CBR: Permanent Damage 08/20/08 - Discussion Thread

[CBR News]

Disrespectfully agreeing with Robert Kirkman, with the fate of creator-owned comics at stake; what's up with Amazing Spider-Man; Microsoft's new direction; and tons of other notes in this week's edition of PERMANENT DAMAGE.


Full article here.

[Darth Dizzt]

Great article! I've had some mixed feelings about the Kirkman video - but I think this response is right on the money.

It really helped to open my eyes to a lot of things. Thanks for the info - and thanks for the detail!

[Dennis]

So Kirkman is excited about working in comics. I had to see his Wikipedia entry to see if he had a movie deal, and of course he does. How about just working in comics; no movies, video games, tv, or anything else. Anyone really excited to just do comics?

[Paul McEnery]

So Kirkman is excited about working in comics. I had to see his Wikipedia entry to see if he had a movie deal, and of course he does. How about just working in comics; no movies, video games, tv, or anything else. Anyone really excited to just do comics?

Wow.

So apparently it's a bad thing to have sold an option and make some decent money for a change.

[QCCBob]

Seems to me everyone misses the biggest point when it comes to Kirkman and Marvel... His books DID NOT SELL. Sure, Marvel Zombies was gold, thanks to zillions of multiple print variant covers, but his legacy includes Marvel Team-Up and Irredeemable Ant-Man, plus a run on Ultimate X-Men that helped force the upcoming revamp of the line. I got nothing but love for the guy, honest. Image would barely exist without Invincible and Walking Dead, but this whole 'please help us save comics' routine is more hucksterism to save the Image brand than anything else.

[Dennis]

Wow.

So apparently it's a bad thing to have sold an option and make some decent money for a change.

Not at all, good for him! Just was curious if any creator would be honest about movies and comics. Comics have become like a minor league farm system for Hollywood; I can't imagine working in comics to be the ultimate dream when there are quite a few of your peers who have struck it rich. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm just a reader.

[The Crime Dentist]

Hi. The majority of creator owned books generate little to no money, and I'm part of the problem. 99% of what I buy comes from Marvel or DC or one of their imprints.

It's not that I don't want to check out other things. I really do. With a handful of exceptions, the big four go to certain level intellectually and then stop, wary of narrowing their audience too far. But as outlined in the article, stores just don't feature small press books. Heck, some of the smaller local shops don't even have enough Marvel stuff half the time - they order heavy on the major franchises and everything else gets a cursory 3-5 books ordered, if that. Vertigo stuff 1-2 issues. Good luck if you do your comic shopping on Thursday.

And I live outside Toronto, a city whose core has several large shops. Some of them delve beyond the big 4, but it tends to be stuff that fits neatly into action or horror genres and frankly doesn't offer anything the big guys aren't already giving me. Finding Slave Labour or whoever is like searching for a yeti. I don't say this pointing a finger, they know what keeps the lights on and what doesn't. They either do it this way or they're not there for me to buy anything at all.

Another big part of it is lack of familiarity; a new DC book will have interviews with the creative team all over CBR the day it's announced, and it generally springboards off a familiar concept, creator or series; independent stuff floats ghostlike through shops. And it's unreasonable to expect the audience to toss around enough cash to try all of it out; even with the big two I think most people pick up series based on multiple recommendations and buzz building. This obstacle is tautological, but real all the same.

And a large part of it is also a kind of unspoken contract the big publishers have with their audience - if they're frequently late or publishing substandard material, they've got a public name that's going to get dragged through the intermud. The audience knows where to find them, and they can't let series drift away into the aether without answering to them. A great many independent books I have tried have started with big promises only never to be seen again, or appear very infrequently.

Steven, your article mentioned timeliness as a cornerstone - I think that's been a big thorn in Mr. Ellis' side as far as his non-major stuff goes. He himself has let books go forever between issues, occasionally dropped altogether it seems. It makes tradewaiting the only real option, but as we all know retailers just don't alot the space even for a full catalogue of the big two, let alone ancilliary books.

I think it a lot of it comes down to there needing to be more viable marketing/informational outlets for independent books before this creator owned shangri-la can become feasible. That, of course, depends as much on there being an audience for it in the first place as anything else.

I'd like to be that audience, but it's not that easy, y'know?

[Steven Grant]

Steven, your article mentioned timeliness as a cornerstone - I think that's been a big thorn in Mr. Ellis' side as far as his non-major stuff goes. He himself has let books go forever between issues, occasionally dropped altogether it seems.

You may be right. Warren's been putting out his Avatar titles regular as his bowel movements (no editorial comment implied) and sales on those just keep going up and up and up. I know some of them are doing better numbers than DC does on many of its books.

- Grant

[Michael P]

Wow.

So apparently it's a bad thing to have sold an option and make some decent money for a change.

It's also worth noting that the "movie deal" consists of this: Paramount optioned Invincible three or so years ago, Kirkman wrote one draft of a script and sent it to them, and they've been sitting on it ever since. That movie has about as much chance of being made as I do of being Anne Hathaway's rebound.

[Charles RB]

this whole 'please help us save comics' routine is more hucksterism to save the Image brand than anything else.

Of course, but I'd be genuinely surprised if there are people who didn't get that he was doing this as promotion for Image.

stores just don't feature small press books. Heck, some of the smaller local shops don't even have enough Marvel stuff half the time - they order heavy on the major franchises and everything else gets a cursory 3-5 books ordered, if that. Vertigo stuff 1-2 issues. Good luck if you do your comic shopping on Thursday.

Have you asked if the store can order you a copy of indie titles that struck your fancy? Most shops would order something if they know someone will buy it, after all.

You're right about Marvel & DC getting most of the attention by websites though, with the exceptions of new indie titles by proven names (Garth Ennis' upcoming Battlefields gets interviews simply because he's him).

Steven, your article mentioned timeliness as a cornerstone - I think that's been a big thorn in Mr. Ellis' side as far as his non-major stuff goes. He himself has let books go forever between issues, occasionally dropped altogether it seems. It makes tradewaiting the only real option, but as we all know retailers just don't alot the space even for a full catalogue of the big two, let alone ancilliary books.

I'd have to agree - I keep forgetting about the remainder of Planetary because it's been a fucking age since the third trade came out.

[EuropaBambaataa]

Have you asked if the store can order you a copy of indie titles that struck your fancy? Most shops would order something if they know someone will buy it, after all.

Most shops will order one copy for you, if you order it, but you have to want it beforehand - which defeats the purpose, if you don't know about "Title X", or you do but have to commit yourself to two or three issues before the first one arrives and you decide you don't like it after all. And if they order one copy for you, doesn't mean they'll order another copy for the shelf.

I'd have to agree - I keep forgetting about the remainder of Planetary because it's been a fucking age since the third trade came out.

To be fair to Ellis, I remember he became ill a few years ago - which lead to the "Ministry of Space" #3 delay (Chris Weston started doing "The Filth", as scheduled, so we had to wait another year for his schedule to clear) and to Jon Cassaday having to do Captain America (which lead to him then doing Astonishing X-Men, and here I'm blaming Cassaday for signing with Marvel to do a second series when he had unfinished work elsewhere).

[Charles RB]

Most shops will order one copy for you, if you order it, but you have to want it beforehand - which defeats the purpose, if you don't know about "Title X"

Creators/companies usually try to promote their wares around the time of/before solicitation these days though. Course, it's easy for a specific one to get lost in the deluge!

[The Crime Dentist]

Creators/companies usually try to promote their wares around the time of/before solicitation these days though. Course, it's easy for a specific one to get lost in the deluge!

My thing is that I don't read Previews; I avoid spoilers like the plague.

But it occurs to me that that's the simple solution to the issue at hand here.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

(which lead to him then doing Astonishing X-Men, and here I'm blaming Cassaday for signing with Marvel to do a second series when he had unfinished work elsewhere).

I don't think it's fair to blame him for that - not only does it make more sense to sign on for a twenty four issue run instead of turning it down to do a single issue, it'd be ridiculous to turn down twenty four issues with the biggest American publisher, on their best selling franchise, with a writer whose work sells like hotcakes.
Sure it sucks for Planetary fans, but consider the financial benefits to his life and career - it's a no brainer.

[psm]

Just wanted to comment on Steve's interpretation of Window's Midori. Well, to be polite, it's off. Midori isn't about having a service that provides an online operating system. It's about having a platform which can allow a user or company to have distributed applications (possibly including the desktop) running across multiple devices that are network connected. Things which computers do now anyway (to one degree or another). Microsoft just want's to include those features in the architecture for the OS. From a user's standpoint it won't be much of a change really. Although, it should be much quicker. I also doubt that Microsoft will not call it "Windows" either. From a developers standpoint, however, it will be a very huge shift.