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Sorry. Feel free to hop over this.
Practically all the anti-trademark servicing advocates mentioned so far have admitted that it makes good financial sense to do work-for-hire, and that this is something that they have done in the past. Hey, even Sim admits it. The coporate structure is the one paying the bills. What they see as a problem is that creators given a chance to move beyond this stage will often stay within it, and customers who talk the talk won't walk the walk. To the best of my knowledge, no one here (with the possible exception of Jack) has talked the talk, so there's no need to ask you to walk it. If Barbelith did have a kind of comic purchasing philosophy, it would be for comics that raise the bar and try new things, no matter who or where they came from.
This isn't about direct change at a retailer, creator or publisher level. With few exceptions, none of us have much of a say in those matters, other then what we buy and where we buy it, which is what this discussion should be about. Many creators need to do corporate work to survive. Corporate work takes away from the time a creator can spend on personal work. Corporate work will not be around forever. Within five years see the New Marvel fall in ruins, just like it always does. It's already started, with the whole George Clooney/Nick Fury flap. The only thing in the corporate structure that is not expendable is the trademark. Unlike creator owned material, creators have no say in their future on corporate owned material.
I agree wholeheartedly with Benjamin that we are experiencing a new Golden Age in comics. There is more good work out there now then ever before, and it doesn't look likely to end soon. The amount of creator owned projects achieving modest success is astounding. In fact, it's welcoming. The diversity in the market is incredible. But now we've reached this crossroads where these comics can either grow, or they just become the farm team for the corporate giants.
On other matters, coming from someone who used to work at a bookstore, let me just say that having even one-half of the staff know where the graphic novels section is probably being very charitable. Having to oversee 100,000 titles on the shelf, not to mention having even the barest knowledge of the other 3 million books available in print, does not allow for much in the way of effective retailing. Especially when bookstore employees have the most amount of space to cover per person of any retail environment. In short, one shelf of graphic novels gets lost pretty easily in a big, ol' store. And changing the categorization of anything is a chore. In order to change the subject heading of any book I always had to wade through the bureaucracy at least three times to be ackowledged. Having comics in bookstores is reasonable. Depending on the store to get the right ones in and shelve them correctly is a nightmare.
About this idea that comics and superheroes go together better then any other combo malarkey, tell that to the Europeans and the Japanese, both of which sell many times the comics of the US (and one presumes UK)market, and without the superheroes. Even in the US, the most widely read comics are, have been and always will be non-superhero newspaper strips. Garfield will sell more books then the X-men, from now until the day we die. Yes, we were talking about the business of comic "books", but this aspect of the discussion is about the medium, which doesn't see such boundries as books or strips. On the flip side, in which comics are the ideal medium for superhero adventures, even if this were true in the past, I think the Spider-man movie might shake that idea up a bit. I'm surprised that so many people who have this superheroes = comics view aren't shitting their pants at the prospect that Hollywood is finally catching up. Oh, and dependent on your definition of superheroes, I'd say that Buffy and Star Wars certainly fall into that category. In other words, the success of superhero comic books in the US market is the exception when compared to the entire medium, stateside or worldwide, and not the rule.
Printing comics on newsprint at a lower price won't work. In fact, it will make things worse, especially for newstands. Given the choice to carry a comic that will net them pennies, or using that space for greeting cards that will net them dimes, you can bet that the stores will pick the latter. If you were to produce comics like that, a better way to go about it would be to go the Japanese way, with really big comics on newsprint (say 100+ pages) that cost the same or slightly higher then what is currently on the stands. The retailer gets a higher price point and the customer gets more bang for his buck. Sim even did something like this with his Cerebus campaign comic. It reprinted three issues that hadn't been collected in trade, and it cost the same amount of money as one of his regular issues. It was probably a loss leader, but it no doubt increased the visibilty of his comic.
I'd really like to see the industry try the loss leader as a regular thing. Instead of across an the board decrease in price, why not produce a small line of really cheap stand alone comics for kids, with their most popular characters, similar to Spidey Super-Stories. It might lose them money, but it will encourage comics reading and expose kids to their concepts and characters, as well as encourage parents to go to the store without having to worry about emptying their wallets. I wouldn't doubt it if many creators wouldn't be willing to take a crack at writing and drawing a kid's comic, just for the challenge, and to advance a medium they love.
OK, almost done.
This shouldn't be solely about Ellis or what he advocates in comics. If you know of any other theories that are out there whether you believe in them or not, or have a theory you'd like to share, don't feel the need to compare to Ellis.
The idea was put forward that there isn't as much good genre material out there to snag the non-superhero audience. While I certainly wouldn't agree that this is the case, in comparison to other mediums, I'd say that's true. But compare now to just five years ago. The number of good genre titles is increasing dramatically. In another few years, if creators aren't forced financially into spending all their time on corporate work, you won't be able to make this argument. This problem is the result of the corporate dominance, not the reason for it. The creators, and the medium, want to diversify, but it's a tough fight.
It's true that most comics fans don't care, and really, why should they? Most of them have no idea that the way things are currently set-up, the comic industry could suffer a crippling blow tomorrow, destroying many of their favourite titles. Don't believe me? Every so often I imagine that I'll click on the internet to see an announcement saying that Diamond or Marvel has folded, and watch the domino effect over the weeks as the industry crumbles to the ground. It's all connected, and it all starts with your wallet.
Almost completely unrelated, but I'd like to give mad props to the Captain for giving it a go with his store. I hope you don't see this thread as being against retailers, especially one who kicks mighty ass like yourself. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that you had reasonably priced kids comics right out front. You're one of the good ones, man. |
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