Comics212.net

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

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

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