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
JAPAN!
Awww, you’re too kind.
(Now that I’m finally done setting up my very first photography exhibit here in DC, expect some more reviews for CBR, for that matter. I’ve been a little snowed under as of late.)
I’m dying to see what you’d come up with in terms fo comics discourse these days. Because, you know, you don’t have enough on your plate already.
1. yes, and it should sell comic book tie-ins.