Over the last two weeks, Marvel has laid off lots of people, from Bullpen staffers and editors to COO Jim Sokolowski. Heidi MacDonald may have tracked down the main culprit:
The budget slashing is the work of Marvel’s CEO, Isaac Perlmutter, an executive of legendary stinginess whose fanatical devotion to saving money —an increased interest in being hands on at Marvel — has led to the layoffs and other draconian measures inside the company.
Perlmutter and his then partner Avi Arad rode in to save Marvel from bankruptcy when they ran ToyBiz back in the late 90s. Keeping an eye on the bottom line was key to turning the company around. Bold moves like setting up their own $500 million movie studio took Marvel from penniless publishing company to a Wall Street darling with numerous stock splits. And of course, it led to Disney shelling out all that cash for a ready-made, boy-friendly franchise factory.
Although he no longer owns Marvel, Ike still runs it. And rather than sit back and enjoy his sunset years—he’s 68—with his $1.7 billion fortune, he’s chosen to keep a very active hand in running the company. In recent months he’s become even more active, showing up at the office daily. And it seems the only way he knows how to run a company is by increasing profits — not by investing in new businesses, but simply squeezing the bottom line for every last penny by any means.
If Ike thinks an expenditure is unnecessary, there’s no way around it, and anyone caught doing it is in danger of losing their job.
From Ike’s point of view, why not? The single biggest financial contributors to Marvel’s bottom line are movies based on stories that are up to fifty years old at this point– seventy, if you count Captain America. Why should you bother creating anything new, when there’s so much to be squeezed from the old stuff?
Heidi also speculates that this may be to impress Disney and get Ike a seat on the board, now that he’s Disney’s single largest shareholder. What Ike doesn’t realize is that Disney already tried this tactic, squeezing every last drop out of their previously created works and riding on coattails. It was called “the seventies”. But Disney realized that it couldn’t go on forever, and that new properties had to be created, new stories had to be told. That required Disney to buy Pixar, which gave them access to some of the greatest visionairies on the planet, both the animators and Steve Jobs.
Jobs was an innovator. Perlmutter is an accountant.
It was Perlmutter’s tight grip on facts, figures, and accounting that got him control of the company from Ron Perelman and Carl Icahn, drag it out of bankruptcy, and build it to something that could be sold for four billion dollars. But really, you gotta spend money and get new fans sometime. DC’s new initiative and spike in sales should get Marvel worried.
It’s almost like you’re begging to be hassled by the 99%… or as we like to think of it, almost everybody else who works for Marvel.
Disney is generally pretty good about supporting the brands that support them, such as Pixar and ESPN. But if Perlmutter is keeping tight control and tighter purse strings, you have to wonder if Disney is getting the full news from the front line.
For those of you who experience my weekly hysterical polemics over at Michael Davis World (yep, that Michael Davis), it will come as no surprise that I was looking forward to Dark Horse’s new series Orchid. Sure, new comics come about as often as simians poop, but this one was written by Tom Morello.
Who, you may ask, is Tom Morello? I’ll try not to indulge in musical and political elitism here; there’s always enough of that to go around. Suffice it to say that Morello is one of those activist musicians, and his work shines brighter than most. Best known as the guitarist for Rage Against The Machine, Tom was also in the bands Lock Up and Audioslave. For much of the past decade he’s been a solo act, a.k.a. The Nightwatchman. This latter work is acoustic; the former more punk/new wave/hip-hop. Or, as we in the Whole World Is Watching racket like to say, loud. I play his stuff on Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind, I listen to his work lovingly, I watch him on Bill Maher, and evidently we are or have been members of the same union. Indeed, if he was at last week’s New York Comic Con, he and I were probably the only two people among 100,000 to be wearing IWW garb.
What I find really cool about this guy, outside of his work and his politics, is that his mom co-founded the anti-censorship organization Parents for Rock and Rap (say “anti-censorship” and I’m there) and, oh yeah, he’s the nephew of Jomo Kenyatta, the anti-colonialist anti-Communist activist who became Kenya’s first president.
Ahem. So, to get down to the nitty-gritty, is Orchid worth reading?
The simple review is, yes it is. I wish I had worked on it. There’s some rough edges in both the story and in Scott Hepburn’s art, but compared to most of what haunts the racks these days it’s Alex Raymond. Hepburn seems to have been influenced by British guys like Mik McMahon and Ian Gibson; that’s high praise. He’s done a lot of Star Wars stuff for Dark Horse and some Marvel gigs, and his storytelling is as strong as the story he’s telling. In fact, I might track down some of Hepburn’s Star Wars work – as John Ostrander can tell you, it takes a lot to get me to read Star Wars.
The story is post-apocalyptic, an overworked genre that generally lacks the strong emotional point of view needed to make it work. Not so with Orchid. The lead character is a teenage prostitute who protects her family in their struggle to survive in swampland shanties while the rich live above the morass in their fortresses, harvesting the poor (I’d say the 99%, but this number has not yet been established) as slaves, organ providers and sex toys. Morello and Hepburn make it work by sheer dint of their craft and their applied appreciation of allegory.
Morello supplements each issue with a new downloadable song. I’d give you the link, but I’d rather you check out Orchid #1, available at more-intelligently run comic shops and online.
I can’t help wonder if the current Occupier demonstrations all across the nation – now, all across the world – weren’t orchestrated by Morello as a promotion stunt. Given my own background, I’d say that was really cool. Highly doubtful, but really cool. If only that same intensity were to morph into greater exposure for Orchid.
While DC triumphed over Marvel in September’s charts — if they hadn’t, it would have been the greatest shock of the year — but some folks, like Warren Ellis were unimpressed with the margins:
But all those units DC sold are returnable.
Thank god all those DC execs told everyone they weren’t interested in market share. Otherwise someone might have come away with the notion that DC really intended to give Marvel a fight in the marketplace and make Marvel sort their own shit out. What a stroke of luck for everybody.
However, one thing that these figures Diamond released today don’t take into account is that when comics are returnable, they are automatically downgraded by around 10%.
One more time: WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE SALES FIGURES REALLY SHOW.
The only numbers we have to work with are Diamond’s numbers. In addition to not knowing newsstand and overseas sales, we do not know what the sales figures are for digital. Since the digital editions will be available forever (or close enough as makes no difference) with infinite copies available, sales will continue on these books for weeks and months afterwards.
And we have no idea what the market looks like for digital editions, or how it will expand in the upcoming months and reach people who have not stepped in a comics store in years, if ever.
We have now reached the reverse of the original Phil Seuling days. When he first started selling books, publishers would not include them in their calculations because they only sold to a narrow fan market. Now, we aren’t counting sales that don’t sell to that narrow fan market. We have no idea what the market share is in the brand new markets.
And it will be this way going forward, unless Comixology and Graphicly start releasing their numbers. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them.
Prolific artist Will Meugniot has worked in comic book, animation, picture books, and more. All Pulp recently sat down with Will to talk about his career, his artistic influences, the differences between working in animation and comics, plus his pulp interests.
Click on the art for a larger view. AP: Tell us a little about yourself and your pulp interests.
WM: I grew up in the 60s. It was a great time to be a kid interested in adventure fiction. Marvel and DC’s superhero revivals spurred many other publishers to enter the field, so you never knew what great comics you’d find when they finally opened the bales at the grocery store.
N.E.D.O.R. Agents
A similar thing happened in paperback books. Ace discovered that some editions of certain Edgar Rice Burroughs books had fallen out of copyright, published them, and triggered a pulp revival, which brought everything from Otis Adelbert Kline to Doc Savage back into print.
Doc was my favorite of the pulp heroes, though I bought as many reprints of The Shadow, The Spider, Phantom Detective and Dusty Ayres as I could find and afford. Related to this, I’m also a big fan of the sound serials and have a collection of most of the non-westerns on DVD.
AP: What does pulp mean to you?
Spider-Man Unlimited Vulture
WM: It means stories which focus on fast paced action in exotic locales and feature larger than life heroes and villains. On a personal note, I grew up in a small farming town and yearned for a larger life full of adventure. The pulp heroes pointed the way, and while I’ve never taken down a globe conquering miscreant, I have had a few interesting overseas experiences in my travels as a producer/director. AP: When I think of Will Meugniot comics, I think of DNAgents (I’m proud to say I have the entire run) and FemForce. How did you get your start in comics and what is it that excites you about working in comics? WM: First, thanks for thinking of my comics! So much of my time has been tied up doing animation that I really haven’t done as many comics as I intended.
Tarzan. Dave Stevens inks
I first broke into the comics in the 1970s doing strips for undergrounds like The OK Comics tabloid and ‘ground level’ early direct sales books like Faeiry Star. My big break came when I sent Marvel a batch of sample pages featuring characters which didn’t have their own strips at the time: Guardians of the Galaxy, Ka-Zar, Nick Fury, and the one that paid off, Tigra. I did a couple of issues of that, then Marvel imploded and I was out, but fortunately, Tony Isabella showed Mark Evanier some of my uninked pencils. Based on them, Mark gave me work on the Tarzan and Korak comics he was editing for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. That lasted for almost a year, but Marvel took the Tarzan license and the ERB line was cancelled, which was what sent me into animation.
DNAgents
A few years later, my friend Dave Stevens came by the Marvel animation offices to score some free Xeroxes of his as yet unpublished Rocketeer. (Which was OK with the company, BTW – it was very ‘family’ oriented and Dave had worked for its previous incarnation, DePatie Freleng.) Dave told Rick Hoberg, Russ Heath and me about the new creator-owned comics movement, and got us excited by it. I phoned up Mark to see if he was interested, and that’s how DNAgents and the second phase of my comics career began. The things I love most about comics are the creative freedom, and the ability to do a piece of art which is identifiably your own. Animation requires you to blend into the style of the series, and by its nature results in work which is largely anonymous by design. I’m thankful and surprised that so many people recognize my work in that field.
Golden Girl
AP: I assume you get this question from time to time, but has there been any consideration of you and Mark Evanier doing more DNAgents stories?
WM: We’ve come close a few times, and I suspect we’ll do something with them in the next few years. Mark and I have stayed friends, but our careers have gone down different paths and it’s rare for us to have a big block of time free simultaneously.
I’m tightly booked for the next year or so with the N.E.D.O.R. Agents, a graphic novel of The Land That Time Forgot, Caspak (written by the great Martin Powell), and it looks like the pilot for an animated series I directed this summer clicked and the show will be in production as well.
The Land That Time Forgot: Caspak. The Step-By-Step Process
Zombie Monkey Monster Jamboree
AP: The Zombie Monkey Monster Jamboree book by you and J. J. Hart looks to be a pulpy fun ride. Tell us a bit about the book and what inspired it.
WM: My friends Shannon Denton and Patrick Coyle started a line of picture books under their Actionopolis imprint and invited me to do one. Zombie Monkey was already written, and I loved the subject matter of boy scouts versus zombified monkies, so of course I said yes! I’ve also illustrated a couple of other children’s books for Actionopolis, Pandora, and my favorite, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. I think you can still get all of them on Amazon.
AP: Where do you, or would you like to, see the comic book industry in 5 or 10 years?
Zombie Monkey Monster Jamboree
WM: I’d like to see it alive! This is a moment of incredible danger and opportunity for the industry. There is a clear shift in the way the medium will be distributed and that is going to ultimately affect its form. I don’t think print is going away, but I suspect we’re going to see a lot more print on demand and print to preorder books with the bulk of the distribution going electronic. Luddite that I am, I’m focusing on print at the moment, just because I love the feel of the physical product.
AP: With the advent of digital comics, the way many read comics has changed. What are your thoughts on digital comics and their impact on the industry and readers?
Pyro-Girl Animation Promo Art
WM: There is a need to adapt to the market, and it’s clear many younger readers prefer reading on a screen. The upside is that distribution costs should be less in the long run. The downside is that many publishers seem to be ignoring their responsibility and need to help the current and very important to the industry’s long term health distribution system with the shift.
Ultimate Avengers 2
AP: You’ve produced and directed several animation projects from The Real Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, X-Men, EXOsquad, Jem and the Holograms, Conan, Captain Planet, Spider-man, Stargate, and more. How did you make the transition from comics to animation and what are the similarities and differences between them?
WM: The shift was an economic necessity for me at the time, and was achieved by dumb luck. It started when Mark Evanier ran into Don Jurwich, producer of the Super-Friends cartoons. Don knew Mark had done comics and mentioned that Hanna Barbera was looking for artists with comics experience to help on the new action shows they’d sold for the 1978 TV season. Mark suggested I cold call HB and ask about it, so I did. The girl at the switchboard asked me whom I’d like to talk to and I said, “The producer doing the action shows.”
FemForce 158
She hooked me up with Doug Wildey (creator of Jonny Quest), which resulted in my being hired as a layout artist on his Godzilla series. Doug was a huge influence and a great teacher. I started drawing storyboards on the side for him, and we both realized that doing boards came naturally to me, so Doug brought me in house as his assistant, handing out and editing boards on Godzilla and Jana of the Jungle. He even let me do the retakes and meet with the clients on some episodes, which was a rare and generous thing. My next boss after Doug was Tex Avery who was the storyboard supervisor on The Thing, a comedy cartoon about Marvel’s Thing. I had great basic training.
Zombie Monkey Monster Jamboree
While they are similar in some respects, film and comics are two different beasts. One of the things I’m really enjoying about my current strips is going back to form with them and using all of the classic devices which are unique to the comic book: varying panel sizes (the aspect ratio is constant in film, but it doesn’t have to be in comics), internalized dialogue via thought balloons (much more fluid that doing a voiceover to convey thought in a film), and even visualized sound effects via display lettering.
AP: Who are some of your artistic/creative influences?
WM: Kirby, Wood, Ditko, Williamson, Colan and Frazetta are the main ones. I particularly admire Wood as an artist/writer.
X-Men Storyboards
AP: What does Will Meugniot do when not making comic books?
WM: Professionally a lot of cartoons, either storyboarding or directing. Privately, I love old movies and non-fiction books about comics, movie serials and biographies. I also like just hanging out with my wife of 40 years, Jo.
AP: Where can readers find learn more about you and your work?
AP: Any upcoming projects you would like to mention?
Zombie Monkey Monster Jamboree
WM: N.E.D.O.R. Agents is the big one at the moment. It has a 3 page preview in FemForce 156, a 26 page story in FemForce 157, and its own cover and 20 pages of story in FemForce 158. PREVIEWSworld is doing a Facebook promotion with me for the strip. If you ‘like’ their page, you’ll be able to follow the strip there and enter some contests to win original art, too.
AP: Are there any upcoming convention appearances or signings coming up where fans can meet you?
WM: I’m sorting that out now as part of the PREVIEWSworld promotion. Follow them on Facebook for updates about my appearances.
AP: You have served as a writer, artist, producer, and director. Are there any creative areas you’ve not been worked in that you would like to try your hand at doing?
WM: At some point, I’m going to do some low budget live action work as a director. It’s been offered me in the past, but I’ve just been too busy to take it on.
Meet Vanity
AP: And finally, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in comics, animation, and/or art? WM: The main thing is to DO IT. You’re not a writer unless you write. You’re not an artist if you don’t create art. Don’t let your fear of rejection stand in your way of doing.
So after a few weeks of daydreaming and being all cutesy-wootsie, I figure it’s about time I stir the pot a little. Let me get behind this wire mesh wall, force field, and don some protective gear. There. Safe and secure. Ahem…
Marvel’s female superheroes suck.
Don’t believe me? OK. Name the first few Marvel superheroes that come to mind. I’ll give you a minute. Who did you say…Spider-Man? Thor? Captain America? How about Iron Man? Hmm. No double X chromosomes there. The last big event to revolve around a woman? Oh yeah! House of M. The one where Marvel showed that a chick who ain’t barefoot and preggers goes crazy and resets the universe at will. Now there’s a feather in a feminists’ cap.
When I say “important women of Marvel,” aren’t they are always the yin to the yang of a more powerful man? Pepper Potts. Sorry Matt Fraction, you can put a repulsor in her chest, you can give her a code name, but she’s still just Tony’s secretary. Mary Jane Watson-Parker-Watson-by-way-of-a-retcon? Face it tiger, she’s just there to fall off buildings. Maria Hill? Nick Fury’s assprint hadn’t even cooled off before she was ousted back down to who-cares-ville. And when we open the discussion to those ladies who carry the hero badge? It doesn’t get any better.
Sue Storm, the matriarch of the Future Foundation. The soul of the Fantastic Four. Completely boring and useless without her husband. The best writers of Sue have always pegged her as a strong and independent woman. But take her away from Reed, Ben, or the children and the only bullet point left on her resume is part-time booty call for Namor.
Black Widow: slut with guns. How about Ms. Marvel? I’ll be completely honest. I don’t know a thing about her. Best I could tell? She was brought in because Marvel has no Wonder Woman, so they threw her on the Avengers. Beyond that I assume they keep her around because cute girls can show off their butts by cosplaying as her. What of the X-Men? Well, Jean Grey has died only 17 times, and has changed names to various permutations of “Phoenix,” all to what effect? She’s Cyclop’s gal. She maybe did Wolvie in a closet while Slim was waxing his car. And in the Ultimate Universe, maybe she did Charles too.
Let’s not forget Storm. She was married off to Black Panther so they could make super-black-babies that will invariably land on some future iteration of the X-Avengers. Not because they’ll be well written mind you… but they will add that “affirmative action” flavor John Stewart was used for back in the JLA.
I say this obviously not just to be cranky. I openly yell to the heavens for someone to come in and make the women matter again. Joss Whedon put Kitty Pride and the White Queen front and center in his amazing run on Astonishing X-Men. More than that, he made them more than worthless eye-candy in butt floss. He gave them dimension, and class. They weren’t in peril for perils’ sake.
Given Whedon’s pedigree for good female characterization, it didn’t come as a surprise. Whedon aside, other Marvel writers certainly have the know-how. Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis and Jonathon Hickman are all amazing writers who know the ins and out of nuance. They’ve each made the females in their books (yes that includes Pepper in the aforementioned Iron Man series) very potent. But my gripe remains the same.
It’s not enough to write a woman as powerful, smart, and put-together. It’s the act of writing them as such that they are more than decoration. Throughout Marvel’s recent history, it’s been a literal boys-club. Civil War? Captain America and Iron Man fighting in the sandbox. Secret War? An excuse to make Norman Osbourn king of the playground – until sales dipped, and people stopped caring. And now we have Fear Itself, which as far as I can tell is only an excuse to half-kill Thor, and dress everyone up in Tron-stripes.
I yearn just once to have a female character in any of these situations stand up and set the world straight. Not to say it’s happened in the DC ever… but I actually believe Marvel has the smarts to actually do it. In this day and age where the DCnU turns Starfire and Catwoman into sultry sluts with no character trait beyond their cup size… I look to the House of Ideas to set the industry right.
When DC was making up Kryptonite and the color yellow the ultimate weapons against its heroes, Marvel figured out that debt, responsibility, and a guilty conscience was far better. Let us hope that in the coming times, they take the next step and realize that women are more than tits and tiny costumes. They are the fairer sex, the stronger characters, and perhaps the last untouched resource for superior fiction.
Renee Witterstaetter passes on the sad news that Minck Oosterveer, a Dutch artist best known in this country for his work on The Unknown for BOOM! and Ruse for Marvel, was killed on September 17 in a motorcycle accident. He was 50.
Born July 19, 1961, he grew up in The Netherlands with European comics, but was soon more interested in American comics, especially the newspaper comics of the 1930s-50s. The pulp-ish, direct style and the usage of black and white in the realistic artwork of Milton Caniff, Alex Raymond, and Will Eisner attracted his attention, although he also showed a Herge style in some of his more cartoony work. After working for a studio on productions like ‘Tom & Jerry’, ‘Sesame Street’, ‘Paddington’, ‘Ovide’ and ‘Spider-Man’, Minck moved in the direction of another stylistic forte, working with Willem Ritstier on the series ‘Claudia Brücken’ for the franco-belgian publishing-house ‘les editons Lombard’ and Tintin-magazine . Minck also became known for ‘Jack Pott’, ‘Zodiak’, ‘Rick Rolluik’, ‘Arachna’, ‘Excalibur’, ‘Nicky Saxx’ (pictured above in a picture to benefit MoCCA), ‘Storm’, and ‘Ronson Inc.’.
Minck Oosterveer debuted in American comics with Zombie Tales for BOOM! Studios. He’s best known in the US for his collaborations with Mark Waid on The Unknown for BOOM! and Ruse for Marvel.
In the wake of Batman’s success in 1989, it appeared to renew interest in movies based on comic books. One of the first, and one of the worst, was the 1990 version of Captain America. The film had actually been announced in the early 1980s from Cannon Films but in the intervening years, the studio folded and the right shifted a bit before Menahem Golan mounted it under his 21st Century banner.
The movie languished in development until the rights were about to expire so director Albert Pyun urged Golan to let him take a crack at getting the film made for about $6 million. Marvel actually approved the script that was shot and Pyun loved its take on America’s fascination with heroism. If only some of that love found its way onto the screen.
The movie was shot in 1989 but wasn’t released theatrically and was finally dumped on video in 1992, where it was met with derisive laughter from comic book fans. Now, MGM’s Limited Edition collection has released the film as part of its print on demand operation. The print used is pretty crappy and dark and the film is at best a curiosity for collectors and fans alike.
The horrific script from Stephen Tolkin (from a story by Tolkin and Lawrence J. Block) pays lip service to the source material and leaves you scratching your head at the shoddy story construction and utter lack of characterization. Significant changes were made, none of the better starting with giving Steve Rogers polio as an excuse to keep him from enlisting. Then there’s the Red Skull (Scott Paulin) now an Italian fascist, which never made sense. On the other hand, both this film and the current blockbuster made the unnecessary dramatic change in linking Cap and the Skull by having them both be products of the Super Solider formula.
There’s Matt Salinger as Cap/Rogers who is anything but the American ideal and fairly wooden in performance, perhaps because they give him nothing to work with. His first mission leads to the rocket that sent him to an icy sleep in Alaska. He’s found and inexplicably breaks free and rather than ask his rescuers anything, he runs all the way to Canada. There’s little time spent on his cultural isolation and his interactions with others is laughably minimal. (more…)
And for his birthday, the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk is trying to blow out Marvel’s corporate headquarters.
It’s the time of year when the world holds its breath. Back from vacation and if you’re old enough and lucky enough to be employed, fill the tank, Monday morning will be here before you know it, and if you’re going to school, either to sit in rows among the other students or to stand and teach… well, there are supplies to get – how late is Staples open? – and maybe some last minute reading and – one, two, three, all of us cop to it now – the anticipation: will the subjects be interesting, will the room’s other occupants be pleasant and/or pretty or trolls, will something that spins existence on its axis occur and change life forever and if you’re a lady who’s just retired after schoolmarming in four states for fifty years will you feel a tad blue – not that I know anyone like that – and, finally, will the English teacher get really frosted at having to read sentences that go on and on and on and on…?
No gold star for me? I’ll live with it.
If you’re a comics geek – and yes, we do know who we are – you may be feeling a bit disoriented. Not long ago, the days that cluster around the September holiday marked the end of major fan activity. The big conventions were history, the summer annuals lie all snug in their Mylar nests, the big publishers seemed to take a breather between those annuals and the big Christmas push to fill stockings with graphic novels, preferably in hardcover. Oh sure, all the regular titles appeared, but they were just … you know… stories. Nothing special. This year, though, there are several conventions yet to come, including the monster-doozie that occurs at the Javits Center in Manhattan, Marvel and DC are going digital, which will almost certainly change the biz, maybe a lot, and – what am I forgetting…?
Oh yeah. DC Comics is relaunching its whole line. Relaunching its superhero pantheon when print publishing is struggling to survive and reinvent itself in what may be the most turbulent climate since Gutenberg set his first stick of type: an important bookstore chain that according to one estimate accounts for maybe fifteen percent of retail sales is closing its many doors and an online retailer is altering the way business is done and nobody seems to know what the hell the e-book revolution will spawn.
All that is figure resting on the ground of a legislative system that seems hopelessly broken and huge environmental uncertainties that might affect publishing and everything else.
Plus…is the Mayans who say the world will end next year? Or am I thinking of that television preacher?
Yessir, Mr. D, the times they are a’changin’.
Ask me if I care. In about six weeks, the Rockland County foliage will begin its yearly display and, for a while, the daily trip to the mailbox will be reason for rejoicing. That will be enough now, and maybe forever.
Recommended Reading: The Will Eisner Companion, by N.C. Christopher Couch and Stephen Weiner. Disclosure: I contributed an essay to this book, but I’m not in the way of any royalties. If you know Eisner’s work, you’ll want to read it, and if you don’t…hey, it’s about time.
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.
