The Great American Comics Shop: Carmine Street Comics

My pal Jon Gorga at the register of Carmine Street Comics, his newly opened shop in NYC's West Village.

Exclusive: Carmine Street Comics, The West Village's New Great American Comics Shop

The summer of 2009 was the worst season of my whole life. I suspect that this is true for many college students spending some time at home between freshman and sophomore year and, for reasons that I don't care to get into here, I had it particularly bad. That August, as I was beginning to come out the other side, I felt that I had to take all that ennui, which built up and then was melted by Chicago's summer sun, and evacuate it.

I called my friend Jon. I said "let's write about comics." And, nearly four years and more than 500 posts later, you're reading the result of that conversation. We're very proud of it. And we have plans to be around for a long, long time. You may have noticed, though, that Jon's presence the last few months has been a little minimal. He's been busy, you see, on a much different comics related project: At the beginning of May, with his partner Mike Novo, Jonathan Gorga is opening up a comic book shop.

Carmine Street Comics' Front Window, All Lit Up

The store will share space with the downsizing Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books in Manhattan and will be called Carmine Street Comics, after its location in the West Village. He and Mike settled on the name in part because his father's name is Carmine, but also, he says, because "we're proud to transplant ourselves to a new place with such a rich history of 20th century culture: this is Bob Dylan's old neighborhood and where the beat poetry movement started. This street has class and pop culture history in spades." Beyond that, it turns out that Carmine Street has a long history with comics retail; in the front of the new shop is a light up sign that simply reads "Comics." That sign came from Village Comics, once New York's largest comics shop. At some point, it moved into a space it shared with Bleeker Bob's on nearby Bleeker Street and then gave the sign, and their remaining customers, to Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books. By opening on Carmine Street, once also the location of a store called All Comics, Jon and Mike are going to bring back something that the West Village has been missing for a long time. In this spirit, they're committed to integrating themselves into the neighborhood; by partnering with the book store, a Carmine St. mainstay, Jon says that he hopes to "provide both their customers and ours something new in our shared space." They're also hoping to add to the West Village's reputation as a good place to just wander around by using the sidewalk space and the abundance of nearby parks for signings and other events.

The Carmine Street Comics team knows that New York's comics retail market is already crowded, but Jon believes that there are a few things that set them apart from nearby shops. Most important, Jon says that he wants the store to be "locally AND globally-focused, superhero AND indie-friendly, because that's what the comics world needs right now, a new place to bridge those gaps. It's my aim to help those connections grow." One of the ways that they're hoping to do that is through what they're calling the In-Store Artist Program, which will allow NYC-based-comicsmiths to use the space as a small studio and as a ready made venue in which to sell and promote their work. There's a whole roster of artists already involved, including Ellen Stedfeld, the store's first official artist in residence, as well as friend of the blog Danny Lewis, Chris Pirate, Dre Grigoropol, Patrick Tsao, and Jason Quinones. Jon says that these people, and people who make comics in general, are the "real heroes of the comics industry."

Although Jon isn't leaving The Long and Shortbox of It!, I have a feeling that he's going to be distracted by Carmine Street Comics for a long time. The shop will be open at 34 Carmine Street in New York City with a grand opening date scheduled for May 1st, in time for Free Comic Book Day on May 4th. I hope you'll be able to come down to Carmine Street and celebrate; I will certainly be there to wish my friend well. In the meantime, if you would like to contact Jon and Mike, you can do so by emailing business concerns to info@carminestreetcomics.com or thecomicsguys@gmail.com for general questions. The website is www.CarmineStreetComics.com.

The Great American Comic Book Shop: Boston

Comicopia, Boston, MA

The Great American Comic Book Shop: Cincinnati

Up, Up & Away, Cincinnati, OH.

Visited: Cave Comics

Cave Comics, Newtown, CT

Variations on a Theme

Variant covers. What the fuck, right?

Different covers. But the only difference is... the covers?

So you can choose which one you like. Like the comic inside but hate the cover? Oh, a variant with something less horrible on it. My lucky day!

Or you could do what the publisher, printer, and retailer really want and buy both.

Nobody who steps into my store can make head nor tails of them the first time...

Some people buy almost exclusively variants.

Variant covers. A cultural force all their own? What the fuck, right?

~ @JonGorga

You Shouldn't Need Super-Telescopic-Vision to See the Comics Industry

If I named an upcoming movie you were looking forward to, you would know the release date off the top of your head. I was looking forward to "Thor", so I knew it was coming out May 6th. I do not work in the film industry in any way.

If you named an upcoming comic I was looking forward to, I could not tell you when it was scheduled to be released. And I work in the comics industry in several capacities. Both Josh and I were looking forward to Norwegian comicsmith Jason's first collaboration with a writer: "Isle of 1000 Graves" but I had no idea it was set to release until it arrived in my store in a box from Diamond Distributors. Nor could I have told you when "Flashpoint" #2 or "Fear Itself" #3 (arguably the two most high-profile series coming out of the mainstream right now) were going to drop. The comics industry has a problem. I have recently named it. Lack of Visibility.

Now, some will be quick to point out that this information is absolutely available. And they are right. There are one or two websites with release schedules. You could ask your local comics shop's employees to take a look at their order forms and/or Diamond Distributors' website. But it's not in your face, it's not the ever-present, everyday, cultural bombardment it probably should be.

Small publisher Fantagraphics (@fantagraphics) is getting around this by posting 'book trailers' of their upcoming releases like this one on Flickr:

and there's many more on their YouTube channel at YouTube.com/Fantagraphics

You should check them out if you're at all curious about their soon-to-arrive comics.

That's an excellent idea, but it requires sitting at a computer, logging on to YouTube and searching for Fantagraphics to find it. As I wrote here, I eventually want comics huge and on Times Square billboards, but in the meantime I don't think it's too much to ask that Comics promotion be in your face at work, at school, and at home just as it is with all the other entertainment artforms.

When DC Comics' (@DC_NATION) big news broke two weeks back, the story was picked up by all manner of normal entertainment news sources as I reported here. The news is a part of our everyday lives. YES, that's a great start but journalism is not advertising (although the distinction can be blurry) and the one thing better than getting people to talk about your art is getting people to THINK about your art. That's why the logo for The Long and Shortbox Of It is a THOUGHT balloon and not a speech balloon. We want you to think about comics first and then talk about them.

There ARE simple and cheap ways to be visible on a small-scale:

[All the following photographs are my own.]

Take a look at how a student advertised her senior-thesis graphic novel gallery exhibition. Nicki France followed the precedent of other studio art majors at Bard College and designed a postcard to advertise her gallery opening.

The front was a two-page spread from the graphic novel itself:


While the back simply has the exhibition's information:


Literally, a little comics in my mailbox. Somewhere I look everyday. YES.

(The Scott Eder Gallery and the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art [@MoCCAnyc] wisely do postcard mailings as well!)

Manhattan Comics & More (@MnhtnComicsMore) a NYC comics shop designed an awesome cross-promotion with Big Daddy's Diner, a restaurant just a few blocks away from the store.
[Manhattan Comics & More is an employer of Jon Gorga.]



Comics advertised at a place I eat. Somewhere I am likely to be. YES.

In the two years I have been going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's cherry blossom viewing festival, I have seen Abby Denson (@citysweettooth) sitting at a booth, putting her comics out there both times. I also discovered in the year between my two Japan-centric visits to those beautiful gardens, that some of her work is available at Tekserve, the 'Apple Store before the Apple Store' here in New York City.



Comics presented at an outdoor event celebrating nature and at a prime location of consumer technology. Two places everyday people of different stripes are likely to be. YES.

Part of the entirely normal and accepted model for making webcomics is printing tee-shirts with logos, panels, characters, and in-jokes from the work itself. Just google "webcomics tee-shirts" and you'll get a ton of examples!

Yes, comics are visible. Comic-strips appear in daily newspapers all over the country and many people read them. But many people don't THINK about them. We need to find ways both big and small and digital and analog to remind people that we are here, that we exist, and that we are doing quality work.

Think about the possibilities. You may surprise yourself.

~ @JonGorga

DC to Begin Simultaneous Digital Release for Major Titles

Today may be a big day in the history of the American comics industry. Just a few hours ago, DC Comics announced on their blog DC: The Source (and through their Twitter account @DC_NATION) that starting Wednesday, August 31st of this year the publisher will release "all of its superhero comic book titles digitally the same day as in print".

That is to say that anybody who doesn't live near a comic-book store (or anybody who doesn't want to bother WALKING to a comic-book store) will be able to download to an iPad or similar digital reading device the last issue of the "Flashpoint" mini-series and the first issue of the new volume of "Justice League" the day they are available in print. (This will be the beginning of a slow relaunch with new volumes of all of DC's major titles. A new series will be relaunched with a new #1 issue every week for a calendar year afterwards. [CORRECTION 6/2/11: All fifty-two new volume #1 issues will be released in FIVE WEEKS.])

[via @f_francavilla via @DC_NATION via DC: The Source blog]

My friend David Brustlin (@davidbrustlin) was just marveling last night at the fact that a prose novel he's pre-ordered will be available for him to read on his Kindle the second it goes on the market. The same is now true of DC's comics as it already is of publisher Archie Comics' titles.

When interviewed by Newsarama.com after Archie's similar announcement in January, Mike Wellman, co-owner of Manhattan Beach, California's store The Comic Bug said "If it was Marvel, DC or any of the other bread-and-butter companies, I'd be much more concerned."

Today's post from DC ends with the sentence: "This year, make history with us."

But, tellingly, the comments for the entire blog are closed and have been for the month of May. Could the company have done so in advance consideration of backlash from this major announcement? Certainly the brick-and-mortar comics retailers are not going to be very happy to hear this news. Marvel's and DC's weekly superhero releases form a large portion of their income and the approximate six-month-delay both companies held up has been perceived as the major barrier to the complete cannibalization of their print sales. That combined with the retailers' (and my own shared) belief that a great number of readers enjoy the tactile feeling of print too much to read more than a very few new titles in e-book form.

The next few months will tell us how true those perceptions are.

~ @JonGorga

Archie Comics Embraces Digital As Immediate Delivery System

In the world we are slowly creeping towards, print will be a niche market for alternative communication seekers, collectors, and history buffs. All mainstream media will be provided digitally.

Well, at least that's a distinct possibility. But if it is a possibility, and it is, the print publishers of the world would do well to branch out now and branch out bravely. One comics publisher is, and has been for several years now.

Quite honestly, this is some remarkable recent news we missed:

"Beginning in April, Archie Comics will offer digital versions of its comics on the same day that the print editions arrive on newsstands. The company will be starting with six monthly titles: Archie, Archie & Friends, Betty, Veronica, Betty and Veronica, and Jughead.

“We have a very exciting little business here,” said Jon Goldwater, the co-chief executive of Archie Comics. “We have to keep figuring out ways of pushing it forward.” ... “The more I thought about it, and the more I saw the sales, I realized these formats aren't competitive, they are supportive,” Mr. Goldwater said."

~ from The New York Times Arts Beat blog, George Gene Gustines, January 12, 2011

And the digital edition's price will be a full dollar less per issue. $1.99 instead of $2.99.

Those six titles are the series the company itself described later as "its 6 core titles" in the recent press release wherein it announced that the same material will be offered through the third-party digital comics publisher Graphic.ly as well as in Archie's own downloadable iPad app. ("Archie continues to lead the comics industry in embracing the digital medium, as well as making it easier than ever for our fans to get their favorite Archie comics." (ArchieComics.com blog, February 16, 2011.) Yeah. Pretty much. Couldn't have said it better.

The move to place their most popular titles in a digital format represents a seriousness in the purpose of this initiative. The fact that Archie Comics, among the oldest publishers of comic-books in America as well as the most often derided, has been the first in America to step up and accept digital is nothing short of remarkable.

That said, will there be a backlash from comics shops fearing a cannibalization of their sales? Probably not. Why? Because comic shops no longer sell many Archie comic-books. Archie has long been a mainstay of the newsstand, itself a shrinking market for the past twenty years. It was pointed out to me by a friend and manager of a NYC comics shop: 'Of course Archie has gone digital before everyone else. They had the least to lose.' This is probably partially true.

In his interview with Ron Richards of iFanboy, Co-CEO Goldwater said: "We value our partners in the direct market [i.e. the non-newsstand, comics retail shops market] ... We see the print and digital reader as two different groups, with some overlap. Some people enjoy going to the shop each week and picking up the hard copies of their titles. Others enjoy the convenience of downloading titles via their mobile devices or tablets." This is probably partially true.

I say: Remarkable nonetheless.

~@JonGorga

P.S. ~ By the way, again we had a big digital move forward announced on a New Comic-Book Wednesday, i.e. the day of the week new comics arrive at comic shops. I'm beginning to realize that's more than coincidence. Drive a few curious people into comics retail shops to see the physical copies on the day you announce your digital move? Very smart comics publishing world. Very smart.

Marvel Day-And-Dates The Ultimate "Death of Spider-Man"

What does THAT mean? Just that Marvel Comics announced plans this morning for a further flirtation with simultaneous digital and paper release of a comic-book at the same paper cost ($3.99) and this time with all the issues in a short but high-profile crossover 'event': namely the "Death of Spider-Man" from their Ultimate Comics imprint.

Those easily alarmed take NOTE: The Peter Parker in "Ultimate Comics Spider-Man" isn't the same Peter Parker in "the Amazing Spider-Man". "Twice the Spider-Man!" said the marketing people in the year 2ooo and we've had two separate ongoing universes ever since.

And in the words of those marketing people: "Marvel is proud to announce that every issue of the hotly-anticipated DEATH OF SPIDER-MAN will be available day & date on the Marvel Comics app, available via iTunes for the iPad, iPhone & iPod touch."

CBR.com's article by Kiel Phegley reprinted that press release with a few comments from the main writer of the upcoming story, Brian Michael Bendis, and the interesting comment: "the issues mark the first event comics – a driving force in comics retail for the past decade – to be offered day-and-date online, though Marvel has been experimenting with high profile releases in this format including the recent 'Invincible Iron Man' Annual and the 'Ultimate Thor' mini series."

The first issues in the "Death of Spider-Man" story are to release in comics retail stores and on the iPad, in February of 2o11.

[via ComicBookResources.com]

And what of those comics retailers? Should they be worried? The crossover 'event' has meant big bucks for them for a long time. I've written on this very site about how much better suited the crossover is to digital simply because it the eliminates the: "Damn! I won't know how this story ends without reading a DIFFERENT comic-book? What the HELL!?" Press a button, problem solved much faster. Or could this prove one of the failings of digital comics? No ACTUAL HUMAN BEING to point to a comic-book and say: "Oh, I've already flipped through that, if you want the whole story you'll have to read THIS first."

However, whether or not "Death of Spider-Man" is a crossover 'event' at all is questionable to me because one of their defining characteristics is the multiplicity of inter-locking comic-book series. Not just one or two. I think one character (or set of characters) appearing in another's book is a guest appearance, two sets of characters appearing in the other's books for one story is a crossover, but a crossover 'event' requires a wider net. Those definitions are far from all-encompassing, I know, but are worth mulling over if for no other reason than nobody else seems to! Why has Phegley specified that "Death of Spider-Man" is an "event" not a "crossover event"? What does he mean when referring to other comics as "high profile" as opposed to "events"?

Is the entire family of terms: crossover, event, and crossover 'event', just marketing hype pure and simple? Perhaps this is all best left to the comics historians of the next generation to worry about, because by just about any definitions you can't call it a crossover 'event' until it's over and done. We will all have to wait and see.

~@JonGorga

P.S. ~ Josh and I have a little plan in the works to probe the nature of digital day-and-date releases in a series of reviews in the coming year!

Festive Curated Conventioneering

I love 'comic-cons'. From stories of Phil Seuling's New York Comic Art Conventions of the 1970s to the current annual monster known as San Diego Comic-Con or attending the wonderful annual Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in Manhattan, events to celebrate the comics medium have, and still do, vary in surprising ways. Gail Simone (@GailSimone) just wrote on Twitter about a new convention in LA specifically to celebrate LGBT comics creators and fans called Bent-Con[be warned, some stuff on their site is sexually explicit].

The concept of the comics convention is evolving into some interesting avenues, and a new example of what it can be was put-up for the public this past weekend: The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. Entirely supported by Brooklyn, NY comics shop Desert Island Comics and publisher PictureBox, who together sent out requests for participation only to the creators, collectives, and publishers whose work they most enjoy. This allowed the event to be small, curated, and best of all FREE for all to attend since no fee was exacted from the exhibitors or artists to hold a table!

Why? In the words of the organizers themselves:

"It’s good to try new approaches to old models! We like this approach better than your standard free-for-all, and it makes a better experience for the random spectator, which is good for comics in general. It’s less like a typical small-press fair and more like an art fair or edited comic anthology. It’s frankly an expression of our own interests, which is intended as a positive contribution to the larger comic and art world." (from the festival website)

But if the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is an experiment, it appears to be a highly successful one as this is the event's second year and everyone I communicated with had a great time. That's, both, on the exhibitor floor and on Facebook and Twitter after the fact.

One of the many pleasant shocks of the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival for me was the discovery that the Jack Kirby Museum offers, as a reward for membership sign-up, a mini-comic version of the singular example of the famous Jack Kirby making comics without editorial interference: "Street Code". It's about Jack growing up in New York City in the 1920s and it had never before been printed as a stand-alone comic. This is the guy who co-created characters like The Hulk, Captain America, and Darkseid bringing his fantastic design sense to the gang violence within, and the architecture of, the ghettos he grew-up in.

This is the museum's Rand Hoppe holding the comic in question:

I also saw the excellent comicsmith Jason Little (@beecomix) [who's in the above photo to the right] and spoke with him about publishing in print after publishing on the web, and bought his brand new mini-comic "Gimmick Illustrated" #1! And I saw and bought comics from the fine folk of Sparkplug Comic Books and the people who work together on the Sundays Anthology.

Bill Kartalopoulos (@bkny) ran SIX creator discussion panels from about 1 PM till just 40 minutes before the show's close at 9 PM. All the panels were held in the basement in which was built an impromptu stage and a screen with a small projector.

One of them was an introduction (for me) to the work of comicsmith Anders Nilsen. Guy creates some smart comics. He recently released "Big Questions" #15. (Nilsen maintains a website here.) This is Bill and Anders talking while the screen displays a page from a previous issue of "Big Questions":

Another of the panels was on the concept of editing comics. Who better to get than Francoise Mouly, the woman who edited her husband's famous comic "Maus". And another on hyper-detailed or hyper-textured art and whether or not it disturbs the flow of the reading experience in the comics medium. The answer-like thing we got was: No matter what the art looks like, the eye must be somehow guided though the images or the comic will fail to be readable. Which makes sense and is damn key to understanding comics!

The exhibitor hall (well technically it was a basketball court but who's counting?) was closing down as I was leaving and I took this photo on my way out the door:

I had a damn good time!

As I've said many times before, the fact that there are different kinds of comics is healthy and keeping that variety will depend largely on people being interested in them.

As such?

Events like this are important and I'm glad this one was packed.

~ @JonGorga

P.S.

The day afterward there was a nice festival tie-in event around the corner at The Knitting Factory:

Mark Newgarden's 35mm reels "Cartoonists and Comics On Camera: 1916-1965"

[12/9/2o1o EDIT: Make that 16mm!]

This was in "How to Draw Cartoons #3 - Expression" with Fred G. Cooper from 1944.

Very... edu-taining.

About Your Paper Renewal?

I wrote an editorial not a long while ago subtitled "The Death of the Great Prints" about the distinct possibility that within our lifetimes all comics publishing will be mainly digital in nature. Every single last publisher will have either taken a leap of faith into the digital ether or perished gasping in trying to sell a physical object to a market that's no longer there.

BUT...

At least one publisher is making that great leap BACK into print. There were about 150 issues of the original print comic-book since the inaugural issue of "Dark Horse Presents" in 1986. The company made a dramatic change when Dark Horse partnered with website MySpace.com to create "MySpace Dark Horse Presents" and there were 36 issues of the MySpace version of the anthology. The last one hit the web in July 2o1o and now, starting in 2o11, "Dark Horse Presents" will be a print comic-book once again after 3 years online. Editor Scott Allie said: "When we launched "MDHP," MySpace was the world's leading website, at a time that you could actually have a clear-cut world's leading website, and we felt that we had the opportunity to do something exciting and new. MySpace was the perfect place to get tons of attention" and publisher Mike Richardson said: "We were excited about [it] because it took comics to a much larger audience". Comics will be available (still for free!) on Dark Horse's website here.

[via Newsarama and CBR/CBR]

Presumably, the company thinks that without one website reigning supreme they would do better to bring the successful anthology back to its paper roots. Simultaneously, some independent creators have begun to take back the printing press as a means of disseminating underground comics, which is, of course, how they did it back when underground comics were called comix.

About two months ago the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art (@MoCCAnyc) held a panel discussion about the comic-strip as a form and how it stands now in a world of newspapers closing down. The panel was called "The Future of the Traditional Comic Strip in the Era of Dying Newspapers". The solutions as presented were two-fold: become a webcomic or join together in a collective. Or both.

Yes, tremendously cleverly comicsmith Bill Roundy makes a comic called "The Amazing Adventures of Bill" that is posted as a webcomic (available at the previous link) and a newsprint comic-strip in a publication called "Coffee Talk", available in various Brooklyn locations. The newspaper comics-section without the newspaper. Brilliant, really.

"Dark Horse Presents" and "Coffee Talk" aren't the only comics enjoying the old musty smell of paper. Several examples of other comics utilizing newsprint were held up by "Coffee Talk" mastermind Tony Murphy at the MoCCA event: (1) a copy of New York City comic-shop Desert Island's local comic, a large-format newsprint comic called "Smoke Screen" and (2) a copy of Brendan Leach's comic: "Pterodactyl Hunters in the Gilded City" (the subject of one of my recent interviews here on The Long and Shortbox Of It), with a cover mimicking an old-style newspaper front page. Printed on newsprint.

Now I had this editorial all planned out in my head up until this point:

Both comics companies and individual comicsmiths have made a move away from the digital realm and back to newsprint. Plain, simple, interesting. Right?

That was before these double announcements from the day before the recent New York Comic-Con (@NY_Comic_Con):

DC Comics (@DC_NATION) will in January 2011 reduce the baseline prices of their entire line of 22-page comic-books from $3.99 back to $2.99.

and an hour later:

Marvel (@Marvel) will lower SOME of the prices of their comic-books from $3.99. Called a "partial move away" from $3.99, Marvel has stated that they can afford this because of the money they're making from their iPad app's digital comics sales.

[via CBR- DC announcement/Marvel announcement] (I really recommend taking a peek at CBR's DC article as they actually breakdown exactly which DC comics will now be $2.99.)

I was in the room at the "DC Nation" panel at Comic-Con where a huge screen displayed a defiant Wonder Woman in the famous 'Rosie the Riveter pose' with the famous statement "We Can Do It!" replaced with something like: "HOLD THE PRICE LINE!" DC Comics SVP and Executive Editor Dan DiDio also made it clear that although this means the back-up stories DC added to the books last year when the prices were raised are disappearing, the characters and stories in them will not.

What does this mean?

Well, obviously, it means we all get to save a little money on our monthlies AND more importantly it means when I recommend a monthly comic to YOU the readers, or to a friend in person, there will be a bit less 'sticker-shock' when we all say: 'Damn, comics used to be 10 frickin' cents!' In fact: 10 cents, 12 cents, 15, 20, 30, 35, 40, 75, $1, $1.25, $1.99, $2.99... I believe this is the first time in the history of the American comics industry that the baseline price has gone DOWN.

But, in the long run? What does this mean for paper?

I'm not sure if it's a vote of confidence in the format or a signal of its demise. Since people have been clamoring for the prices to go back down and the Big Two are giving them what they want, it shows that the big companies care about what their paper customers want. Theoretically they can now give it to them because, according to Marvel SVP of Sales David Gabriel, "We found that in a week's time, the download of the day-and-date [digital iPad app] comics were a little bit less than what [New York City's] Midtown [Comics] orders. They're one of the top retailers in the country, so it gives you an idea of where we're at." So are they giving the comic shop-pers what they want as a temporary appeasement as they phase them out? Meanwhile the guys like Brendan Leach and Tony Murphy are printing on the cheapest paper they can find to keep their decidedly not-corporate costs down.

It seems that if anything can be said about the entire comics industry in America from Marvel Entertainment right down to free comics newsletters at this moment, it's that while there is an ongoing serious flirtation with the digital format, paper still has a major, although changing, place in the distribution of sequential art.

~ @JonGorga

Jon Gorga's Precious Little Time!

Last year's "Watchmen" film adaptation came out and there was a huge fan-fare and the trailer was magnificent, advertisements appeared everywhere, the world seemed to scramble to book stores and comic shops to read it and it sold like crazy for a few months, the action figures were gorgeous and, amazingly, in recognition that something was in the air, The New York Times finally created a 'graphic books' best-seller list (only online, however) and all us comics types were very happy.

Whew! Yeah! Awesome!

[Rorschach action figure image at right from DC Direct website.]

But then something happened. The film was a garish, occasionally unintentionally hilarious, extravaganza of superhero violence.

That was my initial reaction anyway. Can you tell I was disappointed? I've calmed down a lot since that day but I stand by my core reaction: in making a Hollywood motion picture out of Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' mini-series Zack Snyder took out all the quiet character moments and amped up the violent/sexual ones. The resulting film had a lot of the core spirit of the comics, but none of the beauty or honesty.

I said to everyone beforehand: 'Hey, if the movie is great more people will come out jazzed to read it than there are already. If it sucks, millions of regular, everyday people across the world will say 'It wasn't as good as the comic' and mean it." Still, the resulting film was so self-indulgent and violent I feared that there would be a backlash. That people would say: 'See? In reality all that superhero and comics stuff just comes to violence and sex. No more.' Generally, we didn't get that outside of a few cranks. (Despite the fact that we saw it big time when "Sin City"'s adaptation came out years earlier.) More importantly we didn't, thank god, move backward; but the movie's release slowed the progress we were making. Junot Diaz, awesome novelist and establishment geek, said something that amounted to: 'the Watchmen movie trailer was the best thing to happen to the comics industry in a long time.'

ENTER: Bryan Lee O'Malley's series of graphic novels that began with "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" and Edgar Wright's upcoming film adaptation "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" that opens tonight at midnight. The process that came before the release of "Watchmen" has happened again, but bigger because both the film and the last comic are summer releases! Let's hope the last part of the story doesn't repeat as well.

Clare has informed me that not only is the last comic "Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour" sold out in the comics store she works at, but that ONI Press itself has run out of copies of the book and has to go back to the printer and thus only the chain bookstores have copies.

That's pretty remarkable. Superhero comic-books sell out of stock. Indie graphic novels do not.

I think it shows that people really are willing to find comics shops (at least Graphic Novel sections) and try something if they've heard good things/they want to be informed about a big cultural phenomenon at the zeitgeist. That's the one solo difference between this moment in time and past big-scale adaption film releases or films based on non-superhero comics: The sixth book just came out. Everyone can be pretty nearly on the ground-floor together and enjoy the latest (and final) comic and the adaptation of the whole series together.

But if it's a bubble ready to burst (not jinxing it, not jinxing it, not jinxing it) I want to enjoy it too, and the window is closing fast. At time of writing I am 35 pages into "Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together", the fourth book in the series. That means just about three graphic novels to go. I am going to finish them by midnight tonight.

So help me god.

Oh and Twitter. So help me Twitter. Because that's where you'll see my updates on this adventure over the next... YIPES! less than twelve hours! I better get back to reading!

~ @JonGorga (<--See if I make it on my Twitter account! Not the LongandShortbox account.)

Making the Best of It?

There's a new movement of people (proudly?) declaring themselves #notatcomiccon. You can read about it here. 55 comic shops around the country will host parties funded by Dark Horse Comics and something called ChinaShop Magazine, supposedly owned by Red Bull. The goal is to give people who can't make it out to San Diego for the big days a chance to get together in their respective communities.

This is... interesting.

On principle I'm against declaring something in negative terms. I don't believe it to be mentally healthy. Why are you declaring yourself #NOTatcomiccon? It smacks of over-the-top, woe-is-me irony. The promotional images don't help.

On the other hand, on principle I'm for spreading something good out from a single-centralized geographic location. Why should San Diego have all the fun? Furthermore, the San Diego Comic-Con, while probably still a very fun and exciting event, has become increasingly 'the San Diego Media-Con' as TV and film folk originally there to promote their comics adaptation works have, in some people's eyes, begun to take over the convention.

This simultaneous nation-wide party is described as a promotion to "celebrate the highly dedicated culture of sequential art". To me, that sounds like the way it's supposed to be.

"a fun and creative atmosphere where free drinks and over $200 worth of Dark Horse prizes will be available"

I believe that the 24th is the exact date of a previous engagement Clare and I have with a college friend. If it weren't for that, I'd be planning on being at either Midtown Comics (Times Square) or St. Mark's Comics (Brooklyn Manhattan!) here in NYC partying it up!

~ @JonGorga

UPDATE 7/21/2o1o:
I was incorrect on two counts here. One is not my fault because Dark Horse's website gave me bad info. The party hosted by St. Mark's Comics will be at their MANHATTAN location, not their Brooklyn location.

The other, is that the dates were changed for the previous engagement and so you can expect to see me at at least one of the two #notatcomiccon parties. Possibly both!

Digital Comics 3.5 (update): DC Comics Joins the Fray!

So it took them a damn long time but, according to various sources, DC Comics has finally announced and released a downloadable app for the Apple iPad that allows you to read comics.......... wait for it.......... the same day they are released in comic stores. The slumbering giant wakes. (This was one of two possibilities I threw out in the middle of the last entry of my article series on digital comics.)

This 'day-and-date' digital option is a BIG step, even if it doesn't sound like much. This is the step Marvel only made in a half-hearted way with their announcement of a trial day-and-date release for one comic with an increased price-point on the digital version. DC's app will also be available in a different form on the Sony Playstation and supposedly everything will be integrated so that once a comic is bought over the Playstation Network you'll be able to download the same comic for free over the comiXology app.

Keith Giffen and Aaron Lopresti's "Justice League: Generation Lost" mini-series will be the first series to be released simultaneously in stores and for download.

I'm curious to know Clare's reaction to this because she loves DC Comics and finds the iPad very attractive for reading comics (as do I, really) but LOVES her comic shop. I suspect that when her boss learns about this he is going to have proverbial kittens. DC's press release claims that an affiliate program for comic shops will be integrated with their digital effort so that it is "additive" to current ongoing business models. Only time will tell on that one.

Most importantly, according to this video:
....it works like a digital comics reader should: page-by-page with a choice for panel-by-panel.

[via @Wildstorm via @gelatometti tweets via gelatometti blog via DC's The Source blog and Techland.com (who posted the video I embedded above)]

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~ It's pretty wonderful that the first day-and-date mainstream digital comics distribution program came out on a 'new comic-book' Wednesday...

It's Hard Out Here For a Comicsmith (but it's getting better...)

A few weeks ago on this blog, I wrote an editorial stating that the Comics industry needs to begin using the weapons of the Advertising industry. I went on to make it clear that some companies and individuals were already playing the advertising game and playing it smart. Josh's post that followed clinched this by embedding the new "Fables" TV spot running on BBC America. Another whole set of ways that the world of Comics is doing better for itself was displayed to me a few nights ago at a release party for two very different collections of webcomics from two very different creators at Bergen Street Comics:

Upon arriving I was warmly greeted by Amy, the part owner of the store, who remembered my face but not my name from the Free Comic Book Day festivities and stated so up front and honestly. She then offered me a beverage of my choice. After receiving a small can of Coke, I began to peruse what was going on. The two comicsmiths gave a nice talk about their working process. This covered everything up the vertical spectrum from what movies were they watching, what elements from those movies found their way into the work, and how they found the discipline to stop watching movies and get working! A truly full image of the previous months of work was painted for the audience. After this talk, a simple PowerPoint-style video of their artwork and some photos was played allowing us a further peek behind the curtain. As this slide show played, a friend of one of the comicsmiths played an original piece on the cello. (Yes, there was a cello in a comic-book store.) Finally the event became a relaxed party atmosphere surrounded by comics on nice shelves. I got to meet both creators and learn even more about them one-on-one, so here's a bit about them and their comics:

Nathan Schreiber's webcomic "power out"

Really strong stuff.

"power out" is a story of youth, discovery, and dreaming in American suburbia. Our main character is an anti-social video gamer whose parents leave him alone with his sister for a weekend away when a black-out hits his town. Now he has to survive with nothing but his wits and his imagination. The tone is dark with flights of absurdity and the pain of adolescence is on display here in sad and truthful tragicomic relief. It is a great bildungsroman story about video games, sex dreams, and life in modern suburbia. It has been nominated for an Eisner Award (among the highest awards conferable on a comics creator by their peers!) and was already awarded the Xeric Grant.

Nathan is a reserved fellow who was personalizing a lot of the copies of his comic bought at Bergen Street that night and chatting pleasantly with each customer while doing it.

He talked about the commonalities between the two works being celebrated in terms of their common influences. He spoke about separating his work time and his play time as a constant struggle and he defended his choice of composing each page of "power out" with irregularly shaped panels.

"power out" can be bought in a very nicely produced volume one trade-paperback on Nathan's site!

Rami Efal's webcomic "Never Forget, Never Forgive"

This work is really remarkable.

An old-school samurai tale, "Never Forget, Never Forgive" is an intense story about the generational, environmental, and societal gaps that open wider and wider in times of war. It's one of a few works out there ("365 Samurai and a Few Bowls of Rice" is perhaps among them) that synthesizes a lot of the best of Japanese manga with the best of American graphic novels and comic-strips.

Rami is as friendly a guy as I have ever met and we chatted about how he's been using Flash to give his work a bit of 3-dimensionality and the little Flash-integrated-widgets he's deigned to make his life easier while doing it. He recommended keeping a career in comics separate from a career from which you could make a living. He espoused the ease of working image by image with a regular panel size.

"Never Forget, Never Forgive" can be bought as a single thick book directly from the printer Lulu.com or through Rami's own site NeverForgetNeverForgive.info!

Both webcomics were originally serialized and can still be read for free on the webcomics 'super-collective' site Act-I-Vate and both now exist as paperback books for sale. Remarkable world, no?

Much time in my conversation with Rami was given over to the fact that balancing a creative and working life is super freaking difficult and, although I know this to be true from experience, it is always refreshing to hear someone further along than myself speak honestly about it. The discipline to finish working one job and essentially start working another for which you aren't being paid (I think sometimes we all sympathize with the 'villain' of this episode of "due South"at 0:53) is not something that comes naturally. (That scene totally blows the surprise of one of the best episodes of one of the best TV shows ever made. Be warned.)

I found the whole evening wonderful and enlightening because the retailer and the creators engaged in respect and transparency. They were proud of their achievements but also honest about their shortcomings and showed respect for the people as well as for themselves by being straightforward.

This combination of transparency and (self-)respect made me feel comfortable, both as a member of the 'press' and just as a fan/consumer of comics and encourages me to support them in any way I can. I always buy some comics at Bergen Street's events after being given a free drink! It's courtesy. It's smart on their part. In the best sense possible, Bergen Street Comics is not your average comics shop and Amy and Tom are to be congratulated for their ingenuity, drive, and respect. At one moment, as this incredibly talented musician was performing I thought: Maybe we've arrived. All of us as an industry. Comics itself. Amazing. My hats off to you both and best of luck as you continue your second year in business! I wish you many more!

~ @JonGorga

Paolo Rivera, Gentleman Artist!

I had the unique pleasure of meeting the truly amazing artist Paolo Rivera a few weeks ago at a signing event at Jim Hanley's Universe in Manhattan! Rivera has done a great deal of excellent work for Marvel over the past few years including his very cool origin-retelling project with writer Paul Jenkins: "Mythos".

The sketch he's holding is preliminary work for the covers he did on "The Amazing Spider-Man" issues #615-616, which I reviewed a few months ago here!

Meeting people who have a 'public face' for the first time is a strange experience. You 'feel' like you know them, even though you know you don't. Mr. Rivera was generous with his time and his work: He was sketching for a number of fans while chatting with many others. There were three of us standing there flipping through the sketches he had placed on the table... and talking about them. In front of him. I realized suddenly that although we were just saying "Paolo Rivera is awesome!" we were rather rudely talking about him in the third person. In front of him.

So I apologetically said as much and he immediately said that hearing us right there talking about him was kind of cool as it was at least a sort of physically immediate feedback. Sort of like hearing his blog's post comments read out loud. Like I wrote in the title of this post: Paolo Rivera, gentleman artist.

Let that be a lesson to you: Don't be an idiot like Gorga was, engage with these people at cons and signing events. Treat them with respect but not a damn religious reverence, just like you would anyone else.

Rivera is the artist on the upcoming big (possibly huge) Spider-Man story written by Joe Quesada to run in "Amazing" #637-640 in July of this year. We Spidey fans are dreading it, but for reasons completely unrelated to his art. It's another chance for Joe Quesada to change his mind/give the fans what they want/make sense of a two-year-old groaner of a story. Whether he takes that chance (he's had several already), is yet to be seen. Quesada was interviewed about it here on ComicBookResources.com. We're not holding our breath. At least it's going to look gorgeous!

A dynamic figure artist with a sensitive color palette, Rivera really is one of the best talents making comics in the mainstream today! Do not pass up a chance to look at his stuff, read his stuff, or meet him! His bloody brilliant art can be seen on his blog The Self-Absorbing Man!

~ @JonGorga

EDIT (11/28/2o1o):
Oops. "One Moment in Time" was in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #638 #639 #640 and #641.

A Call to Ads

Sometimes I wonder about things. Arty medium difference economical things...

I've mentioned finances and how they affect the Comics industry in a few of my recent posts, and I'd like to expand upon some of that while tackling a whole other industry: the Advertising industry. More importantly, I want to address the connection between the two industries and the wide potenial for the Comics world's deals with the ad men of Madison Ave as I see it.

So "Kick-Ass" (@kickasscomic) is one of the hottest comics on the stands right now (when it comes out). I haven't read every issue yet (the last issue of the first volume, #8, came out back in January). I happen to think it's pretty over-done violent junk, but who am I to judge the tastes of the people.

"Kick-Ass" also just received the silver-screen treatment (@kickassthemovie) and made a somewhat disappointing weekend release that, however, hasn't dropped off in huge numbers since. In the weeks leading up to the adaptation's arrival in theaters this giant billboard could be seen in Times Square here in Manhattan:

Pretty sweet, right? Well, I can't enjoy it because all I can think is why couldn't it be this:

Comics billboard advertising. Why not?

Well, I think to myself: Self, comics can't have billboard ads because the amount of money the rental agency charges the ad agency who charges the person who gets the advertising contract is too huge for the number of people who are expected to see it and then follow their nose into a comic-book store or into a box-chain bookstore and ask for the Comics & Graphic Novels section.

An unfortunate truth, I guess.

Films cost millions of dollars to make and make tens of millions of dollars in revenue, so the ad agency charging the production company can be paid tens of thousands of dollars and in turn spend thousands of dollars on a giant fucking billboard.

So the problem is one of scale or, perhaps more accurately, perceived scale.

But perceptions can be changed, can't they? We just had the annual Free Comic Book Day this month and although it wasn't a failure by any stretch of the imagination, it was pointed out to me by a comic shop manager friend of mine that his boss HATES Free Comic Book Day (@Freecomicbook). Why?

Well, because it's a day on which he is required to shell out money (although not a lot, something like ¢8 a comic-book) for product that he is then going to be expected to give away for free. If he doesn't give the comics away, he looks like a jerk. If he absconds from the whole event, he looks like a jerk who isn't current with the times. So far, financially, this has all worked out because so many people come into the store looking for something free and leave with a few things that aren't free that the store makes enough money to cover the expense and then some. But he still hates that he's giving the product away and there's something else. There's a bigger problem here:

Most of the people coming in are comics readers already because most of the promotion for the event appeared in places comics readers look.

I can understand his point of view even if I don't agree with it. (As I wrote the next day, I saw quite a variety of people.) Most specifically I can agree with the undeniable fact that comics still don't get promotion in the same way the other arts do.

Graphic novel ads on Times Square billboards. Why not?

Comic-book ads on television. Why not?

Magazines, newspapers, radio, subway cars. Why NOT?

Because less people read comics? No. That may be the truth, but that isn't why these ads don't exist. There are ads for all kinds of things that have no market whatsoever in reality. That's the American way. Sell 'em something they don't need! Advertising isn't based on reality it's based on expectations about reality:

Perceived economies of scale.

Whether changing the perception will magically change the reality or vice versa I have no idea, but I do know there are some softball ways to start this process. In fact, some of them are already underway.

Facebook user-designed ads which can be set up to direct a user to a Facebook page are so cheap and, as a result, are appearing for comics, webcomics, and comics-related events. That's really exciting because not only is that advertising in the face of people who theoretically want to see it, it's designed directly by the artistic creators/event planners for those people.

But these are probably called-up from text-search algorithms based on the user's habits. So they'll see these ads only if they already happen to be on Facebook pages with words like "webcomics", "comic-books", "artists", etc...

Marvel advertises for its Digital Comics Unlimited streaming subscription service on all kinds of websites. They have a bunch of them, they look like this:

Not exactly as professional looking as I'd like. It is a web banner ad; it doesn't really need to be too fancy but it only looks marginally better than the user-designed Facebook ads!

The "Scott Pilgrim" people at Oni Press (@OniPress) and Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) really have a good thing going. They've printed up bookmarks that have an ad for the upcoming film adaptation on one side and an ad for the soon to be completed graphic novel series on the flip side.

See?

"SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD" (the movie adaptation)

"An epic of epic epicness."

in Theaters August 13 & @ www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com

*Turn it over...*

"SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR" (the sixth and last graphic novel)

plus! "Catch up on Scott Pilgrim at your local Comic Shop!"

in Stores July 20th & @ www.scottpilgrim.com or www.onipress.com

Now that's smart marketing. You see one side, it excites you and you learn about either the adaptation or the source material when you flip it over!! The film gets advertising, the comic gets advertising, the customer gets a free bookmark. Each side is the same size and in the same place and thus gets the same exposure. Both are true to their respective logos and designs/aesthetics. Nobody behind this marketing tool made an a priori assumption about the number of people potentially interested in a film or the number of people potentially interested in a graphic novel. It's trying to get as many people as possible interested in both and as a result probably has gotten a maximum number of people interested in the related product. Everybody wins!

I don't mean for this post to be a series of admonitions and accolades. All comics companies could be doing more to promote the Comics medium in mainstream avenues.

I saw a Las Vegas comic-book store make shockingly good use of advertising in a large theater in the weeks after the release of "The Dark Knight" two years back. They placed Grant Morrison's recent issues of "Batman" in a nice fan shape (with Alex Ross' gorgeous cape and cowel cover on top) with the deluxe Batman movie dolls Warner Bros. released in a small glass case next to the concession stand. Why couldn't DC Comics do something like that on a huge scale?

Why didn't "Kick-Ass" the movie have a teeny tiny bump play before it started in the theater for the Comic Shop Locator service? Did you even know such a public service existed? 1 888 COMIC BOOK. Really.

Why don't the mid-level to major-level companies create a multi-million dollar coalition (they've done that before on at least two occasions I can think of, off the top of my head) to buy ad space in People magazine or The New Yorker or time on WFMU (I'm told they love Dan Clowes over there. Fantagraphics, you're not taking advantage of a golden opportunity!) or during the goddamn Super-Bowl or ANY OF THE MILLIONS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA SOURCES SELLING ADVERTISING TIME/SPACE?

I don't mean for this to be about what the Comics industry is doing wrong. This is not a badgering admonition. I mean for this to be about what more the Comics industry could be doing right. This is a call. A call to the weapons that lay waiting at the feet of the Comics industry.

I believe in marketing comics, because I believe in the power of the Comics medium. Sometimes, I wish the publishers and advertisers believed in marketing comics too. Maybe the recent acquiring of Marvel Entertainment by the Walt Disney Company will enliven things in this department a bit. I wrote a bit a few weeks ago about the first appearance of Marvel merch in Disney stores. Disney owns radio stations and television channels up the wazzoo, so are we going to see Disney/Marvel making use of those outlets for more than just cartoons of varying quality starring Marvel characters?

I hope so.

~ @JonGorga

Great News, Everyone!

Despite the unfortunate implications of the Futurama reference in the title, I actually do have some good news:

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when Jon posted about Bergen Street Comics on FCBD?

Well, it turns out that they've done something really cool- they've started carrying Danny Lewis' brand new mini-comic Slantwise! Danny, for those of you who don't know, is a webcomics artist, friend of The Long and Shortbox Of It, and all around cool guy. His strip, No One Believes In Monsters, has just started up again after a short hiatus, and is well worth your time.

Danny gave me a copy of Slantwise a couple of weeks ago and, although I haven't had time to review it yet, I've read it several times over and I can guarantee you that it's a fine read. If you happen to be in Bergen Street Comics, please check it out, so that when Danny makes more, Bergen Street will continue to carry them.

Disneyland Has Got Marvel's Goods!

So the first Marvel merchandise has appeared in a Disney theme park store, according to ICv2.com today. Although, The Hollywood Reporter proves it was at least a few days ago, right on time for the release of "Iron Man 2". It is, as ICv2 points out, a first step to the integration of Marvel(@Marvel) merch into Disney retail, which is good in and of itself, I think.

In fact, the Online Disney Store has started carrying a healthy amount of Marvel items as well. [See image below of Online Disney Store Marvel product details.]

[Image at left and original report, via The Orange County Register here.]

The appearance of Marvel stuff at Disneyland is the first real, tangible consumer-side proof that the acquisition has gone through. It took almost six months, which is exactly what the pundits were saying it would take for any effects to take hold at all. Hopefully, this means it will take even longer for them to get their hands dirty in the trenches of Marvel Comics editorial... if at all.

Generally, let's hope for: At all.

(Not that it would be 100% bad, but better not to tempt the dragon.)

More exposure for Marvel's goods and characters outside of the limits of 'kid's merchandise' is a good step forward for Marvel (the specific shop is in the more adult-oriented Downtown Disney). But will this cut into the market of the comic specialty shop? If someone already bought an Iron Man t-shirt last summer at Disneyland, will they be less willing to buy another one at their local shop?

I suspect the answer is no, but I also suspect that won't stop the comic shop retailers of America from getting upset about it anyway because, theoretically, if the Disney Store offers the same Marvel merchandise as the average comic shop. and the Disney store is more high profile, people will go Disney first and then not be interested in the comic shop.

BUT

Equally theoretically mind you, if someone really, really liked "Iron Man 2" and they happen to be in a Disney store they're going to buy Iron Man stuff but it is almost equally possible that they are going to be in a comic shop first and buy the Iron Man stuff there. Furthermore, if someone buys a T-shirt or a toy of ol' shellhead at a Disney store and they want more (like... trading cards, the new awesome COMICS by Matt Fraction[@mattfraction], or the cool old COMICS, hardcover COMICS collections, vintage action figures, buttons, pins, nice expensive statues!) they might just seek out their local comic-book store with an inquisitive and money-spending mind. And they might just buy some comics.

I say that the industry as a whole, from the publisher to the retailer to the consumer has more to gain and not to lose from the appearance of Marvel merchandise in Disney stores.

And after all, those old Warner Bros. stores used to carry DC Comics (@DC_NATION) stuff and the world didn't end.

I am, as always, hoping for the positive!

~ @JonGorga