Where have I been this week?
Well, most importantly, I'm waiting for my new computer to arrive -- my home machine mostly-died nearly 3 weeks ago, after about a 10-year run, and I can run anything past basic surfing on it, which means that all writing has to be done at work, sheesh -- it was scheduled to arrive today, but FedEx ground has, seemingly, lost it.... at least until Monday. *grumble*
Then we have the latest podcast with Comic Book Geek Speak -- I very much enjoy talking with those guys, and this is my third go 'round, I think? -- which you can find here.
Plus, there's a new TILTING AT WINDMILLS where I reflect a little on some deaths, and what we living should do about it. Read that here.
Plus, just so I can feel like I'm keeping my goal of one-review-a-week-minimum....
BATMAN INC. #4: What a terrific issue! Much of that is on artist Chris Burnham, who has a really awesome line quality, swinging around in points like the love child of Frank Quitely and JH Williams, while bringing some awesome retro-chops to the flashback sequences. Fast enough artist to do a monthly? I WANTS! I thought this was really VERY GOOD, even if it really is kind of stupid to ship an issue just 2 weeks after the last, especially if #5-12 aren't going to ship clockwork-monthly.
UNCANNY X-MEN #534: The end of the "Contagion" storyline worked just fine -- it is perfectly OK -- but, me, I want to comment on the "Bonus Book" bit at the end. I think that IF Marvel thinks they have to price books at $3.99, then putting in an entire other comic book makes that, actually, a fairly good value, and a nice way to cross-promote stuff. But I have to STRONGLY question the sense in doing a bonus reprinting of an issue #1 for a title that's currently on issue #11, with no paperback available, or on the immediate horizon.
Even more importantly, I question the wisdom of not telling the retailers about it whatsoever, and not giving us a CHANCE to build something around the marketing. No retailer likes to be taken by surprise!
First: I agree with nearly every word in these twoposts about etiquette in your Local Comics Store (man, especially that bit about Amazon Visa -- GR!) from Secret Headquarters in FLA
Second: Kendall Swafford has some good points in this article about sell-through (versus sell-in), but I'd like to observe that the chart placements tend to be self-correcting. That is to say that the orders you see on (say) the June-shipping charts *tend to* reflect what sold through in March or April. Or to put it another way: the Diamond charts are LAGGING INDICATORS of what the market is doing, not current indicators
Well, so our 22nd anniversary is about three weeks away, but Seven Summit Productions just finished up the production on the video that they shot at the 21st anniversary party. I think it is swell! It's also filled with all kinds of familiar faces saying all kinds of nice things. Give it a watch!
There have, over the years, been several attempts to build a comics retailer organization. There was PACER, there was the DLG, there was one more back in the day whose acronym I'm blanking on.
The main reason we've succeeded, I think, is because of the astonishingly hard work of Amanda Emmert, who does so much insanely detailed and strong work behind the scenes, and without whom this would have been another one of those Noble Failures.
I also think that ComicsPRO had a certain amount of cachet coming from that the original founders included <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS, and also <<booming voice>> JOE FIELD. Joe's the other guy who might run neck in neck with me on the "celebrity retailer" side because Joe, of course, invented Free Comic Book Day.
Its a little hard for me to write about this without sounding like a totally arrogant douchebag, but I really do think that "Hey, it's the guy who sued Marvel and won" coupled with "It's the creator of FCBD" got a number of both retailers and vendors to take the organization a whole lot more seriously than they might have otherwise.
But, like I said, it was really Amanda who did most of the hard work.
Anyway, in the original charter we wrote we put in term limits for Board positions, because it does no one any good to have calcified leadership, but somewhere between years one and two, because the membership hadn't yet grown to the point of the organization being self-sustaining, it suddenly started seeming like there weren't going to be enough people to step up to leadership positions, and that it was much more sensible to remove the Term Limits provision... otherwise we might not HAVE a Board.
Then what started happening was that it became fairly clear to me that incumbents, pretty much, can't be voted out of office. It's not that other smart retailers aren't willing to step into leadership positions, but that being an incumbent pretty much means you win because everyone is familiar with you.
You can double this problem for me, personally.
If I chose to, I've little doubt I could stay on the Board until I die, who is going to vote off <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS?
Well, they probably should, actually -- I'm what is politely known as a "loose cannon". Hell, I've nearly sank things for the Org, single handedly, at least twice (and maybe more) because I just go off and do my thing, and I don't play all that well with others. The way I fucked up with my review of Superman Earth One is your prime public example.
As I say, I could stay on the Board forever, as the bylaws are written, and I'm certain I'd keep getting the votes, but I also think that we've got a perception problem among certain prospective members that the org is "controlled" by "the California Elites", and, even without this (wrong!) perspective, I think that just generally having a constantly refreshing leadership is the way to go.
My current term will be up at the end of the 2012 annual meeting, so I'm announcing now that I will not be running for the Board next year. I think I've achieved the goals that I set out to accomplish -- the organization is now truly viable and self-sustaining and there is literally no chance that its going to go away like many of the other Noble Failures of orgs past.
I'm announcing this an entire year before the next set of elections so that people have enough time to actually think if they want to step up to join the leadership; to plan, and campaign. Historically, we start looking for new prospective Board members like 2-3 months before the elections, but I want people to have enough time to really weigh their choices and options.
ComicsPRO probably needed <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS to get established, to get going, to get cemented in people's mind that this was real and true and viable, but I think it is time to bring in some fresh voices and fresh visions, and so this will be my last year on the Board. ComicsPRO doesn't need me any more, and that, in a way, is the best sign to me that we were right all of those years ago for the need and the power of a retailer trade organization. If it can survive (and thrive!) without me in a leadership role, then we've really and truly done it.
This doesn't mean that I might not want to come back some day -- it may be that in 2014 I get super itchy and decide to run again, but for at least two years I'm going to step back and let someone else do all of the hard work.
Like Hector Godfrey says to Seymour at the end of WATCHMEN, "I leave it entirely in your hands"
One of the last bigger observations I want to make is that, regardless of whether or not you think that the Direct Market, as currently constituted, is doing a good job or a lousy job at being the stewards, "geek culture" really is the Ground Zero for culture-at-large. And the DM environment is the incubator of that "geek culture".
For decades, really, we've begged and pleaded to be taken seriously by the world at large. One of my go-to stories has always been that, 10-ish years ago, the quickest visual short-hand to show emotional or intellectual retardation in an adult was to show them with a rolled up comic in their backpocket. "Please please love us!" we geeks and nerds and losers called and cajoled, and a lot of us ended up growing up and taking over entertainment, and, you know what? They love us now.
Steve Rotterdam made the observation last weekend that something like 20% of global box office is now generated from, or informed by, comic book culture. I can't find any specific link or something to back that assertion up, but it certainly sounds right to me -- the Geek Shall Inherit The Earth.
The difference, as I've said many many times, between the Mass Market retailer and the DM is that we're just another category to "them", but that the DM actually both gives a fuck about, AND actually understands our customers -- we kind of have to, because we fold if we don't.
There's a crazy power in specialty markets, in what I call "tastemaker" environments. Rotterdam calls them "firestarters" instead, but that's pretty much six-of-one/half-dozen-of-the-other. The fact that we DON'T have a centralized buyer controlling our 2400-ish venues, that things sometimes are hard-to-impossible to do because we constantly have to "herd cats" of a whole lot of independently minded people, this is a strength, not a weakness. The "DM" will never declare bankruptcy and close 1/3 of its outlets in a monolithic block like how Border's has just announced. We may have 2400 problems, but we also have 2400 really smart people working their hearts out to try to solve those problems.
I've named checked Steve Rotterdam twice now, and that's because I think one of the smartest presentations I saw last week was on Steve (and Ed Catto's) new venture: Bonfire.
The basic idea of Bonfire is that major brands and major advertisers WANT to connect to "geek culture", but that these big companies don't really "get" us in any kind of a intuitive way. Taking a bottle of soda and throwing a cape on it doesn't actually "connect" to us in any kind of an authentic way. There's a tremendous amount of possibilities that can be had, but someone who "speaks the lingua franca" needs to working as an intermediary. I don't know how to talk to a soda company, they don't know how to talk to me. That's what something like Bonfire is for -- to connect the two.
As Tastemakers, I think of someone like Neil Gaiman. Neil is a very talented writer. But there are a lot of very talented writers out there. One of the reasons, beyond just pure talent, that Neil's career took the trajectory that it did was precisely because of stores like my own that got squarely behind his creative output and proselytized it to our customers. I have no doubt that Neil would still be a successful creator if there wasn't a Comix Experience, but I think that, at least, we (and scores of stores like mine!) helped strongly to move him up to the next chessboard.
WE are the Dreamers of the Dream; WE are the Makers of the Music, as Mr. Wonka said.
I don't really want to step on Steve's Elevator Pitch (because he's going to deliver it way better than I ever could), but there's immense possibilities in bringing in money from outside our market, and molding it so that it fits our market without us giving up anything whatsoever. The 3/4 formed notion would be something like strongly branded event that is sincere in connecting creators to stores and consumers and finding sponsors to underwrite those events, and for them to draft along our winds.
Picture 10-12 stores all across the country having a simultaneous signing with 10-12 upcoming creators one night. You create a catchy catch-phrase for the overall venture, and you line up a sponsor or three to, say, provide refreshments, cover all travel and promotional expenses, and to do NATIONAL ADVERTISING for the event as a whole. Trying to do something like this purely within comics would almost never happen because so few of us have the kinds of resources it would take to mount this in the right way -- but bring in like a high-end vodka company or something like that that's looking to create authentic awareness of their product, and you can do something of real needle-moving significance on what is probably less than .01% of their annual marketing budget, and which will have better, more direct results.
That kind of thing is really the lowest of the low hanging fruit when we have this amazing network of passionate, independent stores. We just need someone to connect the dots.
Steve's left what I assume is a six-figure salary to try and create this start-up, and while I never directly asked him the question, I strongly suspect it would have been a significantly harder decision to make if it hadn't been for the basic infrastructure that the very existence of ComicsPRO creates.
People ask a lot "yes, but what does ComicsPRO *do* for me?", and it's really hard to communicate that the basic overall professionalism of comics retail has been improved by the very existence of a retailer trade organization. ComicsPRO can't "take credit" for, say, Street Dates, but I firmly believe that if there wasn't a ComicsPRO, we'd still be saying "Man, wouldn't it be nice if our partners trusted enough to ship us comics so we didn't have that Wednesday AM race?"
There are lots and lots of plans and programs and things coming -- things that I can't talk about because it is for our vendors to announce their own plans -- things that I think that ComicsPRO validates and facilitates because we retailers are finally getting our shit together and collectivizing our strengths. This is powerful stuff.
Steve and Ed may come along in a minute or two to tell me I'm nuts, but I don't think that will happen for the same reason that the ComicsPRO meeting was a significant phase of Bonfire's launch -- it is easier to identify opportunities with a group of like-minded people than it is to try and contact each individual participant individually.
I have one more ComicsPRO '11 post, but that's going to come tomorrow.
I don't know how many of you have been to a trade show/Diamond Summit, that kind of thing?
Generally speaking they're run a lot like comic cons -- there's usually a trade show floor, with normal booth setups, handing out shwag to try and get attendees' attention. There's often also a number of panels, which too often become bitchfests... especially when you get some peeps wasting the global retailer time with "last week my shipment had a 15% damage rate, what are you going to do to make me whole?!?!?!", rather than being more universal like "can you discuss overall national damage rates, and what steps you're taking to lower them?"
ComicsPRO doesn't have a "dealer's room" set up, we're more about the panels, and we try to set parameters for them, going in ("this is the time to talk about digital, this is the time to talk about physical distribution issues" and so on), but even those have morphed and changed over time. In meeting #1 we spent what felt like 3-4 hours discussing "org business", and here at meeting #5 that was down to under 20 minutes. But we still have a *few* relics of a "comic con", like putting 16 publishers up on the dais and giving them each 5 minutes to make a speech (though, like the oscars, that often becomes 10...) as they go down the line... but even that i think will probably disappear next year.
We don't have any "fans" there (well, we're all fans, but you know what I mean), nor any "pros" (Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane were there to speak as Publishers, not sign autographs -- though Chris Roberson turned up after hours on the Boom! RV), and we're not really open to the "press" (though I keep pushing every year for us to figure out a clear way to involve Heidi and Tom, at least)
(Todd, in particular, had some really terrific ideas of things the entire industry could do... and a few that were probably right up on the edge of anti-trust no-nos, but those can all be sorted through later. And Todd was especially gracious with me, despite my buttonholing him the moment he stepped into the hotel from his flight, and talking to me for about 45 minutes or so, hitting many/most of the topics he'd discuss the next day with the entire group. I *think* it was good "prep work" for him?)
But the real push, and the thing that makes ComicsPRO different from any other industry meeting is we're about DIALOGUE, not MONOLOGUE. While we haven't done formal polling, I'd guess that most attendees would say they got the most benefit from things structured around open Q&A, rather than our decreasing relics-of-how-things-are-done-elsewhere.
This year we made on SIGNIFICANT change to structure, and that's that something approaching a third of the meeting time was handed over to "Roundtables", but what is really in truth Speed Dating.
(I saw "we", but it is really clear that the overwhelming majority of meeting thought and planning and execution squarely falls on the shoulders of Amanda Emmert, and she KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK. All hail 'manda, she's awesome!!!!)
What we did was divvy the retailer attendees into groups of ~5 people, and, over four sessions, had each group spend about 10 minutes with a specific publisher. The 10 minutes were up, and, boom, we get up and move to the next publisher's table, eventually cycling through 20 tables, over two days.
The publishers entirely controlled the conversation -- they were free to use them as "pitch time", or for Q&A, or just "what can we do better/what's working well", and almost all of them used their time very very very wisely.
I think most of them filled up entire notebooks with notes of things to try, things to avoid, things to help everyone sell more comics. It worked very very well, and there was something grandly egalitarian that a smaller publisher like, say, Top Shelf had completely equal weight in this exercise to a Big Boy like Marvel.
I think we're universally agreed that this was a great way to do business, and that, time permitting, it should even be expanded next year.
The other thing that was super-productive this year was BarCon -- the hotel bar had these nice stepped terraces where you could have private conversations in a large group, and they also stayed open late "enough" -- not like Memphis where they shut down at something dumb like 11 PM. Some of my most productive time was in the 1-on-1 that BarCon can allow, breaking down opposing viewpoints to come to a common consensus and reality.
And, after that, we had the Boom! RV out in the parking lot where copious beer flowed after bar-closing time, and everyone who entered left with a big glowy smile on their face.
(though, I have to say, I think I saw more publishers getting falling-down drunk this weekend then retailers...)
(not that there's anything wrong with that!)
(And, no, I'm NOT naming names!)
I honestly and deeply believe that more real and productive retailer business was accomplished at the ComicsPRO weekend than is managed at San Diego, NYCC and Chicago, combined. We were focused in a way nothing has ever been focused before. If you're a retailer, and have only ever been to a comic book convention or a Diamond Summit, you have really no idea what the potential is. Come to ComicsPRO in 2012 and you'll really see something!
This is THE SINGLE BEST venue both for publisher-to-retailer (and/or distributor-to-retailer, and possibly distributor-to-publisher, but I'm not one of those, so I can't say for 100% sure) business in any year, and we're only getting better at facilitating that DIALOGUE.
It's also an epic event for peer-to-peer education -- there's not a single person who probably didn't walk away with twenty ideas to make their individual retailer operations better. Something I think the Summit-style fails pretty miserably at.
Its funny, we have this great weekend, and we come back home to a pair of threads on The Beat which are pretty much "The DM sucks" (though thanks to Kurt and JJM in particular for keeping the level of discourse there high), and how we're all doomed, and print is dead and whatever, but if you'd been there this weekend, you'd really see just how completely crazy wrong that all is. The DM has no where to go but UP, and with the kind of leadership and stewardship on evidence this weekend, I think we're going to get there.
Not smoothly, no... nothing ever works out exactly the way we want it to, but there's so much crazy potential that we've barely began to touch, and it's meetings like ComicsPRO that care going to make these things happen.
More in a bit!
-B
PS: Let's have a moment of silence for Comic Relief. While something will rise, phoenix-like from the ashes of that, a specific shining example of a specific period of time has passed, and we're all a little poorer for it, even if you don't know that.
Y'know, given that my next TILTING is like 3 weeks away (well, I *could* do something and Jonah, I'm sure would print it, but I like to keep my schedule for sanity), I'm thinking now that maybe I'll just write a series of smaller posts about the ComicsPRO '11 meeting as we go along. We'll see how this goes.
Spurgeon characterized from the last post that the meeting was "good", and let me tell you that this is wrong. The meeting was GREAT. Superlative. Splendiferious. Astounding. Amazing. Spectacular. Web Of.
Honestly, and this is my really-I'm-not-lying-to-you voice, there's not a single more productive weekend of the entire calendar year. I can't tell you a lot of what made it so good because I'm effectively under NDA (not signed, but "these are adults dialoging with one another and not to be shared on the internet", if you see what I mean?), but maybe I can hint around it a little bit.
In the comments of my last thread, or maybe it was one of the two on Heidi's blog (or maybe both!) was one of those things I hear a lot: "The problem with the DM" (he said, paraphrasing) "is that too many stores suck"
Let me actually step back half a step before telling the rest of the story, and mention that, for a number of retailers, I'm <<Booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS
I mean I'm just a guy with a medium-sized neighborhood comic shop who happened to be in the right place at the right time to get myself a soapbox, and after standing on said soapbox for two decades, I'm, for lack of a better term a "celebrity retailer". If you asked 1000 random comics fans to "name a retailer", I'm fairly certain that my name would be towards the top -- but not because I'm the biggest, or the best, or the smartest, but because I have a long-running soapbox, and I've gotten fairly OK at using it (I still need some work, really!)
But, in reality, I'm just a guy with a neighborhood comics store. I'm not smarter or better than any other retailer, and I'm certainly not holding the keys of the "right" way to run a comics shop.
But, you know, for some I'm <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS, and they take what I say pretty darn seriously indeed.
Even if I share the name of a really lame Spidey villain.
(The Kangaroo, if you didn't know)
Right so, he said, somewhere back in the narrative, on the last night of the meeting, Chris Powell organized a bus trip for about 40 retailers to... well, get on a bus and go tour other local Dallas stores.
I'm not going to specifically name the stores, though each will probably be able to figure out who is who, and if you're in Dallas, you can probably figure it out too. But maybe not, and I'm not trying to write a Yelp review or something, but make a much broader point at the end.
So: four stores. 40 retailers. About four hours. Oh, and beer. Lots of beer.
The first stop is "a typical comics store", in that it was a bit disorganized (it HAD an organization, but you'd need to hang around for a few weeks probably to fully absorb it), was a bit maze-like, clearly had been through several different re-rigging of the store's signage or display, and, y'know, none of them had been completely completed, or maybe even thought-out outside of the context of "hey wouldn't that rack look better over there?" as opposed to "how does this all fit together?", if that makes sense? They had a TON of stock. Really really really diverse, but not, necessarily, organized in a way that you wouldn't walk out of it thinking "Yeah, they're mostly mainstream". I think that would be a fairly shitty conclusion to come to, but it's really more about presentation than anything else. This one is an archeologist's dream -- everywhere you turn you can find something need. Seriously, spin in a circle, and follow where your finger follows, and you'll find something cool.... but one of my traveling partners opined they'd never take their kids in there because they'd be afraid a rack would fall over on them. (that's a bit harsh)
The second stop, well the only word to describe it is "sexy". Sleek, modern, incredibly clean and streamlined. I mean just staggeringly beautiful, and appealing to civilians in every way. Your Mom would shop there. She'd walk across the street through traffic to shop there. Seriously, it's GORGEOUS. Even the staff. Each one was more teeth-achingly beautiful than the next, it's the kind of staff where you know 20% of the customers come just to stare at them and have furtive thoughts. But when it came to the actual product on hand... well, I'd probably rate it as by far the worst store on the tour. There just wasn't a lot of "there" there. Total absence of the "ten books I'm unfairly judging that a store should have", big stock gaps in important series. A close look at their product selection shows that a fair percentage of it, though merchandised like a Goddess, is really old, stale stuff that *I* would have liquidated half a decade or more ago.
The third store is what you'd think of as a comics shop from like 20 years ago, back when it was absolutely common and expected that "comics store" also meant "games store". And that "comics" means "We carry BOTH kinds: Marvel AND DC". This is one of the places that being <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS came in. The owner came up to me and actually apologized for not having enough indy books. "I really really have tried to stock them. We bring them in, we physically put them in people's hands, and we talk them up, and my customers just don't want them." And I'll tell you what I told him: screw that kind of elitism. A store needs to carry what their customers want, not what the internet intelligentsia says they "should". This store, it seemed to me, was really really good at serving their Marvel and DC and gaming customers. The staff CLEARLY cared about what they were doing, and the store was a great example of how you do gaming and mainstream comics and MAKE CUSTOMERS HAPPY. Who cares what "artsnob967" says on the internet? Who cares that <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS wouldn't find a lot of interest -- you're there to service the customers that come in, not the ones that don't.
The last store was a chain store. It looked like a chain store. It just reeked of chainism all over it, but it was also incredibly well organized, stocked in depth with a wide variety of things, and, if you were cool with walking past the first 50 feet or whatever of pop culture knickknacks (very very well merchandised and designed), you'd find out that they're also a very diverse comic book store, too. Not quite as deep or wide as store #1, but absolutely acceptable in every way shape and form. My log line was "I'd certainly shop there, but I wouldn't really feel that great about it, it being so corporate" But, again: who the hell cares what *I* think?
Four stores, each ABSOLUTELY DIFFERENT IN EVERY WAY SHAPE AND FORM from the one before -- An archeological comics store, a sexy showcase, a game/mainstream hybrid joint, a totally chain store. And each and every one of them had something to recommend, something that made them special, and you could tell by looking that all of them were successful, that all of them received a great deal of love and passion, both from the staff and their customers, and that each of them was right for their customer base! Each one of them reflected a vision. Maybe you don't like their vision, but, you know what? Unless you live in Dallas, and are taking money out of your pockets to buy products there, your (and my) opinion doesn't matter.
You don't get to decide. Did some of these stores "suck"? Well, man, let me tell, I can easily find something in each I don't like, that might earn them that sobriquet, especially from the sneering internet, but the only things that matter are "are they profitible?" and "Do they serve THEIR customers (not YOU, but THEIR customers)?" And judging by what I saw on the tour, they're all looking really good by those criteria.
There's room for a dozen different models of retail, and just because YOU think "the industry" should move past Marvel and DC, exclusively (and you're not going to get me, as an individual, disagreeing with you too much about that), that ISN'T the case for a tremendous amount of readers out there. Readers who are taking money out of thier pockets and buying stuff and making thier own choices, thank you very much.
I think it's fucking awesome that comics can contain the RADICALLY different approaches that we saw on display on the tour -- there's not one right way to do it. And that's NOT a weakness, not by half, that's a crazy strength, and it is among several reasons that comics aren't going to match the exact path that happened in other media retailing when it came to societal changes.
That diversity is crazy wonderful, and it's just one of the reasons ComicsPRO is crazy wonderful, as well.
I'm just back from Dallas, and the 2011 ComicsPRO meeting. It was a very very very good meeting -- there is literally not a more productive weekend in comics on the calendar, though a lot of what happened and was discussed won't, necessarily, interest you the consumer.
I will, I think, have a much fuller report in a few weeks in the next TILTING, but in the meantime I want to share one bit while its still fresh in my mind.
A lot of time was spent on discussing Digital, as you might expect, but early on on the first day, DC co-Publisher Jim Lee made a visual analogy that sort of guided my thinking for the rest of the weekend.
Jim held up two hands. In one hand he had a regular 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper, and in the other, he had a piece of dental floss. The former, he said, represented the revenues from print comics. The latter? Revenue from digital.
Now, clearly, digital will continue to grow -- heck, maybe with a lot of effort and brain cycles, it might even grow to be the size, say, of an index card, but the actual real on-the-ground reality of digital comics sales are that they are a virtually (heh) insignificant way of making money for the publishers.
This same idea was echoed again and again and again by each and every publisher at the meeting, and even the very providers of digital services: this is not a significant revenue generator as of yet, and certainly NOWHERE NEAR able to match, let alone surpass, the sales from physical print comics.
We're a niche market. A successful niche, to be sure, but a niche nonetheless, and not one that simply putting comics content in front of civilians will INHERENTLY and effortlessly drive sales of any huge value to the overwhelming majority of the market participants. As near as I can tell, most to the evidence says that digital is selling primarily to the lapsed or geographically-unable-to-participate markets (40%, I kept hearing over and over again, of sales are coming from Europe) (40% of a piece of dental floss, remember!)
If you're a rah-rah digital booster, that's perfectly fine. But I'd ask you not to make the same mistakes of the previous generations of fans-but-not-business-people who have said things like "If only we had comics related movies, that will fix all of our problems!" or "Manga sales are going to solve all of our problems!" or "If only we were in bookstores, we'd solve all our problems!" or any of that. All of these theories have turned out to.... well, not be reality-based is the kindest way to put it.
Digital isn't a magic bullet, and virtually every person with an actual business involvement in the production and sales of comics understands this. Digital is magic dental floss.
Same deal, first presenting it by QUANTITY SOLD. Note this is what SOLD, not what I *ordered*, which are way different numbers! You'll also probably be able to tell some of what I sold out of before I "should have", if you use a bit of logic in parsing the listings.
1 Quarter Book - Single
2 Dollar Book
3 Back Issue
4 SIEGE #1 (OF 4)
5 BATMAN AND ROBIN #7
6 BATMAN AND ROBIN #10
BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1 (OF 6)
9 BATMAN AND ROBIN #8
BATMAN AND ROBIN #9
11 BATMAN AND ROBIN #11
12 BATMAN AND ROBIN #12
13 BATMAN AND ROBIN #16
14 BATMAN #700
BATMAN AND ROBIN #13
16 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 OF(6)
JOE THE BARBARIAN #1 (OF 8)
18 BATMAN INCORPORATED #1
BLACKEST NIGHT #8 (OF 8)
20 Starter Set
21 BATMAN AND ROBIN #14
22 BLACKEST NIGHT #7 (OF 8)
BRIGHTEST DAY #0
24 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #32 TWILIGHT PT 1 (OF 5)
25 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #3 (OF 6)
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #33 TWILIGHT PT 2 (OF 5)
27 BATMAN AND ROBIN #15
28 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #34 TWILIGHT PT 3 (OF 5)
29 NEMESIS #1 (OF 4)
30 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #31 JO CHEN CVR
31 AVENGERS #1 HA
BRIGHTEST DAY #1
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #35 TWILIGHT PT 4 (OF 4)
NEW AVENGERS #1 HA
35 JOE THE BARBARIAN #2 (OF 8)
36 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #4 (OF 6)
37 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #1
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #36 LAST GLEAMING PT 1 (OF 5)
39 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #6 (OF 6)
BATMAN THE RETURN #1
41 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #5 (OF 6)
SIEGE #2 (OF 4)
SIEGE #3 (OF 4)
SIEGE #4 (OF 4)
45 BATMAN #701
46 FLASH #1
KICK-ASS 2 #1
NEMESIS #2 (OF 4)
WONDER WOMAN #600
50 BLACKEST NIGHT #6 (OF 8)
JOE THE BARBARIAN #3 (OF 8)
52 DETECTIVE COMICS #861
53 AVENGERS #2 HA
DETECTIVE COMICS #862
SECRET AVENGERS #1
56 BRIGHTEST DAY #2
BRIGHTEST DAY #4
58 BATMAN #702
BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER #37 LAST GLEAMING PT 2 (OF 5)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #602
CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN #6 (OF 6)
FLASH REBIRTH #6 (OF 6)
GREEN LANTERN #50
NEW AVENGERS #61 SIEGE
65 JOE THE BARBARIAN #4 (OF 8)
66 SCARLET #1
UNCANNY X-MEN #523
68 ASTONISHING X-MEN #34
BATMAN AND ROBIN #17
BRIGHTEST DAY #3
BRIGHTEST DAY #6
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER WILLOW ONE SHOT
SERENITY FLOAT OUT ONE SHOT #1 JO CHEN CVR
74 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #2
BRIGHTEST DAY #9
BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER #38 LAST GLEAMING PT 3 (OF 5)
GREEN LANTERN #51
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #25
NEW AVENGERS #62 SIEGE
80 BRIGHTEST DAY #5
BRIGHTEST DAY #7
CAPTAIN AMERICA #603
DARK AVENGERS #13 SIEGE
DETECTIVE COMICS #863
DETECTIVE COMICS #864
GREEN LANTERN #52
GREEN LANTERN #53
HELLBOY IN MEXICO OR DRUNKEN BLUR ONE SHOT
HELLBOY THE STORM #1 (OF 3)
JOE THE BARBARIAN #5 (OF 8)
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #1
NEW AVENGERS #64 SIEGE
SECRET AVENGERS #2
SHIELD #1
SHIELD #2
WALKING DEAD #74
WALKING DEAD #75
WALKING DEAD #77
X-MEN #1
100 BRIGHTEST DAY #8
FLASH #2
KICK ASS #8
SECRET AVENGERS #3
SUPERGOD #3 (OF 5)
SUPERIOR #1 (OF 6)
UNCANNY X-MEN #526
WALKING DEAD #71
WALKING DEAD #76
WALKING DEAD #79
And, like before, here's the same magilla, except looking at DOLLARS SOLD instead (A lot fewer ties here!):
1 Back Issue
2 Starter Set
3 Quarter Book - Single
4 BATMAN #700
5 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1 (OF 6)
6 Dollar Book
7 BATMAN AND ROBIN #16
8 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 OF(6)
9 BATMAN INCORPORATED #1
10 BLACKEST NIGHT #8 (OF 8)
11 BATMAN AND ROBIN #7
12 BATMAN THE RETURN #1
13 SIEGE #1 (OF 4)
14 BATMAN AND ROBIN #10
15 BRIGHTEST DAY #0
16 FABLES #100
17 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #3 (OF 6)
18 BATMAN AND ROBIN #8
19 BATMAN AND ROBIN #9
20 BLACKEST NIGHT #7 (OF 8)
21 BATMAN AND ROBIN #11
22 BATMAN AND ROBIN #12
23 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #1
24 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #4 (OF 6)
25 BATMAN AND ROBIN #13
26 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #6 (OF 6)
27 AVENGERS #1 HA
28 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #5 (OF 6)
29 BATMAN AND ROBIN #14
30 SIEGE #2 (OF 4)
SIEGE #3 (OF 4)
32 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #32 TWILIGHT PT 1 (OF 5)
33 SIEGE #4 (OF 4)
34 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #33 TWILIGHT PT 2 (OF 5)
35 WONDER WOMAN #600
36 VERTIGO RESURRECTED #1
37 BATMAN AND ROBIN #15
38 BLACKEST NIGHT #6 (OF 8)
39 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #34 TWILIGHT PT 3 (OF 5)
40 NEMESIS #1 (OF 4)
41 DETECTIVE COMICS #861
42 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #31 JO CHEN CVR
43 SECRET AVENGERS #1
44 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #35 TWILIGHT PT 4 (OF 4)
45 BRIGHTEST DAY #1
46 CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN #6 (OF 6)
47 DETECTIVE COMICS #862
48 JOE THE BARBARIAN #2 (OF 8)
49 NEW AVENGERS FINALE #1
50 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #36 LAST GLEAMING PT 1 (OF 5)
51 STRANGE TALES 2 #1
52 AVENGERS #2 HA
53 FLASH #1
54 SCARLET #1
55 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #2
56 GREEN LANTERN #50
57 NEW AVENGERS #61 SIEGE
58 DARK AVENGERS #13 SIEGE
59 SHIELD #1 4TH PTG WEAVER VAR
60 DETECTIVE COMICS #863
61 SUPERGOD #3 (OF 5)
62 SECRET AVENGERS #2
63 WALKING DEAD #75
64 BATMAN #701
65 SECRET AVENGERS #3
66 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #1
67 NEMESIS #2 (OF 4)
68 SUPERMAN #700
69 KICK-ASS 2 #1
70 X-MEN SECOND COMING #1
71 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER WILLOW ONE SHOT
72 STRANGE TALES 2 #2 (OF 3)
73 SERENITY FLOAT OUT ONE SHOT #1 JO CHEN CVR
74 ALAN MOORE NEONOMICON #1 (OF 4)
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #3
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #25
77 JOE THE BARBARIAN #3 (OF 8)
78 CAPTAIN AMERICA #602
79 NEW AVENGERS #1 HA
NEW AVENGERS #63 SIEGE
NEW AVENGERS #64 SIEGE
82 SCARLET #2
83 CAPTAIN SWING #1 (OF 4)
84 HATE ANNUAL #8
85 X-WOMEN #1
86 AVENGERS #3
87 BRIGHTEST DAY #2
BRIGHTEST DAY #4
89 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #4
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #5
91 HELLBOY IN MEXICO OR DRUNKEN BLUR ONE SHOT
92 DARK AVENGERS #15
93 BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER #37 LAST GLEAMING PT 2 (OF 5)
94 ASTONISHING X-MEN XENOGENESIS #1 (OF 5)
AVENGERS #4
96 UNCANNY X-MEN #522
97 BATMAN #702
98 UNCANNY X-MEN #526
99 ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE BOOK FOUR #4 (OF 4)
100 INCOGNITO BAD INFLUENCES #1
It is probably worth noting that this is what things SOLD FOR, so if, for example, I discounted something (or, perhaps, wholesaled it off?) that can skew the charts a bounce or three.
Anyway, that's what the year in sales looked like to me -- I'm always interested in your comments!
Here's a look at the top selling "Books" for Comix Experience in 2010, under the cut...
First off, here's the sales charts sorted by PIECES. I'm not doing a lot of cleanup on this, there's garbagey artifacts of the output process (some books have Diamond order codes appended, and so on) -- also ignore all "new Printing" notes, each new printing just overwrites the product description, but I don't feel like cleaning that all up...
This is the top 100 (well, 108, thanks to ties...)
1 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 06 FINEST HOUR
2 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 01 PRECIOUS LITTLE LIFE
3 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 11 FEAR THE HUNTERS
4 WILSON HC
5 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 01 DAYS GONE BYE
6 CHEW TP VOL 01
7 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 02 VS THE WORLD
8 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 12 LIFE AMONG THEM
9 ASTERIOS POLYP GN
10 FABLES TP VOL 13 THE GREAT FABLES CROSSOVER
11 LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES TP VOL 03
12 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 05 SP VS THE UNIVERSE
13 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 04 SP GETS IT TOGETHER
14 UNWRITTEN TP VOL 01 TOMMY TAYLOR BOGUS IDENTITY TP
15 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 02 MILES BEHIND US
16 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 10 WHAT WE BECOME
17 BOOK OF GENESIS ILLUS BY ROBERT CRUMB HC
18 KICK ASS PREM HC
WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01
20 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 01 UNMANNED (OCT058020)
21 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 03 INFINITE SADNESS
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 13 TOO FAR GONE
23 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 03 SAFETY BEHIND BARS (NEW PTG) (MR)
24 BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 06 RETREAT
CHEW TP VOL 02 INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR
HELLBOY TP VOL 09 WILD HUNT
SERENITY SHEPHERDS TALE HC
28 ALL STAR SUPERMAN TP VOL 02
EX MACHINA TP VOL 09 RING OUT THE OLD
FABLES TP VOL 01 LEGENDS IN EXILE (APR058372)
LOEG III CENTURY #1 1910 NEW PTG
32 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 04 HEARTS DESIRE
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 09 HERE WE REMAIN
34 BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP (DEC058055)
RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE OUTFIT HC
36 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY HC #20
DRINKING AT THE MOVIES SC
INCOGNITO TP
TRANSMETROPOLITAN TP VOL 01 BACK ON THE STREET
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 08 MADE TO SUFFER
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 02 CYCLES (OCT058281) (MR)
42 SERENITY BETTER DAYS TP NEW PTG
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 07 PAPER DOLLS (FEB060341) (MR)
44 BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC (OCT060163)
BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 03 WOLVES AT THE GATE
FABLES TP VOL 14 WITCHES
FROM HELL TP NEW PTG
PREACHER TP VOL 01 GONE TO TEXAS NEW EDITION (MAR050489)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 05 BEST DEFENSE
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 07 THE CALM BEFORE
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 10 WHYS AND WHEREFORES (MAR080241)
52 ALL STAR SUPERMAN TP VOL 01
BLACK HOLE COLLECTED SC NEW PTG
BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 01 LONG WAY HOME NEW PTG
CLUMSY GN
SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES (DEC058090)
UNWRITTEN TP VOL 02 INSIDE MAN
58 100 BULLETS TP VOL 01 FIRST SHOT LAST CALL (SEP068078)
AMAZING SCREW ON HEAD & OTHER CURIOUS OBJECTS HC
AMULET SC VOL 01 STONEKEEPER
BATMAN THE KILLING JOKE SPECIAL ED HC
BOYS TP VOL 06 SELF-PRESERVATION SOCIETY
BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 05 PREDATOR & PREY
COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS TP
DMZ TP VOL 08 HEARTS AND MINDS
EX MACHINA TP VOL 10 TERM LIMITS
R CRUMBS HEROES OF BLUES JAZZ & COUNTRY WITH CD HC
RAMAYANA DIVINE LOOPHOLE HC
SCALPED TP VOL 06 THE GNAWING
WATCHMEN TP (FEB058406)
71 BATMAN AND ROBIN DELUXE HC VOL 01 BATMAN REBORN
BLACKSAD HC VOL 01
BOYS TP VOL 01 NAME OF THE GAME
CROSSED TP VOL 01
DMZ TP VOL 01 ON THE GROUND (MAR060383) (MR)
EIGHTBALL GHOST WORLD TP
EX MACHINA TP VOL 08 DIRTY TRICKS
HELLBOY TP VOL 01 SEED OF DESTRUCTION
IGNITION CITY TP VOL 01
LOEG VOL ONE TP (JUL068290)
NO HERO TP
OTHER LIVES HC
PREACHER TP VOL 02 UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD NEW EDITION
RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE HUNTER HC
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 06 SORROWFUL LIFE
WEATHERCRAFT HC
WITCHFINDER IN THE SERVICE OF ANGELS TP VOL 01
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 03 ONE SMALL STEP (MAR068027) (MR)
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 09 MOTHERLAND (FEB070362) (MR)
90 BATWOMAN ELEGY DELUXE EDITION HC
BOYS TP VOL 02 GET SOME
CHARLES BURNS X ED OUT GN
CHEW TP VOL 03 JUST DESSERTS
CHI SWEET HOME GN VOL 01
FABLES TP VOL 03 STORYBOOK LOVE (MAY068085) (MR)
FREAKANGELS TP VOL 04
GRENDEL BEHOLD THE DEVIL HC
HELLBOY TP VOL 10 CROOKED MAN & OTHERS
MESMO DELIVERY GN VOL 01
PROMETHEA TP BOOK 01 (APR068028)
SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE (APR058268)
SCALPED TP VOL 01 INDIAN COUNTRY (MAY070243) (MR)
SUPERMAN RED SON TP (NOV058130)
SWAMP THING TP VOL 01 SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING (APR058269)
THE ARRIVAL GN (C: 1-1-2)
UMBRELLA ACADEMY TP VOL 02 DALLAS NEW PTG
V FOR VENDETTA NEW EDITION TP (MR)
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 08 KIMONO DRAGONS (AUG060299) (MR)
I'm pretty happy with the diversity of the list, as always, though clearly Bryan Lee O'Malley and Robert Kirkman are the big big winners of this year's spread.
I'm a retail, so DOLLARS actually kind of matter more to me than QTY does, so here's a top 100 sorted out by dollars sold -- it looks a smidge different...
1 WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01
2 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 06 FINEST HOUR
3 WILSON HC
4 ASTERIOS POLYP GN
5 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 11 FEAR THE HUNTERS
6 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 01 PRECIOUS LITTLE LIFE
7 BOOK OF GENESIS ILLUS BY ROBERT CRUMB HC
8 KICK ASS PREM HC
9 FABLES TP VOL 13 THE GREAT FABLES CROSSOVER
10 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 12 LIFE AMONG THEM
11 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 01 DAYS GONE BYE
12 FROM HELL TP NEW PTG
13 CHEW TP VOL 01
14 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 02 VS THE WORLD
15 LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES TP VOL 03
16 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 02 MILES BEHIND US
17 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 10 WHAT WE BECOME
18 RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE OUTFIT HC
19 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 05 SP VS THE UNIVERSE
20 HELLBOY TP VOL 09 WILD HUNT
21 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY HC #20
22 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 04 SP GETS IT TOGETHER
23 RAMAYANA DIVINE LOOPHOLE HC
24 BLACKSAD HC VOL 01
25 COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS TP
26 INCOGNITO TP
27 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 03 SAFETY BEHIND BARS (NEW PTG) (MR)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 13 TOO FAR GONE
29 NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE TP ULTIMATE COLLECTION
30 BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 06 RETREAT
31 BATMAN AND ROBIN DELUXE HC VOL 01 BATMAN REBORN
OTHER LIVES HC
33 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 01 UNMANNED (OCT058020)
34 WHO KILLED AMANDA PALMER HC
35 UNWRITTEN TP VOL 01 TOMMY TAYLOR BOGUS IDENTITY TP
36 SERENITY SHEPHERDS TALE HC
37 RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE HUNTER HC
38 BLACKEST NIGHT HC
DAVE MCKEAN CAGES TP
40 CROSSED TP VOL 01
41 SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES (DEC058090)
42 EX MACHINA TP VOL 09 RING OUT THE OLD
43 ABSOLUTE SANDMAN HC VOL 01
ABSOLUTE SANDMAN HC VOL 03 (JAN080242)
45 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 04 HEARTS DESIRE
46 FABLES TP VOL 14 WITCHES
47 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 09 HERE WE REMAIN
48 CHEW TP VOL 02 INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR
49 BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP (DEC058055)
50 BLACK HOLE COLLECTED SC NEW PTG
51 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 03 INFINITE SADNESS
52 ABSOLUTE DEATH HC
53 WASTELAND APOCALYPTIC ED HC VOL 01
54 WATCHMEN TP (FEB058406)
55 R CRUMBS HEROES OF BLUES JAZZ & COUNTRY WITH CD HC
56 ALL STAR SUPERMAN TP VOL 02
57 LOST GIRLS HC
58 Y THE LAST MAN DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 01
59 TRANSMETROPOLITAN TP VOL 01 BACK ON THE STREET
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 08 MADE TO SUFFER
61 BLANKETS GN
62 BOYS TP VOL 06 SELF-PRESERVATION SOCIETY
WEATHERCRAFT HC
64 BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 03 WOLVES AT THE GATE
65 BEST AMERICAN COMICS HC 2010
66 BATMAN THE KILLING JOKE SPECIAL ED HC
67 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 07 PAPER DOLLS (FEB060341) (MR)
68 MORE THAN COMPLETE ACTION PHILOSOPHERS TP
69 PREACHER TP VOL 01 GONE TO TEXAS NEW EDITION (MAR050489)
70 DRINKING AT THE MOVIES SC
71 WALKING DEAD HC VOL 05
72 BOYS TP VOL 02 GET SOME
IGNITION CITY TP VOL 01
NO HERO TP
SWAMP THING TP VOL 01 SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING (APR058269)
THE ARRIVAL GN (C: 1-1-2)
V FOR VENDETTA NEW EDITION TP (MR)
78 BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 01 LONG WAY HOME NEW PTG
79 BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC (OCT060163)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 05 BEST DEFENSE
81 CHARLES BURNS X ED OUT GN
82 SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE (APR058268)
83 OMEGA THE UNKNOWN PREM HC
84 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 10 WHYS AND WHEREFORES (MAR080241)
85 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 02 CYCLES (OCT058281) (MR)
86 FREAKANGELS TP VOL 04
87 BONE ONE VOL ED SC
88 DMZ TP VOL 08 HEARTS AND MINDS
89 BATWOMAN ELEGY DELUXE EDITION HC
90 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN HC VOL 01
91 BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 05 PREDATOR & PREY
92 AMAZING SCREW ON HEAD & OTHER CURIOUS OBJECTS HC
93 BOYS TP VOL 01 NAME OF THE GAME
94 WEDNESDAY COMICS HC
95 FABLES TP VOL 01 LEGENDS IN EXILE (APR058372)
96 FLIGHT GN VOL 07
97 SUPERMAN RED SON TP (NOV058130)
98 HELLBOY TP VOL 01 SEED OF DESTRUCTION
99 UMBRELLA ACADEMY TP VOL 02 DALLAS NEW PTG
100 DARK TOWER FALL OF GILEAD PREM HC
I'm rather proud of my Top 10, actually (especially considering that GENESIS came out LAST Christmas...) -- I also love that the WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM soars right up to #1, when looking at dollars...that's what a $60 cover price can do for you! (well, if you're Kirkman, that probably won't work for YOU...)
Anyway, I'm always up for your commentary on these lists...
Hey, it's a New Year, which means it is time to look back at performance. I'll place it under the Jump for those who Just Don't Care...
At the Top-Level analysis, it wasn't a terrific year. In fact, sales were down about 8% overall. Given the general state of the economy, and San Francisco Unemployment in general, and really, the average slate of comics being released and how people are reacting to them, I don't absolutely hate this result. There were bits of the year I thought the overall number could be down by 13-15%! So, especially the fact that the 4th quarter flew back up in sales makes me feel like things are adequate.
I'm certainly doing a number of things to reduce expenses -- ONOMATOPOEIA is going to 8 pages (from 12) a month, and we've trimmed back our health insurance a bit (my own damn fault, I hadn't actually realized we still had maternity coverage, and we're not going to have any more kids at our age...) and so on, so profit is going to be less of an issue in 2011.
The real problem is the collapsing market for new periodical comics -- this year we're 55% books/41% comics, which is at a historical low for comics -- and without that weekly driver to draw people through the door, it makes it harder to sell books to people....
I expect this year that we're going to lose at least 2 Bay Area stores, maybe as many as five or six, and we'll see whether those customers scatter to the winds, or shore up the remaining stores in SF (in 1989 when I opened, there were 26 comic shops in SF proper, now we're at about a dozen), and, of course, we have a few stores locally that "don't play by the rules" (ie, paying employees in comics, rather than money; not paying proper taxes, and so on) which always makes competition harder... but we'll see what happens.
Another big change this year is the HUGE shift to credit cards -- 61% of sales is in cards, which eats up a few percentage points of sales in fees and such. The worst one this year was that someone actually tried to charge 27 cents for a "Quarter comic" (plus tax). *sigh*
I'll go into greater detail in the next two posts, but the overall Top 20 items (regardless of category) in quantity looks like this:
1 Quarter Book - Single
2 BORG - Bag & Board Combo
3 Sale Book
4 Dollar Book
5 Back Issue
6 SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 06 FINEST HOUR
7 SIEGE #1 (OF 4)
8 COMIC BAGS 100 CT - MODERN AGE
9 COMIC BOARDS 100 CT - MODERN AGE
10 BATMAN AND ROBIN #7
11 BATMAN AND ROBIN #10
BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1 (OF 6)
13 BATMAN AND ROBIN #8
BATMAN AND ROBIN #9
15 BATMAN AND ROBIN #11
16 BATMAN AND ROBIN #12
17 BATMAN AND ROBIN #16
18 BATMAN #700
BATMAN AND ROBIN #13
20 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 OF(6)
COMIC BOX - SHORT
JOE THE BARBARIAN #1 (OF 8)
So, yeah, people seem to like both cheap comics, supplies, as well as Grant Morrison -- but they also clearly likely GM's BATMAN less as the year wore on...
Note that there's only one single TP/GN in the Top 20, that should make it fairly clear how important the periodical comic is to building traffic... especially when you consider that SP v6 is more akin to an "annual periodical" than it is a book, per se.
(and "Long Box" came in at tied-for-#23, never realized how much we actually sold there...)
One thing to consider is that all of the store-specific/generic items (quarter books, supplies, etc.) are for sale 12 months of the year, while most of the comics here are only on sale for 6-8 months, max. B&R #7 was on my racks from January to September, so, perhaps, the comparisons aren't that fair... but, then, SP v6 only went on sale in July (but 80% of those sales were in the first week.)
"Sale book" is something put on clearance.
Another observation: "BORGS", in sum, sold less than 4% of our combined sales of periodicals, so the "collector impulse" is significantly less than a raw look at these sales might suggest.
Self-promotion warning. For those of you not interested in self-promotion, and don't want to spend their free time consuming advertising, this is fair warning, and I'll hide my infomercial for myself behind a jump. I apologize in advance to anyone who thinks this doesn't belong here-- in my defense, I got Brian's okay, plus Brian reminded me that Jeff had already done the whole self-promotion thing so... Please send all angry e-mail to Jeff Lester. Also: please send photos of yourself but just from the waist down to Jeff Lester. Pants tolerated.
***
"Good authors too who once knew better words, now only use four letter words writing prose.... Anything goes..." -- Cole Porter.
(Is it just me or did dudes from back in the day used to put quotes from songs in their comics way, way more often? "You bros ready to read a comic about HAWKMAN? Here's a quote from Jethro Tull to get this mother started on the right foot. WHOAH, AQUALUNG!" Is that something my mind is just making up on me? Didn't that use to happen all the time? Are people still doing that? I don't see that anymore.
It's not the same thing, but all I can think of at the moment is I remember Peter David issues of the Hulk that'd have Shakespeare quotes-- that one issue where the Leader tricks Banner into turning into Grey Hulk in order to fight Rick Jones Hulk, that's got that "Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon" quote or whatever...? And there's me, age whatever-- "I promise-- no moon-swearing from me, Mr. Incredible Hulk, sir!" Does Peter David still do that? ... I don't know; I just heard that Cole Porter song earlier today and that line made me laugh. Funny song. Okay, whatever, let's start the whole sales thing... Let's get into character...)
SUPERMAN 80-PAGE GIANT 2011 #1
Written by JOE CARAMAGNA, STEVE HORTON, ABHAY KHOSLA, NEIL KLEID, AUBREY SITTERSON, BEAU TIDWELL and others
Art by EDDY BARROWS, CAFU, DAN MCDAID, ANDY MACDONALD and others
Cover by DUSTIN NGUYEN
I'm the co-creator of a 10 page Jimmy Olsen story in this SUPERMAN comic book, as advertised. It's solicited for sale in February 2011. I think Beau Tidwell has written reviews and journalism, too, including for the NEW YORK TIMES. I don't know who "Others" are, but my guess is that I'm at least the 4th or 5th best comic critic with a story in that SUPERMAN comic. Though I like to think that I'm the 2nd or 3rd best critic in that SUPERMAN comic, in your hearts.
Brian suggested I give you the Order code, so-- here's the Order code: DEC100215. Brian also suggested I give the Order code to the North Koreans, though, come to think of it. What was that about? Oh my god! Sarah Palin was right about San Francisco!
Dustin Nguyen did the cover, which I guess is a spiritual sequel to this fantastic cover he did for BATMAN 80-PAGE GIANT. Dustin Nguyen is one of my favorite cover-guys working with DC (plus I really love those chibi style drawings he does on rare occasion), so... Boy, I was so happy when I saw that cover...
I was approached by DC in May 2010 about contributing something-- out of the blue. Just this weird out-of-nowhere thing. I guess they've been approaching new-ish people for these anthologies for a while now. It's nothing I went out and got for myself-- just this thing that fell into my lap. I think it's going to be pretty funny for me, though, the next time I hear some mainstream comics person talk about, "Breaking into comics, man, it's like infiltrating a volcano headquarters surrounded by a high-security prison, shoved up a nun's butt. If someone manages to figure out a way in-- they wall that way in up with bricks, and have Hakeem Olajuwon piss on the bricks in order to sanctify them with his famous +1 Urine of Obstruction." Because-- really? I was just sitting around watching SAVED BY THE BELL on blu-ray the other day, and got an e-mail offering to pay me to write a comic about one of my all-time favorite comic characters. Did you... Did you guys try chilling out and watching SAVED BY THE BELL? Because my way sure sounds much easier. For nuns.
Anyways, I sent in three pitches at the end of June-- two were comedies: one pretty terrible, too vanilla, too much me pulling my punch, looking back on it; the other... it probably was a little weird.
The third was sort of what I hope is a pretty straight-ahead superhero comic. DC went with that one. And I'm kind of happy that's what I ended up having to try to make. Given the chance to make a superhero comic, I'm glad I had to make a real one, and didn't find a way to hide from that...? I don't know if any of that makes sense. You know-- I figure this is the only time they'll ever let me make this particular kind of comic, so I guess I wanted to be a part of... Part of the "tradition."
Though I don't know-- my "tradition" probably isn't everybody's. A lot of DC comics in the 00's, I suspect were trying to be in the tradition of the reveal of the Terra character in the Wolfman-Perez TEEN TITANS, which didn't mean anything to me since my formative Teen Titans experience was the Teen Titans being buzz-kills and narcing out the cool kids on behalf of the Keebler corporation.
I was always sort of more fascinated with the post-WATCHMEN Inappropriate Superhero comics, as I think I've mentioned before. Or, like, you know what comic got stuck in my head this week. Does anyone remember that Jamie Delano comic TALKING TURKEY from VERTIGO JAM? It was an Animal Man comic that was just Animal Man (in his post-costume SERIOUS VERTIGO COMICS incarnation)(!) getting yelled at about environmentalism by a turkey on Thanksgiving...??
I don't know. I didn't have the balls to write a comic about a man arguing about SERIOUS ISSUEZ with a turkey(!), so I can't say I achieved true glory. Failure of nerve, I guess. You know-- but I tried to have Nerd Fun. Stole the first line of my script from those excerpts from Alan Moore's script for SWAMP THING ISSUE 20 that Stephen Bissette had on his blog last year (one of several excellent series of blog posts on comics history, if you haven't seen that before): "Before commencing this debacle, a few words" yaddah yaddah. Stole the last line of my script from Grant Morrison's THE INVISIBLES: "End theme." That's how Morrison ended his first two INVISIBLES scripts, which I think are floating around online. I thought that was kind of a neat way to end a script for THE INVISIBLES.
I don't know if I did anything anyone will like, especially-- that's not really up to me, I guess. I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes, or... It's an all-ages Jimmy Olsen comic, and maybe that inherently has a limited appeal. I don't know. But I tried my best to try not to make a faux-"cinematic" storyboard comic, which sure as hell was goal #1; I tried to give the artist chances to be awesome; and if my execution was lacking, well, I think I at least tried to have my goals be true to my tastes, so... I think that's what I was supposed to do...? I think...? Or maybe not-- I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. All my research aside, I'm not entirely sure what a hypothetical reader wants out of a 10 page Superman comic, or why they want it, so...
Annnnnd this is awkward-! I am not built for self-promotion. I *totally* judge other people when they promote themselves, so, I'm so sorry if this is horrible for you. It's awkward for me. This is awkward for me. It makes me feel-- I feel like I'm at the corner just in time to see the bus fly by.
Fun-fact: Mario Lopez is a guest on George Lopez tonight. Fun fact.
***
And... yeah: they let me write Jimmy Olsen.
Jimmy Olsen is just about my favorite character in superhero comics.
Olsen was already reinvented for modern times-- decades ago! By the best-- by Kirby. Olsen before Kirby is okay. But the Kirby Olsen... To me, the Kirby Olsen is a crazy young man who seeks out the future so he can bring photographs of it back to the present. Maybe just no one could separate that aspect out from all the other, more idiosyncratic things Kirby brought to the book, I think.
And unlike most DC characters, he's not locked into any single theme. A comic about Batman should probably be about crime being a bitter fruit that grows weeds, or whatever that expression is; a story about Wonder Woman should be about Man's World; a story about Black Canary should be about fishnet stockings; a story about Zatanna, I don't know, I guess should also be about fishnet stockings. A story about Cheryl Tiegs should be about that fishnet one-piece she wore in the 1978 Sport's Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Maybe the story could be from the perspective of the fishnet swimsuit-- let that blow your mind, intro to creative writing 101 professor. Or it could be from the perspective of a young Brazilian girl watching, from binoculars, and she's judging at first but then gradually her defenses wear down and she starts having FEELINGZ. I don't know-- I don't want to accidentally screw up any plans that Geoff Johns might have there, you guys.
Jimmy Olsen doesn't really quite have a heavy burden of theme to him. You can think of him as someone inspired by another's heroism to go be a hero himself; i.e. as a symbol for the positive way being a fan of some fantasy character can effect your life. Or you can think of him as ... As someone who tries to be cooler than he plainly is, to the extent he's making a fool of himself or even risking his life, based upon an impossible standard that he's imposed upon himself. Which I think is sort of how we all process mass media...? Mass Media gives up Superman and then we're trapped in the bodies of Jimmy Olsen. When I watch a James Bond movie, what goes on in my head? How much have James Bond movies screwed up the inside of my head? And is that any different from what happens in Jimmy Olsen's head when he's watching Superman? Or you can think of something else entirely for him-- Jimmy's just this guy, you know?
I think I've mentioned this here before, but: what I love most about Jimmy Olsen doesn't show up in my story, but it's the signal watch. I couldn't do that justice in 10 pages. I mean, none of this made it into my comic any, but ... the signal watch not making it in smarts the most because I love it so much: Jimmy Olsen survives his adventures not because he's more powerful or stronger than his adversaries, but because of his ability to form friendships with people who are. He doesn't need superpowers-- his superpower is social skills! Which -- I think I consider that a better "lesson" than almost any other lesson in all of superhero comics. And the ultimate symbol for that is the signal watch. Plus, post-Crisis, at least, Jimmy Olsen invented the signal watch-- he saw Superman and responded to Superman by inventing a way to get Superman to help him in his life.
Jimmy Olsen is a person in a society transitioning from a human society to a post-human society, and the way he responded to that is by putting that post-human society at his disposal. Which-- is my favorite heroic type that I grew up with: the computer hacker. The computer hacker, when I was a kid, was a person who saw the effect computers were going to have on society coming, and was going to control that machinery of the world rather than let himself be a cog in it. Matthew Broderick in WAR GAMES isn't going to be a victim of the military industrial complex; he's going to use the technology of the military industrial complex to force it to recognize his right to be free of its machinery. Jimmy Olsen is exactly that. Jimmy Olsen is a hacker, not of computers but of a post-human society.
This is all stuff I'd thought about on a regular basis, years before anyone from DC ever got in touch with me, so...
Oh, god. I've wasted my life.
***
Plus: I got to write something that would have real comic art to it for once! I basically draw like crap, and so there are types of comics I don't think I'll ever create on my own, in one-man-band mode, for that reason. Action comics, horror comics, monster comics, suspense comics-- really, anything besides people talking in a sparsely decorated room is probably off limits to me. So, getting to actually write, you know, ANYTHING and it's some other stupid asshole's job to draw it...? That is a Christmas miracle.
We managed to get my top pick to draw the comic: Mr. Andy Macdonald of NYC MECH, RED WARRIOR, TERMINATOR: 2029, TERMINATOR: 1984, PUNISHER: WAR JOURNAL, a SPIDERMAN web-thing, and END LEAGUE fame-- no, infamy! I've known Andy for many, many years, and I've spent hours and hours watching him draw. No-joke: Andy would be my top pick to draw this if I could get anybody, anybody at all, so I feel like I got extraordinarily lucky. Well, no, wait-- my top pick would be Jesus-- that's sort of a no-brainer. #2 would be Lee Harvey Oswald-- my family's pretty convinced he didn't do it, so it'd be a big deal for them if he drew my Superman comic. But #3 would be Andy Macdonald. So: Andy Macdonald: Almost As Good as Lee Harvey Oswald in My Book.
Plus: we're trying to get an old, old friend to letter the story, too-- I don't know if that's 100% locked in yet. But this person, Andy and I all had dinner together at San Diego many, many years ago, and it's one of my favorite memories of the times I went to that thing. So, I guess I'm happy that... If it feels like something made by an assembly line of strangers to other people, then that's how it is and I apologize to you, but I'm really happy it's not going to feel that way to me...? And aren't my feelings all that really matter? Yes! You're right! They are!
***
And then: sometime in 2011, the 4th issue of my webcomic TWIST STREET. I also started writing issue #4 sometime in May, I think, according to my notes. Hopefully this gets released sometime in June but it's hard to say for sure. I'm wrapping up a final draft now, and hopefully drawing starts in late December / early January. Talking heads, repeating images, endless dialogue-- low-low-low-budget comedy webcomics. More than 100 pages, but less than 200, I think. With a plot, this time-- another stab at doing a plot, unfortunately. But the good news is I think I found a way to make my cheapest looking, laziest comic yet! I really think people might hate this one! Yay, honesty!
You know: there have been times when I've wished that other people had found a better balance between their personal work and their work for others, and have been disappointed that they haven't. So, I guess I really, really want this to be out in 2011 so that I won't ever have to feel like I was wrong about anything. Take that, world! No comeuppance, everybody! I avoided comeuppance!
I mean, I'm not saying it's normal but ... I really think my feelings about the Superman thing would be diminished in some essential way if I didn't also have this coming out. Anyways, here's the Order Code: Seven.
***
And of course, there'll be more of this sort of thing. You know: more stuff that gets posted here, extremely slowly, and probably not often enough, and probably about comics no one cares about, and sometimes with me maybe calling the guy who wrote POWER PACK a baby-killer. (You reading anything good? I'm wrapping up DUNCAN THE WONDERDOG-- I really haven't decided yet if I'm enjoying that or disliking it intensely-- interesting book, though. That and HARLEM HEROES-- why did people who wrote 2000AD think black people rhymed so much?? I'm going to end the year sitting down with the ALEC omnibus...)
But yeah, I should say: writing for this blog, this is the most fun i have writing anything. Oh god, when one of these comes together-- it is so much goddamn fun.
You know: I think part of the fun of this whole experience has been watching myself to see if I turn into That Guy. Because I was really scared I'd have that moment of, you know, "Oh, I was wrong! Forgive me, people who work in comics! I've learned the error of my ways-- the real enemy is snark. How dare you, snarky snarks? Comic creators have FEELINGZ." And maybe I did it wrong, but... I didn't have that moment. I was never visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. I never felt like I had to repent.
And I'm so happy about that. SO HAPPY. Having been through this experience now-- I take NONE of it back. DC gave me every opportunity to think about what I was putting out into the world, and I've gotten asked questions throughout the process, questions making sure I understood and respected the characters, questions about story logic, theme, etc. And if I didn't think hard enough on my work product, and what I put out there was ... was intellectually lazy or morally repugnant to someone else in any way, then there's no way I can pretend I didn't deserve the "snark" (or as I like to call it, "entertainment") that I get in retaliation, even if I disagree with that person or how they draw their conclusions. And that would only be my fault, and no one else's, not snark, not "The Internet", and especially not Lee Harvey Oswald, who loved the smell of cookies coming out of the oven, which I think you'll agree the Warren Commission completely overlooked....
Plus, I just really, really don' want to repent-- this is such goddamn fun and I don't want FEELINGZ to get in the way of that. So, I guess what I'm saying, if anything, I really hope that this experience has only made me a worse and more unfeeling monster than I was before.
In conclusion: No comeuppance!
"Lee Harvey, you are a madman. When you stole that cow, and your friend tried to make it with the cow. I want to party with you, cowboy." -- John Winger.
"Drying in the cold sun -- watching as the frilly panties run." -- William Shakespeare.
About 2 months ago I received an advance copy of the SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE original Graphic Novel. This was an uncorrected proof, and was a bit rougher than other galleys I get -- there's only about a dozen pages in color, other pages were inked, but not toned, while there's even a few pencil-only pages. I get a lot of galleys from many different publishers, but this one came under the auspices of a ComicsPRO program, and I made a fatal error of thinking of it while wearing my "Critic" hat, rather than my 'retailer" hat (I wear far too many hats)
DC was (and, let's underline this very strongly) justifiably upset that I screwed up my hats, and as soon as I knew of their displeasure, I pulled the review, and apologized abjectly to DC through both official and unofficial channels. I screwed up, it was entirely my singular fault, and I strongly hope that DC will not penalize ComicsPRO retailers for my error (they haven't sent out another preview since -- which may or may not mean anything... or it could also just mean I personally have been removed from DC's advance lists, I'm really not sure)
Either way, I erred deeply by posting the review 2 months ago, and I sincerely apologize for potentially jeopardizing some of DC's promotional plans (among other things: sometimes "big media" are only interested in reviewing projects like this if they're given some sort of "we're first!" privileges. I don't believe that this changed any of those plans, but it COULD have, and it was wrong of me to post the pre-publication review)
However, the book is out now, so it's back to being fair game...
Here's the balance of what I originally wrote, then I'll come back at the end to talk about the final and finished book...
***
Obviously, since I'm reviewing from a galley, it is possible (though not, in my experience, likely) that some things will change about the final version. Take this with a lump of salt (not just a grain)
Also: there will likely be spoilers here. Generally when I review things, I assume you have a copy, so it's more of a conversation than this will be.
So, let's start with the easiest thing: the art. I didn't like it very much. It isn't that Shane Davis is an incompetent artist or anything, but his style is a little too scratchy to my tastes, overly rendered, without a strong enough foundation of story-telling or page layout that I would really want in an OGN series supposedly aimed at new readers. It's like, I don't know, pre-X-Men Jim Lee or something -- you can see he's got enough basic chops to develop somewhere interesting, but he's just not quite "there" yet. There's more than a few sequences where I can only kind of tell what is supposed to be happening, which is kind of a problem, really...
I wonder about the audience/remit for this line -- everything would seem to indicate the idea is to create NEW "Superman" readers, especially ones in bookstores (otherwise why even DO an OGN?), but I don't know that I can see this particular work really hitting with someone who hasn't read comics in a while -- in is, in my opinion, both simultaneously too crowded and hectic and, well, bombastic, while it is also a bit dull in places.
Part of the problem is, I think, that it seems like it is trying to serve too many masters at once -- the emotional heart of the story is really Clark Kent trying to make a decision about whether or not he wants to be a hero and protector (as his parents want), or whether he wants to follow his own desires to "fit in" (which, for some reason, mostly seems to spin around financial renumeration) and become a football player or a research scientist or anything else where he'd be able to excel with his alien powers.
However, this is really kind of a false emotional dilemma, if only because it is about SUPERMAN -- we know that, by hook or crook, he's going to put on the costume and become a hero sooner than later, not just because of the character, but because of the writer and his expressed love of the nobility of Supes.
It isn't that you can't do "Questioning Clark", but you kind of have to do it much earlier in his life, otherwise you sort of undercut the drama. Superman is better than we are -- he HAS to be, or he isn't "Superman". His lessons about strength and power and helping people and the dangers and risks it entails all need to come when he's a kid, or, at latest, as a teenager, not until after he's left college. While I understand that for most normal Earth-humans the timeline of questioning works fine, Clark ISN'T a normal earth-human, he's SUPERMAN, and by the time he enters Metropolis for the first time he might not be wearing the costume, but he needs to be well set on that path. Hell, by the time I was 20 I knew just what I wanted to be and do, and I followed that path the best I could -- Clark should be WAY ahead of dumb ol' me. So the timing really really didn't work for me.
The other "master" here is the need or desire to also have a giant-threat blockbuster summer movie-style action sequences. These are delivered adequately, but, despite a noble attempt to tie it back into Clark's backstory, I don't think it really works at all. I'll probably get back to that in a bit here.
Let's talk a minute about the OGN structure -- the suggestion is often made by many that OGNs are "better" because they can let a story breath, without the need for "artificial" breaks rigidly enforced every 22 pages. I could maybe possibly accept that (especially in light of semi-arbitrary 22 pages thing), except that I think that long stories really do need "Chapters", and the best kind of "chapter", be it in straight-up prose, or the commercial breaks in a TV show give you that same kind of "Wait, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!?!?!?!" feeling. That's a lot harder to sustain over 128 (or whatever) pages, and I'm not certain I can think of any comics projects that have worked that way -- even well-regarded works like, say, ASTERIOS POLYP or WILSON or MAUS have "chapters" that break the pacing up and give you minutes to pause or reflect (or even just barrel ahead).
SUPERMAN EARTH ONE has some really clumsy-ass pacing, and it really doesn't breathlessly sustain itself over its whole length. This is sort of most glaring in a fairly early scene that switches away to the Army having some fragments of Kal's ship, and a lot of blah-blah-blah about the government trying to understand it, and where it came from, and reverse-engineer it or whatever. I can see why these scenes were included (to provide a certain amount of [fairly unnecessary, at the end of the day] exposition, and to set-up a future thread on the Government trying to track Supes and so on), but really all they do is crash the forward momentum of the book to a halt, while not adding anything all that important to the narrative... certainly nothing that pays off in this volume. It might not be so bad if the Army officer or the scientist involved were given some characterization or motivation or something, but they're largely ciphers as presented.
(Also: you don't create a foil in a Superman comic with an "L" last name, and not give them an "L" first name -- she's "Sandra Lee" here -- but that might just be my 60s-influenced mind speaking here!)
So, yeah, I actually and truly think this would have been better if it was written in "22 page chunks" because that forces a kind of economy in plotting and information release. ONE page of "Look, the Government!" might work, but five pages of it just drags on too long, and moves the focus from where it needs to be.
(I actually think that comics, in general, would be helped immeasurably if we had a return of EIGHT PAGE stories to teach people the economy of craft, but that's a piece for a different day)
When the "Big Bad" comes along... well, the first problem is that he looks a bit too much, facially, like Lobo. There's also a lot of shaky motivation going on here, tying in the baddie into Krypton in what just seems a pretty flimsy way to this reader, with the INDIVIDUAL motivation of the INDIVIDUAL badguy being a particularly dopey kind of generic and simple revenge, rather than any kind of a PERSONAL motivation. this is why Lex Luthor works so well as a Superman foil -- he has an identifiable motivation (jealousy) to motivates him. The Baddie in this comic could be a hired gun for as much individual passion/motivation he brings.
There's also the slight problem of an entire alien invading armada, attacking worldwide (they show us at least 6-8 cities under attack, and giant drills that will destroy the world like Krypton), but only a single Alien has a speaking part, and once Superman punches him hard enough, the entire threat dissolves utterly. Ugh!
So, yeah, plot, structure, motivation, virtually none of it worked for me -- and I walked into this really hoping to be in love with it, and all I really got was a fairly bloated and muddy story. The worst thing is that I think that this probably could be "fixed" with 2 or 3 more drafts, and some real editorial oversight, and a general tightening of character and incident.
Did I like any of it? Well, yeah, I liked almost all of the scenes set in the Daily Planet, and I especially liked "Ultimate Jimmy Olson" (though Lois was fairly dull), so there's that -- I'd like to see JMS bring this version of Jimmy into the "real" Superman title... it wouldn't even really need to be a "retcon".
Though, having said that about the Planet, there's a scene where Perry White makes the point that news is meant to be facts and news, and not Editorialized (Kurt Busiek kind of did this scene better in ASTRO CITY, in that story about the Shark God and the Silver Agent), but at the end of the book they run the actual stories that the Planet runs on Superman (Clark's "interview" with Superman that gets him the job, that one), and damn if it isn't as editorial as-all-get-out. Damn it.
Ultimately, I think this OGN goes on too long, tries to be too many things, is is tremendously weak on characterization and motivation, except for the false emotional dilemma of "should I sell out, or put on the costume?", and doesn't really add do anything to appeal to the theoretical audience that it is shooting for, and, in Savage Critic terms, that, sadly, makes it AWFUL.
Normally I'd ask "What did YOU think?" at this juncture, but you won't be able to for like 5-6 weeks...
*****
Hi, back in the present now!
The final book is pretty handsome, actually -- I like the "European" style (not dustjacketed) hardcover, and the book has good "hand" for the $20 price tag, and I like the embossing on the cover too.
The color "solves" some of the art problems (though, still not on the storytelling front, really), but it adds some new ones -- flashbacks aren't colored distinctively enough to show the time jumps, in my opinion.
There weren't any substantial (or any? I'm not going page-by-page or anything!) changes to the text, and if anything, my opinion on the essential moral weakness of this Clark is now magnified -- I don't like this guy, I don't like his avoidance of being Superman, and I especially found Ma & Pa's scenes to be fairly inexplicable in making him a costume or whatever.
There's a line at the end that I glossed over in my first read that I think encapsulates my problems with this as a Superman comic -- in the (kind of) Fortress of Solitude scene Clark's super-smart metal says to him "Your task is to survive. To use your powers well and wisely. And to avenge the murder of your homeworld." (emphasis mine)
Buh?
To me, at least, Superman isn't about vengeance -- not even close. In fact, Superman is about exactly the opposite. Superman is the guy who will do anything possible to avoid a fight -- precisely because he knows we're better than that, even the screwed up people. Superman is about HOPE. About making things BETTER, about showing that even the worst situation can be made better if someone reaches out a hand in help and understanding.
In the '78 film my favorite scene might be the tiny little sequence where he stops to save a cat from a tree. Yeah, that's maybe a little cornball, but that's Superman. He's more powerful than anyone, anywhere, but "power" doesn't mean a lot if you're not trying to help people with it.
THAT is a metaphor that we need, that we should embrace -- not this whining, myopic coward who won't step forward until the entire world is being threatened.
DC has already announced a second printing, so I guess this is having some early success in the DM at least (if you have a Baker & Taylor account go look at the velocity of backorders there; this doesn't look so hot in the bookstore market as I'm reading the indicators), and good for them, I guess. But I really disliked this book, and I stand by my AWFUL assessment.
If I were to hand a Superman comic to a "civilian", I'd want them to buy ALL-STAR SUPERMAN instead.
I quite like the BEST AMERICAN COMICS series. I think that it provides a generally decent overview of what's happening in non-cape comics in any given year, and I like it as an "entry drug" for civilians, as a retailer.
This year's installment, guest-edited by Neil Gaiman, is another fine fat package of comic goodness, but I think a few of the flaws of the approach were pretty magnified this year.
Primarily, I was fairly dismayed at the length of some of the excerpts this year. While it was nice to see something capey make the book this year (well, last year they tried to get Batman Year 100 in there, but DC refused), and something from Marvel at that, printing an entire issue's worth of OMEGA THE UNKNOWN seemed a bit much. Even more so, including almost the entire second issue of CITIZEN REX seemed over the top. I strongly believe that the length of excerpts should almost certainly be limited to no more than 5% of the final work. With CZ being 120 pages from tip to floor, I'd submit that no more than 6 pages would be a much more appropriate length than 14 pages of it.
Second, as is typical, the "usual suspects" (Los Bros, Ware, Bagge, etc.) get a lot of space. There's no doubt these are creators doing great work, but they just feel a little too ubiquitous to this reader.
What excites me the most about a project like BAC is finding people/works that I "missed" -- this year the clear winner for me as an individual reader was a toss up between Dave Lapp and Michael Cho (who did the cover), both of whom I certainly want to see more from.
Overall, I thought this was a pretty solid package - well worth the $23 asking price, and it was a VERY GOOD package, missing the excellent only because of the length of some of the pieces included.
****
Now here is where it gets weird... I hit the web as I was reading through, looking up Lapp to see if I could find other work. For some reason, and I can't re-google my results that made me think this, I somehow led myself to a book called POWER OUT, which I then picked off my store's shelf and started reading. POWER OUT is actually by Nathan Schreiber, who isn't in BAC at all, and, so, I haven't got the foggiest notion how I got my signal's crossed so entirely. So, before I picked BAC back up to write this, I thought these two pieces were linked, and it turned out they aren't, even a teeny bit.
Having said that, Nathan Schreiber is also another nice "new talent" -- in his case he was a Xeric winner (and we always rack every Xeric book as a matter of course), and he's a gifted cartoonist, apparently working at Act-i-vate. I dunno, I'm not a webcomics guy myself.
Anyway, what wanted me to write more about POWER OUT isn't actually the work inside (a solid GOOD, though it is), but, rather, about cover design and why we haven't sold one copy of this book, as good as it is.
So, that's a pretty awful cover -- not from rendering or anything, but from how it sits upon the rack. What are it's mistakes?
1) The image doesn't convey anything whatsoever -- while the premise of the story is two kids adventures when the power goes out over a weekend (when their parents are away), that's not communicated in the image at all. those power lines could mean ANYthing.
2) The cover and credits, and, especially "Xeric award winner" are in wholly the wrong place. The human eye (or, at least, the Western bits of that eye) scans a page left-to-right, top-to-bottom. That means that to the extent possible, you want everything that is important to either be on the left side, or along the top. The top left corner is the single most important bit of your real estate (look at a regular Marvel or DC comic if you don't believe me -- they got that way over years of development) -- putting your title on the bottom of the book is basically "burying the lede"
3) the two-tone color. While the book itself, on the inside, is toned that way, it doesn't "pop" off the shelf whatsoever as a cover.
Interestingly, BAC itself almost has the same problems:
The advantage that BAC has is the red -- that makes things "pop" just fine; without the red, it would die on the shelf. But look where (what I as a bookseller consider) the most important part is: "Neil Gaiman, editor", ugh, it's down in the bottom right.
Seriously, when designing your covers, put the most important stuff to the left and on the top!
Before I get into talking about this week’s books, let me say I am fairly happy about Marvel and DC’s announcements on pricing – DC is moving their entire line to $2.99, while Marvel will (at least, it isn’t that clear) not be debuting any new books at $3.99 – that’s a step in the right direction.
However (and there’s always a “however”, isn’t there), I’m slightly unconvinced that, in and of itself, this will directly increase sales revenue (and, in fact, in the short term at least this will lower it) because I do tend to suspect that the Big Two have succeeded in Breaking The Habit for a large number of customers unless and until the two publishers fix the other two problems facing the periodicals of their respective universes at the same time. To whit:
1) Cutting back on the unviable line extensions
2) Increasing the density and importance of the books they publish.
The crisis isn’t one solely of “price” – it is really more of “value” – and in order to lure back the lapsed there needs to be a marked increase in the perceived value of the books they publish.
I almost wish they hadn’t decided that January was the month to do this because the first quarter is traditionally a weak one to begin with, and when we couple decreases there with the product-weak fourth quarter I’m still expecting a large number of store closings this winter. We’ll have to see if this is a “too late” move or not…
Meanwhile, big congrats on Bob Wayne being named Senior VP of Sales at DC – Bob is the best friend the DM has, and I count this as a smart and solid move for the marketplace. Yay, Bob!
With that out of the way…
ALAN MOORE NEONOMICON #2 (OF 4) :Yeowch, that’s pretty hardcore, isn’t it? I can’t say I enjoyed it, though the Craft is fine; I was just as disturbed that the comic seemed to just abruptly stop in the middle of a scene. OK, I guess.
BOYS #47: the scene I guess many of us have been waiting for for several years now (well, I was – this bit is more interesting to me than most of the Vought stuff, really), and, man does Hughie take it badly. This comic made me feel worse than even the horrific rapes in NEONOMICON, though this was certainly an honest, human reaction. VERY GOOD, if horrible.
CBLDF LIBERTY ANNUAL 2010: What a swell package of comics! And for a good cause, too – BUBBADUBBADUBBADUBBA, indeed! VERY GOOD.
CHAOS WAR #1 (OF 5): I’ve pretty consistently liked Hercules, but this really struck me as too self-indulgent and plothammery. It’s like “Not enough people are buying the comic about a character I love, so I’ll make him like the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe for a few minutes, and that will show everyone!” Nice art, and it zipped along just fine, but ugh, don’t be so in love with your babies. EH
DC COMICS PRESENTS JACK CROSS #1: I don’t get who or what market niche these DCCP things are meant to fill – are they somehow getting away with reprinting these with no or low royalties because they’re not “trade paperbacks” per se? I dunno. But what I DO know is it is really really stupid to release Warren Ellis work in a “permanent” format, and to not put his name on the cover anywhere, nor to print anything whatsoever on the spine of the book. AWFUL, from a marketing perspective; the comics inside are OK
KLAWS OF PANTHER #1 (OF 4): “Seriously, would someone please buy Black Panther comics? Pretty please?” The dialogue was annoyingly… well, poppy, maybe? Modern? I dunno, but that’s not how a Wakanda Princess should be talking I don’t think, and the weird nature of the “supporting cast” is oddly off putting as well. I liked the art, though I kept thinking it was a mutated Shawn McManus as I was reading it. But this is kind of symptomatic of what I was saying above about too many (& Inessential) books above – literally zero preorders for this, and, so far, zero rack sales too. I’ve FOCed #2 down to zero because of that – there’s (roughly) $2 a copy I’ll never get back, sigh. If a character/take doesn’t work, you really need to give it a year or two break off of the market (EG: ATLAS) before trying again. Also: surely one can write a BP book without resorting to stupid old Klaw as the antagonist? Ugh. Severely EH.
METALOCALYPSE DETHKLOK #1 (OF 3): It loses a certain something by not being animated (and with a soundtrack – the song sequence failed, utterly), but not epically. I do think the Milestone-Scratch-Out would have been better for the profanity (and like the “Metal sound” they use on the show) than the @#$% stuff, but ah well. OK.
ULTIMATE COMICS THOR #1 (OF 4): I was pretty much digging the contemporary scenes, but then it wandered off to Nazi Germany and I got bored. Nazis are pretty passé – especially because Ultimate-Universe Nazis are meant to be pawns of the Skrull… I don’t know, for some reason I pulled ULTIMATES v1 off my bookshelf last week and was reminded just how shockingly powerful those books were, and the current direction of the line seems so lame and tame in comparison. Still, I liked those first 10 or whatever pages… OK
UNCANNY X-FORCE #1: My big shock of the week was just how much I liked this, especially given that I don’t care that much for any of the individual character. Pretty much the first time I’ve EVER liked Deadpool, and the Wolvie/Fantomex scene is nearly worth the price of admission by itself. Nice job, folks – VERY GOOD.
WOLVERINE #2: And a second surprise here – I thought #1 was alright, but I quite liked the second installment here. I don’t think people who like Wolverine are going to like it all that much, for a variety of reasons, and I especially think it’s the wrong direction for a Relaunch, and the Start of a Line of Wolverine Family Titles (ugh), but it is certainly sincere and trying for something different. GOOD.
I’ll have another post if I ever finish BEST AMERICAN COMICS; plus I still haven’t gotten to the new PARKER book yet – too busy with Ben’s bday, re-racking the store and a few other projects, but soon, soon…
