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NYCC Day 0 – Time For A Nap

(The following was written on the plane on the way to New York City. By the time you read this I’ll be napping. – Chris)

It’s been 20 long, long months since I last hopped on a plane to head out to the New York Comic Con. This weekend’s show marks the first since NYCC up and moved their show from their initial late-winter/early-spring time period to the (theoretically) more-stable Beginning Of October time period. The show is, to my mind, the hallmark for the explosive boom in the popularity of comic cons over the last 4-5 years, with NYCC considerably over capacity in its very first year. It’s not hard to glance at the con schedule and see stories of shows reaching or past capacity, sometimes dangerously so. I think the mainstreaming of nerd culture is at the heart of it, the idea of shows like this as a gateway into not just the comics and graphic novels that inspire Hollywood, but direct access to Hollywood itself. Before 5 years ago it was basically impossible to meet an A-list Hollywood Celebrity—now they advertise their public appearances and your chance to meet them 3-6 months in advance, and all you have to do is be determined.

But that first NYCC was, I think, a tipping-point. Showrunners Reed had never run a consumer show before, only fairly sedate—though expansive—trade shows with the occasional consumer element. Their advertising wasn’t a patch on what it is today, and yet still in that first year the folks who showed up to the con nearly doubled the capacity for the allotted space. Their entire set-up was both ineffectual and inadequate, and the stressfulness of the situation was at a fever pitch for most of Friday and Saturday. It couldn’t be much fun for the folks trying to run the event, but as an observer? The cacophony was glorious… and what a story!

Since then I’ve seen the show grow and change considerably—I’ve made it a point to attend every NYCC so far after that fireworks first-year. I’ve seen the staff fight tooth and nail to increase the size of the show and their space within the Javitz Centre, with 2009 really feeling like the first year that the show had come into its own. I’ve seen Reed expand further into the consumer-show business, most-notably their partnership with Penny Arcade on the PAX shows in Seattle and Boston. I’ve seen them become incredibly media savvy, leveraging their number-two-within-the-industry position to attract an almost unheard-of selection of A-list guests to the big event. I’ve seen their preparation for the 2010 NYCC which, I have to say, has felt more than a little slap-dash considering the 18 month lead time they had to prepare. Now it’s time to see what 2010 has to offer.

Today I’ll be attending the ICv2 Conference focusing on Digital comics, and I’ll try to update with my thoughts throughout the event. Tomorrow, I’ll be attending Diamond’s retailer breakfast to see what my number 1 supplier has to say about the industry in 2010, and then following that up with some fun professional programming and apparently 2-3 video game demos. Saturday I’m on a panel and giving a lecture, and then Sunday I’m just going to get lost in the crowds.

Feel free to say hi if you see me around!

– Christopher

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Kodansha USA to take over Del Rey Manga Licenses

To my mind, there hasn’t been a worse publisher launch in the last 5 years than that of Kodansha USA.

I realize that this is a harsh statement, and I’ve refrained from making it for a while now in the hopes that the bumpy path they’ve had would smooth out, and that they might acknowledge and visibly attempt to fix some of their many, many problems. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case as of yet, and today’s announcement of an increase in their responsibilities is, at best, baffling.

The problems with Kodansha USA (also known as Kodansha Comics), as I see them:

1. Every single one of their releases to date have missed their shipping date, and they’re already on a _very_ generous shipping schedule. The result is that some of the bestselling perennials in manga publishing–AKIRA and GHOST IN THE SHELL have been unavailable for nearly 2 years now, and there are no answers to customer concerns why this is so.

2. The pricing on their work seems woefully out of touch with both the realities of the market, the popularity of the material, and their own Japanese pricing strategies. (Part of the blame on this goes to Dark Horse, who set those prices… nearly 10 years ago.)

3. Their reprints of AKIRA and GHOST IN THE SHELL are inferior to the Dark Horse versions in terms of print quality (smearing, reproduction) and paper stock (thinner paper). For the same price.

4. They went back and released an older, less-complete version of Ghost In The Shell, hurting saleability of the title.

5. They’ve been utterly and completely uncommunicative to the press. They don’t even seem to have a website.

So the news this morning that Kodansha USA will take over publishing all of Del Rey Manga’s many bestselling titles? Disappointment bordering on dread. Del Rey’s Tsubasa, XXX-Holic, and Negima, continue to be some of our bestselling manga at the store, and the high-degree of care in preparation that goes into fan-favourite and critically acclaimed titles like Moyasimon, and Mushishi is phenomenal. I have my issues with their publishing set-up (mostly around their scheduling of less profitable titles) but in short, they’re a solid, professional publisher producing great work in a timely fashion and with a great deal of thought about the market and industry–everything Kodansha-USA has shown themselves not to be.

The only thing that gives me hope is this quote:

“In an e-mail interview with Irie, he said that while Kodansha USA Publishing will now directly oversee the publishing of Kodansha-originated English-language manga licenses, Kodansha still plans to “to work with local partners in foreign territories.” He said that Random House will continue, “handling much of the publishing side, such as editorial, production, sales and marketing.” Irie will be based in New York along with KUP general manager Kumi Shimizu.” – From Publisher’s Weekly

To me, that reads as though Random House will be packaging the books for Kodansha USA, which is very different, monetarily, than their current set-up. See, publishers generally absorb the costs of “editing, producing, selling and marketing” manga. If they’re producing that work for someone else, they get _paid_ for it, which is a real reversal! Also, if Del Rey is going to continue marketing, I’m curious as to why Ali Kokmen was let go…

Elsewhere in that interview it is mentioned that the head of Del Rey Manga, Dallas Middaugh, will be moving over to Random House Publisher Services to handle distribution of the line (and I’m glad they’re keeping Dallas Middaugh, he’s very good at his job). So in effect, things will continue more-or-less as they are, except:

– Kodansha USA will be making the publisher-type decisions, like which series get released and how often
– Del Rey no longer has to pay for licenses
– Del Rey is now likely getting paid to package the books for Kodansha
– Del Rey is making a cut on the distribution of the books but the majority of the money’s going to Kodansha.

It looks like Del Rey has divested themselves of _all_ of the risk of manga publishing, moving into a packaging and distribution relationship. Smart move for the bean-counters at Del Rey! And I guess Kodansha USA gets to call themselves a publisher, which I assume will impress someone back in Japan, but they’re not really doing anything other than putting their logo on the book, so far as I can tell.

On paper this looks like it could work out… but then on paper communism looks like a viable option on paper too–it all falls apart when you get to the real world. As I’ve shown, Kodansha USA has a terrible record at absorbing existing licenses and shepherding them to the market. Will Del Rey Manga’s professionalism counteract Kodansha USA’s track record? I honestly don’t know.

But going by that track record, it could be as long as a year before current titles resume their serialization, if AKIRA’s re-publication schedule is anything to go by. I guess all involved have got lots and lots of time to figure it all out?

– Christopher

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Where’s Chris? New York – Tokyo – Toronto

One of the things I wanted to do this year was bring all of the disparate events and speaking enagements and travels that I participate in together, into some sort of meaningful whole. It’s all an extension of what I’ve always done at the blog–mostly try to convince people that my ideas were best–and I’ve been doing a lot of work putting those ideas into action and preaching to new crowds. It’s hugely fun and rewarding, and hopefully I get to keep doing it for a long while.

To that end, I’ve been very fortunate to be asked to speak in a number of venues over the coming months, and so I put together a little “Where’s Chris?” box on the right there, which lists all of the panels, seminars, and presentations I’ll be participating in in the coming months. Also if I’m going out of town for more than a few days I’ll try to list that cool, in case anyone wants to meet up while I’m travelling. Feel free to contact me and say hello, I’m generally very amenable to being bought a drink 🙂 Here’s a quick outline of those upcoming engagements:

Oct 7-11 New York
Oct 7: ICv2 Digital Comics Conference (Press) – I’ll be covering ICv2’s Digital Comics Conference as ‘press’, which should be pretty interesting.
Oct 8-10: New York Comic-Con (Press) – Likewise, I’ll also be covering the whole New York Comic-Con as a member of the fourth estate, and I’m hoping to do some real blogging and coverage this year akin to some of my better coverage from years past.

I’ll also be participating in a panel discussion and giving a lecture at the show.

Saturday Oct 9:  Comic Events that Really Work Panel, 5pm-6pm, Room 1A17 (Speaker) – I’m going to be giving a lecture on how and why to run comics-related events, from micro to macro, book signings to Scott Pilgrim Parties to The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and everything in between. I’m tailoring it to booksellers

Saturday Oct 9: Gay for You? Yaoi and Yuri Manga and GLBTQ Readers Panel, 7:30pm-8:30pm, Panel Room 2 (1E12) (Panelist) – A panel that will be not-at-all controversial! I’ll be joining a range of very cool ladies and gents from all aspects of the comics industry to talk about how yaoi and yuri intersect with actual Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Trans/Queer concerns.

Oct 25-Nov 8: Tokyo
I’m heading back to Tokyo for a buying trip for The Beguiling and, fingers crossed, for a touch of TCAF-related business. If you’re in the area and want to go for a drink, drop me a line.

Nov 14: Toronto: Gamercamp
I’ve been invited to lead a discussion on narrative and the intersection between comics and video games. Details tba, but will be announced soonish at http://www.gamercamp.ca/.

2011
Feb 23: Toronto: Freedom To Read Week
I’ll be a guest speaker for Toronto Public Library’s Freedom To Read Week. My Speech will be entitled “Censoring Manga For Fun And Profit”.

May 7-8: Toronto Comic Arts Festival (Festival Director)
Oh My God you guys. http://torontocomics.com/

– Christopher

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Big changes at DC

Edit: Tom Spurgeon weighs in with some of the strangeness surrounding the announcements and non-announcements this week. Go read.

So there was a ton of big news at DC today. So far as I can tell, it boils down to:

  • They’re laying off 20% of their workforce, about 50 people out of 250 from their New York offices.
  • They’re keeping publishing in New York, but they’re moving all of the digital publishing stuff to the west coast, under the direction of Jim Lee and Jim Rood.
  • They’re shutting down the Wildstorm and Zuda lines, cancelling all of the Wildstorm books, and releasing everything else under the DC banner.
  • There are more changes to come, but there likely won’t be any more official word about it.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to say about this. I look at it and I feel like kind of a dick but it’s like “Is that it? Really? They look at what DC’s doing and that’s where they think the problem is?” It’s not nice when anyone loses their job, and I personally hope that the few friends I have there are safe in theirs. I know my DC rep has worked his butt off to get my store ordering more product and doing so intelligently–he’s great and it’d be foolish to let him go. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write a letter to that effect…

But as a reader I feel like–save for the occasional Grant Morrison project–DC Comics abandoned me years ago, with the event-driven nonsense, infinite sequels and spin-offs, and a truly awful trade paperback program… As a retailer I look at their plans going forward and I just shake my head. Publishing a bunch of mediocre-to-bad comics at Wildstorm is unfortunate, but next month DC proper is publishing like 13 utterly unnecessary Batman one-shots that didn’t even have CREATIVE TEAMS when that shit was solicited? Meanwhile Planetary Volume 4 is out of print for nearly 6 months between the hardcover and softcover, and we have lost sales every day.  I’m flabbergasted that this is the kind of stuff that gets a vote of confidence from the new management at DC but they decide that a digital content initiative or a separately branded licensed comics division needs to be shown the door? I don’t understand those priorities at all, and I’ve honestly gotta wonder if they understand them either. If DC Comics is really about integrating into Warner Brothers and generating new media ideas, how does their recursive publishing program tie into that?

So the whole thing strikes me as tightening-the-belt rather than a sign of any real trouble at the publisher, I guess it’s probably wise given the economic and publishing climate, but I have to wonder if Diane Nelson’s seemingly unquestioning faith in Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns to shepherd the DC Universe could maybe use the same touch of skepticism that’s touched every other part of the company. Perhaps we’ll find out more about that this week.

– Christopher

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Toronto This Week: Skullkickers, Bill Everett: Fire & Water, and LEWIS TRONDHEIM!

I feel sliiiiightly guilty that I can only seem to find time to post here when it’s something events/work-related, but that passes fairly quickly when I see how awesome the many (many) events we’re doing actually are.  I have big plans (big plans) about getting back on the blogging horse, but they’re going to have to wait until I’m not doing 2 comics events a week. Or in this case, three. 🙂

Anyway, if you’re out in Toronto this week come check all this out, it’s gonna be awesome!

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Wednesday September 22nd: Skullkickers #1 Launch Party w/ Jim Zubkavich
Saturday September 25th: Bill Everett: Fire and Water Book Launch w/ author Blake Bell and daughter Wendy Everett
Saturday September 25th: Lewis Trondheim!!!

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SKULLKICKERS #1 Book Launch!
With author Jim Zubkavich
Wednesday, September 22nd, 7pm-9pm
@ The Central, 601 Markham Street (right next to The Beguiling)
FREE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139761979398502

Jim Zubkavich is the Torontonian author of MAKESHIFT MIRACLE, a fun little graphic novel that we held a launch party for a few years back. Most recently, Jim came in and did an in-store signing for STREET FIGHTER LEGENDS: IBUKI #1 as he also wrote that one. Well Jim’s got his first all-new series in a few years, and it looks great! It’s called SKULLKICKERS, and the first issue is due out September 22nd from Image Comics.

Come join us at The Central on the release day, September 22nd from 7pm-9pm. Jim will be giving a short presentation, signing copies, chatting with folks, and we’ll probably even make him draw for you too! 🙂

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FIRE AND WATER: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner & the Birth of Marvel Comics
Book Launch and Discussion with Author Blake Bell, and speech by Bill Everett’s daughter Wendy Everett
Saturday, September 25th, 4:30pm-6pm
Innis College Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue (St. George south of Bloor)
FREE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150867711602264

For a Preview of this book, click this link: http://beguiling.com/firewater-8p-pre.pdf

UPDATE: We’re pleased to announce that Wendy Everett, the daughter of Bill Everett, will now be attending this book launch and discussion, and will be participating in the discussion of her father’s work. We couldn’t be more excited, and we’d like to thank Ms. Everett for participating!

In 1939, decades before it would become the powerhouse behind such famous super-heroes as Spider-Man, The X-Men, and Iron Man, Marvel Comics launched its comics line with a four-color magazine starring a daring new antihero: The Sub-Mariner, created by the great Bill Everett.

The Sub-Mariner alone, and his status as the original Marvel (anti-)hero, would have insured any cartoonist’s place in comics history. But Everett was a master of many kinds of comics: romance, crime, humor, and the often brutal horror comics genre (before it was defanged by the Comics Code Authority in the 1950s), for which he produced work of such stylish and horrific beauty that he ranks with the artists who kept the legendary EC comics line awash in blood and guts.

Written by Blake Bell (the author of the best-selling critical biography of Steve Ditko, Strange and Stranger) and compiled with the aid and assistance of Everett’s family, friends, and cartoonist peers, Fire and Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner & the Birth of Marvel Comics is an intimate biography of a troubled man; an eye-popping collection of Everett’s comics, sketchbook drawings, and illustration art (including spectacular samples from his greatest published work as well as never-before-seen private drawings); and an in-depth look at his involvement in the birth of the company that would revolutionize pop culture forever: Marvel Comics!

In celebration of this book, The Beguiling will be welcoming author Blake Bell to Toronto to discuss this new book, and the life and career of Bill Everett. Special guests may also be on hand to help us celebrate this release, keep watching this space for details…!

FIRE & WATER: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics will be available for sale at this event, alongside other classic Marvel Comics collections and previous books by Blake Bell.

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Lewis Trondheim, In Conversation et “Rencontre Desinée”
 Saturday, September 25th, 7PM
 @ Innis College Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue (St.George south of Bloor)
 FREE
 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100335500031016

The Beguiling is proud to be partnering with The French Consulate in Toronto and The Alliance Francaise de Toronto to welcome the bestselling French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim to Toronto! Mr. Trondheim will be in the city for the last two weeks of September, and we are thrilled to have the chance to present this English-language engagement with him.

Trondheim is the creator or co-creator of such wonderful series as Dungeon, Little Nothings, Kaput and Zosky, ALIEEEN, Tiny Tyrant, Bourbon Island 1730, Mister O & Mister I, and more, and those are just the ones in English! He’s created dozens of albums in French as well, and is one of the most famous and respected cartoonists in the entire world—this is quite possibly a once in a lifetime event.

Mr. Trondheim will be giving a drawing presentation and will be interviewed in an event that will primarily take place in English, but will have some small French-language components that will also be translated.

Books are currently available for sale at The Beguiling and will be available for sale at the event.

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– Christopher

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This Week In Toronto: UDON 10th Anniversary Party on Thursday

UDON - An illustration from Wizard from back in the day.

Hey folks!

I’ve been super-busy with work but one thing I did want to put out into the larger world — i.e. to folks not already facebook friends with me — is that The Beguiling and I are hosting a 10th Anniversary Party for Toronto Publisher and Creative Studio UDON Entertainment, this Thursday, September 16th from 7pm-10pm. It should be a lot of fun, with tons of the UDON studio guys, the launch of their 10th Anniversary book, some great food, video games, music, just… you know, a party. 🙂

This is open to the public and free to attend too, so I hope we’ll see ya there. 🙂

– Chris

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UDON COMICS: TENTH ANNIVERSARY PARTY
And book launch for the VENT Anthology
Thursday September 16th, 8pm-10pm (Doors at 7pm)
@ Revival, 783 College St. (Just east of Ossington).
FREE

http://udoncomics.com/blog/
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116007981786405

Come one come all, and celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Toronto Publisher and Studio UDON COMICS! Food, drinks, and of course video games, in honour of their decade-long career creating work on numerous video game and comics properties!

This event will also serve as the launch for VENT, the new coffee-table book project which includes a gallery of new comics and illustrations from all of Udon’s top creators, as well as a look behind the scenes of the company and extensive art tutorials. More than a dozen Udon creators will be in attendance, and all of Toronto’s creative community and fans are invited to come out and celebrate! Our friends over at A&C games will have a great big video game setup as well, featuring classic and new Street Fighter games.

This will be a big party, with music and fun in a very cool club setting, we’re expecting a massive turnout for this one…! Hope to see you there.

Presented by The Beguiling and UDON.

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Earned Retirement From Comics

Photo by the lovely Jose VillarrubiaI’m no apologist for Alan Moore, but it seems like more than anything Alan Moore just wants to be left alone to pursue his other interests, and has largely retired from the comics industry (if not from the medium). An industry that has cost him money, friends, and a good night’s sleep, I might add. Good for him. It’d be nice if people left him to do that, rather than scaring up a new “Fuck you,” interview every six months. It doesn’t do anyone any good to put a great man into a bad mood and then capture it on tape, save for the bean-counters at Wired and Bleeding Cool, of course.

The main thing I think about this is that Tom Spurgeon, as usual, has the best take on the whole thing.

The other thing I think about this is: Can you imagine if Neil Gaiman actually gave interviews to the comics press, and let them know exactly where the bodies are buried? The masses would turn on him in a second.

– Chris

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Gengoroh Tagame has an English blog, and is not averse to English-language publications of his work! (NSFW)

Cover Detail from the September 2010 issue of Japanese Gay Men's Magazine "Badi", a special spotlight issue on Gengoroh Tagame. Art by Gengoroh Tagame.
"Deiri" illustration by Gengoroh Tagame. ©2010.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised this week to discover that the insanely talented gay manga artist Gengoroh Tagame has a blog, and one in English at that! You can find it online at http://www.tagame.org/enews/. This is pretty great as it’s a rare thing for a mangaka to have an English language blog, and Tagame is one of the most talented and easily the most famous mangaka producing gay-themed work (real gay, as opposed to yaoi-gay).

For those of you who not in the know, Tagame is best recognized for the muscular physique he gives his characters, which echoes the North American “Bear” gay subculture and the Japanese “Gachi Muchi” gay subculture, and is generally referred to as “Bara”. The majority of Tagame’s work is marked by strong themes of B&D and S&M, even leading into some verrrrry extreme situations. I heartily recommend checking out his website at http://www.tagame.org/frame_new.html and for the strong-willed and strong-stomached, check out his galleries.

Tagame is a bit of a trailblazer in that his web-presence has been English-friendly for years and years now, much moreso than any other gay manga artist (or almost any manga artist in general). While one of these days I’m really going to have to learn Japanese, for now I’m very happy that Tagame-san has made himself more accessible to his English-speaking fans.

Page from "Virtus" by Gengoroh Tagame. ©2010.

On that note, one of the most interesting posts about his accessibility came a few months back on his English-language blog, entitled “The Groundless Rumour About Publishing of English version of my comics:”

A little while ago, my friend told me the groundless rumor about me and my works.
It was a big surprise for me, so I think that I must correct them officially.

[the rumor]
Tagame does not want to publish his works in English.
In fact, he had refused the offer to publish his book from Tom of Finland foundation.

[the truth]
The rumor is false. I’ve been always wanting that my comics will be translated into English and will be published on magazines or books.And I’ve never been proposed such publishing program directory from Tom of Finland foundation.

Then, why my books have not been published in English? The reason is simple. If a proven publisher offers to me to publish my books in English, I welcome it. In fact, until now, French, Italian and Spanish publishers had contacted to me to publish my comic book in their language. I welcomed them, so my books in these three languages are being published now. But I’ve never been contacted from American, UK’s and Canadian publishers who want to publish my book in English. That is an only reason of why my comic books in English have been never published before.

For your more questions about that, I open the comment form of this post.
(But please write with very plain and easy English! I’m not so good at your language!)

– Gengoroh Tagame [link]

So there you go folks. Which one of you forward-thinking publishers is going to step up to the plate?

– Chris

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The comics industry and the big picture

I wrote last month, but got interrupted right before the end. I cleaned it up a little before posting, I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think in the comments.

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This is just a small observation, but a pretty good one, so I hope you’ll indulge me.

I’ve taken over working Saturdays on the main floor of The Beguiling to give my boss an extra day off a week (he’s now up to 1-and-a-half). For those of you who don’t know, The Beguiling is split across two floors, with the first floor being set up as a ‘general interest’ comic store, with a focus on art, literature, and the kinds of books you read positive reviews of in mainstream media. Fantagraphics and D&Q, but also Picturebox, NBM, Top Shelf, Pantheon, Abrams, and the like. French-language and Euro graphic novels, art books, Tintin and  Asterix anchoring the kids section. Basically the platonic ideal of the non-superhero, non-manga comic book store… shoved into about half as much space as it really _needs_ to breathe. But c’est la vie.

The second floor, that’s for “the initiated”, the people who buy and large know what they want–either because they’ve been comics fans their whole lives and are buying their favourites, or they’re single-title/creator/genre folks (like the Gaimanites, Whedonites, and Zombieites). Maybe they’re in for the newest media tie-in too. Superheroes and other DM-centric publishers, manga, and the new-release rack. I work the second floor, mostly because my boss rules the main floor with an iron fist and I’m the only person at the store (and one of the only people in North America) approaching his level of product knowledge and so I cover the other sales floor. But I’m pretty handy the rest of it and so I can fill in for him if I have to… Just don’t ask me to find anything in French. 🙂

Because of the way the store is set-up, whilst there is a cash-register on each floor all of the debit and credit card purchases have to be rung out on the first floor. That means that, being behind the second-floor register, I see people making cash purchases, but almost entirely of stuff bought from the second floor — superheroes and manga. Sure, if it’s new comics day the interesting stuff that’s come out that week from the art comics publishers is still around–new releases from D&Q and Fanta get prominent display for 2 or 3 weeks. The “new mainstream” books like Oni’s JAM: Tales of Roller-dirby or KENK from Toronto publisher Pop Sandbox get their due, at least a week or two of full-face display. But that means that I’ll be ringing up orders that are 90% new releases–with Marvel and DC doing their damndest to crowd every other new release off the rack, week after week, and 100 new manga graphic novels in a given month–and it paints a picture of the comics industry.

The picture it paints is that the industry–and particularly direct market comic book stores–is 70% superheroes and then 20% manga and then there’s not-much of everything else. The second floor is, essentially, your average comic book store in miniature (although I’ve been in quite a few stores smaller than our second floor…). It paints a picture that the reason that the comic book industry is this way is because the fans are this way. This is what the fans want. But that’s only true until you remember that there’s still a first floor, and man, that first floor is very, very different.

So I’ve been working the first floor a little more, and the customer for comics is, frankly, completely different than we think it is. Sure, I just sold a copy of SCARLETT #1 by Bendis and Maleev to a dude wearing a Superman t-shirt, but before that I sold a copy of Gabrielle Bell’s CECIL & JORDAN and a Shintaro Kago import-manga to a 20-something girl and before her, I sold Sfar’s LITTLE VAMPIRE and DUNGEON ZENITH 2 & 3 to a dad and his two kids, cuz all of them are in love with those books. A guy today dropped a few hundred bucks on PictureBox and D&Q books. Guy approaching the cash right now has the work of Ken Dahl, Kevin Cannon, and Kevin Huizenga in his hands. Another lady came down the stairs with an armful of McKean, Seinkewicz, and Mack just now. Working the first floor, you get this picture of balance in the medium, and it’s a balance that heavily favours good, interesting, and ambitious works.

An aside: When we (and I mean all of us comic fans) look at the newspaper page, we tend to groan at the ‘legacy’ strips like Family Circus or Hagar, where the original author of that work has passed on and handed the book off to their offspring or a trusted friend. It’s a lot of bland stuff on the comics page, but familiar, and we all kinda wish those strips would go away and make room for something new. Now realize that 90% of comics sold through the direct market are themselves “Legacy Strips”, choking out innovation with (more often than not) their original creators long gone, existing solely to hold a space on a rack. That’s not to say that good stories can’t be told–they frequently are. It’s just that we’re largely intolerant of the practice in one area of comics, and embrace it with a blinding obedience in another.

I’d like to suggest–or really, remind–that this balance in the medium could just as easily be a balance in the industry.

But the reason that we don’t have it I think? Most retailers, myself included, tend only to see what’s in front of them. If I only ever worked in one type of store, I’d be convinced that there’d only be one superhero-and-new-release-heavy model of doing business in comics as well. Hell I worked at that store for a long time–in my last 6 months there I finally figured out that you could order books not in the Diamond catalogue each month. That you could back order things. That books exist beyond their monthly solicitation or (increasingly rare) resolicitiation… I wonder how many retailers are in the same boat? Hopefully far fewer, with the vast array of online tools available… But…

So yeah, a small change in perspective for a few weekends per month, and… well it’s not so much that my view of the industry has changed, but that I’ve been reminded that it is possible to find balance and that good work flourishes and sells when it’s not just one shelf at the back of the store, but curated, selected, promoted, understood, and shared. That readers aren’t–or at least don’t have to be–superhero readers or artcomix readers or manga readers… they can just be readers. I know it’s going to seem obvious to a lot of the readers of my blog here, I feel like folks here tend to have a pretty open mind and wide tastes in what they read. But seeing that sort of customer in action is a nice reminder of what we could do in the industry as a whole. It’s worth continuing to work towards.

– Chris