Your Random Direct Market Comics Publishing Scandal of the Day
by Joey Manley
I’m not sure what, specifically, motivated retailer/blogger Christopher Butcher to post this warning to creators about shady publishers and their tactics. I mean, he tries to provide context, but one of the links is broken, and the names (of the creators, of the publisher, of the property in question) don’t ring any bells. No matter. I just don’t follow the lower echelons of the Direct Market closely enough, I guess. I gather Mike Gagnon is a failed publisher, and HC Noel is a creator whose work was compromised in some way by this failure? I dunno. Regardless of the specifics, there’s solid and meaningful advice here for you, if you’re considering signing with a print publisher — especially a new, relatively unknown print publisher — to help you take your work to the Direct Market. Why you’d bother doing such a thing is another question Butcher addresses obliquely. In my gloss here, I’m stressing this part of it a little more strongly than he does, and maybe not getting exactly what he said, but — really, there’s no point in signing with new, relatively unknown publishers at all. In a world where Lulu and, for that matter, Kinko’s exist, and where free hosting for webcomics is the norm, not the exception, there’s very little advantage to be gained in signing with any print publisher, unless it’s, you know, one of the really big publishers, or at least someone with an actual track record. An, um, positive track record, I mean. There are lots of “publishers” out there who are nothing more than a logo, a website, and a business card. And there are lots of others who carry along behind them several decades’ worth of bankrupted companies and fizzled business plans. You don’t need them.
Via Journalista
[EDIT --
The Beat provides the needed context and this money quote:
Does your publisher have kajillionaire Sir Richard Branson bankrolling it? Great! Then maybe you will sell 5000 copies in the direct sales market. Think about THAT metric.
I didn't realize Virgin Comics had done quite so poorly in the Direct Market. Good thing all their eggs aren't in that basket.
--]
January 5th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I guess the Virgin comics would have done better if they didn’t come across as early 90’s “throw ‘em against the wall to see what sticks” type superhero comics with more detailed photoshop coloring.
To put it another way: What I managed to read of them really sucked.
January 7th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I’ve just read my first Virgin comic, and I liked it pretty well. Dave Stewart’s Walk In, it’s called. Much more Vertigo than Top Cow or whatever. Okay, yes, there are strippers. But still. Oh — and the Dave Stewart of the title? It’s that guy from Eurythmics, who wrote the book. Weird.
January 10th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Mike Gagnon is a FAILED, would be, wanna be indy publisher who used to publish SMASH Comics. In 2002-2003 Gagnon tried and failed to publish several indy created comics including the first issue of “GAAK” by myself and GAAK partner Monique MacNaughton, creator of the Graphic Smash comic UNA Frontiers. Most of the creators involved with Smash Comics now consider themselves “survivors” of the whole sorted experience and Gagnon’s “unprofessional” business tactics. Two of the most noteable Smash Comic “survivor’s” are husban and wife creative team Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper, creators of Gu Street Girl and the new GN “Half Dead” published by Dabel Brothers/Marvel Comics. Dee