(Potpourri) Plenty of stuff worth reading showed up over the weekend. Here's some of the highlights:
- A week after the fact, the reports from the San Diego Comic-Con convention floor are still trickling in; Heidi MacDonald, Andrew Arnold and the folks at gay-and-lesbian advocacy group Prism Comics continue the ongoing round-up. My favorite observation so far, however, comes from Nancy over at Hello, Failure:
"The artists were uniformly short, fat, and poorly dressed. Their fans showed their devotion by dressing in form-fitting bondage gear that highlighed their perfect abs. If they love Brian Michael Bendis so much, why don't they gain 50 pounds and sit around looking surly in a Hawaiian shirt?"
(Thanks to Eli Bishop for posting that last link to our message board.)
- Meet Ohio resident Eric Turner, who just gave away a character concept to Marvel Comics for almost no compensation whatsoever. His willingness to do this suggests he has a bright future ahead of him in the industry -- in the short-term, anyway. Then again, when does anyone working for Marvel ever think about the long-term?
- The New York Review of Books takes a look at the work of Joe Sacco and Dan Clowes. (Link via MetaFilter.)
- Courtesy of Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, this little snapshot of comics history: Stan Lee tries to convince the 1970s-era Marvel Bullpen not to defect to young upstart Atlas Comics.
- It's time for "Industry Autofellatio Watch", with Newsarama's Matt Brady:
"You could tell Andy Kubert that with 1602, he’s entering a distinguished group of artists who’ve illustrated two or more blockbuster projects. You could tell him that, given writer Neil Gaiman’s record, the industry will be holding up 1602 years from now, as one of the industry’s best efforts. You could try to tell him both, but, deep into issue #6, he probably wouldn’t hear you."
You could also tell Andy Kubert that he just discovered the cure for colon cancer; one is about as meaningful as the other. I have no doubt that 1602 will be an entertaining little adventure comic -- Neil Gaiman is writing it, after all -- but "one of the industry's best efforts"? In the same year that saw the release of Craig Thompson's Blankets? Will it be a better effort than Gaiman and McKean's own Mr. Punch, you think? Fanboy, please.
- I completely missed last weekend's Blogathon 2003, which featured several people writing to raise money for the CBLDF. To make up for it, may I (A) point out the work of Dave Hill, one of the only participants to actually spend his time blogging comics, and (B) remind one and all that you could find far worse ways to support the continued artistic growth of the industry than to support the CBLDF as a dues-paying member?
- Sean T. Collins has been a busy little blogger this weekend, offering commentary on the Blogosphere vs. Team Comics, the general deficiencies of the Journal's review policies, and possible deficiencies in my own Marvel Movie Doomsday Theory.
- Jim Henley also chimes in on the Doomsday Theory.
Finally, internet commentators were still pondering DC's signing of creators Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to exclusive contracts, as announced at the recent San Diego Comic-Con; Rich Johnston, Markisan Naso and Alan David Doane spent the weekend reading the tea leaves and trying to suss out what would happen next. All basically agreed that DC editorial maestro Dan DiDio was behind the sudden snatching of top Marvel talent, and the alleged surprise of Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada to the news of Morrison's defection was highlighted as well. Johnston also goes high with rumors of irritation on the part of Marvel high mucky-mucks Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad over what is widely perceived to be Bill Jemas' heavy-handed editorial interventions, which are alleged to have played a big part in alienating the creative talent. Johnston goes so far as to hint that Jemas' firing may be in the offing, although Rich himself would be the first to remind everyone that he's working off of rumors here.
Meanwhile, writer and industry martyr Marv Wolfman took to his column on Silver Bullet Comics and offered up his own analysis of what was wrong with Marvel Comics lately:
"I don't know if my figures are completely right – perhaps someone out there does - but here goes: In 1990, we had something like 7,500 comic book shops spread across the country. At the end of the 90s, we had something like 3,500 shops. Rumor has it we now have fewer than 2,000 shops. It has been said that every time a shop closes, only 25% of its customers search out new shops. The others give up the hobby. [...]
"Finally, to the fans and professionals: Some of the problems comics is suffering from is an explosion of bad press that is exacerbated by the internet press who realize the fastest way to make their name is to attack! Attack! Attack! People love to read such stuff, and Marvel, like every company in the world, has enough disgruntled employees, current and former, to feed the minute by minute need for news updates and gossip.
"A comic book writer gets their story tossed out at nine in the morning, by noon he's written a 30 page diatribe that's appearing on 50 websites.
"We canned stories way back in the 70s and 80s but nobody said boo. A book gets pulped, for the wrong reasons or right, execs get slammed, even though it's their right to make such decisions. And, by the way, those decisions have always been made. Just not reported on. I'm not saying the fans are wrong and Marvel is right. Frankly, with the exception of the gossip columnists out there who love to stir up trouble, the fans ARE right and Marvel is wrong for one and one reason only. The basic truth (or lie) of American business: 'the customer is always right.' "
The problem with this analysis is that where the Direct Market is concerned, the customer is in fact fatally wrong. I have long maintained that the biggest problem facing the comic-book industry is its idiotic status as a network of one-genre shops, as retailers chase after the hardcore superhero readers to the contemptuous exclusion of everyone else. Why isn't Transmetropolitan considered "mainstream"? Because it doesn't obey the exact rules required to make it a "mainstream" book, of course. Stupid, stupid customer.
You can see this dynamic in action on any message-board thread dealing with The Pulse's pseudonymous comics reviewer, Jess Lemon. Here's the latest review, which as always has the fanboys screaming for blood in the comments below -- how dare someone criticise our favorite books by pointing out how awful they are? The outrage has spread to other threads, and the results are both hilarious and deeply indicative of the cultural ideology that has led the industry to its present sorry circumstances -- frankly, it's almost like watching a religious cult deal with heretics. These are the customers, Marv; are you quite so sure they're always right?
The decline Wolfman cites is very real, but so long as the industry remains on its present course no amount of "shaking up established lines" is going to have any appreciable effect -- until the nation's comics shops offer potential new customers a real range of available buying choices, the decline will continue. The phenomena driving the industry's decline have nothing to do with awful fan commentary, and everything to do with structural faults and dogma that continues driving the lemmings over the cliff; far from criticising those who point this out, we should be encouraging the discussion. I'll freely confess to not having the slightest idea how the whole thing is ultimately going to shake out -- it's all I can do just to keep track of the present circumstances, and place them in some kind of context as they pass. Given the current state of the market, however, the fact that it is in a serious and possibly fatal state of decay is at this point undeniable. Team Comics is killing the comic-book industry; we need more people pointing this out, not fewer.
The truly warped thing is, I think a good chunk of the danger we face could be alleviated if more than a third of the shops in question would simply (A) start stocking manga in significant quantities and (B) actually do something to advertise the fact that they had it available for sale. Hell, putting a poster or two in the window would be a nice first step. I mean, we're talking about the biggest growth market in comics right now; the notion that the majority of the Direct Market won't touch the stuff is positively suicidal. It's no coincidence that ICv2's recent "Guide to Selling Graphic Novels" featured a manga illustration on the cover.
In all fairness I should point out: there's pain involved with this course of action. Retailers work from an all-too-finite amount of available capital from week to week, and money invested in building a working stock in manga is by necessity going to have to come out of someone else's orders -- logic dictates that this means ordering fewer superhero comics. Many retailers don't have the wiggle room to do this, and those that do have few incentives to turn away a small number of their present clientele in search of new readers. The pain they experience now from stagnant sales and an aging customer base may be real, but they've had plenty of time to get used to it. I'm pessimistic that the industry will make the necessary changes in time, but how can it occur at all unless voices are raised?
I have no doubt that half the people reading this are now thinking, "Of course -- and the fact that you work for an 'alternative' publisher has nothing to do with this, right, Dirk?" Actually, I don't think that art comics could actually save the DM if stocked in sufficient quantites. Longterm, it would be nice to see more comics shops stocked like bookstores of course (a wide array of materials stocked by genre, books emphasized over pamphlets, etc.), but in the short run, what the Direct Market needs most is new blood with money to spend -- in short, the kids buying manga books. Mark my words: one way or another, the survival of the market depends on this happening.
