What I Would Do If I Were in Charge at Marvel or DC
by Joey Manley
First off, if there appears to be anything disrespectful in my post about Valerie D’Orazio’s plan for “mainstream media” to move into the webcomics field, I apologize. Disrespect for her personally was the farthest thing from my mind. It’s not cool to disrespect other people because you disagree with their ideas. Not even on the Internet! Sure, the title of my post was pretty brusque — a failure of my imagination, I think — but I’m having a hard time pinpointing anything else that could have led to the fireball of a response she posted over on her site today. Holy wow.
Listen, I know what it feels like to be unfairly attacked on the Internet for a blog post, and I definitely wouldn’t want to make anybody else feel that way, and it seems that Ms. D’Orazio does feel that way. So. Sorry.
I still don’t agree with her ideas.
Rather than making fun of her ideas, maybe I should have offered my own. Since the core premise of her post seems to be, “What I would do about the Internet business challenge if I ran a big mainstream comics company, like Marvel or DC,” lemme think about that. What would I do?
Hm.
Here’s what I’d do.
I’d post all the backlist online for free, stopping short a year or two from the present.
I’d geo-target the heck out of visitor’s IP addresses and give free banner ads to retailers in the areas where those people live.
I (and the retailers) would sell buttloads of trade paperbacks collecting those storylines.
I think. Maybe.
The thing is, I’m not in charge at Marvel or DC, which is probably for the best. I don’t have any experience in that kind of business. Any theories I have about it inevitably recast the world I don’t know into a pale imitation of the world I do know.
Which, I submit with all due respect, is the problem with D’Orazio’s original post. It recasts the potential of the webcomics world into a mirror image of the realities of the current mainstream print comics scene, where a small handful of big-money players dominate. Maybe that’ll happen. All kinds of things could happen. But from my perspective, that’s not a very likely outcome. When the big comics companies start taking webcomics seriously — well, actually, they already are taking webcomics kind of seriously, what with Zuda and DCU and all that — they’ll join a vast and diverse and economically thriving community, which will continue to be just as vast and diverse as it was before they came along, and which will continue to thrive alongside them. I think. As D’Orazio says, we’ll see.
But yeah. I definitely didn’t mean for any of that to be personal, and sincerely hope that any hard feelings or whatever are quick to pass.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Hey Joe, er, Joey…
Don’t worry about the “firestorm” you created over at OS. Having followed her blog for awhile now, I get the sense that Ms. D’Orazio has a very tough time accepting that not everyone is going to agree with her. She appears to also believe that she is right about everything. When folks don’t agree with her or offer counterpoint to her view she tends to fly off the handle. Don’t take it personally and don’t bother trying to argue with her. Also, don’t beat yourself up over trying to figure out what you said that set her off. You were beyond nice when it came to disagreeing with her.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:39 am
[...] Oh, and here’s round two between Valerie D’Orazio and Joey Manley. [...]
February 20th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Wow. Just followed this debate online and I have to say you have behaved politely and attempted to engage in a genuine discussion at each stage – Paul and Valerie have both been chippy, crudely informal and offensive while their argument doesn’t really add up to much more than “I saw a big media guy say this would happen and it will” and to claim that if big (old) media companies want something then they get it. History does not indicate this is true; their size makes them inherently less mobile and the market is a bit more complex than that, as you make clear. Their counter-arguments that any naysayers are just some kind of hippies who think they can beat the system is genuinely patronising. Valerie put forwrad an interesting thesis, which on balance I don’t agree with but I’m amazed at the vitriol in their response and I think most people following this probably feel the same. Good post by the way.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Hi Joey-
You’re ideas were presented professionally and politely.
Don’t worry about it.
This is a fascinating discussion. Newspapers are giving up the ghost
and there’s panic in corporate boardrooms and I think that scenario is driving
a “take and conquer” mentality. There’s a desperation about it that was exemplified for me with Walter Isaacson’s appearance on a recent “Daily Show”.
He was stumping for pay-for-content as a solution for print media woes
and Stewart just didn’t seem to be buying it. If I remember correctly, implicit in his pitch was the notion that people would pay for “credible” news sources–
but there was something so lost about him-his argument didn’t have the potency he has come to expect in the context of Stewart’s show, amidst an audience twenty years younger than that of the “Charlie Rose Show”. The media world that he maneuvered so expertly years ago has passed him by and he’s clueless.
I think your arguments are level-headed and realistic. Listen, major media predicted somebody else would be occupying the White House. Move-On (and others)proved ‘em wrong. It’s a different world.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
If these people are right, and it’s really Val’s fault for taking offense at you, then I have to fault you for taking her offense seriously, it only encourages her.
Also, I think you misinterpreted her original post a little.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
So if you were also in charge of Marvel and/or DC would you please stop publishing “Crisis This” or “War That” or mega-super-meaningless-crossovers that ultimately mean nothing? That would be very good. As for the whole webcomic thing, there hasn’t been a good drama for a while!
February 21st, 2009 at 1:00 am
@Stephen: if I were in charge of Marvel and/or DC, I’d insist that they only publish things that nobody would like but me! And maybe you! … which is another reason they should never put me in charge.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
@Geoff: When I saw that episode of the Daily Show I just shook my head because I was watching it for free on thedailyshow.com.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 am
I am in agreement with you Joey, I thought your point was well made and it’s obvious you know what you’re talking about (as well as a lot of the commenters on her post). I was more than a little disgusted at her poor-little-victim post and more so when her name-calling friend chimed in. On the other hand, it really opened my eyes to the internet bully she’s become. I’m now following your blog and removed hers from my bookmarks. I’m more interested in people who don’t assume the world is out to get them whenever someone disagrees with their opinion, and you’ve already shown yourself to be reasonable and levelheaded when people try their hardest to stir up drama. Kudos, sir.