Rolling Comic Books 2020 Visions

I've never really understood why comics completely quit the same distribution system that magazines and other periodicals use. I'm guessing it's too low volume, but the way the comic book dealers ship, it's no returns. There appears to be plenty of esoteric magazines out there that have to have fairly low sales numbers, why are comics different? I'd figure that would be great for whoever distributes magazines.

don't remember the exact reason but i don't think it made much sense
specifically talking about the no-return system, but pre-order-in-almost-exactly-three-months system is also awful

Again Cartoonist Kayfabe, the David Choe interview was nuts but I didn't know much about him before. He hasn't done much comics but he has a lot of stories about comics people he knows.

Comic shops have to handle subscriptions and special orders week in and week out, customers demand books be all but mint conditions, anything past like Spider-Man and Batman requires salesmanship. Shops need a hub where they can special order that book from three months ago for someone - not an issue for a store that carries Time.

Periodicals are just there, it's a different model.

The ordering in advance is also how they're unlike other periodicals - like, one issue of Teen Vogue isn't going to be a blockbuster because they revealed something on page 47. Batman will be. So orders go in to set print runs, then are adjusted again a few weeks before actual shipment.

I respect that this system is difficult for the shops to run it as well. But in my experience - as someone who stepped away from floppies for about two decades and came back to the fold about two years ago - I am trying my *Damndest* to help keep my local shops afloat with subscriptions and advance orders, spending a lot of extra time to find things to pre-order, selling myself. Holy shit it is awful compared to just, you know, buying books, films, or anything else in life. (Some of it is specific to my local shop, I'm sure...)

For example - If the store doesn't order WAY too many issues of an issue, then they get shorted (which can easily happen if your store ordered like only one copy of a low-selling book like Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, or even like an issue of something like Batman that suddenly gets really hot), then you have to hope a reprint happens...three months later. God help you if you try a random new book or miniseries and want to catch up. If I see something advertised on Comiclist (these are official press releases and solicits) with on-sale dates... nope, Diamond's garbage Windows 3.1-era-looking software isn't letting you order it yet, try again in a few weeks, maybe it'll be available, maybe not.

Meanwhile - and I'm talking about TPBs, manga, hardcovers here - I can just one-click pre-order on Amazon a year in advance and forget about it. I rarely do this anyway, but I feel like I have to play all these games when ordering from an LCS. Too much of the time I end up filling issues from eBay or Midtown Comics online down the road. It makes the hobby frustrating when there's a million other things competing for my attention and money.

shortened point: returns should be allowed, ordering should be easier.

Too much of the time I end up filling issues from eBay or Midtown Comics online down the road

great news for you!

sigh

Temporarily at least. I'm laying odds on DC completely bailing on print by this time next year, which would take down print comics in general IMO and Midtown/DCBS with them.

There are a couple of conversations I know are happening this week with the retailers a level under Midtown/DCBS that will demonstrate their commitment to print under the new system.

All the problems you're talking about are real but many of them are unavoidable, like pre-ordering and not carrying everything that's available mail order. It's just not possible for brick and mortar of any kind to compete on selection or price with mail order/Amazon. Retailers basically have to hope they have what you want and if not c'est la vie. I don't think there's a system in existence that can change that. I've never found an issue with ordering something once it hits Diamond's system - that's not a software problem or a Diamond problem, it's publishers not communicating hard and fast details about publish dates and everything to Diamond so that it can be entered into the order system. No one can go on press releases.

Returnability isn't really that great a deal - you still have to have the cash flow to make the initial buy and in bookstores it comes back as credit rather than that cash. DC has had a lot of returnable books over the last year and they're months behind on letting them be returned. I don't think it would radically change the industry, except that it would bankrupt some shops who got trigger happy planning to recoup the unsold merch in 8 weeks.

I dunno, just from the inside I can't imagine being mad at anyone but Marvel and DC for making it impossible for readers to just walk in and buy a random comic off the wall and get a complete narrative, constant reboots and rejiggering and crossovers and EVENTS. Image to a lesser extent for not keeping anything on a regular publication schedule. Walking Dead remained huge up to the end because it came out every damn month come hell or high water. When a book takes a six-plus month hiatus it loses most of its readership. Saga's awesome but whenever it starts publishing again, half as many people will care.

I hate that Marvel and DC do that too, but I have to blame the readers for supporting those giant crossover events. (In recent times, shit like Absolute Carnage, War of the Realms. I found DC's events a little better self-contained, but still kind of bad. Even DCeased can't just be a single straight miniseries at a time!) As long as the books keep selling, they're going to keep doing it. Gotta give the people what they want, I guess. Except consistency.

I don't totally disagree with what you're saying, but it almost makes me feel that the business model deserves to die if those problems are truly insurmountable. Let most comics go digital. Last year an owner was complaining to me how insane it was that Marvel and DC alone were publishing ~75 floppies a month EACH, I don't see how that's sustainable for readers or shops. They can't even properly advertise all the series they're publishing.

That's interesting to know about Walking Dead and Saga though - I thought Saga was doing great.

...And also, I guess, be thankful Immortal Hulk hasn't had any major delays.

Everything's a blur to me but Saga's last issue was sometime in 2018 and it's not on the horizon. People will have just forgotten about it if/when it comes back.

If comics go digital the format will change/die - there's no incentive to do 12 issues and deal with all the staffing/delays/etc.. Everything will be original GNs on an intermittent schedule and all the smaller publisher stuff will just not exist.

12 monthly issues

I say that with some certainty because all the major events end up getting stretched and delayed for one reason or another and they only keep doing it because of the relationship with comic shops. Acting more like a book publisher (but really just building IP for the mass entertainment divisions) would let them cut a ton of staff costs.

I skipped around the Steve Bissette interview on Cartoonist Kayfabe (it's enormous) and he talks about his plans for Tyrant. He still definitely wants to do it.
I didn't know anything about his aborted trilogy of Swamp Thing novels.

I have to admit, while I am a big fan of Ed Piskor's work, I can't stand listening to or looking at the guy. Something about him.

That's harsh, and I love his voice! Maybe there's tons of slightly Mitch Hedberg sounding guys wherever he's from but it's a novelty to me.

I'm continually astonished how well an independent comic from the early 90s could do.

Also very interesting was Bissette talking about when he was deciding to give up comics, about a distributor that would have been much better than Diamond but died because Image chosen Diamond along with DC.

...one that wasn't Capital? No-one else had the same level of infrastructure.

It was Capital.

Yes, their big guns in the exclusivity wars were the moral victories of Kitchen Sink Press and whatever name James Owen was publishing Starchild under at the time.

Before the DC right-to-buy deal memo broke.

Fascinating mystery in here. At the 13 minute mark there is a japanese magazine celebrating american comics, with cosplay and japanese artists drawing some Marvel heroes; but also this "what in fuck is that?!" moment, something completely unfamiliar that I doubt is even american but looks amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4vu7NmQowA
I just love the stuff with flipping through trashy and obscure comics so much. In my days of back issue shop hunting I didn't see nearly enough stuff I didn't already know about but it was great when I did. Finding a Glenn Chadbourne comic was a special moment and there were some odd small press british comics and a ratty sword and sorcery comic I wish I picked up.
I'll never love most of this stuff completely but I feel some love has been reinvigorated and I should give some of the really bad 90s comics more credit because there's still things about them I really like, and a feeling that there was serious potential from these types of comics that was never really realized and a slightly different audience that could have been cultivated.

So much great comics-adjacent artists, too bad they had to all be on instagram (which I think is a pain in the ass to browse and you can't save images). Probably too many of them draw eyes similar though.

https://www.instagram.com/julimajer/
https://www.instagram.com/lilisignorini/
https://www.instagram.com/bl00mfield/
https://www.instagram.com/slimesistren/
https://www.instagram.com/annadegnbol/
https://www.instagram.com/odaiselin/
https://www.instagram.com/____gage____/
https://www.instagram.com/magsmunroe/

not a big fan of the paul pope inspired stuff but Oda Iselin's work is pretty intresting

A lot of these artists seemed to spring up after Jonny Negron and Lala Albert came on the scene and they all share some similarity, usually the eyes. Post-manga or something.

i thought this was fun in a repurposed batshit rightwing images sorta way
http://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Carlesgod_StaySane_Web-img-3.jpg

hashtag radiohead social media prophecy

I'm glad Print-On-Demand is becoming more prevalent in comics, half the books I read are POD these days. Seen Rick Veitch say it wouldn't reproduce pencil art that well but I hope it keeps evolving.
The Carter Ryder comics and public domain comics are the main things I'm aware of going POD, is there much else notable yet?

Sorry, Carter RydYr

I never really dug Chaykin but his interview was great, such a great knowledge of illustrators but his keen eye suggests he didn't choose his overpowering colorists at Image, or did he?

Still smiling at Choe saying "Ron Lim is a fuckin' pimp".

Re: Groth talking about Eisner, he thought Eisner's graphic novels were a purely cynical attempt at respectability. The acclaim for them seems to have dropped quite a lot.

i'm not a big fan of eisner's graphic novel work (tho lord knows i've tried) but the spirit is right up there with donald duck and mister natural in my pantheon

Contract With God is okay bcz he was stretching to find something new (after decades of desk supervision), To The Heart Of The Storm has some personal feeling involved, otherwise it’s trash melodrama.

His late period is more interesting when serialised in the Spirit magazine, as there’s interesting contrasts between young-Eisner-when-he-was-good (and had good ghosts), businessman Eisner conducting interviews with various generations, and current Eisner trying to find a voice.

That's a shame if his reputation has decreased. I think his stuff is still very much worth seeking out.

I love all old funky 70s and early 80s Howard Chaykin. None of his character attempts (Ironwolf, Cody Starbuck, Monark Starstalker, Dominic Fortune, The Scorpion, etc.) really caught on but they all had a cool energy to them that really appealed to me as a kid.

Its too bad you could not license to put them all together in one book as that would be a cool compilation of a certain style.

Howard Chaykin was cool as fxxx the time I met him at the Chicago comic con as a teenager in the 80s. I think it was '87 they had a backroom for the artists row and it was like Howard Chaykin, Denys Cowan (sharing a table) and like two tables down was Harvey Pekar and Daniel Clowes. Someone like Chris Claremont was speaking and the gallery was really empty at the time, so we got to talk to all of those guys a bit. Good day.

I always liked Cookalein best of all Eisner's non-Spirit work.

Chaykin's visual style appeals to me but i have never been able to finish a single issue of anything he's written. My memory of his writing is that it feels like Frank Miller directed by Verhoeven. Can someone convince me to try American Flagg?

The first 12 issues of Flagg are good, and packed with enough still-timely cynicism and media commentary that it outweighs the typical Chaykin cocksmannery.

i'll give it a go sometime.
I've been exploring the Eisner nominees with mixed returns. Should i post my thoughts here or start a new thread?

Post thoughts here

R.I.P. Denny O’Neil.

I hadn't realized that a friend interviewed Denny O'Neill before a local comic convention. He accidentally misquoted him, saying that O'Neill's mom was in a nursing home and not an assisted living one, which O'Neill nicely corrected when he met him at the convention after the initial phone interview. I guess his mom lived in my city. My friend got to meet Denny's mom, who he brought to the convention, and she was also nice and seemed much younger than her age.

https://www.comic-con.org/awards/2020-eisner-awards-nominations

I find the Eisners to be VERY hit and miss as far as quality and scope goes but there are certainly worse year-past recaps of popular/semi-popular work in the field so hey, why not. I'll jump in by category.

By far the Best Short Story nominee this year is Emma Hunsinger's outstanding long-form public debut and coming of age story "How to Draw a Horse" from the New Yorker. If you haven't already, you should go read it right now at the link below. It's easily among the very best and most memorable short-form comic that I've seen in the past year.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/how-to-draw-a-horse

Hunsinger has a longer project, Chunk, up for free on her website that I read just before posting here; it's remarkably accomplished, thoughtful student work and also more than worth a go. I'm excited to see what she does in the future.

Miriam Libicki's story for The Nib, "Who Gets Called an Unfit Mother" is beautifully executed and timely but, like much of the Nib's comic work, is less like comics and more of an illustrated essay. I will read her Fanta book "Toward a Hot Jew" sooner or later; she's clearly quite talented as an illustrator but I don't know if she's a solid storyteller or not.
https://thenib.com/who-gets-called-an-unfit-mother/

Mira Jacob's "The Menopause" is stiff and poorly rendered. She's gotten really hot as a literary crossover creator but I find her work awkward and the writing dull. Her themes are worth exploring but the scripting is cliched and lacks illumination. This is a pet peeve for me but I'm not seeing any intent in using the art of comics as anything but to prop up literal cut-out figures. Libicki is at least a solid illustrator, this is clip art unsuccessfully utilized.
https://believermag.com/the-menopause/

Matthew Inman's "You're Not Going to Believe What I'm About To Tell You" is of a piece with everything he puts on his abundantly popular and deadly dull webcomic site The Oatmeal: it reads like the unholy child of xkcd and Penny Arcade, the art is Reddit Casual and the tone is 'particularly quirky TED talk'. That clearly works for some people. It does not work for me.
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

I still need to read Ebony Flowers' debut graphic novel collection which includes the nominated title story "Hot Comb" from Drawn and Quarterly. The concept is of interest and the art seems very Aline Kominsky-Crumbesque (which i can hang with) but i wish EVERYONE WHO MAKES COMICS would stop using cursive lettering; it makes my eyes cross. Nevertheless, the critical praise suggests this definitely merits an effort to find. Will report back.
https://drawnandquarterly.com/hot-comb
https://blacknerdproblems.com/hot-comb-review/

ty for all that ulysses!
"How to Draw a Horse" was indeed very excellent! I'll get through the others too. (Though I've already read "Who Gets Called an Unfit Mother" which was good, and I agree with your criticism there)

"Crunk" was great and totally worth reading!

When I read "The Menopause" I recognized the artwork from Mira Jacob, hate the clipart + photocomic style and it's hard to get to past for me. That said, the story is funny and I did like the goofs on Dale Carnegie (his book remains popular btw).

The Oatmeal article is... fine. Pretty much what you said, it's the TED talk method. I don't despise it because I get that they're going for a broad audience, the dumbing down is exactly why it exists.

Hopefully "Hot Comb" gets put up somewhere

Nothing to add (I also really liked Hunsinger and struggled to read the Jacob story) but thanks for pointing me towards How to Draw a Horse and Chunk, both so great

http://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BLACK_LIVING_COVER_Sikoryak_CMYK-Nation-img.png
sikoryak coming through