Articles by glenn-hauman
Mon Sep 6, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Labor Day and the Cost Of Doing Business in Comics
Five hundred dollars.
When people talk about putting regular, old-fashioned comic books online, keep that $500 in mind.
That's about how much it costs for an average page of comic book art, in terms of labor. Figure $100 for the writer, $150 for the penciller, $130 for the inker, $90 for the colorist, and $30 for the letterer. Those numbers go up and down depending on talent and publishers, but that's a nice round number for us to work with.
Let's consider another number: 22. That's the average page count for a monthly comic book story. It's also the number of pages most average pencillers can produce a month. Neat coincidence.
Now start multiplying. That means a penciller will make $3300 a month, or $39,600 a year. With covers, round that up to $42 grand a year. Not a lot of cash there. And the penciller's the highest paid talent on the book. A writer will make $2200 a month, and nobody pays him to write covers. He'll probably have to write two books a month to make his nut. And so on.
But if you're expecting professionals to create your comics, that's what you'll have to spend.
Graphic novels? From scratch? You're looking at about 120 pages minimum-- that's $60,000 in labor costs. Unless you're economizing and doing a lot of the work yourself, that's going to almost insurmountable unless it's commissioned by somebody-- most writers don't have a spare $48,000 to spend on an outside artist. This, of course, is one reason why many "literary" graphic novels are solo jobs-- David Mazzuchelli, Darwyn Cooke, Alison Bechdel, Brian Fies, et cetera-- because the economics simply aren't there to support five hungry mouths.
Any proposal for getting books in print in paper-- or publishing online-- has to keep those numbers in mind. You either have to generate enough money to cover those upfront costs, or find some way to mitigate or reduce them.
So how would you do it? (And no, you can't pay in Monopoly money.)
Mon Sep 6, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Monday Mix-Up: 'Comic Sans Man'
The unholy melding of bad comic book superheroics and bad comic book lettering...
Never has the phrase "Will he save the world... or destroy it?" seemed so apt.
Fri Sep 3, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
What did Mark Waid REALLY say at the Harvey Awards? Listen for yourself!
It's already become a bit legendary this week-- the self-described "long vodka-fueled rant" that Mark Waid delivered as the keynote speech at the Harvey Awards. However, unless you were one of the two hundred or so people in the room, you didn't actually hear his speech. You might have read the speech Mark intended to give, but Mark himself said he almost immediately went off his notes.
So what was actually said? And was there really booing from some audience members?
Now you can listen for yourself. After a brief intro by Scott Kurtz, we have the full speech from Mark Waid here, as caught by Phil Merkel.
And after you've heard it, discuss what he had to say about publishing, filesharing, and making a living in the future in the comments.
Thu Sep 2, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Mark Waid's speech and the Napsterization of comics
Mark Waid's planned Harvey speech on copyright, piracy, digital distribution, and the like is now posted at CBR. Please note that this is his Platonic ideal speech, not what I heard in the room-- as I recall it and he himself noted, the speech he gave was significantly, shall we say, rougher. Sadly, no one has posted an actual transcript or video yet, which is a shame as I think that may have been even more important. (And yes, I have a lead on a copy.)
A while back, I wrote about a meeting I had with DC Legal talking about comics piracy, and I talked about how comics were being Napsterized. In the light of Mark's call to start a dialogue on these topics, I'd like to revisit that topic-- sadly, five years on, the issues are still with us.
Seth Godin recently talked about what publishing should have learned from the music industry:
1) We have a fresh slate at HarperStudio. What's your advice?
The huge opportunity for book publishers is to get unstuck. You're not in the printing business. The life and death of trees is not your concern. You're in the business of leveraging the big ideas authors have. There are a hundred ways to do that, yet book publishers obsess about just one or two of them. Here's the news flash: that's not what authors care about. Authors don't care about units sold. They care about ideas spread. If you can help them do that, we're delighted to share our profits with you. But one (broken) sales channel--bookstores--and one broken model (guaranteed sale of slow-to-market books) is not the way to get there. If you free yourself up enough to throw that out, you'll figure out dozens of ways to leverage and spread and profit from ideas worth spreading.
2) If everything is free, how is anyone going to make any money?
First, the market and the internet don't care if you make money. That's important to say. You have no right to make money from every development in media, and the humility that comes from approaching the market that way matters. It's not "how can the market make me money" it's "how can I do things for this market." Because generally, when you do something for an audience, they repay you. The Grateful Dead made plenty of money. Tom Peters makes many millions of dollars a year giving speeches, while books are a tiny fraction of that. Barack Obama used ideas to get elected, book royalties are just a nice side effect. There are doctors and consultants who profit from spreading ideas. Novelists and musicians can make money with bespoke work and appearances and interactions. And you know what? It's entirely likely that many people in the chain WON'T make any money. That's okay. That's the way change works.
3) How do you think publishers and authors could work more productively together?
Publishing is far too focused on the pub day. The event of the publication. This is a tiny drip, perhaps the least important moment in a long timeline. As soon as publishers see themselves as marketers and agents and managers and developers of content, things change.
4) What's the most important lesson the book publishing industry can learn from the music industry?
The market doesn't care a whit about maintaining your industry. The lesson from Napster and iTunes is that there's even MORE music than there was before. What got hurt was Tower and the guys in the suits and the unlimited budgets for groupies and drugs. The music will keep coming. Same thing is true with books. So you can decide to hassle your readers (oh, I mean your customers) and you can decide that a book on a Kindle SHOULD cost $15 because it replaces a $15 book, and if you do, we (the readers) will just walk away. Or, you could say, "if books on the Kindle were $1, perhaps we could create a vast audience of people who buy books like candy, all the time, and read more and don't pirate stuff cause it's convenient and cheap..." I'm a pessimist that the book industry will learn from music. How are you betting?
So let's think about the state of the industries-- where music's been the last few years, and where comics could be heading.
Recession? Check.
Screwed up and weakened distribution channels? Check.
High studio costs? Check.
Nearly free, widespread distribution system that the fans use? Check.
Major industry execs and creators that are either clueless about the Internet, or are years late to the party? Check.
A newly empowered bunch of creators doing it themselves and distributing online? Check, check, check.
So is there a solution? Yes, but there are some big hurdles to overcome. Start discussing it in the comment threads, and we'll be back in a bit with more.Wed Sep 1, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Baltimore Comic-Con 2010 summed up in three pictures
Even though the show is still very family friendly, you still get creepy old guys and fruits showing up...
...and by the end of the day, your kids look like this:
Continue reading Baltimore Comic-Con 2010 summed up in three pictures ›
Tue Aug 24, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'No Ordinary Family' online preview for first 50,000 visitors
Kryptonsite reports that ABC has made the pilot of No Ordinary Family available online and legally over a month before its September 28 premiere… but only if you’re one of the first 50,000 people.
Visit NoOrdinaryScreening.com and put in the password “Extraordinary.” (Please note that this is case-sensitive.) There, ABC is screening the pilot with limited interruption.
This password/screening apparently has a tie-in to Best Buy stores, and was originally discovered by the Stitch Kingdom website.
Because this is apparently limited to 50,000 viewers, we cannot guarantee how long this password will work. Please remember that the Extraordinary password is case-sensitive.
Mon Aug 23, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Dean Haspiel wins Emmy for 'Bored To Death' titles
The Beat caught this one: At Saturday’s Creative Arts Emmys, Dean Haspiel won the Outstanding Main Title Design Emmy for HBO's Bored To Death, along with collaborators Tom Barham, Marci Ichimura and Anthony Santoro. Haspiel is shown here with series creator Jonathan Ames and their Emmy. The Zach Galifianakis character, graphic novelist Ray Hueston, may also be based on Dean.
If you don't have HBO and have never seen the show, here's the opening sequence:
Congrats to Dean, and here's hoping that Galifianakis doesn't make him look too goofy next season-- which starts next month on HBO.
Fri Aug 20, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Knock me over with a feather: 'Star Wars' in Blu-Ray in 2011
Wow. Who could have foreseen that George Lucas, who has skillfully exploited every single new video format to come along in the past 33 years for maximum financial gain, would release Star Wars on Blu-Ray sometime in 2011 with even more clips that we never saw before? And only as a box set for all six, so you can't cherry pick your favorites?
Impress me, George. Put both editions of the original trilogy on there.
Wed Aug 18, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Ray Bradbury will be turning 90 on Sunday...
...which, I suppose, is why some people made a video saluting him.
(DEAR GOD NO NOT SAFE FOR WORK)
What's amazing is that I know a bunch of women who have expressed similar sentiments about the man's writing. Now if only other comic book writers got the same treatment...
Tue Aug 10, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
The latest Pixar-Marvel Crossover: Bullseye!
Marv Wolfman writes:
A few weeks back on Twitter, referring to Toy Story 3, writer Gail Simone made a funny comment on Bullseye, the horse, and in her deadpan Twitter-humor style referenced Daredevil's Bullseye. In turn, I wrote back saying whoever created that Bullseye had to be a genius. Needless to say, I created him. As usual, other folk got involved, too, and R.J. Carter just sent me this, drawn by his friend, Darren Goodhart. It is great and I had to share it.
So now we share it with you. Enjoy.
Now all we need is Woody in Deathstroke's costume and Buzz Lightyear as Cyborg. (Beast Boy can already turn into Nervous Rex.)
Mon Aug 9, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Jane Badler returns to 'V'
She's baaaaaack... hide your mice.
Jane Badler, who played Diana on the original V series is joining the cast of ABC's present series V as a recurring guest star. Badler's character Diana is the mother of Anna (Morena Baccarin) who is the new leader of the Vs. Badler's role begins during the season two premiere.
Now everybody starts figuring out how this is going to link the two series in continuity...
Fri Aug 6, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
'Avengers' Teaser Trailer
Okay... there's no real visuals. But we do have Samuel L. Jackson reading a Stan Lee caption that you're probably going to mouth along with yourself, and... oh, just click play, already.
Imaginary Forces directed this with Ahmet Ahmet and Peter Frankfurt credited as Creative and Art directors respectively, and this was probably used as a placeholder reel to run on a loop at a licensing expo somewhere.
Hat tip: Comics Alliance and Bleeding Cool, who both beat us to the punch.
Thu Aug 5, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
We're thinking of redesigning the site...*
...and this XKCD cartoon got us thinking about the numerous ways websites get it wrong and occasionally right.
So we figured we better ask you, the people who use it, what you come here looking for and what you like about the site, and what things would you like to see added. Facebook integration? Comics previews? Birthday lists? Twitter directories? Convention coverage? Spoiler tags? More movie coverage? Video games? Trivia contests? Yaoi?
Let us know in the comments.
* after we finish with getting books out the door and covering the summer conventions.
Wed Aug 4, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Happy 60th Birthday, Mike Gold!
A titanic event sixty years in the making!
ComicMix editor-in-chief, big cheese, el jefe del mundo, founder of First Comics, industry legend, and shining example of humanity Mike Gold turns 60 today. In celebration, we are told a grand scientific experiment will be held today to see if there really can be a barbecue sauce-flavored birthday cake frosting.
Happy birthday, big guy. Out of deep respect, I am not going to photoshop a birthday hat on you.
Mon Aug 2, 2010 — by Glenn Hauman
Monday Mix-Up: 'Inception' meets 'Toy Story'
What is it with people mapping Pixar movies onto Christopher Nolan directed efforts? First it was The Dark Knight mapped onto Toy Story back in March, and now we have this:
Any day now, we're going to get a mash-up of The Prestige and Presto...
