This week marks the official launch of the Reed Graphica imprint and the release of its first two graphic novels, Jack Jackson’s Comanche Moon and David Chelsea’s David Chelsea in Love. Reed Graphica is an imprint of Reed Press that will feature fiction and nonfiction works in graphic novel format. According to Reed Graphica’s website: “These modern-day comic books—aimed at adults—use high quality art in graphic format to convey substantial topics such as historical and autobiographical accounts. … Now one of the fastest growing trends in publishing, Graphic novels will increasingly be found in major and independent bookstores and online. Reed Press will be one of the premiere publishers to successfully bring this alternative literary format into the trade, institutional, and library markets.” In order to gain a proper perspective regarding Reed Graphica’s plans, SBC interviewed the imprint’s consulting editor, Calvin Reid. Reid is also an editor at Reed Business Information’s Publishers Weekly magazine responsible for general publishing news as well as comics. SBC will also be interviewing Jackson and Chelsea on their respective works in the near term.
Tim O’Shea: What is your response to people who may voice "conflict of interest" concerns given that your role in comics journalism for Publishers Weekly (PW), in addition to your new duties as imprint editor for Reed Press?
Calvin Reid: That's a fair question. Part of the problem is that we are still building and institutionalizing comics coverage here at PW. And for better or worse, I have the deepest and broadest expertise in comics at the magazine. At the risk of sounding immodest, I don't believe that I can simply drop any involvement with PW's comics reviews or comics news without hurting overall comics coverage at PW. Plus I'm only a part-time book editor. My role in comics here at PW has developed into a structural "conflict" that is not unusual in modern conglomerate corporate publishing. The New York Times reviews books by its own writers or covers the media stories of its subsidiaries like the Boston Globe. The Chicago Tribune has to cover the Cubs [SBC FYI: The Tribune Company The Tribune Company has owned the Chicago Cubs baseball team since 1981]. I've had discussions with Jeff Zaleski, the editor of PW Forecasts, the book review dept at PW, and we've tried to come up with a process that will allow my graphic novel line to be reviewed by PW without favor. Reed Graphica comics will be handled by another editor in the Forecasts department. I will have nothing to do with them and the reviews will run in the magazine, praise or pan. I'm publishing acclaimed comics authors like Jack Jackson (Jaxon) and David Chelsea, not to mention upcoming works by Joe Chiapetta and John Pham, both of whom have won Xeric awards. The books I publish can hold their own in the court of literary opinion. I should also mention that the first edition of David Chelsea in Love was reviewed by PW when it was first published in 1991. I'm not sure if we will need to review it again. However, we will review Comanche Moon, which has never been reviewed by PW.
TO: Am I correct in assuming that the first two books to be published by Reed Press were selected with the thought "this should send a message of the kind of product Reed Graphica will be offering?" What is it about Jackson's and Chelsea's work that you felt suited them best to be the first offerings?
CR: I think every book you publish says something about your publishing program. I wanted our initial list to emphasize quality nonfiction because Reed Business information, our parent company, does a lot of business with the library market and the overall Reed Press list is nonfiction. But my first two books are simply outstanding works of comics literature that I have loved ever since I first read them. In fact many times over the last 10 years I mused to myself that if I ever got the chance to publish graphic novels, I'd love to bring those books back into print. Turns out my wish came true. Jackson is a true historian and an entertaining one to boot. Chelsea is simply a gifted comic (as in comedy) storyteller who can be funny while offering a personal and substantial narrative. .They are both excellent draftsmen and the books are as well illustrated as they are well written. They are both examples of the kind of trade book that if published well, will sell forever on backlist.
TO: How complicated a process was it in getting these two projects together from the point of initial discussions to their ultimate releases?
CR: Not very complicated at all. I just gave Jaxon a call and we dickered over the advance a bit and he accepted. David and I are old friends from his days in New York and he accepted pretty much right away. I also gave the both of them a big sales pitch about support for their books, meaning the national sales and distribution force that will be supporting every Reed Press title. Something neither of them has ever had before. There was some back and forth about the details of the contract and production. I wanted to shrink the trim size of the books from an oversized album to a smaller trade book size (7x10") that I believe works better in stores and is more attractive and portable for consumers. They were a little worried about shrinking the books but eventually they agreed and signed.
TO: I was struck by how often non-traditional news sources cover Jack Jackson's work. Given the nature of the subject matter, he is quite often reviewed by historical/scholarly journals. Do you think Jackson attracts a distinctly unique market share, because of his choice of subject matter?
CR: As I noted earlier. Jaxon is a true historian, his books show great research and offer the depth and historical context that scholars as well as the educated general reader expect. He is also a tremendous storyteller who writes narrative history that is lively and entertaining and often damn funny. I believe his subject matter is fascinating but I think we don't even know what his market might be. I don't believe his books have had the distribution in general trade bookstores that would expose them to a sizeable market that I believe would love them.
TO: What are the near-term plans for publishing additional books in 2004? Is Reed Graphica planning to wait and gauge how the first two books perform before proceeding further on any other works?
CR: We're publishing Joe Chiapetta's Silly Daddy in Spring of 2004 along with a new edition of James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook's Seven Miles a Second. Chiapetta has reworked his comics into a long autobiographical narrative that outlines his own eccentric life and his determination to be both a good artist and good father to his daughter. All this despite his own quirky personality, a divorce and the usual obstacles of life. Seven Miles a Second, which was published by Vertigo before it went out of print, is the story of David Wojnarowicz, the east village artist who was at the center of the AIDS/NEA controversy of the 1980s. Romberger and Van Cook worked with Wojnarowicz to adapt his journals to comics and the two finished the book without him after his death. It is the story of Wojnarowicz's life as an abused child, kid prostitute on 42nd street, his redemption by becoming an acclaimed artist and it recounts his confrontation with his own the possibility of his own death from AIDS. It's a tremendous work of literary memoir; it's critically acclaimed and we're damned lucky to be able to bring it back into print. The book is often adopted for use in University cultural studies classes. In the fall of the 2004 we're publishing the Collected Epoxy, the Xeric award winning stories of John Pham, in a new edition designed by Pham. Great stories, beautifully illustrated and designed. I have other books in mind but partly you are right. I believe that the books need to prove themselves in the marketplace. But I expect them to do just that and I expect to have new titles to announce for the fall and beyond at a later date.
TO: As a journalist who has covered the industry for well over nearly a decade and a half, where do you feel is the greatest area of growth potential for the industry--is it bookstores? On a potentially related note, how much could graphic novels benefit from some titles becoming the subject of book discussion groups (a community service that some bookstores offer)?
CR: I hope I can say this without dissing the direct market, but without question I believe that the future of the comics medium is in general trade bookstores. I also believe that comics shops will survive and indeed in the future will become much more like general bookstores. Manga is seeding the bookstore market for comics that deal with a broad range of subjects and topics. Superhero comics are not going away, they are going to become book format comics and will sell right along with nonsuperhero comics in the bookstores. I also don't believe that pamphlet comics will disappear. But I do believe will we see steady growth of the presence of book format comics in both general trade stores and the direct market. But I work in the book industry and that is my focus. Bookstores offer a wider audience and an audience that demands more than superhero stories, no matter how sophisticated superhero comics have become. The potential for sales in the general book market, the potential to dramatically increase the people who read comics-this is happening already with manga in bookstores. We are already seeing young girls and women reading comics, mostly manga, in numbers we've never seen before. But I'm biased. I've been working to try and raise the profile of comics in the book industry since the mid-1980s and we seem to be on the verge of seeing comics become a significant niche in the book trade. But there's much more work to do. And yes, discussion groups have shown themselves to be a great tool for marketing prose books. I certainly believe they would help the sales of book format comics as well.
TO: How much (or little) an impact has been made in getting graphic novels into public libraries. It seems some librarians are quite eager to incorporate GNs in their holdings, as a means to attract patrons with a different kind of product than the norm?
CR: Manga, general bookstores and librarians are the holy trinity of booktrade comics publishing at this moment. Librarians have changed dramatically. They used to view comics as some kind of anti-book. . But that has changed. There's a new generation of librarian that understands that comics are books too. If you go to national or regional ALA (American Library Association) meetings you will find that the biggest, most enthusiastic, most packed panel discussions are about graphic novels. Comics attract teen readers, especially boys, and librarians are desperate to get teens (especially boys) to read books. And they know teens will read graphic novels. This year at BookExpo which held a day-long events focused on the issues around graphic novels in the book trade, comics publishers in attendance at BEA talked to me endlessly about being approached by librarians and their enthusiasm for comics. Librarians have embraced graphic novels and are manic about getting them into their stacks.
TO: Anything else about Reed Graphica that you'd like to discuss that I did not address?
CR: I've been incredibly lucky. This is a dream come true. Being able to publish people like Jack Jackson is a privilege, but the support given to me at PW has been tremendous as well. My editors at PW (they know who they are) have allowed me to cover the comics industry even when they weren't really quite sure why I was bothering. Now that a book trade market for comics is establishing itself, they're providing me with support to improve our coverage of the industry. Fred Ciporen and Nick Weir-Williams, the publisher and publishing director of Reed Press, also get it. They see a growing market, they have seen the kind of books I want to publish and they know they can sell them. I think we're all excited by the possibility of being a part of helping comics publishing reach a new level of sales and acceptance in the booktrade and with consumers.
