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PEACEKEEPER #3(unpublished)
METALLIX #9 (unpublished)
METALLIX #1
PEACEKEEPER #5 (unpublished)
 FREEMIND #2
 FREEMIND #8 (unpublished)
HEAD HONCHOS SKIP FARRELL, DICK GIORDANO & BOB
DEATHMASK #5 (unpublished)
FREEMIND #7
PEACEKEEPER #1(unpublished)
METALLIX #11 (unpublished)
PEACEKEEPER #4 (unpublished)
FREEMIND #11 (unpublished) |
THE DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
An
Editorial by BOB LAYTON
Quite a few regulars to my website have asked me about what happened to
Future Comics that prevented it from succeeding and what were the reasons
for the company's closing. What follows are excerpts of a report that I
composed to investors concerning the circumstances that lead to the
company's failure: Dear
Future Comics Investors, After
the seismic boom in sales in the mid 90’s, the traditional or direct
comics market retrenched. Many
of the publishing companies who focused on strictly heroic fantasy content
(costumed super-heroes) have downsized or folded and over a third of the
direct outlets have closed their doors.
This
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
investors. From
that peak period until today, there is still a glut of inferior products
being regularly produced —over 300 titles monthly. Driven
by a fatal misreading of the marketplace, publishers concentrated on
superficial elements and ancillary products development instead of quality content CrossGen,
a heavily-funded start-up publisher, recently imploded and eventually
filed for Chapter 7 protection. To
many insiders, this was not unexpected and it illustrates the point that
superficial product results in failure. The
Direct Market now belongs almost exclusively to Marvel and DC. They’re
well on their way to breaking the back of the Independent publishers. Add
to that the fact that Marvel and DC are continuing to flood the market
with over 20 new titles per quarter, simply to push the independent
competition off the stands. The
point is: as much as people love the 21 page monthly comics—one simply
cannot succeed by publishing them—exclusively. Before I explain the root causes of our failure in the marketplace, allow me to briefly refresh you on our company's history:
The
formation of FUTURE COMICS was announced by Dick Giordano and me at a
press conference on Saturday, June 9th, 2000 during the HEROES CON in
Charlotte, NC. Dick, Head Writer David Michelinie and I believed that comics should be readily accessible and written for a general audience, something that's gone by the wayside in recent years. Everybody in the comics industry seems to be upset that there are no new readers coming in, and though they are trying gimmicks to get people into the genre, it's not really working. I firmly adhere to the philosophy that the root cause lies in the fact that the product is being written exclusively for a niche’ audience. As a result, comics are not attractive to a mass market readership. The creative principles in the company strongly felt that we should tailor Future Comics projects, for lack of a better term, a little more mainstream—stuff that could be read by the 'Average Joe'. The first Future Comics offering was FREEMIND in August of 2002. Following Freemind, Future Comics’ second, regular monthly series launched in November with METALLIX. Altogether, the company released three action titles by August of 2003 which included our best seller—Deathmask.
The
Future titles met with near-unanimously glowing reviews—heralding our
debut as a “return to greatness” or referring to us as
“The next Marvel Comics”.
However, good reviews do not necessarily translate into a successful operation.
The
Direct Market is a term used to identify the loosely-associated chain of
1100 independent book stores whose main business is the sales of comic
books and related merchandise. All merchandise purchased from wholesale
outlets to these stores is non-returnable.
Meaning: whatever quantities they buy at the wholesale level—those
sales are considered final. All
mainstream comics sold to these comic shops are done the under the
auspices of a single, monopolistic (and possibly malevolent) entity—Diamond
Comic Distributors. In
many ways, Future Comics was revolutionary, but especially so in our
radical business plan which used the internet to exclusively
self-distribute our publications. By
the spring of 2003, almost half of 1100 comic retail shops in America were
signed up to participate in our Future Comics Retailers’ Club. It was at that point that Diamond, being genuinely concerned that our operation might pose a threat to them, proposed that they partner with us in the distribution of our products—promising to double our sales and bring our little start-up into the limelight with a premiere publisher status in their catalogue. So...we bit.
Unfortunately, this move proved to be disastrous for us on several levels.
Foremost,
the promises made by Diamond were hollow.
They rarely followed up on any request and never promoted our
products as promised. Additionally,
our Retailers’ Club members abandoned us en masse’, generally feeling
betrayed that we ”sold out” to the despised monopolistic distributor. The sad truth is that abandoning our original self-distribution plan is what ultimately lead to the company's sad demise. Before Diamond entered the picture, our self-distribution plan was working. It
was a regrettable miscalculation to accept Diamond’s offer to distribute
us instead of staying the course with our original business model.
However, their promise of doubling our sales and reaching profitability in
our first year of operation proved to be too great of a temptation to pass
up. I received calls from Diamond's V.P. on a weekly basis, trying to sweeten the deal or suggesting some sort of compromise to get us onboard. Little did we suspect that it was a ploy to break the back of a little publisher that dared to defy the 'Overlords of Comic Distribution'.
And
then—there was Free Comic Book Day on F.C.B.D.
was a bust, even though we successfully distributed over 90K copies of
Metallix #1 nationwide-- totally for free, in a quality package that far
exceeded our competitions’ product. Diamond encouraged us to participate, guaranteeing that we would see a 12% increase in sales as a result. That estimation was, as it turned out, highly-speculative and proved to be entirely false. And, when it was all over, we didn’t get a single percentage point bump in our sales, after spending a whopping $16,000.00 in promotional expenses. The
Direct Market retail community is ruled by Diamond’s iron-fisted
approach. Many retailers
voiced to us that they were fearful of reprisals by Diamond if they
purchased their Future titles from us directly.
No matter how we sweetened the 'deal', the retail community remained
stubbornly resistant. Here
are merely four examples of how Future Comics' distribution catered to the
retail community without success:
1.
Future Comics gave the Direct Market free shipping (not available thru
Diamond) We gave them deeper wholesale discounts than Diamond.
2. We made our products 100% returnable (free for all intents and purposes) while all sales from Diamond are non-returnable. But still, the retailers still didn’t order sufficient quantities to keep us going.
3. The storeowners complained that they wanted us to lower the cover price from $3.50 to $2.99— which we did. But still, the retailers still didn’t order sufficient quantities to keep us going.
4.
They
wanted us to make our products available thru Diamond too, which we did--
but even after that, the retailers still didn’t order sufficient
quantities to keep us going. In fact, orders dropped.
One
of the major reasons that we started Future Comics was that nearly every
retailer that Dick Giordano and I talked to in the Direct Market
voiced that they were tired of the callous way they were being
treated by Diamond and pledged to support our efforts. It seemed to us
that they were crying out for someone to attempt to change the system…and
to show them some respect in the process.
As
it turned out—that
was not entirely true.
While there are many respectable and business-savvy retailers in the Direct Market, the majority of them are penny-ante dabblers whose whims change with the drop of the proverbial hat with little or no business sense whatsoever. It's no longer a mystery to me as to why the Direct Market has been slowly shrinking into oblivion.
And, a grim fact has to be taken into consideration in all of this: The comics industry is totally (and possibly illegally) controlled by Diamond, Marvel, DC, Wizard and Quebecor. There's a substantial amount of 'under the table' dealings occurring between these entities on a steady basis. They work closely and clandestinely to control the marketplace and unfairly squeeze out any competition.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t merely miscalculations in the Direct Market that affected Future Comics adversely.
A
substantial amount of our debt was incurred through mismanagement by our
financial department during the early phases of the company’s start-up.
We were basically being robbed blind. Unfortunately, since those employees
had name authorization with our financial accounts, none of the creditors
were willing to allow us to file theft claims.
When combined with lackluster sales in the Direct Market, it became
readily apparent that we might be heading in the wrong direction as a
business entity. Once
our eyes were opened to the mismanagement crisis,
we initiated a sizable layoff of the employees in non-critical
positions in January of 2003.
Then,
on
Monday, February 17 of 2003, Future Comics’ office was vandalized and
our computer network infected with a virus that all but shut the company
down. We
discovered that thieves had broken into the complex’s externally-located
electronics room, sabotaging only the equipment that allowed Future Comics
to conduct its e-commerce business. Additionally, a virus was
implanted into our network, shutting us entirely down for over a
week. Although we had no idea who was responsible for this act of
sabotage, we continued to pursue every avenue to uncover the perpetrators
and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Undaunted
by this chain of adversity, Unfortunately, we were never able to trace the sabotage back to the perpetrators, but it was more than likely the work of disgruntled former employees, given that the attack was 'insider specific'. Realizing that the overall Direct Market was declining in sales every month, as well, we made the difficult decision to redirect our efforts into a more profitable market. Comics,
on average, are selling at a fraction of those mid-decade numbers. When I
was still freelancing, not a single editor or publisher ever asked me to
take a pay cut (which I would have gladly done) in order to curb
rising art & editorial costs. I’m an artist and a writer—but I’m also a businessman. A&E is the single determining factor to the high price of comics today. It only costs about $0.22-$0.40 per copy to print the bloody things. A & E costs are simply not aligned to the percentage of sales in the comics industry. So, if readers want to be pissed off at the industry for the rising cost of a comic book, they should aim the anger where it belongs—at the Big Publishers and the inflated pages rates that their favorite artists receive. Future Comics announced in August of 2003 that we would be concentrating our efforts on creating mass market books and would cease publication of our regular monthly titles. It had become rather obvious that consumer tastes were gravitating towards the trade paperback format. While the Direct Market has continued to decline in 2003, mass market interest in the genre has been on the increase. We had prided ourselves on breaking new ground, whether it's self-distribution, returnability or, in this case, creating material exclusively for the mass market. Europe and Japan have embraced that format for decades and statistics 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 with a 30% growth projected for 2004. That,
and the skyrocketing costs of producing the 21 page monthly format, made
our move a "no-brainer". However, I made the crucial decision to return to self-distribution and a mass market format far too late in the game to prevent the company from drowning in debt. Desperately, I sought out new investors to finance our new, more austere business model. However,
new funding was not found in time to initiate that plan.
So Future Comics was forced to close its doors for good.
However, there continues to be interest from Hollywood in producing feature film versions the Future Comics characters. Those talks are ongoing. In fact, I’m heading back out to there next week to meet with three major studios. Hopefully, our labor of love may yet live on in an entirely different venue. Only time will tell.
Regretfully, Bob Layton President & Editor-In-Chief FUTURE ENTERTAINMENT
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FREEMIND #10 (unpublished)
FREEMIND #9 (unpublished)
DEATHMASK #6 (unpublished)
DEATHMASK #7 (unpublished)
DEATHMASK #8 (unpublished)
METALLIX #10 (unpublished)
DEATHMASK #4 (unpublished)
METALLIX #6
PEACEKEEPER #2(unpublished)
METALLIX #9 (unpublished)
FREEMIND #12 (unpublished)
DEATHMASK #9 (unpublished) |
