Rank has its privileges.



But considering he's a hypocrite, he should just STFU, right?



I'm trying figure out what he's done since he's made those points which would fall into that category.

You've gotta be fucking kidding. I've been saying over and over here that this is one of the last DC books I still get for how long?

Heidi MacDonald agrees with you. Says she:

BEFORE WATCHMEN makes me sad because what we really, really need in comics is NEW successful ideas.

A new book by Darwyn Cooke, a new book by Brian Azzarello, a new book by Adam Hughes. Amanda Conner telling DC “Here is my new project I want you to publish,” should be cause for excitement and high fives.

But it isn’t.

Did you know that when SPACEMAN, the new book by Azzarello and Eduardo Risso came out last fall, in the middle of the New 52 firestorm, only a single preview was published anywhere on the internet?

One week before the book came out, Io9 put out a five page preview. I know because I had been looking for preview pages to run to promote it and there weren’t any.

In terms of prestige, this is like the new movie by Alexander Payne. The new book by Junot Diaz. The new TV show by J. Michael Straczynski.

In a world where creators were the story, a new project by an award winning team should be just as big as The New 52. It should be greeted with huzzahs and champagne.

What it did get: a $1 #1 issue and a five page preview on i09.

And thus, Moore should STFU about about it. Take your statement to its logical conclusion.



No, you just want to have people agree with you that it's a "difficult issue." When it's not.

And you know why it isn't? Because none of those people can sell comics the way Stephen King sells books or James Cameron sells movie tickets. And that's not DC's fault.

It's the audience's fault. SPACEMAN #4 sold 13,394 copies. It was outsold by the latest issues of THE TWELVE, AMERICAN VAMPIRE, DARK TOWER, ARCHIE, THE BOYS, FABLES and it sold over 10,000 fewer copies than FEAR ITSELF: FEARLESS #8 and #9. A spin-off series from a widely panned Marvel "event" that ended over 4 months ago came close to doubling SPACEMAN'S sales.

It's also the creators' fault. No one's forcing Azzarello or any other creator to take their latest project to DC. No one's forcing them to toil away in the Direct Market. There's a whole world outside the DM that just become nigh infinitely larger thanks to web comics.

I mean, there's a trillion prose authors who wish they could walk into a publisher and say "Here is my new project I want you to publish" and not get laughed at or ejected from the building by security.

None of which excuses money grubbing comic publishers or how they've unfairly exploited creators, of course.

Mike

To a degree, yes.

But promotion is one of the responsibilities of a publisher -- to advertise a comic, to make potential readers aware of it, and to get it out there where potential readers will see it.

DC spends most of its effort flogging the superhero crap. So that's what the audience mostly is aware of, and that's mostly what sells.

It would be nice if everyone who read comics took the time every week to scour the Previews listings and all of the online solicitations, studied the hundreds of offerings, compiled a lengthy list of many and varied titles, and dropped $100 a week, minimum, buying this stuff.

In other words, if there were more Allen Montgomeries.

But for many of us -- we've got jobs and families, homes and cars and chores to take care of, other hobbies -- and we're going to spend, at the very most, a few hours and $20 a week on comic books. My own comics habit is largely satisfied by whatever cheap trades and graphic novels I find in local used bookstores, much of it older stuff.

If you publish a cool comic for a year and I somehow don't hear about it, ennh, shame on both of us, I guess. Of course, I'm not the one whose livelihood depended on my buying your comic.

You're a good example of a good target audience to try and reach, for off brand commercial and indy stuff. You are open, willing to buy trade without a regular issue test drive if you like the look of something or get a good recommendation.

How would a publisher or an indy comic creator reach a guy like you?

I stopped reading previews a few years ago, I read comic headlines off twitter, I don't actively seek out anything but I take recommendations from people I respect, so failing that if it's not on the shelves at the LCS by the time I get there I miss out.

I'll go you one further: in an age of digital and on-demand publishing, promotion is the only job a publisher has; the only thing that keeps them remotely relevant.

The publisher exists to increase the number of eyes on a book. Everything else can be accomplished with an internet connection and the pack-in software on a desktop computer. If publishers want to exist ten years from now,* then they need to haul ass on the areas where they actually add value to the process.

---
*And lord knows they complain about the possibility that they won't.

Super-hero crap has consistently outsold everything else in comics for about 50 years now. And since DC owns all its super-hero crap, pending further legal decisions, and can also exploit it with merchandising crap, how does it make sense to spend less time flogging that and more time pushing stuff that...

1. Sells less.
2. Is not merchandizable.
3. They do not own and will not get any benefit if it's monetized in some other fashion, like a movie or TV deal.

Mike

Let me try and put it this way.

Who originally published THE ROCKETEER? Are they still in business? Would they be if they'd gotten some of that movie adaptation money? Would Dave Stevens have even done the book if he'd had to self-publish it?

Mike