(Commentary) I have simply got to start shooting my mouth off more often. Last week the inbox filled to bursting with reader comments -- let's get right to the best of the lot, shall we?
Going through the mail (as well as the mail for the past few weeks), it occurs to me that the 3:00 AM nature of this weblog virtually guarantees that I'll get at least one thing wildly wrong per week. With this in mind, I'd like to begin by instituting a new sub-feature for the Mailbag, which I'm calling "The ¡Journalista! Fuck-Up of the Week". For our inaugural example, let's take a look at my off-the-cuff comments about Warren Ellis' take on Planetary, which for some weird reason I assumed contained all-original characters. Here's what I wrote concerning Ellis' 15% take from the proceeds of a licensing agreement to turn the comic books into a TV series:
"There's decent deals and there's decent deals. My understanding is that in the more legitimate publishing realms, that 15% is the amount the agent or publisher is likelier to take than what the creator gets. The only creator to actually tell me his or her take of such a deal is one of the artists Fantagraphics publishes, and both discretion and the obvious conflict of interest prevents me from saying much more, but I will say this: said artist kept considerably more than 15% of the money. Most if not all creators who publish through non-corporate companies and retain ownership of their creations would probably scoff at such an amount -- I don't mean to knock Warren Ellis, but it sounds like he's bragging about getting paid in dimes rather than the customary nickels."
There's actually two fuck-ups in that statement. First, I painted a rosier picture of literary publishing than what seems to actually exist. One writer, who's actually signed a book contract, noted that the percentage that his-or-her first contract let said person keep from media deals was more along the lines of 50-60%. That's one writer talking about one contract, of course, but it's enough to puncture a nice little hole in my oh-so-lofty statement.
Another correspondent wrote in to point out the other error in my comments:
"Planetary is a book that uses a number of DC/Wildstorm owned characters, situations and past storylines. It's not going to be creator-owned, it's firmly based in the Wildstorm 'universe'.
"However, Mek, Global Frequency, Orbital etc. are fully creator owned, and owe nothing to and previous 'continuity' or characters.
"Warren's arguing for turning work-for-hire gigs into creator-participant gigs for a better deal. The Fantagraphics analogy doesn't apply, with Planetary, it's like another creator doing a Hate spinoff with Hate characters and relying on past Hate storylines. Who would own that? The creator or Peter Bagge?"
Calling this "a good point" is understating the flaw in my logic. But why stop there? Mr. Ellis himself wrote in to apply the finishing touches to my schooling. Here he is:
"I'm quoted as saying;
"At this point, everything I'm doing is either creator-owned or 'creator-participation' -- which means I and my collaborators get more control and a much bigger slice of the revenue pie than a regular company-owned project (like the 15% of the development option fee paid to DC/Wildstorm by Warner Brothers to consider PLANETARY for television that I just received, moo hoo ha ha). This would seem to me to be close to an ideal situation -- owning and controlling my own work, working in tandem with publishers to ensure the work is done properly and gets seen in the right places and makes us all some money. That I can achieve this while not exactly burning up the Diamond sales charts is indicative only of the fact that any bastard can do it if they put their mind to it and they're prepared to take the long view. I'm far from the cleverest writer in the business, but I'm damn sure that when I'm forty-five I won't be producing fifty pages a month that I'll never see a penny off again."
"When I'm talking about 'the ideal situation', I'm talking about creator ownership, not creator-participation. The creator-participation bit was an aside. This is quoted off Bad Signal, I think, and you have to bear in mind that I tend to write them in the pub.
"Creator-participation is better than straight work for hire -- it guarantees creative control, gets the creators a piece of the pie, and tends to be very lucrative. Obviously, it's not ideal, for at the end of the day the publisher owns the work. Which is why I only have one creator-participation deal, Planetary, which was designed as such for specific reasons. That said, an increased royalty slice and 15% of a TV deal cheque is much better than 100% of bugger-all.
"Everything else I'm doing, as in the quote above, is creator-owned, and so the 15%-of-all-revenues bit doesn't apply, obviously.
"The whole point is that creator-ownership has to be the aware creator's choice."
This has been our innaugural installment of "The ¡Journalista! Fuck-Up of the Week". Thank you, thank you -- you've been a lovely audience.
Moving on to friendlier territory, the same week's Mailbag brought in other comments, including those of this correspondent:
"I saw your Monday mailbag with the question about the actual sales of Archie, Powerpuff Girls, etc., responding to the low sales reported through Diamond for those titles. Prepare to have your mind blown and click here.
"They may be lying about their sales numbers, but I assume that it's not more than twice what they are saying. Plus, it may be the cumulative number for something like 16 monthly titles. (They sell advertising by their line, not by individual title.) Still, it puts them way way ahead of what one would think from looking at Diamond numbers.
"You might be able to find similar sales information by getting the media kit for Powerpuff Girls (pretend to be a potential advertiser...).
"It is insane to look at Diamond to try to figure out the size of the comics industry and who the big players are. In the past few months, it has finally sunk in to industry observers how big Tokyopop is. But that situation has been true for almost two years.
"Clearly Archie, with sales of 850,000 per month (if their media kit can be trusted) is FAR bigger than they ever look when you look at ICV2 or Comics & Game Retailer or Diamond numbers."
The suggestion for further investigation implies that I have either the training or the time to act like a real journalist; I assure you, this is not the case. Instead, I'm throwing the idea out for others to consider. Thank you very much for the information, though!
Our next correspondent likewise felt motivated by comments I made last week:
"I just want to take issue with one thing you said in your Monday mailbag:
"How about not shoving the manga and non-genre titles in back?"
"My reply would be, how about shoving both manga and those genre (oh come on, let's just say superhero-esque stuff) in back?
"Certainly, treat all the books with equal respect, don't hide them in dimly lit corridors. But recognize that they're both - at least here in the US -- enjoying the resources and advantages of having large corporate backing.
"They don't have to be shoved very far back, just behind your independant American creators. Personally, I like how Chicago Comics and Quimby's is set up."
With a little more time to think about it, the above writer came back with a follow-up:
"I feel bad I said American creators: I don't care what that section in front contains -- Hicksville was created by a New Zealander and published by a Canadian company. Megatokyo is American manga. I think both should have a place up front because neither is the product of a large corporation with specific goals that don't include the development of a creator-owned market based on the book-publishing industry here in America.
"And that's probably my biggest argument. I can see two reasons to get excited about translations of Japanese comics. Both those reasons come with a big 'but':
- "It brings readers back into comics. Maybe, but I want to see statistics that show how those readers are diversifying their reading. Will they also buy Hicksville or Hutch Owens? Or is this just another closed society of comics readers? It remains to be seen and as you pointed out: you don't diss the romance readers. But you also don't expect much more from them.
- "Competition should change the playing field. Oh, I hope so. I hope we move toward a new creator-owned market that resembles the rest of the publishing industry. There's hope there, but there's nothing to suggest that this plays into the interests of any of those comics corporates -- not Marvel or DC (since they're all about owning properties) and not the companies translating Japanese comics (since they're about promoting translations of comics from Japan).
"Bottom line: Manga and superhero comics are like milk in a grocery store -- you don't put them in the front because people will walk in and walk out. You put them in back - not tossed carelessly but displayed just as carefully and thoughtfully as everything else in the store - because you want people to see what else there is to buy, you want to develop a diversified clientele."
I'm not sure I'd actually go this far. I have no problem with a representative sample of the best superhero comics given prime display space; rather, I object to them getting all the prime display space. It's just as stupid to totally de-emphasize a given genre for past sins of the market as it is to "experiment" with other forms of comics by shoving them in the back while leaving your store looking like one gigantic advertisement for fistfighting guys in their underwear. Either tactic needlessly limits your audience. Likewise, I have no objection to "corporate" comics, per se (the way they tend to treat their creators is another matter entirely). So long as there's room in the marketplace for everyone who can convince the retailers that their work is artful and potentially saleable, it strikes me as little more than sour grapes to object to the presence of major companies making money. I'm quite comfortable with capitalism -- what makes me uncomfortable are the current practices of the Direct Market, which cultivate the already-converted at the expense of new customers, denying potential sales and creating the sort of conditions that the free market rewards with bankruptcy and ruin on a regular basis.
Besides, major corporations do occasionally break from their pervert-suit traditions and strike gold with products that appeal to someone besides the hardcore faithful. Can you say Sandman?
Finally, my little Doomsday scenario for the Direct Market generated a healthy amount of email, but I've decided to set it aside for my next go-round on the subject. Speaking of which: remember when I promised to have said go-round online "Monday or Tuesday"? Lies, nothing but filthy lies. Fate and the Journal's managing editor have conspired to draw me into TCJ #251's nefarious deadline vortex, and my free time has just diminished until at least Wednesday. Given how much I still have to write on the subject, you might not hear any more about this until the weekend -- we shall see. In the meantime, webloggers Franklin Harris and NeilAlien have cast a disbelieving eye on my theory; I'll respond to them during Round Two, but in the meantime those of you interested in the subject might wish to familiarize themselves with their objections.
Like the sidebar says, send email to weblog@tcj.com -- all email is considered anonymous unless you volunteer otherwise, and assumed printable unless you say otherwise.
