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EW:
Do comic books--specifically, the monthly periodical--have a future?
Bob:
That’s hard to say.
As an outsider, one might think that things definitely look somewhat bleak
for the monthly periodical, but that’s not to say that things can’t be
turned around.
However, the editorial, distribution and printing costs of creating comics
have only increased since the speculator boom of ’93. And, to my
knowledge, not a single creator has taken a pay cut since that peak
period.
Also, it’s no secret that the majority of comics sold are done so under
the scrutiny of a single monopolistic entity--Diamond Distribution.
Retailers are simply given no choice about what they sell--or how they
sell it. It’s what the movie industry refers to as “blind
bidding.”
The current distribution system is designed to protect its largest clients
from stolen market shares with the distributor taking nearly 70% of a book’s
cover price for themselves. So, unless you’re pulling huge numbers per
title, you’re going to experience fiscal trouble as an independent
publisher.
Today, you have many iconic characters, such as the Hulk and Captain
America, selling less than 50,000 copies per month. That’s a
disturbing indicator of the lack of audience and, probably, an indictment
of the work being currently produced.
EW:
How much did it hurt you, as a longtime comics artist and fan of the
medium, to have to back out of publishing monthly periodicals with Future
Comics?
Bob:
It was extremely disturbing for me to give up on publishing monthly
comics, Jeff. But that was a business decision, not a political
statement on the state of the industry. As I said previously, independent
publishing is difficult, at best, in the current marketplace.
And Future Comics was more of an experiment to attempt to take comics back
to the type of stories and storytelling that had more appeal to the new or
casual reader, not the hardcore, die-hard types. Unfortunately, reaching
the casual reader proved to be a daunting task with the lack of mass
venues.
As much as the hardcore fan loves the 21 page monthly comics, a publishing
business simply cannot succeed by creating those exclusively.
EW:
In
its current form, can the direct sales market--the comic book shops--carry
the medium and industry into the future?
Bob:
Many of the independent publishing companies which focused on strictly
action/adventure content, a.k.a. costumed super-heroes, have folded over
the last decade, and over a third of the direct market outlets have closed
their doors since the collapse of the mid-nineties boom. That
collapse was due to several contributing factors. The collectable value of
comics has tanked. Purchase patterns are now driven by mainstream iconic
characters or company brand loyalty, not by collectors/investors. From
that peak period until today, there is still a glut of products being
regularly produced--over 300 titles monthly--mainly due to the major
companies attempting to bolster sagging numbers by adding more and more
product to their publishing schedules.
Driven by a fatal misreading of the marketplace, publishers have
concentrated on more superficial elements instead of quality content, in
my opinion.
Generally speaking, the fate of the comics industry needs to be in the
hands of better businessmen.
EW:
Today,
Marvel and DC own about 70-80% of the market. How vulnerable does this
make the industry? Can comics--specifically, the monthly periodical
business--survive without additional viable competitors? And if it can
survive without them, can it grow without them?
Bob:
One of the major reasons why Dick Giordano, David Michelinie and I started
Future Comics was that nearly everyone we talked to in the Direct Market
voiced that they were tired of the current trends in the books and the way
they were being callously treated by the existing system. They seemed to
be waiting for someone to have the balls to challenge the dominance of
Diamond, DC and Marvel.
Future Comics is the only comics company to ever attempt self-distribution
in the U.S. and we tried to change the system by bypassing Diamond and
offering the direct market a better deal, as well as offering the
publications to individual readers via the Internet.
We offered the Direct Market free shipping (not available through Diamond
or anyone else). We gave them deeper wholesale discounts than
Diamond. We made our products 100% returnable (free, for all intents and
purposes) while all sales from Diamond are non-returnable.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to get them off their duffs and
support a change.
The mass market trade paperbacks are another matter entirely.
The black and white digest-sized Manga imports set sales records. The
tie-ins with Hollywood movies that are based on comic properties continue
to drive sales of titles that had only moderate sales in the direct
market, such as SIN CITY. The point is, it’s not exclusively mainstream
Marvel and DC superheroes dominating the mass market. For an
ambitious publisher, it is a more level playing field to go toe-to-toe
with the bigger companies. That market’s audience seems to be more
character and story-driven in their tastes. The trade paperbacks and
graphic novels are probably where the future of comics is heading. Europe
and Japan have embraced that format for decades and trends clearly show
that the U.S. is now heading in the same direction. In the last few years,
revenues from the mass market have eclipsed that of the entire Direct
Market. Products offered by the “Big Two” comic publishers are
generally limited to their icon super-hero lines, leaving little room for
experimentation or creative latitude. I expect the mass market to attract
a wider diversity of genres and products, which is a very good thing, in
my opinion.
That, and the skyrocketing costs of producing the 21 page, monthly format,
makes an industry move into a primarily mass market format a no-brainer
for a publishing entity. Also, distribution in the mass market is not
dominated by Diamond, with many venues, like Amazon.com, available to
publishers.
EW:
How
important has movies and licensing become to the comic book industry, and
can the industry/medium survive without it?
Bob:
It is no secret that there is currently a boom of comic-based properties
being developed in Hollywood.
This boom is easily attributed to the fact that many of the key studio
figures, who were rabid comic fans in their youth, are now the successful
movie executives populating Tinseltown. I’ve been truly amazed at the
number of movie executives I’ve met in recent years who actually knew me
by name and were very familiar with my credentials in comics.
So it is an unfortunate reality that the major publishers, bowing to the
whims and trends in the comics market, have moved away from the iconic
core of their characters. The current Spider-Man or X-Men premises in the
comics bear little resemblance to the ones you see on the big screen.
I believe that these Hollywood producers, seeking to recapture the “sense
of wonder” they experienced as youngsters, have now become a new
creative extension for the medium of comics--taking their favorite icons
back to their more accessible roots.
You want to view
a really great issue of
Spider-Man done in the manner it was originally intended? Don’t buy the
comic--go see the movie instead.
The truth is that the comic-based movies are what the comics themselves
used to be.
And it’s also no secret that the revenues from these licenses to
Hollywood can be astoundingly lucrative.
Marvel’s recent climb out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy can be directly
attributed to the success of licensing and the revenue from such
blockbuster films as Spider-Man and the X-Men.
EW:
In recent years, we've seen many start-ups launch with a business plan
tied to the movies. Specifically, using comics as a lab for developing
intellectual property that can be licensed to movies, videogames, and
other media, which altogether is more profitable than publishing. Some
companies have been moderately successful; even more have crashed and
burned. Considering how Marvel themselves is evolving into such a company,
what are the pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses of such a model?
Bob:
The major con is that the comic books themselves are becoming a loss
leader for mass market re-packaging and motion picture licensing. The
other major drawback is that there are no guarantees that your property,
even if optioned, won’t wind-up in “development Hell.” In one
form or another, many of our Future Comics properties have been bounced
around in Hollywood for years with little or no movement, until recently.
So, if you’re an indy publisher, banking on the success of creating the
next Spider-Man film franchise, you’re in for a big disappointment. And,
for every Spider-Man that Hollywood produces--there is also a
Man-Thing. There is no guarantee that your film, whether you're
Marvel or a small indy, will be a success.
The positive aspect is that the film industry is keeping the super-hero
genre alive and demonstrating that there is definitely an audience for
this particular form of entertainment. How we take advantage of that
audience, as creators and publishers, has yet to evolve.
EW:
Given the continued graying of the reader, can comics survive in the
long-term without making present or future buyers out of today's kids?
Bob:
No. The industry has to make new inroads to a mass audience if it’s to
survive.
The major problem, as I see it, is that the current crop of mainstream
titles are totally inaccessible to the general public. The analogy I
commonly use is that if Star Trek movies were written by hardcore
Trekkers, the general film-going
public would be totally alienated by all of the insider references. That’s
what’s going on in comics at the moment. Comics are written by former
fans, for current fans.
Shit, I generally can’t read most of the current stuff and I have thirty
years of comics experience behind me.
That’s why there isn’t a huge sales spike in the Spider-Man titles
when a movie is released. In my opinion, accessibility to the product is
something that has to change in order for the comics industry, and the
monthly periodical, to succeed in the long term. That’s what
Future Comics attempted to do--create a line of characters that would be
easily accessible to the general public, defying the convoluted continuity
and trendy storytelling techniques that make today’s products confusing.
So--Stage One to the road to recovery for the monthly periodical:
fix the friggin’ books.
Also, quite a large number of comic shops are dingy, poorly managed
venues, akin to XXX porn shops.
Stage Two to recovery:
The comic industry (Diamond and the Big Two specifically) needs to take a
very hard look at some good retail business models, like Midtown Comics
and Jim Hanley’s in NYC, and strive to help the Direct Market create
easily accessible venues where young people can casually find and purchase
comics, either through subsidies or discount incentives.
At various times, Future looked at mall kiosks, movie theaters and similar
venues to sell our comics and related merchandise, places where there can
be walk-in business in a clean, attractive environment.
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