Stick It To Me

Two questions from Michael O'Sullivan, in the Auld Sod (It's what Americans call Ireland. And now the Limeys will go berserk with the second word…).

"Why aren't comic books and graphic novels accepted by the mainstream in the UK as an important artform, like they are in France and the rest of mainland europe? Why are comic readers stigmatised? People reading trashy magazines are fine, but reading a comic makes people think you are some type of outcast with no mates or intelligence?"

You know how we call Tony Blair "The Poodle" because he's George Bush's lapdog? I guess the same applies to the attitude about drawn books. Whatever the Yanks are doing, the Brits lap up. Including attitudes, art, storylines. Cuz how else to explain it, I'm at a loss. I mean, these are the people who invented MUSIC HALL, if we want to talk about taste!

The Germans have the same problem. They do whatever the Americans are doing, and not as well. Of course, I'm not talking about people like Diana Sasse (www.kennedy-tales.com). Or Ralf Koenig (www.knollennasen.de -- still mostly under construction, but one of the funniest homepages ever). There ARE Krauts and Brits who do amazing original things. But their markets got hooked into the same wrong road as the American, and they're in the same stagnant puddle. One good thing about the Bush mess is that the Germans have totally and completely lost all respect for the Americans – their post-WWII view of the States as the hope of democracy has finally, and completely, crashed, even if there was anything left of it, ever since our mask came off. Let's hope a new sense of independence shows up in all venues, including drawn books.

"Do you find that at festivals, or conventions or expos that celebrate comics there seems to be a huge divide between the "big fish" and the "small fish" (i.e. DC/Marvel and small press) that really shouldn't exist? IF you think it does exist, why?

I've never found anybody "big" who really acts that way -- or anybody who's "small" and good who thinks they are. These are all very nice people. And if you think I have no sense of proportion – I have been around sci/fi geeks, the US Army, leatherfolk, furries (shudder) and horse people, among others. You people do not know what hierarchy snobbery IS. If you've never been invited to dinner by Mrs. General as the token W.A.C., I don't want to hear it.

As for dividing up the herring and the halibut – consider what a press has to pay for a booth. The big guys can afford all the buttons and whistles, and the little guys can't. Do you want your little one-issue table with the red tablecloth to be next to the giant screens of DC? When I worked the slabs at the Pikes' Place Market in Seattle, there was a guy we called "The Sticks." He was a nice guy, but he had these amazing whirly juggling sticks, that simply sucked the attention of the audience away from whomever he was stationed next. I don't even like Spandex, but those displays are kind of like a train wreck – you can't look away.

I will say this, every since email, the big guys have been a lot friendlier. Used to be, you had to schedule these appointments to grab somebody even for five minutes, if you were lucky. Now the pres of the company may be just as likely to say, "Oh, yeah, give me your email." Be sure to write on the back of each business card what you two were talking about, of course, or you'll come back with a pile of bc's that mean total squat to you – and to the person you email after the show. They WANT to remember, but they're going through their own little clueless stack, too, and for the life of them they can't remember what they were supposed to have been discussing.

Sometimes Big Guy just means More Confused, simply because of volume. Oh, don't get me started about doing business with Baker and Taylor, the big book distributor – they're like dealing with MCI or ATT. The left foot don't know what the right ear is doing.

By the by, I was just talking to Booksurge (my POD company – www.booksurge.com) and we were discussing Free Comics Day at Diamond (www.diamondcomics.com) and we realized --

You know what FCBD really is? It's the distribution of free books to small shops, just as the bookstore market intended back in the '20s, and which today has blown up into the big chains returning and pulping books by the millions of tons.

If all the publishers took their backstock and simply shipped it out to small shops in the bookstore market, for PR purposes and to build market, it would get rid of the terrible returns boondoggle.

I told David Galloway at Booksurge about FCBD, and you could hear his mouth fall open over the phone. He thought it was a totally great idea, and revolutionary.

Once again, the commie book market leads the way.