Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I’m getting a lot of great reports in this week from our East Coast guys. Andrew has a column today that is a nice overview of personalities from all over the comics industry. Check it out...
On Monday, several Comic Companies, Retailers and Media attended a Retail Rally Presentation at the China Club in New York City. It was my first trip into the city since the events of 9.11.01, which actually prompted the cancellation of the original Retail Rally, which was supposed to occur. Marvel picked up the ball and joined with co-sponsors Chaos, Collectible Concepts, CP Media, Diamond Select, Dynamic Forces, Harris, Image, Oni Press, and Wizard to carry on with the event and move forward together in spite of the tragedy.
It was a much-needed sign of solidarity and strength in an industry that’s gotten a bad rap for bickering and in fighting. On this day, people came together with one question: How can we do things better? Their goal was to figure out how best to answer that question. Only time will tell how successful the gather was from an industry standpoint, but from a personal experience, I saw a room full of a few hundred people from different walks of life and different philosophies who were united in their passion and love for the industry. That’s a good sign.
Marvel President Bill Jemas opened things up with a moment of silence for the victims of the tragic events of 9.11.01 and then everyone got down to the business at hand: the Comic Book Industry and what the people in the room could do to help each other grow.
When comparing the industry then and now, Jemas sited a few reasons that comics didn’t sell in the mass market back in the 90s: a) they sucked and b) they weren’t the right type of books for a mass-market audience. Smaller companies had the better books, but no placement in these markets. Now, there are quality books being published, no changes in distribution and sales are going up, as they have been for the past 6 months.
The more people become paralyzed by fear, in any situation, the more the other side wins. The large attendance at the Rally reflected the attitude of the strong, who have stuck through the industry in the good times, in the bad and now during the resurgence. He pointed out that it was a great show of strength for the industry and a way for people to get an education about what’s going on with their businesses and what publishers can do to help.
Todd McFarlane was a surprise speaker and he pointed out once again, that the retailers in attendance this day were some of the toughest of their kind. He pointed out that it’s only during the tough times that you find out who the true sales people are. In the 90s, everyone was basically printing money, but when things got harder, a lot of people bailed out. The industry has been running on the backbone of the people that made up much of the audience in attendance. Todd also mentioned that in times like this, one has to be diverse, which is why he’s concentrated on branching his company into other venues like toys.
Nick Barrucci of Dynamic Forces came up to speak about his company. Dynamic Forces is best known for their autographed and limited edition comics. They make it easy for fans to get their hands on products like signed books that they wouldn’t have a chance to get without going to a comic convention. He excited the crowd by mentioning that they will be offering a special autographed edition of the ‘Heroes’ book that Marvel is publishing to benefit the victims of 9.11.01. Joe Quesada, Adam Kubert and Jae Lee have already confirmed their signings and more artists and editorial staff will be contributing soon. The $19.95 edition will also have all proceeds donated to charity.
The next presentation was by Image Comics. Jim Valentino was unable to attend in person so Joe Quesada did his best Valentino impersonation as he recited an email that was sent to him from Jim. The focus of the presentation was the Top Ten Essential Image Trade Paperbacks. After naming the first 5: Tellos: Reluctant Heroes (a book Joe went out of his way to praise), Age of Bronze, Witchblade: Origins, Savage Dragon: Talk with God and The Red Star, the list took a more lighthearted turn.
Number 6 on the list was Rising Stars: Born to Fire, written by JM Stracynzski. Valentino’s email made this mention: “discover why Marvel’s evil EIC distracted and stole JMS for Amazing Spider-Man in the book that made him popular.
Number 7 was Kabuki: Metamorphasis. Again, Valentino joked about another Image creator at Marvel saying ‘While Marvel can bring new work by David Mack, Image proudly presents more of his old stuff’.
Number 8 was Spawn/Batman because ‘We want to cash in on The Dark Knight 2, as well’. Number 9 was Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl, ‘the book Brian Michael Bendis writes whenever he has time away from Daredevil, Ultimate Team Up, Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias’.
The number 1 trade was the oft-delayed ‘Bluntman and Chronic’ which Valentino promised would be in stores by the time Jay and Silent Bob hits the ‘Previously viewed’ section in rental stores. The final statement Quesada read from Valentino’s email reminded audiences to think ‘Green’ and watch out for ‘Black Cats’, tongue in cheek references to Kevin Smith’s Green Arrow and upcoming Black Cat series. Joe ended the presentation by stating he wants to work for Image since they seem to be having a lot more fun.
Collectible Concepts had several representatives there and the underlying theme of their presentation was patriotism and heroes. They talked about how enjoyable it was to get involved with these dynamic characters and when times are tough, these heroes offer reassurance. They mentioned that many of their products will be created in an effort to help inspire people. Their Marvel Fan Club is now live at Marvel.com.
Allan Rosenberg from Big Apple Conventions spoke briefly about the convention that was canceled 2 weeks back in light of the WTC attacks. He mentioned that they are going to have a benefit convention in 2 weeks (Oct 12/13) in which admission will be free. They’re asking that people donate what they can at the door and all money raised will go to the families of police and fire fighters that died on 9.11.01.
Bill Rosemann spoke about how as a child he read comics because they were fun and he liked the art. As he grew older, he tended to gravitate more towards the story driven aspects of comics. Now, more than ever, he feels that having heroes like the ones portrayed in the comics, are important. He introduced upcoming Marvel products and books. Recharge is a new collectible card game containing 250 unique cards. There will also be an increase in Marvel Posters (4 new ones coming out in December). He spent some time on the new Max line for mature readers and gave the release dates of some of the more highly anticipated launches:
Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber and Phil Winslade (Jan 2002)
Captain Britain Trade Paperback with a new intro written by Alan Moore and new cover by Alan Davis (Jan 2002)
The Ultimates (the 4th Ultimate title) by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch (Jan 2002, with a special preview in the November issue of Wizard)
Cage by Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben (Feb 2002)
Black Widow by Greg Rucka and Greg Horn (March 2002)
Captain America Marvel Knights Re-launch (April 2002)
December also sees the release of Hulk #34 with new writer, Bruce Jones, a legend in the horror field who will be joined by John Romita Jr on pencils. Banner (the Startling Stories limited series) will be rush collected for that month since it has a feel similar to that of the new Hulk era. Other Trades coming up include Daredevil Visionaries 3 (with a new cover by Frank Miller) and Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 2.
It appears that Mark Millar likes chocolate just as much as comic fans like Gambit. Millar once said that he had no desire to include Gambit in his Ultimate X-Men run, but fans of the rajun Cajun inundated the Marvel offices with chocolate (Millar’s favorite) in a successful attempt to bribe the writer into having a change of heart. Gambit will make his debut in Ultimate X-Men #19 with the guest team of Chuck Austin and Essad Ribic. The Marvel Knights Doubleshot limited series will pave the way for a new ongoing Marvel Knights series to bow next Spring. We saw a few of the preview pages and they were unbelievable. The book is going in a completely new direction and tone and it should surprise some people. A preview copy of Daredevil #26 (with new creative team Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev) was available and it’s by far the best DD story in some time. From the first pages, it’s clear that Bendis and Maleev are making the character their own and people will be talking about this issue for quite some time.
The ‘Heroes’ benefit book will ship on October 17. After taking a look at the preview copy, I was absolutely blown away. On each image, I thought, ‘this is my favorite piece’ only to see something just as amazing when I turned the page. Because Marvel wanted to do something for the victims right away, the Heroes book was conceived. Conceptually, the book had to be more of a pin up book with text pieces in an effort to get it out as quickly as possible, but in December, they will be releasing ‘Moment of Silence’, which contains 4 short stories about the 9.11.01 events written by Brian Michael Bendis, Bill Jemas, Joe Quesada, and Kevin Smith and illustrated by Chuck Austin, Mark Bagley, Igor Kordey and John Romita Jr.
Along with the silent ‘Nuff Said’ month which will affect most titles in December and show if ‘Bendis can tell a story without dialogue’ the FF celebrate their 40th anniversary in a 64 page special and Captain America #50 hits, which is the big sendoff before he goes to Marvel Knights and that features stories by Evan Dorkin and Jen Van Meter, among others. The other big news was the first images of Marvel Manga, which will be 7 one shots in January. For more on this story (plus images) check out http://www.comicon.com/newsarama/
Wizard’s Stew Morales gave reenergized the crowd with a presentation on the magazine’s upcoming issues. Issue 123 will have a Wonder Woman sketchbook, 124 is the Year End bonanza, which will also have a 9 page preview of the new Hawkman series. 125 is the big 2002 preview with coverage of the JLA/Avengers mini-series and Morales promised that much attention will be devoted towards the upcoming Spider-Man film. He also pointed out that next January will feature Wizard: Edge, which focuses on creators and comics not normally covered by the magazine.
Their comic book line had some news, too. The popular miniseries by Garth Ennis, Just A Pilgrim will be collected in Trade Paperback format and the new mini-series, Just A Pilgrim: Garden of Eden, will hit stores in March.
The popular Wizard World Conventions were addressed. Next year’s convention is Chicago will take place from July 5-7th, but the big news concerned their Wizard World East Convention. Taking place in Philadelphia from May 10-12, the show already has one guest lined up, Kevin Smith, who will be showing a KS film festival.
During a brief Q&A, Joe Quesada admitted that the Wolverine series was starting to go out of bounds. ‘We pushed the envelope a bit too far and now we’re going to start pulling back’. He did note, though, that after reviewing some old panels illustrated by artists like Barry Windsor Smith and Steve Skroce, he found images that were just as violent that made it through with the Comic Code seal of approval.
The only debate of the day came when one of the retailers suggested that companies like Marvel weren’t doing enough to advertise outside of the comic book nitch. He felt that Marvel could have made better use of Origin by putting posters up on bus stops and billboards similar to how movie studios promote their films. When he was given a moment, Jemas responded that these unique methods were more costly and less effective than other methods they have been using recently. Jemas pointed out that Marvel is focusing on the Ultimate line for giveaways (or sampling as they called it) to places like fast food business and PayLess Shoe Stores. Jemas and Quesada explained that they are using guerilla-marketing tactics in an effort to drum up attention and business. ‘Each blip in the news about comics that we cause will hopefully translate into sales down the line’.
After a break for lunch, CPMedia’s Chris Couch gave a presentation. CPMedia is a company that specializes in Anima. The company motto is ‘world peace through shared popular culture’ and he explained that to mean that one doesn’t go to war with someone they know and the best way to get to know someone is to share ideas and have something in common. Couch talked about several of the Manga books and gave an informative introduction to the types of stories the company publishes, to the benefit of some people like me who aren’t that familiar with the genre. As he put it, they produce comics that retailers can sell to anyone that comes into the store. They’re particularly proud of what they call Sho Ujo, which are manga comics particularly geared towards women. There was a great deal of discussion about how to bring more women and children into comic shops and he seemed to have a lot of the answers, at least in terms of content.
The presentation was from Diamond Select, which is not to be confused with Diamond Comics. Select specializes in toys, busts, merchandize and the like. They recently acquired the rights to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Peter Cottontail, which will hopefully bring in a newer audience. They also signed an agreement with Marvel to produce calendars, posters and new Ultimate Marvel Busts. The first three to launch (Storm, Magneto and Spider-Man) were shown to the audience who were very impressed with both the detail and sense of fluidity to the sculpts.
After the presentations, most of the guests headed downstairs for an open bar and open access to creators in attendance. Marvel artists, John Cassaday, Sean Chen, Jae Lee, and the Kubert were all on hand to talk to retailers and the media, as well as sign a ton of products.
I was fortunate enough to not only spend some time with creators again, but with the retailers, too. The comic book retailers were a big part of Grayhaven Magazine when we first launched as a print magazine a decade ago. Over the first year of our online rebirth, we sort of lost touch, but thankfully we’re starting to work together with a bit more lately. I was amazed at some of the stories they shared. Dave and his wife (from Dave’s Comics) came from Virginia only in part for the meeting. The real reason he and his wife made the trip was to spend money in NYC and do their part for the economy. Mitch from St Mark’s Comics relayed to me the story of another comic company out of the area that called him and asked if they could buy his products. St. Mark’s had one of their stores closed due to their proximity to ‘ground zero’ and was directly affected by the terrorist attacks. This competitor made a call and offered to help. These are people that have lives outside of this world of comic books and yet everyone shared in each other’s pain and joy. I was also pleased to meet Michael Doran, of the previously mentioned Newsarama and Ed Matthews of www.popimage.com. The three of us, from competing web sites were able to drink together, laugh together and even talk about how we could all make the charity auction more successful. Yeah, comics have gotten a bad rap from people, mainly those who nothing about the subject they were talking about. But on this day, there was no pettiness or jealousy. This was a day that made me proud to be, even in my small way, a part of this industry.
Excellent report, Andrew. Thanks again.
"Moriarty" out.
