The End of the Indie Comic Cries (or at least us listening to them)

Why so serious?

The evidence that the indie comic book scene was not redeemed by the bookstore flirtation with comics, which spiraled into a love affair, should silence the whining about the direct market that the indie scene has been repeating for years. It is time to stop the broken record from skipping and start making a new and better record that people might enjoy. The direct market will gladly sell it.

My opinion that the indie scene was not mainstream was shut down from the Warren Ellis forum in 2002. If we took the cries of the indie scene from days gone by seriously, we would have concluded that the direct market was directly responsible for holding the indie comic scene down. It was argued that retailer had some deep seeded hatred toward indie comics that prevented us from desiring to make money on those books. The bookstores, who would just listen to the numbers and not have any predispositions, would become the saviors of the indie comic scene through unleashing all the under-appreciated indie works on the masses. This would spiral the indie books into the mainstream where it was argued they belonged. The argument was that indie comics were just too mainstream to be successful in the subculture comic shops. We see that the prophecy of the masses loving indie comics just never actualized the way the "indie scene" predicted.

What time has shown is that superheroes are mainstream, Dark Tower and Buffy are mainstream, Sin City and 300 are mainstream, Watchmen is mainstream, Fruits Basket and Naruto are mainstream, and Bone is mainstream. Our Ft. Wayne store is about as mainstream as you can get by being in a mall. Despite loving the "indie" Percy Gloom and pushing it on everyone I think might like it, I sell only a few of that compared to The Killing Joke, Watchmen, or the latest volume of Naruto. Love and Rockets sits on my shelves while Buffy, Dresden Files, and Dark Tower sell ten to fifty times Love and Rockets' numbers.

I love the indie scene, but it was always ridiculous for them to argue that their work was mainstream and that it was the fault of the comic shops across this land that they didn't sell. I will sell any comic that is not pornography (a tough to define issue) to any customer that asks for it. Other comic shops share that sentiment without the prohibition against porn. It is not the retailers fault that indie books are not prospering; It is indie publishers' fault that people are not flocking into bookstores, comic shops, or on the internet to purchase their books. The publishers have failed to create for the works produced. I and my workers champion books here and there, but the indie marketing strategy of depending on the local retailers to champion their books (and blaming them for bad sales when they fail) has been proven to have never been a viable marketing strategy.

Robert Kirkman, creator of Walking Dead and recently promoted Image Comics partner proclaimed that the industry will be saved by more creator-owned work from publishers. Robert Scott, a retailer from San Diego and the founder of the Comic Book Industry Alliance, wrote a reply to that thought in which he argued that creator-owned work will not be the answer to the industry. I agree more with Kirkman with one major caveat: Top creators doing more creator-owned work will be beneficial to the industry if they are serious about producing comics on a timely schedule and continue to produce monthly books even after cashing in with Hollywood. Even books like Sin City, Hellboy, and Spawn that have not been produced on a timely schedule still bring in a lot of money. They could bring in much more if they were published in a timely fashion and perpetually like Marvel and DC do with their major properties. As a retailer, I have plenty of Batman, X-Men, and Spider-Man ongoing books to sell. They cash in when their properties are hot, continue to make books about those characters to keep them in the public spotlight, and have a decent level of quality when publishing. I do not have plenty of Hellboy, Sin City, or 300 books to sell. Purely as a businessman, I would love to have seen a monthly Sin City at the time of its peak. Dark Horse and Miller would have needed to take the professional monthly approach like DC takes on Batman for it to be successful, but it could have been done. I might still be selling plenty of that book today. Instead, the creator just rested on his laurels (a right that he has) and basked in the profits rather than creating more books to make more money and bring profit to the whole industry.

I also think that creator-owned work is better for creators than the industry-at-large. The creators are the ones who retire from the business when they land the big movie deal. The only bump we see from the big movie deal is increased sales in the collected editions of the work they completed years ago. We lose a great creator to retirement or intermittent publication because of the success of his creator-owned work in channels outside the industry. In the long run, it might have been better for the industry to have never lost a Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane, or Alan Moore to financial success. They bless us with their talents every once in a while but the comic industry would be much better off if they were blessing us monthly. I know it is too much to ask for, but it illustrates the idea that creator-owned success is better for the creator than it is for the industry.

Mainstream just means that the comic in question connects with an audience, has successful marketing, with sales to back it up. Indie usually implies that the creator just created the book he wanted to create without any target audience, any marketing plan, and the sales strategy of the book selling itself. One is commercial and one is artistic. There is nothing wrong with having both in our industry. It is just tiresome to continue hearing the artistic crowd complain about the failure to have success after success. I will continue to order indie books that I like and others that I don't like but think will sell. In the end, the "indie" publishers need to take seriously the business principle of marketing if they ever want to be successful in a economic sense rather than just a creative sense.

And one final quick note, the most mainstream comic that a publisher could publish right now would be a Harry Potter comic book. That would sell insane numbers. I wouldn't like the book because I do not like the novels, but it would be great for my business and for the industry.

Flashback - My Thoughts from 2002 on Superheroes being mainstream

***This was spurred on by some of the anti-superhero talk in the Crossgen discussion. It is also in response to all of the anti-superhero talk in this forum. I find it kind of funny that there is so much anti-superhero feelings when Warren Ellis has created Planetary and Authority, written Stormwatch, and been involved in various other superhero projects.****

Superheroes do have broad mainstream appeal. Look at the success of movies like Batman & Spider-Man and TV shows like Smallville. What did better, the movie adaptation of Tank Girl, From Hell, Mask, or Spider-Man.

The problem with the mainstream and comics is not superheroes. My non-comic book friends don't like the medium. They'll go and shell out $8 to watch a Spider-Man movie, but they won't buy a comic book or graphic novel.

The hatred, within certain comic circles, of superheroes seems kind of silly. People are free to like what they like and shouldn't be looked down on because of it. The elitist attitude of many on this board is very disturbing and is the reason, I feel, that many people stay away from comics. They are declared ignorant by the elitist comic reader for what they enjoy. Most people don't like being viewed as inferior by others.

I can see it now. A person is intrigued by the Spider-Man movie and visits a comic shop to buy a Spider-Man comic, but some superhero hating retailer or customer tries to convince them that they should be reading some better comic rather than the one they want to buy. Whether other comics are "better" or not is not the point, as a retailer, we just want to give the consumer what he/she wants and lead them on to areas of more enjoyment. We want someone to leave happy and come back for more. This usually happens by giving them what they want, not by trying to convince they want what we like.

This came up in a Smallville thread I posted in a while ago. I criticized the fact that DC didn't have anything that was Smallville related in the comic book medium. Others suggested I should try to get the people that come into our store into other titles that are similar. If someone wants Smallville; that's what they should be able to have. FYI, I will try to sell them something else since we do not have Smallville comics, but Smallville comics would be the easiest and the most appropriate push.

The movie industry has its finger on the pulse of what is popular in America. Within the movie industry, we can observe the same elitist attitude. The elitist movie crowd tears down the popular movies and all the people who enjoy them. However right their opinions may be, it is not the best attitude for the industry. They proclaim that people are not intellectual if they don't enjoy the obscure movies that they enjoy. The movie medium has reached a point where it can tear one another down and still survive. The comic industry is not there yet.

What are the comics that we are trying to promote as more appealing to the mainstream? Think about this. We think Vertigo is mainstream. I definitely don't. Movies of the Vertigo nature and style don't do all to well in the mainstream movie world. They're relegated to a few copies at the local Blockbuster and usually way below top 10 sales at the box office after the first week. Not at all what I would consider mainstream.

Comics need to reevaluate themselves. But I feel that what the elitist says is appealing to the mainstream really isn't. Rather, those comics would be appealing to their elitist movie buddies, not mainstream at all.

Do we really want to be mainstream? Do we want to have to produce crap like Independence Day, Titanic, Free Willy, and the such. Do we want to see an enormous influx of adaptations of movies, novels, and anything else that is popular? Here is what is popular in the box office (top 10 list from ew.com) right now: Minority Report, Lilo and Stitch, Scooby-Doo, The Bourne Identity, The Sum of All Fears, Windtalkers, Juwanna Mann, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Star Wars: Episode II, and Spider-Man. Do we want to have all this in comics? Will it make us better? As a retailer, I would like it because it would make sales much better. I already sell a lot of crap that I don't enjoy. As a fan, it would allow more stuff that I enjoy to be created. But we need to really know what we are saying when we want to be mainstream. We're saying, "Give us our Independence Day. Give us many unnecessary sequels that will make lots of money. Give us crappy love stories. Give us adaptations that lack of creativity but have broad appeal." And in all that crap, the elitist would have more comics to enjoy. And I bet they would still have a "better than thou" attitude, but we would be big enough to ignore them.

Superheroes are appealing to the mainstream, and the comic industry needs to figure out a way to bring the mainstream into the comic medium if it is to prosper. This would also be more beneficial to the elitist comic reader who hates superheroes because more money in the industry would mean more side projects and creator-owned projects.

We are all free to enjoy and read what we want. And I wish we all had the freedom to be free from ridicule for enjoying and reading what we want.

***

These were my thoughts that I posted on comiccon.com after that post was removed from the now infamous Warren Ellis forum.

Marcia, one of the moderators made this reply and then canceled the thread.

36707.2 in reply to 36707.1

"Give us our Independence Day. Give us many unnecessary sequels that will make lots of money. Give us crappy love stories. Give us adaptations that lack of creativity but have broad appeal."

You already have all that. Congratulations. You have what you want. What are you whinging about?

Marcia (Editor In Chief - Sequential Tart Webzine)
Sequential Tart Message Board
...if I thought the band were mad, I was then introduced to Tony Potts, the director of this bloody mess. He was sitting in a wicker basket on the floor, wrapped in a white sheet with a Christmas stocking on one foot. When I asked him why he was holding a mandolin, he screeched "Satan!", and hit me on the shins with it.

My reply to that post:

I thought I had posted a comment worth discussion, but it got shot down. I feel it was shot down because the person disagrees. If otherwise, then I am sorry. Rather than discuss, she just prohibited future posting. All I want is a discussion on the matter. "Why aren't comics mainstream?" and "Are superheroes really not mainstream?" are two subjects I thought worth discussion. If you felt my comments were so ignorant, then why would you prohibit people from posting and ripping me apart. My initial writing was in 36702.1

My reply to her comments in 36702.2 were the following:

If we have all of the things that the movie world has, then isn't the medium that is not popular?

I don't know of any comic that I would recommend to someone who loved You've Got Mail. I'm not a big fan of that movie, but what I was saying is that is mainstream whether you like it or not. If comics want to be mainstream, then they need to have crap like that.

The comic book adaptations that come to my mind are some Anne Rice novels, Hitchiker's Guide, Transformers, and G.I. Joe. I know the Transformers and G.I. Joe are some of the bestselling comics in our stores. They might be crap, but so are many of the movies that keep the movie industry open. We're located in malls so we encounter non-comic readers regularly.

The only gratuitous sequel I can think of is Dark Knight Strikes Back. If you can think of more, then please say them? I understand that the current comic book structure doesn't lead itself to sequels. That was what I was getting at.

I hope this doesn't get the prohibitted posting label, but if it does I won't let the door hit my @$$ on the way out. All I want is for the comic book industry to be successful. If a discussion on why comics aren't mainstream followed by our actions won't bring us there, then what will? And what do we mean by mainstream? And if the Warren Ellis forum isn't an appropriate place for this discussion, the where is?

A Comic Retailer Perspective

I think I put a link on here to an article I had published on Newsarama earlier this year.

Besides the comments that ripped me apart that I did not rebut, I found a post at another site that ripped me apart. I decided to reply to it. I must be in a feisty mood.

Here is my reply to the post. You can also read it at the website in question since I made it a comment there.

****

I just ran across this post.

I do agree with your thoughts. It isn't just my job to just stock things. I have to sell them. I was arguing that it was a poor business plan for the publisher to depend upon retailer to create demand for their product. I do not depend on my customers to bring people into my store. It is nice when they do. It is my job to create demand for our store just like it is a publisher's job to create demand for their books. I was not arguing that retailers should not push books. I actually mentioned a book that I pushed and also one that one of our workers push. I do not think I am the passive clerk (nor are my employees) that you describe.

I think the difference between your role as a retailer and mine is that I also decide what to order. I also will not push a book that I think sucks even if I overordered it. It might hurt my short-term bottom line, but I think it helps out in the long-term if I do not push crap on my customers. They can be assured that I will only push books that I personally enjoyed or I think they will enjoy. I expect my employees to do the same. I have reprimanded one once for pushing a crappy book (and they thought is was crappy) because we had a lot of it in stock.

I am going to choose one or two books every week to push. I am going to do that based on whether I liked the book, not on whether I overordered. If the publisher did not create demand and the book was not the lucky one out or two of the 50-90 books we receive every week that I decided to push, then they will just sit on the shelf. That will prevent #2 or #3 from being ordered like issue one was ordered.

I agree with you that a store that is just clerking is not a store worth going to. But a publisher that is just publishing probably will not create any demand for their books and will be out of business very quickly. Too often publishers create books and think there job is done. They also need to create demand. Most companies have people that work in marketing. There is a reason for that. It isn't just enough to provide something; you also have to tell others that it is there. Those publishers who do not heed the words of retailers like me will be out of business quickly if there business plan for creating demand is to just publish the book and expect retailers to push that book.