In the Trenches is veteran comic-book writer Shon C. Bury’s column about the inside workings of the biz. With nearly fifteen years experience as a writer, editor, publisher, and talent manager, Shon’s column is a must-read for fans and pros alike who want to know more about what’s going on in the comic biz. Read on...
Prognostication in the Rain (Or... To Catch an Invisible Tiger by the Tail) Remember when I wrote:
Here’s the reality: 2009 is going to be way worse than 2008. More layoffs at big publishers will occur and many smaller publishers will close down. This is simply just going to occur. The realities of Wall Street and the unemployment rate simply dictate it.
No? That’s cool. I’ll wait for you to
catch up.
When I wrote that, I was actually making the point to all the Doomsayer Faces
™ that things were not as bad as they thought and that comics were not DOOMED! I was the
optimistic one when I wrote that.
And yet here we all are, some seven months later with the economy beginning to stabilize and with comics doing
really damn well. All things considered. And I’m feeling like I was a bit of a pessimist.
Here’re some quickies:
• The Industry is only down 1% through the third quarter.
• The bottom 10% of publishers are somehow still squeaking by.
• Digital Delivery is growing mad legs.
Before I bury my lead any further, let me get to the point of this column: Predicting the future is hard work. Sometimes ya nail it; sometimes you don’t and look like a total knob.
A couple weeks back, I was on a whirlwind visit through the offices of both Marvel and DC. Sitting down with Group Editor [redacted] over at [redacted], he stated apropos to nothing that he had no idea how the bottom 10% was surviving in this economic climate. I told him I too had no idea because I had written
a four-part column pretty much predicting that many of the Tier 3 publishers were toast by year’s end.
Which got me thinking about what else I had guessed wrong in my earlier columns.
From the top:
• The Industry is only down 1% through the third quarter.
Nailed it.
Back in March I predicted this year was going to be pretty much a wash on the publishing side of the biz. It appears that comics are still recession proof (even Great Recession proof) at the upper levels, even though circulation continues to dwindle and dollar shares are buoyed largely by bigger price tags.
Regardless, I can’t help but think that the pie (read: the print market as defined by the direct market) isn’t going to grow any larger than the half-billion-a-year pie that it currently is. It took nearly a decade to get to that size. But it’s safe to assume that big box book stores have reached a level of TPB saturation...and your LCS can only carry so many floppies...in (dare I say it) “times like these.” Add that with the burgeoning digital delivery revolution, and what can we reasonably expect? 2-3% growth/year once the economy finally gets in gear? That level would only mirror the growth an economy needs just to get by breathing.
Still, Marvel’s hiring freeze has been lifted. As evidenced by the new assistants I met while visiting earlier this month (Hi, Rachel and Sana!)...and by the sheer number of job applicants sitting in the lobby with me waiting to be interviewed while I waited for my lunch appointment. I counted four before I got preoccupied with my BlackBerry.
Add aggressive growth plans in and out of the direct market by all publishers (Marvel alone plans to grow its line by 20% in 2009) and the recent acquisition of Marvel by Disney (a 4.1 billion-dollar deal) and one has to realize that a lot of the pie as we know it is moving from the direct market to other distribution outlets.
My point, a “wash” in the direct market may increasingly mean very little as we refigure how we calculate the size and location of the pie in the first place. It’s not just DM any longer -- and relying on those numbers alone has become increasingly irrelevant.
• The bottom 10% of publishers are somehow still squeaking by.
Fail!
I thought for sure
Dabel Bros, Zenescope, and that ilk would have shuttered by now. Not that I wanted them to, mind you. But back in March -- when EVERYTHING was falling apart -- it seemed reasonable that these perpetually money-troubled publishers would not be able to persevere.
I haven’t looked at the bottom of the sales charts over the last few months, but if Tier 3 publishers can sell comics in times like these we should all celebrate. A healthy small press is good for everyone in the biz...especially if it means they can start paying their artists on time.
• Digital Delivery is growing mad legs.
Nailed it!
Long before Amazon’s Kindle (and the emerging
Kindle Killers),
PSP’s comic reader, and
Spider-Woman motion comics I’ve been extolling the inevitability of digital comics and the delivery of.
Remember when I wrote:
Digital downloads are the inescapable near-future reality of comics. This poses a huge set of unique hurdles in all areas of comics from creation to publishing to distribution and sales, since most publishers and creators have not really figured out all the hows of delivery (as technology continues to develop...and shifts increasingly towards handheld devices)...and of making money with this new delivery method.
No? That’s cool. I did, though. And even though it seems like yesterday, it was nearly two years ago.
As we move into the last quarter of the year, Amazon has reduced the cost of its Kindle just in time for Christmas. Marvel has launched a
new viewer for its DCU. And comic downloads onto the Kindle and from iTunes seems to be a lucrative way of doing business.
Technology is catching up. Creators and readers alike are beginning to wrap their brains around the new comic book format as dictated by pixels and the size of the screens on their smart phones.
And, whew, it all seems to be monetizing just fine.
And Spider-Woman’s motion comic is on
the Hulus? What?!?
Brave. New. World.
To wrap it up: Two out of three ain’t too bad. It’s difficult making bold predictions in a market that’s in such a dynamic period of flux. What’s fifteen years experience when so much will be so different in so many ways in such a short time?
Digital Delivery Watch (or... Your Coffee Table Just Got Pixilated, Deal with It)Lots of catching up to do here:
*Eagle One Media continues to be a good source for digital downloads, though I have to wonder if all this kerfuffle about
motion comics is ultimately a Dead End in the drive towards digital. Especially once you start burning them to DVD.
*New digital comics producer
Underwater Samurai Studios gets it a bit more. They’re first direct-to-digital webcomic
Soldiers kicked off last week, and has already been read over 7,000 times. They've got an app due any second from iTunes and will be on Kindle later this month. Underwater Samurai has decided to jump into digital with both feet -- their comics are made specifically for web and mobile devices. The production quality is absolutely top notch and they've got a few more books on the way. These guys are very serious about digital comics.
Full Disclosure: My company
Space Goat Productions, LLC packaged
Soldiers and has worked with USS extensively in developing their digital content.
*The Spider-Woman motion comic is on teh Hulus!?!
*
Google Edition will prove to be the real Kindle Killer.
Pluggin’ Junk (or... Books I Like and You Should Too!)I’m way behind on reading comics -- and realize as I type this that I haven’t been in my LCS for four months -- but I really like these two books:
Bayou, Vol. 1: The first Zuda book to see print. Jeremy Love crafts a great fantasy/horror story set in the Depression-Era South. The young protagonist, Lee, proves she has pluck when she discovers that monsters live in the swamp surrounding her home. Blended hauntingly with the Jim-Crow world she inhabits. At times surreal.
Cairo: A Vertigo OGN written by journalist G. Willow Wilson and artist M. K. Perker.
Cairo is a great tale of a young journalist who travels to Cairo, becomes inveigled in a hooka theft. Add a djinn and more Magical Realism than has been seen in the entirety of comics history, and you have
Cairo. Fun, charming read.
All images © respective copyright holders. 