Author Topic: Comic books  (Read 132594 times)

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #195 on: January 07, 2009, 06:51:16 PM »
All Star Supes is pretty great too.

snogrog

  • Tarsel tunnel syndrome
  • Posts: 406
Re: Comic books
« Reply #196 on: January 07, 2009, 07:35:05 PM »
Yeah, i REALLY need to sit down and read that all the way through at once to really appreciate it I think. Over like, 3 or so years I kinda forgot what happened at the beginning by the time #12 rolled out.
He's this soulless bastard from Siberia. I once saw him shove Fred Savage's face in a toilet.

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #197 on: January 07, 2009, 07:42:12 PM »
Yeah, I grabbed the 1st trade over the weekend, I slid over the series when it came out originally. Just caught an issue here and there. Worth the wait though, at least for my level of patience.

fonpr

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 4099
Re: Comic books
« Reply #198 on: January 07, 2009, 10:24:38 PM »
Has anyone thought that the FOTs are the X-Men and Tommy Gunn is Professor X?

Is that's why he calls his favorite folks mutants?

I am nowhere near reading this whole board and may be discussing something addressed years ago.
If this is the case forgive me I just wandered in a short time ago.
"Like it or not, Florida seems dedicated to a 'live fast, die' way of doing things."

Shaggy 2 Grote

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3892
Re: Comic books
« Reply #199 on: January 07, 2009, 10:31:01 PM »
I've always thought of the FOT more like 70s-era Defenders, like when Howard the Duck was a member, and they fought the Headmen and that elf with the gun.

Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #200 on: January 19, 2009, 12:42:03 PM »
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_sunday_feature_dan_vados_informal_letter_on_diamonds_new_edicts/

Depressing take on the Diamond changes from Dan Vado. Go buy some indie comics this week FOT, seriously.

Bryan

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1635
Re: Comic books
« Reply #201 on: January 19, 2009, 01:30:20 PM »
That's an interesting piece. I guess it mostly affects the monthly magazine-style books, rather than the trades/graphic novels? I don't really keep up-to-date on the nuts and bolts of comic book publishing, but I recall reading recently that comic books were currently the only area of publishing that is growing.

Shaggy 2 Grote

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3892
Re: Comic books
« Reply #202 on: January 19, 2009, 01:53:30 PM »
In trade form, yeah, but the magazines are really slipping.  And I don't know all the details, but I think that many of the trades are published by imprints of larger publishers - so it's Pantheon who's selling all those copies of Black Hole and Ghost World, not Fantagraphics.

But (again, half-talking-out-my-ass here) publishing just had a complete meltdown a couple of weeks ago, so who knows what's up.  What I've heard from acquaintances at FG and Soft Skull is that it's business as usual for those guys - they were never really making a whole lot of money anyway, and their core readership is pretty loyal and not going anywhere.

What really sucks about this is the same kind of inequity and instability that's happening in every other creative or quasi-creative industry: film/TV, newspapers, music (and theater, though it's been the status quo in theater for a few decades at least).  Mega-corporations pursuing the bottom line in an industry that, in most cases, isn't really built to handle economies of such scale.  This leads to some talent making huge paychecks while the "farm teams" that were previously feeders into the "big leagues" are totally starved, mostly on the assumption that people who want in want in so badly that they'll do it for free and use the internet to distribute their work. 

One possible bright side to the collapse is that the little guys might emerge as winners - I know at least a few small theaters that are weathering this pretty well, as they're used to surviving on nothing, not unlike Fantagraphics and Soft Skull.  Except once we all emerge from the rubble, we might find out that it's even less possible to make a living at any of this than it was before.

Blah blah blah
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #203 on: January 19, 2009, 01:55:42 PM »
The push towards tpb's and graphic novels though doesn't take into account single issue comics that only come out quarterly, bi-annually, whatever. Lots of creators just cannot afford to spend 3 years working on a single graphic novel, selling the floppy issues along the way help pay the bills in a way that lets them continue doing the work on their own terms. Most indie creators (and plenty of people working for Marvel and DC too, actually) cannot even afford to put out a single issue of something in less than quarterly schedules either because they all have to work day jobs while they're working on it.

Just because Marvel and DC are shitting out trades of their titles every 4 months doesn't make it a viable strategy for a lot (probably most) of small press people. Seriously, like Vado said, I bet most people would be surprised just how few copies their favorite books sell overall (indie or mainstream comics too). Just to refer back to SLG, everyone I know loves Street Angel, but if iirc that book barely broke 3k copies an issue. Jim Rugg had an office job until like 18 months ago or something when DC finally started giving him a bunch of work - meanwhile everyone is telling him he's the hottest rising star in comics, yikes.

The Barnes & Noble/Borders comic snobs have really hurt the comic market in a way they don't seem to understand, no matter how many copies of Kramer's Ergot or Persepolis they buy.

It just sucks that Diamond has taken so many steps to monopolize the market, and now to ghettoize it as well. Especially at a time when the 2 top publishers are teetering on a very thin line between success and failure. Depressing news, and I'm probably whining more about it this morning that I will care in a week, but yeah. Boo, comics.

Shaggy 2 Grote

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 3892
Re: Comic books
« Reply #204 on: January 19, 2009, 01:59:59 PM »
I have to confess that I've been questioning my addiction to floppies.  I love stopping by the comic store every Wednesday, and it took me something like 20 years to get a regular adult job so I could afford to buy everything I want to read.  Except now I'm running out of room for the goddamn things, most of which I'll never read again.  And even when I do want to read them again, it's a lot easier to pull a bound copy of Love & Rockets, Daredevil, or Doom Patrol off of my shelf than to big the old bagged copies out of my closet and read them one issue at a time.
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

redsplitwig

  • Achilles bursitis
  • Posts: 106
Re: Comic books
« Reply #205 on: January 19, 2009, 02:06:05 PM »

The Barnes & Noble/Borders comic snobs have really hurt the comic market in a way they don't seem to understand, no matter how many copies of Kramer's Ergot or Persepolis they buy.


Isn't it good for the industry that people buy books, no matter what format they buy them?  If a person who never bought weekly floppies buys any graphic novel, they're putting money into an industry that needs it.  Most people don't have the time to get to the comic book store every week or even every month.  Just like music, every industry needs to adapt to the market it can sell to.  The transitions are going to hurt a lot of people and the industry is going to change.  You can't force people to buy weekly comics any more than you can get them to buy CDs instead of mp3s.

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #206 on: January 19, 2009, 02:06:39 PM »
I have to confess that I've been questioning my addiction to floppies.  I love stopping by the comic store every Wednesday, and it took me something like 20 years to get a regular adult job so I could afford to buy everything I want to read.  Except now I'm running out of room for the goddamn things, most of which I'll never read again.  And even when I do want to read them again, it's a lot easier to pull a bound copy of Love & Rockets, Daredevil, or Doom Patrol off of my shelf than to big the old bagged copies out of my closet and read them one issue at a time.

I 100% agree. I try to buy trades directly from the publisher though in those cases. I'll buy my Marvel/DC stuff from Amazon, but you can buy directly from SLG, D&Q, Fanta, Top Shelf etc and feel like an art snob still too.

Most comic shops are pretty awful though too, I can only think of a handful I've been to in the country that defied the "comic book guy" stereotype, dank hole in the wall places. Much rather go to a Borders than journey into one of them, I totally understand that.

Bryan

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1635
Re: Comic books
« Reply #207 on: January 19, 2009, 02:07:08 PM »
Living in a place without decent comic shops for the last 6-7 years has forced me to say goodbye to floppies. I can't really say I miss 'em. I mostly read the upmarket stuff, or old-time collections anyway. (I guess that makes me a Barnes & Noble snob?) Sorry, publishers. Comics do seem pretty much fucked from every angle, and much of it is self-sabotage, perpetrated by just about everyone participating in the industry.

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #208 on: January 19, 2009, 02:12:09 PM »
Isn't it good for the industry that people buy books, no matter what format they buy them?  If a person who never bought weekly floppies buys any graphic novel, they're putting money into an industry that needs it.

Not really though, no. It's a different route the money goes when you buy from a comic shop vs a "real" bookstore. Don't ask me to explain it, because it makes no sense to me either. Unless the creator has a really good deal in place though they don't see much of that money at all, or at least that's my understanding of it.

Plus, once a lot of books have gone to trade, they're just paying for the losses they took on printing the floppies and paying talent, advertising etc - not to mention printing the trades too. I think a book has to sell a ton (more than 2-3 copies a store) to really be considered any kind of success. Marvel is about to jump up to like $4 bucks a single issue, and I am sure that's all because of the costs of printing the things to begin with, and not a greed factor. But can you imagine, 4 bucks for like 24 pages of comic that you read in less than 10 minutes? Wow.

EDIT - Also, exactly what Jason said about who is actually publishing the prints, vs the original companies.

erechoveraker

  • Guest
Re: Comic books
« Reply #209 on: January 19, 2009, 02:13:17 PM »
Comics do seem pretty much fucked from every angle, and much of it is self-sabotage, perpetrated by just about everyone participating in the industry.

Very, very true.