we're talking about pricey artcomix from Top Shelf, Fanta, D&Q, and a few others, right? Anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention, or who had been to a convention in the past 5 years, could have predicted prior to Diamond order deadlines, that Lost Girls, Flight, Comic Art, and whatever other big books of the year were going to be available at SDCC. I'm sure the SDCC site and frequent update fliers mentioned guests like Seth. Was he going to sign old shit, or, just maybe, the new book of his that was coming out soon? I just think it's a case of retailers not wanting to do the work of knowing their products and their customers."

One Man's Experience with Diamond and Convention Sales

Cartoonist Frank Santoro has had extensive experience dealing with Diamond, beginning in the mid-1990s with his company Sirk Publications. Diamond is the monopolistic distributor that holds most of the power when it comes to getting books distributed within the direct market, and so timing of delivery of any given product to comic book stores is often within their control. He answered some questions for me.

1. Do you regularly engage in convention sales that take place prior to when Diamond delivers your product to comic book stores within the direct market?

Frank Santoro: Yes, of course. We need those sales and that connection with our core audience.

2. If so, what is the primary reason you do so? What is the benefit, and are there any downsides?

Why wouldn't we do that? That is the blueprint. The benefits are endless. There are no downsides.

3. How satisfied are you with Diamond's ability to deliver your product to retailers in the direct market in a timely manner?

Not satisfied at all. We have no choice but to use Diamond if we are to get into certain shops that won't deal directly with us.

4. If retailers were willing to pay to have books direct-shipped to them in order to have product available at the same time they will debut at a given convention, would you have any objection to them doing so? Would you be willing to cooperate with a system in which this is a regular option for them?

Yes, we already do that with many of the larger stores who do sell our work. It's beneficial for everyone.

5. Assuming you will continue to sell at conventions prior to Diamond making product available to the retailers in the direct market, what incentives could retailers offer to publishers to cause you to reconsider your plans?

None.

6. Have other arms in your distribution chain, outside the retailers in the direct market, complained about convention sales? If so, how have you addressed their concerns? If not, what makes them different from retailers within the direct market?

No.

7. Do you believe the direct market serviced by Diamond represents a good portion of your present customer base? If so, what percentage of direct market stores do you believe actively works with you as a partner in getting your books to the readers that want them? If not, do you believe that the direct market will, in the future, be more or less interested in working with your company to grow the market for your product?

No, it represents about 20 percent. But we still need that 20 percent. So we're forced to use them because there is no alternative except Last Gasp and only certain stores use Last Gasp.

Another View

AiT/PlanetLar publisher Larry Young's response to the issue:

"This actually doesn't impact us at all, as we don't sell books at cons that aren't already available from Diamond. We don't debut books at shows, because we're an "evergreen" company. All of our books are awesome and will be so forever, whether you get it on Day One or Year Five. There's just no reason for us to debut books at cons.

"Sorry that's not a sexy soundbite answer, but I think we're in a different comics industry than most other folks. The Latest Outrage™ never seems to much impact us."

A Major Player Responds

One of the major publishers of non-superhero comics in North America asked to remain anonymous, and explained why their company will continue to sell their product at conventions before Diamond delivers the same product to direct market retailers. He told me that ideally books would debut at conventions and comic book stores on the same day, but printing delays and other problems don't always make that possible. He said that it's worth paying the extra shipping to get books to a convention in order to have them available for the cartoonist to sign for readers, and that this is a key marketing tool in building good word of mouth for their books. He doubts most retailers would be willing, as he is, to swallow a $10.00 per book shipping charge to get the books at the same time as they are being debuted at a convention. It's this publisher's belief that convention sales in this way improve sales within the direct market by creating additional demand for a given work. He told me that if convention signings on new books are done away with, there will be less demand for the books, and therefore lower sales for the direct market retailers.

Final Thoughts, For the Moment

As I said in a letter over the weekend to Tom Spurgeon, what's exciting to me about the current convention sales discussion is that it finally brings out the hardcore issues that separate the direct market retail mindset from the real world.

Dirk Deppey picks up on that in his blog post today, when he says "this fight is really just a set of shadows concealing larger and more intractable problems." He's right: this debate has been a microcosm of the divide between the needs of three distinct groups. Readers (represented by the comics bloggers, who despite claims by retailer like Robert Scott, have not only a right but a responsibility to report on their experiences in the comics retail environment and explain how retailers can make their businesses better for their own self-interest, never mind for the betterment of comics as a whole), retailers, and publishers.

Readers will keep reading comics as long as the ones they want to read are available; publishers will continue to publish them as long as they maintain whatever borderline profit margin they have set for themselves, despite the many aggravations of working within the superhero-centric direct market. But what of retailers within that obviously changing direct market?

Seeing the comments by some high-visibility retailers, it becomes clear that they are far from engaged with reality when it comes to what is going on in comics anywhere outside their own front door. The past decade has seen a revolution in how comics are perceived, pursued and purchased by the reading public. But most direct market retailers participating in this discussion these past few days seem not to see the forest for the trees.

You can chalk that up to their dedication to, and focus on, their own business; or you can see it as having their collective heads in the sand; the truth is likely somewhere in-between, although I remember vividly a major retailer telling me a few years ago, in the early days of the manga explosion, that the stuff just doesn't sell; he seemed totally unaware that the Borders a mile down the road had expanded their manga section enormously, and that that same section was populated by interested readers any time you happened to give it a look.

If comic book stores as an entity are to be dragged into professional retail practices and competing in a world in which the direct market is just one piece of the entire comics market rather than its virtual entirety, it's now clearer than ever that they will have to be dragged there kicking, wailing and screaming. Some of them, like the aforementioned Robert Scott, are already doing enough of that to get themselves banned from the Comics Worth Reading comments section, moderated by Johanna Draper Carlson, whose level head and fairness are unquestioned, and who put up with Scott's insults far longer than I would have.

Dealing with this retailer intransigence and inability to face facts, I assume, is part of what Spurgeon's "first thought of the day" was about on Sunday.

This all, this entire debate, is exactly what I was talking about a couple of years ago in my (admittedly) poorly-worded letter to Spurgeon declaring my wish for the direct market to "die." I've rewritten that piece three times now, and I am grateful to Spurgeon for posting it way back when, because the response to it has forced me to really focus my thinking and try to explain what the problem is as I see it, rather than just indulging in gleeful eye-poking. It seems to me a lot of retailers are now poking themselves in their own eyes while the rest of us calmly insist that the retail sector of the direct market grow up, already.

Update: David Wynne has some good perspective and advice for retailers; and Johanna has more as well.

Update 2: I was wondering when Heidi would weigh in on this debate, and now she has. It was worth waiting for. And as is usual these past few days, the comments following the post are worth reading.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:41 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Upper Echelon of Comic Book Retailers -- In the ongoing discussion with comic book retailers about convention sales happening at Comics Worth Reading (scroll down to the comments following Johanna's initial post), noted comics retailer Rory Root said today:

"I’d be quite pleased if folk would stop judging the upper echelon of comic stores by the bottom feeders. It’s as if the gourmet restaurants in the market were judged by how the greasy spoons operated."

I think this is one of the key issues facing comic book retailers and the direct market today, and here is how I responded to Rory's plea:

It’s up to the progressive stores to separate themselves from the majority superhero convenience stores and their anti-comics policies, Rory. One major step would be to create a list of best practices that all professional businesses should adhere to. Has ComicsPRO issued a paper like this for its members?

Here are some of the practices I personally endorse:

Professional comic book stores are clean.

Professional comic book stores are well-lit.

Professional comic book stores are well-organized.

Professional comic book stores are open on time, all the time.

Professional comic book stores have prices clearly marked and up to date on all merchandise.

Professional comic book stores operate their business in accordance with local, state and federal laws, including labor and employment laws.

Professional comic book stores do not favor one genre or sub-genre over another.

Professional comic book stores recognize that all comics are comics, no matter what country they originate from, or what format they are published in.

Professional comic book stores actively welcome all people interested in buying some kind of comics to shop at their store,

Professional comic book stores recognize the transition from periodical pamphlet comics to more appealing and enduring graphic novels, and accommodate the readership’s clear preference for comics with a spine and a complete story.

Professional comic book stores actively seek to buy from a variety of distributors, not relying on one monopolistic distributor for the entirety of their business, and not settling for receiving books “whenever Diamond ships them,” but rather, as soon as they are available, in order to better serve their customers.

Now, if ComicsPRO as an organization insists its members adhere to standards that meet or exceed these, then I’d agree you and your colleagues are all working for positive change within the direct market. If not, then you continue to allow the bottom feeders to thrive and use quality retailers such as yourself as cover for their shoddy, amateur practices.

Please let me know where online I may find ComicsPRO’s position paper on this issue. If it doesn’t exist yet, please keep us posted on its progress. Because until then, a lack of professionalism in the majority of the direct market’s stores, and impotent declarations like the convention sales position paper, will only work to cripple ComicsPRO and its attempt to build a reputation for its members as professional retailers worth supporting.

I'll have much more on this story, hopefully within the next 24 hours or so. But I thought this exchange was important enough to call it out on its own for further discussion and consideration.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:23 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 7 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
ComicsPRO vs. Convention Sales Update -- I'm working on additional coverage of ComicsPRO's position paper against convention sales, and hopefully will have something up Monday.

In the meantime, here is Tom Spurgeon talking to Brian Hibbs about the issue of convention sales and how they allegedly affect comic book retailers.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:31 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Future for Comics White Paper -- You can now download my essay A Future for Comics (Revised January 2008 Version) as a PDF white paper you can read in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, or can print out to read at your leisure. Or print out and leave copies at comic shops that need a little nudge into professionalism.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:44 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Future for Comics (Revised 2008 Edition) -- What follows is a single essay compiled and revised from a previous five-part series that ran on this blog in 2007. Given this week's direct market news, I thought it might be time to dust it off and give it a shine for the new year. You could look at it from the perspective of a comics reader, in terms of what you should find to be minimally acceptable retail practices, or if you are (or wish to become) a comics retailer, you might find some good advice here regarding how to run a comic book shop in a professional manner with better potential for long-term success and steady growth.

It is my long-held belief that the direct market network of mostly superhero-oriented comic book stores is headed for extinction. The reason it is passing into history is because it excludes new readers and embraces only an existing “fan base,” willfully ignoring the fact that comics as a vital, living artform are so much more than superheroes. At the same time, a minority of shops within the direct market are reaching out to a broader audience for comics, one nurtured by mainstream media coverage like comics receive on National Public Radio or in print publications like Time Magazine. The question is, will the truly full-service comic book stores that point the way to the future serve as an example to the majority of stores currently dependent on Diamond’s weekly shipments of superhero titles? Or will the backward, pro-superhero (but ultimately anti-comics) policies of such stores destroy the direct market before a transition can be made to a viable graphic novel-dominant marketplace that serves all comics readers?

In the 1970s and '80s, the direct market thrived because superheroes were about all there were in comics, at least in North America. Alternative/ground-level titles like Elfquest, Cerebus and Love and Rockets were curious sidebars to what most readers thought of as comics, but in the 1990s and especially since the beginning of the 21st Century CE, those comics as well as manga and newspaper strips, have come to define what the average person thinks of as comics. Meanwhile corporate superhero comics have marginalized themselves through editor-driven, continuity-dependent, poorly-crafted "events" like Identity Crisis and its descendants. Such titles create a frenzy of interest in the minority of comics readers who value the sub-genre of superhero adventure fiction more than they value the artform of comics as a whole. This is a minority that would much rather watch Heroes on NBC than ever crack open a graphic novel not published by Marvel or DC. It’s not comics they’re fans of, it’s superheroes and all the adolescent power fantasies the sub-genre implies.

Such readers don’t consider actual quality much of an element in the debate over the future of comics at all, and have created an artificial sales bubble that is destined to feed on itself until the direct market itself collapses. The collapse of the direct market in the 1990s was based in large part on the fact that the comics that were selling weren’t very good, and therefore weren’t interesting readers in their contents as quality storytelling. The prime reason people were buying comics before the ‘90s collapse had more to do with issues of collectability and “investment.” But a comic book is worth nothing if it doesn’t contain a story that is well-written and well-drawn, and more importantly draws the reader into its world. And a comic that is worth nothing ultimately will drive its buyers away, however gratifying its short-term thrill of mere possession might be.

Looking at the most successful general-interest bookstores, both independents as well as chains like Borders or Barnes and Noble, I think it’s clear that the only comic shops that are sustainable and viable in the long term are those that cater to readers of all ages, genders and interests. Stores that welcome entire families of readers, as good bookstores do. Increasingly the superhero convenience stores that make up the vast majority of the direct market cater primarily – if not only -- to male buyers interested primarily – if not only -- in continuity-heavy superhero events. But Diamond, and the direct market, are not comics, anymore than one 7/11 on the corner of a main street in a medium-sized town represents the entire market for potato chips. Diamond and the direct market it simultaneously serves and cripples represents only a small fraction of the overall comics market, as demonstrated in David Beard’s revealing piece on Diamond’s distortion of the perception of what is the market for comics, in The Comics Journal #283 (June, 2007):

“There will be no impetus to reform the data collection system upon which the cottage industry of comic sales analysis is built if we keep pretending that the current Diamond data is reliable…as long as we are dependent on Diamond data, our ability to assess the industry, market and medium is crippled.“

Beard is critical of various “Top 300” lists and the like, and rightfully dismisses them as little more than public relations for a functioning monopoly that has every reason to foster the illusion that it is the comics industry, and no reason at all to provide good information about its true place in the overall comics market.

On a regular basis, articles appear online speculating about the sales number of comics and what their ultimate meaning is, and yet those sales figures are almost always based solely on Diamond’s sales to comic book stores (as opposed to those stores’ sales to their customers), most of which traffic virtually exclusively in corporate superhero comic books and associated items like t-shirts, action figures and other “collectibles.” But this “sales analysis” ultimately stands revealed as intellectual nerd-journalism, a blinkered and pretentious iteration of the old “Who’s stronger, Hulk or Thor?” argument. It pays little to no attention to the wider market for comics in mainstream bookstores and other outlets (manga in CD stores, Archie Comics in supermarkets, etc.) and therefore, ultimately, has little value above that timeless debate about Thor versus The Hulk.

In fact, Beard states in his Comics Journal piece that “A strong argument could be made that no data would be better than faithful reliance in the data presented by Diamond.” When one pauses to reflect that good information about the true scope and nature of the whole market for comics is crucial to the health and viability of comic book stores now and in the uncertain future, one sees it is more than a numbers game for superhero fans. The ability of shop owners to sustain their business and provide for their families is dependent on the accuracy of such information.

I have shopped at a lot of comic book stores since the 1970s, and stores that carry mainly the latest corporate superhero comics with a heavy emphasis on back issues increasingly fill me with indifference bordering on contempt. In the past few years, there has been more of an interest in comics among the general public than I have ever seen in my lifetime. And yet 9 out of every 10 comic book stores seem actively hostile to any potential customer that doesn’t reflect back the owner’s interests, attitudes and even appearance. For every clean, well-managed and professionally run comic book store I have been in, there are many more that are dirty, dark, ill-managed and altogether unpleasant places to shop. And if the lifelong comic book reader in me has learned to tolerate such deficiencies, getting married and raising two children has educated me mightily in what is or isn’t a welcoming retail environment. In my 20s, I may have been amused by my wife’s distaste for entering the average comic book store. Here in my early 40s, I not only understand it, I share it.

I do a lot of browsing of comic book stores in the company of my wife and children. That's four people in a given comic shop when we visit, and a savvy retailer should by definition want to generate interest in his wares from everyone that comes through the door. If my daughter can find a new issue of Mary Jane Loves Spider-Man, or even better, a new volume of one of her favourite manga series, then we're in good shape. Perhaps my son will find an issue of Teen Titans Go, or better yet his other favourites, Bongo's line of Simpsons comics. We know we're really in a good store if there are Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts collections -- you know, comics people have heard of in the real world, outside the narrow boundaries of the mostly insular, unreflective and very likely doomed direct market.

To truly run a professional business, viable comics shops must recognize that manga is comics. The Far Side is comics. Kampung Boy, Dennis the Menace, Archie and Mr. Natural are all comics. And all of these, just a small portion of the breadth of the comics artform.

The very best shops want to sell comics to everybody, but most comics shops – that network of mostly poorly-run superhero convenience stores -- have seemingly abandoned the future of the industry and the viability of their own business. I see elements of racism, hostility, ignorance, stupidity, and/or fear in these attitudes. It's hard to see what else might account for such self-destructive, shortsighted business practices. It’s not like there aren’t professional business models to learn from, and I can’t imagine why one would start a business without making an effort to learn what the best practices are for the industry you want to be a part of.

After learning the ins and outs of rental contracts, insurance, vacuum cleaners, feather dusters and professional shelving, would-be professional comic book retailers should look at what it means to sell comics. What comics should be available in a good comic shop? Borders and Barnes and Noble have not created an enormous expansion of their manga aisles because they want to service non-buying browsers. Despite those deceptive “sales reports,” people out there in the world are buying comics in huge numbers. But the superhero-oriented fraction of the overall comics industry grits its teeth and closes its eyes and re-defines "comics" so that Civil War or 52 are falsely seen as best-sellers by readers unable or unwilling to investigate deeper into the reality of the comics market. The end result is a false sense of security for readers comforted by superhero (and sales) fiction – and more dangerously, a false sense of security for superhero convenience store owners.

Among consumers of American-made corporate superhero comic books, yes, event comics sell pretty well. They did in the early 1990s, too, until the speculators and fanboys deserted the direct market and thousands of stores closed. Given the insecurity evident in catering only to superhero hobbyists, is it not absolutely absurd to ignore manga, artcomix and/or newspaper strip collections that appeal to a staggeringly wider audience than poorly-crafted, spandex-obsessed revenge fantasies? So-called "best-selling" superhero titles are barely a blip on a vast cultural movement toward true mainstream acceptance of comics.

The best we can hope for at this point seems to be that new stores slowly emerge inspired by the few existing good comic shops, to service the new audience before the old guard collapses from within. We can also hope that at least some stores -- it seems definitely to be ten percent or less -- are canny and visionary enough to both explore new readership avenues and expand their product lines wisely, slowly, and in a professional, businesslike manner. Because as nice as it is to have graphic novels widely available at Barnes and Noble and Borders, I personally prefer patronizing stores (and store owners) dedicated to the artform of comics. I think it’s good for the future of comics to have comic book stores, I just want those stores to want to sell comics to everyone that wants to buy them, not just people that look, sound and act like the store’s owner(s) and employee(s).

In an earlier, less considered version of this essay, I concluded by saying “In my darkest moments, I must say that the comics industry cannot die fast enough for me.” Upon reflection, and after the passage of a couple of years, I have to admit I don’t feel that way anymore. I will always value the artform over the industry – anyone who truly loves comics must -- but I don’t want the industry to die. I want it to thrive. And it will only do so through visionary, professional business practices and an ongoing, genuine desire to sell comics to everyone that wants them.

So, what kind of comic book stores reflect the best future for the direct market?

To determine which shops are good, first we must determine what kind of shops are out there. What is the definition of "comic book store?" Diamond claims there are thousands of "comic book stores" in North America, but I would guess they really mean they have thousands of accounts, many of which may be much like the "hobby shop" near my house, which makes its bread and butter on radio controlled cars, accessories, snacks and soda, but has a small selection of comics delivered from Diamond weekly. They have a couple dozen subscribers, they carry comics, but in my view this is not a "comic book store." It is run more as a hobby than a business, and that is one of the key problems in the direct market as it exists today.

Too many shops are run by former fans who have never bothered to learn how to be professional businessmen. As opposed to the hobby shop above, these are actual comic book stores, but they have profound problems (that the people running the store are either not aware of or don't see as problems). Maybe you've been in one of these stores -- perhaps the owner/cashier was eating lunch at the cash register, maybe annoyed that you had a question for him. Perhaps the back issues have no prices on them, or the prices are subject to change because they've gone up in value since the last time anyone bothered to price them. Perhaps you can feel the dust caking on your fingers as you browse the back issues -- or even the new stock (!). And let's not even get into the hours the store is open -- they may be posted, but how often does someone have the door open and the store ready to welcome customers before or at the posted opening time? If it's not 99 percent (allowing for family emergencies and genuine traffic tie-ups), then it's not a professional business; it's a hobby.

These are the very worst kind of "comic book stores," providing a negative impression for customers, potential customers, and the people they may bring along with them, such as their friends or family members, any or all of which, under the right retail circumstances, may be driven to spend their money in the shop as well. But it's extremely easy to lose interest in a dirty, dark pit that your comics-reading friend/boyfriend/husband/co-worker may have dragged you in to. It is almost needless to say that virtually all of the shops that fall under this criteria focus almost solely on corporate superhero comic books, and if there are other interests in evidence, they will be similarly off-putting. For example:

I've been in shops that had bad VHS tapes of professional wrestling playing on a small TV on the counter all the time. Superheroes and professional wrestling, we get it -- whatever your entertainment, it must involve men in tight clothing locked in dramatic conflict. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," to coin a phrase, but when a young mother comes in looking for Persepolis because she heard a wonderful interview with Marjane Satrape on NPR and looked up "graphic novels" in the phone book, don't be surprised when she sees this environment and rightly assumes she probably won't find what she's looking for. I'll go so far as to say that if she asked nicely and the owner was in a good mood, he might order it from Diamond for her, but she'll never get to that step in the process -- the amateurish retail hell she has entered into is something she wants to exit, and try to forget. She may find what she's looking for at Borders, she thinks -- how often has anyone turned and walked out of that or any mainstream bookstore because of the environment they were confronted with upon initial entry?

And while I'm at it, have you ever been able to guess the main interest of the owner or manager of a mainstream bookstore simply by how the books are racked, or by what videos are in stock? Now ask that question about the comic book stores you've been in. If any specific genre dominates, with everything else abandoned to the manga or artcomix ghetto in a dark, inconvenient corner of the store, again, this is not the comic shop of the future.

There are stores that are slightly or significantly better than this, but which are still flawed. The owner or manager may have a more expansive view of comics as an artform, and may even be open to stocking comics from other countries. Certainly he should be, since those comics are building new audiences across all ages, genders and interests, and presumably they want to not only stay in business, but experience growth from year to year. But the limiting factor I see in a store like this is the continuing emphasis on corporate superhero comics, from the window displays to the huge waterfall racks to the posters, action figures and other items on sale.

Certainly superhero comics have a place in even a good comic book store, but if they are obviously favored over every other genre of storytelling within the comics artform, then the store is limiting its potential income and very likely turning people off, if they even walk through the door. I've actually seen a comic shop that carried a decent starter stock of manga, but there was no mention of manga whatsoever in the window display, yellow-pages ad, or anywhere else. If you browsed the shelves in the back for a while, though, you might stumble over them. I submit to you that you should not have to stumble over a comic book store's manga selection. Not that it should be emphasized any more than any other type of comics, but certainly it should be given equal prominence, like in a real bookstore. All of this applies to artcomix/alternative comics/undergrounds, what-have-you, as well. It's fine -- preferable, perhaps -- to have different displays and areas for all the different flavors of the comics artform. But a new customer coming through the door should not be able to guess which one is the owner/manager's favorite, and certainly they should not be hit over the head by such poor management of the store's retail space.

So those are the shops I think we mostly have now -- non-comics hobby shops with a Diamond account for a few interested customers; shops run by fans who are unwilling to create a welcoming, professional retail environment for a wide range of potential customers; well-meaning, more expansive shops that still have an over-emphasis on superheroes for one reason or another. Not as off-putting as the previous two types, but still cutting themselves out of the growing market for all kinds of comics aimed at all types of readers. The chances of these stores continuing to exist in another decade depend, in my opinion, largely on whether they can adapt to the emerging marketplace for comics. The ones that don't adapt may not go out of business --although I think a majority of them will -- but the ones that survive may find themselves doing merely that: Surviving. I think if I owned a retail business I would want to do better than that.

By now you may have a pretty good picture of what I think is the type of shop that will exist in the future, after the superhero convenience stores have mostly burned themselves out. I'll grant you there may always be stores that traffic primarily if not solely in superheroes, but for them to genuinely compete with full-service comic book stores in the same communities, they will have to either clean themselves up and learn better business practices, or they will go even further to seed, looking like nothing so much as that adult book store the town council keeps trying to kick out of town by changing the zoning laws every six months. Either way, those superhero-oriented stores will still be welcoming only one kind of customer, while that customer's family and friends gets its comic fix elsewhere.

The comic book stores that will thrive in the future will have a number of things in common:

• They will be clean


• They will be well-lit


• They will be well-organized


• They will open on time


• They will have prices clearly marked and up to date on all merchandise


• They will operate their business in accordance with local, state and federal laws, including labor and employment laws


• They will not favor one genre or sub-genre over another


• They will recognize that all comics are comics, no matter what country they originate from, or what format they are published in


• They will actively welcome all people interested in buying some kind of comics to shop at their store


• They will recognize the transition from periodical pamphlet comics to more appealing and enduring graphic novels, and accommodate the readership's clear preference for comics with a spine and a complete story


• They will actively seek to buy from a variety of distributors, not relying on one monopolistic distributor for the entirety of their business, and not settling for receiving books "whenever Diamond ships them," but rather, as soon as they are available, in order to better serve their customers

If the place you buy your comics at meets most or all of these criteria, be happy that you are supporting a professional comic shop that represents the best possible future for comics retailing.

If the place you buy your comics at fails to meet most (or all) of these criteria, you should probably start looking for a better shop. Not to punish your current shop, but because their days are very likely numbered. And more importantly, because you are probably missing out on a great many comics you would enjoy but have never seen. There's whole galaxy of worlds to be explored in the comics artform, and comic book stores that exist in the future will be your gateway to new experiences, new voices and new stories in comics. The great news is, some of them are out there right now, pushing comics forward every day.

But their efforts are vastly overshadowed by the superhero-centric stores that continue to live in the glorious past of the '80s and '90s, when it made a kind of sense to emphasize superhero comics, because that's virtually all there were, and all they could sell. But in the 21st century, the world outside the direct market is gobbling up comics in ever-increasing numbers; it’s just that superhero comics are not in the majority of what it is they're buying. Manga and artcomix have both made huge inroads since the century began, albeit in different manners and different numbers, but they're indisputably the comics that sell outside the insular (I always want to say "inbred," but I'm trying to be nice), misinformed (again see that David Beard piece in the Comics Journal #283) and ultimately self-destructive world of the direct market.

One criticism angrily lobbed by hardcore superhero convenience store customers at me when I bring up this subject is the idea that I don't want superhero comics available at all, anywhere. When discussing this in casual conversation, I usually say something like "You could stock all the superhero comics in a dumpster behind the store, and you wouldn't lose one superhero-oriented customer. If it's Wednesday, they know what they want, and they'll do whatever it takes to get it."

Have you ever experienced a superhero-heavy comic book store on Wednesday afternoon? It's quite a lot like watching addicts line up for methadone outside the clinic. All that space -- all that goddamned space – that retailers at superhero convenience shops devote to superhero comics? It's a total waste of their retail space. The vast majority of such shops could easily cut that space in half without dropping a single title, and devote the newly-created space to comics other people would like. People like the wives, girlfriends, children and friends the superhero addict drags along with him to the store. What if those people find something to read? Would it really be so awful to generate income from both your regular superhero guy and his girlfriend?

Believe it or not, the answer in some cases is yes. A lot of retailers are extraordinarily comfortable with the established "Good Ol' Boys" atmosphere of their shop, and they would gladly eschew growing their business if they don't have to deal with women. Or kids. Or, worst of all, women and their kids! Don't believe that’s a real, existing attitude within the direct market? Then you haven't been in many comic book stores.

I admit my standards are high for comics retailing; they’re high for the same reason my standards are high for quality inspection of the food my family eats. I want the best, and I want to be able to rest assured that my family and I will enjoy a safe and viable product for years to come. If your store meets most of my criteria for being a good one, then I have no problem with you. But if women and children feel unwelcome in your shop, if you are rude or deceptive to your customers, if you don't open on time and can't for the life of you imagine why anyone would want to read comics that you don't want to read -- or stock -- then yeah, I am talking to you. Or about you, at any rate.

Because, really, I am talking to people who buy comics. Not "Comics consumers," not "collectors," "fans," or little-z Marvel zombies. I am talking to people who like to read comics, who want to share their passion for the artform with their friends and loved ones, and who want to support stores that have a good chance of surviving the current transition from floppy monthly pamphlet comic booklets to the comics the whole world has definitively said it wants to read: Comics with a spine and a complete story. And what I am saying is this:

Please vote with your dollars. Please support the shops that work hard to present the best face for the artform we love, and who try damned hard to sell comics to everyone that wants to buy them, whatever country they originated in, and whatever format they are presented in. If your dealer presents a sloppy retail environment, or demonstrates unprofessional business practices, or worse, both, then find a better shop. They're out there. We're not really talking about stores that only exist in my imagination; they already exist right now. Some are better than others, but if you are buying from a dead-end retailer, you already know there's a problem. I've just been trying to help you put into words what the problem is, and suggest some solutions. I'm not trying to ban superhero comics, I'm just lobbying for a world in which superhero comics don't continue to alienate readers of other comics, who already exist, and who want to buy more comics -- from anyone who wants to sell them to them, in a welcoming and professional manner.

Labels: culture, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:31 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
ComicsPRO Tries to Bully Publishers -- At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna has details on a bullying attempt by an organization of direct market comic book retailers to tell publishers how to run their businesses. Johanna doesn't characterize it as bullying, but I certainly do.

When ComicsPRO first organized, I guess I thought it might allow the brightest, most forward-thinking retailers to influence the shitty majority within the direct market. Instead, the paper Johanna talks about seems to indicate the very opposite.

At issue are publishers who sell new publications before they arrive at direct market stores, usually through convention sales. This happens a lot during convention season when, say, Top Shelf has their copies of a major new work and wants to make a splash and bring attention to a book that Diamond might not bother to get to comic shops in the direct market until days or weeks later. Johanna correctly notes that ComicsPRO is demanding that stop without offering to better serve these publishers so they don't feel the need to go directly to readers with their offerings. This is key, because usually the books in question are non-superhero titles that the shitty majority of comic shops within the direct market doesn't want to deal with anyway.

Instead of acknowledging the cold, hard fact that retailers need to stop being dependent on Diamond for their bread-and-butter and build better direct relationships with publishers (or at least investigate alternative distribution methods, such as distributors who traditionally work with the mainstream book trade, or the smaller comic book distributors, however many might be left), which would make it easier for shops to acquire non-superhero works sooner, they choose to issue this whiny, bullying declaration that indicates a lack of insight and will to change within ComicsPRO.

I'll say it again. The truly outstanding comic shops I have been in -- The Beguiling in Toronto and Modern Myths in Northampton, Massachusetts, to name two -- have had books in stock earlier than Diamond brought them to the direct market, every time I have paid either one of them a visit. I always come out of stores like those with new books that I don't end up seeing in Diamondcentric comic shops until many weeks later.

So there's clearly a way to get new works from the publishers ComicsPRO is talking to earlier than Diamond delivers them. And if the retailers that make up the organization were listening to the smart, savvy and profit-oriented retailers in their industry, they wouldn't ever have had to embarrass themselves with this impotent, and as Johanna notes, years-old, complaint.

We've heard it all before, boys; mommy's a big meanie because you want milk to go with your cookies but you don't want to get off your ass and go get it yourself.

Well, you're a big boy now. Go get it yourself. It's time to grow up.

UPDATE: There's a good discussion of this issue going on in the comments thread, including input from some ComicsPRO board members.

UPDATE AGAIN: Tom Spurgeon has read the ComicsPRO position paper, and says it's "terrible." Meanwhile, Christopher Butcher promises to weigh in on the subject within the next day or so.

Labels: good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:50 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 16 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Quote of the Day -- DC Presnit and Publisher Paul Levitz, speaking to Newsarama's Matt Brady on the state of the industry:

"My suspicion is that there are probably more people reading graphic novels today than there are reading periodical comics."

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:45 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Criminal to Relaunch with New #1 -- After two excellent story-arcs, Marvel/Icon is relaunching the title in February with a new Vol. 2 #1.

Probably a marketing move, and probably a good idea. More people are likely to pick up a new #1 than a third story-arc beginning in what would have been issue #11.

More details at the very bottom of this post at Warren Peace Sings the Blues. (Apologies for earlier mis-identifying the source).

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:19 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Canary in a Coalmine -- The news that Love and Rockets is moving to an annual graphic novel format is more interesting than surprising.

What will be surprising and interesting, is when and if DC and Marvel make the same canny, forward-looking and industry-redefining move.

They should have done this already with titles like The Punisher and Fables, of course.

I wonder which titles and companies will follow suit next?

Me, I'm up for any Love and Rockets in any format I can get it in. Speaking of which, the two new phonebook collections are out from Fantagraphics, Vol. 3 in each series, collecting hundreds and hundreds of pages of some of the very best comics ever. Buy them already, if you haven't yet.

Labels: industry, recommendations

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:49 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Things Comics Retailers Don't Want You to Know #4671 -- As often as I say the direct market is a broken, inbred environment rabidly committed to its own destruction even as the rest of the universe embraces comics as a viable artform, some retailers continue to champion it as the last, best hope for comics. Here's another reason why I don't quite believe it.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:09 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Roger on FantaCo's FF Chronicles -- Roger Green's been promising some FantaCo related articles for a while, and today he delivers a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of The Fantastic Four Chronicles. Unsurprisingly, Jim Shooter turns up as the turd in the punchbowl.

Roger notes that today is the anniversary of the birth of both FantaCo and Jack Kirby, both sadly gone and much-missed by me. Both loom as giants in my memories and are thought of on a daily basis; I hope you'll take a look at Roger's essay, as well as Tom Spurgeon's wondrous visual tribute to Jack Kirby.

Coincidentally, today is also my wife Lora's birthday. I'd wish her a happy birthday here, but she doesn't read my blog, so instead I'll tell her when she wakes up, and again when the kids and I take her out for her birthday dinner tonight.

Labels: industry, linkblogging, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:19 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Spurgeon and Butcher on TCAF and More -- Two of my favourite writers about comics join forces to promote this coming weekend's Toronto Comic Art Festival (which I am beyond bummed out about not being able to attend, damn it) and talk about lots of other stuff, including The Greatest Comic Shop in the World, The Beguiling, as well as Butcher's dead-brilliant solution to the sexism and misogyny rampant in corporate comics today.

Tom Spurgeon Interviews Christopher Butcher.

This is one of the best interviews I've read all year, and I hope you've already clicked over and aren't even reading my babbling anymore. But if you are, I'll just finish by saying I wish to hell I had known Butcher needed a Zuda San Diego party invite, because for some strange reason I had one and had zero use for it. I would have overnighted it to him, I swear to God. It's the least I could have done to repay him for the hospitality and kindness he showed me when I visited Toronto back in 2005.

If there's any way at all you can get to TCAF this weekend, I urge you to do so. It's everything about a comic book festival done right, by people who actually have good ideas about how the industry and artform need to be stewarded. Have a blast, everybody.

Labels: good comic shops, industry, movies

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:39 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A. David Lewis on Autobio -- Comics writer A. David Lewis is bored to tears by the "glut" of autobiographical comics. He acknowledges that there are some good works, but goes on at length about why he will never write an autobiographical story.

As you may be aware, autobiography is probably my favourite genre in comics, so Lewis's mini-rant raises a few contrarian hackles. But mostly I am struck by the fact that I would rather read bad autobiographical comics than any of the fiction of Lewis's that I have read. The Lone and Level Sands was one of the most boring graphic novels I've ever tried to slog through (and I tried two or three times, because obviously some effort had been put into its creation).

I also wonder why Publisher's Weekly would give such valuable commentary space to someone who really has had nothing of substance to offer the comics artform as of yet, other than an obvious and all-too-common desire to be in comics whether his comics are really any damn good at all or not. I'm sure Lewis is a great guy, pays his bills on time and is kind to small animals and children, but, I'd rather read an essay by someone with genuine experience and perspective, and not a glorified wannabe with a half-thought-out grudge against a genre he likely isn't fit to work in.

Give me more experimental -- even failed autobiographical comics any day, and deliver me from fiction writers who just really, really wanna be in comics.

Edited to add: I guess Lewis pissed off Tom Spurgeon, too. Although he does not bring in the issue of the quality Lewis's own comics, which is his right. But I think it's fair game, when Lewis expends so much bluster on a straw man argument and yet has nothing of his own backing up his claims that fiction is somehow superior to autobio. Again, I'd rather read a thousand bad autobio comics before one more dull, plodding piece of Lewis fiction ends up in my lap.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 8:55 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Tuesday Comics Headlines -- With Dirk on vacation all week, I thought I'd try to cover at least some of his bases. Let's see if I can keep it up all week, shall we? As an actor said to the bishop...

* Despite All Available Evidence, Zuda is A Comic Creator's Dream Come True, This Site Says.

* What Are The Consequences of Cartooning Being Named A Fine Art in India?

* New York Magazine Previews Percy Gloom.

* Funnybook Funk Briefly Brightens.

* Bible Stories in Comics Form.

* Pekar Travels Outside Comfort Zone in Creating New Book.

* Butcher Excited About THEREFORE REPENT. I loved Salgood Sam's Revolver.

* Comic Book Resources Begins Series Titled Homosexuality in Comics. Lengthy interviews with gay creators, and creators who have portrayed gay and lesbian characters in their stories. Also: Mark Millar says Ron Stoppable is gay? I'm going to have to ask my kids about that.

* Johnny Bacardi Rolls Out More Sexist Batgirl Covers.

* Image Founders Reunion Needs Twice the Space Originally Planned. Perhaps they measured the collective egos involved before making this adjustment? I kid because I love. I love Savage Dragon.

* Spurgeon Says Tales From the Crypt Revival is "A Great, Heaving Collapse on All Levels." He's not wrong.

* What Randy Lander's Doing at The San Diego Comicon.

* Comics and More Reviews Dragon Head. People keep saying this is good.

* Rob Clough Reviews Comics Comics.

* Comicbloc.com Interviews Mike Wieringo. He says he'd like to draw The Flash again if Mark Waid were to write it. Mark Waid is currently writing The Flash. Note to DC: Make the magic happen!

* Johanna Says All-Flash #1 Not Magic, Not Happening. And I had it right here to review when I found her review, too. I was going to say something about how the book is more like a flushing away of the turd that was the failed Bart Allen Flash series than the fine meal I had been hoping for from Waid's return to the character. Like Johanna, I think this issue was narratively necessary given the circumstances, but not anything you need or want to read. Wait for August's Flash #231, Waid's real first issue back.

* Mutts Creator Opposes Animal Traps.

* Wildstorm Plans Authority-Related Comics I Won't Be Buying; Where The Hell is Grant Morrison?

* Beetle Bailey Creator's Free Magazine Sells Out.

* Editorial Cartoons "Darker and More Pungent," Says Editorial Cartoonist.

* Adult Filmmaker Who Was Friend to R. Crumb and Hunter S. Thompson Dies.

* Former Marvel Writer Lobdell Writing Screenplay. As long as he's not writing comics, I'm happy.

* Presidential Candidate Creates Graphic Novel, I Think.

* Almost Comics: How to Wrap a Burrito.

* The Pet Shop Boys Are to Kevin Church What James Kochalka is To Me, Apparently.

* Kochalka Posts Vacation Landscape Paintings. I really like me some James Kochalka.

* I Also Like This Andrew Foster Self-Portrait.

* Tuesday Reading: Abhay Khosla's Title Bout Archive. It's gonna be great to have him talking about comics regularly again, isn't it?

So, seriously -- Ron Stoppable is gay?

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:52 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Saratoga Springs Comicon 2007 -- The first of what is hoped to be an annual series of comic book conventions was held today at the Saratoga Springs City Center. I brought along my digital camera, so here are some images from the event. Click the pictures to open a larger version.



A good-sized crowd browsed the tables all afternoon.



My daughter Kira and her friend Connie meet a local author.



I'm not sure who gave better tips to whom.



Another view of the tables.



My son Aaron browses original art for sale.



Some colourful DC recreations/reimaginings were on sale.



More of those.



Best friends at the end of our day at the con.

The City Center's capacity of 2,500 was not sorely tested by the crowds we saw, but the attendance seemed encouraging to me. I hope the event comes back for a second year in 2008, because our area of upstate New York is sorely lacking in comics-related events, but has plenty of people interested in coming out to socialize and spend money.

Labels: culture, industry, real life

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:06 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Business of Comics is Broken -- That's Top Shelf Productions Co-Publisher Brett Warnock's assessment following this week's news about the possible end of Cold Cut as a distributor of artcomics to the direct market:

"[T]he BUSINESS of comics is broken. This is the sentiment with the recent announcement that Cold Cut Distributors are selling their company...in fact my experience would seem to indicate that the glut of Marvel and DC titles currently flooding the market, as well as an overabundance of weak comics everywhere else has created a situation where it's really very difficult to get much support from the retail community for indy comics, except for only the biggest A-List books in a given season."

Few are in as ideal a place to diagnose the current situation as Brett Warnock; he and co-publisher Chris Staros publish both some of the biggest artcomics you could name, such as Blankets and Lost Girls, and some of the very smallest and least likely grab mainstream headlines or score NPR interviews. And more power to them for continuing to support less major (if not virtually unknown) creators, by the way, in the face of the existing market conditions.

Warnock goes on to say:

"Clearly there needs to be more efficient methods of both retail and distribution. I love what i do, so i want a healthy marketplace. And God only knows, i'm NOT a believer in comics' sole future domain being online. I want to hold a book in my hands, feeling its pulpy goodness, the smell of ink on my fingers. And those are the kind of books i want to publish."

So, is there a way for direct market retailers and creators to better benefit from the increased readership for comics out there in the real world?

As I said yesterday, the revolution is over and comics have clearly won. But it takes time and many adjustments before that victory can be fully felt. Clearly a first step is needed.

I wonder how much would change if Diamond initiated a first-phase toward making its product returnable? A first step toward growing up and actually being a responsible, professional book distributor? It would take a lot of unnecessary risk off of comics retailers, and it would force Diamond to take ownership of its own place in the grand scheme of things. The current, dying system obviously allows Diamond to possess all the power and virtually none of the risk -- so much so that operating a comic book store with Diamond as your only source of product is clearly a sucker's game -- if not the ethical equivalent of being the black-eyed wife in an abusive marriage, shrieking at the cops "But I LOVE HIM!" as the cops haul him into the back of the squad car once again, certain he'll be back at home with all forgiven within 24 hours. Wednesday's always just around the corner, after all.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:04 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Golden Age of Now -- That's what Tom Spurgeon calls the current moment in comics history in this examination of the current comics boom and its lack of immediate benefits to some of the creators and retailers who make it happen.

Revolutions can be painfully slow; it's clear Bush and his cronies are crashing and burning at an ever-accelerating pace, but I've wanted them in prison since December of 2000, so imagine my frustration. What's happening now in comics -- what's been happening for seven years or so -- is a slow but almost-certain transformation from the direct market model of the '70s through the '90s, to a more holistic and global appreciation for and recognition of comics as just another artform.

I think we've long since reached a tipping point from which there is no return -- but that doesn't mean more distributors, creators and publishers won't fall between the cracks as things continue to develop. The best thing anyone in comics can do right now is be as aware and educated as possible about what has happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen in the near- and far-term. That's no guarantee of survival, but it's the best and most practical way to prepare for an expanding but still-transforming marketplace for comics.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 10:43 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Sea-Change for True Mainstream Comics? -- Tom Spurgeon posts an interesting letter from a comic book retailer about the possible end of Cold Cut's role in serving up non-superhero comics to the Direct Market:

"As someone who in the past has relied on Cold Cut in keeping perennial sellers like Blankets, Maus, or Persepolis on our shelves at all times, I now have to look elsewhere for those books."

Spurgeon recently covered the story about Cold Cut going up for sale and speculates on the non-reception to the story.

I sort of mentally red-flagged the news when it first appeared, but having had a day or two to think about it, I wonder what the ultimate impact on artcomics publishers will be. If Cold Cut disappears (or changes its business model enough so as to no longer be a major supplier of artcomics for progressive comic shops), this will have a definite effect on the bottom line of publishers like Drawn and Quarterly, Fantagraphics, Top Shelf and the other major players in North American non-corporate, non-superhero comics and graphic novels.

While the worst-case scenario would be publishers going out of business or severely curtailing their release schedules as a result of fewer orders from within the direct market, the fact of the matter is that the percentage of comic book stores that actively deal with Cold Cut is probably only 10-25 percent of those that get their stock mostly or solely from Diamond, a quasi-monopoly that prioritizes weekly corporate superhero product over the kind of artcomics readers like to buy in regular bookstores, or those progressive comic shops (and how many of those are there across North America? 50? 75? I wish to fuck I knew).

But in the past few years, artcomics publishers have demonstrated a canny knack for dealing with real book distributors, getting their books into mainstream bookstores (both chain and independent shops) sometimes weeks to months before Diamond can be bothered to deliver them to the stores they service.

So with advance warning that Cold Cut may soon cease to be a viable distributor of their product, what will artcomics publishers do? They could encourage a new, independent distributor, one supposes, or, and I think this is the more likely scenario -- they could focus even more of their efforts on dealing with mainstream distributors, who have demonstrated a better understanding of their needs, and certainly have provided better distribution than Diamond has, judging by what I see in mainstream bookstores.

Frankly, the progressive comic shops I have shopped in in the past five or six years, from Modern Myths in Northampton to The Beguiling in Toronto and others, have long since begun dealing with distributors other than Diamond to make sure they have the product their diverse customer base wants. No doubt they have relied on Cold Cut to a lesser or greater extent, but they are already ahead of the curve, in that they have been used to a multi-distributor business model for their stores and are probably far more prepared to deal with the possible end of Cold Cut as a player in the overall comics marketplace than the average superhero convenience shop owner, who wants to deal solely with Diamond anyway, out of either laziness, ignorance or outright hostility to any comics product that doesn't reflect their own narrow, backward-looking interests.

One thing is certain: If Cold Cut does end its distribution of artcomics to the direct market, things will change for certain. I hope they change to the benefit of artcomics publishers and the progressive stores that support them.

Labels: essays, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:26 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Zuda Doobie Doo -- What, you thought we were finished with this subject?

Over at Comixmix, Glenn Hauman has some extremely apt observations about the non-rollout of DC's new attempt to poach unwitting amateurs in their web of webcomics.

"We have no idea what they'll be launching with, they have nobody lined up that they're willing to talk about. Way to build confidence, guys. You couldn't find anybody? Every other time there's been a launch of a line from DC (Piranha, Paradox, Vertigo, Helix, Minx, CMX) there was content to go with it, to show what they were talking about. Here, nothing."

Also worth noting is this comment from myideais.com:

"I remember reading a longish historical essay about Marvel’s attempt to put out an 'underground' comic in the early seventies, which was called 'Comix Book.'

I have a vague thesis floating around in my head that Zuda Comics from DC, an attempt to emulate existing webcomics collectives, might be comparable to Marvel’s effort back then, in that they’re trying to to take on the hip new kids on their own turf. I’d like to read that essay again and see if I can look more closely for parallels."

In my original post on Zuda, I was quite explicit in referencing Epic Comics and DC's New Talent Showcase as other historical examples of the corporate companies trying to lure talented amateur creators more with the promise of greater exposure than any solid offers of a prevailing wage or (Good God, Y'all!) creators rights. There's no question in my mind that Zuda is just the latest, if by far the most under-developed and ham-handed iteration of this somewhat sleazy and pathetic scheme.

Labels: corporate comics, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:07 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Zuda: Day Twoda -- So Newsarama has posted an interview with DC Comics Preznit Paul Levitz about Zuda Comics, the AOL/Time Warner International Entertainment Megacorporation's online webcomics initiative, the announcement of which broke the internet in half -- or possibly quarters -- yesterday.

Preznit Levitz hardly seems to be any kind of expert about comics and their relationship to the internet and computers. For example, he tells Newsarama:

"I haven’t seen a lot of evidence yet that people want to read 20 pages of a comic book on their computer screen."

Well, Mr. Preznit, I have. Try searching Demonoid or Z-Cult for comics sometime. You might find a few of your own on there, even. Here's some. The fact is, thousands of people read 20 page comics online for free every week. I wonder how much more positive press DC might have gotten out of this story if instead of the still-murky copyright questions and vague plans that have been laid out, DC had issued a bold and definitive plan for competing with BitTorrent sites, offering a legal, low-cost alternative to capture the attention of those who want to read their comics online in downloadable .cbz and .cbr format?

Ah, well. Coulda-shoulda-woulda. At least Preznit Levitz is effusive with his deeply moderated praise for people who blazed the trail Zuda hopes to ride on the coattails of:

"You do have guys like Fred Gallagher or Scott Kurtz that are just terrifically competent at building the business and technological means around that to do something that works not only creatively, but profitably for them."

I hope someday someone calls me terrifically competent. That seems like high praise, indeed.

And I realize that Newsarama's Matt Brady has to go along to get along with the AOL/Time Warner International Entertainment Megacorporation, but Jesus, Matt, you couldn't at least ask about copyright and creators rights? Oh, wait, I found two references to copyright on the page the interview appears on:

Copyright ©2000 - 2007, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright 2006 Newsarama.com, LLC

Well, at least someone understands the importance of copyright.

Update: Tom Spurgeon explains reaction to the Zuda announcement in plain English. Spurgeon wins.

Labels: corporate comics, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:09 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Internet Officially Broken -- The Zuda Comics story has actually broken the internet in half, just as I predicted. Proof? Here's X-Axis reviewer Paul O'Brien agreeing with my take on the story in the commments thread of the Blog@Newsarama story. I don't have the energy to prove this is the comics internet equivalent of lions lying down with lambs, so if you're new to these parts, just trust me. Longtime followers of me or Paul or both will know exactly what I am talking about. Also eerie: So far all the comments in that thread are more or less civil.

Related: An attorney gives his first impressions of the whole imbroglio at Warren Ellis's The Engine.

Somewhat Related: My review of Ellis's new novel Crooked Little Vein is coming up, probably tomorrow morning.

Labels: corporate comics, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:08 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Monday Briefing -- Back to work for me today after being off since the last half of last week. We had no major family events or trips planned, but I knew there wouldn't be much to do at work, and if I'm going to be bored, I'd rather be bored at home, frankly. That's where I keep my funnybooks, y'see.

* Internet-Breaker of the Week: At Casa Spurge, Tom Spurgeon gets the first headline on DC's newest new talent showcase, Zuda Comics. Or is that New Talent Showcase? DC and Marvel never do get tired of coming up with new schemes to let idealistic and untested creators do the heavy lifting for free (or close enough so as to not make a difference). (Maybe that guy in Ohio that did that awful book for Epic Comics before it crashed and burned can revive it online for DC! Yay, comics!).

Tom Spurgeon wonders (with tongue firmly in cheek, no doubt) if DC, a subsidiary of the Time Warner international entertainment megacorporation, will let new creators keep the rights to their work. I don't wonder that at all. Ask Alan Moore about DC's generous rights policies. Then duck.

Of course, nothing will apparently be online for readers to look at until well into this fall. I can see how announcing it now will allow them time to collect material from Epic Comics victims hopeful creators, but that's a long time for a whole lotta nuthin' to be sitting there driving away people who click over thinking there'll be comics to read. It's also long enough for savvy would-be creators to talk to, oh, a lawyer or two about their "deal," so, hopefully they'll do that going in, so they can't claim later on they had no idea that an international entertainment megacorporation might have the audacity to put its own needs and profits before those of would-be creators with stars in their eyes.

You can be sure the comics will be progressive as all hell, after reading this quote from DC's Ron Perazza: "If [creators want to do] a straight-on newspaper strip, like a Doonesbury or something like that, great. If [they] want to do something a little more abstract, like a Family Circus that’s all in a circle, fantastic." That's right folks, The Family Circus is abstract. Is their no boundary to their imagination?

At Journalista, the creators rights angle and chances of making a splash in the already-established webcomics nation are vetted by keen observer Dirk Deppey. I don't normally say things like "vetted," but since the Zuda Comics people like to say it, why not me?

The funniest quote in the New York Times article Spurgeon links to announcing the new initiative comes from DC Preznit Paul Levitz, who must have been shocked to learn: "We’ve seen a real wellspring of creativity [by people posting their online comics], and it’s been a different kind of material than publishers have been putting out." Of course, Levitz means different from the kind of comics superhero publishers have been putting out, because only the direct market is slavishly obsessed with superheroes to the exclusion of all other types of stories. The internet gets out to a far broader and more diverse audience, which is why there aren't many top-of-mind superhero webcomics out there. But don't hold your breath waiting for DC to bring you the new Achewood or Diesel Sweeties or American Elf. Here's a thought: Maybe they would have brought you the old ones if they were all that smart and interested in the future of comics.

* Also at The Comics Reporter, I enjoyed Tom Spurgeon's weekend interview with comics journalist Jeet Heer. Jeet is a fine writer, and even contributed a couple of items to Comic Book Galaxy a few years back. Here is Jeet Heer's review of McSweeney's #13, the comics anthology issue edited by Chris Ware.

* Unlike most comics bloggers, I did not take the weekend off; here's what I was up to: reviews of the new MOME Summer 2007, Douglas Wolk's Reading Comics and the fairly atrocious new Thor #1, as well as my thoughts on Nine Graphic Novels to Read Before You Die.

* Christopher Butcher weighs in on the whole what-manga-sells-and-does-not-sell-and-to-whom issue. Butcher knows more about selling comics than you or I do, so pay attention.

* Chris Allen recommends Patton Oswalt's new CD, and I could not agree more. I gave it a listen after reading his review, and I am not kidding when I tell you that I almost lost consciousness, I was laughing so hard.

* The fine folks at AiT/Planet Lar have posted a kind welcome back to The ADD Blog (thanks, gang!) and a handy roundup of links to my reviews of their books.

* Tony Isabella is back from hiatus with a new Tony's Online Tips. Glad to hear he's bouncing back from recent health problems -- click over for his story of trying to take a sleep apnea test, because I just know that's exactly how it would go for me as well. Get much better soon, Tony.

* By the way, here's a reminder that if you prefer to get The ADD Blog posts in your e-mail, you can subscribe through Google Groups. Also, if you have a blog or website and would like to set up a reciprocal link, e-mail me.

* Roger Green looks at nicknames he's been called. I'll plead guilty to having referred to him as "Rog," though I may not from here on out, insert smiley face here. As for myself, like Roger I will also eschew revealing nicknames I've been called in the context of romantic relationships, but in college a friend took to calling me "Webster" because he thought I knew every word in the dictionary (hardly; I just knew more words than he did). My friend Jake used to call me "DOANE" and it always seemed to be in all-caps, a blend of affection and exasperation: "Oh, DOANE." One ex-girlfriend's nickname for me (I'll reveal just this one, okay?) was "Doaney," which strangely I didn't mind. A girl I had a huge, utterly unreciprocated crush on in college called me "Al," as did the wonderful older gentleman who was our building manager from 1995 to 2004. Other than those two, though, that's where I differ from Paul Simon: You Can't Call Me Al.

Labels: corporate comics, industry, linkblogging, monday briefing

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:01 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Friday Briefing -- I haven't gotten to the comic shop yet this week -- I'm hoping today's the day -- so let's see what everyone else is reading, shall we?

* Chris Allen reviews Two_Fisted Tales Vol. 1. One of the luckiest parts of my early teenage years was my mother's gift to me of the Russ Cochran hardcover, slipcased EC Comics sets. Decades later, not having those anymore is probably my biggest comics-related regret, so I'm glad to see that these new reprints are being released. Chris's take is interesting, in that he recognizes the greatness found in the book without paying automatic, reverent homage to Kurtzman and his crew. Chris's lack of reverence and respect is one of his major strengths as a comics critic.

* Rog observes the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the most important creative partnership in history. Roger's thoughts on music (or anything else, really) are always a great read.

* Rob Vollmar reviews Dragon Head Vol. 1-3 for Comics Worth Reading. This series was recommended to me by Jim Crocker of the great western Mass comic shop Modern Myths during my recent trip there with my daughter. Unfortunately, by then, my money was committing itself to buying enough gas to limp home after a great day of spending adventuring in Northampton. Jim and Rob are both people with impeccable taste (go ahead, I dare you to try to peck their taste!), so I have a feeling Dragon Head may be one to check out.

* Also of interest at CWR is Johanna's piece on adult-male-targeted manga not finding its audience. I'll be honest and say that while the manga revolution is a delight to me -- hey, I've waited all my life to find teenagers lounging about bookstores reading comics, I'm not gonna quibble about where the comics are coming from -- few manga series have grabbed and kept my attention. I like the horror manga of Junji Ito, but it seems like even in Japanese comics, my tastes tend to the artcomix fringe. My favourites tend to be stuff like Tatsumi's Push Man and Abandon the Old in Tokyo, and some of Ponent Mon's releases like The Walking Man. I do believe there's a manga for anyone who loves comics (and probably for anyone who loves to read, period), but there's probably not a manga for anyone who only loves superhero comics, and specifically North American corporate superhero comics. The core audience for those is too xenophobic, and trying to market manga to them through Previews while they lust after Geoff Johns continuity porn is like trying to sell a delicious cut of filet mignon to a vegan.

* I have a feeling there's much more hay to be made out of further exploration of the vegan/corporate superhero junkie comparison. I really do.

Labels: industry, linkblogging, monday briefing

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:05 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Butcher on Advance Copies -- Christopher Butcher sorts out the whole deal with The Beguiling and advance copies from Marvel and DC in this post. Chris does say that Diamond occasionally gets it right when it comes to being a good retail partner, in his experience, but agrees with me that smart comics retailers should "source every book [they] carry from two or three different distributors and see who offers up the best deal, the best shipping, the timeliest turnaround." This is how, Butcher notes, The Beguiling "...get[s] the books in first and carr[ies] them the longest, and get[s] you the best price on them."

This explains why, in my February, 20065 visit to the store, I saw books that didn't arrive until a month or two later from Diamond, at the comic shop I was using at the time.

I have to say I am totally baffled why anyone who wants to serve his customers well and operate a profitable and growing business would rely solely on Diamond for the majority, if not the entirety, of their stock.

Labels: good comic shops, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:38 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Pitching to Vertigo -- Over on The V, comics writers Brian Wood and Alex de Campi get into an interesting and revealing discussion about pitching to Vertigo.

Wood points out that de Campi may be burning a few bridges with her honesty, but when it comes to corporate superhero publishers, I'd vote for lots more of that, thanks. Potential creators should have the sort of information de Campi is sharing available to them before they decide to cast their lot with a company that may eventually own all the rights to their work.

Labels: corporate comics, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:32 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Diamond, Dealers and Advance Copies -- Commenting on my post yesterday, Tom Spurgeon makes some observations about Diamond's First Look/Sneak Peek program (third item down in that post) and catches an angle that hadn't occurred to me:

"[W]hat I found valuable is [Doane's] note that the store The Beguiling doesn't use a first-look program of early shipping in order to better prepare itself for the ups and downs of the periodicals market. The thought that the maybe the best way to share information with stores about upcoming product -- giving them the product -- exists as a [Diamond] pay-for program instead of routinely used in the course of maximizing sales for a book speaks to a key dysfunction in that comics market...

I italicized the crucial phrase there, because I think it's important to note Spurgeon finds this situation unusual. Tom and I seem to often differ in our evaluation of the state of the Direct Market as served by Diamond; he often seems to think things are not that bad, while I, of course, think that 90 percent of existing comic shops serviced by Diamond are apocalyptically awful in the way they service (or fail to service) their customers, both real and potential. In fact, Spurgeon's very good point about how wrong-headed it is for Diamond to charge for the First Look/Sneak Peek books struck me as worth mentioning because I just took it for granted that everyone understands that Diamond misuses its monopolistic power virtually every chance it gets.

Spurgeon makes another good catch as well, in the same paragraph:

"...speaks to a key dysfunction in that comics market, as, from the other end of things, does word that a retailer used to sell those comics to Doane."

There's a whole, as I referred to it the other day, "semi-sordid" story there, and maybe I'll tell it all someday, but yes, around 2000-2001, the shop I was getting my comics from was selling me their First Look/Sneak Peek packs. In the interest of fairness to that dealer, he did sell them to me at his cost, which if I recall correctly was ten dollars each for the Marvel and DC advance packs, which arrived either Wednesday or Thursday the week before they were to go on sale.

At the time, my reviews were heavily-weighted toward Marvel and DC, and the arrangement I made with that dealer (who I am not naming, because he is still retailing comics, although I haven't been in his shop in years) was to take the advance packs off his hands at his cost, but he wanted to keep, I believe, any Spider-Man or X-Men titles for his kids to read. Given that there were five to seven or so issues in each pack, ten bucks was usually less than the collective cover price for one of the packs even with the Spidey and X titles removed from the equation. The biggest revelation to me in the year or so that I received the books was just how horrible the average week's worth of corporate superhero books were.

When the time came that I no longer bought the books, it was a huge relief to not be exposed on a weekly basis to all those mediocre comics. It was a rare week, indeed, when more than two or three total from Marvel and DC combined was actually worth reading, a situation which seems to have pretty much held steady in the years that have passed since then. "Same as it ever was," one supposes.

Labels: corporate comics, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 11:33 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Butcher, Beguiling, and Early Books -- Interesting, but I'm not sure it means anything: Christopher Butcher reveals in his comments on Fallen Son: Captain America: Iron Man: If Only We Had One More Colon in his comments on comics arriving in Diamond-serviced stores this week that the shop he works at, The Beguiling (certainly one of if not the best comic shops in the universe), does not subscribe to Marvel (and I'd presume DC's) Sneak Peek/First Look program(s).

You may or may not know that Diamond offers, for a flat fee, a varying number of titles shipped a week ahead of their release date. Supposedly so retailers can get a jump on "exciting" superhero "events," stores vary wildly in how they use these books, if they subscribe to the program. Some stores put them out on the counter for shoppers to browse, presumably to generate more interest for next week's books. Some shops don't share them with their customers, but use them as a guide for what they might need to re-order, should "events" merit. I even know of one Diamond account that sold them to a customer who wanted access to them for his comic book reviewing. I know that last one because it was me, circa 2000-2001. But let's not get into that semi-sordid story.

I do find it a little fascinating that the folks at The Beguiling don't participate. It could be that they just don't have time to review next week's superhero offerings, since they don't deal solely with Diamond are ordering and taking in new comics from multiple sources far more frequently than most Diamond-centric comic shops. It could be that they simply don't need to read or put out for display next week's books, because they have such a diverse customer base that superheroes make up only a piece of their overall retail pie. Now, there's a subject I would dearly love to see Chris Butcher or other progressive comics retailers address.

Ultimately I wonder, though, if it isn't just that those guys love comics, not just superhero comics, and since they live, breathe and eat the artform every day of the week, they're content to find out what's up in the Marvel and DC universes at the same time everyone else is? If at all?

One thing that really struck me on my three visits (over four days) to The Beguiling was this: Their pro-active approach to ordering and acquiring comics really positions them very well over any shop catered to solely by Diamond. I found books and comics in the shop on my visits that did not appear in Diamond-serviced stores for weeks to months later. Think I'm exaggerating? If, like me, you're lucky enough to have a graphic novel-friendly independent bookstore in your neck of the woods (you can find indy bookshops here, and check to see what their GN stock looks like), make note of what new releases they have by publishers like Drawn and Quarterly, Fantagraphics, First Second, Top Shelf and graphic novel imprints of mainstream book publishers.

Albany's independent book store is The Book House, and they have a fairly impressive graphic novel section. Often I notice they get books in weeks ahead of Diamond-only stores, because Diamond's focus is almost completely centered on those publishers in the front of the Previews catalog. I've found books at The Book House that I really wanted from publishers like those I named above, sometimes a month or more ahead of their arrival in even the best Diamond-serviced shop in the region. And you know what? I bought them there, at The Book House. If it's in your hand, the chances you'll buy a book (or anything) you want are far, far greater than if you look forlornly at the racks at your local shop and are told, "Yeah, we'll have that in a few weeks." To quote my friend Tim, and imagine him in an old codger's voice with his face all scrunched up as he says it: Whooo giiiiiiiives a shiiiiiiiitttt?

This is why I have long tried to explain to anyone that will pay attention that comic shops that want to make the most money -- the ones that want to sell comics to everyone that wants to buy them from their store -- will most certainly not be satisfied with only dealing with Diamond. Whether it's whatever independent comics distributors still remain, or dealing direct with actual mainstream book distributors (Fantagraphics was smart as hell jumping on that bandwagon), the best way to get comics and graphic novels into the hands of your customers, as a retailer, is to be incredibly active and interested in everything going on in comics, and crucially, to create relationships with every reputable distributor and source of comics that you can.

I remember when MQP released The R. Crumb Handbook, a hugely appealing little hardcover that gave new and old readers alike a thrilling journey through the life and work of Robert Crumb, one of the finest and most important cartoonists ever to take pen to paper. I found the book at The Book House, drove home 50 miles to find a review copy in my mailbox, and wondered what to do with the extra copy. I decided to give it away, and asked the publisher if they could provide extra copies to make it a major giveaway. Now, this is what happened, I shit you not: I had found the book in a mainstream bookstore, read and reviewed it, and given away a dozen copies on this website, at least a month -- and I think it might have been two -- before it was shipped to stores by Diamond. I'll never forget the day Jesse at Earthworld in Albany told me a "new Crumb book" had come in, big Crumb fan that he is. I could not believe it when he showed me a book that to me was practically ancient (although revered) history. I don't know if he believed me when I told him I had already reviewed and given away many copies of this book many weeks ago, but that's exactly what had happened.

Long story short, the Diamond method of distributing comics works great if they're floppies or graphic novels from one of their "premier publishers," the corporations that allow Diamond to have their monopolistic stranglehold on the less progressive and less powerful stores in the Direct Market. But I find what kicked off all this thinking of mine, The Beguiling not bothering with the First Look/Sneak Peek programs, kind of an interesting canary in a coal mine in terms of the attitudes and long-term vision of any given comic shop. I'd be interested to know how your shop (the one you shop at, or better yet the one you own or work at, if applicable) deals with the one-week-early programs.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:15 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Ten Years of Top Shelf -- Congratulations to Chris Staros and Brett Warnock on this weekend's tenth anniversary of Top Shelf Productions. Almost as long as I have been writing about comics, I have been writing about the comics they publish. And even before that, when Chris Staros was publishing The Staros Report (a great 'zine that probably would have been a blog if launched today), I was writing about them -- a letter from me appears in the second or third issue (circa 1996-97), alongside letters from James Kochalka and Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics Books, both of whom also went on to change the way I see comics as an artform.

Top Shelf has been home to some of the best and most inventive comics creators in the history of the artform, including Renee French, Alan Moore, James Kochalka, Eddie Campbell and many others.

To mark this milestone weekend, Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon today posts a long and extremely informative and entertaining interview with Brett Warnock, Top Shelf's co-publisher and art director. Please click on over and read about Brett's life in comics.

Top Shelf's story is an important one in the overall emergence of comics as a mainstream artform over the past decade, and I hope you'll join me in congratulating Chris and Brett on ten great years. I'm looking forward to the next ten even more.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:11 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Plain Janes Discussion -- I've been having an interesting discussion with Abhay Khosla on the Image message boards about the recently-released Plain Janes, drawn-but-not-written by Street Angel's Jim Rugg.

The discussion began when Abhay said he almost bought The Black Diamond Detective Agency by Eddie Campbell, but then went with Plain Janes instead. That prompted me to say:

Well, the Eddie Campbell isn't his best work, but Plain Janes is REALLY dull and Rugg's art seems especially toothless for the most part. I would have rather had more Street Angel myself. Hopefully he made a lot of money on it, anyway.

As message board posts are wont to do, that made me sound a good bit more dismissive than I meant to be, which Ivan Brandon called me on, especially disliking my use of the word "toothless" and conflating it with "hackwork," which you may or may not realize is not a phrase I tend to use much. My response to that:

I mean it lacks the vitality and spontaneity Rugg evinced in Street Angel. It seems managed, calculated, and not anywhere near as interesting as his earlier work. If someone is interested in Plain Janes based on the excellence of the cartooning in Street Angel, chances are they'll be a bit disappointed. It's good, professional illustration and that's about all it is. I didn't say it's hackwork -- that's not a word I generally throw around much, and I'm sure Jim fulfilled the assignment with as much passion and professionalism as he could. I just personally found a hell of a lot more passion and personality in Street Angel. YMMV.

Once Abhay has read the book, he feels myself and others who didn't enjoy the book very much may be judging it too harshly...But his thoughts aren't uniformly enthusiastic, either, and says "I hope [Rugg] does a 180 from this material in his next thing because... because again, it just doesn't play to how much fun he can bring to... to.. to movement...? It doesn't utilize everything he's capable of."

My final thought on Plain Janes and similar efforts to integrate artcomix creators into the world of corporate comics is summed up like this:

I always wonder if Marvel and DC are deliberate in their habit of hiring great artcomix creators (Rugg and Horrocks come immediately to mind) and then tasking them with jobs that don't reflect their obvious true gifts, but which keep them busy NOT exercising those talents for their own benefit, however much it might pay in the short run. Or, do the "Big Two" just take a cog for a cog and not even think about anything other than forwarding their own "mainstream" agendas...

There's lots more in the link to the discussion above, but I wanted to get my own thoughts on the book and on the issues it raises here on the blog.

Labels: art, corporate comics, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:41 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
What Do I Know? -- Over the past week, I've written about my experiences over the past thirty years of shopping for comics in the direct market, where the market is at now, and where I think it needs to go in the future.

Other than having been a broadcast journalist for two-thirds of that thirty years, and exercising my powers of observation and reportage, I can't claim any expertise. What I've talked about, I've seen first-hand, from shops that fail to open on time most of the time, to shops that deliberately alienate anyone who isn't an aging male superhero fan, all the better to not have to deal with the difficult tastes of women, children, or even other men who somehow prefer to read more than just power fantasies about men in tight pants battling in close quarters over and over again for decades on end.

But, as the title says, what do I know?

You know who might have some insight into the current state of the market? Maybe a guy who actually publishes them for a living, and has for the past few years.

Brett Warnock of Top Shelf Productions:

The dismal failure of 90% of the comics shop owner/managers to provide comics to a wider audience is mind-boggling to me. I won't say retailing is easy, by any means, but neither is it a rocket science.

So many times i've visited stores in new cities, with nary an art-comic on their shelves, where the dork behind the counter says, "Well, they don't sell." Duh, dude!! If you don't have them, people can't buy them! I'm not talking about somewhere in the middle of Kansas, i'm talking about super liberal college campuses (like where i went to school in Eugene, OR), where alternative comics would thrive.

One time, i checked back on a store who had purchased some comics from me at our standard wholesale discount, to see if they needed a restock. Sure enough, the comics had sold, but when i asked if he'd like more, he mumbled, "Thank god those are gone," as if he'd finally rid his store of a flea-infested stray dog. He MADE MONEY on my comics, but acted as if i were putting him in a bind. What the fu*k!@?

And what about those who say comic shops should just continue to sell what sells? They'll always be around, right?

It's somewhat hard to believe, but having polled other indy publishers, we've come to the conclusion that "maybe" 250 comics shops in North America represent 90% of our direct market sales. There's possibly 3,500 comics shops (or some weak iteration thereof, in the form of a baseball card store here or a hobby & games store there), and it's difficult not to wonder, and dream "what if?" even half of these shops truly knew the scope of PROFITS to be made in the emerging market for non-spandex comics? What would happen? Are you high?

Much more at the Top Shelf blog. I appreciate Brett taking the time to comment, because Top Shelf has published some of the best graphic novels of the past decade -- books accessible and entertaining to readers far, far outside the average superhero convenience shop.

But hopefully you already know that.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:39 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Friday Briefing -- Hello, good day and welcome to -- you know, I just want to say, it really does feel good to be blogging regularly again. Thanks to everyone who has dropped me a line to welcome me back. I really, really appreciate it.

Now then, as to the subject of the week -- no, not Zombie Mary Jane, although I will say I saw Chris Butcher's point crystal-clear once I saw the Zombie poster side-by-side with the original comic, which I vividly remember buying for my daughter a few years ago. I love me some Marvel Zombies as much as anybody, but for me the Suydam covers were never a part of the attraction, and I have to agree that this one goes over the line.

No, the subject hereabouts has been the future of comics retailing. I started off with a revision of an old essay on the subject, which didn't quite hit all the points I wanted to make. So I wrote more on what kind of shops exist now, and what kind of shops will likely survive in a changing marketplace. Basically I think that superhero-centric stores are living in the glorious past of the '80s and '90s, when it kind of made sense to emphasize superhero comics because that's all there were, and all they could sell. But in the 21st century, the world outside the direct market is gobbling up comics in ever-increasing numbers, just, superhero comics are not in the majority of what it is they're buying. Manga and artcomix have both made huge inroads since the century began, albeit in different manners and different numbers, but they're indisputably the comics that sell outside the insular (I always want to say "inbred," but I'm trying to be nice), misinformed (again see that David Beard piece in the new Comics Journal) and ultimately self-destructive world of the direct market.

One criticism angrily lobbed by hardcore superhero convenience store customers at me, one of the many mischaracterizations of what I wrote, is that I don't want superhero comics available at all, anywhere. Well, how would I buy my Marvel Zombies, then? Or Paul Dini's Detective Comics? All-Star Superman?

Engine member David Wynne really latched on to a point I guess I meant but kind of buried in what I wrote, and I'll confess that my distaste for dirty, disorganized comic shops that open late on a regular basis may have caused me not to see I didn't make this point clearly enough. So I'll let Wynne put it in his words. Responding to an Engine reader who implied that comic stores currently must rely on superhero fanatics to stay in business, Wynne gets it exactly right when he says:

"...but those customers are already hooked. As long as a shop continues to stock the crap they come in for, they'll still keep coming in. Which means it doesn't need to be pushed right up in the front window, making any casual passers by think that they won't find anything else inside."

When discussing this obvious fact in casual conversation, I usually say something like "You could stock all the superhero comics in a dumpster behind the store, and you wouldn't lose one superhero-oriented customer. If it's Wednesday, they know what they want, and they'll do whatever it takes to get it."

Have you ever experienced a superhero-heavy comic book store on Wednesday afternoon? It's quite a lot like watching addicts line up for methadone outside the clinic. Damn it, now I've cast another aspersion. It's like I have Aspersions Syndrome. But what I am saying is, all that space -- all that goddamned space -- retailers at superhero convenience shops devote to superhero comics? It's a total waste of their retail space. The vast majority of such shops could easily cut that space in half without dropping a single title, and devote the new space to comics other people would like. People like the wives, girlfriends, children and friends the superhero addict drags along with him to the store. What if those people find something to read? Would it really be so awful, Mr. Diamond-Centric Retailer, to get the money from both your regular superhero guy and his girlfriend?

Believe it or not, the answer in some cases is yes. A lot of retailers are extraordinarily comfortable with the established "Good Ol' Boys" atmosphere of their shop, and they would gladly eschew growing their business if they don't have to deal with women. Or kids. Or, oh my god, women and their kids!

Don't believe it? Then you haven't been in many comic book stores.

Speaking of which, yesterday I also posted about my favourite comic book stores. If you visit one or two or all of them, I think you'll see why my standards are so high for comics retailing. I mean, if your store meets most of my criteria for being a good one, then I have no problem with you. I am, in fact, not even talking about you. But if women and children feel unwelcome in your shop, if you are rude or deceptive to your customers, if you don't open on time and can't for the life of you imagine why anyone would want to read comics that you don't want to read -- or stock -- then yeah, I am talking to you. Well, talking about you.

Because, really, I am talking to people who buy comics. Not "Comics consumers," not "collectors," "fans," or little-z Marvel zombies. I am talking to people who like to read comics, who want to share their passion for the artform with their friends and loved ones, and who want to support stores that have a good chance of surviving the current transition from floppy monthly pamphlet comic booklets to the comics the whole world has said it wants to read: Comics with a spine and a complete story.

If that sounds like you, well, hello. I've been talking to you all week and haven't really said a proper hello. And what I want to say to you during this, The Friday Briefing, is this:

Please vote with your dollars. Please support the shops that work hard to present the best face for the artform we love, and who try damned hard to sell comics to everyone that wants to buy them, whatever country they originated in, and whatever format they are presented in. If your dealer presents a sloppy retail environment, or demonstrates unprofessional business practices, or worse, both, then find a better shop. They're out there. We're not really talking about stores that only exist in my imagination, they already exist right now. Some are better than others, but if you are buying from a dead-end retailer, you already know there's a problem. I've just been trying to help you put into words what the problem is, and suggest some solutions. I'm not trying to ban superhero comics, I'm just lobbying for a world in which superhero comics don't continue to alienate readers of other comics, who already exist, and who want to buy more comics -- from anyone who wants to sell them to them, in a welcoming and professional manner.

Labels: corporate comics, essays, good comic shops, industry, monday briefing

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:10 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
My Favourite Comic Shops -- With all this talk of what comics should be -- and I'm excited to see folks discussing what I wrote on a few message boards and blog comment threads -- I thought I'd spend a few minutes writing about the comic shops I visit regularly and would recommend to anyone who wants to shop for comics and graphic novels in my part of the country.

Fantastic Planet in Plattsburgh, New York is a store that was pretty good the first time I visited it a few years ago, and has only gotten better since it moved locations a year or two back. The artcomix selection is not where I ideally would like to see it, but they have a good manga section and a huge collection of TPBs and graphic novels, as well as being extremely clean and well-organized. The folks that run it are nice, too. We live about two hours south of there, but I try to go up at least once a year and see what's what. I usually end up spending a hundred bucks or more on GNs I've missed elsewhere.

Million Year Picnic in Cambridge, Massachusetts is an awesome comic shop in somewhat cramped quarters. Extremely good for imports, mini-comics, and pretty much every graphic novel in print, and a few that aren't.

Modern Myths in Northampton, Massachusetts is probably the finest comic book store I have shopped at in the United States (keep in mind I have never been west of Ohio, so, no offense James!). The store is family-friendly, with sections for all ages, interests and genders, everything is clean, well-organized and logically laid out, and I really just can't recommend this store enough. It's a nearly-three hour drive for me, and it's worth the time and gas to get there, even now. Gamers will also enjoy the extensive selection of games, and I believe there are regular in-store tournaments. If you go, please tell manager Jim Crocker I said hi. He's a great guy and a pleasure to talk comics with.

Earthworld Comics in Albany, New York was my shop of choice for most of the past five years. A change of job means I don't get to Albany much anymore, and I recently and with great reluctance had to end my subscription there. Owner JC Glindmyer is a great businessman and an even bigger fan of comics of all sorts, and his shop's great diversity reflects that. You can pretty much bet on any given Wednesday that if shipped from Diamond, you can find a copy at Earthworld. If not, they can usually have it for you within a week. JC, Tom, Alicia and the rest are all friendly and know a lot about comics, and if you're anywhere near Albany, this is a great shop to spend hours browsing in.

Comic Depot in Greenfield Center, New York is a relative newcomer to the region, having opened about two years ago. They're along Route 9-N north of Saratoga Springs, and for the past few months I've had my subscription here. The store definitely focuses on superheroes, but there's a great variety of titles from diverse publishers like Dark Horse and Dynamite Entertainment as well, and most importantly for a small shop, Darren is extremely responsive to special orders. The customer service is among the best I have ever received, and if you're anywhere near Albany or Saratoga Springs, you should stop in and take a look around. Like Modern Myths, Comic Depot also appeals to gamers, and although they don't stock as much as Modern Myths, they do have in-store tournaments that seem well-attended and everybody seem to be having fun. (Can you tell I myself am not into gaming?)

Electric City Comics is in Schenectady, New York and is a longtime fixture in the Capital Region comics scene, such as it is. It's a small shop, but they have a large selection of graphic novels and a surprising stock of undergrounds and alternative comics. I had my subscription there many years ago and still try to stop in a few times a year, because you never know what you might find. The customer service at Electric City is also excellent.

The Beguiling in Toronto, Ontario is a special case for me. It's an eight-hour drive away, so I will probably only make it there every few years (the first and only time to date was in 2005, but I went back three times in four days because it was so awe-inspiring; and thanks for taking me, Jay!). I'm being as honest as I can be when I tell you it is the best comic shop I have ever been in, and very likely the best in the world -- certainly in North America. See, I have had dreams all my life of being in an unfamiliar comic shop and finding untold treasures on the racks, little-known or unknown works by my favourite cartoonists, and promising works by people I somehow have never heard of. I kid you not that my first time walking into The Beguiling, I was actually in the store I had dreamed of all my life. I can't imagine anything in comics that you can't find there, and the folks that run it (hi Peter, hi, Chris!) know their shit like you wouldn't believe. Take it from me that the things you're hearing about in comics right at this moment, they've probably had for sale for the past six months at The Beguiling. Worth a trip from anywhere in the world, I swear to God.

I can recommend any of these shops without reservation, and I hope if you're anywhere in the Northeast you'll try to give some of them a look. Tell them you read about them on the ADD Blog. Sure, they'll go "on the what now?" But it'll make me feel better.

If you want to share your thoughts on your favourite comic shops, feel free to drop me an e-mail and I'll post your thoughts here.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:47 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Pointing to the Future -- So, what comic book stores reflect the best future for the direct market?

To determine which shops are good, first we must determine what kind of shops are out there. What is the definition of "comic book store?" Diamond claims there are thousands of "comic book stores" in North America, but I would guess they really mean they have thousands of accounts, many of which may be much like the "hobby shop" near my house, which makes its bread and butter on radio controlled cars, accessories, snacks and soda, but has a small selection of comics delivered from Diamond weekly. They have a couple dozen subscribers, they carry comics, but in my view this is not a "comic book store." It is run more as a hobby than a business, and that is one of the key problems in the direct market as it exists today.

Too many shops are run by former fans who never bothered to learn how to be professional businessmen. As opposed to the hobby shop above, these are actual comic book stores, but they have profound problems (that the people running the store are either not aware of or don't see as problems). Maybe you've been in one of these stores -- perhaps the owner/cashier was eating lunch at the cash register, maybe annoyed that you had a question for him. Perhaps the back issues have no prices on them, or the prices are subject to change because they've gone up in value since the last time anyone bothered to price them. Perhaps you can feel the dust caking on your fingers as you browse the back issues -- or even the new stock (!). And let's not even get into the hours the store is open -- they may be posted, but how often does someone have the door open and the store ready to welcome customers before or at the posted opening time? If it's not 99 percent (allowing for family emergencies and genuine traffic tie-ups), then it's not a professional business; it's a hobby.

These are the very worst kind of "comic book stores," providing a negative impression for customers, potential customers, and the people they may bring along with them, such as their friends or family members, any or all of which, under the right retail circumstances, may be driven to spend their money in the shop as well. But it's extremely easy to lose interest in a dirty, dark pit that your comics-reading friend/boyfriend/husband/co-worker may have dragged you in to. It is almost needless to say that virtually all of the shops that fall under this criteria focus almost solely on corporate superhero comic books, and if there are other interests in evidence, they will be similarly off-putting. For example:

I've been in shops that had bad VHS tapes of professional wrestling playing on a small TV on the counter all the time. Superheroes and professional wrestling, we get it -- whatever your entertainment, it must involve men in tight clothing locked in dramatic conflict. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," to coin a phrase, but when a young mother comes in looking for Persepolis because she heard a wonderful interview with Marjane Satrape on NPR and looked up "graphic novels" in the phone book, don't be surprised when she sees this environment and rightly assumes she probably won't find what she's looking for. I'll go so far as to say that if she asked nicely and the owner was in a good mood, he might order it from Diamond for her, but she'll never get to that step in the process -- the amateurish retail hell she has entered into is something she wants to exit, and try to forget. She may find what she's looking for at Borders, she thinks -- how often has anyone turned and walked out of that or any mainstream bookstore because of the environment they were confronted with upon initial entry?

And while I'm at it, have you ever been able to guess the main interest of the owner or manager of a mainstream bookstore simply by how the books are racked, or by what videos are in stock? Now ask that question about the comic book stores you've been in. If any specific genre dominates, with everything else abandoned to the manga or artcomix ghetto in a dark, inconvenient corner of the store, again, this is not the comic shop of the future.

There are stores that are slightly or significantly better than this, but which are still flawed. The owner or manager may have a more expansive view of comics as an artform, and may even be open to stocking comics from other countries. Certainly he should be, since those comics are building new audiences across all ages, genders and interests, and presumably they want to not only stay in business, but experience growth from year to year. But the limiting factor I see in a store like this is the continuing emphasis on corporate superhero comics, from the window displays to the huge waterfall racks to the posters, action figures and other items on sale.

Certainly superhero comics have a place in even a good comic book store, but if they are obviously favoured over every other genre of storytelling within the comics artform, then the store is limiting its potential income and very likely turning people off, if they even walk through the door. I've actually seen a comic shop that carried a decent starter stock of manga, but there was no mention of manga whatsoever in the window display, yellow-pages ad, or anywhere else. If you browsed the shelves in the back for a while, though, you might stumble over them. I submit to you that you should not have to stumble over a comic book store's manga selection. Not that it should be emphasized any more than any other type of comics, but certainly it should be given equal prominence. Like in a real bookstore. All of this applies to artcomix/alternative comics/undergrounds, what-have-you, as well. It's fine -- preferable, perhaps -- to have different displays and areas for all the different flavours of the comics artform. But a new customer coming through the door should not be able to guess which one is the owner/manager's favourite, and certainly they should not be hit over the head by such poor management of the store's retail space.

So those are the shops I think we mostly have now -- non-comics hobby shops with a Diamond account for a few interested customers; shops fun by fans who are unwilling to create a welcoming, professional retail environment for a wide range of potential customers; well-meaning, more expansive shops that still have an over-emphasis on superheroes for one reason or another. Not as off-putting as the previous two types, but still cutting themselves out of the growing market for all kinds of comics aimed at all types of readers. The chances of these stores continuing to exist in another decade depends, in my opinion, largely on whether they can adapt to the emerging marketplace for comics. The ones that don't adapt may not go out of business --although I think a majority of them will -- but the ones that survive may find themselves doing merely that: Surviving. I think if I owned a retail business I would want to do better than that.

By now you may have a pretty good picture of what I think is the type of shop that will exist in the future, after the superhero convenience stores have mostly burned themselves out. I'll grant you there may always be stores that traffic primarily if not solely in superheroes, but for them to genuinely compete with full-service comic book stores in the same communities, they will have to either clean themselves up and learn better business practices, or they will go even further to seed, looking like nothing so much as that adult book store the town council keeps trying to kick out of town by changing the zoning laws every six months. Either way, those superhero-oriented stores will still be welcoming only one kind of customer, while that customer's family and friends gets its comic fix elsewhere.

The comic book stores that will thrive in the future will have a number of things in common.

• They will be clean.


• They will be well-lit.


• They will be well-organized.


• They will open on time.


• They will have prices clearly marked and up to date on all merchandise.


• They will operate their business in accordance with local, state and federal laws, including labour and employment laws.


• They will not favour one genre or sub-genre over another.


• They will recognize that all comics are comics, no matter what country they originate from, or what format they are published in.


• They will actively welcome all people interested in buying some kind of comics to shop at their store.


• They will recognize the transition from periodical pamphlet comics to more appealing and enduring graphic novels, and accommodate the readership's clear preference for comics with a spine and a complete story.

If the place you buy your comics at meets most or all of these criteria, be happy that you are supporting a professional comic shop that represents the best possible future for comics retailing.

If the place you buy your comics at fails to meet most (or all) of these criteria, you should probably start looking for a better shop. Not to punish your current shop, but because their days are very likely numbered. And more importantly, because you are probably missing out on a great many comics you would enjoy but have never seen. There's whole galaxy of worlds to be explored in the comics artform, and comic book stores that exist in the future will be your gateway to new experiences, new voices and new stories in comics. The great news is, some of them are out there right now, pushing comics forward every day.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 8:01 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 4 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Future for Comics -- It is my long-held belief that the direct market network of mostly superhero-oriented comic book stores is headed for extinction. The reason it is passing into history is because it excludes new readers and embraces only an existing “fanbase,” willfully ignoring the fact that comics as a vital, living artform are so much more than superheroes. At the same time, a minority of shops within the direct market are reaching out to a broader audience for comics, one nurtured by mainstream media coverage like comics receive on National Public Radio or in print publications like Time Magazine. The question is, will the truly full-service comic book stores that point the way to the future serve as an example to the majority of stores currently dependent on Diamond’s weekly shipments of superhero titles? Or will the backward, pro-superhero (but ultimately anti-comics) policies of such stores destroy the direct market before a transition can be made to a viable graphic novel-dominant marketplace that serves all comics readers?

In the 1970s and '80s, the direct market thrived because superheroes were about all there were in comics, at least in North America. Alternative/ground-level titles like Elfquest, Cerebus and Love and Rockets were curious sidebars to what most readers thought of as comics, but in the 1990s and especially since the beginning of the 21st Century CE, those comics as well as manga and some newspaper strips, have come to define what the average person thinks of as comics. Meanwhile corporate superhero comics have marginalized themselves through editor-driven, continuity-dependent, poorly-crafted "events" like Identity Crisis and its descendants. Such titles create a frenzy of interest in the minority of comics readers who value the sub-genre of superhero adventure fiction more than they value the artform of comics as a whole.

Such readers don’t consider actual quality much of an element in the debate over the future of comics at all, and have created an artificial sales bubble that is destined to feed on itself until the direct market itself collapses. The collapse of the direct market in the 1990s was based in large part on the fact that the comics that were selling weren’t very good, and therefore weren’t interesting readers in their contents as quality storytelling. The prime reason people were buying comics before the ‘90s collapse had more to do with issues of collectability and “investment.” But a comic book is worth nothing if it doesn’t contain a story that is well-written and well-drawn, and more importantly draws the reader into its world. And a comic that is worth nothing ultimately will drive its buyers away, however gratifying its short-term thrill of mere possession might be.

Looking at the most successful general-interest bookstores, both independents as well as chains like Borders or Barnes and Noble, I think it’s clear that the only comic shops that are sustainable and viable in the long term are those that cater to readers of all ages, genders and interests. Stores that welcome entire families of readers, as good bookstores do. Increasingly the superhero convenience stores that make up the vast majority of the direct market cater primarily – if not only -- to male buyers interested primarily – if not only -- in continuity-heavy superhero events. But Diamond, and the direct market, are not comics, anymore than one 7/11 on the corner of a main street in a medium-sized town represents the entire market for potato chips. Diamond and the direct market it simultaneously serves and cripples represents only a small fraction of the overall comics market, as demonstrated in David Beard’s revealing piece on Diamond’s distortion of the perception of what is the market for comics, in The Comics Journal #283 (June, 2007):

“There will be no impetus to reform the data collection system upon which the cottage industry of comic sales analysis is built if we keep pretending that the current Diamond data is reliable…as long as we are dependent on Diamond data, our ability to assess the industry, market and medium is crippled.“

Beard is critical of various “Top 300” lists and the like, and rightfully dismisses them as little more than public relations for a functioning monopoly that has every reason to foster the illusion that it is the comics industry, and no reason at all to provide good information about its true place in the overall comics market.

On a regular basis, articles appear online speculating about the sales number of comics and what their ultimate meaning is, and yet those sales figures are almost always based solely on Diamond’s sales to comic book stores (as opposed to those stores’ sales to their customers), most of which traffic virtually exclusively in corporate superhero comic books and associated items like t-shirts, action figures and other “collectibles.” But this “sales analysis” ultimately stands revealed as intellectual nerd-journalism, a blinkered and pretentious iteration of the old “Who’s stronger, Hulk or Thor?” argument. It pays little to no attention to the wider market for comics in mainstream bookstores and other outlets (manga in CD stores, Archie Comics in supermarkets, etc.) and therefore, ultimately, has little value above that timeless debate about Thor versus The Hulk.

In fact, Beard states in his Comics Journal piece that “A strong argument could be made that no data would be better than faithful reliance in the data presented by Diamond.” When one pauses to reflect that good information about the true scope and nature of the whole market for comics is crucial to the health and viability of comic book stores now and in the uncertain future, one sees it is more than a numbers game for superhero fans. The ability of shop owners to sustain their business and provide for their families is dependent on the accuracy of such information.

I have shopped at a lot of comic book stores since the 1970s, and stores that carry mainly the latest corporate superhero comics with a heavy emphasis on back issues increasingly fill me with indifference bordering on contempt. In the past few years, there has been more of an interest in comics among the general public than I have ever seen in my lifetime. And yet 9 out of every 10 comic book stores seem actively hostile to any potential customer that doesn’t reflect back the owner’s interests, attitudes and even appearance. For every clean, well-managed and professionally run comic book store I have been in, there are many more that are dirty, dark, ill-managed and altogether unpleasant places to shop. And if the lifelong comic book reader in me has learned to tolerate such deficiencies, getting married and raising two children has educated me mightily in what is or isn’t a welcoming retail environment. In my 20s, I may have been amused by my wife’s distaste for entering the average comic book store. Here in my early 40s, I not only understand it, I share it.

I do a lot of browsing of comic book stores in the company of my wife and children. That's four people in a given comic shop when we visit, and a savvy retailer should by definition want to generate interest in his wares from everyone that comes through the door. If my daughter can find a new issue of Mary Jane Loves Spider-Man, or even better, a new volume of one of her favourite manga series, then we're in good shape. Perhaps my son will find an issue of Teen Titans Go, or better yet his other favourites, Bongo's line of Simpsons comics. We know we're really in a good store if there are Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts collections -- you know, comics people have heard of in the real world, outside the narrow boundaries of the mostly insular, unreflective and very likely doomed direct market.

To truly run a professional business, viable comics shops must recognize that manga is comics. The Far Side is comics. Kampung Boy, Dennis the Menace Archie and Mr. Natural are all comics. And all of these, just a small portion of the breadth of the comics artform.

The very best shops want to sell comics to everybody, but most comics shops – that network of mostly poorly-run superhero convenience stores -- have seemingly abandoned the future of the industry and the viability of their own business. I see elements of racism, hostility, ignorance, stupidity, and/or fear in these attitudes. It's hard to see what else might account for such self-destructive, shortsighted business practices. It’s not like there aren’t professional business models to learn from, and I can’t imagine why one would start a business without making an effort to learn what the best practices are for the industry you want to be a part of.

After learning the ins and outs of rental contracts, insurance, vacuum cleaners, feather dusters and professional shelving, would-be professional comic book retailers should look at what it means to sell comics. What comics should be available in a good comic shop? Borders and Barnes and Noble have not created an enormous expansion of their manga aisles because they want to service non-buying browsers. Despite those deceptive “sales reports,” people out there in the world are buying comics in huge numbers. But the superhero-oriented fraction of the overall comics industry grits its teeth and closes its eyes and re-defines "comics" so that Civil War or 52 are falsely seen as best-sellers by readers unable or unwilling to investigate deeper into the reality of the comics market. The end result is a false sense of security for readers comforted by superhero (and sales) fiction – and more dangerously, a false sense of security for superhero convenience store owners.

Among consumers of American-made corporate superhero comic books, yes, event comics sell pretty well. They did in the early 1990s, too, until the speculators and fanboys deserted the direct market and thousands of stores closed. Given the insecurity evident in catering only to superhero hobbyists, is it not absolutely absurd to ignore manga, artcomix and/or newspaper strip collections that appeal to a staggeringly wider audience than poorly-crafted, spandex-obsessed revenge fantasies? So-called "best-selling" superhero titles are barely a blip on a vast cultural movement toward true mainstream acceptance of comics.

The best we can hope for at this point seems to be that new stores slowly emerge inspired by the few existing good comic shops, to service the new audience before the old guard collapses from within. We can also hope that at least some stores -- it seems definitely to be ten percent or less -- are canny and visionary enough to both explore new readership avenues and expand their product lines wisely, slowly, and in a professional, businesslike manner. Because as nice as it is to have graphic novels widely available at Barnes and Noble and Borders, I personally prefer patronizing stores (and store owners dedicated to the artform of comics. I think it’s good for the future of comics to have comic book stores, I just want those stores to want to sell comics to everyone that wants to buy them, not just people that look, sound and act like the store’s owner(s) and employee(s).

In an earlier, less considered version of this essay, I concluded by saying “In my darkest moments, I must say that the comics industry cannot die fast enough for me.” Upon reflection, and after the passage of a couple of years, I have to admit I don’t feel that way anymore. I will always value the artform over the industry – anyone who truly loves comics must -- but I don’t want the industry to die. I want it to thrive. And it will only do so through visionary, professional business practices and an ongoing, genuine desire to sell comics to everyone that wants them.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:11 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 4 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Recommended Reading, Comics Foundry and Cold Heat -- I was hoping some folks would at least read what I had to say in the previous post, but it's wonderful to read the comments people have posted. Thanks, everyone, sincerely.

And for anyone who may be wondering what I am reading and enjoying these days...

* Garth Ennis's PUNISHER MAX and...
* Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's CRIMINAL. -- The two best things Marvel is publishing right now. Both crime books, both created with a sense of wit, style and intelligence that is altogether lacking in corporate superhero comics at the moment. And while the rotating artists on Punisher vary in quality, Criminal's look, courtesy of artist Sean Phillips and colourist Val Staples, is visually arresting each and every issue. The graphic novel collecting the first five issues has just been released, too, so make sure you pick it up.

* John Porcellino's KING CAT CLASSIX. -- Honestly some of the flights of fancy and dream comics in this thick hardcover from D&Q don't do it for me, but the honesty and emotion evoked by Porcellino's autobiographical material more than makes this must-reading. It's comics for the ages, and belongs in the library of anyone who loves comics as an artform and wants to explore the outer edges of what is possible in words and pictures.

* THE COMICS JOURNAL. -- I've been telling people to read TCJ since I started writing about comics, so this is no surprise. But the magazine continues to be a highlight of my comics-related reading. There was a long stretch of years back in the late '80s and early '90s where the ONLY thing I bought in a comics shop was The Journal, and even after nearly 30 years of reading it, I still can't imagine ever getting tired of its excellent comics coverage.

* Craig Yoe's ARF FORUM. -- The third volume in Craig Yoe's exploration of the intersection of comics and art, from Fantagraphics. Joy and wonder on every page.

Also, while I have your attention...

I notice that the latest Diamond controversy is the monopolistic distributor's decision not to carry a print edition of the defunct online comics magazine Comics Foundry. Most people seem to want Diamond to carry the magazine, and while I am sympathetic to the idea that Diamond should let the marketplace determine the viability of publications like this, I have to say that I'm more or less in Diamond's camp. Prime Mover Tim Leong is clearly a YouTube whiz and has tons of energy and enthusiasm, but that never translated to a cohesive or even very entertaining online iteration of the CF idea. I doubt in print it would be any better. Leong seems to me to be another in the never-endiong line of people who REALLY, REALLY want to say something to comics readers, and yet really have nothing much to say once they get the chance. If this weren't the case, the CF online magazine would have been a lot more popular than it was.

On the other hand, on a related matter, Tom Spurgeon has reported that Cold Heat has suspended floppy publication after four issues and will be released instead as a graphic novel once it's completed. Diamond had originally declined to carry publisher Picturebox's publications. I'm sorry I won't have more Cold Heat coming to me on a regular basis, because it is surreal but high-quality comics fun. But in the current reality, a graphic novel makes much more sense. Floppy comics are not a dying medium, they are a dead one, with only loyal comics-shop zombies keeping the corpse animated. No one will ever remember the four issues of Cold Heat that were released, but if the rest of the story holds up, the graphic novel may very well still be inspiring awe and wonder a century from now.

Labels: industry, reviews

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:46 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
My Eisner Picks -- The Eisner nominations are out (full list is at The Comics Reporter; thanks, Tom!), and I thought I'd run down my choices. "No choice" in a category means I either have not read any of the nominees, or don't think any of them are deserving of an award.

Best Short Story
No choice.

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
* Batman/The Spirit #1: "Crime Convention," by Jeph Loeb and Darwyn Cooke (DC)

Best Continuing Series
* All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)

Best Limited Series
No choice.

Best New Series
* Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Marvel Icon)

Best Publication for a Younger Audience
No choice.

Best Humor Publication
* Schizo #4, by Ivan Brunetti (Fantagraphics)

Best Anthology
* Kramers Ergot 6, edited by Sammy Harkham (Buenaventura Press)

Best Digital Comic
No choice.

Best Reality-Based Work
* Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)

Best Graphic Album--New
* The Ticking, by Renee French (Top Shelf)

Best Graphic Album--Reprint
No choice.

Best Archival Collection/Project--Strips

* The Complete Peanuts, 1959-1960, 1961-1962, by Charles Schulz (Fantagraphics)

Best Archival Collection/Project--Comic Books
* Abandon the Old In Tokyo, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material
* Pizzeria Kamikaze, by Etgar Keret and Asaf Hanuka (Alternative)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material--Japan
* Walking Man, by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Best Writer
* Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Daredevil (Marvel); Criminal (Marvel Icon)

Best Writer/Artist
* Renee French, The Ticking (Top Shelf)

Best Writer/Artist--Humor
* Michael Kupperman, Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Fantagraphics)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
No choice.

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
* Melinda Gebbie, Lost Girls (Top Shelf)

Best Cover Artist
* John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); The Escapists (Dark Horse); The Lone Ranger (Dynamite)

Best Coloring
* Dave Stewart, BPRD, Conan, The Escapists, Hellboy (Dark Horse); Action Comics, Batman/The Spirit, Superman (DC)

Best Lettering
* Ivan Brunetti, Schizo (Fantagraphics)

Special Recognition
No choice.

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

FOUR-WAY TIE
* Comic Art 8, edited by Todd Hignite (Buenaventura Press)
* The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Dirk Deppey, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
* The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael
* ¡Journalista!, produced by Dirk Deppey (Fantagraphics)

Best Comics-Related Book
* In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists, by Todd Hignite (Yale University Press)

Best Publication Design
* The Ticking, designed by Jordan Crane (Top Shelf)

Hall of Fame
* Ross Andru & Mike Esposito
* Matt Baker
(Judges' Choices: Robert Kanigher and Ogden Whitney)

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:11 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Random Thoughts While I Should Be Sleeping -- In no particular order...

1) I can't believe there are still people who draw a distinction between "TPB" and "GN." Gang, the battle's over --they're all graphic novels.

2) Upstate New York really needs a comic book convention, and it needs Rick Olney to have nothing to do with it. Sorry, Rick, but, there it is.

3) Artists who guarantee a buy from me: Tom Raney, Chris Sprouse, JH Williams, Bryan Hitch, Frank Quitely, Sean Phillips, John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Erik Larsen, Gene Ha, Jacen Burrows, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Cameron Stewart, Barry Windsor-Smith. This started as a list in my head of the superhero artists who still give me a visceral thrill, and I could add a batch of qualifiers -- for example, Quitely needs to go back to fuller pencils and a real inker (himself or someone else), and Raney certainly has been mostly mis-used since Stormwatch with Warren Ellis. But these artists all still really get a rise out of me. I would love to see Ed Brubaker do something with Tom Raney, or Ellis write something for BWS. I suppose it's not a coincidence how many of these artists have done some of their best work with Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Ed Brubaker or Warren Ellis, the four writers whose corporate comics work has most excited me in the past decade. But yeah, you don't have to be a writer-artist to grab my attention, miscast as I sometimes am as an artcomix indie snob.

4) Seriously, dude, ALL TPBS ARE GRAPHIC NOVELS. Stop worrying about it.

5) You know what is a REALLY under-rated run of great comics? Wildcats Vol. 2 #8-28 by Joe Casey and Sean Phillips. GREAT FUCKING RUN OF COMICS THERE. If you like Godland or Marvel Zombies or Sleeper, and you haven't read those Wildcats issues, hunt 'em down. You'll thank me for it.

6) Also, if you love Hitch and Neary art, Wildcats Vol. 2 #5 is ALL HITCH AND NEARY, and worth tracking down. Came out in the middle of the Ellis/Hitch/Neary/Depuy glory days of The Authority, and still gorgeous to look at.

7) Studio 60 started off semi-strong; love having Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford together and back on my TV (well, computer, but, same diff), but Amanda Peet? Drop her down an elevator, Aaron, she's excess baggage. Pretty, but utterly dispensible.

8) Boston Legal is back. Downloading the first ep of Season 3 now. This is good news. Not as good as having The Shield, 24 or Entourage back on would be, but it helps. Downloading The Unit for my wife; it's watchable, but...but...

9) Confidential to Harlan Ellison -- if you had died after writing "The City on the Edge of Forever" 40 years ago, we would all remember you as a great writer. Now we will all remember you as a dirty, cranky old fuck who couldn't wrap his brain around the internet. Or much of anything else.

10) I really miss Hunter S. Thompson.

11) Back to bed now.

Labels: industry, meta

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:13 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Rest of The Year in Comics -- Over at The Comics Reporter, an image-assisted look at comics still to come between now and the end of the year. It's one of those things that makes the old "Comics are so boring/bad/stupid right now" arguments look so ridiculous. Hell, my running top-ten list for the year already has fifteen or so titles on it...and it looks like five or six of those listed on The Comics Reporter are good contenders, too.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:20 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Latest Best of 2005 List Worth The Wait -- Christopher Butcher's long-promised Best of 2005 list, definitely worth a look. Butcher's taste is almost as good as these guys' (insert smily emoticon here).

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 10:29 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Spurgeon's Guide to Comicon -- Updated for 2006, Tom Spurgeon's huge list of tips for San Diego con-goers. I've never been and likely never will, but Tom's amazing, comprehensive guide makes you feel like you're there anyway. He even provides PDF and Word versions for easy printing-out and carrying-along. Also: Fun to read!

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:14 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Diamond's Chokehold Starts to Hurt -- I suppose I agree with Tom Spurgeon about the recent ass-fuck handed to Dan Nadel's new publishing company.

I do wonder why anyone is surprised that Diamond has no interest in pushing comics forward, though. I wrote about this nearly a year ago, and if anything the situation has worsened, with even genuinely major publishers like Pantheon and First Second having their books widely available in real bookstores weeks or more before Diamond bothers to get their "indy filth" into comic shops.

I've said it before, and I feel it in my bones more than ever: If your comic shop relies solely on Diamond for what they stock in their store, they fucking suck, they're bad for comics, and you need to find a better shop.

The comic shops that will still be here at the end of the decade are the ones that have smart people staying on top of real industry news (as opposed to the type of news you see on "comics news" sites), who know what the great works are that are coming, and who work around Diamond's virtual monopoly to make sure those books are available to their customers as early as humanly possible.

If you enjoy anything other than Marvel and DC corporate superhero comics, any retailer who only orders from Diamond and only knows what he reads in Previews does not want your money and you need to move on. The real world already has.

Labels: essays, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 10:03 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Thought for the Day -- The conclusion of Infinite Crisis must be accepted by all rational observers as definitive proof that Geoff Johns is, without doubt, the Rob Liefeld of writers.

Labels: corporate comics, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:38 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Sex Scandal Revelations and Bad Web Practices -- Courtesy of Johanna, news that The Comics Journal has revealed the name of the man accused in a recent alleged sex scandal; this involves the incident that led Friends of Lulu to create an empowerment fund for women who have been sexually harassed within the comics industry (that's my possibly-simplistic take on the fund, you may find more nuance here, another link courtesy of Johanna, who has a whole raft of links relating to this story).

It seems like a fairly balanced piece, the Journal's coverage, covering both Brownstein's alleged wrongdoing and the somewhat stumbling manner in which the Lulu empowerment fund came together (it remains to be seen if it will be a longterm force for good in the industry; although it seems fueled by good intentions, we all know where that road often leads). But given the long history of alleged sexual harassment incidents in the industry, this is a story worth pointing out and one well worth following.

I don't care for the Journal's note at the end of their story, though, that the full version of it will be gutted once the print version is out there. This is too important a story to play "Hey, go buy the magazine" with; presumably that's why they put it up so quickly in the first place, and in the interests of history and good journalism, it should stay up in full. It's not like anyone is not going to buy the next issue of The Journal if the story remains up, where it belongs, for all to see, for as long as it possibly can.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:59 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Fell Sells Out -- I'm not wont to reproduce press releases very often, but Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith's Fell is a good comic that reads great in the single issue format and deserves support, so here's some news from Image...

MORE FELL SELL OUTS, NEW PRINTINGS COMING

Five Eisner Award nominations. Three issues sold out. Still only $1.99,
the best deal in comics. FELL is having the best week ever.

Image Comics has announced it is going back to print on three
separate issues of FELL - new printings on the two most recent issues
(#3 and #4) along with a FOURTH printing for FELL #1. In keeping with
previous re-printings, each new printing of FELL will feature the
same cover and content, with no variants.

Aside from its amazing creative team and universal praise, what sets
FELL apart is its unique format - coming in at only $1.99 for 24
pages, the ultra-compact story delivers more bang for the buck and is
pioneering what is quickly being nicknamed the "FELL Format" comic book.

"It's absurd that we are doing another printing of a $1.99 comic
featuring a nun wearing a Richard Nixon mask. But as long as
retailers keep selling 'em, we'll keep printing 'em," said Ellis.
"And to think some retailers accused us of leaving money on the
table. We seem to be hoovering it up pretty damn good, no?"

To top off its incredible sales velocity, it was also announced that
FELL had received FIVE separate Eisner Award nominations - Best
Continuinig Series, Best New Series, Best Writer, Best Painter/
Multimedia Artist and Best Lettering. The Eisner Awards winners will
be announced at this year's San Diego Comic Con International.

FELL is the first book from Image Comics to encompass this new
format, but not the last. Debuting in June will be the second "Fell-
Format" book, CASANOVA, a sci-fi espionage epic by Matt Fraction
(Punisher: War Journal) and Gabriel Ba (Rock'n'Roll).

Don't miss out on one of the hottest books on the stands, advance
orders are available now for FELL #5 (NOV051740), which is scheduled
to be in stores late May, the same time as these new printings. Also,
still available for order is the 3rd Printing of FELL #2 (DEC058380).

These new printings - FELL 2ND PRINTING #3 (FEB068169), FELL 2ND
PRINTING #4 (FEB068170) and FELL 4TH PRINTING #1 (FEB068168) - are
available now for advance re-order. Your local retailer can contact
their Diamond Customer Service Representative for ordering.

Make sure you tell your retailer to get some Fell for you if you haven't tried it yet, it's good stuff.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:41 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
2006 Eisner Awards -- Well, the nominations are out and there's some very good stuff up for awards this year. Here's my picks, in bold, mostly without comment.

Best Short Story
"Blood Son," by Richard Matheson, adapted by Chris Ryall and Ashley
Wood, in Doomed #1 (IDW)
"Monster Slayers," by Khang Le, in Flight, vol. 2 (Image)
"Nameless," by Eric Powell, in The Goon #14 (Dark Horse)
"Operation" (story #5), by Zak Sally, in The Recidivist #3 (La Mano)
"Teenage Sidekick," by Paul Pope, in Solo #3 (DC)

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
The Bakers, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
Ex Machina #11: "Fortune Favors" by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, and
Tom Feister (WildStorm/DC)
The Innocents, by Gipi (Fantagraphics/Coconino Press)
Promethea #32: "Wrap Party" by Alan Moore and J. H. Williams III (ABC)
Solo #5, by Darwyn Cooke (DC)

Best Serialized Story
Desolation Jones #1-5: "Made in England," by Warren Ellis and J. H.
Williams III (WildStorm/DC)
Fables #36-38, 40-41: "Return to the Homelands," by Bill Willingham,
Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha (Vertigo/DC)
Ex Machina #12–14: "Fact v. Fiction," by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony
Harris, and Tom Feister (WildStorm/DC)
Y: The Last Man #37-39: "Paper Dolls," by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia
Guerra, Goran Sudzuka, and Jose Marzan Jr. (Vertigo/DC)

Best Continuing Series
Age of Bronze, by Eric Shanower (Image)
Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (Marvel)
Ex Machina, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, and Tom Feister (WildStorm/DC)
Fell, by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith (Image)
Rocketo, by Frank Espinosa (Speakeasy)
True Story, Swear to God, by Tom Beland (Clib's Boy Comics)

Best Limited Series
Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
Ocean, by Warren Ellis, Chris Sprouse, and Karl Story (WildStorm/DC)
Seven Soldiers, by Grant Morrison and various artists (DC)
Smoke, by Alex de Campi and Igor Kordey (IDW)

Best New Series
All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
Desolation Jones, by Warren Ellis and J. H. Williams III (WildStorm/DC)
Fell, by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith (Image)
Rocketo, by Frank Espinosa (Speakeasy)
Young Avengers, by Alan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, and John Dell (Marvel)

Best Publication for a Younger Audience
Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley (Renaissance Press)
The Clouds Above, by Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics)
Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius, by Chris Eliopoulous and Mark
Sumerak (Marvel)
Owly: Flying Lessons, by Andy Runton (Top Shelf)
Spiral-Bound, by Aaron Renier (Top Shelf)

Best Anthology
The Dark Horse Book of the Dead, edited by Scott Allie (Dark Horse Books)
Flight, vol. 2, edited by Kazu Kibuishi (Image)
Mome, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
Solo, edited by Mark Chiarello (DC)
24 Hour Comics Day Highlights 2005, edited by Nat Gertler (About Comics)

Best Digital Comic
Copper, by Kazu Kibuishi www.boltcity.com/copper
Jellaby, by Kean Soo, www.secretfriendsociety.com/archive.php?cat=2
ojingogo, by matt forsythe www.comingupforair.net/comics/ojingogo.html
PVP, by Scott Kurtz, www.pvponline.com/
ADD: None of the above.

Best Reality-Based Work
Embroideries, by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon)
Epileptic, by David B. (Pantheon)
Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
Pyongyang, by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
True Story, Swear to God (Clib's Boy Comics), True Story, Swear to
God: This One Goes to Eleven (AiT/Planet Lar), by Tom Beland

Best Graphic Album—New
Acme Novelty Library #16, by Chris Ware (ACME Novelty)
The Rabbi's Cat, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)
Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, by Alan Moore and Gene Ha (ABC)
Tricked, by Alex Robinson (Top Shelf)
Wimbledon Green, by Seth (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint
Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
Black Hole, by Charles Burns (Pantheon)
Feast of the Seven Fishes, by Robert Tinnell, Ed Piskor, and Alex
Saviuk (Allegheny Image Factory)
Ice Haven, by Dan Clowes (Pantheon)
War's End, by Joe Sacco (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips
The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
The Complete Peanuts, 1955–1956, 1957–1958, by Charles Schulz (Fantagraphics)
Krazy and Ignatz: The Komplete Kat Komics. by George Herriman (Fantagraphics)
Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, by Winsor McCay
(Sunday Press Books)
Walt and Skeezix, by Frank King (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books
Absolute Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC)
Buddha, vols. 5-8, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
The Contract with God Trilogy, by Will Eisner (Norton)
DC Comics Rarities Archives, vol. 1 (DC)
Fantastic Four Omnibus, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (Marvel)

Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material
Cromartie High School, by Eiji Nonaka (ADV)
Dungeon: The Early Years, vol. 1, by Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and
Christophe Blaine (NBM)
Ordinary Victories, by Manu Larcenet (NBM)
The Rabbi's Cat, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)
Six Hundred Seventy-Six Apparitions of Killoffer, by Killoffer (Typocrat)
ADD: None of the above, because I haven't read any of the nominees.

Best Writer
Warren Ellis, Fell (Image); Down (Top Cow/Image); Desolation Jones,
Ocean, Planetary (WildStorm/DC)
Alan Heinberg, Young Avengers (Marvel)
Alan Moore, Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (ABC)
Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers, All Star Superman (DC)
Brian K. Vaughan, Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC); Y: The Last Man
(Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)

Best Writer/Artist
Geof Darrow, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)
Guy Delisle, Pyongyang (Drawn & Quarterly)
Eric Shanower, Age of Bronze (Image)
Adrian Tomine, Optic Nerve #10 (Drawn & Quarterly)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)

Best Writer/Artist—Humor
Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); The Bakers (Kyle Baker Publishing)
Paige Braddock, Jane's World (Girl Twirl)
Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Oni)
Eric Powell, The Goon (Dark Horse)
Seth, Wimbledon Green (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Penciller/Inker
John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Planetary (WildStorm/DC)
Gene Ha, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (ABC)
J.G. Jones, Wanted (Top Cow/Image)
Frank Quitely, All Star Superman (DC)
J.H. Williams III, Promethea, Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
Paul Guinan, Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate (IDW)
Ladronn, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)
Ben Templesmith, Fell (Image)
Kent Williams, The Fountain (Vertigo/DC)

Best Cover Artist
Frank Espinosa, Rocketo (Speakeasy)
Tony Harris, Ex Machina (Wildstorm/DC)
James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)
Jock, The Losers (Vertigo/DC)
Eric Powell, The Goon; Universal Monsters: Cavalcade of Horror (Dark Horse)
ADD: None of the above

Best Coloring
Jeromy Cox, Teen Titans (DC); Otherworld (Vertigo/DC)
Steven Griffen, Hawaiian Dick: The Last Resort (Image)
Steve Hamaker, Bone: The Great Cow Race (Scholastic Graphix)
Jose Villarrubia, Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)

Best Lettering
Chris Eliopoulos, Ultimate Iron Man, Astonishing X-Men, Ultimates 2,
House of M, Franklin Richards (Marvel); Fell (Image)
Todd Klein, Wonder Woman, Justice, Seven Soldiers #0 (DC); Desolation
Jones (WildStorm/DC); Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, Tomorrow
Stories Special (ABC); Fables (Vertigo); 1602: New World (Marvel)
Richard Starkings, Conan, Revelations (Dark Horse); Godland (Image);
Gunpowder Girl and the Outlaw Squaw, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active
Images)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)

Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition
Dawn Brown (Ravenous, Little Red Hot)
Aaron Renier (Spiral-Bound)
Zak Sally (Recidivist)
Ursula Vernon (Digger)

Best Comics-Related Periodical
Comic Art, edited by M. Todd Hignite (Comic Art)
Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon Cooke (Top Shelf)
The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth and Dirk Deppey (Fantagraphics)
Draw!, edited by Michael Manley (TwoMorrows)
Following Cerebus, edited by Craig Miller and John Thorne
(Aardvark-Vanaheim/Win-Mill Productions)

Best Comics-Related Book
The Comics Journal Library: Classic Comic Illustrators, edited by Tom
Spurgeon (Fantagraphics)
Eisner/Miller, interviews conducted by Charles Brownstein (Dark Horse Books)
Foul Play: The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s EC Comics, by
Grant Geissman (Harper Design)
Masters of American Comics, edited by John Carlin, Paul Karasik,
and Brian Walker (Hammer Museum/MOCA Los Angeles/Yale University
Press)
RGK: Art of Roy G. Krenkel, edited by J. David Spurlock and Barry
Klugerman (Vanguard)

Best Publication Design
Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, designed by Chris
Ware (Pantheon)
Little Nemo in Slumberland, designed by Philippe Ghuilemetti (Sunday
Press Books)
Promethea #32, designed by J. H. Williams III and Todd Klein (ABC)
Walt and Skeezix, designed by Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly)
Wimbledon Green, designed by Seth (Drawn & Quarterly)

Hall of Fame
Judges' Choices: Floyd Gottfredson, William Moulton Marston

Voters will choose four from among:
Matt Baker
Vaughn Bode
Wayne Boring
Reed Crandall
Creig Flessel
Ramona Fradon
Harold Gray
Graham Ingels
Robert Kanigher
Russ Manning
Mort Meskin
Marty Nodell
Gilbert Shelton
Jim Steranko

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:00 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Speakeasy's Fortier Not-So-Nice? -- One thing that has been fairly consistent in the discussion of Adam Fortier and his failure to create a viable publishing entity in Speakeasy Comics is the oft-repeated notion that he is a nice guy. I've seen this said quite a few times by people who either met him or interacted with him in some way.

Writer Sebastien Caisse paints a bit of a different picture in this post today on The Engine:

I created The Grimoire and wrote the first six issues and still haven't received a dime, nor a phone call from Adam, nor any indication that any form of compensation will ever be offered. When you sign a WFH contract and you don't receive anything, are the rights still yours or does it mean the other guy gets the rights for free? Adam seems to have conveniently bundled me with Grafiksismik, something he now casually dimisses as "a separate case" when the subject of moneys owed comes up (not mentionning dozens of thousands of debts to freelancers is convenient, apparently). I once believed in Adam's goodwill, but I've been proven wrong many times over in the past two years.

Sounds a lot closer to the Mark Alessi CrossGen model than had previously been in evidence. I wonder how many other creators and creations were left hanging in limbo by Fortier and his inept-at-best, unethical-or-worse-at-worst business practices?

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:41 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Rise and Inevitable Fall of Speakeasy Comics -- By now you've heard the news that Speakeasy has called it a day (I first saw the news at Johanna's).

A couple of friends of mine were involved in the company in varying capacities, so I take no joy at all in seeing the coffin slam shut; keep in mind that this is the death of dreams of some aspiring creators. But it's hardly a surprise.

Just so you see the signs next time, here's what I thought was wrong with the company from the very beginning:

1. It was all about Adam Fortier. In the company's earliest days, the Speakeasy website and all the many press releases (another sign in itself) always went into vivid detail about the greatness of Adam Fortier, his wonderful career in comics, and how he was the key mover and shaker making this great new company happen. It was pretty obvious that Speakeasy was, to a large extent in its earliest days, a big ego-boost for this guy few had ever heard of (and few will ever remember). For all I know he may, indeed, be the greatest guy who ever lived -- but when so much energy is spent in the crucial launch period of a new company hyping someone who isn't a creator and has no real importance to the artform of comics, well, honestly, the warning bells were going off for me from the very beginning. CrossGen's Mark Alessi with all his millions and his well-appointed Florida compound similarly used his early press to stroke his own ego, but he'll be longer-remembered than Fortier because of his more virulent persona. Fortier may have screwed up starting up a new company, but he hardly made the impression on the comics community at large that Alessi (or Mike S. Miller, to name another toxic cretin in this category) did.

2. Bad Comics. Not that I know The Secret to Surviving in Comics, but as someone who has observed the industry for over three decades, in my opinion you start a successful company one quality book at a time. I will never forget getting the first (and only) package of review copies from Speakeasy; there were four or five titles in the package, and between one and four issues of each title. There was not one that was any fucking good at all (this was before Rocketo, I should note). There was, in fact, not even one I could read all the way through. Of all those ten or fifteen comics that were in that package, the only one whose title I even remember was Atomika, the first issue of which had an Alex Ross cover. For your initial batch of comics to be so unmemorable (the very best of them were mediocre, the worst downright fucking awful) demonstrates a nascent publisher more interested in creating the illusion of a "line" of comics than actually building a quality stable of books that people will want to follow and tell others about.

3. Too Much, Too Fast. This is almost redundant given the previous warning sign, but even if the comics they were publishing were any damned good at all (which they weren't), Speakeasy kept trying to build the illusion of momentum by continuously signing new creators (...no one had heard of) and announcing new titles (...that no one wanted to read, or was ever given any compelling reason to investigate, Rocketo notwithstanding).

4. Fiction and Creator Rights. Here's an opinion few are likely to agree with, but look around. What North American publishers since the 1970s have started up and survived? With the exception of Image (which kind of recognized creator's rights even at the start) and AiT (which recognizes creator's rights), not one that is primarily concerned with fictional adventure stories aimed at overgrown boys in need of fuel for their power fantasies (and even Image had to evolve past that to continue into the current day). Companies like Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, Top Shelf and AdHouse Books all started publishing comics with one or two titles, built slow, saw what worked (and crucially, what didn't), and adjusted accordingly over time. In the long run, they all have carved a niche for themselves by publishing work that is often non-fiction or autobiographical (or close to it), and that is usually creator-owned. From the very beginning, it was pretty apparent that Adam Fortier wanted to create a line of comics that he could earn a large profit from (despite his own lack of apparent creative talent) and probably license to other media. It was obvious to me from the very beginning that, intentionally or not, Fortier was following a template laid out by Mark Alessi with CrossGen just a few years earlier. How can anyone be surprised that it turned out much the same way? The market has all the adventure fiction it wants from Marvel and DC, just as Viz and TokyoPop more or less dominate the Manga arena. If you want to create a new comics publishing company that survives, you're going to have to think much farther out of the box than small minds like Mike S. Miller, Mark Alessi or Adam Fortier.

5. Those Fucking Eyes. The Speakeasy logo. A nicely-produced piece of commercial art that said nothing more than "Hey, you've never heard of us, but look at this cool logo!" Again, the focus so clearly was on anything but creating good comics.

6. Creating Good Comics. At the end of the day, this really is the only thing that will make an impact on the market, and even then, if you're going to try, you need to prepare and be fully-funded to ride out years of no one giving a shit about your company. Gary Groth and Kim Thompson kept Fantagraphics alive during some pretty dire years by subsidizing their comics line with out-and-out (in-and-out?) pornography, but at least they were using it to keep good comics like Eightball, Hate and Love and Rockets alive. At the risk of repeating myself, no strategy will help a comics company last long-term if the comics aren't any damned good at all. And for the most part, Speakeasy's weren't.

7. Rocketo. Okay, from what I hear, this title didn't suck. Apparently it was in the Darwyn Cooke COMICS ARE FUN AGAIN! axis. If Fortier had been smart, he would have found a way to capitalize on the good word of mouth this title received, and recreated his company from the ground up, retrenching in the wake of his only critical success. Perhaps Rocketo should have been their only title for a while. But from the available evidence, nothing was done to build on the creative success of this book. I can't truly judge Rocketo myself, though, because...

8. I Never Saw Rocketo - Part 1. For a title that people were saying good things about, there was no visible campaign to promote Rocketo to the fan press that I was aware of (not only am I a critic and the owner of a site about comics, but I talk to other critics and owners of sites about comics, too).

8. I Never Saw Rocketo - Part 2. I never saw Rocketo in a comics shop, and after I would say the first three months of publishing, I never saw any other Speakeasy titles, either. Within 12 weeks, the company had disappeared beneath the radar of all the shops in my area, possibly still on some pull lists, but with no titles on the shelves, no new readers could ever be brought in. Whatever good will an Alex Ross cover on the first issue of Atomika won the startup publisher, within just a few weeks it was clear that the retailers in my area (and likely everywhere else, too) had already lost faith in the line and was not risking their titles stinking up the back room in the same way all those CrossGen titles continue to do.

This is not meant as a slam at those who wanted to create comics at Speakeasy. Creating comics is a special sort of torment, and for those that succeed (especially in creating good ones), I have nothing but respect. I do believe (and the evidence suggests) that Adam Fortier took grave advantage of the dream of many would-be creators to get into comics. But for all the reasons outlined above -- thoughts that in some cases have been simmering since the very first inkling I had that the company existed -- I can't say that anything that's happened has been much of a surprise at all.

To anyone who wants to "break into comics," I implore you to read the Eddie Campbell interview in the recent Comics Journal. If you want to "break into comics," just make comics. Don't worry about "lines" and "licensing" and "logos" and "press releases." MAKE SOME FUCKING COMICS ALREADY. Only by making comics can you improve your writing and/or art. When you get good enough, COMICS WILL COME AFTER YOU.

To the creators who got burned, good luck in the future. And to everyone, please remember that there are oftentimes signs that new publishers do not have either good comics or your best interests as their primary goal. All you have to do is look at the evidence and judge for yourself what the ultimate mission of the company is. If it's creating good comics and enduring in a tough marketplace, I think you'll find that the evidence won't look at all like the disastrous Speakeasy model.

###

Update: Tom Spurgeon looks at Speakeasy's demise, and his overall experience of the company seems pretty in-synch with mine.

Labels: essays, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:21 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Submit Now: 2006 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics -- Acclaimed San Francisco comics retailer James Sime, proprietor of Isotope - the comic book lounge, announced today that submissions for the fourth-annual Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics will be accepted until March 15th at midnight. "The beginning of the new year always rings in that moment of true greatness for our industry's mini-comic creators," Sime told his confidantes at Comic Book Galaxy, and a few others as well, "It's time to fire up your printers and copy machines again, and to score yourself some of the gold and the glory that is the fourth annual Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics!"

This coveted award, known internationally for launching the professional comic careers of Rob Osborne (1000 STEPS TO WORLD DOMINATION), Josh Cotter (SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST), and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey (THE LAST SANE COWBOY), is a beautifully hand-crafted statue sculpted by designer Crowe made entirely from carved ebony
fossil stone and satin silver. "It's the pointiest award I'm aware of," AdHouse Books publisher, Chris Pitzer commented, "It could sure do some damage. It also throws the lucky mini-comics creator into the spotlight of the Alternative Press Expo. THAT could mean added sales of your comic, more invites to parties, and a possible deal with a boutique juggernaut of publishing, like AdHouse Books. In
the end, it's your chance to reach for the stars, with your feet on the ground."

The award selection committee for 2006 remains a mix of comic aficionados, entrepreneurs, artists, and industry impresarios. Including self-publishers, mini-comic creators and, of course, a person who sells comics for a living, "Everybody in the industry already knows how this works, we like to keep the committee fresh by
bringing in new blood each year, but still ensure that the Isotope Awards Committee covers the entire spectrum of the mini-comic equation," Sime declared, "Like last year I'll be on the judging committee once again, as will be PopImage columnist Jason McNamara who has a voracious appetite for minis and always keeps his finger on the pulse of what's happening. Representing for the classic literature set we've got our comic lovin' Librarian in the form of Isotope Special Projects Director Kirsten Baldock who heads up our judging committee.
And for our new additions this year we're bringing on board some individuals I'm very proud to have on our judging committee: the mini-comic creator who blew our minds last year and took home the 2005 Isotope Award for his awesome mini, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, and comic publisher, Chris
Pitzer, who has, perhaps, the most impeccable taste in all of comics. As always, the only fee for entry to this competition is five copies of your mini-comic sent to Isotope's Special Projects Director Kirsten Baldock at the Isotope address (326 Fell St. San Francisco, CA 94102) before the March 15th deadline. As is tradition, the award will be given out at a grand ceremony during APE AFTERMATH at the
Isotope in conjunction with San Francisco's ALTERNATIVE PRESS EXPO. San Francisco’s APE convention has been a forum for small and independent publishers in the industry for many years. Because of the nature of this award, the winner will be contacted in advance and must be present at the Isotope at 9 PM on Saturday, April 8th for the award presentation ceremony.

"These award ceremonies are a blast, and without question this year's will be the best one yet!" enthused Sime, "And this year, I've got a sexy new location that's going to rock people's worlds! And it's right in the heart of San Francisco, only a stone's throw from the Concourse Convention Center and any hotel you could possibly want to say at. Trust me, this year is going to Eleven!"

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. Mini-comics are the basement tapes of the comic industry," Sime said, "And just like basement tapes, this is where the raw creative spark is at it's brightest. We're talking the bleeding edge of comics innovation and this is where the industry's superstars of tomorrow are perfecting
their riffs and chops today. We want to shine the spotlight on the work these future superstars are making... that's what the Isotope Award is all about! I know you people out there have some great minis, so send them in and together let's show the world how hard mini-comics can rock!"

The Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics could be yours, submissions of five copies accepted until March 15th at 326 Fell St., San Francisco, CA 94102. For more information contact the Isotope at (415) 621-6543 or at isotopepromotions@gmail.com

Labels: good comic shops, industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:13 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Pantheon as Coal-Mine Canary -- I was interested to see Brian Hibbs commenting on his store's inability to stock graphic novels with mainstream appeal at The Beat's Year-End Survey. Diamond clearly isn't interested in serving the wider graphic novel audience, which is why key releases last year (Ice Haven and others) were available days or weeks ahead of time in mainstream bookstores before Diamond bothered to ship them to the comics shops that continue to rely on them. Hibbs can't get Understanding Comics from Diamond. Funny, Brian, I see this book every time I go into a Borders. I really do. Seems to be one of the key titles that they never let go out of stock.

Hibbs says the big comics story in 2006 is distribution, and he's right. Every single comics shop that doesn't find a way around Diamond, to get to the graphic novels everybody wants (as opposed to the superhero TPBs craved by the 40-year-old fat guys that are the DM's stagnant bread-and-butter) is going to lose money and hasten their own demise.

Guys running comics shops need to drive around town and see what their competitors are doing. I don't mean other comics shops, either. See what's being carried at Borders, Barnes and Noble, and that chi-chi independent bookstore run by folks who probably listen to NPR. What graphic novels are they stocking? What ones are they selling? How many Pantheon releases do they have that you can't even get from Diamond?

I love my comics shop, I truly do. But I love my comics more. And most people who read comics are like that: They will buy their comics where they are available for purchase. Telling me "I can order that for you" means nothing when I can hold it in my hand at Borders the same day. And if I am holding it in my hand, I am 90 percent closer to buying it, because that's how it is with comics. Out of sight, out of mind.

In 2006, the comics shops that do well will be the ones that find a way around Diamond. But don't just stand there and scratch your head wondering how to do it.

Just ask them.

Labels: essays, good comic shops, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:00 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Monday Briefing -- Hey, how you doing? Time to get back to work after the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in the U.S., and also the hiatus this blog has been on since National Scary Terror Day a few months back (see post just previous). So, what's been happening?

I've been spending a lot of time watching the discussion on Warren Ellis's The Engine, a moderated message board that combines ease of use with a strictly-enforced anti-bullshit policy. Ellis has run and/or been a part of enough self-destructing web communities to know how to maximize the benefits and minimize the flamewars, and so far the discussions have been good, whether it's creators rights, cover design, or the green bean recipe I grabbed from the food thread (man, were they good!). There hasn't been a landmark thread yet that announced THE ENGINE HAS WELL AND TRULY ARRIVED AS THE PLACE TO TALK ABOUT COMICS, but it has very quietly become, well, the place to talk about comics. There's no other alternative that doesn't allow sock puppets, flamewars and general dip-shittery, and as a bonus, quite a lot of my favourite comics people visit The Engine regularly, from Comics Journal Managing Editor Dirk Deppey to Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O'Malley. So if you haven't visited yet, you should stop in and give The Engine a look.

Speaking of The Comics Journal, I have a review in the new issue, #272. There's also a pair of interesting, in-depth chats with editorial cartoonists, a discussion with key Batman contributor Jerry Robinson that covers his previously (by me, anyway) unknown career as an editorial cartoonist (part one in #271 covered his Batman days and other comics stuff), a must-read essay on the state of comics news websites, and a whole lot more news, reviews and commentary.

The Michael Dean examination of comics news websites really brings me back to the earliest days of Comic Book Galaxy, when we tried, by default, to make a go of having a news section. Despite the fact that I have written and read news for broadcast outlets almost non-stop since 1985, the news section of The Galaxy has never come together. I see two big reasons for that -- #1 is time. Even when I was only working one job (I now have two, believe it or not), it was hard to devote the time needed to doing comics news in a manner that satisfied both my standards as a journalist and the needs of the audience, and certainly there was no financial incentive there to mitigate that important factor. Secondly, there simply isn't one whole hell of a lot of comics news on the average day, which goes back to what I said about journalistic standards. One reason most people readers think of as journalists who cover comics refuse quite vocally to call themselves journalists is that there is just too much need to fill out space and attract readers with rumours, opinion, press releases and commentary. Those four elements, in fact, make up probably 95 percent of what is passed off as comics "news" on the popular sites. And a lot of it is related to TV and movies, adding the further insult of genuine irrelevance to the mix.

Real comics news is not Creator A moving from Title Y to Title Z, or Character M causing a line-eide event that will change the (Company) Universe FOREVER!!! Real news in the comics industry is pretty goddamned rare, really. It's when a Golden Age creator sues for ownership of a character from a big corporate publisher. It's when publishers are screwing their creators out of their page rates and shafting their creditors while blaming creators for not being loyal team players. While the industry is full of perfidy and misery past and present, genuine news stories that effect the entire industry, the people within and without it and the product you're likely to buy as a reader, happen pretty infrequently. A company like Crossgen comes around, makes headlines and mostly bad comics and flares out spectacularly maybe once a decade (although Mike S. Miller is clearly trying mightily to make it a twofer with Alias). On a daily basis, the industry pretty much hums along, and the news sites therefore are forced to cover this small nation of comics by relying on press releases, feature articles and interviews, and (very much worst of all) message board postings associated with their stories that drain the stories themselves of any semblance of revelance, journalistic worth, or even entertainment value.

And it's not that they're not trying -- I worked directly with Matt Brady at Newsarama for a good stretch of time, and I can tell you he's a decent guy who tries hard to make his site relevant and entertaining. If I say that I personally have litle use for the site in general -- or its nearest competitor, The Pulse -- it's not at all to disparage the people running the sites. It's the flashing banner ads, overreliance on feel-good corporate comics features, and those damnable message boards that keep me away from these sites as a reader. I honestly shudder at the thought of what type of person makes those sites a daily part of his internet experience.

The closest thing to perfection in online comics news coverage in the history of the internet was Dirk Deppey's Journalista. Luckily the journalistic credibility and big-tent modus operandi of that late, lamented blog has been transplanted mostly intact to Deppey's stewardship of the only magazine about comics worth your attention, The Comics Journal. But for those of us who crave a daily online reading experience about comics, you can't do better right now than Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter, a wide-ranging blog of news and commentary that is a must-read every day, even on weekends (a true rarity on the comics internet). Spurgeon's 2005 Holiday Guide is worth its weight in gold as both a set of guidelines for gift-buying this holiday season, and as a defacto Best Of column from one of the sharpest critical minds ever to engage itself in writing about the artform of comics.

The other Most Valuable Player in critical writing about comics right now is Christopher Butcher, and if I could have one wish this holiday season, it would be that he writes even more about comics in 2006 than he did in 2005. His insights into the industry are sharp and occasionally merciless, but they are also without peer. I recently referred to him as The Future of Comics Retailing, and I want to reiterate that point here. His blog and Spurgeon's are the two best ways I have to stay informed about what is going on in comics on a daily basis, and I treasure them both.

When it comes to reviewing comics, the only guy who approaches these two in both diversity of interests and quality of writing is Comic Book Galaxy's own Christopher Allen, and I continue to thank whatever Gods there be that he graces this site with Breakdowns on a weekly basis.

So, yeah, in just a few weeks, Comic Book Galaxy will have been active during seven distinct years, from 2000 to 2006, and that's pretty goddamned cool, I think. We'll be celebrating our sixth anniversary in September of 2006, and as the year ahead speeds rapidly toward us, I am thinking long and hard about what is good here, and what needs a little tweaking. I think this post, and the return of this blog, are the first of many changes to come. I hope you'll stick around to see what else develops.

Labels: essays, industry, meta, monday briefing

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:06 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Hooray for Boredom! -- You really have to thank Paul O'Brien for his recent Ninth Art column on how bored he is with the boring comics he has bought and written (usually much more interestingly than the comics themselves) about on his site. As dangerously nerdtastic as Paul's exasperation is (contrast it with the positive changes Randy Lander has initiated over at Fourth Rail after having a similar critical crisis), it has resulted in some wonderful summations of everything that has been right in comics this year.

Christopher Butcher: "Mini-comics, indies, art-comics, manga, they're all undergoing relative booms right now, in terms of quality and diversity of material. You ask the guy hitting the comic shop once a month to pick up some of the newer and more interesting 'art-comix' graphic novels, and he or she will probably tell you that, if anything, they've had to budget themselves because there's too much good material coming out. ART COMIX DILEMMA: TOO MANY GOOD BOOKS. Which is to say nothing of the manga fans getting 60 new graphic novels a month."

Thanks also to Christopher for both linking to and understanding why I started KOCHALKAHOLIC!, saying "Cheers to ADD for putting something uniformly positive and interesting onto the web this week."

And as if that weren't enough, Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon has kicked off a new 8-week series on the fascinating stories going on right now during one of comics' best summers ever: "Luckily, there's a ton of stuff happening or about to happen that's way too interesting, fun, and enjoyable for anything less than our full attention."

Tom starts with a timely essay on the new Calvin and Hobbes collection.

Still more. Logan Polk, in the new Loose Staples column today at Comic Book Galaxy: "I just don’t get it. I see it, I used to be one of those, but discovering how much is really out there has been probably the best adventure of my life so far." Seeing someone like Logan discover the richness of the comics artform (and I envy him reading some of the titles he mentions having in his reading stack), and sharing the joy that he takes in it, makes five years of ups and downs of this site well worthwhile.

Comics: You either love 'em right now, or you need to read different ones. Nuff said, true believer.

Labels: culture, industry, meta

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:44 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Thrill and Excitement of Comics -- It's truly astonishing to me that anyone would say they are "bored" with "comics" right now -- I was looking over the site, and here are some of the great comics that we've covered here at Comic Book Galaxy in our reviews and commentary sections since our relaunch in June:

OR ELSE #3
PAPING #11
FLYTRAP
MOME
BUMPERBOY LOSES HIS MARBLES!
SHUCK THE SULFURSTAR
SOLO #5
WALT AND SKEEZIX
THE R. CRUMB HANDBOOK
SUPER-F*CKERS #1
AEIOU
BONE VOL. 1
STREET ANGEL
THE CUTE MANIFESTO
SEVEN SOLDIERS
ICE HAVEN
SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
OJO

And ALL-STAR SUPERMAN hasn't even come out yet. If you read comics and you're bored, dude, comics isn't the problem.

Nuff said, true believer!

Labels: culture, industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:20 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
I Still Like Superheroes -- Those are the words of a reader who subscribes to the Comic Book Galaxy Mailing List and recently dropped me a line to thank me for his prize in a contest I ran exclusively for subscribers to the mailing list. Here's the exchange between John and I:

Mr. Alan David Doane,

I just wanted to thank you for the envelope of comics and books I got
yesterday! I have to admit that I had forgotten about the contest,
and so I was very surprised (and excited....perhaps going farther into
the "giddy as a schoolgirl" mode than was appropriate. But man, new
comics!! How cool is that, especially when you're not expecting
them?!). I looked through them last night, and it looks like a great
variety of stuff, none of which I've read, and some of which I'm only
vaguely familiar. I can't wait to get reading!

I came into comics as a fan of superheroes, as I expect many in the
hobby did. And I still like superheroes. Sadly, it seems that most
of the creators writing them don't like them, as they handle them
rather badly. I realized the other day, as I went through the new
Previews, that less and less of my money each month goes to
superheroes, and more and more goes to other kinds of comics. Hmmm.
I say sadly as though I am saddened that I'm branching out, which is
not true. I'm truly enjoying the different options out there, and am
finding the comic book form to be more fascinating and adaptable than
I ever thought possible. Still, it's sometimes hard to know exactly
where to look, so getting packages like this, giving me a lot of
different options, is a great way to point me in a few different
directions!

Thanks again!

John

And then I replied...

John,

Thanks very much for taking the time to write, it's nice to know the
books are so appreciated! I appreciate very much that you are a part
of our mailing list, and interested in the site.

You know, I really don't think some of today's superhero comics
writers dislike the characters, so much as they just read ONLY
superhero comics as preparation for their comics careers, and thus do
not have the more expansive, creative imaginations of people like Alan
Moore, Jack Kirby, and other noteworthy creators. So, while I despise
the majority of work by people like Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer and
even recent work by Brian Bendis, I do think that at this point the
readers and publishers are more to blame than the hacks that are
turning this stuff out and apparently making money doing it, although
to the longterm detriment of at least their sector of the industry.

Best,

Alan

And then John wrote back...

Alan,

Interesting point. I would certainly agree that the publishers have
to shoulder quite a bit of the blame. I am aghast at much of this
year's output. The mega crossovers make me ill, as they serve only
the aging fanboys, a dying market. They don't court new readers, and
the major companies seem to not be concerned by this. The major
companies also don't seem interested in pushing forward. The return
of Hal Jordan at DC this year really crystallized things for me. Do I
think that what happened to Hal Jordan many years ago was wrong? Yes,
it was a bad story. But it happened years ago....it's time to move
on! Let's put it in the past and make new stories, featuring new
characters! It's one of the things I miss about James Robinson's
superb Starman series. He was able to use the past, but instead of
wallowing in it, he used it to help build a future.

And, of course, you're correct. Readers are to blame somewhat.
Luckily there are websites likes yours, ones that can point people
toward other comics. Hopefully more readers will begin to see the
vast selection of styles, formats and voices out there, and they'll
experiment. Speaking from experience, that can be quite rewarding.

Thanks for your time!

John

Finally, I responded once again...

Interestingly, the JLA cartoon on Cartoon Network shows us a vital,
interesting and three-dimensional Green Lantern in their version of
John Stweart, but to adopt him to the DCU "proper" would be to admit
that Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Dini know more about how to handle their
characters than DC editorial does...which, of course, they do.

And it is heartening to find DC's stable of great characters and the people who enjoy them being treated to exciting, well-crafted adventures on Cartoon Network. I can't wait for full-season DVD sets of the Justice League series, both the original and the Unlimited version. Given that the Batman Animated DVD collections have continued with the release of a third set, I hope that all the DC Animated material of the past decade or so eventually finds its way to DVD. Both so I can share them with my kids, and because, of course, I still like superheroes.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 7:44 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 2 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
License to Kill -- Christopher Butcher takes a long, rambling and informative look at licensed comics over at comics.212.net. Well worth a read.

Labels: industry, linkblogging

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:33 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
A Minor, Sad Moment in Comics -- Compared to the average comics buyer, I don't seem to buy a lot of floppy single issues. So they tend to pile up before I realize it. From the available evidence, it looks like I hadn't filed my floppies in at least two months, but I decided to get rid of the piles this afternoon, a nerdy process of checking which shortboxes have which series and then trying to get everything into some sort of order before returning the shortboxes to their unattractive but orderly arrangement near my bedroom door.

Putting stuff away this afternoon, I noted with minor, but genuine sadness that I was filing for the final time the last issues of Sleeper and Human Target.

One wonders if the geniuses at DC realize that they have replaced those titles with absolutely nothing I am interested in, and that they have lost those dollars forever. One wonders if they care.

But one does not wonder for long. When is that non-DC Brubaker/Phillips creator-owned series due...?

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 5:05 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 1 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
15 Ways to Make Comics Better -- There's a lot of people who want to make comics better. Here are some ways I believe that could actually be accomplished.

1. Creators: Create, always, human stories with a strong narrative voice, a clear point of view, and a reason for existing. Anything less insults the reader and devalues you as a creator.

2. Creators and publishers: Ensure high-quality reproduction at every step of the process from the creation of the artwork to the final print job. Poor reproduction removes the reader from the story. You are the ultimate advocate for the work, and for the reader. Fail them and they will flee from you.

3. Publishers: Allow corporate-owned characters who have become creatively bankrupt through mis-handling to lay fallow for a few years. There's no reason at all why Green Lantern, Iron Man, Thor, or most other second-tier characters must be published month-in and month-out. Wait until a creator or creators have solid, original ideas with which to stage a true revival rather than a lame renumbering. If you must publish these characters for trademark purposes, issue affordable, monthly reprints of landmark runs until such a time that a worthwhile new take on the character can be published.

4. Publishers: Publish complex, riveting titles like The Invisibles, Sleeper and Promethea as original graphic novels, a complete storyline published in HC every six months, with the SC to follow six months after initial HC release. If you cannot find an economic model in which to make this work, you have no business being in publishing. If you don't want to put your hands in the toilet and fix things, you shouldn't be a plumber.

5. Would-Be Publishers: Realize that no new comics company can be expected to make any money whatsoever within the first five years of its existence. If you do not have the capital shored up to protect against that fact, and do not have the confidence that your books will be of such high-quality as to ensure a large readership that builds over the first three years, then do not start your new comics company until you can meet those marketplace realities. Wishing will not make it so, and if you build it, history has shown that they will not come.

6. Publishers: No one wants your new superhero universe, American-created Manga, or fifth-week event. No one.

7. Publishers: If you cannot give away 200,000 copies for free or for a quarter, you cannot sell 10,000 for $2.95.

8. Publishers: Because you like a writer or artist, that does not mean that readers will like their work. The worst thing an editor or publisher can do is be buddies with the talent they publish. If your judgment is thus compromised, you owe it to yourself, your creators and your readers to seek out blunt, critical analysis of the quality of the work and its liklihood of success before publishing it.

9. Would-Be Publishers: If you must publish comics and are not already an established company with a well-known line and a reliable slate of books, then start your new company with one bulletproof book that is so well done and wildly entertaining that it can serve as the foundation of a steadily-growing company over the course of the next five years.

10. Creators: At all stages of the creative process, seek out the opinions and evaluations of people whose tastes and critical faculties you trust implicitly. Ask them to be brutally honest in judging your work, and accept that there is at least a grain of truth in everything they tell you, and likely a lot more than a grain.

11. Readers: Do not continue to buy and support comics that do anything less than dazzle you with their ingenuity, their quality storytelling, and their elegance of purpose and design. The only reason any publisher can continue to produce bad comics is because people buy them. Just stop.

12. Readers: Find critics whose tastes clearly intersect with your own, and follow their recommendations into places you might previously have avoided. If Critic A's explanation of why they like a book you like makes sense to you, then find a book they recommend that you haven't read, and try that one. Watch the magic happen.

13. Do not ever buy a comic book with the expectation that you will sell it at a profit later on. 99 percent of every comic book you ever will buy over the course of your life will be worth 12 cents or less within a month after you buy it. Selah.

14. Publishers: If you cannot afford a full-time publicity department that is dedicated to getting your books the maximum exposure possible, then you cannot afford to be a publisher. Hiring the talent and printing the books is no more than 50 percent of the equation that results in a successful book.

15. Readers: Go through your collection regularly, and pluck out any comics you haven't felt the need to re-read for a year or more. Set them aside, and evaluate whether you really want to spend a portion of your rent money providing space for comics you no longer want or need. Throw them out, trade them, give them away, or sell them on eBay. Make room for better comics in your home, and in your life. Make careful note of the creators and publishers who tend to create books that you are not still excited about months after you first read them. Reconsider investing your money in their books in the future. Would you return time and again to a restaurant that served you bad food? There's so much more out there, waiting to be discovered. What are you waiting for?

Labels: industry, lists

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:48 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Editorboy Rampage! -- You know, "Leaking a news story is like farting," I told a friend of mine today. "Usually you know what's going to happen, but every once in a while, you need to change your shorts."

Earlier this week, a comics internet acquaintance of mine privately e-mailed me and some other people a link to a PDF file of an upcoming comic called Elk's Run. I've never heard of any of the book's creators, but scrolling through the PDF I liked the art and told my acquaintance that I would be interested in seeing the printed book when it's available. I don't generally like reviewing comics from PDF, because the experience just isn't the same as reading the actual finished product.

Earlier today I received an e-mail from a "Joshua Hale Fialkov" asking me and numerous other comics journalist types not to talk about the book. Apparently he is the editor of the comic in question. He said "[I]t is of the utmost importance that we control the dispersion of information on the book, we have already made arrangements for an exclusive announcement of the book to CBR, so I can't have anyone else discussing the book online until that interview comes out in the next
month or so."

One of the comics journalists who received the PDF and Fialkov's unreasonable request e-mailed all of us to say that he didn't want to hear any more about the book until he could discuss it publicly, and noted that the request that we all submit to Fialkov's agreement with CBR as "weird." I agree.

Fialkov insisted in a mass e-mail that "I'm sure any
of the people on this list whom we've dealt with before, will vouch
for my company's unwavering professionality [sic] in all matters." Personally, I find his childish hissy fit at a leak that, I'm told, he instigated, both unprofessional and more than a little silly. An instant messenger chat transcript that I received showed Fialkov saying that the PDF file was sent to "people who won't neccessarily [sic] say waht [sic] i want them to say when i want them to say it."

You know, a secret is only a secret if you don't share it. If you don't want the story, or the comic, leaked, then don't put it up on the internet and leak it. Because at that point, you have lost all control over your comic, your story, and the journalists you sought to control.

Labels: industry

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 1:19 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The New Overstreet Price Guide -- The industry's most prominent guide to pricing old comics came out last week, and for the first time since 1984, I bought it. Enough comics seem to end up in my hands, and even more questions about old titles and values, that I felt it would be a valuable resource, certainly better than looking in some old Wizard magazine for information.

I got the version with the faux-Superman cover, and I was struck by the poor computer reproduction of the logo, particularly noticeable in the "The Official" oval at the top. Amazing. I don't know if it's cheapness or outright blindness, but when did publishers decide that amateurish, lousy printing that I could do on my crappy Epson printer is acceptable for books and comics and magazines presumably designed with multiple re-readings and even collectibility in mind? I mean Jesus Christ, printing like this is fine for the goddamned Church newsletter, but come on.

Inside, there's plenty of useful information on titles and values, as well as hilarious statements by nutjob dealers such as "Everyone is aroused by news of modern comics slabbed and graded at 9.5 or better selling at astonishing multiples of guide." Now, perhaps Eric J. Groves of the Comic Art Foundation is aroused by such, but even if he is, he probably shouldn't talk about it in public.

I was interested to see that there's a new "Atom Age of Comics" that I hadn't heard about, and even more interested to see that the "Atom Age" issue of Human Torch my mom bought me for $13.00 back in 1979 now goes for $85.00. Even more fascinating, the Overstreet Guide from that year, the first I bought, now goes for $180.00. It had much better reproduction of its cover artwork, too.

Originally written for Comic Book Galaxy prior to the launch of the ADD Blog.

Labels: essays, industry, pre-ADD blog posts

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:40 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Creators Rights and Why They're Right -- There has been much debate over the issue of Creator's Rights in the comic book industry as a result of recent court actions by the estate of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and Captain America creator Joe Simon.

I have been debating the issue for a while now with some people who, at times, seem utterly incapable of wrapping their brains around the concept that the creator of a given character should have the absolute right to decide that character's destiny.

Copyright laws have changed in the past few years, allowing creators of works six decades ago to reclaim their legal rights to the characters and concepts that have made literally millions (in some cases hundreds of millions) of dollars for the companies that have dominated the American comic book scene for the length and breadth of its existence.

The greatest works in the artform of comics have been created by writers and artists who have been allowed to express their vision with a minimum of editorial interference. The list, though familiar, is undiminished in its power to those who have devoted any real time to investigating the artform:

* Will Eisner's The Spirit
* Dave Sim's Cerebus
* Dan Clowes' Eightball
* Jack Kirby's Fourth World Saga
* Frank Miller's Daredevil
* Dave Lapham's Stray Bullets
* Harvey Pekar's American Splendor
* Kurt Busiek's Astro City

And of course, the list could go on and on. These comics don't even necessarily represent a list of my personal favourites, but by any critical standard they have elevated the artform as expressions of their creator's singular vision, unimpeded (in most cases) by editorial whim or economic considerations.

Some have been more successful than others, in terms of sales, but all in their various ways represent the finest that comics in the United States can be.

Virtually none of them would have been possible under the oppressive, unfair system the comics companies operated in the early days of the industry. Only the Spirit thrived in those days, and even then, only because Will Eisner fought to retain his rights and see his vision through.

Frank Miller was able to do what he did at Marvel with Daredevil for two reasons: the book was dying and no one cared much what happened at the time Miller established the milieu and concepts his Daredevil operated in; Miller also benefited from the fact that editor Denny O'Neil was himself a writer, and did not try to direct the overall plot in the way that the modern day editors (think of the recent X-Men and Spider-Man runs) do.

In the 1930s and 1940s, for the most part, the publishers had the writers and artists over a barrel, and they knew it. They had all the money, they had all the power, and very few artists who wanted to work in the industry were able to take control of their creations.

I am writing now not to excoriate the admittedly unfair system that has existed for most of the life of the artform, but to celebrate and affirm the rights of creators to express their vision.

The system that 99 percent of the comics published by Marvel and DC over the past 60 years were produced under has created, for the most part, readable junk. Only rarely have the writers and artists working for these companies risen above the level of entertaining mediocrity to produce something more; something inspiring, innovative and new. What, really, would be the impetus to do otherwise?

For most of the time there has been such a thing as comics, the majority of creators had no hope of any kind of long-term benefit from their work. Once they cashed the checks for their page rate (many of which beginning in the late 1970s had despicable Work-For-Hire contracts printed on the backs, which some creators wisely chose to cross out before endorsing), that was it. No health insurance, no pension plan, and in many cases not even any reprint royalties.

Jack Kirby, without whom we wouldn't even be having this discussion, lived and died without ever seeing just reward for what he did. He created (in some cases along with Stan Lee) some of the most enduring, mind-blowing concepts in the history of the artform. The Fantastic Four, the Inhumans, Galactus, the Incredible Hulk, The Avengers and, oh yeah, the X-Men. Will Kirby's estate receive a dime from the profits on the X-Men movie? Even if it does, it will be a fraction of one percent of the profits that will be divvied up by people and companies that, in many cases, didn't even exist when Kirby created the characters and concepts that sustain the industry today. Many people who will doubtless get rich on that project have probably never even heard of Jack Kirby. It's beyond insulting; beyond contemptible. It's a fucking crime.

Think of the work Frank Miller did on Daredevil. Roy Thomas and Barry Smith's Conan. Bill Sienkiewicz's brilliant work on Moon Knight and New Mutants. These rare highlights came in spite of, not because of, the industry standard that presumed the companies owned all the non-licensed work they published.

You'll note that in these and many other cases the joy of seeing these works of art appear every month like clockwork is short-lived. In the case of the artists, it often has happened that they grow weary of the limits placed on the expression of their ideas (Sienkiewicz, Smith, Miller) while for many gifted writers, they often take the characters into directions the editors simply cannot allow (think of the Charlton project created by Alan Moore that became Watchmen, admittedly a not-unhappy development; Moore's successor on Swamp Thing, Rick Veitch, was forced from that title for the direction he wanted to take the character in).

Contrast these cases with works like Eightball, Stray Bullets or Cerebus, unencumbered by Work-For-Hire restrictions. The creators are able to do literally anything they want, and while they aren't all churning it out on a monthly basis, the titles do appear regularly, and are regularly brilliant. And have been for years and years and years.

I have long had a theory that there is an inverse ratio of art to names when it comes to the creation of comics. When the writing and art are the work of one creator (Eightball, Sin City, most of the work of R. Crumb), the brilliance shines through in nearly every panel.

When you divide the work between a writer and artist, the work can still be good (Astro City, Claremont and Byrne's X-Men), but the more and more names you add (think of some of the credits boxes in some Image comics, with a Plotter, Dialoguer, multiple Pencillers and Inkers, Letterer and Colourist all jammed in there) the further and further away you get from Art with a capital "A."

Of course, the typical argument from some quarters is that "Art" cannot be objectively evaluated, and that any one opinion is worth as much as any other.

At the risk of being accused of hyperbole once again, that's just crap.

Virtually no enduring work of art produced in the medium of comics has ever had more than two (or three, in rare cases) major contributors. I don't mean to disregard the contributions of colourists and letterers, but they're not really the topic here. I am talking about the writers and artists that generate the concepts that fire the imagination and inspire the soul.

What work in any other medium is the work of a committee of the type that the mainstream, Big Two comics system supports and encourages? What painting, what musical composition, what great work of architecture or sculpting, has as many creators as the average issue of, say, Wolverine?

Let's take film, for example. The only movie I can think of that was great by committee was probably Casablanca, and that was a long goddamn time ago. Perhaps that is the exception that proves the rule.

It's a difficult thing to extend this metaphor from comics to film, but I think it's instructive to try. I'm not sure, though, who you'd equate the actors in a TV series to in the production of a comic book.

Specifically dealing with film, though, I use the term "creator" to mean the screenwriter or director. I think those terms roughly equate to the writer and artist in a comic book.

While there have been many great, and even more good, actors since the 1940s, I would submit that very few of them appeared in any great work of art that was created by hack writers and directors equivalent in talent to a Rob Liefeld.

The high quality of The Practice, just to pick a current show which features uniformly excellent actors at the top of their craft, would certainly suffer greatly were the creator (David Kelley) and the various writers and directors replaced with, say, the creative staff of Full House.

Of course, Marvel and DC love the committee-oriented process they have maintained. Under it, each creator becomes, to paraphrase John Byrne, a cog in the creative machine. Alan Moore left Swamp Thing, but penciller Rick Veitch stayed on, and with him many of the readers that otherwise would have bolted. Chris Claremont left X-Men, but Jim Lee stayed on. Every time a gifted creator leaves, the company attempts (and usually succeeds) in keeping some remnant of the creative team that made the book a success. Because every name that remains in the masthead represents thousands of readers that will stay, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. For the companies.

So it is that most of the truly visionary artists have turned to self-publishing, or to companies that allow them at the very least to retain the rights to their characters and concepts. So it is that the majority of the books from the two biggest publishers are a celebration of mediocrity. So it is that even when a gifted creator is brought on a title, they are manipulated and edited and oppressed to the point (think Mark Waid and Peter David) that they choose to leave, even giving up the current royalty system, rather than see their vision compromised.

That word, compromised, is an interesting one. One Marvel fan said he believes it is more important that the Marvel Universe not be compromised by the removal of Captain America, than that Joe Simon be allowed, in the twilight of his life, to decide the fate and direction of his creation.

Anyone who doesn't think that the environment that has so oppressed generations of talented writers and artists, who only want to share their gifts with us, the readers, hasn't already compromised the Marvel Universe, is really not getting what this is all about.

It's not about comic books. It's not about Universes or shared realities, it's not about page rates and characters and costumes.

It's about freedom.

If this were a comic book, and Joe Simon were a character in a Captain America story, just whose side do you think Cap would be on?

It's about freedom.

Originally written prior to the launch of the ADD Blog.

Labels: corporate comics, essays, industry, pre-ADD blog posts

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 6:35 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE