Kleefeld on Comics

Marvel Stock

2009-07-15T14:10:00.000-04:00

Offered without comment (largely because I'm pretty dumbstruck by this)...

As of the moment I'm typing this, Marvel's stock price is $38.79 -- the highest it has EVER been.

Extending A Brilliant Idea

2009-07-14T14:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I posited the suggestion that a comic publisher should provide a retailer portal where an LCS could download and/or order all sorts of nifty stuff from one place for free. Today, I thought of a way to expand on that idea...

What if a publisher created such a portal, and then let ANYONE have access? Sign up for free, regardless of who you are, and have access to all sorts of content.

"Okay, Sean, now you've just gone crazy!"

Hear me out.

Not everyone would have access to all the same materials. Since a user would have to log in, the portal would know who they are and could provide access to only specific levels of material. An average reader, for example, wouldn't need to order self-standing brochure holders, for example. Retailers would be set up by the publisher, as would reviewers and press-type folks. All of these people would be given access to advance PDF copies of the actual books (watermarked to identify who's downloaded them) and some basic promotional materials -- some hi-res art files, for example. Retailers would have the added benefits of the posters and tchotchkes, as I detailed earlier.

Folks without such retail or press credentials could sign up for individual accounts. They would have access to -- are you ready for this? -- the publisher's entire library of content. Every book they'd published online. For free.

"OK, Sean, now I know you're nuts!"

I've got logic behind this, though.

First, the downloads would all be of the individual pamphlet comics, not collections. Second, the files would be EXACTLY as they originally went to press with ads, letter columns, and all. Third, like the retailer versions, each issue would be watermarked with the downloader's name. Finally, the available-to-the-public versions would only be made available some time (a week or two?) after the printed books were available in stores.

The realization I had was that a comic book's shelf life is, by and large, one week. The vast majority of sales of any given issue occur in the week that it's released. Sales drop over the next three weeks and, a month later, the book is next to worthless. Certainly any book that's been out for six months or longer is likely to sit in with all the other long boxes until it's inevitably moved to the quarter bin.

Which means that neither the retailer or the publisher is financially hurt by giving away back issues.

Further, the content of a comic book is, as I've tauted before, is NOT what customers/readers are paying for. They are paying for the delivery system. If they are solely interested in the story, they'll download the free copy. If they want a copy they can hold in their hands and read while sunning themselves on the beach, they'll have to pay for either the pamphlet or TPB version. Or perhaps the iPhone-specific version. But the basic content? That's not what they're paying for.

Another consideration is that, if a publisher of decent size offers up their entire library of material, most people would be too overwhelmed to digest all of it anyway. How much content sitting on Hulu have you actually watched online? Although this is entirely speculation, I sincerely doubt Friday's episode of Eureka being on Hulu is going to prevent anyone who was a potential customer from buying the DVD later.

Now, here's where the real key idea behind the portal comes in. Every person has to sign in. That means that there's a record of not only who they are (the sign in process obviously would require some basic contact information) but the publisher would be able to track what they're looking at. Are they targeting specific books, specific creators, an overall genre, what? That information could then be used to target users with ads specifically catered to their tastes. Ads selling tangible goods uniquely related to their interests like t-shirts and statues and action figures.

Frankly, that's a concept that I really do find fascinating and should study more: that people are willing to pay for the privilege of advertising your goods...

But I can almost guarantee that if a publisher starts giving away their comics, they'll more than make up for potential lost comic sales in the sales of ancillary material. This is precisely how your Phil Foglios and Jen Breedens make a living, albiet on a smaller scale. Despite giving away their content, people are still willing to pay for collected books and mousepads and calendars and all sorts of other material, which has been traditionally secondary to the process of making comics. The main difference I'm talking about is that, where Foglio and Breeden have a more open (i.e. you don't have to log in) environment, a more "traditional" publisher could expand the goals and reach of the same idea exponentially with their larger content base.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that a publisher would be best-served by giving away all their content for free. Wired's Chris Anderson just released a book on the subject, which I'll be reading shortly. (The book by the way is being given away for free, putting Anderson's money where his mouth is.) The question at the moment is only one of who's going to be the brave soul to be first?

The Publisher's Dilemma

2009-07-13T21:15:00.000-04:00

Question: If you were a comic book publisher, who would you try to sell your comics to? What type of audience would your marketing (in whatever form it took) speak to?

The obvious answer, of course, is some subset of comic book fans.

"It's kind of like The Goon only with a more contemporary flavor."

"I'm aiming this towards superhero fans who want to see Latino's better represented in comics."

"It's a manga version of Bone."

"Think of it as a cross between Witchblade and Power Girl."

The issue, though, is that that's not exactly who you, as a publisher, need to be aiming for. Yes, you definitely want to create interest around the book with the audience most likely to respond; that's how you get people to be more than just fans, but vocal advocates of your book.

But there's a LOT out there clamoring for people's attention. Based on volume alone, Marvel and DC eat up a lot of comic fans' attention, even if they're actively trying to ignore it. Which means that setting up an RSS feed from your site and sending press releases to Newsarama is not enough. That will certainly buy some traction and it's a necessity of doing business in the comic industry these days, but you likely won't get much new interest from those, again, thanks to the sheer enormity of everything else.

The key to grab people's attention is to utilize the attentions they're already honed in to listen to. If you can target a handful of folks who can sell the book for you, you have a better chance of making it. I spoke to this, in a more general sense, a few months back. However, I neglected to mention a specific key influencer that is worthy of attention: the comic shop retailer.

They're noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, they are generally seen as subject matter experts when it comes to comic books. Since they, by the very nature of their job, deal with comic books all day, every day, they HAVE to know what's going on just to keep their business running. If they tell every customer that they think Captain Wonderschmuck is a great book, they're almost certainly going to sell more of them than if they never mentioned it unless somebody asked. Seems fairly obvious, right?

The second reason that they're significant is that they're the ones who are actually on the front lines. They're the people your readers are going to interact with about the purchase. Which means that they are a publisher's sales force. If a publisher treats retailers well, the retailers are going to be more open to that publisher's books.

Hypothetical example...

Let's say you've created Captain Wonderschmuck and it's a pretty good comic. You're no Will Eisner, but it's a decent book. You've got your web site set up and you've got accounts set up on Facebook and Twitter and everything. You've sent out press releases to all the comic news outlets. You even got a couple of decent reviews from Tom Spurgeon and Blair Butler. All of which is done in advance of the book actually hitting the stands.

Now, you've got Joe Reader who goes into his Local Comic Shop. He sees the book on the shelf of new comics, picks it up and flips through it. He hems and haws and finally turns to the retailer and says, "I don't know; I've heard some good things about this, but..."

If the retailer is like many of them, they might say, "Yeah, I've heard some good things too." Which may or may not sway the potential reader. It's an understandably non-committal statement from the retailer -- they don't want to lose creditibility by saying it's good if they haven't read it. And if the book just came in, they likely haven't had a chance. (One retailer I knew admitted to being two years behind on Captain America and was trying to race through them to catch up in time for when Marvel was going to kill the character off.) So the potential sale in this instance is reliant on any number of factors now outside the publisher's control. How much cash does the customer have right then? Did they have a decent lunch? How much crap is their boss giving them at work? None of these things will overtly tell the customer to buy the comic or not, but it will influence his mood. If he's sitting on the fence about it, though, a bad tuna melt might be enough to get him to put it back on the shelf unsold.

On the other hand, if the retailer had gotten an advance copy of the book, they might have had time to read it before putting it on display. If they ALWAYS got advance copies of ALL your books, they might be predisposed to liking that one title, since they liked the last ones you sent in advance. If they got cool promotional materials for free, they might be that much more inclined to look positively on your work. If the publisher treats the retailer well, the conversation with the customer might go something like...

"I don't know; I've heard some good things about this, but..."

"Same here! I haven't read that particular issue yet, but they've been putting out some great stuff in general lately."

The question then becomes, how does a publisher court a retailer? More to the point, how does a publisher court ALL retailers?

One could print up advance copies of comics and posters and flyers and some small tchotchkes, and send a care package to every retailer individually. Which is doable, but pricey. And it would likely be a waste on some retailers, who might not have wall space to hang a poster in the first place, even if they do like the art.

Ah, but this is the 21st century, my friends, and we have 21st century technology at our disposal! What about this...?

How about a portal web site where retailers could log in, and get all sorts of free material to use? PDF copies of every new issue a week before they come out, downloadable flyers or tent-cards to print off and hang around the store, posters available for order through some POD system. Some kind of downloadable papercrafts that could be folded up easily and made into a cool counter display? Maybe even some POD key chains or pens or Post-It pads or whatever do-dads make sense for that publisher or comic title?

"Wait, Sean," you're saying, "no publisher is going to release ALL of their comics online before they might sell them in the store. They'll end up as torrents in no time!"

If you had them downloadable in the same way as they're available for print, sure. But you could watermark the ones in the retailer portal. You could even watermark them on the fly, so that each page is stamped with the retailer's name and address; that way, even if they did upload it for torrents, it would be immediately obvious who was doing it, and their access rights could be revoked.

"Sean, this is sounding pretty complex. I don't think even guys like Marvel and DC have the technical know-how to do something like this."

As I said, this is the 21st century. This kind of software is available for off-the-shelf purchase from any number of places. I'd bet any IT guy worth his salt even has three or four products in his mind that could be installed within a week. The only issues then would be setting it up for the 3,000 or so retailers (no small task, to be sure, but one that doesn't require specialized skills) and then populating it with content (again, no small task, and would be dependent on the material that publisher produced).

Not every retailer would actually use such a portal, certainly, but think of the goodwill and PR that would generate within the industry. Your more savvy retailers would almost certainly jump all over that and, being savvy retailers, probably have more influence than most other comic influencers. I certainly haven't tried doing anything resembling number crunching here, but I can see that kind of set-up paying for itself fairly quickly.

Any publishers out there reading this?

Mr. Miracle, Take 2

2009-07-11T20:08:00.000-04:00

My first exposure to Mr. Miracle was in Brave and the Bold #112. I received my copy of the comic, along with a couple dozen others, from a friend of my parents who gave them to me, I suspect, to keep me out of trouble while the grown-ups were talking. I really enjoyed the issue, as evidenced by the fact that, while I still have that old copy, it's about as beat up as it could get and still present all of the stories intact.

I remember thinking, as a child, that the Mr. Miracle/Batman story in that issue stood out as the most "adult," which probably had more to do with Jim Aparo's art than anything else since it was the least cartoon-ish. I was reminded of the story today, and I dug out my battered copy to re-read once again. (It's actually so battered, I couldn't actually hold the book in my hands; I had to lay it on my desk in order to read it.)

I was surprised at how much it tied back to Jack Kirby's version of the character, which I had only read for the first time a few years ago. I didn't remember Big Barda or Oberon being in the B&B story, largely because they were only in two panels. That would also why, to this day, I tend to think of Mr. Miracle as complete loner instead of alongside Barda. Th Egyptian theme of the story, too, influenced my thoughts on the character, and I tend to think of him in more noir-ish environments than the high-tech world of Apokolips.

I also didn't remember any references to any other aspects of The Fourth World, but Mr. Miracle is there using his Mother Box repeatedly and exclaiming things like, "By Darkseid's demons!!" I find it easy to chalk this up to simply not even being aware of The Fourth World books until at least a decade after I'd last read this. Likewise, his "powers" in this issue aren't explained particularly well, so I recall thinking he was basically Batman with a less powerful set of Superman's powers. Indeed, Mr. Miracle was, in my mind, far superior to Batman since he clearly out-thought, out-ran, and generally out-classed the Caped Crusader at every turn.

It's a very different Mr. Miracle than what Kirby had originally created. Which isn't to say that this one doesn't make sense; just that going from Kirby's version to this one without reading any intervening material is a bit of a jump.

And, as I'm sitting here, reading this version for the first time in over 20 years, I'm wondering about why I can relate to the later Mr. Miracle more. I'm a HUGE fan of Kirby's work, so I find myself debating whether this newer Bob Haney/Jim Aparo version is that much better for me, or am I just applying a veneer of nostalgia over it. Which I'm perhaps wrestling with even more since I just sat through THE movie of my childhood: Star Wars. (The old school one, mind you, not the "Special Edition" or whatever.) I suspect, ultimately, that the nostalgia factor does weigh in on my thinking here, but given that I've never really felt trapped by anything or had any deep emotional issues with my grandmother, the super-powered magician-cum-detective resonates more closely with me.

And maybe the fact that Aparo drew flowing capes really well had a little to do with it too.

CCI By Proxy

2009-07-10T16:44:00.000-04:00

I have never made it out to San Diego for Comic-Con International. As it has been, for at least the past decade, the event in which publishers release a great deal of news, I have always been forced to retrieve news and information stemming from the event third-hand through various news outlets. For the past ten years, my primary source for that has been the Internet.

I recall that, during the 1998 show, one of the exhibitors (I want to say it was Wizard) set up a live webcam at their booth. It consisted of jumpy video (something like 1 frame every 5 seconds) and no audio, but it was the first time I got any real sense of what the convention was like. I watched as people meandered by, some in costume. Sometimes someone would stop by the booth and present some of their recently obtained swag to the camera. It was very exciting for me, stuck at the time in Ohio, to even participate that tangentially.

Connection speeds and general 'net savvy have improved greatly since then. Like many comic fans who aren't able to attend CCI, I rely on comic news sites for not only after-the-fact reports but also near real-time coverage. In 2007, the G4 network even set up shop on the convention floor and broadcast live for two hours during the show. Last year's coverage was increasing to four hours, and I believe this year is scheduled for five.

Of course, I don't have cable any more, so I won't be watching that.

Which led me back to the internet. Surely, with the popularity of video sites like YouTube and Hulu, there's bound to be more video coverage online, right? Maybe so. As I just discovered that NBC actually posted a couple hours of footage on Hulu last year, I'm hopeful that will bear something of a repeat performance this year.

Comic Book Resources has also provided a decent amount of coverage in the past, and will likely to continue to do so. They have the further advantage -- from my perspective -- of focusing on the actual comic industry moreso than the general geekery-at-large that's provided by more "mainstream" outlets.

But the reason why I bring it up is the curious phenomenon I found myself staring at. "Mainstream" coverage of CCI is only a few years old, and I'd already gotten accustomed to it. I found myself disappointed that I don't subscribe to cable any longer, having decided last year that just about anything I would watch is available as a download or via DVD. But here is a situation in which the incomplete convergence of TV and the Internet left a gaping hole in my comic news milieu.

Which brought on a second phenomenon in that that was a hole I wasn't even aware of two years ago. The gap between what TV and the Internet provided was still so large that I found it impossible to even consider bridging. Nevermind that it wasn't much more than a decade ago when comic news would take weeks to filter back from San Diego.

I don't really have a point to this post, other than to point out the change in expectations. It will be curious to watch how that further evolves over the next year or two, as well as seeing how the lines between outlets continue to blur.

(As something of a sidebar, I actually will be largely off the grid that weekend anyway and probably won't be able to read/see much of the coverage until early August. Which, as something of a second sidebar, is perfectly fine with me since I've lost much of my fan interest in CCI -- given the increasing prevalence of non-comics media -- and would much rather put my focus on the New York Comic-Con, where the focus still seems to be on comics.)

Altounian On Bibliotech

2009-07-09T16:12:00.001-04:00

Last week's episode of Bibliotech featured a half-hour interview with Plantinum/Wowio president Brian Altounian. There really isn't anything particularly earth-shattering in the interview and, in point of fact, I was quite struck at how ignorant interviewer Mark Jeffrey seemed regarding digital media delivery in general. It really seemed to me as if the interview would've been one conducted five -- maybe even ten -- years ago. He had a distinctly "Gee, wow, I didn't realize you can embed an audio file in an electronic book" attitude. Hence, Altounian is given some really banal questions, and the interview winds up being a Wowio primer more than anything else.

That said, they do speak to Wowio's comic book content specifically a few times, so I'm embedding the video below. As I said, it runs about 30 minutes...

What If Dr. Doom Did Stand-Up Comedy? (NSFW)

2009-07-09T13:04:00.002-04:00

(Hat tip: J.A Fludd)

Webcomic Outlets In A Recession

2009-07-08T15:24:00.000-04:00

According to this article from eMarketer, consumers in general currently have a distinct preference for broadband access over mobile access by some noticeable margins. I'll provide their charts if you don't want to read the full article...

As you can see, the use of mobile devices (regardless of platform) for data transmission is considerably less important to people than a solid broadband connection at home. Although their research doesn't get into the reason(s) for that difference, it seems to me that usability is probably the biggest factor here. The combination of small screen sizes which don't always adapt "normal" web page layouts well, plus a typically clumsier set of input options which make navigation more difficult than it ought to be, plus inherently slower -- sometimes even intermittent -- connection speeds all point to users having a much better user experience on their desktops than on a typical mobile device. Being able to find movie listings or a restaurant's menu in the car is useful, to be sure, but the old Spider-Man cartoons look/run better from the computer sitting on your desk.

What I'm getting at here is that people seem to view their desktop computer as their "home base" when it comes to internet, and their mobile devices are still just communications tools that provide more flexible access to that base station. (Although I feel that dynamic will shift over the next decade or so. People are still thinking in terms of personal hard drives and floppy disks, but I see the trend as shifting to more decentralization, where your personal files and data -- and even applications -- are all stored on a server which has full-time broadband access to the Internet, and can be accessed and worked on from any other computer regardless of platform. More of a thin client model than a thick client one, if you want to use the IT vernacular. Indeed, much of how I personally work today is along those lines; the last column I sent in to Jack Kirby Collector was seamlessly written from three different computers in two different states, without having to transport files around on CDs or via email. Right now, in 2009, though, most people do NOT think or work in that manner, and still consider their desktop unit as their central processing computer, as opposed to simply an outlet through which they can get to their online data. But I digress...)

The upshot is that, if the recession continues through 2010 or even into 2011 as some experts predict, people will increase their reliance on broadband through their desktops and will be more likely to drop data services from their mobile devices.

Now, what does that have to do with webcomics?

What that has to do with webcomics is the manner with which they are delivered.

There are a number of sort-of-competing formats for delivering webcomics right now. Some folks use a specialized flash viewer, some rely on the CBR or CBZ format, some present JPGs on hard-coded HTML pages, some use dynamic web page/RSS feed generators, some are just sent via email... not to mention iPhone apps and other similar programs specific to certain platforms. Generally speaking, most of the options available are flexible enough to work under a variety of conditions. For example, while a PDF comic relies on the user have a PDF viewer of some sort unique to their operating system, PDF viewers are readily available for nearly every platform, so you can read a PDF file regardless of whether you're on a Mac or a PC or a Palm or...

And that, I think, is the key to webcomics at least for the next five years, if not longer. To make them as fundamentally accessible for flexible reading as possible. Unless you're comic is THE ABSOLUTE BEST THING EVER, people are not going to spend a lot of time dealing with your delivery mechanism. This is a distinct failing, I think of flash-based comics in general. They are inherently based on hitting a specific page on the internet and require the latest version of a flash player to view them at all. There's nothing wrong if someone WANTS to go to a specific web page with their flash player, but you won't be able to rely on that for delivery.

Early this year, when Diamond changed some of their policies, a lot of people went into a panic not knowing how or even whether their books would be distributed. A handful of us said, basically, that comic creators need to explore as many outlets as possible and ensure that as many people can get to/read their material as possible. There are, in essence, two ways of doing that.

First, a creator (or his/her representative) can essentially bust their butt getting their product into as many venues as possible. They have it on their web site; they've set it up with some POD service; they've made it available through Wowio and iTunes; they've posted CBR torrents... All of which would help, certainly, but it would take a considerable amount of time -- time which could be instead spent on, say, actually making the comic.

An alternative would be to have a set-up in which, once the source files are created, they could be uploaded to a server which then automatically propagates the files out to an array of venues via an XML (or equivalent) feed. This second method would essentially take the source files as they come in, automatically reformat them, and route the reformatted versions to the appropriate outlets. So, a 300 dpi page scan gets sent to a POD server, while the 72 dpi version is posted on website, whose relevant information is included in an RSS feed, which is in part read to display the pages on a web site. As a person who has NOT even attempted creating their own webcomic, I haven't looked in to whether or not this type of set-up currently exists, but it's at least conceptually do-able. Further, it could be implemented in several different ways such that a variety of companies could realistically compete in such a market. Maybe one provides really high quality paper to print the books on, while another does a better job formatting the XML, while still a third looks exclusively at making it as cheap/affordable as possible. Perhaps, then, a fourth has developed a unique iPhone app that's able to utilize the same files as well.

That, I think, is what needs to happen for the webcomic market generally. It absolutely can continue on in the higgedly-piggeldy manner that's characterized webcomics to date (as my reading list has grown, my online comics reader has gotten almost obnoxiously cumbersome -- I'll have to post some status updates on that sometime) but I think for webcomics to be more viable as a sustainable commercial venture, it needs to be at least a little more codified.

Because, if those original numbers I cited at the start of this post are any indication at all, there's still a lot of uncertainty in preferred delivery formats. Readers (i.e. consumers, i.e. where comic creators will get their money from) are NOT married to a particular format (with the possible exception of iPhone users) and that lack of definition with regard to delivery systems can and should be exploited. Readers are not going to choose one method over another simply because YOUR comic is available (or easier to get to) -- the comic creator, if they're going to survive -- needs to make their material as widely available as possible. And, while the creators themselves likely don't have the expertise to do that, other companies do and need to step up to the plate. The "killer app" for comics isn't going to be the best CBR reader, or something for the iPhone; it's going to be the company that develops a process by which any number of people can read your comic in any number of ways.

Reading Backwards

2009-07-07T14:34:00.000-04:00

Typically, when I come across a serialized comic, I try to find a good jumping-on point where I can begin reading, and watch the comic evolve. If it's new enough, I'll just zip back to the very beginning. If it's more of a gag-a-day strip with some serial elements to it, I just pick up wherever I happen across and assume I'll be able to figure out the rest as I go.

The trick with finding that jumping-on point, though, is... well, finding it. It's pretty rare that you just happen to start reading at such a point; more likely, you stumble into the middle of a storyline and have to backtrack at least a bit until you find the start of that chapter/episode/adventure. This is the primary reason why, back in the day, writers were told to write every issue as if it were somebody's first. And it worked. I started reading Fantastic Four smack dab in the middle of John Byrne's Negative Zone story that ran through a good chunk of 1983 and, despite not knowing how the story got to that point, I was easily able to hit the ground running without any more details of the 250-some issues that came before. (These days, writers are directed to write "for the trade" so any single pamphlet might not have sufficient information to start anywhere, but any given trade paperback will.)

Serialized webcomics have a different challenge in that regard. Any single installment of a serialized webcomic is not likely to contain everything a reader knows to start at that point. There's generally just not enough time/space in that one page/panel to convey that much of the whole story. But if it's done well, there'll be enough to entice readers -- to pique their interest enough to return regularly or shoot back to the nearest jumping-on point. (Hopefully, it's conveniently labeled as such for them by the creator(s)!)

This morning, I came across Sin Titulo for the first time. Dropped in 148 pages into the story. It had good artwork, and I was intrigued enough to want to read more. Now, I could have easily clicked back to the beginning to start reading, but instead I just click for the previous installment to see a little more about the two characters. And I clicked to the next previous installment. And the next.

Before I knew it, I found myself 50 pages into the story, having worked backwards from page 148. One page at a time. And the whole thing made complete sense.

That I was actually able to read the story backwards actually made a point of interest in and of itself. How had creator Cameron Stewart been able to successfully -- and, I believe, unintentionally -- written a comic that could be read backwards?

His first success in this regard is breaking down each installment into a relatively self-contained scene. Any one page holds its own independent of the previous and/or the next. That means readers are NOT left with portions of speeches or half-completed actions to pick up on. Each page starts a new scene, so each page effectively becomes a new jumping-on point. Additionally, the page layouts and scene shifts between pages are treated identically throughout the story, so going forward or backward does not change the reading experience. The reader goes through eight equally-sized panels to get a single scene, then reads another eight equally-sized panels to read a different scene.

The other thing working in Stewart's favor with regards to reading his comic backwards is that the story inherently revolves around a series of small mysteries. The puzzle pieces are being revealed through the story slowly. The thing that Alex (the hero) thinks he sees in the 147th episode didn't really make sense until I got up to page 22 and even then, it's still unclear what exactly it is. Who exactly is Vacek? I think the story, if read forwards, would bear some similarities to one of those "accidental spy" stories where the protagonist becomes involved in some plot by a freak coincidence and is forced into a unique situation with no foreknowledge, just like the audience. And, like the best of those accidental spy stories, the pieces only put together the whole picture slowly. Whether going forwards or backwards, we're given the pieces (albeit in a different order) but not enough of them to see a complete picture either way. But it's enough to show the reader that Stewart knows what he's doing, giving the audience enough reassurances that the ultimate conclusion will result in a satisfying payoff.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading Sin Titulo, or any other comic, backwards but it's a fascinating experiment in storytelling, and an enlightening examination of good techniques. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the tale forwards, and don't doubt that it'll be an even better read that way!

Skirball Exhibits

2009-07-06T08:59:00.003-04:00

From now through August 9, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, CA will be hosting two comic-related exhibits. First is the unfortunately titled "ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938–1950" which "examines the creative processes and influences that drove young Jewish artists to express their talents through the storylines and art of comic books." The show features GA comics and original art from the period. Jerry Robinson is a guest curator. The companion exhibit, "Lights, Camera, Action: Comic Book Heroes of Film and Television", unsuprisingly looks at the cultural connections between comics and film/television. Included in the show are the Batcycle from the 1966 TV show and one of Christopher Reeve's Superman costumes.

It's Still Raining

2009-07-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

It's raining outside. It started around lunchtime, and there's been a constant heavy drizzle since then. Just enough keep people from their parades and picnics.

I talked with Mom on the phone earlier today. It was the first time she'd talked about my brother without mentioning that, "Oh, by the way, he still doesn't have a job," in a couple months. Though she did point out he could be using money they spent on paint for the living room to buy a couple more meals.

Mom also casually mentioned that Dad had just turned 60. Somehow, I managed to completely forget his birthday this year; I didn't even remember to call him. I also didn't do much for Mom's birthday back in February. Or Mother's Day. Or Father's Day.

It's still raining.

I came home from work Thursday to see a house just up the street with its entire contents on the front lawn. A U-Haul appeared an hour later, and most of it was taken away. The fourteen-year-old daughter remained sitting on a couch in the yard, guarding what remained until the U-Haul reappeared a couple hours later. The house's contents have been replaced with a sign citing a foreclosure auction later this month.

I'd planned on taking my dog for an early walk today. He isn't too bothered by firecrackers and fireworks if he's inside, but he gets pretty anxious if he's outside while they're going off. I figured going earlier in the day would mean there wouldn't be as many people shooting stuff off. Doesn't look like we'll get our walk in today at this point.

It's still raining.

But you know, I'm inside my own house. I have a secure job, but I don't have anywhere I have to be this weekend. I was sitting by the window earlier, reading Palestine. I can spend time logging comics into my database. My dog is comfortable. And while she's not here right now, I've got a beautiful girlfriend out there who loves me.

I had intended to write some diatribe today on how I don't fully understand patriotism and, as a consequence, I don't really understand patriotic comic book heroes like Captain America or the Shield. But it would have inevitably pissed somebody off, and there's too much crap going on in the world today to intentionally rain on someone else's parade.

It's still raining.

But I can hear people enjoying their picnics indoors with their doors and windows open. I can hear people lighting firecrackers, presumably from in their garages or under umbrellas. Presumably, they spent less money this year on fireworks and grilling supplies, thanks to the economy. (My girlfriend cited that the U.S. savings rate has gone from negative numbers to 6% in less than a year!) The country is in too lousy a shape to not let people celebrate whatever they can. There are enough forces trying to dampen their spirits, and who am I to add to that? Just because I can't afford to celebrate and don't feel the emotional need to doesn't mean I should spit on others' emotional releases.

Happy Independence Day, Americans.

Art, Awards & Other Nonsense

2009-07-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

Weighing in on the Harvey Awards...

All awards are bunk. Yes, recognition for a job well done is always a nice ego-boost and, potentially, provides additional attention (i.e. revenue) to whatever person or project they're celebrating. But ultimately they're pretty meaningless, I think. Doesn't matter if you're talking Harveys or Eisners or Oscars or Emmys or Grammys or some trinket award that's only relevant in any capacity to the dozen or two people in your department at work. Awards don't mark achievement; they only mark recognition.

Are any of the Harvey nominees the unqualified, absolute best in their respective categories? No.

But NOT because they're not great works, but because it's a false question. There's no such thing as an unqualified best when it comes to art. You can't measure quality in a quantitative fashion, so any measurement that IS done is inherently subjective. Basically meaning that what I think is the best isn't necessarily what you think is best. We can both be right and completely disagree. It's all just opinion. The Harveys (and any other awards) are just a way of providing a nice "thanks for making something a number of us liked" to the creators.

Those receiving a Harvey should only imbue as much worth in it as they would imbue on somebody telling them they did a good job.

Me? I clearly don't care about awards or wide-spread recognition. I do what I do for one of two reasons: 1) for my own creative expression, and 2) for the money. In the case of the former, a job well done is its own reward and my pride stems from what I did, not what other people tell me they think of what I did.

Which isn't to say that a "nice job" isn't welcome. Definitely a pleasant ego-boost. But if I feel the work I'm being congratulated on is sub-standard, then no amount of praise is going to make me feel better about it. If I'm praised for lackluster work, I'll just assume that the person(s) providing the praise clearly doesn't know what the hell they're talking about, making their opinion valueless. But if I do like the work, and I'm praised by an individual (not some un-named collection of people) whose opinion I do consider valid, then sure, I'll take the kudos. But because of the connection I made with the individual.

I've actually tried to make a point over the years of telling people how/when/where their thoughts and expressions mattered and made an impact on me. I've written letters to old school-teachers, and sent emails to old friends I haven't talked to in 20 years. I can't speak to them, certainly, but I know I'd prefer that kind of response than a trophy or plaque with no emotion attached to it.

On the subject or art versus Art, anyone making the argument that the Harveys are clearly worthless because Nascar Heroes #5 is a nominee, their arguments are bunk. I haven't read Nascar Heroes but it's every bit as valid as anything else that was nominated. Regardless of how much of a forced commercial endeavor it may have been, it still took some measure of creativity to produce. Art is no less art when it's specifically being requested from an outside source. Michelangelo was paid to paint the Sistine Chapel, you know, and there are anecdotal reports that state he even argued with the Pope about receiving payments in a timely manner. The Sistine Chapel is NOT a work of divine inspiration, it's a piece of commercial art.

Just like Nascar Heroes.

You can argue that Michelangelo's work transcended his commission, or that his mastery of the craft marks his creations worthy of the title Capital-A Art, or whatever you want. But the bottom line is that the Pope came to Michelangelo and paid him to paint his ceiling. His success, relative to Nascar Heroes, can be debated but, as before, it's wholly subjective and neither can rightly be defined as necessarily better than the other.

Should the Harveys be changed or discontinued entirely? If someone wants to keep running them, more power to them. If no one cares about them, and they fade into oblivion, so be it. If I or anyone I know ever wins, that's just peachy. But if I and everyone I know NEVER wins, it's no skin off my nose. I know the quality of work I'm doing, and I know the quality of work others are doing. If I think you're doing a good job, I'll tell you myself and not hide behind a collection of ballots.

I haven't read all of the works nominated for this year's Harveys. The ones I have read are certainly praise-worthy, and I wish their creators good luck on all their current and future endeavors.

Thor In VPN Wars

2009-07-02T23:46:00.000-04:00

For the past couple weeks, I've been playing Vikings, Pirates, Ninjas online. It's kind of amusing, and it's definitely got some charm to it.

Anyway, I recently decided that, even though I was playing a pirate, I could still check out the Viking-ware. And wouldn't you know that up for sale was the Thunder God's Tunic...
Somehow, I don't think you get the ability to hurl thunderbolts by wearing it, but it was a random bit of amusement for me in the game.

Wowio 3.0?

2009-07-01T15:42:00.002-04:00

One of the portal gadgets I have set up monitors tweets that mention the word "Wowio" (since Twitter has proven to the be the primary source of information about the company). A few hours ago, the following tweet popped up from Plantinum president and COO Brian Altounian...

1.0 gets the ball rolling, 2.0 shifts into high gear, but 3.0 blows it into outer space. Welcome to July 1, the launch of WOWIO 3.0!

"That's interesting," I thought. "I haven't looked at the site in several months; I'll go check out what exactly is going on with this re-launch." The last I'd really checked in at all was back in January when some creators were complaining that they still hadn't been paid from early 2008.

So I swang by Wowio.com but didn't see anything appreciably different. I logged in, thinking maybe their updates were more on the back end. It seemed like there were some more content than six months ago, but about what you might expect to accrue over that time. Other than that, I wasn't really seeing anything different. The interface hadn't changed, the pricing structure was about the same, I still had books in my download queue left over from a year ago...

So I checked their news area. There's one note from two weeks ago about a new book about Iranians using new media to tell stories that can't be told by journalists. The next most recent entry is from April, announcing some downloadable books that are available for free. Not exactly 3.0 material.

So I checked Plantinum's site. Sure enough, there's something on the home page about Wowio announcing a global relaunch and details can be found on their blog. Which, it turned out, hadn't been updated at all this year. The noted relaunch was from August 2008.

There's got to be something, right?

I called up everything Altounian has tweeted. There's a tweet from around midnight noting a "new non-profit initiative" and one from Monday that cites "Completed paperwork on a new non-profit initiative for WOWIO, helping groups raise funds and promote literacy at same time. July 1 start!" OK, so this literacy promotion thing must be the 3.0 that "blows it into outer space" I suppose.

Going back to Wowio.com, I did notice that some of the ad space on the home page plugging donations for the Hero Initiative. Evidently, consumers can now elect to donate to one of three charities when they purchase one of Wowio's ebooks as a gift for someone else. Ads for each of the three organizations (Hero Initative, YWCA Santa Monica and LIFT) circulate on the home page -- which is why I hadn't noticed the Hero Initiative ad earlier: it wasn't on the page at the time.

I'm left a little confused. I certainly think all three organizations are worthy causes, and kudos to Altounian/Wowio for giving them some attention. I think the only complaint anyone could possibly lodge there would just be that other causes are more worthwhile -- but that's a decidedly qualitative judgement and not really valid accordingly. That's not what confuses me.

I'm not confused by the Whys and Wherefores either. I can rattle off half a dozen reasons why they're choosing to do this, ranging from the absurdly cynical to the optimisitcally altruistic. I'm sure there were any number of rationales used, all of which make sense to me. And since the end result of supporting laudable organizations is the same, regardless of the motives, I'm not going to explore all those reasons here.

I guess I'm confused mostly around the promotion of the change. I grew up on Marvel comics, so I'm used to Stan Lee style hyperbole, but I think "3.0 blows it into outer space" is a bit much by any account. Especially in comparison to the 1.0 and 2.0 already cited. Furthermore, if it were really that momentous a change, why announce it ONLY through one Twitter account? True, there is the ad space on Wowio's home page, but the ads are taking up the same space that ads have always taken up on Wowio, effectively becoming a kind of visual white noise. The ads themselves are fine, but they just look like any other ads on Wowio's home page which I've learned to ignore. Just like I've learned to ignore all those banner ads with someone dancing because of low interest rates.

On June 11, Altounian tweeted about "an exploding initiative!" which I have to presume was this. A week later, he tweeted about 10 deals he was working on. Even if one assumes this counts as three separate deals, I think it's safe to presume he's still got several in some form of development. So this launch seems to be something less than what they intend to roll out.

I get the impression that Altounian is genuinely and honestly excited about this, and really does think it's a huge deal. Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not omniscient, so it's likely I'm not seeing the whole picture here. But I'm at a loss on how this is anything more than kind of a "hey, that's nice" addition. It might provide a few tax breaks and increase the goodwill of the company a bit, but I don't see this moving the needle very much on either of those. I don't see people getting drawn TO the site in order to donate to any of those causes (those likely to do just that are going to go to the organization's own web sites). Not to mention that it only tangentially (at best) ties into their core mission.

Maybe I'm completely off-base here. Maybe the 3.0 is something I've altogether missed in some kind of mental myopia. Maybe there are some really huge implications for the company that I'm just not seeing, regardless of how blatant they are. Maybe I'm missing some really critical piece of information.

Insights/comments/reactions from any Wowio employees, or those more in the know on the subject, would be appreciated.

About This Dark Horse Position

2009-06-30T22:11:00.000-04:00

I'm surprised I haven't seen this more widely circulated, but comic publisher Dark Horse has an opening for a "Comic Retail Manager." Although it's not expressly stated anywhere that I can find, it sounds to me like an entirely new position ("motivated, creative and organized self-starter").

Mike Richardson founded Dark Horse in 1986. His Sales & Marketing Vice-President, who I believe this new position will report to, has been with the company since 1997. That means that there's a lot of personal investment in the company. I don't doubt for one second that they've both put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making Dark Horse what it is today, and I don't doubt that they're both incredibly proud of exactly that. I mean, they have licenses for Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, Indiana Jones, Conan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer... You don't get to play with all of those properties unless you're pretty damn good at what you do!

The other thing that longevity says is that it's a good company to work for. The people who I know have worked there, largely, have worked there for several years. That suggests it's a good atmosphere and people actually enjoy working there. (The first job I had out of college, people were quitting pretty regularly. I only stayed eight months, and by then I was already the senior-most of eight graphics people on staff because so many others had left!)

However, the possible danger with all that personal investment is that it's a personal investment. These folks have gotten to where they are because of their own work, and that pride I mentioned earlier could come under fire if/when some new guy shows up and wants to try new ideas to "shake things up." There's a natural resistance to change, and there's almost certainly going to be some uphill challenges.

That said, Richardson hasn't made Dark Horse what it is all by himself. He seems to have known when things were getting beyond his reach and when to bring in outside experts. That's one of the hallmarks of a good businessman. And the very fact that they've recognized the need for a new position suggests that they're open to some new inputs and fresh ideas.

Actually, what strikes me as the biggest difficulty for potential candidates are the job requirements themselves. They're looking for a marketing person with knowledge of the comics direct market and distribution. That strikes me as a pretty small group of folks right there, as many comic fans know little about the distribution arm of comics. Add on top of that the ability to manage a small staff and having experience with licensed products and branding... I think we're talking about maybe a dozen or two people who are at all qualified. And of those, I think many of them are busy running their already successful comic shops and publishing companies. I'm talking about folks like James Sime, Brian Hibbs, Joe Nozemack and Jessie Garza. They've got plenty of their own blood, sweat and tears in their respective companies; they're not going to drop that very quickly, I'm sure.

Which leaves who? A handful of people, like myself, who've actually studied marketing and have been interested in comics as a medium long enough that they've studied how the whole operation works.

Of course, I'm sure a lot of people will apply just because it's an opportunity to work at Dark Horse, regardless of what qualifications they might have. Having been on the receiving end of resumes myself, I don't envy whoever's going to have make the first pass on all of those CVs. There's bound to be a lot of junk to wade through.

But the candidates who do have a chance, and the one who's able to rise above the others and ultimately secure the position, I think, will have great opportunity in front them. It's the chance to get in with a great company which clearly has a lot to offer, but still have some professional challenges that will give the person the opportunity to better him/herself.

I don't know about you, but I know I'm going to be dusting off my resume!

Zuda Competition

2009-06-29T21:54:00.000-04:00

Well, the end of the month is nigh and the competitors over at Zuda are getting anxious. This month, the contest has gotten particularly close evidently between the top two contenders. I was hoping it wouldn't come down to this (because it shouldn't need any help) but I feel the need to put in another plug for Dwight MacPherson's Sidewise...

If you haven't already, head on over there to cast your vote. Marking it as a "Favorite" and giving it a high star rating helps too.

I don't know Dwight personally, but we've crossed paths online a few times and his writing's gotten quite good. (Not that it was bad in the first place.) Not only that, but he has a better handle than most comic writers on marketing his work and, more significantly, he's one of the more hard-working writers on the web. Give the man a brief respite from his Sisyphian marketing efforts.

Mark Sable Detained For Writing Comics

2009-06-28T21:05:00.000-04:00

SFScope is reporting that writer Mark Sable was detained by the TSA for carrying a script for the next issue of Unthinkable, his comic about "a government think tank that was tasked with coming up with 9/11-type "unthinkable" terrorist scenarios that now are coming true."

Although Sable seemed positive about the experience (tons of writing material there, I'm sure) I'd be... well, I'll just say that "upset" would be an understatement.

Incognegro

2009-06-28T20:22:00.000-04:00

Mat Johnson's Incognegro just came out in paperback, after s number of generally positive reviews from the hardcover.

The story is about Zane Pinchback, a reporter from an African-American newspaper in 1930s New York who's investigating a series of hangings in the South. His skin is light enough that most Southerners presume he's white and he's thus able to pose as a Klansman in order to secure information about those responsible. His articles, under the pen name "Incognegro", are extremely powerful and are one of the few reasons there's any formal investigations at all.

However, he's not able to callous himself against seeing innocent men strung up time after time, and he's ready to call it quits when he's told that his brother has just been arrested for killing a white woman in Mississippi. Pinchback heads down to clear his brother and get him freed before an angry mob hangs him.

You can find any number of reviews of the hardcover version, and the general consensus is that it's a very well-crafted, powerful book. I'm not about to disagree. It's quite well-done and there are a number of particularly clever twists. But there's one passage I'd like to point out...

That's one thing that most of us know that most white folks don't. That race doesn't really exist. Culture? Ethnicity? Sure. Class too. But race is just a bunch of rules meant to keep us on the bottom.

Race is a strategy. The rest is people acting. Playing roles.

That's what white folks never get. They don't think they have accents. They don't think they eat ethnic foods. Their music is classical. They think they're just normal. That they are the universal, and that everyone else is an odd deviation from form.

I bought my copy of Incognegro in New York a couple weeks ago. Interestingly, the group of folks I ended up hanging out with most of my time up there consisted of my girlfriend (who's black), her good friend (also black) and her group of close friends (one Caucasian woman, one Latina, and four homosexual men). We all laughed and joked and generally had a great time, but given the mix of the group, the subjects of bigotry and prejudice not surprisingly did come up.

What probably struck me the most was how, despite being in a generally very liberal, progressive town, they almost all noted fairly recent and local instances where they were the subject of others' venom for no reason other than being themselves. None of them seemed to harbor any particular bitterness over the specific events; that was just something they unfortunately had to deal with, and any bitterness they might hold was more general -- "It's the 21st century; shouldn't we be past this shit?"

We should be past it. But we're not. And that surprised me because I'm a white, heterosexual male and I never saw any of that. I grew up watching Sesame Street and there all sorts of different types of folks there, but race was never an issue. My father worked in downtown Cleveland, where almost everyone he interacted with black but it was never a point of discussion. My mother worked in a hospital in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, but that was never an issue. So here I am, hearing the occasional news story about the KKK or Holocaust-deniers and assume those are exceptionally rare, freakish people.

But they're not.

I'm not about to pretend that I can even begin to imagine the discrimination that so many people endure. I've only glimpsed the slightest sliver of a fraction at most. And that's primarily because I'm dating a woman who happens to have dark skin.

But because that's not a viable option for many people, I think it's important to bring the discussion up. I didn't think it was still an issue because I didn't see it. I didn't see it because I didn't know what to look for. I hadn't really had that conversation to learn about someone else's experiences. And that, I think, is why you should go read Incognegro. Yes, it's about the 1930s and lynchings aren't very common any more, but Johnson uses the story to relay how and why people see things a certain way. He shows how absurd it is to treat people differently because of a label.

Put this on your shelf next to American Born Chinese. Where ABC spoke to reconciling your own heritage and culture with your own identity and sense of self, Incognegro addresses heritage and culture (or, more accurately, the labels of heritage and culture) as it relates to others. Powerful stuff.

Comic Shop Quandary

2009-06-25T20:38:00.001-04:00

I relayed yesterday my visit to Comics for Collectors. It was the first time I'd been in a comic shop for over a year with the express intention of buying comic books. My last experience in a shop did result in a small purchase, but this was the first time in a while that I was actively looking for comics to buy.

Most of what I had been purchasing regularly when I was last frequenting shops were moderately independent books (by which I mean that they were from publishers you'd probably heard of -- Viper, Oni, Avatar, etc. -- but no one who sold in the top 100), many of which have ended. As I'd already had reasonable runs on them, I didn't want to buy collected editions (I'd already paid for most of the issues once) but it had been long enough ago that the store had either sold out of or stored the back issues.

All of which means that I essentially "needed" to look for entirely new material, as if I were just buying comics for the first time.

That proved to be an interesting experience for me. I had been buying comics for so long that every month was just another part of the never-ending saga. For all intents and purposes, there was no "before" and every conceivable "after" was the same as "right now". I'd always been reading comics and fully intended to always continue.

But since I did stop buying comics, and there was now an "before" and "after" that looked markedly different, how do I step back into that world without committing myself to again in perpetuity? I certainly can't pick up any random issue of anything Marvel or DC publishes, as those are clearly the thrust of that continuum I was trying to avoid. Much of Dark Horse and Image are out for the same reason.

Nor do I want to pick up any random issue of one of those moderately independent titles because, even though they're more likely to be more finite, I have no real means of obtaining back issues or following along future ones.

The answer, of course, lies in the trade paperbacks and graphic novels. This is precisely why they're selling relatively well; people can pick up a complete story without searching for back issues or trying to follow some byzantine continuity. As noted earlier, though, I do want to be careful not to purchase something which I've already purchased to some degree in pamphlet form.

I actually deliberated on the subject for some time. I certainly did want to buy something, but I really wanted to make that purchase count. I eyeballed a few things by Warren Ellis, the recent Simon & Kirby collection, some Ditko-drawn Archives, a Neal Adams Teen Titans hardcover... I spent a while rummaging through the quarter bins, thinking that I'd be more than happy to accept a lesser perceived quality at that price point.

Ultimately, I opted for paperback editions of Joe Sacco's Palestine and Mat Johnson's Incognegro. I was well aware of the content of both, but had not actually read either. I knew both works were entirely self-contained, and were ones I'd had on my "I'd really like to get around to reading them" list since I'd first heard of them.

The decision on which books to purchase was likely a lot more difficult for me than it might be for most people, given how much I've devoted myself to the medium over the years. Although by no means do I want to slight the addictive power of alcohol, I did find myself making comparisons to recovered alcoholics. Once you've quit, it's obscenely easy to start back up again and I wanted to make damn sure that I wouldn't find myself tempted to say, "Well, what's one more issue?"

I still love the medium as a whole, and I almost always enjoy the experience of actually reading through a comic. Even the bad ones give me an excuse to exercise my brain, trying to figure why exactly it's so bad. And I'm still reading any number of strips online (see the list at the right) but those pamphlets are dangerous things. Certainly more dangerous than I'd realized before last week -- as evidenced by the fact that I also bought RASL #2-4.

Damn it!

Comics For Collectors

2009-06-24T16:07:00.000-04:00

Ithaca, like many college towns, has its own comic shop. Comics for Collectors was started in 1981 by Bill Turner and Tim Gray, who had already founded the Comic Book Club of Ithaca a few years earlier. It was about half a block from where I was staying, so it was almost mandatory than I stop by during the two hours the S.O. and her friend went out for pedicures. It was, conveniently, a Wednesday afternoon so I was eager to see not only the shop itself but the clientèle that frequented it.

I stopped in right around 5:00, expecting to see a good number of fans hitting the store on their way home from work. I was surprised, though, to find the shop empty except for one employee who greeted me pleasantly as she was pulling together a customer's file. All of the latest comics were displayed prominently along one wall, separated into three categories: Marvel, DC, and everything else. (To be fair, there may have been an Image section between the DC and everything else categories -- I vaguely recall seeing some Image books around there, but didn't think to look closely enough to see if it was a section by itself or just part of the everything else.) Within those sections, titles were racked alphabetically, and it looked like they carried a pretty good range of independent books as well as the superheroes staples. (There's an unintended pun there, but I'm not going to make the effort to refine it.)

The rest of the walls of the store were lined with bookshelves featuring a large number of graphic novels, trade paperbacks, and other similar collections. The top shelf was about seven feet high, and above that, the walls were decorated with framed original comic art -- most of which was for sale. There was a small area in the center of the floor with another bookshelf of manga, and maybe a dozen long boxes of fairly recent (within the last 3-4 months) back issues. Another couple boxes were marked as Quarter Bins.

There was a checkout counter by the front door, and the area behind it housed customers' files and a few dozen older comics, several dating back to the 1930s. There was a window display featuring various comics and TPB collections (see photo), and there were a few action figures scattered throughout the store. I think I saw maybe five or six small statuettes/busts. Trading cards and CCGs were nowhere to be seen, nor did I see any other of the typically peripheral comics ephemera one usually finds in LCSes.

I was in the store for about 45 minutes, and saw a total of four other customers during that time. They all chatted briefly and cordially with the employee, but they were mainly general pleasantries with little in the way of "traditional" fanboy talk. The owner (Tim bought Bill out back in 2000) came out from the back room a few times, working on some sort of stocking issues. He greeted customers (including me) pleasantly and noted that they had some more stock not on display if there was anything I was looking for and didn't see. He also brought out his dog, Snowy, who took to lounging casually near the entrance.

When someone asked me a couple hours later what I thought of Comics for Collectors, I found myself somewhat dumb-struck for a good answer. It was unlike any comics shop I'd ever been in. It had a good selection of comics, but there was clearly a deliberate decision to only showcase the most recent ones, in favor of a large selection of collected editions. It took a little while for me to fully process what they were doing and how they operated.

I don't know how long the shop has been set-up in this manner, but it's the first I've seen that's adjusted themselves to fit the changing market. Historically, comic shops have had rows and rows of back issues because that was the primary way readers could read older stories. But many shop owners have noted that with the predominance of eBay (where retailers as well as individual collectors now compete head-to-head in selling back issues) coupled with publishers putting an ever-increasing amount of material into TPB form, in-store back issue sales have dropped considerably. Comics for Collectors has wisely removed the vast majority of back issues from their facilities, making room for the more popular collections. Furthermore, the back issues they do keep out are the ones that are more likely to sell -- namely, those which still have some degree of timeliness. People who just picked up Captain America #600 and enjoyed it, for example, can quickly grab #597-599 to catch up on whatever story lead-ins were there. Anything much older than that is then available in TPB form.

What also strikes me as a smart move is how they've organized their bookshelves. It's generally alphabetical by title, but they have a few callouts as well. For example, near the W section, where Watchmen is prominently on display, they have additional shelf space for a small Alan Moore section. There were also areas dedicated to Jeff Smith, Ed Brubaker, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Neal Adams and a few others that I'm not remembering offhand. It's a great and simple cross-sell strategy: if you liked Transmetropolitan you might also like Anna Mercury. I must admit that I was sorely tempted to pick up the first issues of Ignition City because of that. (I convinced myself to do a wait-for-the-trade approach here.)

Ultimately, it was very striking to see a comic shop sell comics as it makes the most business sense given today's market. They clearly saw where things were heading and adopted a different approach accordingly. That says to me that there's some business savvy at work here that goes far beyond the typical "I sell comics just because I love to be around comics" attitude that's wildly predominant throughout the retail side of the industry.

What I'm unsure about is the exact reasoning behind the lack of CCGs and the like. I'm sure this was a conscious business decision, but I don't know if that has more to do with catering to the specific preferences of that geographic area or an inability to compete with a hobby shop around the corner. (In short, I don't know if the hobby shop started selling cards and then the comic shop stopped, or the comic shop never sold them in the first place and the hobby shop decided it was an opportunity for them.) Either way, I like the fact that the comic shop caters particularly to people who like comics; it's not a shop that sells superhero materials and happens to have a few non-superhero comics available as well.

Interestingly, this tactic anecdotally works well for the non- "Wednesday crowd" types. A friend who lives in Ithaca noted that she actually does enjoy some comics, but she's decidedly NOT a fan of superheroes. At some time in the past, she mentioned, the shop wasn't very friendly to folks like her but the current set-up and operations are much more inviting and conducive to walking in off the street. (Which, by the way, is exceptionally easy to do given their location. Indeed, while I was there, one person stopped in just to pet Snowy.) It's a store which caters to people who want to read comics.

And that might sound like an obvious statement, but it really isn't. Some time back I discussed how "comics shops" are really "licensed properties shops" and how that a real comic shop model wasn't viable. Evidently, I was wrong on that last point as Comics for Collectors really IS a comic shop, and doing rather well. I'm very pleased to be proven wrong on that point, and it's absolutely the type of shop I would love to frequent.

The Comic Book Club of Ithaca

2009-06-23T15:18:00.001-04:00

The S.O. and I just got back from a week-long vacation in Ithaca, NY -- hanging out with a bunch of new friends and generally having a great time. (Fairly cheaply, too, considering we were gone for a whole week and had some excellent accommodations.) But, relevant to you -- the comics aficionado -- I also partook of some comic-related events that I thought I'd share here.

Before going, one of our friends pointed out to me that Ithaca has had a comic book club for many years, and one of their meetings happened to fall on the day we were rolling into town. The Comic Book Club of Ithaca was founded back in the 1970s and has continued through to this day. They've even gotten substantial enough to host Ithacon on a regular basis. They meet twice a month at the local library in one of the meeting rooms, and chat about comics. There's generally a theme to each meeting, and the discussion is in a round-table format. People are encouraged to bring examples relevant to the discussion, and the atmosphere is decidedly casual and friendly.

The meeting I attended was focused on "media comics" -- comics which are based on licenses and properties initially developed for another medium, everything from Tarzan to Mickey Mouse to Jerry Lewis to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was cordially met by one of organizers upon entering the library and he provided a robust accounting of the organization while we waited for the other members to arrive. Once everyone who was expected to be there was present, we began by looking at some TPB collections one of the members brought in showing off some stories about Animaniacs, Star Wars, Donald Duck and others. Lots of interesting tidbits were brought up, like citing how many "mainstream" comic creators that are well-known today got their start working on comparatively "obscure" books like Dr. Who and noting the single instance of Carl "The Good 'Duck' Artist" Barks drawing a Porky Pig story!

The overall discussion also tackled specific questions relating to media comics such as "What was the earliest media comic?" and "What media comics grew to be more popular than their source material?" These particulars were left somewhat open-ended as we were discussing things in more general terms, rather than doing actual research. We didn't have a lot of hard information in front of us and obviously didn't have much time to do anything comprehensive. But the range of backgrounds and experiences everyone provided made for a very well-rounded discussion.

Most of the time these days, I have my comic conversations like this. Online, over the course of days and weeks. The organic nature of an in-person panel discussion -- one that's a little more directed than random conversations started in your Local Comic Shop on any given Wednesday -- can be really invigorating with a good group of people. If I were better at organizing things like that, I'd seriously look into starting such a group in my area.

It was really a great start to my time in Ithaca. The discussion was smart and engaging, the guys (none of the female members made it to that particular meeting) were all friendly and inviting, and the whole atmosphere was very comfortable -- even for an introverted outsider like myself. It really struck me as a great group, and I'd definitely enjoy dropping in on future meetings the next time I'm in the Ithaca area. Thanks to Alec, Bill, Jeff and Will for helping to kick off a really enjoyable vacation!

Apologies & A Quick Link

2009-06-22T22:48:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days; I've been out of town with limited Internet access. (My last several posts were actually written a week ago!) I do have at least a couple post ideas from the trip, but I'll get into that when I have more time and am more caught up on sleep!

In the meantime, if this hasn't made the rounds already (as I said, I've been out of town) my pals David Gallaher and Valerie D'Orazio made it into this Penthouse article! Fortunately for me, they don't have pictures of the two of them -- that would definitely fall in the TMI category!

Second Life As Comic Creator

2009-06-18T02:58:00.000-04:00

Second Life, as I've noted before, is an open-ended online tool that people can use in to achieve a variety of objectives. People can use it to achieve a wide variety of ends, from adventurous role-playing games to conventions to storytelling.I've also seen Second Life used specifically to create artwork for comics, precluding the need for a creator to be illustratively inclined. However, doing comics with a larger cast becomes increasingly more difficult as you add more characters -- you in fact need a different person logging in and posing for each character, much like you need separate actors for a film or TV show. To that end, Saffia Widdershins and Annechen Lowey are holding a casting call for Second Life residents for their new comic series The Quest for the Golden Prim. Details can be found here. I'm not sure if I personally have the time to devote to such an endeavor, but I'll certainly be curious to see it develop, both the process and the end result. The deadline for applications is Sunday, June 21.

Just How Bad Is It For Newspapers?

2009-06-17T08:51:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned last week, Cool Jerk creator Paul Horn got himself married. Here's a pic snapped just before the ceremony got started...
That's Paul on the left. On the right is journalist Mark Nero, who's written for The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Los Angeles Daily News, The Boston Globe and The Pasadena Star-News among other papers. Apparently, he has to moonlight as a wedding officiator to make ends meet! Not only that, the book he's carrying is just some random Reader's Digest hardcover with his notes taped to the inside!

I don't know about you, but that seems to me like pretty slim pickins for journalists trying to earn a living!

Windsor McCay Day

2009-06-16T00:01:00.003-04:00

It's Windsor McCay Day in Spring Lake, MI and, since I can't be there in person, I thought I'd celebrate by showcasing McCay animating his most famous characters...

Brilliant work. Simply brilliant.

By all means, track down at least some of McCay's work. It really is absolutely breath-taking.