boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (07/19/85)
> From: moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Henry Vogel) > First of all, Chayken (sp?) is leaving - or has left - First Comics. It seems > he's gotten tired of not getting paid. The latest I've heard is that, no, he's not leaving, though he is no longer doing the art on AMERICAN FLAGG! > As an interesting side note, how many of you thought > that when Chayken left First, American Flagg would too (raise your hands)? I'm > glad to see that I wasn't alone in thinking American Flagg was creator owned. > It seems First Comics owns AF - for all I know First owns all of the books they > publish (and I would expect they do, now). All that hype about creator owned > books may have been just that - hype and nothing else. If *this* is true, it's more disturbing than it looks, because it means they out and out *lied*. In an early First Comic --- STARSLAYER, I think --- someone asked why the comic was trademarked by First Comics, rather than the creator, and their answer was that the creator retains all rights, but that First held the trademarks "in trust". > The poten- > tially most disturbing info concerns DC. DC has recently pulled out of large > advertising contract with Fantagraphics - one where the papers had been signed > and some money placed to secure the agreement. Obviously, DC felt they could > afford to lose the money more than they could afford to pay for the ads. The > reports are that DC is running scared. Advertising or marketing will decide to > do one thing and the upper level management will reverse the decision. This does sound bad, but it's not uncommon in large companies. I've often heard of situations in which the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. Also, it's often the case that minds get changed and that they might be willing to lose the up-front money. There are cases in which the accountants feel that the income generated by certain advertising might not yield enough money to make it worth it. It sounds strange, but I've never been very knowledgeable in economics. > Part of DC's problem, > I think, is they doomed themselves in the 70's when they put out such trash > and it still sold. Then Marvel passed them by and kept pulling away and DC > finally decided they needed to do something. They began publishing good > stories but it's going to take YEARS to reverse the bad image they built for > themselves back then. I suppose that's part of it. It hasn't been until recently that I thought DC has been better in general than Marvel, but I've always thought that DC put out some decent books. The big problem wasn't so much the quality of the books, so much as that, until recently, DC has been rather conservative in its outlook. Marvel was the only one who really took chances with a lot of books; DC was more reluctant to do so. There's nothing of DC's from the 70's that I can think of that was very radical in approach. Marvel, on the other hand, was trying out concepts such as WARLOCK, or formats such as the black-&-white magazines. > That's fine as far as DC goes, but why aren't the independants > selling? I really don't have an answer for that. Sure, American Flagg isn't > the kind of book most kids would buy, but we like to think there are lots of > adults in the market that would buy it. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe there aren't > nearly as many adults as we think there are. Or, maybe the adults are buying > the same stuff as the kids... I've heard from people who won't buy alternative > books because of the price. They seem to think the price is too high, that the > independant publishers have higher prices so they can make more profit. That > is 100% WRONG (and I'll send in another article on the cost of publishing a > comic book based on my experience with the Southern Knights). Well, it certainly *is* wrong that the Independants aren't pricing high to make a whopping profit, but that doesn't stop the buyers from thinking so. Let's face it, the Independents *are* priced too high. One of the biggest mistakes that Pacific and Eclipse made was in overestimating the desire on the part of the buying public for good paper over price. Sure, the stuff looks fine, but it, quite frankly, isn't worth the money. Or, I should say, a lot of it isn't. Eclipse is reassessing this idea, and publishing MIRACLEMAN on, as well as "dropping" PRESSBUTTON and DNAGENTS to, Mando (or similar grade) paper for $.75. Maybe, if they really do start up ZOT! again, they'll go the $.75 route and do better with it. The ironic thing is, to my mind, MIRACLEMAN will be the one comic of Eclipse's that most deserves to be on Baxter paper. As for readership ages, there is more to it than just age. Certainly, youngsters would probably prefer buying three Marvel comics for $1.95 than one Eclipse comic at $1.50. I think that the bulk of comic readership is in the high school and college bracket, which similarly has little money to spend, and probably wants to maximize the amount of comics per dollar. There are undoubtedly lots of adults who buy comics, and they probably make up the bulk of those who buy the Independents. > Maybe the fault is ours. How many of you hide the fact that you read comics? I > used to do that, too. A lot of people do. There's nothing worse than having > your peers laugh at you for reading kid stuff. Nothing worse, that is, except > having the entire field fall apart for lack of readers! I do and I don't. I tend to read comics "in public" (like on the subway, or in a restaurant), but don't "flaunt" it. > It's up to us to try > to get people to read comics. However, it's important to use your judgement > in this matter. Try to figure out what they would enjoy (you might find out > what else they read for entertainment and loan them comics that fall - more > or less - into the area their "regular" reading tastes follow). Someone who > is outside of comics will not, most likely, read one issue of the X-Men and > decide it's great - even if you were to loan them the truly great issues > (#94-150). Is the person into mysteries? Try Jon Sable or Ms. Tree. Fantasy? > How about Elfquest? You get the idea. It's up to us to cultivate new readers. Most of the people I come into contact with are of two categories: (1) they are already into comics, or (2) they very rarely read at all. Of the rest, some people I have gotten to *read* comics, but they still don't like them quite enough to buy them. Others don't like the medium whatsoever (one of my roommates is so opinionated on the matter, it's impossible to argue with him on the point). One of the possible breakthroughs that's being attempted is to get the Independents distributed to Walden's and B. Dalton's bookstores, and getting them to put things like the AMERICAN FLAGG! graphic novel in the sf section. And Deni Loubert is pushing to get THE FILES OF MS. TREE into the mystery sections of bookstores. Format and packaging experiments may be the best hope we have --- getting the damn things to look like something other than a "funny book". Such are the prejudices of our culture. > One last thing and then I'll shut up. If you know someone who reads comics but > isn't reading a book you particularly like, try loaning them issues of it. At > least try to talk them into buying the book. That's what I review comics here for. I don't always review all the things that I like, and often pan things that I don't like, but I like to push books that I feel deserve more exposure. I also even occasionally buy an extra issue of something and give it to a friend to read, in hopes that he'll like it enough to buy later issues (I did this with POWER PLAYS, for example). > From the other side of the issue, > if you hear lots of good things about a book, give it a try! I had been > hearing many good things about Zot! but hadn't picked it up. I decided > to try it and I would have to list Zot! as one of my 5 favorite titles now. > It doesn't even matter if you continue to buy the book, though. Just give > the book a try. That I do. Every week or every other week, I try to pick up something new. This has gotten me hooked on a few things that I might have otherwise passed by. Of course, I've hit a few dogs (or ones that aren't quite *that* bad), but the practice has been generally beneficial. If I didn't heed the comments of others, I may never have tried MAGE, SOUTHERN KNIGHTS, WARRIOR (and hence SWAMP THING, since it was WARRIOR that got me hooked on Alan Moore), CEREBUS, or many, many others. > To forestll the complaints of those who have a limited budget, I'll tell > you that I have one too. When I find a book I really like, though, I'll add > it to my list even if it means dropping something else (and the something > else is almost always published by Marvel or DC). I'll drink to that. What people should realize is that by doing this, they may need to drop something they like, but they might end up with something they like *even more*. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA
kalash@ucbingres.ARPA (Joe Kalash) (07/22/85)
> There's nothing of DC's from the >70's that I can think of that was very radical in approach. > --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) Generaly I agree, except Kirby's 4th world stuff was in the early 70s, and I still think it was the best, and among the most innovative comics I have ever read. Joe Kalash kalash@berkeley ucbvax!kalash