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FilthyImp posted:I'm consistently astounded by how the indie darling of the 90s comic world was just some scheme to file the serial numbers off of existing properties. In the long run though Image ended up being a really good thing for the industry. As I understand it, they're extremely creator-friendly in terms of rights and royalties. And eventually they put out some great books.
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Apr 1, 2020 12:55
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FilthyImp posted:I'm consistently astounded by how the indie darling of the 90s comic world was just some scheme to file the serial numbers off of existing properties. I wouldn't call anything I've talked about an "indie darling". These were the books that teenagers were running down, but I think we all know from personal experience that teenagers have lovely taste. But if you were reading the comics press beyond Wizard Magazine at the time, there was a lot of hate directed at those Image books and Liefeld in particular. Some of it was jealousy, of course, since they were turning out absolute crap and making piles of money and getting huge groups of fans, but Image was making awful comics and poisoning the industry with people trying to copy their awful comics.
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Apr 1, 2020 13:12
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That makes me curious about Wizard's legacy and influence. As a kid I never read it much, but I did read Inquest for Magic the Gathering stuff and some Toyfare, which I think were in the same family or from the same publisher. If as you say, Wizard was singing the praises of the schlock you've been writing summaries of, I can't imagine they had any credibility at all.
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Apr 1, 2020 14:10
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A Strange Aeon posted:That makes me curious about Wizard's legacy and influence. As a kid I never read it much, but I did read Inquest for Magic the Gathering stuff and some Toyfare, which I think were in the same family or from the same publisher. If as you say, Wizard was singing the praises of the schlock you've been writing summaries of, I can't imagine they had any credibility at all. As someone who attended Wizard World Philly, one of the series of Wizard-branded conventions, many years after you'd have thought that Wizard's influence would have wanted in the face of the internet, ai can assure you that their outsized level of reach in the industry was orders of magnitude beyond whatever you are currently imagining.
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Apr 1, 2020 14:23
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I think Wizard was the current-day CBR of its time (if CBR was peppered with lad mag humor, anyway). Most of it was mainstream superhero puff pieces and listicles, but occasionally there'd be a decent interview or a cool art feature. It also heaped plenty of praise on the bigger Vertigo titles of their time, and other alternative darlings like Bone and Sin City. It was through Wizard that I first heard about Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, and Brian K. Vaughan.
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Apr 1, 2020 15:06
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I highly recommend the Wizard coverage Cartoonist Kayfabe has been doing for the last year. Issue by issue breakdowns, with lots of additional material that they bring in when talking about certain features. They also cut out the Palmer’s Picks section of their videos and host those as standalone if you just want to watch those. They’re definitely my favorite part (though I also love the gushing over ink that these guys do... they’re very much guys in the biz lifting the curtains). Tom Palmer Jr. also has a website where he talks about his original articles. It’s pretty great. https://palmerspicks.com/
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Apr 1, 2020 15:13
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Minister of Sound posted:I think Wizard was the current-day CBR of its time (if CBR was peppered with lad mag humor, anyway). Most of it was mainstream superhero puff pieces and listicles, but occasionally there'd be a decent interview or a cool art feature. It also heaped plenty of praise on the bigger Vertigo titles of their time, and other alternative darlings like Bone and Sin City. It was through Wizard that I first heard about Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, and Brian K. Vaughan. Yeah, Wizard was aggressively mainstream for 95% of its editorial content which is why Image was their bread and butter for those early years. They did have a small amount of space set aside for other books and occasionally something broke through. There is a reason why a lot of people look back at them mockingly, though, and a lot of that is the breathless talking about how great things like Youngblood were.
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Apr 1, 2020 15:17
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Minister of Sound posted:I think Wizard was the current-day CBR of its time (if CBR was peppered with lad mag humor, anyway). Most of it was mainstream superhero puff pieces and listicles, but occasionally there'd be a decent interview or a cool art feature. It also heaped plenty of praise on the bigger Vertigo titles of their time, and other alternative darlings like Bone and Sin City. It was through Wizard that I first heard about Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, and Brian K. Vaughan. They even had an amazing interview with Dave Sim, which was before... well, you know.
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Apr 1, 2020 15:20
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Dawgstar posted:They even had an amazing interview with Dave Sim, which was before... well, you know. I refuse to believe that Sim has done any other interview besides the one he did for the AV Club.
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Apr 1, 2020 15:57
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Random Stranger posted:And this is the last of the Feburary 1996 comics from Extreme/Maximum. I like to read these, then look up at what Vertigo was doing at the same time. Let's look at 1996. - Death: The Time of Your Life - Hellblazer, Ennis's run - Invisibles - Preacher - Shade the Changing Man (ending) - Sandman (ending)
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Apr 1, 2020 16:53
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lifg posted:I like to read these, then look up at what Vertigo was doing at the same time. I was going to do a whole "state of comics" in early 1996 thing with the next month, but this is as good of time as any to talk about it. Image was born in the boom and pushed that boom as high as it could go. But by mid-1994, the boom was dead. That didn't stop a lot of people from going, "The good old days of one year ago will come back any day now... Yep, any day..." That was 1995 where you still say Liefeld launching new books every month, a new "company" (actually the same company but they answered the phones differently when that line rang) so he could cut Image out of the loop, and cranking out as many comics as he could. By 1996, it was setting in that things were never going back. DC was busy trying to figure out how to move past that and Vertigo was a big part of that. Marvel was flailing wildly as they dealt with bankruptcy coming from corporate shenanigans. And Image was fracturing with Valentino the first to look at backing away. The Image model of books had lost far more of its base than other companies. Marvel and DC could rebuild, but Image wasn't built on anything. However, they did start transitioning at this point away from copies of other comics. It takes a few years before they get there, but the movement has started. Strangers in Paradise, for example, starts soon at Image. Rob Liefeld, however, won't be around Image for that change.
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Apr 1, 2020 17:20
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Random Stranger posted:I was going to do a whole "state of comics" in early 1996 thing with the next month, but this is as good of time as any to talk about it. I'm quite interested in the Image non-founder books actually. I know there was Kieth's Maxx books but what were the others in the 90s? Was there anything pushing the envelope in terms of quality? Did a bunch of creators try out Image in the 90s? In the past decade or so there has been a boom at Image, and to me it seems that they have surpassed Vertigo in the creator driven weird fun stuff, but what about in the 90's. A lot of the founders did derivative crap but what about outsiders?
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Apr 1, 2020 17:49
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Madkal posted:I'm quite interested in the Image non-founder books actually. I know there was Kieth's Maxx books but what were the others in the 90s? Was there anything pushing the envelope in terms of quality? Did a bunch of creators try out Image in the 90s? In the past decade or so there has been a boom at Image, and to me it seems that they have surpassed Vertigo in the creator driven weird fun stuff, but what about in the 90's. A lot of the founders did derivative crap but what about outsiders? Well, Astro City is at the top of that list. And 1963 is amazing even in an unfinished state. Beyond that there's a lot of "I always wanted to do this superhero" projects from a variety of creators, though I never got into any of them so I can't comment on them. Things like Larry Strohman's Tribe, Mike Grell's Shaman's Tears, and Kieth Giffen's Trencher fall into that category.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:26
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X-O posted:I've been wanting something to come along to push the entire industry hard into digital only, but this way sucks. It's just a bunch of stupid people in power exerting their power and helpless people paying the price. There's no silver lining to this at all no matter the outcome. I would be okay with digital only if we could actually own the downloads. If I want to read Marvel, I'll have to use one of their apps, or Comixology. There's no way to "own" the file. That's one thing that Humble Bundle's bundle reminded me of. I happily downloaded some extra series I apparently had in my HB library, and I could get them in CBZ, PDF, or sometimes some other formats. Even with redeeming the Marvel codes on their site from the comics, I don't expect to be able to access those in about a decade or so. Mostly, I'd hate for my comic shop's employees all to lose their jobs. My store has been so good to one of the employees that they let him bring in his mentally decaying mother, he's got no options and not enough money for 24/7 care she needs otherwise.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:27
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Random Stranger posted:Larry Strohman's Tribe, Mike Grell's Shaman's Tears, and Kieth Giffen's Trencher These books are all bad.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:29
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looks like the solution pubs are going with is to allow you to buy a digital copy of a comic now, and then a physical copy will be sent to your lcs for you to collect whenever stores reopen
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Apr 1, 2020 18:31
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this "savior of the DM" article from Bleeding Cool making the rounds today seems ridiculously hyperbolic in its praise and it seems highly implausible that they'd really be able to get every publisher on board and expand to cover the entire direct market in just a few weeks. plus I have no idea what the UI/UX is like and it seems very likely that Comic Hub has a much worse digital reading experience than comiXology offers. someone tell me if I'm wrong https://bleedingcool.com/comics/today-the-comic-shops-direct-market-was-saved/
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Apr 1, 2020 18:32
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I have no idea why you'd want the entire industry to go digital only. Why shouldn't people who prefer paper copies be able to get them? I've bought thousands and thousands of comics from my shop over the years and if that option suddenly disappeared and the only way to follow comics was to stare at a screen, I'd just be done reading comics.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:49
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Amazon will probably fill that niche somehow.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:58
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twitter thread with some pros talking about the new temp setup. youll have to scroll back up to the start, but ya know, trying to catch a specific set of replies and all that https://twitter.com/fredvanlente/status/1245406295806672897
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Apr 1, 2020 19:00
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Dunbar posted:I have no idea why you'd want the entire industry to go digital only. Why shouldn't people who prefer paper copies be able to get them? I've bought thousands and thousands of comics from my shop over the years and if that option suddenly disappeared and the only way to follow comics was to stare at a screen, I'd just be done reading comics. there are enormous overhead costs related to print distribution that obviously don't apply to digital, and kowtowing to the whims of retailers terrified of competing with digital comics is holding back publishers from experimenting with alternative business models and consequently the industry as a whole I don't know what exactly that alternative looks like, but there has to be something better than $5 floppies that are a far worse value per dollar than literally any other entertainment medium anyway, to reiterate/clarify what I said above, I don't want digital-only as an end in and of itself, if print comics can find a way to survive then great, I'm certainly not cheering for the demise of any small business and the more comic shops that can find a way to survive COVID-19, the better, but it's absolutely loving ridiculous in the current moment that retailers have the power to halt all digital distribution of new comics and they should not have that power anymore. Barry Convex fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Apr 1, 2020 19:02
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Barry Convex posted:I don't know what exactly that alternative looks like, but there has to be something better than $5 floppies that are a far worse value per dollar than literally any other entertainment medium I still say they should lower the price by just going back to the old cheaper paper comics were printed on for decades.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:34
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Something far better than 5$ floppies certainly isn’t 5$ digital comics. The current digital model for new comics sucks.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:35
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Jordan7hm posted:Something far better than 5$ floppies certainly isn’t 5$ digital comics. I agree, but god forbid you not put the direct market above all else
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Apr 1, 2020 19:38
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Comics are prohibitively expensive relative to other media but I still want to see what the labor costs are per issue are for your general book because I still don't know how much of that cost is marvel taking a cut and stiffing creators or if we really wanted to give them living wages+benefits we'd be paying 10 bucks an issue
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Apr 1, 2020 19:51
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site posted:Comics are prohibitively expensive relative to other media but I still want to see what the labor costs are per issue are for your general book because I still don't know how much of that cost is marvel taking a cut and stiffing creators or if we really wanted to give them living wages+benefits we'd be paying 10 bucks an issue A $4 Marvel or DC comic generally costs the retailer $2. It's long been assumed that Diamond pays half that for the product. So I guess try and figure it out from there as I have no more data.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:56
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It would depend dramatically on how many books sell... Like walking dead could pay its creators great wages even at .50$. Some of my favorite indie books would need to charge 50$ / sale (and maintain sales) to really have fair wages.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:56
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Rhyno posted:Amazon will probably fill that niche somehow. Who do you think owns Comixology?
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Apr 1, 2020 20:25
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El Gallinero Gros posted:In the long run though Image ended up being a really good thing for the industry. As I understand it, they're extremely creator-friendly in terms of rights and royalties. And eventually they put out some great books. The company as a whole, yeah. Certain Image founders not so much
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Apr 1, 2020 20:30
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e: nm forgot its technically april fools day still
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Apr 1, 2020 20:42
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Gripweed posted:I still say they should lower the price by just going back to the old cheaper paper comics were printed on for decades. Agreed, the switch to glossy paper* was the biggest mistake the industry ever made, and was definitely a contributing factor to why Manga started kicking the crap out of western comics in terms of sales *at least for individual issues, it makes sense for collections or graphic novels
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Apr 1, 2020 20:43
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Isn't the bottom falling out of the advertising market another thing that hurt comics and caused the price of an issue to rise? There will maybe be one ad in a comic now that that isn't just for another book from the same publisher.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:50
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Gail Simone was pushing for an old-fashion company-crossover mega-event to get people back into their LCS, after this is all over. It's my favorite idea. Like, I don't even buy comic book single issues, but I would show up for that. They should do midnight release party too. I went to two Harry Potter midnight release parties, they were a blast.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:11
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lifg posted:Gail Simone was pushing for an old-fashion company-crossover mega-event to get people back into their LCS, after this is all over. It's my favorite idea. Like, I don't even buy comic book single issues, but I would show up for that. Wonder what would be the "Snape kills Dumbledore" grade spoiler for this one?
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Apr 1, 2020 21:15
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lifg posted:Gail Simone was pushing for an old-fashion company-crossover mega-event to get people back into their LCS, after this is all over. It's my favorite idea. Like, I don't even buy comic book single issues, but I would show up for that. Assuming his DC knowledge is even half of what his Marvel deep cuts knowledge is, they better have Al Ewing write it.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:16
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If Ewing has gaps, I'm sure he's got Mark Waid's number.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:28
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I feel like even once this is over, nobody is going to release parties unless they’ve already had it or have been vaccinated.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:56
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loving LOL. This ain't happening. https://twitter.com/Comic_Con/status/1245445559348916224?s=20 Like, what would even be the point if it could happen? https://twitter.com/loudmouthjulia/status/1245447092639760388?s=20
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Apr 1, 2020 21:59
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I assume SDCC is not exempt for the need to continue the charade of still occurring until their insurance will cover cancellation, much like every other convention in the US is either doing or had to do until their date passed.
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Apr 1, 2020 22:17
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Yeah, as a local I can tell you very much this is a dog and pony show that will not happen. Whether or not they reschedule is up in the air but I guarantee we're still gonna be in havoc mode in July based on the current state of things + the fact that we're next to Arizona in terms of people being able to just roll on over and gently caress things up again.
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Apr 1, 2020 22:22
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