Author: John Ostrander

JOHN OSTRANDER: Telling Stories

JOHN OSTRANDER: Telling Stories

There is no such thing as nonfiction. There’s only story.

I ‘spect I have some ‘splainin’ to do on that one, Lucy.

Story is a narrative comprising selected series of events arranged towards a desired effect. That’s the same whether you’re telling a Batman story, a newstory, a history, a biography, a novel, a short story, a screenplay or what have you. What determines what events the storyteller chooses to emphasize, de-emphasize, omit, invent, re-interpret, or fudge is whatever ends or point that said storyteller wants to make.

“Newstories?” you ask. “You’re describing the news as all fiction?” You can prove it yourself. Something happens and it’s on the news. How The New York Times covers that event is going to be different than how Fox News covers it. Witness Occupy Wall Street.

The difference between fiction and “non-fiction” is that in fiction we make up the events (although in historical fiction, we often use real events) while the reporter, the biographer, the historian usually use actual events. I have read histories or biographies where there are so few known historical facts that the biographer/historian spends time speculating on what “must” have happened.

In no case, however, are the events they describe exactly what happened. They would have to describe every little thing that occurred without giving one item more emphasis than another. It is not reality; it is the writer’s story of what happened. All the events in a newstory or a history or a biography happen through the lens and the filter of the storyteller, which is formed by that storyteller’s own experiences and point of view. It may be further informed by the editor or producer or director or the PR guy.

It’s all story.

When I’m writing, two of the key questions I have to ask is 1) whose story is it and 2) what story am I trying to tell? The answers to those two questions make or break the story. I maintain it’s no different elsewhere.

Science books? No different. The events are the data and the writer emphasizes or de-emphasizes which data according to what he or she thinks is relevant.

Text books? Oh lordy, are they ever becoming fiction. I know people who work in the text book industry and what goes in, what gets left out, what gets emphasized or de-emphasized depends on the largest school districts and what their school boards want in them or left out. Those districts are in California and Texas, by the way, and they determine what story gets told. If you’re kid is getting creationism taught as a theory equal with evolution, it’s because some powerful school districts have decided that’s part of the story to be taught.

But numbers don’t lie, right? Math books are non-fiction.

Numbers are made to lie all the time. We got into this economic mess because of the fiction some people sold using a selected set of numbers. If someone is spinning the numbers, then they’re telling you a story using those numbers. In other words, a fiction.

Events happen all around us all the time. Thanks to the wonders of the cel phone, the tablet, the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, and on and on, we are constantly bombarded with more events.

Story is how we make sense of the world, of existence, of our lives. We emphasize some things, de-emphasize other, omit a ton of stuff in order to create our own story, one we can live with, cope with, make some sort of demented sense of.

Story, and fiction are not lies per se; they are interpreted reality. What we experience, how we interpret it, is all-true but none of it is completely true. It’s all fiction to some degree. None of it is the complete truth. The part we play in each story varies according to which story is being told and who is telling it. I am, hopefully, the hero of my own story but I may be the villain or antagonist of another, a supporting character in yet another, a cameo or background character in many others. Same for you.

It’s not a bad thing. Story is how we make sense of reality. The more stories we hear, the wider our understanding of that reality. Just keep in mind – everyone has a story to tell. Just ask yourself – why are they telling you a given story? Why am I telling you this one? What story do you make of it?

Make it a good one.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Comic Book Math

Math. Ugh. Hate it. Too real world for me. Unyielding, unforgiving, no sense of humor, and numbers don’t talk to me the way words do. My brain isn’t wired for it. However, numbers are a part of comics and comic book writing.

Certainly there are the important numbers regarding sales, but they also figure into telling a story. Let’s go through some of them. First number: the number of pages. Right now, your monthly comic book is 22 pages long. Let’s say you’ve been asked to do a fill-in story or a complete in one story for a given book. There are certain space limitations you need to take into account.

How many panels are in a page? Well, your first page is usually the splash page which means one big panel. This page also usually has the title of the story and the credits box for the creators. Here’s some rules of thumb for the other pages: when there’s a lot of action, you use fewer panels per page. If it’s a talk scene, you can have more. I generally figure that it will average out to five panels a page. The splash page is one panel so you have 21 pages times five panels. We do the match and the whole thing totals 106 panels in which to tell your story.

There are also limits to how much you can put in a panel. This includes speech balloons, thought balloons, captions, and sound effects, if you have them. You don’t want to crowd the art. I generally figure the limit of all of the above is three per panel.

Nor can you do that every single panel. If you do that, you have a wall of words and the reader usually will just ignore it and go on to the next page that hopefully has less verbiage. The exception to this rule is Brian Michael Bendis and, trust me, unless you are in fact Brian Michael Bendis, you’re not Brian Michael Bendis.

There are also limits to how much you can put into each word balloon, thought balloon, or caption. Again, I use a rule of thumb and it’s based on my font type and size. I tend to use Geneva 14 point (my eyes aren’t great and that’s what I can most easily see). So I figure the maximum is three typed lines per balloon or caption. Again, you can’t do that with every panel or you’ll wind up with the Wall of Words that gets ignored. Again, the Bendis Exception applies.

So, being generous, let’s say you average about 1.5 balloons/captions per panel. Do the math. If you have 106 panels per issue, that comes out to 159 balloons/captions with which to tell your story. That’s it. 21 pages, 106 panels, 159 balloons/captions in all. That’s plot, plot twists, characterization, theme, and snappy banter. Ladies and germs, that’s not a lot of space.

There’s a bit more math with telling a story as well. Each panel should have one clear definable action per panel. Batman leaps but he does not leap, land, spin, and hit the Joker in one panel. Asking your artist to draw that is grounds for justifiable homicide. I’m kidding. Your artist won’t kill you; he/she will simply ignore your instructions and find a way to make it work. But they will hate you… with justification.

You can have a secondary character do something in the panel as well but you can’t do that a lot unless your artist is George Pérez who will add more action if you haven’t. The Pérez Exception is the artist corollary to the Bendis Exception.

And you have to do all this without making it seem crowded or rushed.

That’s the mathematical reality to writing a single issue comic book, kids. If you’re doing an arc, then you multiply by the number of issues. The number of issues you’re allowed will depend on the price point (again, a number) the company figures the public will pay. It’s usually four or five issues. So, for an arc, you can multiply the above totals by those numbers. Still not a lot of space. Finally, there are deadlines, which are another set of numbers, namely the date by which it’s all due. Violate that at your peril.

And that, as our friends in the newspaper trade were wont to say, is -30-.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Life and Death and Comics

As you all know, Steve Jobs died this last week. You also know, or should from everything that has been said about him since he died, that he co-founded Apple and was the visionary that brought us the iPhone, the iPad, the iPod and the computer on which I’m writing all this. Some have compared him to Einstein or Edison and, considering the influence he’s had or will continue to have, I think the comparison is apt.

Here’s some of what Steve Jobs said about death from his commencement address to Stamford University in 2005. He’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, had surgery, and hoped he had escaped it. Jobs was a reflective person, however, and talked about what the experience had taught him.

“Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new… Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

“And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

That’s profound advice for anyone who wants to be a writer, who wants to be any kind of artist. Jobs was an artist, in my opinion, and his medium was Apple.

This has had a special reverberation for me as well. I’ve been spending the week dealing with an irregular heartbeat. My heart sometimes goes ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. . . .ba-DUMP. We’ve all heard the phrase of how something or someone made your heart skip a beat. Well, mine has and I can tell you it’s not romantic; it’s a little scary.

Yes, I’ve been to the doctor(s) and there’s been a bunch of tests and there will be more to come. I’m told it’s not a heart attack. The initial diagnosis is palpitations. I’m one attack of the vapors from becoming a Southern Belle.

While this is something to pay attention to (and I am), it doesn’t appear to be dangerous at the moment. At the same time, it’s made me reflective of the fact that I am mortal and I will die. I’ve had a relationship with death all my life and I think it’s shaped me for the better. As a boy, any number of my relatives died by the time I was ten. I spent a lot of time at wakes and funerals. I saw dead people – ones I had known as living folks.

I lived across the street from our church and one bright summer morning I was on my bike in front of my house when a funeral cortege passed by heading to the front of the church. As I watched the hearse go by, I got the sense that someday the positions would be different. I would be in a hearse and some ten-year old kid would watch me pass by. As Jobs said, the old replaced by the new and that everything new eventually becomes old.

All those deaths – ones close to me like my father or my late wife, Kim, or of heroes like the Kennedys or John Lennon – have become part of me. It’s like the way artists use negative space to define objects. Death helps define life. Death has helped me define life for myself, it has entered into my writing and given it resonance.

Too often in comics we treat death as a plot device; the hero dies, the hero comes back. The grave has a revolving door. It’s a stunt to sell more books. I’ve done it myself. Some times it’s valid but it happens too often so that the death of a character really doesn’t mean anything anymore. Does that keep comics juvenile? Does it keep them from having any real resonance?

The medium itself is having death pangs in so many ways. Comic books shops are dying; print as a medium may be dying. Denny O’Neil once remarked to me that comics as a medium doesn’t have to exist; it can also be mortal. It can die.

Or it can change. The old parts die out and then get reborn. As Steve Jobs noted, death clears out the old to make way for the new. Maybe comics can benefit from a little death. It’s good to remember: nothing and no one lasts forever. That what gives life its poignancy and its value. Enjoy what you have while you have it. Love those you love while they’re here. Celebrate life; value death.

Life’s too short to read bad comics.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Surprise Me!

I’ve been writing stuff for a while so it’s hard to take me by surprise. I can often spot where a story is going; I’ve been known, when watching a movie or TV show, to not only predict the next plot twist but sometimes the next line of dialog. Those around me, aside from shushing me, sometimes ask me if I’ve seen this particular movie or episode before. The answer in these cases is “no” but based on what I know of plot and character, you can predict where the story has to go or what a person has to say to get it there, especially when the writer(s) are going by the numbers.

On the other hand, I’m delighted when the writer surprises me. It’s not a matter of willy-nilly just writing any old damn thing but advancing the plot or the dialog in a way that completely makes sense within context of the story. The sort of thing that makes me go, “Of course! Why didn’t I see that?!” The fact that I didn’t see or hear that coming delights me. It makes sense yet is a surprise.

I first noticed Geoff Johns on the JSA title when he did that twice to me. He re-invented original Justice Society members Doctor Fate and Johnny Thunder in ways that surprised me but were completely true to the characters and the book. They didn’t come out of the blue but were what I call “fair extrapolation” of what was already given. Any chump writer can write a surprise or a “shock surprise;” the real difficulty is to make it work in context of the character or story. Geoff makes his surprises seem organic and inevitable – once you’ve seen the surprise. He’s a writing magician.

Another writer like that is Stephen Moffat, currently renowned for as the producer and lead writer of the current Doctor Who series. He started this season with an astronaut coming out of a lake and killing the Doctor, not giving him time to regenerate. Turns out this Doctor was slightly from the future so we still had the “current time” Doctor running around this season. (The Doctor, for those of you who don’t know, is a time traveler and Moffat makes very good use of time travel in this series.)

Next Saturday is the season finale and it looks as if they’re going to deal with all this. I have no idea how Moffat’s going to pull it off but I trust him. Not only has he done a sterling job on Doctor Who but he’s also done a modern update of Sherlock Holmes (simply called Sherlock) that totally works. He also ended the first three-episode season on a cliffhanger. I trust him to find a way out that will be cool.

Moffat’s also done a revised update of Jeykll and Hyde simply called Jekyll. I admire it a lot but the first couple of episodes creeped me out enough that I haven’t finished the rest. Remember, I’m the guy who wrote the real Wasteland.

The third on my list of writers who know how to pull off “logical surprises” is Jim Butcher and, in particular, his series of novels The Dresden Files. It features a “wizard for hire,” Harry Dresden, who works out of Chicago. Okay, that’s my hometown and so I’m already there and Dresden is a hard-boiled wizard – part private detective, part Doctor Strange. It was made into a short-lived TV series on SyFy and they completely screwed it up. If that’s your only encounter with the series, please ignore it.

The Dresden Files was good when it started and has just gotten better with each successive book. Terrific cast of supporting characters, well-developed mythology for the series, and each one leaves me panting for more. Whoever I think I know where Butcher is going, he throws me for a loop. Highly recommended.

While all these writers know how to do a twist, it’s never a twist just for the sake of doing a twist. It always involves pushing the story forward or reveals new levels of characterization. I don’t need a twist to love a book or story but I always appreciate it when I get blindsided by one and it works.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Story Telling

I love stories. I love reading stories, I love hearing stories, I love telling stories.

I’ve been like this as far back as I can remember.

The way my mind works is that I see stories everywhere. Back when I was going to Chicago’s Quigley Prep Seminary in my freshman year of high school, I had to take the elevated train down to school and back at least five days a week. In those days, the first seat in the first car was a single seat right by the front window. When I could get it, I’d watch the tracks as we went. I’d assign one person’s life to one of the rails and another person’s life to the parallel rail and, at junctions, where another set of rails could switch you to another set of tracks, I saw those parallel lives coming together but then another junction would come and those lives would no longer travel on together. I projected a story onto the rails.

Yeah, I was an odd kid.

Sometimes I would come home after dark, especially during the winter, and when I could I’d sit by the train window and watch the apartment buildings as we passed them with rows upon rows of windows. Most would be dark or have the shades drawn but, every so often, the window would be lit and the shade would be up and you’d see someone in the window, just for a few seconds. You’d catch a bit of their life and wonder what the rest of it was like.

Years later, I lived in an apartment that was a half block or less from the train tracks. I lived on the third floor and I knew, from my previous experience, that if the lights were lit and the shades were up, people from the passing trains could look into my life just as I glimpsed into others. That seemed fair.

What I learned from this is that we play many parts in our lives. We are the leads of our own stories (or should be) although, as Charles Dickens, in the opening of David Copperfield, wrote: ”Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” We can be the hero or villain in our own life and sometimes are both. In the story of other peoples’ lives, we assume different plot functions – supporting character, antagonist, cameo, walk-on. We are part of so many different stories.

We are all stories; we are all storytellers. As my former rector, Revered Phillip Wilson, used to say, stories are the atoms of our social interactions. We use story constantly in our own lives, to convey experience, tell a joke, share an experience. Stories are how we understand the world into which we have been born. The stories we tell shape us both as a people and a nation.

The stories often get told and re-told just as DC Comics is now re-telling its stories. Events get altered because it makes a better story. When Del Close was telling portions of his life story in Wasteland, he was never concerned about the facts (although there were often some kernels of fact in the story) – he was concerned with what was true, what was good for the story.

A good story always reflects the storyteller and Del’s stories always did. Del lives in his stories just as Dickens lives in his stories just as Shakespeare does in his. As I do in mine. The stories aren’t real in that the events haven’t happened but they are hopefully true; lies told in service to the truth.

So – what’s your story?

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER’s Rules of Engagement

Let’s talk about writing fight scenes. Nothing to it, right? In this corner we got character A, in that corner we got character B, the bell rings, and they proceed to beat the poo out of each other until someone falls down. Simple, right? You just point the artists in the general direction, tell them how many pages they got, and collect your check. What could be more simple?

I’ll admit, I’ve pretty much done that some times. If I know the artist real well, I’ll give plot points that are to be covered and let them work their magic. However, I only do that if I know that the artist and I are on the same page about how fight scenes should go.

The fact of the matter is, fight scenes need not only to be choreographed, they need to be plotted and written. They need to build. Above all, they should serve the story and not simply be there for some random violence. The purpose of the story is to reveal character and so also is a fight scene.

The real question in any story is what does the protagonist want and how badly does he want it? It reveals who he really are as opposed to who he thinks he is. My late wife Kim used to play scenarios for me and ask me how I would feel or what I would do in such and such situation. I always told her, “I don’t know. Ask me when we get there.” All I could have told her what was I thought I would feel or do or how I hoped I would react. The truth is, those are all bound up in your idea of who you are. You don’t know until you’ve been there. Past experience may be an indication but it’s not a guarantee. Circumstances are always a little different and there’s any number of contributing factors that can alter the outcome.

In any scene (and that includes a fight scene), what a character does is determined by what they want. What is their goal? Usually there is more than one objective and sometimes these objectives are contradictory – we’ll talk about all that some other time – but let’s say there’s one essential goal that drives the protagonist. It’s not something they would like or they sorta kinda maybe want, it’s something they want. It is something that defines them. It is something they must get, must achieve, must save, must protect.

The opponent – the antagonist – is what’s in the way. It could be a person, it could be an army, it could be a wall, it could be a hurricane, it could be anything. In a regular scene, the objective could be relatively small but, in a fight scene, it usually comes down to something pretty primal.

The goal also can’t be easy for the protagonist to get. If the goal is to get through the wall, you look for a door. If the door is locked, you look for a key. If you don’t have a key, you try and kick it down. If the door’s re-enforced, you try to blow it up – or you give up. If giving up is not an option, then the protagonist has to find a way.

Notice there was a progression in the wall sequence. We try what is easiest first – rule of human nature and what’s true in real life should be true in our stories. You want the scene – any scene but especially a fight scene – to build. It gets harder for the protagonist as it goes. You blow it all in the first punch then you have nowhere to go and neither does your story. The protagonist has to struggle; it’s the only way we get to see who they really are. No struggle, no revelation. No point to the story.

Take boxing as an example. You have the champ and in this fight he goes up against a palooka. The palooka goes down and out in the first round. The fight is over and who cares? Palooka keeps getting up and coming at the champ and, win or lose, you’ve got Rocky.

Violence isn’t necessarily about two characters beating the poo out of each other, either. There’s emotional violence as well. Read or watch Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolff for some first class emotional violence. It can be small scale, it can be Grand Guingol, but violence – emotional or physical – creates conflict, tension, and reveals character.

Fight scenes, if you have them, are part of the story and they have to tell the story or they’re a waste of time and space and the reader’s attention. A good fight scene is about something. That’s what we’re looking for – and that’s what we have a right to expect.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Comic Books, Peanut Butter and Anchovies

For twenty-five years, Mike Malve down in Arizona ran a successful line of comic book stores called Atomic Comics. I knew him from his weekly e-mail messages that he sent out. Nice chatty e-pistles about what sold last week, what was coming out this week, assorted thoughts about the industry, various promotions he was running, different guests he had visiting and so on.

I’d never been to his stores but Mike and I exchanged several e-mails. He always struck me as a good solid sort of retailer, one who knew and loved the industry, worked hard, promoted the work and those who made it. The sort of guy you wanted to see make it.

Two weeks ago, he closed down all his shops. There were lots of factors contributing to the closings, as he detailed in his last report. When the times were good, he expanded into high profile locations but, as he said, “when the economy went sour, low sales could not support the higher rent at these high visibility locations. The leases at these particular stores which had originally provided the consumers with greater visibility and more foot traffic to our wonderful world of comic books, the higher overhead proved to be too much for Atomic as we faced declining sales.”

He traces the decline back to an incident in 2006 when a 16-year old uninsured driver crashed her car through the front window of his biggest store and best revenue producer. The accident tore up a water main and the flood caused a million dollars worth of lost revenue and the store closed down for over five months. This was just as the recession started.

Mike secured the leases on the stores with his house so he’s going to be losing that as well as going into bankruptcy. Throughout it all, he’s maintained as cheerful and upbeat an attitude as he can manage – better than I could in his circumstances. He hopes to find some way to remain in the industry he loves.

Just two weeks later, this last week, DC launched its latest version of its titles in a sweeping revamp that includes same-day digital sales. At the same time, we see Borders closing its doors and various and sundry people have announced the death knell of the brick and mortar bookstores of all stripes.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Doctor Whose?

Doctor Who returned to TV last night and my household is thrilled. Big fans of the Doctor here; I once wrote and tried to produce a Doctor Who stage play with the idea that this was the only way I would ever get to play the Doctor. The play never got to production and, despite being the writer and the producer, I couldn’t get cast as the Doctor which tells you, right there, one of the big reasons I gave up acting.

There’s a lot to be done in this new series of episodes, including explaining how the Doctor, who was shot dead in the first episode of this season’s series of episodes, escapes (the Doctor who was killed was from 200 years down the time stream; did I mention that Doctor Who is about time travel?). If the show does not explain that by this end of this season, I will personally hunt down the show’s brilliant writer and show-runner, Stephen Moffat, and throw him into a Pandorica until he tells. (If you haven’t seen the show, don’t bother trying to understand the reference. In show in-joke.)

However, that’s not the point of this rant. When last seen, the current Doctor (Matt Smith) went to war to recover his companion, Amy Pond, and her newborn child who would grow up to become River Song who would become the Doctor’s wife at some point later in the time stream. The adult River is along for the adventure, by the way. Sound confusing, perhaps, I know; it’s a timey-wimey-wivey thing. It works. Trust me.

However, towards the end of the episode, River gives the Doctor crap about how his life is going, how he is becoming too much the warrior, and some such bilge. Excuse me? The Doctor goes up against nasty horrible bad guys that are trying to take over the Earth and/or destroy/enslave humanity and/or destroy the universe or time itself and the Doctor time and again defeats them armed with nothing but his wits and a sonic screwdriver.

This has happened before. The previous incarnation of the Doctor – David Tennant (The Doctor regenerates from time to time when they need to change the lead actor and it’s a wonderful idea that keeps the series fresh) – got taken to task by one of the worst of his enemies, a fiend called Davros who invented the Daleks who go around killing anything that isn’t a Dalek. Said fiend accuses the Doctor of manipulating his companions so that they do the dirty work so the Doctor doesn’t have to. And the Doctor appears to take him seriously! Where does the creator of the Daleks have any moral ground against the hero who has saved the universe time and again from the product of Davros’ invention?

Is the Doctor supposed to feel bad about being the hero? Am I supposed to think the Doctor is not the hero me thinks him is? The Doctor is the good guy here, folks; I don’t want him all angsty and doubting his own motives. I mean, c’mon – the next thing you know, he’ll be doubting that bow ties are cool!

I know bow ties are cool. The Doctor told me so. And I trust the Doctor.

 

MONDAY (Hurricane willing): Mindy Newell

JOHN OSTRANDER: Brave-ish New Worlds

JOHN OSTRANDER: Brave-ish New Worlds

In last week’s column, I talked about target audiences and how, in comics, there has been a primary and a secondary audience – the retailers and distributors being the primary audience and the readers being the secondary audience. If you don’t get the product on the shelves, you can’t sell it. I surmised that could change as comics go to same digital sale as the comic shops; that could mean the readers become the primary audience.

So – what does that mean? What might it mean? Let’s do a little idle speculation and what I would like it to mean. Maybe you would, too. Let’s compare note.

More readers. Actually, this isn’t just a wish, it’s a necessity. Not that there’s anything wrong with the readers that we got; you guys is swell. But we need more in sheer numbers and that’s the point of going digital: comics need to go where the eyeballs are and that’s on the web. Nor is it enough to just preserve the status quo. We need to increase the readership, meaning new readers, and that involves some of trick below.

Lower prices. I think this mandatory. The jury is still out as to whether folks on the web will pay anything – lots of folks online are used to and defend downloading for free – but I don’t think they’re going to pay $2.99 for 22 pages of story. Also, the costs of producing the product is less: no printing, no shipping, no cost of paper. Yes, the companies have to pay for access to whatever reader they’re using, but I’m betting it’s less than the cuts taken by retailers and distributors.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Targeted Audiences

john-ostrander-8877507My Mary gets pissed-off about a lot of commercials because they’re so stupid. I remind her that, in most cases, we are not the target audience for the product. At 62, I’m rarely the target audience for most products unless they’re for erectile dysfunction or, as I like to call it, Limp Dick Syndrome.

Most products have a targeted audience, and that includes comics. In fact, it has a primary and secondary audience and it might surprise fans to know that they are the secondary audience. Who is the primary audience? Distributors and retailers – or, at least, they have been.

A quick review/primer on how comics are sold: when comics are printed they are shipped to distributors who then solicit the sale of the comics from retailers (traditionally direct sale comic book shops) who have pre-ordered the books based on how many they think they can sell. The books are then, hopefully, sold to a public who comes into the shops and buys them off the shelves.

ostrander-column-110814-art-1133233That’s the trick. If the books don’t find their ways to the shelves, they don’t get sold. The distributor has a catalog in which the books are advertised and where and how they’re placed can determine how many copies of a given book are ordered or if they are ordered. The retailers’ goal is to sell out each book each month. Why? Because they’re stuck with each book they don’t sell; the books are non-returnable. It makes better business sense to order too few than order too many especially when you look at the volume of titles out every month.

The primary goal of the comic book companies is to make money which translates into how many books they sell. They want to convince the distributor to give them bigger space in the catalog so they can attract the eye of the retailers so that they will order more or at least the same amount as the previous month. (Many retailers I know automatically reduce their order by so many percentage points every month unless the book is in the top twenty. They assume readers drop off after a certain point. Why do they assume that? Experience.)

How do the big companies do that? They stage events – crossovers, multiple covers, guest stars (Wolverine or Batman everywhere!), revamps, new creative teams, new directions and so on. The companies hope that the fans will get excited but the real reason is to get the primary target audience to order more. So the stories that the secondary audience – the reader – sees is largely dependent on what grabs the primary audience.

And all that’s going to change. The small independent creators are proving that they can sell their comics online or in digital form direct to the fans. And the big companies have taken notice. DC is making its book available online the same day they go on-sale in shops. If it’s successful, expect everyone else to follow and fast. The secondary audience will become the primary audience.

What will that mean in terms of story? It means things could get real interesting. More on that next week.

(Editor’s note: This column was supposed to be posted on Sunday morning. That’s what the editor set everything up for. But it didn’t happen. We think this is because the editor is an idiot. Our apologies to John and all the Ostranderites all over the globe.)

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