"Why don't you bring Borderline back?" Asked a friend of mine in 2008. I laughed at him; five years ago it was already a concept that was dead in my opinion, and to go into proper publishing with paper and ink and t'ing? You are 'avin' a larf.
"Why don't you bring Borderline back?" Said the same friend five years later.
"Why don't you bring Borderline back?" I said, laughing again.
"Okay. I'll pay for it." I didn't laugh at him this time, but I did turn him down flat and explained to him that if print was dead in 2008 where did he honestly think it was in 2013? I added to this the fact that most anything you want is available for free on the Internet, so there would be no reason for someone to buy a magazine. Books will be obsolete in a few years.
Preconceptions. Misconceptions. Print isn't dead. Far from it. It is, in fact, healthier than it has been for a long time and as for the other thing...
Back in May, when the idea of an almost flawless July was unheard of, I was having an afternoon with a dear old friend, an almost but never quite really famous musician and we talked about magazines and books; the fact that there is all of this information, articles, artwork, adverts and everything you can think of already on the Internet but regardless of this fact there are still racks of magazines and books in newsagents, supermarkets, Smiths and like print, vinyl is also having a renaissance.
When I told him about the amount of comics content that's free on the net, he looked at me, smiled and said that Google is a gateway drug for the young and a default setting for most people. All comic readers use Google (or alternatives) to find comics they want, and therefore know all the usual comics places on the internet - all the free sites, the download places - because we all know if something exists some bugger will scan it and put a copy up on Pirate Bay or whoever. Comicbooks have a familiarity there wouldn't be if people started looking up wool sites or macramé ducks.
As has been well documented, comics and me became a little like oil and water, especially after Borderline and then big time with My Monthly Curse and anyone reading that and following me would have thought that me going back to comics was a little like asking Jose Mourinho to return to English football management, say Chelsea. Been there, done it, worn the T-shirt out!
But, you know, people have said that I must love it because I can't let it go. It's like an addiction (boy do I know about them!) and I tried a number of times to talk about comics addiction; I even wrote several chapters on it and its metaphorical link to comics - that was one of the major edits I did on MMC. The thing is I've given up all my addictions - they were killing me, literally - and I'm left with nothing to do with my hands and, well, comics and me are old dance partners, perennial slippers or those oh so idle hands inside comfortably familiar gloves.
So, I sat down, assembled a lot of the old crowd and we chewed the fat, shot the shit and came up with a template that was both Borderline of old and new and for the 21st century baby-booming-£7.95-for-a-glossy-magazine-and-he-doesn't-even-flinch. The thing is, this was just over three months ago and we were all set to launch a new comics magazine, ASAP and then I did the physical costings and the overheads projection and the cashflow forecast and suddenly the idea of bringing Borderline back was a mixture of futile and pointless; it would cost too much money, would need 6 months to sink or swim and during that time my investors would have blown £½million and... well, no one is that silly, not even me.
That idea was not shelved, but binned, nay, incinerated on the pyre of worthless ideas. I do not believe there will ever be a time when a magazine about comics is successful enough to make one person a fortune let alone a few quid, so doing it with an investor... I'd kinda pinned all my hopes on this; I was unemployed, in desperate need of money and yet the fact that it was just quite simply a non-starter seemed to lift a huge burden off my shoulders and I concentrated on getting my shit together and finding a job. Then there was the start of some (not fearful) symmetry. I like symmetry, especially in humanity, because it affirms the fantasy in us all; it makes us see patterns and mystic pathways that aren't really there, but, metaphorically, in our heads, they are one of the totems that we need to exist and be successful.
I reconnected with Matt de Monti, who was my first assistant manager and one of the two reasons why Squonk stayed in business for so long. We had lunch, we talked about the comics magazine and he said something along the lines of 'there's so much stuff out there, on line, being done in mini-comics and no one sees it,' and that statement washed right over me (hence why I paraphrased it). I got home, walked the dogs, got back and this being the third weekend in May we were experiencing reasonably warm weather, I sat in the garden with the netbook and was just trying to get the volume on the thing to get above a whisper when it hit me; publish...
I sat there, pushed the portable computer to one side, grabbed my handy pad and pen and started to list everyone in comics who I know, everyone who I owe and everyone who owes me. I stopped when I realised that this was a futile exercise; provided they were still in comics and not dead, I still had at least 50% of them in one address book or another.
I then listed what I wanted to see from a publisher (then ripped that up and asked people who liked comics). I then got slagged off and metaphorically shouted at for insisting that I hated comics when it's patently obvious I don't (the person who had that stunning piece of realisation was Rad, who thought up the name Borderline in the first place...) and I don't, I just feel burned by them - the abused lover, who does everything and still gets left at home while his missus goes and shags everyone else.
So, let me get this straight, you feel burned by comics, you've had heaps of shitty luck, you've been gone for 10 years, you have systematically told anyone that will listen (and many that don't want to) that comics are the blood-filled pus spewing from the devil's shit-stained gaping wound of an arse and you want to publish your own? Oooooo-kay...
I could answer this in many ways, but this one works best for me. Back in 1990, I started to write about the need for Marvel and DC to employ ex-retailers as consultant editors. When I was questioned about this or just looked at like I was 'special', I said that retailers were at the coal face of the mine; they were the people who knew, before anyone else, whether a comic was good or if it was the proverbial.
What about the existing editors? Surely they know better?
If one editor, a usually deluded E-i-C and a bunch of interns think a book will be a success you can bet that most of these people approving it either have a vested interest or want to impress someone. DC had a policy in the 1980s and 90s of 'throw enough shit and see how much will stick' (but only because they had TimeWarner's money and was being used as a tax write-off) - I'm thinking to be an editor at DC at that time in the company's history you just needed to be able to multi-task - walk and talk; shit and sing; nod and think - but then again they would have given Dez Skinn a job had it not been for Alan Moore threatening to quit if they did (this is allegedly the real reason Karen Berger got the Vertigo gig).
If the people approving books like the shit that was being pumped out of New York in the 70s, 80s and 90s had any real quality threshold they probably would have gone into another branch of the entertainments industry. For every good book there were 5 crap ones.
An existing or former retailer has to live his life by his ability to know, more instinctively than by logical terms, what will be good and what will be a pile of pooh. It's why there's the occasional hot value book, because it defied expectations and was quite readable. The retailer's life is pretty much dependent on his ability to know a winner, a flop and something worth a gamble.
It's been over 20 years since my shop shut, I've been away from retail a long time. It has changed. However, there are some things that you don't forget - you don't forget how to ride a bike or drive a car if you don't do it for a while; you might be a bit ring-rusty but you can do it, even if there are a few wobbles to begin with. I haven't forgotten how to spot a good comic...
I was going to write about how all of this came about - how someone would be crazy enough to want to invest in me, but the answer is simple. I took the idea of PDF files to a Technical Author who worked for a market research firm. they liked this new (it was 1998) idea as a way of sweetening deals with potential clients and I produced their reports in electronic format for 3 or 4 years. We eventually parted (I was working at CI to begin with and had started working with the homeless when I finished) on very good terms and several years later they sold the business for lots of money and the rest, as someone has said, is history. Or, in my case, the future. The symmetry here is that some of the product Borderline Press is going to be putting out will be in PDF format (as well as paper and ebooks and any other method of delivery I can find).
So... What can you expect?
Hmm. A nice presentation. Some of the best comics you never knew existed. Great deals for creators. Great deals for retailers! A publisher that cares about the business, not about making loads of money and then buggering off to do something else. I want an imprint that people will know will be worth their money even if they have no idea what a book is about or who it's by.
That's not just in the UK either. Borderline had its roots firmly in world comics and Borderline Press has to exploit those markets for all our benefits. The world is a big place (really) and I have expansive ideas for this company; so many my partner is having to hold me back a little.
I have what I believe will be a real winner; something that won't be ready for a while but will be ground breaking; a couple of collections of already web-published comics, ones that I really feel deserve a bigger, wider audience and a couple of things that I'm in negotiation about. Obviously there's the launch book and the two others planned for a pre-Christmas release.
It surprises me just how much or how little is known about certain comics. I look at something and think, 'Well, this is pretty good, my comics reading friends must all know this,' and two out of ten do and only one has read it. It confused me until I realised that in many ways some comics are regional on a really small scale. Because I know X, Y and Z doesn't necessarily means that everyone else does. There's a chance that they might be well known in their geographical region, but the further you go away from that the more chance someone else will be on the local radar.
I've even fallen into that horrible, 'Ooh, it's just a vanity publishing set up to do his own thing,' area, because I am doing a book that I will publish; but it honestly wasn't my intention and when one of the best artists in Poland wants to work with you, you kind of don't turn her down. You dig? That's not until Christmas 2014, by which time you will all have seen what kind of a set up this is going to be and hopefully you'll all be so blown away by it all that I'll be on holiday in the Maldives when it comes out!
Yeah, but can you really spot a winner?
Remember Movers & Shakers? That was, arguably, one of the most popular regular columns in comics - ever. It was certainly one of the most extensively read pre-internet days. It wasn't ostensibly a gossip column; it was fundamentally a 'who and what's hot' column and I pretty much batted 100% and this goes hand-in-hand with the theory that an ex-retailer is far more attuned to identifying a piece of shit than an editor who is blinded by success or having to two the line. Also, people made money from Movers, let's see if I can do that again.
Showing posts with label my monthly curse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my monthly curse. Show all posts
Monday, 29 July 2013
Friday, 28 December 2012
More Irrelevance (part 1)
Many years ago, in another century, I wrote a review of a book and kinda felt a little like Salman Rushdie and his fatwah. The review, which appeared in Comics International, was of a novel/linked collection of short stories and it got held over a month because Dez [Skinn] wanted to read the book himself.
The thing was, it was Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire and it had lots of fans and most everyone knew that there was this acrimony between Dez and Alan and my review could easily have been construed as Dez having a dig at Alan via a third party, mainly because I gave it a really bad write-up. Dez felt that his magazine would come in for unnecessary attention and criticism if a negative review of Alan's debut book was published by him with my name attached to it. At the time I probably agreed with him, so the reviewer's name was changed. Dez got halfway through the book and couldn't read any more and it sat in his bathroom between 1996 and 1998 when I believe one of his 'friends' borrowed it. He went with the less than flattering review...
It was at the 1996 Christmas party in Finchley which polarised it for me. Peter Hogan (DC and 2000AD writer) was laying into Sarah Bolesworth (the reviews editor) about this horrendous review; she explained to Peter that it 'was fucking Dez's idea to run a novel review' and for him to take it up with Dez. The aforementioned was already 9 sheets to the wind by this time, so he pushed Peter in my direction and said, 'Talk to Phil, he knows the bloke that reviewed it' and normally I would have been quite straight with whoever was demanding of a situation like this, but Peter was almost apoplectic, arguing the reviewer 'just didn't get it' and 'obviously didn't understand the place Alan was coming from' ... Well, Alan is a bit older than me and I haven't lived in Northampton all my life, but I have been here for 7/10ths of mine and I fancy I know a fair bit of it - unlike the non-existent part of the town that Alan referred to in his recent Observer interview which either was altered to stop loonies from putting impromptu blue plaques up or because he really comes from a very nice part of town and doesn't want people to see his true middle class roots.
There was also this guy in Wellingborough who claimed he was Alan's brother - he ran a pub and the resemblance was there even without the hair and beard - but everyone I've spoken to about this said Alan was an only child...
Anyhow, the point was, that kind of scared me off of writing that many scathing reviews again - it didn't stop me and as an editor and it got me into trouble more often than it didn't; but I figure I've always meant well (um, well maybe not meant well, perhaps being honest and opinionated, but hey everyone has one, an opinion too). This preamble is because I watched something the other day; I was impressed with it as a documentary film; I knew some of the people in it (one I class as a friend), but in its attempt to be post modern about a subject that almost by definition isn't ever going to be post modern in the eyes of Joe Public, I think it did nothing but accentuate many of the stereotypical points I made throughout the book. I watched Morgan Spurlock's Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope and while it was clear that the message was 'the geeks will inherit the earth', the reality is the geeks will NOT inherit the earth. The geeks will inherit some sad lonely bastard's comic/book/toy/action figure/porno collection and maybe their parents' debt.
The thing was, it was Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire and it had lots of fans and most everyone knew that there was this acrimony between Dez and Alan and my review could easily have been construed as Dez having a dig at Alan via a third party, mainly because I gave it a really bad write-up. Dez felt that his magazine would come in for unnecessary attention and criticism if a negative review of Alan's debut book was published by him with my name attached to it. At the time I probably agreed with him, so the reviewer's name was changed. Dez got halfway through the book and couldn't read any more and it sat in his bathroom between 1996 and 1998 when I believe one of his 'friends' borrowed it. He went with the less than flattering review...
It was at the 1996 Christmas party in Finchley which polarised it for me. Peter Hogan (DC and 2000AD writer) was laying into Sarah Bolesworth (the reviews editor) about this horrendous review; she explained to Peter that it 'was fucking Dez's idea to run a novel review' and for him to take it up with Dez. The aforementioned was already 9 sheets to the wind by this time, so he pushed Peter in my direction and said, 'Talk to Phil, he knows the bloke that reviewed it' and normally I would have been quite straight with whoever was demanding of a situation like this, but Peter was almost apoplectic, arguing the reviewer 'just didn't get it' and 'obviously didn't understand the place Alan was coming from' ... Well, Alan is a bit older than me and I haven't lived in Northampton all my life, but I have been here for 7/10ths of mine and I fancy I know a fair bit of it - unlike the non-existent part of the town that Alan referred to in his recent Observer interview which either was altered to stop loonies from putting impromptu blue plaques up or because he really comes from a very nice part of town and doesn't want people to see his true middle class roots.
There was also this guy in Wellingborough who claimed he was Alan's brother - he ran a pub and the resemblance was there even without the hair and beard - but everyone I've spoken to about this said Alan was an only child...
Anyhow, the point was, that kind of scared me off of writing that many scathing reviews again - it didn't stop me and as an editor and it got me into trouble more often than it didn't; but I figure I've always meant well (um, well maybe not meant well, perhaps being honest and opinionated, but hey everyone has one, an opinion too). This preamble is because I watched something the other day; I was impressed with it as a documentary film; I knew some of the people in it (one I class as a friend), but in its attempt to be post modern about a subject that almost by definition isn't ever going to be post modern in the eyes of Joe Public, I think it did nothing but accentuate many of the stereotypical points I made throughout the book. I watched Morgan Spurlock's Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope and while it was clear that the message was 'the geeks will inherit the earth', the reality is the geeks will NOT inherit the earth. The geeks will inherit some sad lonely bastard's comic/book/toy/action figure/porno collection and maybe their parents' debt.
What this film does is perpetuate a myth, except it isn't a myth, that's just an expression - a stereotype - we keep using, but the reality is despite the mainstream coverage San Diego gets and the fact it is used as a vehicle for Big Entertainment, it is a geekfest, pure and simple and yes people make money out of geeks; it isn't football, but it keeps people in work, makes a few millionaires and even if it metaphorically is killing people, it doesn't normally do it for real (eh, Greg?). What Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope does is say, 'look at these people, take pride in the fact that you aren't them (but wouldn't it be nice if the soldier gets a job)' and by the end you get a pay off even if millionaires aren't involved and my lack of knowledge of the industry now means I have absolutely no idea who offered the soldier some work, but I hope they paid him and that he's not given up his day job.
The thing is Spurlock likes sensational, but he's so obviously a comics fan and the film is produced by a Who's Who of icons and well known geeks, that there was never going to be much more than sugar coating. The two joined at the hip lovers were a perfect example. By the time they'd been on screen for ten minutes and he could not even go to the bathroom without her suspecting he was going off to have fun without her. What he wanted was to get her an engagement ring and propose to her at a Kevin Smith talk; Smith was in on it, the organisers were in on it and obviously Spurlock was. Bunny Boiler Girl was probably clued up by the time he was in the queue to ask Smith a question; she even kind of spoiled his big surprise and all you wanted to do was grab hold of him and scream as loudly in his face as humanly possible - DO NOT MARRY THIS LIMPET MASQUERADING AS AN ASIAN WOMAN, SHE WILL DRIVE YOU TO SERIAL KILLING! Spurlock just upped the schmaltz levels and made it look like a really cool thing, when in reality he was saying 'please do not allow these two people to procreate'. It was probably only the 2nd really subversive thing in the entire film (the first being the two minute skit on how badly the place smells after a couple of days) and it was done so subtly perhaps it was just cynical old me who saw it.
The problem is a film like Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope is not going to change the opinion of someone who doesn't understand the kick. The reaction is likely to be derisive rather than of interest. One of the 'famous' talking heads commented about how it took a certain kind of person to look at a comic to become that kind of person - it's what happened to me. Comics is one thing, but this was really a documentary about the SDCC and that meant costume parades, video games, films; about breaking in, making a splash, having your heart broken. The theme was acceptance, the feeling it gave was of a bunch of weirdos in a very hot place for 4 days every year - avoid.
For all the celebrity endorsements in this film, there were actually very few true celebrities on show; Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, Seths Rogan & Green, Eli Roth, and Stan Lee, who, of course, is most famous for ... comics. The film and TV guys drafted in all have something of the geek about them (while Whedon and Smith came over as the two most irreverent and erudite, yet in many ways as uber-nerds) and it was their contribution to this celebration of geekiness and nerdism that lifted it.
My wife sat and watched the documentary with me. She did so because 18 years ago, long before SDCC became this mythical near-nirvana for US comics fans, I was there, doing my bit for Britain in a predominantly USA world. I had to explain to her that things haven't just expanded, they have exploded and the irony is that while comics continue to wane, the peripheral ephemera of toys, films, TV and general nerdism has grown exponentially. If SDCC in 1994 was a 7 on the Geek Overkill monitor, 2010's SDCC was an 11.
Yet, I was rooting for Eric Henson - the soldier with the right balance of naivety and talent to either succeed or get royally butt-fucked - and watched Skip Harvey's dreams get pulverised - and yet there was I almost shouting at the TV screen that 'this guy needs to learn from this and go away and do all the things the editors told him to do', but for a while I thought we'd get nothing but self pity from him. He redeemed himself at the end by having a Never Say Die attitude and while he won't ever be a big time comics artist, he should have fun trying - rejection is part of life. Holly Conrad's story was the least interesting because I've never understood the need or desire for cosplay or fancy dress parades - it will never be cool, it will always smell vaguely of 8-year-old's birthday parties. The fact that Holly, presumably on a shoestring budget, is knocking out SFX that were pretty damned good was probably the reason why I didn't end up fast forwarding through her bits and she will be a success in her field even if her story felt like padding.
The rest of the film was taken up with Chuck Rozanski's struggles at being the leading comics retailer in the USA. I've met Chuck a couple of times, he's a nice genuine guy and he is successful. yet, amazingly, he doesn't fit the bill for a successful retailer - he's a fan and as times were hard he was considering selling his Red Raven #1. I said right at the start, he will not sell that book, he doesn't want to and he didn't have to, he took enough money from the weekend to mean that he could stick it back in the vault for another 30 odd years.
The Red Raven #1 Chuck had for sale was almost as new and he was looking for $500,000 for it. As someone who has owned this book and can trace how I lost it with vivid accuracy, I'm glad my mother isn't alive today, because I would have shown her this film repeatedly because I just know that the kids my mother gave this comic to will have destroyed it within 24 hours of getting their shit-encrusted mitts on it. It was maybe only worth about $500 in 1971; when I wrote My Monthly Curse it was probably only worth about $10,000 and my copy would have been vg+ at best... But... You know...
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope is the best film I've ever seen about comics and a comicbook convention, but it is also a horror show of serial geekiness that tries to be post modern but only succeeds in looking like it's trying to be post modern but remains the domain of people with deep social needs. It doesn't matter how articulate or passionate someone is about their subject if the rest of the world is going to point at you and laugh or sneer at your supposed childishness.
You need to understand that I tend to think of myself as an anomaly. I have grown to hate comics and everything about them because of my experiences. I have more venom in my blood than anyone attached to comics that I know; yet the many people I know or who have met who have even more disparate and disparaging views on comics and geekery is frightening. I know people who will go to the cinema next summer and watch Pacific Rim and come out sporting massive fanboy-like erections, waxing lyrically about how that film rocked, but if you put, I don't know, Appleseed or Guyver in front of them, they wouldn't wipe their arses with it and would be even less respectful to the people who worship comics such as these. Transformers movies are fine; but the comics or the toys - getoutohere!
Geek Nation exists and it's a growing democracy of diverse and independent nerds, but it will never rid itself of a certain image and there will never be enough members of the Geek Nation to allow it to rise above the derision it gets. The geeks will inherit the earth, but only in their dreams.
The thing is Spurlock likes sensational, but he's so obviously a comics fan and the film is produced by a Who's Who of icons and well known geeks, that there was never going to be much more than sugar coating. The two joined at the hip lovers were a perfect example. By the time they'd been on screen for ten minutes and he could not even go to the bathroom without her suspecting he was going off to have fun without her. What he wanted was to get her an engagement ring and propose to her at a Kevin Smith talk; Smith was in on it, the organisers were in on it and obviously Spurlock was. Bunny Boiler Girl was probably clued up by the time he was in the queue to ask Smith a question; she even kind of spoiled his big surprise and all you wanted to do was grab hold of him and scream as loudly in his face as humanly possible - DO NOT MARRY THIS LIMPET MASQUERADING AS AN ASIAN WOMAN, SHE WILL DRIVE YOU TO SERIAL KILLING! Spurlock just upped the schmaltz levels and made it look like a really cool thing, when in reality he was saying 'please do not allow these two people to procreate'. It was probably only the 2nd really subversive thing in the entire film (the first being the two minute skit on how badly the place smells after a couple of days) and it was done so subtly perhaps it was just cynical old me who saw it.
The problem is a film like Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope is not going to change the opinion of someone who doesn't understand the kick. The reaction is likely to be derisive rather than of interest. One of the 'famous' talking heads commented about how it took a certain kind of person to look at a comic to become that kind of person - it's what happened to me. Comics is one thing, but this was really a documentary about the SDCC and that meant costume parades, video games, films; about breaking in, making a splash, having your heart broken. The theme was acceptance, the feeling it gave was of a bunch of weirdos in a very hot place for 4 days every year - avoid.
For all the celebrity endorsements in this film, there were actually very few true celebrities on show; Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, Seths Rogan & Green, Eli Roth, and Stan Lee, who, of course, is most famous for ... comics. The film and TV guys drafted in all have something of the geek about them (while Whedon and Smith came over as the two most irreverent and erudite, yet in many ways as uber-nerds) and it was their contribution to this celebration of geekiness and nerdism that lifted it.
My wife sat and watched the documentary with me. She did so because 18 years ago, long before SDCC became this mythical near-nirvana for US comics fans, I was there, doing my bit for Britain in a predominantly USA world. I had to explain to her that things haven't just expanded, they have exploded and the irony is that while comics continue to wane, the peripheral ephemera of toys, films, TV and general nerdism has grown exponentially. If SDCC in 1994 was a 7 on the Geek Overkill monitor, 2010's SDCC was an 11.
Yet, I was rooting for Eric Henson - the soldier with the right balance of naivety and talent to either succeed or get royally butt-fucked - and watched Skip Harvey's dreams get pulverised - and yet there was I almost shouting at the TV screen that 'this guy needs to learn from this and go away and do all the things the editors told him to do', but for a while I thought we'd get nothing but self pity from him. He redeemed himself at the end by having a Never Say Die attitude and while he won't ever be a big time comics artist, he should have fun trying - rejection is part of life. Holly Conrad's story was the least interesting because I've never understood the need or desire for cosplay or fancy dress parades - it will never be cool, it will always smell vaguely of 8-year-old's birthday parties. The fact that Holly, presumably on a shoestring budget, is knocking out SFX that were pretty damned good was probably the reason why I didn't end up fast forwarding through her bits and she will be a success in her field even if her story felt like padding.
The rest of the film was taken up with Chuck Rozanski's struggles at being the leading comics retailer in the USA. I've met Chuck a couple of times, he's a nice genuine guy and he is successful. yet, amazingly, he doesn't fit the bill for a successful retailer - he's a fan and as times were hard he was considering selling his Red Raven #1. I said right at the start, he will not sell that book, he doesn't want to and he didn't have to, he took enough money from the weekend to mean that he could stick it back in the vault for another 30 odd years.
The Red Raven #1 Chuck had for sale was almost as new and he was looking for $500,000 for it. As someone who has owned this book and can trace how I lost it with vivid accuracy, I'm glad my mother isn't alive today, because I would have shown her this film repeatedly because I just know that the kids my mother gave this comic to will have destroyed it within 24 hours of getting their shit-encrusted mitts on it. It was maybe only worth about $500 in 1971; when I wrote My Monthly Curse it was probably only worth about $10,000 and my copy would have been vg+ at best... But... You know...
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope is the best film I've ever seen about comics and a comicbook convention, but it is also a horror show of serial geekiness that tries to be post modern but only succeeds in looking like it's trying to be post modern but remains the domain of people with deep social needs. It doesn't matter how articulate or passionate someone is about their subject if the rest of the world is going to point at you and laugh or sneer at your supposed childishness.
You need to understand that I tend to think of myself as an anomaly. I have grown to hate comics and everything about them because of my experiences. I have more venom in my blood than anyone attached to comics that I know; yet the many people I know or who have met who have even more disparate and disparaging views on comics and geekery is frightening. I know people who will go to the cinema next summer and watch Pacific Rim and come out sporting massive fanboy-like erections, waxing lyrically about how that film rocked, but if you put, I don't know, Appleseed or Guyver in front of them, they wouldn't wipe their arses with it and would be even less respectful to the people who worship comics such as these. Transformers movies are fine; but the comics or the toys - getoutohere!
Geek Nation exists and it's a growing democracy of diverse and independent nerds, but it will never rid itself of a certain image and there will never be enough members of the Geek Nation to allow it to rise above the derision it gets. The geeks will inherit the earth, but only in their dreams.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
It's That Man Again
I've been thinking a lot about comics, recently. That's the addiction, you see. Like nicotine it burrows into your brain, rewires it, sits back and waits for you to make all the wrong moves. I also can't help but see the irony that I have had comics sales on the brain; if a song can earworm, then comics sales have been my brain-worm and the irony is that it is almost 21 years to the day since X-Men #1 came out and any of you who waded through all the minutiae of the first part of My Monthly Curse will know just how important I view that comic and why I still believe that future history will probably look back at October 1991 and say, "That was when it started to wither and die."
What has prompted this dip back into my bête noire hasn't actually been anything to do with comics, but actually an article I read in one of our Sunday papers - The Observer - about the decline and fall of the newspaper industry. It backed up my belief that in 25 years time there probably will be as much demand for a printed newspaper as there is for vinyl records. Printed newspapers will become a niche market - a bit like the US comic book industry. ABC figures suggest there's been a drop of nearly 50% in readers in the last 25 years and when you consider that it is estimated that less than a third of the population would read a newspaper in those days, that means, with natural wastage, etc., that less than 1/8th of the population pick up a daily paper now (and that doesn't just mean the national press).
Take one of the UK's most popular comics, Viz and examine it's sales. [In many ways I don't know why I didn't focus more on this comedy comic in the main bulk of the book, but...] Viz began modestly, the first issue from 1979 only had a 'print' run of 150. By the early 80s it was up to 5,000 and had become a cult success. By 1989 its worldwide sales (99% of which were in the UK) was in excess of 1,000,000 - a phenomenal rise, but by 2001, as the Internet and computer technology steam rolled across the world, sales were down to less than 200,000. In 2009 they were down to less than 80,000 and unofficial figures suggest that sales in 2012 are below 50,000. Even the most optimistic fellow would have to agree that this sales trend doesn't look like it's going to reverse itself. Viz by some of its contributors own admissions could cease to exist by 2015, or become what it was before it was sold to Virgin Books and then ultimately to John Brown Publishing, a cult magazine with a small but select audience, or as we used to call it in the 70s - a stripzine. Viz is also not your conventional comic with probably 95% of its readers never looking at (or even being aware of) a 'mainstream' superhero comic.
Someone I work with bought the Kindle version of the book and has been talking to me about the 1990s and how he couldn't understand the incentive to run a comic shop if the odds were so firmly stacked against you. The truth is it looks like it was easier to run a comic shop in the 1990s compared to now; for starters you had some comics which 'sold' easily in excess of 100,000 copies, which given the split should have, at least, given lots of retailers some turnover. But, there are comics that 'sell' over 100,000 in 2012, so surely it has to be much healthier, especially as most comics cost a gold ingot or a small mortgage now? Well, for starters there were more books selling in excess of 100,000 copies (some even got into the millions, but we know what happened after that) and there were a lot more titles selling between 40-99,000. 38 titles sold more than 40,000 copies in March 2012, but in March 2000 (when I was still producing Comics Economics for Comics International), 92 of the top 100 were selling more than 40k. In 1991, the top 142 comics sold more than 40k - that's 102 less comics in 21 years (which unfortunately is a pretty meaningless fact, but looks like it backs my argument up).
In other words there has been nothing to disprove my theory of diminishing returns and arguably had superhero films not sparked the imagination of cinema going crowds in recent years, the sales might be considerably less. The smart arses, clever clogs and blindly defensive amongst you will scream at me about trade paperbacks and how they are the future and I'm, yet again, an anachronism who is talking the 1990s in the second decade of the 21st century. But are trade paperback sales that good? A friend of mine who has co-created a reasonably successful comic that has been collected told me a few very interesting facts. For a start we tend to think Amazon is now the big seller and if you see a book at the top of an Amazon chart then you take it for granted it's sold a shed load. No; my friend's first trade paperback got to the top of its specific Amazon chart on the basis of selling just over 50 copies. The total sales for the book with Amazon have been somewhere in the region of 2000, the overall sales was around 8,000 and while that made everyone money, it hardly made anyone a millionaire - it barely paid a year's mortgage payments. Donald Trump or Alan Sugar would not be viewing the comic trade paperback market as a growth market.
The trade paperback market is actually just the same as the comic book market and those who don't believe me are obviously wilfully ignorant - it's the same product in a different package; therefore practically the same audience is being targeted. There is little or no evidence that more than a handful of trade paperback sales go to people who aren't already comic fans. When asked for a guess, my friend suggested that possibly half of the 2000 Amazon sales might be from people who were unabashed comic fans, half of the rest were probably comics fans trying something new, half of the remainder would be casual comics buyers, half of those that were left were probably at some point in their lives comic fans, which would leave about 125, or roughly 6% of sales, being bought by Joe Public, and frankly I think that's optimistic, because any company claiming 6% of their sales from people who don't fall into any demographic they abide by has to be seen as a good thing. But... this isn't a multi-million dollar business any longer. It is smaller now than it has ever been and the profit margins get smaller every year.
People will argue that a trade paperback produced in the right way could make the creators/publishers a lot of money from selling very few copies; oddly enough, I hear this argument but I never actually see any evidence to back it up, while I have seen the comics industry contract continuously. I know a few young people who read comics; they spend maybe £10 a month; that's four new comics, possibly five if they're lucky. For £1 in 1976 I could buy 14 comics and have enough money left for some sweets. Yes, I know, times change, inflation, cost of living, manufacturing costs, etc., but if comics want to survive surely the best way is to make them cheap enough for more kids to buy them - if, that is, they want the print genre to remain. So like I blame Margaret Thatcher for the mess Britain is in today, I blame X-Men #1 for where the comics industry is now. It hasn't escaped me that the X-Men are no longer guaranteed to be the top seller. If you'd've said to Marvel execs in 1991 that by 2012 the X-Men would be selling 65,000 copies, he probably would have looked at you like you were a fool (he might even have called you one, they were wild and crazy those Marvel execs).
I'm betting Jim Lee will never see another million dollar pay day from a comic, even if he returned to the X-Men with Chris Claremont and resurrected a zombie Jack Kirby to draw the covers. I'm pretty convinced you'd have to be a very frugal and resourceful person to be able to live really well from comic book work alone and even if there are 200 writers and artists out there who are, 20 years ago there was 1000 and ironically 20 years before that probably less than 100 (because most artists had to supplement their income in some other way and were treated like shit by the publishers).
I would like to see the comic book stay and it will because nostalgia tends to be a powerful thing. Until we banish paper someone will be banging out pamphlets in one form or another and maybe that should be where comics go; at least there would be love behind the staples and a passion between the panels.
So Happy 21st (New) X-Men #1; I'm amazed so many years have passed since then and I'm still talking about you.
What has prompted this dip back into my bête noire hasn't actually been anything to do with comics, but actually an article I read in one of our Sunday papers - The Observer - about the decline and fall of the newspaper industry. It backed up my belief that in 25 years time there probably will be as much demand for a printed newspaper as there is for vinyl records. Printed newspapers will become a niche market - a bit like the US comic book industry. ABC figures suggest there's been a drop of nearly 50% in readers in the last 25 years and when you consider that it is estimated that less than a third of the population would read a newspaper in those days, that means, with natural wastage, etc., that less than 1/8th of the population pick up a daily paper now (and that doesn't just mean the national press).
Take one of the UK's most popular comics, Viz and examine it's sales. [In many ways I don't know why I didn't focus more on this comedy comic in the main bulk of the book, but...] Viz began modestly, the first issue from 1979 only had a 'print' run of 150. By the early 80s it was up to 5,000 and had become a cult success. By 1989 its worldwide sales (99% of which were in the UK) was in excess of 1,000,000 - a phenomenal rise, but by 2001, as the Internet and computer technology steam rolled across the world, sales were down to less than 200,000. In 2009 they were down to less than 80,000 and unofficial figures suggest that sales in 2012 are below 50,000. Even the most optimistic fellow would have to agree that this sales trend doesn't look like it's going to reverse itself. Viz by some of its contributors own admissions could cease to exist by 2015, or become what it was before it was sold to Virgin Books and then ultimately to John Brown Publishing, a cult magazine with a small but select audience, or as we used to call it in the 70s - a stripzine. Viz is also not your conventional comic with probably 95% of its readers never looking at (or even being aware of) a 'mainstream' superhero comic.
Someone I work with bought the Kindle version of the book and has been talking to me about the 1990s and how he couldn't understand the incentive to run a comic shop if the odds were so firmly stacked against you. The truth is it looks like it was easier to run a comic shop in the 1990s compared to now; for starters you had some comics which 'sold' easily in excess of 100,000 copies, which given the split should have, at least, given lots of retailers some turnover. But, there are comics that 'sell' over 100,000 in 2012, so surely it has to be much healthier, especially as most comics cost a gold ingot or a small mortgage now? Well, for starters there were more books selling in excess of 100,000 copies (some even got into the millions, but we know what happened after that) and there were a lot more titles selling between 40-99,000. 38 titles sold more than 40,000 copies in March 2012, but in March 2000 (when I was still producing Comics Economics for Comics International), 92 of the top 100 were selling more than 40k. In 1991, the top 142 comics sold more than 40k - that's 102 less comics in 21 years (which unfortunately is a pretty meaningless fact, but looks like it backs my argument up).
In other words there has been nothing to disprove my theory of diminishing returns and arguably had superhero films not sparked the imagination of cinema going crowds in recent years, the sales might be considerably less. The smart arses, clever clogs and blindly defensive amongst you will scream at me about trade paperbacks and how they are the future and I'm, yet again, an anachronism who is talking the 1990s in the second decade of the 21st century. But are trade paperback sales that good? A friend of mine who has co-created a reasonably successful comic that has been collected told me a few very interesting facts. For a start we tend to think Amazon is now the big seller and if you see a book at the top of an Amazon chart then you take it for granted it's sold a shed load. No; my friend's first trade paperback got to the top of its specific Amazon chart on the basis of selling just over 50 copies. The total sales for the book with Amazon have been somewhere in the region of 2000, the overall sales was around 8,000 and while that made everyone money, it hardly made anyone a millionaire - it barely paid a year's mortgage payments. Donald Trump or Alan Sugar would not be viewing the comic trade paperback market as a growth market.
The trade paperback market is actually just the same as the comic book market and those who don't believe me are obviously wilfully ignorant - it's the same product in a different package; therefore practically the same audience is being targeted. There is little or no evidence that more than a handful of trade paperback sales go to people who aren't already comic fans. When asked for a guess, my friend suggested that possibly half of the 2000 Amazon sales might be from people who were unabashed comic fans, half of the rest were probably comics fans trying something new, half of the remainder would be casual comics buyers, half of those that were left were probably at some point in their lives comic fans, which would leave about 125, or roughly 6% of sales, being bought by Joe Public, and frankly I think that's optimistic, because any company claiming 6% of their sales from people who don't fall into any demographic they abide by has to be seen as a good thing. But... this isn't a multi-million dollar business any longer. It is smaller now than it has ever been and the profit margins get smaller every year.
People will argue that a trade paperback produced in the right way could make the creators/publishers a lot of money from selling very few copies; oddly enough, I hear this argument but I never actually see any evidence to back it up, while I have seen the comics industry contract continuously. I know a few young people who read comics; they spend maybe £10 a month; that's four new comics, possibly five if they're lucky. For £1 in 1976 I could buy 14 comics and have enough money left for some sweets. Yes, I know, times change, inflation, cost of living, manufacturing costs, etc., but if comics want to survive surely the best way is to make them cheap enough for more kids to buy them - if, that is, they want the print genre to remain. So like I blame Margaret Thatcher for the mess Britain is in today, I blame X-Men #1 for where the comics industry is now. It hasn't escaped me that the X-Men are no longer guaranteed to be the top seller. If you'd've said to Marvel execs in 1991 that by 2012 the X-Men would be selling 65,000 copies, he probably would have looked at you like you were a fool (he might even have called you one, they were wild and crazy those Marvel execs).
I'm betting Jim Lee will never see another million dollar pay day from a comic, even if he returned to the X-Men with Chris Claremont and resurrected a zombie Jack Kirby to draw the covers. I'm pretty convinced you'd have to be a very frugal and resourceful person to be able to live really well from comic book work alone and even if there are 200 writers and artists out there who are, 20 years ago there was 1000 and ironically 20 years before that probably less than 100 (because most artists had to supplement their income in some other way and were treated like shit by the publishers).
I would like to see the comic book stay and it will because nostalgia tends to be a powerful thing. Until we banish paper someone will be banging out pamphlets in one form or another and maybe that should be where comics go; at least there would be love behind the staples and a passion between the panels.
So Happy 21st (New) X-Men #1; I'm amazed so many years have passed since then and I'm still talking about you.
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