The Trouble with Marvel, final cut
(Graphic Novels) The five-part essay serialized this week, which examines Marvel Comics' attempts to navigate its way between the comic-book shops and the bookstore market, has now been re-edited, corrected, and posted to a page all its own. Read it here.
Posted @ 4:50 PM by Dirk Deppey

Sunday comics printer fights debt
(Comic Strips) Tennessee-based American Color Graphics, a printer responsible for the production of inserts and Sunday comics sections for some 200 newspapers nationwide, has had a hard time of it recently. With profits down almost $75 million in the last two years and faced with an undisclosed debtload due in 2005, ACG has announced its intention to issue $280 million in secured notes in order to placate the wolves at the door. The Nashville City Paper explains:

"The notes, due in 2010, will be used to redeem all outstanding 12.75 percent senior subordinated notes, due in 2005. In addition, the company will repay all amounts outstanding under ACG’s existing credit facility; to repurchase, and concurrently retire, all outstanding shares of preferred stock and to cancel all outstanding options to purchase shares of preferred stock of ACG Holdings Inc.; and to pay related transaction fees and expenses."

AGC, which maintains nine print facilities in North America, announced that it would lose $315,000 for the 2003 fiscal year.
Posted @ 6:20 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Trouble with Marvel, conclusion
(Comic Books) We're in the home stretch of a five-part series examining Marvel Comics' efforts to expand its presence in the bookstore market. Here's parts one, two, three and four, for those of you still catching up.

Up until the 1960s, the financial investment required to produce and distribute comics meant that comic-book publishers wound up setting the terms of debate when dealing with the talent. Work-for-hire -- the practice of demanding that creators sign away all rights to their work, essentially making the company the creator -- was the order of the day, and the few attempts to unionize writers and artists in a concerted effort to demand better contracts invariably went nowhere.

Galvanized by the egalitarian spirit of the 1960s and '70s, the underground-comix movement produced the first real market where cartoonists were able to maintain ownership of the comics they produced. When the headshops which by and large sold their works began to fade, so did underground comix -- but the seeds of "creators rights" for cartoonists had been planted. With the creation of the Direct Market, the subject came to the forefront, as independent publishers like Pacific and Eclipse used the lure of creator ownership and editorial independence to attract talent that might otherwise have gone to the major companies. During the heydays of the 1980s and early '90s, Marvel and DC began implementing more favorable contracts for its top creators in an effort to stem the tide, and for a brief moment it seemed like comic books were finally about to shake their sweatshop past.

The movement suffered a setback during the second speculators' bust and subsequent Distributor Wars of the 1990s, which allowed Marvel to safely shut down its Epic division without worrying about how it was going to attract major talent. As the market contracted, only the top four or five companies could really promise their writers and artists a living wage, thus winnowing the effective competition and putting all the chips back into the hands of the likes of Marvel and DC. Back in a position to demand that its creators bite the bullet and take what they could get, Marvel proceeded to do just that.

It's against this backdrop that Bill Jemas could make such cavalier statements as "This is really about creator freedom and compensation much more than creator rights, the deal is right in line if not more favorable than what the other companies offer for 'creator owned properties.' " And why not? He's a man at the top of the Direct Market, speaking to journalists covering the Direct Market in order to reach readers and potential contributors whose only real world of commerce is the Direct Market. Never mind that he's offering a pittance in exchange for a lion's share; he's speaking to the faithful, secure in the knowledge that they'll be happy to serve. Why shouldn't he act like he's holding all the cards?

Answer: because he's attempting to enter the bookstore market, where his cards are considerably less valuable.

The booksellers market is not the Direct Market. It's a sprawling, decentralized network of competing publishers, distributors and retailers, none of whom hold more than a fraction of marketshare, and all of whom compete with one another to bring that bestseller to the top of the charts -- and more importantly, to maintain a backlist of perrenial sellers which will attract new readers year after year, the bread-and-butter of any successful publishing house. While nobody's going to give the best contracts to an unknown first-timer, neither are they likely to offer them the kind of highway-robbery deals Marvel trades in; you never know which of those first-timers is going to go on to steady sales and reliable name recognition, now do you? Authors who strike gold are likely to remember whether or not their publisher tried to screw them the next time their contracts come up for renewal. The writer, not the work, is the intellectual capital everyone's trying to acquire, and one doesn't want to alienate the moneymakers. In the booksellers market, work-for-hire carries an air of sleaze wisely relegated to disposable romance novels and fly-by-night publishers -- and well it should.

This is not to say that the magic of capitalism turned the book trade into some airy "best of all possible worlds" with a pass of Adam Smith's hand, of course. Authors have been agitating for more advantageous working conditions since the first copyright laws were issued in England. American author Mark Twain was one of the notables who appeared in Congress in the later half of the 1800s to call for proper copyright protections, and eventually founded his own publishing house to protect his work. The Authors Guild formed in 1919 to provide a voice for writers in legislative bodies and contract negotiations. Organizations like The American Society of Journalists and Authors routinely share information to ensure that their members don't get screwed on the deal. Even in literary genres which sprung from the sleaziest of pulp magazines, there are unions, guilds and associations which have worked tirelessly to uplift their memberships, from science fiction to mystery to cowboy stories. The kinds of battles cartoonists could never quite bring themselves to fight were won decades ago in the book trade. It's a long way from the Direct Market.

Talent, not brand-name, is king in bookstores. Nobody buys "Doubleday novels" or "Penguin novels" the way comics fans used to buy their wares by publisher. Nobody gives a shit who's publishing Tom Clancy or Toni Morrison; should a popular author decide that their contract is insufficient, the trouble taken in walking to a rival publisher when the time comes to renegotiate isn't going to provide much in the way of disincentive. To a certain extent, this principle already exists in the Direct Market; Garth Ennis may write Punisher comics for Marvel, but his next literary collaboration with Preacher artist Steve Dillon is going to be published by DC, where both men know that the end result will have a "© Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon" planted safely in the indicia. Grant Morrison may draw a steady paycheck for New X-Men, but The Filth belongs to him -- and Marvel ain't touching it. Neil Gaiman is writing a work-for-hire series from Marvel in order to finance his efforts to re-secure the rights to Miracleman; that doesn't mean he suddenly finds Marvel's contracts attractive enough to bring them his next American Gods. This principle only gets more dramatic in the book trade.

Marvel isn't even in a particularly advantageous position within the graphic-novel section of the bookstore hierarchy. Right now that place is reserved for Tokyopop by a wide margin, and their most worrisome competitor is Viz, not Marvel or DC. In any case, they've got their own plans to attract talent.

Marvel's approach to bookstore success -- using pre-owned characters to make one's mark, thus ensuring total ownership of any and all profits and ancilliary benefits -- is dictated by the mountain of debt it inherited from Ron Perelman, more than anything else. As I've stated previously, Marvel is less a publishing house than an intellectual-property farm these days, and its ultimate benefactor is not Barnes & Noble but rather the movie theater and Toys R Us. Because the company has to keep the licensing money flowing or die, it cannot afford too many publishing successes which involve giving half the proceeds to the creators. This motivation drives all else. How else could you possibly explain Marvel's half-assed presence at the recent BookExpo America? The Pulse's Heidi MacDonald attended this year's BEA, and for the most part returned with nothing but praise for the graphic-novel publishing contingent -- all but one company:

"Finally, Marvel's presence was definitely a let down, consisting of a single table manned by someone who had been working there for approximately 10 days. 'It was befuddling,' said one observer. 'It looked like their booth at San Diego last year,' said another."

I suspect that if it were a gathering of filmmakers and licensing agents, Marvel might've spent more than thirty bucks on the booth.

None of this is to say that Marvel is necessarily destined to fail in the bookstore market. With the right title, and the necessary buzz backing it, anything is possible. That said, the company's ability to work the market to its own advantage seems limited by outside concerns and a need to expend as much of its extra cash in paying down debts rather than taking chances. Marvel's not looking for good books so much as saleable properties, which is why so many of its new initiatives reek so much of High Concept.

All of this brings us, in roundabout fashion, back to Trouble. It's a perfect metaphor for the company's position, when you think about it: an attempt to break into another, possibly more profitable market, it nonetheless retains just enough trace elements of the Marvel Universe to ensure that Mark Millar remains legally replaceable. It mimics the latest advances in modern teen novels (sex, booze and an attempt to deal with "modern issues"), but still feels like it was written by committee; I've had a chance to read the first issue, and frankly I couldn't shake the impression that I was about to watch Archie and Veronica fuck. Series like Love Hina and Chobits work because there's an underlying personality behind the storytelling; their authors have an owner's stake in the property and know that they're in it for the long haul; Millar's work reads like it's job is to produce a hit comic which leads to bigger paychecks on better projects. This isn't a formula likely to produce longterm success, but it's the one to which Marvel seems irrevocably wedded. Trouble indeed.
Posted @ 6:20 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

In other news
(Potpourri) Let's take one last sweep through the news and items of interest before signing off for the week:

• Publishers Weekly takes a look at the bookstore sales figures for April, which were down in nine of thirteen designated categories -- most notably adult hardcovers, down 33.7% (ouch).

• The Denver Post becomes the latest newspaper to apologize for running Dick Locher's allegedly anti-Semitic editorial cartoon. (Link via Romenesko.)

• Courtesy of Bookslut comes this extensive January Magazine interview with cartoon journalist Joe Sacco, who recently returned to the Palestinian Occupied Territories to witness the latest round of troubles for himself.

• Meet Eric Reaves, Jim Davis' ghost artist on Garfield.

• Australia's Maitland Mercury offers up a history of one of the nation's longest-running comic strips, Ginger Meggs.

• The Pulse features interviews with two up-and-coming artists: webcomics cartoonist Brendan Cahill and comic-book cartoonist Abby Denson.

• Newsarama, meanwhile, conducted a detailed interview with Fantagraphics co-founder Gary Groth, who looks back over his company's recent tribulations.

• J. Torres' series of columns on surviving a portfolio review with one's prospects intact continues.

• Good grief -- it's Linus season in St. Paul, Minnesota! There's Linuses everywhere! (Thanks to Jason Stebner for posting this link to our message board.)

• Courtesy of Massachusetts' Hatfield Valley Advocate comes your "comics for grown-ups" article for the week.

• Okay, I'll cop to being something of a Fantagraphics "company man" when it gets right down to it, but this is ridiculous.

Finally, NeilAlien points to a growing controversy among Direct Market retailers -- it seems that the first issue of Marvel's new mini-series The Eternal hit the stands recently, and while the book carries a parental advisory notice, it apparently contains much stronger content than this rating would suggest. Over at ICv2, the outraged letters from retailers are piling up -- here's Ron Catapano, whose letter started the discussion, followed in short order by Steven Huber, Les Bowman and James Deckert. Of course, "comics go softcore" is a classic dog-bites-man story (Hello-o-o-o!), but such material has become more prominent recently in a surprising variety of titles. Probably the lamest example I can think of is the picture at right, promotional artwork for Marvel's New Mutants relaunch. Yes, that is in fact supposed to be Dani Moonstar -- apparently there's nothing today's modern Cheyenne women enjoy more than wandering nekkid through the open prairie plains like a Zane Grey wet dream. Sheesh.

As if that weren't enough, Alan David Doane has found a solid, practical reason not to give copies of the new 25¢ issue of The Hulk to children. And people wonder why the American Family Association has been nosing into comics lately?
Posted @ 6:20 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

French cartoonist George Pichard dies
(Comic Books) Fumetti.org alerts us to news that George Pichard, a pioneer in the French erotic cartooning scene, died last Saturday at the age of 83. Beginning in commercial art, Pichard began cartooning professionally in 1956 with the strip Miss Mimi. In 1967, Pichard switched gears and illustrated Blanche Épiphanie, the first of many erotic comics which would come to define his career before he finally retired in 1990.

You can find an obituary for Pichard in Le Monde (Google translation, thanks to Steven Wintle for the link). A small sample of his work can be found on his Lambiek page.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Top Cow countersues Michael Turner
(Comic Books) Tuesday we learned that cartoonist Michael Turner, whose art quickly came to define the popular superheroine Witchblade, had filed suit May 2nd against Image Comics member-company Top Cow for control of Fathom and other characters he claims to have created. It turns out that Top Cow sued him, his company Aspen, and artists Frank Mastromauro and Daryl Caldwell right back last Tuesday. Newsarama has the story:

"While the counterclaim has 15 individual complaints, the thrust of Top Cow's claims boil down to three areas: 1) Aspen (inclusive, meaning all named counter-defendants) committed fraud; 2) as written into his contract, Top Cow had the right of first refusal on Turner's next property; and 3) during Turner's employment contract with Top Cow, there was specific language in the contract that stated anything created during the term of his employment with Top Cow that wasn't specifically delineated in a separate agreement was owned by Top Cow. Soulfire (formerly Dragonfly) and Ekos were created during that term, and were previously advertised going back roughly two years, as Top Cow projects."

The article goes on to analyze the countersuit, listing and explaining each of the fifteen complaints.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Trouble with Marvel, part four
(Comic Books) This is the fourth of five installments of our look at Marvel Comics' dalliance with the booksellers' market; latecomers are encouraged to read part one, part two and part three before continuing.

Marvel recently announced two competing initiatives, each clearly intended to make the company more competitive on bookstore shelves.

The first was Tsunami, which is meant to appeal directly to manga fans. Eleven titles have been announced to date, each taking a different tack in attempting to attract a non-Marvel readership. The "first wave" involves an exotic romance comic (Namor), a horror comic (Venom), a giant robot comic (Sentinel), a spy thriller (Mystique) and two teen-adventure comics (Human Torch, Runaways). This is followed by a "second wave" featuring a post-apocalyptic thriller (Wolverine: Snikt!), a Kirby-esque sci-fi comic (Inhumans), an "urban" superhero comic (The Crew) and another attempt to re-boot the X-Men continuity without all the extraneous back-story (New Mutants). Most recently announced is the "third wave", of which only the teenage Indiana Jones-style comic Quest has been revealed to date.

The manga influence varies wildly from title to title, but with a few exceptions each attempts to downplay the traditional-superhero aspects of existing characters, while still remaining within Marvel's stable of pre-existing trademarks -- more on that in a bit. Some of the titles are drawn by authentic manga illustrators, some by american artists in the manga style, still others bear no traces of Eastern comics influence whatsoever. The underlying idea here is to see just how much of the manga influence is required to sell softcovers to the Tokyopop crowd.

The other initiative is a relaunch of Epic Comics, the line pioneered by the late Archie Goodwin in the 1980s. A mix of creator-owned and company-owned comics, the original Epic offered considerably greater autonomy to its artists and resulted in such fondly-remembered titles as Moonshadow and Elektra: Assassin. This second incarnation seems to be a bit less friendly to the concept of creator ownership, but hasn't quite dismissed it altogether; while the first two attempts at articulating Epic's publishing principles met with what could most charitably be described as a mixed reaction, Marvel CEO Bill Jemas has been fairly consistent in his message, if somewhat vague in exactly what that message ultimately means. So near as anyone can tell, Epic will be where creators are given free reign in producing the sort of material the company doesn't usually touch -- though the use of existing Marvel superheroes is encouraged. As for creator ownership, this is as close to a clear statement as the company's issued to date, from Jemas' Marville #7:

"Look at Diamond Distributors' monthly list of the top 300 comics: one or two creator-owned books may find their way into the top 100 for a month or two, but the bulk of these titles dwell at the bottom of the list, selling a few thousand copies, and losing a few thousand dollars, per issue.

"Moreover, from Marvel's point of view, these books don't have much value, because most of the long-term upside opportunity for ancilliary revenues belongs to you, not us."

Jemas goes on to note that this doesn't necessarily mean that Marvel is against the concept of creator ownership, but with qualifiers like these they certainly aren't entirely behind it, either. It's as mixed a message, and more than a little suspicious: the first paragraph is as weaselly a statement as you could hope to find, while the second surprises with its brutal honesty. Par for the course, where Marvel's been concerned lately.

Take the first paragraph. The principal reason for the preponderance of company-owned titles in the top 100 Diamond bestsellers, of course, is that that's what Marvel and DC have traditionally been in the business of selling; because the overwhelming majority of the Direct Market's customer base is composed of Marvel and DC fans, those two companies have free reign to set the terms of employment for the writers and artists they employ.

This leads us to the second paragraph. Marvel currently has good reason to want those ancilliary revenues. As I've noted before, the company is $151 million in debt, due to the gross mismanagement of previous owners whose efforts had left Marvel in bankruptcy court; the majority of those notes come due by the end of the decade. Marvel currently uses licensing monies from various sources (toys, film and television, mostly) to pay this debt down. The publishing division currently comprises just one-fifth of the company's income, and is thus ill-equipped to handle the financial burden independently. Without licensing, the company would likely find itself again seeking bankruptcy protection -- Marvel needs that money, and only an expanding base of intellectual capital can keep it coming.

What's surprising therefore isn't that Marvel seems reluctant to publish creator-owned properties, but that it's willing to consider the concept at all. While the company has only recently begun accepting submissions, a few accounts of attempts by creators to negotiate with it have already surfaced. Take this one by writer Micah Wright, from Rich Johnston's internet comics-gossip column Lying in the Gutters:

"They also went On and On about the need to turn everything around for TV and Features, which, again depressed me because (a) what makes a good comic and what makes a good movie/tv show are not necessarily the same thing, and (b) they nimbly dodged all of my questions about 'so what if I create a new character for you that you turn into a Spider-Man sized film deal, what kind of money do I see for that?' I consider that to be highly shiver-inducing, especially after my exciting adventures in getting ripped off as an Animation writer."

By all accounts I've heard so far, Marvel intends to use Epic's creator-ownership possibilities primarily as a reward for its own creators, specifically those who've diligently provided the company with new characters and concepts on the work-for-hire plan. Creator-ownership could also be useful in luring popular writers and artists who'd otherwise take their more heartfelt work elsewhere -- it's probably no accident that while Preacher writer Garth Ennis is willing to write Marvel's Punisher for a paycheck, his newest multi-volume graphic novel with collaborator Steve Dillon will be for DC's Vertigo imprint. Used judiciously, Epic could conceivably prove competitive in cutting into Vertigo's base of creators. Whether they will, however, is another matter.

In the end, the thinking behind Tsunami and Epic may come at a price for the company's publishing division. Work-for-hire is all well and good for conducting business in the Direct Market, but bookstore distribution works by an entirely different set of standards. There, the conditions under which Marvel is used to doing business simply don't exist, and the company's "own-it-all, grab-it-all" philosophy may prove to be more of a liability than an advantage.

Tomorrow: in the conclusion of our series, we look at the tug-of-war between creator-ownership and licensing, and how it may affect Marvel's chances for success in the book trade.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

In other news
(Potpourri) Here's a look at the rest of today's items of interest on the internet:

• Slush Factory's Christian Dumais interviews Gary Glenn, President of the of the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association, about the sectarian Christian group's recent campaign against the presence of pornography and porn stars at comic-book conventions. It's actually a legitimate concern, if your goal is to encourage a broader reader base into the medium; how unfortunate that the issue is left in the hands of half-baked religious extremists.

• In his weekly column for Editor and Publisher, Dave Astor reviews talks given by several cartoonists at the Reubens weekend.

• The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation held its 14th Annual GLAAD Media Awards on May 31st, and Silver Bullet Comics has the winners in the comics category. Would you be surprised if I told you that Judd Winick and Dale Eaglesham's cheesy but on-message Green Lantern series dealing with gay-bashing won? Strangely, despite the fact that the award was titled "Outstanding Comic Book", there was no trace of Elizabeth Watasin's Charm School in the nominations list -- to say nothing of last year's best gay-themed graphic narrative, the debut chapter of Justine Shaw's engaging webcomic Nowhere Girl. Apparently, neither strip adequately resembled a cheesy movie of the week...

  

• The slugfest begun by Dynamic Forces' Nick Barrucci continues! Riffing on his recent call for retailer action to save the Direct Market (part one, part two, part three), weblogger Sean T. Collins offers an excellent analysis of Barrucci's plan of attack in this Blogcritics article. Meanwhile, reader Tim O'Neil does his part by offering the poster at right for use in the advertising campaign. Go Team Comics!

• You only have a couple more weeks before the pseudonymous "A.K." writes his last hilarious Title Bout column. Enjoy it while you can.

• Easily the most telling quote about the comics fan mentality I've seen all week:

  "Archie is still making comics. Why?"

  Ummm... because perhaps there might still be a couple of retailers who want to sell comics to someone besides thirty-year-old men? Because Archie actually sell comics to children from grocery-store checkout racks -- you know, one of those places where kids can still go to buy them? Gosh, maybe Archie wants to make comics for someone besides you there, Sparky...

Finally, Fantagraphics' own Eric Reynolds offers a correction to a statement made in yesterday's "The Trouble With Marvel" installment:

"All those GHOST WORLD copies were sold two summers ago -- 2001 -- not last summer as stated in your latest piece. And total sales have tipped 100K."

So noted. When completed, the essay will be re-edited and posted to its own page; it will be revised accordingly.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Trouble with Marvel, part three
(Comic Books) For those just tuning in: for the past two days, we've been discussing Marvel Comics' efforts to navigate between the Direct Market and the bookstore market. In part one, we began with a look at the upcoming mini-series Trouble, Marvel's first attempt at a romance comic for young girls in some time. Part two saw an examination of the structural and subcultural difficulties that keep comic-book stores from attracting new readers. Everyone up to speed? Good -- it's time to take a look at the other market Marvel Comics has its eye on these days: bookstores.

Graphic novels have something of a spotty history in the bookstore market: while such visionaries as Will Eisner and NBM's Terry Nantier have been pushing the format and trying to place it beyond the Direct Market since the 1970s, it wasn't until the late 1980s and early '90s that booksellers took any real notice. Then, it was a two-pronged push by a handful of art-comics (Maus, Love and Rockets) and a handful of genre comics (Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns) that attracted the attention of the wider world at large. Bookstores took tentative steps towards giving the new format a try, and for a brief moment, it seemed like the rest of the reading public had hepped itself to the quiet revolution that had been brewing in comic-book shops across America.

It didn't last, of course. Faced with a sudden potential for increased sales, publishers from across the spectrum began shovelling anything they could find into a squarebound format, calling it a "graphic novel" and offering it for sale. What genuinely good works as did exist were drowned in a sea of mediocre crap, and the emerging boom became a decisive bust.

It would take another decade before the momentum was regained. Neil Gaiman's Sandman proved to be something of a cult hit in bookstores, and the occasional ground-level artist like Jeff Smith would find limited room on the shelves. On the indy side, a slow trickle of works by the likes of Ben Katchor, Peter Bagge, Adrian Tomine and Seth kept the dim spark alive. Towards the turn of the century, things began to pick up again; Joe Sacco and Chris Ware began collecting awards and positive reviews for their works, Warren Ellis and Derrick Robertson's Transmetropolitan developed a small but devoted cult following, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell finally saw print in collected form, and the longterm diligence of such manga publishers as Tokyopop and Viz began to develop solid audiences in bookstores.

It was really this last trend that wound up pushing things over the top. In the last few years, manga became the economic engine which has made the viability of the graphic novel look less like the result of a few isolated works and more like a steady stream of saleable product. Driven by the popularity of televised Japanese anime among both children and young adults alike, manga volumes have gone on to sell in respectable numbers even after the floodgates were opened and the new releases began piling up. It's hard to overestimate the success of these books -- at the end of last year, manga volumes comprised 23 of the top 25 bestselling titles on BookScan's graphic novels sales charts; last April, the fifth volume of the popular series Chobits became the first manga book to appear on BookScan's Adult Trade Fiction list. Bouyed by this success, manga publishers have all but abandoned the "pamphlet" format preferred by the Direct Market -- Dark Horse recently announced that its latest comics would appear directly in paperback, while Viz has stopped publishing traditional comic books altogether.

For "indy comics" publishers, the mainstream booktrade has likewise been a boon. While largely snubbed in the Direct Market, books published by Drawn and Quarterly, Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, Top Shelf and other such publishers have found new homes on bookstore shelves, and produced some rather astonishing successes -- Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan (Pantheon) sold over 80,000 copies despite being a $30 hardcover, while Daniel Clowes' Ghost World and Joe Sacco's non-fiction works Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde became breakout hits for Fantagraphics Books, a company particularly hard-hit by low sales in comic-book shops (as I've previously noted, Ghost World sold over 50,000 copies last summer, less than 10,000 of which went to Direct Market retailers). Many indy and art-comics publishers now depend on the bookstore trade for half or more of their total sales, while such publishers as Simon & Schuster and Reed Press have expressed a newfound interest in getting into the game themselves.

This time around, the inroads graphic novels have made into the bookstore trade look considerably more permanent than the previous attempt in the late 1980s. The New York Daily News quotes BookScan representatives as stating that the format now accounts for 2.5% of the overall adult fiction market. If that sounds like small-potatoes, consider this -- according to ICv2, $100 million in graphic novels were sold last year, a 33% increase over sales for 2001. Furthermore, it estimates that 2002 sales were evenly divided between the Direct Market and the bookstore trade. While ICv2 is predicting 2003 sales to increase by 20% this year, it is also predicting that the majority of that increase will occur in bookstores rather than comics shops; this despite a current sluggishness in much of the book market.

Which brings us to Marvel Comics. Like virtually every other major comics publisher, Marvel has seen sales in the bookstore market rise. According to the company's 10-K report for 2002, mass market sales reached $7.0 million in 2002, a considerable jump from just $1.1 million in 2001. With this figure in hand, a little creative deduction can explain away the company's desire to make further inroads into the bookstore market. As noted above, the GN market was worth $100 million last year, with half of it in bookstore sales -- of that $50 million, Marvel was therefore able to capture just 14% of the market in 2002. For a company used to dominating the sales arena, that must look like one piss-poor percentage. It's even more difficult to acquire sales-figures for most other comics companies, which are by-and-large privately held and therefore excempt from having to file the sorts of documents that Marvel must, but assuming for the sake of argument that DC does an equivalent business in bookstores and indy and non-genre publishers take up a collective 20% of the playing field, that still leaves a full 50% of the market to publishers of... oh, what is the word? I had it just a moment ago. It starts with an "M"...

However you cut the figures, it's pretty obvious that manga publishers are beating the living crap out of Marvel in the booksellers' arena. The last BookScan figures I were able to get my hands on were several months old and limited in nature, but they seemed to indicate that Tokyopop was outselling Marvel by an average of three-or-four to one on a book-by-book basis. The fact that manga publishers are capable of such sales -- especially to the lucrative young-adult market, which Marvel had seemingly written off long ago -- has to have whet Bill Jemas' appetite for similar success. Clearly, however, Marvel's current output isn't capable of creating a similar draw amongst the non-DM reading public.

Considered on this level, Marvel's current experiments with its Epic and Tsunami lines make perfect sense. Faced with a market where they were stuck playing second fiddle, the company has no choice but to give innovation a shot, however hesitantly.

Tomorrow: in part four, we look at the Epic and Tsunami lines, and how they got that way.
Posted @ 3:35 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

In other news
(Potpourri) There isn't much in the way of real news today -- suddenly I'm glad I embarked on this whole "Marvel in bookstores" thing. Here's the rest of the links, such as they are:

• I somehow missed this: Clive Barker has won the 2003 International Horror Guild award for Graphic Narrative, for his book Abarat.

• Hot on the heels of the Dick Locher cartoon scandal, syndicated columnist John Leo defends over-the-top editorial cartoons.

• The Pulse's Jennifer Contino interviews Jamie Smart, whose new Slave Labor comic-book series Bear is due to debut soon.

• Nine-tenths of good luck is simply working to be in the right place at the right time. John Lustig and Anne Timmons, for example, were able to score an article in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer just by telling them they had published a Martha Stewart parody when such a thing was in the headlines.

• This article has no real relavence to comics whatsoever, save that its subject is apparently the founder of something called Cowboy Cartoonists International.

Finally, if you're looking to kill a couple of minutes, check out Minnesota's City Pages, which this week offers up short strips by Tony Millionaire, Matt Groening, Doug Allen, Ruben Bolling, Brian S., Terry Colon, Ward Sutton, and many others.
Posted @ 3:35 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Fantagraphics progress report
(Comics Publishing) It took a while to count the orders, but we're finally ready to announce the results of our plea for help. Ladies and gentlemen, Fantagraphics Books co-owners Gary Groth and Kim Thompson:

We have been awed and humbled by the voluminous response to our open letter of May 29, and want to thank everyone who spread the word, beat the drums on our behalf, endorsed our efforts, supported us, and defended us against our few but vociferous detractors. (See below for what we hope is a complete list of benefactors.)

We are pleased -- and relieved -- to announce that we reached our immediate goal by the end of the work day on Friday, June 6. We have moved from depression to elation to a state of dizzying exhaustion over the course of that long, frenzied week.

Our immediate crisis has subsided, but we still have a considerable back debt to whittle down, much of it in the form of royalties to our cartoonists and authors. It's no secret that over the course of 27 years of publishing The Comics Journal and 22 years of publishing comics, we've been woefully undercapitalized and have more often than not relied upon the patience, if not the kindness, of our authors, to weather difficult periods. Our cartoonists have stuck with us through thick and thin (and vice-versa, of course), many of them for 10, 15, 20 years now, and although we firmly believe we'll catch up in due time, we consider it an imperative to catch up sooner rather than later. The more books we sell now, the faster we can catch up on royalties to our authors. As a way of expressing our gratitude to everyone who placed an order in response to our initial letter (May 29) and through June 15, we'll be sending a special discount offer for future purchases.

The success of this grass roots campaign has given us a renewed sense of purpose in our publishing mission and we intend to fulfill the confidence you've expressed in e-mails, phone calls, and public comments. Here's a short (and abridged) list of forthcoming books that we hope will serve to affirm your decision to come to our aid. If you're interested in seeing our full Fall list (September 2003-March 2004), please click on this link to our Fall W.W. Norton catalogue.

The Pirates and the Mouse: Bob Levin's meticulously researched, culturally astute, and utterly hilarious account of Walt Disney's legal war against the group of underground cartoonists called The Air Pirates.

Will Elder: Mad Playboy of Art: Harvey Kurtzman's lifetime collaborator finally gets his due in a coffee table format career retrospective with a long biographical essay and representative work from Mad, Panic, Trump, Humbug, Help!, Little Annie Fanny, and many obscure illustrations as well as his fine art paintings. Introduction by Dan Clowes.

Krigstein Comics: A companion volume to Greg Sadowski's critical biography, B. Krigstein, this volume contains 240 pages of Krigstein's best 1950s comics, most of them from obscure publishers and never before reprinted. Many re-colored by Marie Severin.

Young Gods: Finally, the first collection from Barry Windsor-Smith's Storyteller series, which was cancelled three issues before the three different storylines could reach their conclusions. Windsor-Smith has completed the last three chapters of his mythic screwball comedy starring his royally gorgeous, foul-mouthed spitfire Princess Adastra. With production values to die for.

Quimby the Mouse: The next big book from the esteemed Mr. Ware, now (literally) being printed, out next month. Starring, of course, Quimby, a kind of post/retro Krazy Kat, including cut-out-and-assemble paper projects. None of this material has appeared in Jimmy Corrigan. Available in both hard and soft cover.

The Art of Jim Flora: Famed illustrator and designer Jim Flora gets the star treatment in a lovely coffee table book collecting all his LP designs and illustrations.

Jimbo in Purgatory: A new, oversized graphic novel by Gary Panter. A postmodern Divine Comedy, this may be Panter's masterpiece. And when we say oversized, we mean oversized.

We wish to thank the following Friends of Fantagraphics, who contributed to the cause in one way or another:

G. Beato, Matt Brady, Susannah Breslin, Dave Bug, Michele Catalano, Tim Cavanaugh, Jens Christoffersen, Mike Conroy, Jon B. Cooke, Colby Cosh, Jessa Crispin, Alan David Doane, Cory Doctorow, Evan Dorkin, Warren Ellis, Mark Evanier, Mark Frauenfelder, Neil Gaiman, G. Goria, Steven Grant, Jim Hanley, Franklin Harris, Jim Henley, Lee Hester, Tony Isabella, Chris Jacobs & everyone at Sub Pop Records, Rich Johnston, Andrew Kahan, Chip Kidd, Harry Knowles, Kristine & everyone at Last Gasp, Heidi MacDonald, Paul Maliszewski, Marc Maron, Jeff Mason, Scott McCloud, Whitney Matheson, Jim Mortensen, Francoise Mouly, Markisan Naso, NeilAlien, Kevin Parrott, Ned Raggett, Calvin Reid, Larry Reid, John F. Ronan, Rory Root, Diana Schutz, Scott Shaw!, Jim Treacher, Matt Wagner, Brett Warnock, Steve Weiner, The Stranger, and the Cleveland Free Times. There were so many people who did us a good turn that we're sure we missed a few people; our apologies to anyone we accidentally left out;

We would also like to specially thank Chris Ware, Dave Cooper, Stan Sakai, Tony Millionaire, Bob Fingerman, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, and Ho Che Anderson for donating original artwork to auction for our benefit.

- Gary Groth and Kim Thompson

It's been a ride. Probably the most curious thing that I noticed concerned how people reacted to the news that Fantagraphics was in trouble. Within funnybook fandom, the reaction was split right down the middle: some offered us aid and support, while others openly jumped for joy at the thought of the company (and, more pertinently, The Comics Journal) going under. Outside the "comics community", however, the reaction was one of almost uniform concern for our plight; the story traveled all over America and spread across the internet like wildfire. As with Top Shelf and Drawn & Quarterly, so too with us: the World Wide Web made our success possible, and the degree to which this success was driven by voices outside the industry surprised me.

The biggest surprise, however, was the support from comics retailers. There are so many shops in North America that cater exclusively to the superhero set that it's quite easy to forget about the noble minority who try their damndest to offer a wide selection of materials, who don't get defensive when someone comes in asking for Archie, Love and Rockets, Peanut Butter and Jeremy or Chobits rather than their beloved Spider-Man, and who genuinely try to service a wider clientele than just their own clique. These retailers came through for us in a big way -- thank you all very much.

You can read more about the events of the past week in this ICv2 interview with Gary Groth, conducted yesterday. To those who supported us in our hour of need, I join Kim and Gary in offering up my most heartfelt thanks. To those who prayed for us to fall: dream on, suckers.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Michael Turner sues Top Cow over Fathom
(Comic Books) Just over a decade ago, the Image Comics publishing umbrella was created to allow its founders to own and publish their own work. Now, a new lawsuit threatens to tarnish that, err, image: Michael Turner, the creator of the comic-book series Fathom, has filed suit in Federal court against Image member company Top Cow Productions to protect what he claims is his ownership of the series' intellectual property: Newsarama carries Turner's press release, in which he attempts to explain his side of the story:

"In August of 1997, Turner entered into a license agreement with Top Cow for use of Turner's creator-owned work, Fathom. Such agreement provided that Turner owned Fathom and granted Top Cow an exclusive license to produce and distribute Fathom-related works during the term of the agreement. The agreement expired no later than August of 2002, after which time Top Cow was not authorized to distribute further Fathom products.

"When Turner left Top Cow at the end of 2002, he did so on good terms and began preparations to form his new company. Such preparations included meeting with Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. regarding the distribution of books created by Aspen, forming the corporation and beginning the creative process on the new Fathom books, plus Soulfire and Ekos. The first solicitation for such books premiered in the Diamond Previews Catalog Vol. XIII #4, which went on sale Wednesday, March 26th, 2003.

"On Friday March 28th, 2003, Turner received a letter from Top Cow's counsel alleging Top Cow's ownership of Fathom, Ekos, Soulfire and Turner's next creative work. Demand was made that Turner immediately stop the production of all Fathom, Ekos and Soulfire related titles.

"Throughout the next few weeks, Turner and Top Cow exchanged letters regarding these issues that culminated in Turner filing the federal lawsuit on May 2nd, 2003 to protect his rights."

At the bottom of the press release, Newsarama has also reproduced a short statement from Top Cow's Matt Hawkins, essentially noting that the company was "currently working on a response".
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Trouble with Marvel, part two
(Comic Books) Yesterday we took a look at the tightrope Marvel Comics walks in trying to break into the bookstore market while simultaneously trying to keep comics retailers happy -- a neat trick when you consider the former's potential to cut into the latter's customer base. This leads to the obvious question: in which arena of commerce does Marvel's future lie?

Take the Direct Market first. As previously noted, the comics shops have built-in structural and ideological weaknesses which tend to retard any and all efforts to build up their customer base. It's almost like the old joke from the Blues Brothers movie: "We got both kinds of music here, country and western!" The monomania towards superhero comics may please the market's diehard customers, but such cliquishness tends to put off almost anyone who doesn't share its adherants' obsession. Before you go chalking this evaluation up to That Elitist Comics Bastard's Prejudices, let me offer up the opinion of someone deep enough in the profession to know -- Marvel's own editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada. In a recent email exchange reproduced in Rich Johnston's "Waiting For Tommy" column, Quesada notes:

"Bill J[emas] is absolutely right, it's not about a fear of success meaning a fear of impending bust, there's a bit of that but what it really is is a fear of people invading the nice little sanctity of the comic book club. Retailers don't keep dirty stores because they don't know how to clean, they all most likely have nice neat homes, they keep the dirt there as a barrier to keep the invaders out. This is revenge of the nerds to the highest level and it's not even being done on a conscious level. These are the geeks that joined the AV squad to be with other geeks, they don't want the football players or the cheerleaders joining their little deserted island, their safe haven on this planet."

Let's step around the fact that Jemas himself has fueled such fears by encouraging retailers towards another goddamn speculator bubble; Quesada has a point, here. A plurality -- not all, but probably a majority -- of comics-shop owners got into the business in the first place in order to convert an obsession with superhero comics into a livelihood. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but the result is oftentimes an almost hostile attitude towards anything which diverges from said obsession coming through the front door. I'm not even talking about indy comics or manga, here; the occasional contempt I've seen retailers display over the years towards such dubious, borderline products as Neil Gaiman's Sandman, not to mention its fanbase, has left me befuddled time and again. There's almost a whiff of heresy about the whole affair, as though the slightest deviation in orthodoxy would render the enterprise pointless from top to bottom. I've lost track of the number of times I've advocated a greater variety of material in the shops while surfing through comics-related message boards, only to find myself facing accusations that I "hated superheroes". How does one get from Point A to Point B in that little logic-loop? I'm still puzzling that one out.

To be fair, it seems pretty obvious that the higher-ups at Marvel understand the consequences of this attitude. Responding to a offhand remark I made recently, journalist and weblogger Franklin Harris offered a dead-on summary of the recent trends displayed by The House That Jack Built:

"Actually, I think it's becoming clear that most of Marvel's characters function best as hybirds, mixing superheroics with other genres. We see that with Daredevil (police procedural), Hulk (Hulk meets The X-Files) and New X-Men (soap opera/sci-fi). I believe this strategy works because, from the outset, the Marvel characters were a 'real world' alternative to DC's characters. As Stan Lee likes to say, if you live in New York, you half expect to see Spider-Man swing past when you look out your window."

I think Harris tends to overemphasize the innate "realism" of the Marvel universe; Stan Lee's big innovation has always struck me as introducing two-dimensionality into a previously one-dimensional genre. It's a relative thing, I suppose. That said, his basic point is correct; Marvel has in fact been trying to expand the superhero mythos in such a way as to sneak other genres in under the retailer/reader radar. The results vary wildly -- New X-Men succeeds aesthetically by ditching the accumulated clichés of the superhero schema (goofy costumes, black-and-white motivations, and many of the underlying assumptions of the genre), while still keeping most of the basic mechanisms of the form, and as a result is able to graft science fiction and a pop-culture sensibility seamlessly to the book's basic chassis. Bendis' Daredevil, by contrast, is too smart for its own good; while frequently quite readable, the intelligence on display in the writing is undercut by the continued reliance on the genre's goofier tropes, and while the results may appeal to fans, it can be offputting to readers who come to the work with no emotional investment in superheroes. Frank Miller, who revitalized the book over a decade ago, got around this by skipping the cleverness and submerging the series in an almost primal film noir. The technique worked because Miller never asked you to take the work as anything other than an action-adventure joyride, which in turn merged the Mickey Spillane trappings and the Ditko-esque underpinnings without sacrificing either. Bendis brings too much self-conscious sophistication to the project to succeed with the same gambit.

The problem with Marvel's approach is that it plays more to the established reader than the curious onlooker; while a police procedural/superhero hybrid might be acceptable to the faithful, new readers are still going to have to get past their preconceptions to get the meat, and as the sluggishness of superhero graphic-novel sales in bookstores suggests, this is simply asking too much for most readers. A reader looking for a crime story isn't likely to settle for a sorta-crime story when there are alternatives available -- and in today's market, there are always alternatives available.

The Direct Market puzzle doesn't look any easier to solve when you examine it closely, does it? This conundrum more than anything else is what's driving the vast majority of Marvel's current initiatives, from Tsunami to Epic... which in turn brings us to the bookstore market.

Tomorrow: part three.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

In other news
(Potpourri) Here's the rest of today's stories and links:

• An editorial in last Sunday's Chicago Tribune offers the editors' regrets over a May 29th editorial cartoon which provoked cries of anti-Semitism (Tribune editorial link courtesy of Romenesko). The JTA news service reports that Chicago's Jewish community appears largely satisfied by the act of contrition.

• Scotland's Daily Record is reporting that a copy of the Daniel Clowes graphic novel Ghost World somehow found its way into the children's section of a local library, provoking parental outrage when it was checked out by an underage reader. The book was subsequently pulled from circulation.

• Well, crap -- it appears that I missed a Webby Award in yesterday's entry. It turns out that in addition to David Rees' Get Your War On, the webcomic Penny Arcade also won a "People's Choice" Webby for Best Net Art. Fortunately, Comixpedia caught both awards.

• It's about damned time; The Toronto Star finally ran a proper obituary for Leo Bachle, a.k.a. "Les Barker", creator of the Golden Age Canadian comic book Johnny Canuck. (Thanks to Bob for emailing me the link.)

• Okay, so yesterday's entries played to my prejudices on any number of levels. That out of the way, I still think comic-book fans should be checking in with Big Sunny D on an at-least semi-regular basis.

But wait! There's more...
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Monday Tuesday Mailbag
(Commentary) I missed posting this yesterday, but is that stopping me? Of course not. Once again, it's time to take a dip into the ¡Journalista! inbox and see what our readers had to say. Our first correspondent offered this anecdote after seeing yesterday's commentary on Marvel's press conference for it's upcoming romance comic Trouble, in which writer Mark Millar volunteered Marvel's customer base as being composed of 330,000 readers:

"You know, Mark Millar saying that Marvel's readership is 330,000 is very interesting, considering that at his "Millarhour" chat at X-Fan a couple of weeks ago, he said that the Ultimate books sold 400,000 each month..."

Let's give Mr. Millar enough credit to assume he was referring to the cumulative sales of the various books he writes. Presumably, he was also being selective in which month's offerings he was talking about -- The Ultimates has, what, a biannual schedule? Why, that's practically the schedule for Eightball!

My need to feed a Bugsy Malone comics jones attracted two emails, each of which offered up a piece of the puzzle. Our first reader writes:

"I don't know if I should be helping you in this mad quest, but apparently the DVD of Bugsy has the comic on it. Whether it's just portions or the full thing, I can't determine.

"It says it was illustrated by Graham Thompson, who had also worked on Muppets and Monty Python comics, so I guess it isn't fumetti. Which is kind of a shame if you ask me. A Bugsy Malone fumetti would be one of the great wonders of the world."

No kidding. Waitaminute -- there's a Bugsy Malone DVD available in the United Kingdom? Damn. I've spent years wondering if Jodie Foster's musical number, "My Name is Tallulah", was as creepily pedophilic as I remember from childhood.

Our second source for Bugsy Comics information fills in the remaining blanks:

"There exist at least two editions circa 1976 and illustrated by Graham Thompson. Essentially it's a conventional 3-tiered full colour comicbook in the Tintin/Asterix BD size and mode. Very nicely cartooned with captions and word balloons and sound effects and everything.

" 'Now in Comical Form Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone Illustrated by Graham Thompson'. Designed by John Gorham; published by William Collins and Sons, 1976."

Be still my beating heart. How could you not want a graphic novel based on a film which billed itself as "the world's first all-kiddie gangster musical"? Moving on. Our next correspondent wonders at a throwaway detail from the news accounts of the recently-decided Winter Brothers lawsuit, which noted that the Brothers' lawyers had vowed to continue the lawsuit against DC Comics by objecting to the company's usage of their names in advertising for the mini-series:

"This I find interesting; I don't recall the exact ad campaign produced for this book, but it's not very likely it would have mentioned the Winter Bros. by name. DC tends to be very circumspect about that sort of stuff (even before the lawsuit), and it isn't as if this would have been a strong selling point. I wonder what this refers to?"

You got me there. Anyone else know? Speaking of lawsuits, Todd VerBeek (sorry about that extra space inserted into your last name, incidentally) offers up a little background on the whole Taco Bell Chihuahua thing:

"I wouldn't encourage you to crow too happily about the Taco Bell case, because I don't think the jury's decision was correct. The two cartoonists live here in Grand Rapids, so the local paper has been following this case (with a 'local boys wronged' angle) all along. And they didn't create the Taco Bell Chihuahua any more than DC Comics created Captain Marvel/Shazam!

"As the name 'Psycho Chihuahua' suggests, their cartoon character was a crude, foul-tempered, growling terror... a far cry from the pathetic Spanish-speaking rat seen on TV. About the only commonality is that they're both chihuahuas. Taco Bell may have 'stolen' the basic idea of using a chihuahua as a mascot, but for a company selling Mexican-themed 'food', that's not exactly creative thinking. It's certainly possible that Taco Bell ripped off some of the chihuahua-themed stories the duo presented to use in TV commercials (the one allegation that seems to hold water). But Shields and Rinks did not create the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

"While this was definitely a 'David v. Goliath' story, the Philistines would disagree with the assumption that the little guy with the rock necessarily deserved to win."

Finally, it's time for our ¡Journalista! Fuck-Up of the Week™, this time out concerning an item from this entry:

"Not a big deal, but the 'Intro into Webcomics' article appears in Toronto's EYE Weekly. The Toronto Sun is a daily tabloid here. The link is correct, though. Thought you might like to know."

Hahaha! I meant to do that. No, really! Like the sidebar says, send email to weblog@tcj.com -- all email is considered anonymous unless you volunteer otherwise, and assumed printable unless you say otherwise.
Posted @ 4:40 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Site update: Pierce Rice interview
(The Comics Journal) As mentioned last Friday, Golden Age cartoonist Pierce Rice died last month at the age of 86. It just so happens that Gary Groth spoke with Mr. Rice for The Comics Journal #219; as a memorial to the artist, we've reprinted the interview in its entirety on the website. It's a great look at the early days of the industry, from the Iger/Eisner sweatshop to the early days of Marvel Comics (back when it was still called Timely). Rice is neither bitter about his time in the field nor sentimental for some gold-tinged past, and the result reads like an unvarnished account from a man who had the sense to get out when he could but didn't regret the time spent making comics. Enjoy.
Posted @ 7:15 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Lmrabet's appeal hearing postponed
(Censorship) The case of Ali Lmrabet, editor of the Moroccan weeklies Demain Magazine and Douman, took a turn for the worse last Thursday when the judges at his appeal hearing refused to grant bail. Lmrabet, targeted by the government for critical cartoons and articles run by his magazines, was convicted on May 21st of "insulting the king". Middle East Online has the story:

"Defence lawyers Abderrahim Jamai and Ahmed Benjelloun argued Thursday that the article in Morocco's penal code allowing for immediate imprisonment on conviction did not apply in Lamrabet's case.

"After a long adjournment to consider the defence argument, the bench announced it would not take a decision Thursday on whether Lamrabet should stay in jail, but would move immediately onto other issues.

"That provoked a request for an adjournment by the defence, which was rejected initially by the court but accepted after vivid protests from Lamrabet's lawyers and members of the public, including numerous foreign and Moroccan human rights activists in court to show their backing for the convicted journalist.

"The appeal hearing was put off until Tuesday."

The situation is quite serious, as Lmrabet is still sticking to a hunger strike begun during his trial, and it's begun to take its toll on him. The BBC spoke to his family and friends, and reports:

"They say Ali Lamrabet has lost more than 20 kilograms since he stopped eating and his health is deteriorating.

"Lamrabet who is diabetic with a heart condition has recently started to drink water again for his medication.

"Abu Bakr Jami'i, editor of Moroccan newspaper, Le Journal Hebdomadaire, told BBC News Online that doctors treating Lamrabet, who has been moved to Avicenne Hospital in Rabat, had started to give him medicinal fluids intravenously. "

The free-press groups the Cartoonists Rights Network and Reporters Sans Frontières are co-ordinating a fax campaign to agitate for Lmrabet's release; to find out how you can help, click here.

(Note: as is often the case with Western reports of goings-on in Arabic or Islamic countries, the spelling of proper nouns can vary from report to report. I have elected to stick with the spelling of "Lmrabet" that I've used to date, despite the agreement of the two reports cited here on an alternative spelling.)
Posted @ 7:15 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

The Trouble with Marvel, part one
(Comic Books) Today's ICv2 features a report that the company has turned a tentative about-face on its misguided policy of encouraging overorders in comic-book shops by refusing to reprint unexpectedly popular comic books, a policy that has had retailers furious for some time now. The company has announced that it will consider reprinting the first issue in its new romance comic, Trouble. In addition, the company is working diligently to ensure that at least some copies of its new, Spider-Man derived prose novel for teenage girls, Mary Jane, makes its way into Direct Market retailers' hands before the book appears in bookstores on July 2nd.

Marvel's engaged in something of a balancing act, here. On the one hand, the company clearly wants to break into the bookstore market, where a wider array of potential readers lies in wait. On the other hand, the company has met with resistance so far; manga publisher TokyoPop has given Marvel the kind of vicious thrashing the company hasn't seen since the early 1960s, and according to the figures I've seen outsells The House That Jack Built by as much as four-to-one on a book-by-book basis. Marvel still depends on the Direct Market for its bread-and-butter sales, and cannot afford to get retailers too angry.

To see this balancing act in action, we turn now to Comic Book Resources, which extensively covered last Friday's Trouble press-conference. Mark Millar had some interesting things to say:

" 'Within comics themselves, within the established market of 330,000 readers, whatever exists out there, there may not be a gigantic market for something exclusively romantic,' commented Millar. 'But, if you can combine it with other successful elements and can do something that appeals to a wide, mainstream audience, then that's what excited me about the possibilities here. For people who like Spider-Man, they get something out of it. This is the first comic I've ever written that my wife read from page 1 to page 22, understood it and quite enjoyed it.'

"Mark was asked if he researched the current state of romance books before beginning on this project. Included in this discussion was reaction to the cover to Trouble #1, which was a 'live cover' depicting two teenage girls in bathing suits, which some fans claimed was pornographic.

" 'I actually did have a good look at this market and when I first saw the covers [to Trouble] I wasn't sure what to make of them until I walked into a book store and actually saw that's what these covers look like [on teen novels today]. It was interesting to see the comic book reaction... It's not pornography. It's exactly what twelve-year-old girls read and it's what their eyes fixate on when they walk into a bookshop. What excited me was that this book could be stacked next to those things, but also stacked along side Origin, Kingdom Come and Marvels. Even those books, as good as they are, not everyone is interested in them or can pick them up. So this is quite a unique thing and a catalyst between the two genre's.' "

This statement is interesting for two reasons:

1. Millar placed Marvel's current readership at 330,000 before qualifying the figure as a guess. I'd buy it as such were it not for that extra "3" in the ten-thousands column -- sure sounds like something more than a vague, uninformed guess, doesn't it? The industry quite famously guards its sales figures on both the publisher and distrubutor levels, and this rare slip, if true, provides as eloquent a reason for coveting the bookstore market as anything you're likely to hear. 330,000 readers in a nation of 270 million people is nothing to brag about.

2. At the outset of the press conference from which the above quote was taken, the participants made a point of noting that Trouble's teenage main characters were originally meant to be Spider-Man's mother and Aunt May, and that the series was meant to depict the circumstances by which Peter Parker's parents conceived him. This is the context in which Millar claims the completed book could be simultaneously stacked alongside teen romance novels as well as "Origin, Kingdom Come and Marvels." It has to be; the impression I get from the press surrounding this book is that it doesn't actually feature superheroes at all, and if it's set before Parker was ever born, there's hardly going to be a way to make the Spider-Man connection explicit within the framework of the story, now is there?

   Think about it for a moment. The whole reason that the oh-so-controversial cover was considered "pornographic" when first released was that those making the charge were used to thinking about comics from a Direct-Market point of view; there, the primary purpose of women on comic-book covers is to sexually arouse male readers enough to convince them to buy the comic. In this context, a cover featuring two barely-pubescent girls in bikini tops with sly expressions isn't "pornographic", but rather pedophilic.

   In a bookstore market, it's another matter. As Millar notes, the cover is entirely unexceptional if your target audience is twelve-year-old girls. Of course, such girls by and large don't shop in comic-book shops to begin with, which is I suspect why the whole "Peter Parker" meme was raised at the press conference -- to distract retailers from Trouble's purpose. Early on, Marvel CEO Bill Jemas stated that he didn't expect retailers to order this book in huge quantities. I suspect he has entirely different hopes for the bookstore market. Likewise for the new Mary Jane book.

See what I mean by balancing act? Marvel needs better sales for its comics if it's to continue being a profitable company once the superhero movie fad fades. As the Direct Market continues to dwindle, its ability to keep The House That Jack Built in the money dwindles too. Last January I wrote that those making their living selling to the comics shops have two choices: either retailers have to somehow be lured into providing a greater variety of material in order to attract a wider customer base, or a way has to be found to get the material into another market before the present market collapses. With Trouble, Marvel takes a small but significant step in both directions.

Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at how Marvel seems to be positioning itself for two possible futures, and how good a job it's doing at each.
Posted @ 7:15 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

Awards round-up
(Cartooning) It's June of 2003, but that doesn't mean people aren't still deciding the best comics and cartoonists of 2002, no sir. Here are the latest round of awards to be handed out:

• Robert Weinberg has won the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Best Graphic Narrative, for his Marvel Comics title Nightside. Silver Bullet Comics has the press release.

• Meanwhile, The New Zealand Herald reports that its own Malcolm Evans has won a Qantas media award for Cartoonist of the Year.

• Finally, David Rees has won a Webby for his online comic strip, Get Your War On.

Congratulations to the winners.
Posted @ 7:15 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

In other news
(Potpourri) And here's the rest of the news that cropped up over the weekend:

• Let's follow up on some previous stories first. The Sacramento Bee has a short editorial praising the recent ruling in favor of the creators of DC Comics' mini-series Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such.

• Meanwhile, The New York Times weighs in with an editorial concerning Dick Locher's controversial "Mid-East peace process" cartoon. Must be nice to tsk-tsk some other newspaper's controversies for a change, eh?

• Still more BookExpo America recappin' going on, this time courtesy of Missouri's Kansas City Star.

• Via Egon comes this article from India's Tribune, lamenting the sorry state of editorial cartooning in that country.

• Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun takes a look at the legendary class for aspiring manga artists taught at the Osaka University of Arts by Lone Wolf and Cub artist Kazuo Koike.

• 30 Days of Night artist Ben Templesmith is the subject of this profile in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.

• The Pulse's Jennifer Contino interviews Sara Varon, the cartoonist behind Alternative Books' upcoming graphic-novel release SweaterWeather.

• Two weeks later, the fourth episode of The DivaLea Show finally rears its head -- now available in downloadable MP3 format!

Will you look at the time? All apologies, but the Mailbag will have to be delayed until tomorrow. Dirk needs sleep now.
Posted @ 7:15 AM by Dirk Deppey | permalink

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