Never Safe For Work
We’re confirmed: The 2009 Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be held Saturday May 9th and Sunday May 10th, in Toronto, Canada. Our new digs? The Toronto Reference Library, a huge and beautiful modernist building, able to accommodate all of our growing Festival needs.
Mark your calendars now, book off some time, and get ready for the best TCAF yet.
For more info, e-mail me at 2009@torontocomics.com.
– Christopher
Although he was under no obligation to do so, Tom Spurgeon didn’t post the full text of my response to the news that Fantagraphics has signed an exclusive deal with Diamond… It’s a little more balanced and nuanced then what ended up in the CR piece, in my always-humble opinion, so I figured I’d post it here.
We really wish that Fantagraphics had consulted us as their retail partners before they made this move, because we would have said “Good God No, Don’t Do It.†We’re very sympathetic to the general indifference of the Direct Market to good comics, including those that Fantagraphics publishes, and we understand the reasons they made their decision. Speaking from our point of view though, we like the opportunity to deal directly with Fantagraphics, because if Fanta has a book in print, then they will have it in stock. That is not the case with Diamond. Even on the largest publishers that have moved their Direct Market business exclusive with Diamond, publishers like Viz and Tokyopop, our fill rates on in-print books are less than adequate. We hope that Fanta knows what they’re in for on that front.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but as The Beguiling we’re fortunate enough talk to reps from a large number of publishers, great and small, and many of them really aren’t happy with their exclusivity deals with Diamond. No one will go on the record about it of course, because regardless of exclusivity or not they’re still going to be working with Diamond going forward and being openly critical of Diamond is not the best way to get good service from them. So, no one talks about how things are not going the way they had hoped, and everyone re-ups for another few years hoping things will change because hey, everyone else is doing it. Worse still, we’re worried about the sort of “chilling effect†that goes on whenever a publisher signs an exclusivity deal. Fantagraphics better than anyone (thanks to reportage in The Comics Journal) knows the havoc that exclusivity agreements caused direct market retailers, particularly with regards to Image and Dark Horse deciding on Diamond after DC had made their deal. Has the consolidation of the direct market to, effectively, Diamond Comics Distributors, shown a noted increase in stores, sales, or market strength over the past 10 years? Particularly for any company that isn’t Marvel or DC? Not at all, and yet the consolidation continues, leading many publishers to believe that there’s no other way to do business and succeed (or at least stay afloat) in the market.
Honestly, we order the majority of our Fantagraphics product through Diamond, all of our frontlist and the occasional backlist. But when it comes time to do actual store restocks on perennials like Ghost World and the works of Dan Clowes, Love & Rockets, the Ignatz Books, Mome, that order goes to Fantagraphics because of a solid discount, and because if the book is in print, the publisher will have it in stock. Right now Diamond doesn’t seem to have Ghost World in stock, which is perhaps just an unfortunate coincidence. But the first time that we try to order something from Diamond and can’t, and that backorder takes weeks or months (don’t laugh, it happens all the time), and that book would have been available to us direct from Fanta? That’s a lost sale for Fantagraphics and for us, and truly unfortunate.
Hopefully Diamond will keep all of these books in stock under this new deal. Hopefully with thousands of new book-format comics coming out every year, Fanta titles now solely available through Diamond won’t get lost in the shuffle. We know that the good folks working at Fantagraphics will be responsive to our needs as their customers just as they always have been; we just hope that history proves us all wrong and that Diamond is responsive to theirs.
We wish them the best of luck.
– Christopher Butcher, Manager, The Beguiling
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That’s the entirety of what I sent Tom yesterday afternoon, and I’ve been thinking on it since then. In my head, my vision of the comics industry is one where comics are available if not everywhere, than at least everywhere you’d otherwise find printed material. The key to that, in my mind, is more access, and not less. I’m not unaware of economies of scale, of how much cheaper and easier it is to deal with two major distributors than dozens of smaller ones. I just honestly don’t see any smaller store that stocks Fanta/Eros stuff going through the hassle of opening a Diamond account and trying to meet monthly order minimums in order to get something better than a 35% discount when they do a backlist order. I hope there are other options, grandfather clauses, whatever, that keep Fanta’s reach as broad as it ever was. I really do wish them the best.
– Chris
1. Would a show that’s sort of like Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares but set in comic book stores do well? Or would it just collapse the direct market? I mean, there are restaurants everywhere, that industry can survive the hits it takes.
2. I’m 2000 messages behind on my feed reader (it’s been a busy few weeks). I’m debating just clicking “mark all as read” and pretending that tomorrow really is a new day.
3. It’s Mother’s Day today, I hope everyone remembers to call their mom. Or, you know, your local equivalent.
4. If I ever decide to do something outside of retail, I’d really like to take two or three months, raise some venture capital, and put together a really good comics news site and blog. Something with a solid design, with some good content guidelines, and recruit some really top-notch staff to run it. That’s not to say that there aren’t excellent efforts on the web right now, I’m 2000 messages behind on my feed reader after all. But I look at what’s available and I see big gaps in the comics discourse, and I think that’d be fun to try and address. Basically:
i) there’s a lot of stuff that ends up as a lazy-ish blog post that with a little time and effort would be a fantastic fully-fledged article, and it happens all over the blogosphere
ii) the people with the most funding are doing the least interesting work, and from talking to (for example) Spurgeon, if he was making twice as much money from CR he would spend twice as long on it, and we’d get ‘blogosphere-rocking articles’ like his thoughts on the NYCC twice as often, which seems like easy math
iii) there’s no incentive to do real news either monetarily or really from a fan perspective, and I’d like to create both the financial recompense and the fan interest and I don’t think it’d take too much money to do so…
iv) most people running corporate sites seem to have awful taste in comic books, or their coverage is dictated by who’s advertising. either way, it’s unfortunate at best.
v) I will say that it was smart of CBR to pick up Greg McElhatton in their relaunch. too few sites do reviews at all (let alone competent ones), and he’s a catch.
vi) most comics sites are ugly and poorly designed, and my imaginary one would not be.
vii) I’d like to create something that I wouldn’t run, that could be firmly established and well-thought-out and made air-tight, and then just let go. hell, i’d like to make 2 or 3 and have them compete, only getting stronger and smarter, designed to take advantage of the emerging graphic novel industry (and keep it honest)
viii) because then I’d get the industry I want.
5. I really miss Japan. I just spent an hour going through my photos to give suggestions to a friend on his upcoming trip there…
– Chris
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:
also, having just listened to me on the radio again, additional points I made:
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