Comics212

I was in a mood but I’m done now.

- Chris

Hey everybody! I just posted The Beguiling’s Free Comic Book Day wrap-up at: http://www.beguiling.com/2008/05/free-comic-book-day-2008-wrap-up.html.

We had a good year this year despite some pretty awful weather, and though I don’t have exact figures I’d say that we had at least 600 people through both events over the course of the day, and a lot (at least 200 of them) were under 14. Mission: Accomplished.

Because my site gets way more traffic than The Beguiling’s site, I did want to take the opportunity to send you to visit the online homes of all of our participating artists at this year’s FCBD events. They were really stars, drawing and sketching all day (many of them without any breaks) and sending you to check out their work is the least I can do.

Michael Cho (Transmission-X, Max Finder): http://www.transmission-x.com/ , http://chodrawings.blogspot.com/
Willow Dawson (Violet Miranda): http://www.willowdawson.com/
J. Korim (Neozoic): http://www.jkorim.ca/main.htm
Jessie Lam (Neozoic): http://axl99.net/
Steve Manale (Superslackers, You Crack Me Up): http://www.superslackers.com/
Nick Mandaag (Artist): no website!
Tyrone McCarthy (Corduroy High): http://www.corduroyhigh.com/
Alana McCarthy (Illustrator): http://www.alanaland.com/
Brian McLachlan (Princess Planet): http://www.theprincessplanet.com/, http://www.transmission-x.com/
Tara Tallan (Galaxion): http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/galaxion.php
Jeremy Tankard (Grumpy Bird, Me Hungry): http://www.jeremytankard.com/
Chip Zdarsky (Monster Cops): http://chipzdarsky.livejournal.com/

Hope you all had a great Free Comic Book Day!

- Christopher
(Photo: Jeremy Tankard talks about his very first home-made comics to a group of rapt youngsters and their parents at Free Comics For Kids Day)

French graphic novelists Phillipe Dupuy and Charles Berberian visited New York a few months back, in celebration of the English-language release of Berberian’s new book Haunted from Drawn & Quarterly.

Alternative comics blog The Daily Crosshatch was on hand to interview the pair about their work and creative partnership, and it’s a very good and worthwhile interview, and you should head over and check it out:

http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2008/03/11/interview-charles-berberian-and-philippe-dupuy-pt-1/
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2008/03/24/interview-charles-berberian-and-philippe-dupuy-pt-2/
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2008/04/07/interview-charles-berberian-and-philippe-dupuy-pt-3/
http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2008/04/28/interview-philippe-dupuy-and-charles-berberian-pt-4-of-4/

As you’ve noticed it’s been broken up into four parts here (that seem to have been dribbled out 2-3 weeks apart), which is both annoying and entirely unnecessary in my humble opinion, but there you are. I usually hesitate from commenting on interface design issues as I feel my own site could be substantially improved on that point, but despite the quality of the work here I just have to bitch: If I weren’t so absolutely interested in the content, the formatting would have driven me from the site. None of the interview segments leads to the next so far as I could tell, making it difficult to continue reading when you get to the end of each part. It seems designed more to discourage you from continuing to read what these fine gentlemen have to say. Also, each segment was far too short and where each segment rested felt like an artificial break. Further, and though not entirely relevant to my problems with the formatting of this specific interview, the front page for The Daily Crosshatch is constructed in a “preview mode” kind of way, where you get about a paragraph before having to “click to continue reading.”

There’s no doubt that the fine content of The Daily Crosshatch is both of high-quality and sorely needed in the larger world of the online comics discourse. I just hope that the proprietors of this fine site find a way to present the material in a more appealing way (and as long as I’m bitching, more art!).

- Christopher

I was fortunate enough to be a guest on the CBC’s weekend morning program Fresh Air with Jeff Goodes this morning, extolling the virtues of comics and Free Comic Book Day in particular. I just wanted to drop a quick note thanking Jeff, Mariel, and Sandy for the chance to plug our event today (scroll down) and comics in general. I think the interview went really well and Jeff was nice enough to plug The Beguiling website, as well as the site you’re reading now!

So, welcome new readers from the CBC. If you wanna check the archives, click “Japan” in the categories section for some pretty amazing pics from my recent comics-oriented trip to Japan, click “comics retailing” for the ins and outs of selling comics for a living, or just keep scrolling back through the archives and enjoy.

Alright, I’m off to set up for Free Comic Book Day. See you soon!

- Christopher

Are you in Toronto? Know people who are? The Beguiling/TCAF have put together two pretty-amazing Free Comic Book Day events. For one we partnered with the Toronto Public Library and a number of other organizations to do book launches for three Toronto authors who have new material for kids, and we’re tying that into kid-oriented FCBD activities. For the other, we’re doing some solid outreach efforts featuring Toronto comics creators.

Hope to see you there!

More at: http://www.beguiling.com/2008/04/reminder-free-comics-for-kids-day-this.html

More at http://www.beguiling.com

- Chris

7:14am: I’ve been awake for 2 hours now. I’m on the radio this morning, across Canada, talking about the Iron Man movie opening today and promoting good comics and Free Comic Book Day. So far I’ve done interviews with local morning show hosts in Thunder Bay and Sudbury. Next up, Quebec City, Victoria, and Edmonton.

I don’t think you understand what I’m willing to do for the comics.

Anyway, if you, like me, are awake and staring at the Internet, you can track me down at:

http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html#

Quebec City at around NOW.

Victoria, BC at around 7:50am

Edmonton, AB at around 8:00am

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7:20am: Okay, I just finished the Quebec City interview, I think that was my favourite so far. I forgot to mention that they’ve been following my segment with Toronto band Moxy Fruvous’ version of the “Spider-Man” cartoon theme, which is kind of hilarious. Maybe it’s only funny because I’m on like 4 hours sleep.

I just realized I’ve given Frank Miller about 5 grand worth of free advertising in the last few hours. Well, him and Marjane Satrapi, so that kind of balances out.

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7:58am: It turns out that the Victoria interview was pre-recorded. It’s going to be airing at 6:15am local time, or 9:15 eastern time.

I’m on hold with them right now for the interview in Edmonton, but the news is on. I imagine I’ll be on air real soon in Edmonton.

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8:07am: Just finished the last interview, and it was pre-recorded so I’ll actually get to listen to it! Alright! Here’s hoping I didn’t “um, uh” too much. I think it’ll be on in the next half hour.
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8:10am: I just remembered, I never linked to my interview on NPR from last week on the New York Comic Con. I was on NPR’s Bryant Park Project and it was a pretty good time and interview. You can check it out at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89803224

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8:23am: I am listening to me.

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8:30am: Fifth time’s the charm. I rocked that one pretty good.

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8:31am: I’m trying to decide if I want to stay up until 9:15am and listen to myself in Victoria, BC, or go home and sleep for a few more hours before I have to come back to work at 11am. I’ll probably stay up, but I think I owe myself a coffee and a muffin, at the very least, so I’m gonna run out and do that and try and get back for 9:15am…

Oh, and since I won’t be updating for about 30 minutes, check out that Moxy Fruvous Spider-Man theme song at Youtube to pass some time:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YUbxcfjG-7s

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8:57am: …and I’m back. 15 minutes until I’m on again. It doesn’t look like any of these shows are archived anywhere, so I figure I’ll go over my key talking points for those of you stumbling on this in my archives, months and years later, wondering what the hell I’m talking about with all of this:

• Iron Man, the movie, opens in theatres today. Traditionally superhero movies have had little-to-no effect on comic sales of related comics.
• We have seen really good sales on graphic novels with a ‘singular creative vision’ that have been adapted into films. Frank Miller’s 300 and Sin City, V For Vendetta, and even Persepolis all benefited (and continue to do so!) from film adaptations.
• I think this is because fans of the Iron Man, Spider-Man, Batman, or X-Men movies are fans of those characters, and the movies scratch that itch. It’s also because there are hundreds of product tie-ins for these characters, so if you really like IRON MAN chances are you’ll like the IRON MAN action figures, cartoons, bedsheets, etc. as much as or more than an Iron Man comic.
• That’s not to say that we don’t hope for new readers or sales. It just hasn’t traditionally been the case.

  also, having just listened to me on the radio again, additional points I made:

• We are trying to push the diversity of the medium.
• The Beguiling is set up more like a bookstore than a ‘traditional’ comic book store.
• Kids like Manga, everyone else likes all kinds of comics.
• The average superhero comic fan is a dude 18-34 or older.
• It’s a fantastic time to be interested in the medium.
• Free Comic Book Day is a positive thing, and you should go and get free comic books.

9:20am: Listening to myself again, this one might have been my best interview of the day. I wonder what all of these local shops think of some guy from Toronto talking about their free comic book day events. Maybe that’s why the rest of the country hates Toronto? Anyway. That was a good interview. YEAH. COMICS.

Which isn’t to say that I am not still a comics-hating misanthropist talking shit about your beloved childhood memories. I totally am. But, yeah. Three hours of interviews talking up the best aspects of the comics industry and steering away from questions like [paraphrasing] ‘Do nerds hate it when movies don’t get the details right in superhero movies?’ That’s a productive morning.

Now, to plan for our Free Comic Book Day events.

Thanks for reading,

- Christopher

Alright, I totally need a little help here.

I’m pretty up on the manga, I do my best to research the market, talk to fans, all that stuff. I’m spectacular at doing this within my field (comics retailers) but still at least pretty decent when compared to the legions of die-hard manga fans that populate the interwebs. But I totally need a hand with this, because the upcoming Anime North convention in Toronto at the end of the month? It manages at least one big surprise every time.

We do a massive set-up for this show, 18 tables in an island, something like 180 feet of frontage the way we set it all up. We try and bring every manga you can think of, because a lot of fans save up for months to come to AN and pick up the manga they love, that they’ve only read about on the internet (or in scaaaaaaaaaaaans) and they want to own it and love it and squee all over it. And we want to have it for them.

Every year we get blindsided by one major title, and it always pisses me RIGHT OFF.

2005: “Do you have Chrono Crusade?” Sure, we had like maybe 3-5 copies of each volume. That lasted about half way through the first day, and then the next 22 hours of convention were “I heard you guys have Chrono Crusade!? PLEASE! I NEEEEEED IT!” and I’m all “oh noes.”

2006: “I NEED OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB! O! M! G!” and I’m like are you kidding? We sell like 2 copies of that at the store. But yeah, getting asked 20 or 25 times a day for that book for 3 days? I can guarantee you we totally stock deep on that one now. It did us no good at the show, however.

2007: “Vampire Knight Vampire Knight Vampire Knight Vampire Knight” and I didn’t even know what that was. Seriously. Either like 1, or maaaaaaaaaybe 2 volumes had come out, and I figured it was some ultra-rare Infinity Studios title or something. No, Shoujo Beat again, we were barely selling it at the store, and it was the book we got the most requests for (of course, we ended up selling like a case of each volume of Death Note and Naruto at that show, we didn’t do too badly…)

So the 2008 Anime North show is coming up May 23-25, and I think I’ve done my homework this time and I’m trying to stock up on fan-fav series, but I’m sure that we’re forgetting something.

Soooo, if you’re going to Anime North, or if you just want to promote your favourite manga series (and it looks like I’m a little weaker at predicting the Shoujo/Crossover-appeal series than the Shonen) then I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I’m totally aware that this is asking you to do my work as a retailer for me, and I apologize for that, but I’m asking because I want to satisfy as many customers at the show as possible. Hopefully that counts for something!

Thanks in advance,

- Christopher

A retailer in Michigan was robbed and then shot in his store last week. He’s in the hospital right now and racking up what I can only imagine are terrifyingly large medical bills because the U.S. Healthcare system is pretty frightening, and like many small business owners he doesn’t have insurance. If you could consider doing as I and many other folks have, and kicking a few bucks his way to help offset some of his costs, that’d be a pretty great thing to do, I think.

And to other retailers or small business-people operating without insurance (or the benefit of living somewhere with good government-sponsored health care), strongly consider your group insurance options through trade organizations. Many comics retailers qualify under booksellers-association guidelines to join those groups and get a decent discounted plan, and there’s always comics retailer organization COMICSPRO, which I believe offers access to a discounted group health insurance plan as well (for U.S. Retailers). Check them out at http://www.comicspro.org/.

- Christopher