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From: moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: Comics news and opinions from Henry Vogel (Big News!)
Message-ID: <789@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Jul-85 07:01:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.789
Posted: Thu Jul  4 07:01:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jul-85 09:31:15 EDT
References: <788@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: The Institute for Criminal Masterminds
Lines: 139

In article <788@vax2.fluke.UUCP> henry%clemson.csnet@csnet-relay writes:
>First of all, Chayken (sp?) is leaving - or has left - First Comics. It seems
>he's gotten tired of not getting paid. Yes, First Comics is about three months
>behind in paying people. Timothy Truman is said to have one and a half feet out
>the door up there, too.

Amazing.  Probably no other comic has won more prestigous writing and art
than FLAGG! over the last two years, and then to discover that the creator
is not getting paid... Incredible, and immensely sad, but who can blame
Chaykin for leaving under these conditions?

>As an interesting side note, how many of you thought
>that when Chayken left First, American Flagg would too (raise your hands)? I'm
>glad to see that I wasn't alone in thinking American Flagg was creator owned.
>It seems First Comics owns AF - for all I know First owns all of the books they
>publish (and I would expect they do, now). All that hype about creator owned
>books may have been just that - hype and nothing else.

OUTRAGEOUS!  All this time, First has been saying how it was catering to
independent comics people, and then this.  There is no excuse for that
amount of false buildup on the part of Mike Gold (he has been the biggest
"FIRST is built for independents' use" chanter).  Frankly, I either want the
series to go with Chaykin, or for him to kill it, rather than have it
assigned to someone less talented (and, in my opinion, there are only four
or five people in the industry as talented as Chaykin).  Same goes with Jon
Sable...

>One of the big things Both Dave Kraft and Fantagraphics try to keep up with is
>what publishers seem to be on the financial tight-rope. Needless to say, First
>is taking their first few steps on the rope although I wouldn't yet say they're
>in danger of falling off, yet. However, there are others who aren't so fortu-
>nate. Eclipse is suffering.

Worse and worse.  If any independent company appeared to be handling itself
right in number of titles published, FIRST was it... they added on new
monthly titles only after a couple had been cancelled, thus keeping a
standard number of titles out there.  Eclipse has been going hog-wild in
adding titles onto their schedule, and I've worried for the sake of their
good titles (ZOT! in particular).  Considering that Marvel takes up only
15% of my total budget for comics, it looks pretty grim for the titles I'm
getting now.

>Why is this? Part of DC's problem,
>I think, is they doomed themselves in the 70's when they put out such trash
>and it still sold. Then Marvel passed them by and kept pulling away and DC 
>finally decided they needed to do something. They began publishing good stories
>but it's going to take YEARS to reverse the bad image they built for themselves
>back then.

As discussed in this newsgroup before, there does seem to be a "only Marvel
is good" attitude out there, though this seems to be among the *younger*
buyers -- I would expect it to be among the older ones who dislike trying
anything new.

>That's fine as far as DC goes, but why aren't the independants
>selling? [...] we like to think there are lots of
>adults in the market that would buy it. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe there aren't
>nearly as many adults as we think there are.

According to the Comic Buyer's Guide's poll, over 60% of the people
answering their poll were <= 16 -- and the poll was hyped up much more in
the independent titles than in the Marvel mags.  It may be even more
lopsided than that...

>Maybe the fault is ours.

Afraid not -- this kind of thinking leads to "Our product failed due to the
ignorance of the public".  In a supply & demand market, if you want
something to sell, you have to make sure there is enough of a market to
support it.  Of course, art should not conform to market policies -- but it
is going to have to deal with business realities if it plans to make a
profit.  In other words, it's important to remember that an artist
should (must) be free to create what he or she wants to create; but to
automatically expect to make a living from such work is not a valid
claim in a free market society.  Artists have been predominately poor
throughout history (or have moonlighted :-) ).  Of course, this all leads to
the consistent dilemma of having to do things you don't want to do so that
you can get paid, so that you can do things you want to do.  People who have
jobs they truly, fully enjoy (i.e. there's nothing else they'd rather be
doing) are the exception to the rule, I think (oops, better move this to
net.philosophy).

At any rate, it looks to me like several of these companies planned poorly,
and expanded too quickly, before they had the venture capital to support
their expansions.  Comments?

>It's up to us to cultivate new readers.

Well, as my friends point out literature/movies/etc. which they think I will
like, I also return the favor (perhaps a bit more zealously than they :-) ).
And the number of times I've given my "Comics have jumped light-years in
quality" speech...  I agree that, if the person might be interested in
what's going on, do so (sci-fi readers are particularly receptive, I've
found).  However, I try to avoid zealous behaviour in all things, and as I
have several friends who rarely read in the first place ("I'd rather be
sailing", etc.), I usually discuss other topics around them, just as I don't
talk much about movies I've seen or books I've read around them.  Again, it
strikes me that the industry has to face realities.  It's not very pleasant
to note that if an alternative company is selling to a smaller chunk of the
market than Marvel, they are not going to be able to publish with the
financial freedom (e.g. the number of titles) Marvel does.  But this is
reflected everywhere in this society (look at the summer movies).

>One last thing and then I'll shut up. If you know someone who reads comics but
>isn't reading a book you particularly like, try loaning them issues of it. At
>least try to talk them into buying the book. From the other side of the issue,
>if you hear lots of good things about a book, give it a try! I had been hearing
>many good things about Zot! but hadn't picked it up. I decided to try it and
>I would have to list Zot! as one of my 5 favorite titles now. It doesn't even
>matter if you continue to buy the book, though. Just give the book a try.

Yes... no way to better convince another comics friend that something is
good than to give them a look.  Also, that is one of the major reasons I
love this netnews group -- I've been pointed to many, many excellent books
that I would otherwise have missed.

>To
>forestll the complaints of those who have a limited budget, I'll tell you that
>I have one too.

And, to leave this article on a running net.comics joke, I, too, have a
limited budget for buying comics.  I've promised to have my monthly bill go
no higher than the B-1 bomber annual expenditures.  Of course, I've had to
hedge a little this summer....

And people ask me why I turned to crime...

		"He was sweet and sincere and giving and good... AND A
		 CHERISHED NEIGHBOR UNDESERVING OF SUCH A FATE!!
		"Nevertheless, better him than me.  Amen."

        Expect the Unexpected.
             He does. --->              Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
                                        John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
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