Chris Ryall

Publishing | IDW Publishing has promoted Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall to the new position of chief creative officer, expanding his duties to encompass the company’s efforts across all platforms. Ryall, who joined IDW in 2004 from Kevin Smith’s Movie Poop Shoot website, will remain as editor-in-chief. [press release]

Publishing | In not-exactly-unexpected news, Dark Horse will move its online anthology Dark Horse Presents from MySpace to the publisher’s website. DHP originally appeared in print from 1986 to 2000, and was relaunched in digital form at MySpace in August 2007. [Newsarama]

Publishing | John Jackson Miller analyzes direct-market sales figures for May, which saw graphic novel sales slip 15 percent from the previous year: “My suspicion continues to be that orders for bigger-ticket items have been more likely to be impacted by the general recession; retailers are letting trade paperback inventories fall a bit, even in months in which they’re ordering more comic books (even given the price increases).” [The Comichron]

Publishing | Kai-Ming Cha offers a brief overview of recent developments in the battle between manga publishers and scanlation websites. [Publishers Weekly]

iPad

Publishing | Chris Sims wonders whether Marvel is trying out “digital second printings” as a way to release recent comics on the Apple iPad (presumably without making waves with direct-market retailers). [Comics Alliance]

Publishing | Mumbai-based publisher Vimanika Comics is profiled. [CNNGo.com]

Conventions | Anime Expo, which kicks off today at the Los Angeles Convention Center, will remain in the city through 2013. The four-day event is expected to attract 100,000 attendees and bring about $24 million in revenue to the city. Deb Aoki has a rundown of this weekend’s highlights. [Money & Company]

Conventions | Susan Karlin briefly profiles Comic-Con President John Rogers, who oversees a $7 million budget, and a staff of 20 full-time employees and 3,000 volunteers — plus sibling events WonderCon and Alternative Press Expo. [IEEE Spectrum, via Journalista]

Retailing | Julie Shapiro spotlights New York City’s Midtown Comics as it prepares to open a new location on Fulton Street. [DNAinfo.com]

Creators | Douglas Wolk talks with J.H. Williams III about the upcoming Batwoman monthly series: “The first arc is very much a horror story, and then the second is an espionage/intrigue sort of thing, and after that sort of a fantasy epic for the third, and initial plans for the fourth are more along the lines of a family drama.” [Techland]

Creators | Tucker Stone profiles artist Cliff Chiang: “When I started, I felt like everything had gotten so precious, art-wise. I wanted to make marks, these really fat brush lines. To force people to see that what I was doing was also drawing. It doesn’t have to look like Todd McFarlane. I ended up getting a lot of jobs that were Golden Age or period pieces. Since then, I’ve seen things move in that direction. Michael Lark started working in brush, and Darwyn was doing his stuff, and then it felt like there was this whole movement of people doing this classic, noir-ish visual style. And they were so good at it, it made me feel like I needed to change. That’s why you see a shift in the Human Target stuff, I think it’s in issue fourteen, the one with the boy-band priest. It was a reaction to people doing better work in an area that I’d gotten comfortable in. So I picked up and tried to do something else.” [comiXology]

Creators | Graeme McMillan interviews Dan Goldman about his web series Red Light Properties. [Techland]

Creators | Paul Levitz chats about Adventure Comics, Legion of Super-Heroes and Superman/Batman. [iFanboy]

Comics | Dave Carter and Heidi MacDonald run down Wonder Woman’s many costumes over the decades. [Yet Another Comics Blog, The Beat]

Reviews | Techland contributors on Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1; Brian Hibbs on an assortment of new releases; Michael Dirda on Wilson; Ryan Jent on Batwoman: Elegy; Tom Speelman on Chew, Vol.; and Kirk Warren on a handful of new releases.

from S.H.O.O.T. First by Justin Aclin and Ben Bates

It was an awesome thing to behold. My friend Justin Aclin — editor of ToyFare magazine, head writer of Twisted ToyFare Theater, and author of the graphic novel Hero House — came up with a great idea for a comic, about a super-powered team of militant atheists who track down and kill supposedly supernatural entities for meddling in humanity’s affairs. This was on a Monday. On Tuesday he pitched it to Dark Horse. On Wednesday it was greenlit. From idea to approval in under 48 hours. Amazing, right?

By now you’ve seen the end result: S.H.O.O.T. First, an eight-page story from the final issue of MySpace Dark Horse Presents. But if you’re an aspiring comics writer, perhaps you wanna see exactly how Aclin managed to catch lightning in a bottle in the first place.

Fortunately, he’s got your hook-up: On his blog, Aclin has posted his successful proposal for the comic. It sets up the concept, introduces the characters, and walks you through the plot of the initial short story in seven paragraphs and one catchphrase — pretty much a how-to for clear, concise, compelling comics pitches. Read and learn.

Over at Comics Alliance, ToyFare editor, Twisted ToyFare Theater head writer and Hero House author Justin Aclin is talking up his upcoming story for MySpace Dark Horse Presents, “S.H.O.O.T. First.” It’s a paranormal/superhero book in the vein of B.P.R.D., but with a twist: The titular team’s acronym stands for the Secular Humanist Occult Obliteration Taskforce, and their mission is to wipe out any and all supernatural entities in the name of atheism. Says Aclin:

S.H.O.O.T. are basically militant atheists, tasked with hunting down supernatural creatures, especially those of religious significance, that they don’t even believe in….every time you read a comic about someone fighting the supernatural, they’re really doing it on the supernatural’s own terms. If you’re fighting a vampire, you bring stakes and holy water – that kind of thing. I don’t think there’s ever been a team like “S.H.O.O.T.” that basically thinks it’s all bunk, and just goes after any threat with science and bullets, and scientific bullets.

Besides giving the world the phrase “scientific bullets,” a mitzvah if ever there was one, Aclin raises an interesting question. In a universe filled with magical beings, ghosts, and even deities, where people know there’s an afterlife, know there are higher beings, know there are forces of good and evil duking it out on higher and lower planes of existence — in a universe like that, what becomes of atheism and religion as we know them?

It’s always seemed to me that the presence of Thor and Hercules and Mephisto and so on in the Marvel Universe, or the Spectre and the Demon and Zauriel and so forth in the DC Universe, ought to have altered the social fabric of those worlds in far more fundamental ways — ways their respective creators really couldn’t get away with depicting, lest they lose the “real world plus superpowers” feel that fans are accustomed to. Would each different deity inspire a new religion? Would the world’s major faiths adapt to incorporate such entities, fight against them, or ignore them entirely? Would atheists write them off as simply a different form of perfectly natural life, or abandon their Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens books en masse?

Some other franchises, like Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and B.P.R.D. universe, dodged the question by keeping the knowledge of the supernatural limited to a select few; now that that’s becoming harder for those characters to do, you’re seeing some major changes in how the world at large operates. But in a story like “S.H.O.O.T First,” how do secular humanists preserve their unbelief when they’re duking it out with demons? It certainly gives that phrase “there are no atheists in foxholes” a workout, that’s for sure…

So tell us, dear readers: If Asgard was floating above your rural Oklahoma hamlet or the Wrath of God was trotting his green bikini briefs all around your hometown, would you become a believer? Or would you support a super-squad with gods in their crosshairs?

Dark Horse Presents: The original

I swung by the Dark Horse booth, which was doing a booming business, to chat with Jeremy Atkins about a couple of things. Something that got buried in my Carla Speed McNeil story is the return of the print version of Dark Horse Presents. The relaunch will coincide with Dark Horse’s 25th anniversary next year, Atkins said, and the publisher will also relocate the online version of Dark Horse Presents from MySpace to their own site. “We will have new content especially for print,” he said, and he expects the print comics will appeal to a different audience than the web version. Dark Horse will continue to collect the webcomics into print volumes, and the print comics will also be collected into trades with a different format.

Manga fans have been wondering about the CLAMP “mangettes” (essentially, mini-manga) that were announced several years ago but have never materialized. Atkins pointed out that Dark Horse has been publishing omnibus editions of earlier CLAMP titles, including Clover and Chobits, with a Cardcaptor Sakura omnibus on the way. “We decided it made more sense to focus on getting collections of all these materials, and create an association between CLAMP and Dark Horse,” he said. “We will do new CLAMP material in the future. We have a relationship with CLAMP to develp new material, we just have to do it.”

“The Artist Statement” by Hector Casanova

“Coyote and the Pebbles” by Dayton Edmunds and Micah Farritor, from the anthology Trickster

“Ever Upward” by Tonci Zonjic

“Las Primas Controla” by Jaime Hernandez

Particle Fiction #1: Eye of the Tiger by David Wynne

“Vacation” by Dave K.

Hat tip: Flog, Sean T. Collins

Brody's Ghost

The next edition of MySpace Dark Horse Presents comes out on Wednesday, but courtesy of Dark Horse we’re happy to bring you the entire third chapter of Mark Crilley’s “Brody’s Ghost” before this week’s issue goes live.

Mark spoke to CBR about the story in January, and I asked him if he wanted to set up this third chapter. So, let’s hear from Mark:

This story centers on Brody’s training with his samurai mentor ghost, Kagemura. We’ve leaped ahead to a point in the saga where Brody is in the thick of his training. I wanted to show how demanding it was and the toll it was taking on him. In the series I’ll be challenging myself to make the acquisition of supernatural powers as believable as possible; not a miraculous ‘bit by a radioactive spider’ type deal, but something more gradual: a process the reader can almost imagine going through him or herself. This eight-pager conveys some of the training process and also some of the mental tug of war that goes on between Brody and Kagemura. In the series we’ll get to see more of this, following Brody’s transformation from a deadbeat loser to a young man of truly superhuman abilities.

You can check out the first two chapters on the MySpace Dark Horse Presents page. And all of chapter three can be found right after the jump …

*****

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 1

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 2

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 3

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 4

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 5

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 6

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 7

Brody's Ghost 3, Pg. 8

Brody's Ghost by Mark Crilley

As mentioned earlier this week on CBR, Dark Horse has released the January edition of MySpace Dark Horse Presents a little bit early. New stories by Mark Crilley, Scott Allie and Kevin McGovern, Jill Thompson and David Malki! all went live a little earlier today.

“We’re putting this one online early–usually MDHP goes up the first Wednesday of the month, but because of Diamond cutting off the shipment of new books on the final Wednesday in December, we thought it would be cool to deliver some comics ourselves on December 30,” Allie told CBR. “I wish it did something for the retailers that are missing a week’s revenue–a crucial week’s revenue–but at least readers will have 26 new pages of comics.”

Longbox

Digital Comics | Rantz Hoseley posted some additional information and answered questions on the Longbox digital comics in the comments section of the iFanboy article Kevin linked to yesterday.

Those updates include:

• Although only BOOM! and Top Cow have been announced so far, Hoseley said seven publishers have signed on for the launch, and the other five will be announced in the next few weeks leading up to the San Diego Comic Con.
• The software will include a “Manga Mode” that flips the left-to-right reading order. That’s pretty damn clever.
• The software will also allow for “age-restricted sub-accounts,” so your kids can read the Muppets but can’t get to your Black Kiss comics.
• Hoseley says that “while we certainly welcome DC and Marvel’s participation, the entire system was designed to have a business model that would be successful and profitable for all involved if they chose not to participate.”

There’s more at the link, so click over and read. This gets more interesting by the day …

e-Devices | Uclick, which has brought titles like Bone and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the iPhone, announced today that they’ve released an Eisner Award iPhone application, available now for free on iTunes. The app will update with icons indicating the winners in each category shortly after the voting results are announced on Friday, July 24 at the San Diego Comic Con.

I actually downloaded it last night; it only works in landscape, but it includes information on the awards and Will Eisner, as well as covers of all the nominees. It’s pretty slick and well worth the asking price.

Social media | The Castaways and Bluesman writer Rob Vollmar is tweeting a comic script at the rate of one page per day. No doubt that’s one way to ensure that every word — heck, every character — counts. (Via)

e-Devices | Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid reviews the Kindle DX, which started shipping June 10. “Comics displayed on the improved Kindle 2 looked dim and small and were hard to read and the device’s zoom feature didn’t really help much,” he wrote. “Comics are now much easier to read on the DX but they still seem dim and veiled by the screen’s grey cast.” He also notes that Amazon was meeting with comic publishers at the BookExpo America to discuss enhancing the device for comic viewing.

Webcomics | Wired.com’s GeekDad interviews Dr. McNinja creator Chris Hastings.

Social media | MySpace announced they are cutting another 300 jobs overseas.

Social media | Coming soon to a theater near you — Facebook, the movie.

MySpace.com

Yesterday the social media megasite MySpace announced that it was laying off almost 30 percent of its staff, about 400 employees — a move their CEO called “necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace.” Per the L.A. Times, MySpace’s user numbers are down from last year, and ad revenue is projected to fall 15 percent in 2009.

As reported on Comics Alliance yesterday and confirmed by our sources, MySpace Comic Books is shutting down. An attempt to e-mail the current contact for MySpace Comic Books resulted in a response that he was no longer with the company.

No doubt with the 30 percent cut in employees, you can expect other initiatives on MySpace to be cut or at least scaled down as well.

The MySpace Comic Books community launched in 2007 and has played host to numerous comic previews, full issues of comics like Hexed, interviews, a news feed from Comic Book Resources and MyCup O’ Joe, which ended its run on May 1. MySpace is owned by News Corporation, which also owns 20th Century Fox, FOX Broadcasting Company, The New York Post, HarperCollins and IGN Entertainment, among many, many other media outlets.

Sam Humphries

With JK Parkin taking a well-deserved vacation this week, Robot 6 is pleased (and lucky) to have writer and new-media developer Sam Humphries stepping in to lend a hand.

Sam worked for more than two years in content and development at MySpace, where he was the architect of the successful MySpace Comic Books program. The initiative’s MySpace Dark Horse Presents online anthology earned an Eisner Award last year for “Sugarshock!,” the short story by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon.

Sam lives in Los Angeles, and can’t stop reading Boy’s Club.

Paul Pope draws the Marvel Universe

At the New York Comic Con, CB Cebulski mentioned that the Marvel “Indie Project” was coming along nicely. I’m wondering if you could tell us any of the talent involved or tease some artwork. Anyone in particular you are stoked to have on board?

JQ: It’s definitely moving forward—and looking better and better every day. There are some huge names in indy comics involved with this project and we couldn’t be more excited about the work they’re turning in. Just to name a few of the talents involved, we’ve got Paul Pope, Stan Sakai, Paul Hornschemeier, Dash Shaw, Junko Mizuno, Jim Rugg, Corey Lewis…and a bunch more small press superstars contributing some truly amazing stories. We just got some outstanding pages in from the cartoonist JASON and I gotta tell you, this is going to be one awesome book. Stay tuned!

Marvel.com has several sample pages, including one from Hornschemeier’s Nightcrawler/Molecule Man story and Rugg’s Machine Man story.

Continuing with the “show must go on” theme of the last few weeks, The Hero Initiative’s Jim McLauchlin interviews writer Dan Slott over at MySpace, talking to him about Mighty Avengers, Spider-Man, Ren & Stimpy, continuity and taking the “fun” out of comics:

JM: So I guess you wanna start off by talking about “the F-word.”

DS: Yeah, the F-word. Before any interview or any panel, someone’s always there to remind me not to say the F-word. And by the F-word, I mean “FUN.” With any project, any concept, anything we’re promoting…you’re never supposed to say that it’s “fun”. Take it out. Because somehow “fun” has come to mean “juvenile” or “stupid.” Which is really not the case.

JM: So why does it seem to be the case? Why do you think “fun” is poison?

DS: I don’t know! ’Cause comics should be fun! They are fun! And I’m not talking about “bwah-ha-ha” fun. But if you’re buying a comic, I’ll bet you’re getting some element of fun out of it. Otherwise, why are you doing it? You can read a cosmic book like Guardians of the Galaxy—a very cool book by the way—and to you, that’s fun.

Or some really sadistic stuff like Punisher from the MAX line, and if you’re enjoying it, for you, that’s fun. To me, comics should have that essential spark. No matter what we do—or how we do it—adventure, action, super heroes, kung fu, Kirby monsters, street level, thunder gods—we do it to entertain you. And entertainment is fun.

He also talks about continuity and “personal continuities” — the “If I didn’t read it, it didn’t happen” mentality that some fans adopt. If I dare say it, it’s a fun interview, just like the one with Matt Fraction last week.

Rex Mantooth by Fraction and Kuhn

Dunno how easy it is to find the comic; it didn’t come up in my Amazon or eBay search, but AiT/Planet Lar’s The Annotated Mantooth did.

As for the interview itself, I thought this was an apt analogy as far as his career goes:

JM: Personally speaking, I loved Last of the Independents and Rex Mantooth. And it kinda begs the question…some people wanna be the rock band playing the arena shows, and some are content to be the world’s coolest bar band. I think Mantooth and so on is obviously your bar band stage. Do you now wanna play the arenas?

MF: Y’know…the Beatles used to play secret shows. REM plays secret shows. Prince is famous for playing a three-hour arena show, then going to some small club, unannounced, and continuing to play ’til 3 AM. You know what I mean? To continue that metaphor…I think there’s room for both. I wanna do both.

I also wanna be kind of like [movie director] Steven Soderbergh. I wanna do what I want to do, and if it falls into a place of commercial success…great.
Soderbergh kind of says, “Hey, I’m gonna do Ocean’s 13 and it’s gonna be a huge hit…” and that earns him the freedom to go to Argentina and make a four-hour biopic on Che Guevara that’s totally in Spanish. Then he’ll come back and do The Informant. That’s my speed. Jumping around to whatever interests me.

But any commercial success is just a by-product. I just don’t have that kind of mind to calculate it out. I just want to tell my stories and do what I want to do and hope for the best. And sometimes you get lucky, which is almost what’s happening with the Che movie. Originally, it was just going to play in New York and L.A., but it sold out every show and they realized, “Hey, we really have something here!” So every now and then…who knows? Your bar gig becomes the arena show.

Hexed #1

Earlier this week BOOM! Studios announced a promotion with MySpace where each issue of their new mini-series Hexed will pop up in full on the popular social networking site the same day it hit stores. The first issue is up there now.

When they did this last year with North Wind, they received mixed feedback from retailers on the concept, and generally negative feedback on the lack of communication about it before orders were due for the book. I collected some responses I received from retailers in a post on Blog@. Although this time around I haven’t heard much about retailers reacting to the promotion, but I thought it might be worth talking to a few to see what they thought, so I emailed about 20 or so yesterday afternoon.

Many thanks to those who responded, whose comments are collected below.

*****

James Sime, Isotope Comics in San Francisco:

In general, what are your thoughts on companies putting their comics out on the Web for free like this? Do you think it ultimately helps or hurts sales (or neither)?

It’s the industry’s new business model! It’s pretty clear from all the fat sacks of cash we retailers made off books like Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories and Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight and Freak Angels that even us brick and mortar shops benefited from those creators building a fanbase on the web with free content. If it’s good work, people will either buy themselves a copy of the non-virtual version or they’ll seek out more works by that creator. Warren Ellis’ massive body of published comics work has started selling even better in the past few months at my shop than it did before Freak Angels… it’s easy to see he’s gotten new fans and has managed to reinvigorate the Ellis vets into searching out his more obscure works. Now if only I had 25 more Nick Gurewitch and Chris Onstad books!

Did you order Hexed #1? If so, how has it done?

They just came in yesterday so it’s really too early to say on just one day of sales. It was a week of some amazing releases RASL, Blue Monday, Buffy, Walking Dead, X-Men Noir, Universal War One, Secret Six, Haunted Tank … hell there’s even a Sandman on the new arrivals rack! So yeah, Hexed #1 did pretty well. I think the cover did more to sell it than anything else.

Have any of your customers who bought the book mentioned the MySpace promotion?

No.

Has the MySpace promotion affected how you plan to order future copies of the book?

No. But it may affect my orders on the inevitable collection. At my shop that’s definitely the preferred format for the kind of books BOOM! makes, so that’s actually where I think this kind of promotion will benefit my business.

What was your reaction to how the promotion was communicated, via the video from Mark Waid?

I’m just really happy BOOM! is promoting their books. I don’t really have much to say about the video itself except that super cheesy male model shot of Mark taking off his glasses and giving the camera the eye? That was hilarious!

*****

Carr D’Angelo, Earth-2 Comics in Sherman Oaks, Calif.:

In general, what are your thoughts on companies putting their comics out on the Web for free like this? Do you think it ultimately helps or hurts sales (or neither)?

There are different versions of this promotion, so the answer is, “It depends.” DC has lots of first issue samples on their website, usually of books that have trade paperback collections. Image regularly releases first issues on the web through various sources, sometimes a few issues into the series or when the first issue has sold out. Both those options are done with the marketing goal of giving a taste and hopefully driving the reader into a comics shop to follow up on the rest of the story. BOOM! is releasing the online comic free day and date with the in-store release. It’s a little scary in that it’s not illogical to fear that some customers may read the book online instead of buying it in the store. But I don’t believe BOOM! is trying to thwart sales. They believe the internet-wide promotion of this book will let more people know about it.

Will it help or hurt sales? The jury is still out as the book only went on sale yesterday. Certainly it would be dangerous for Marvel or DC to release the new issue of their big event at the same time we are trying to sell it, but BOOM! is in an underdog position. Trying something different to get attention. Fact is, their books have the potential to appeal to readers outside of the existing market. So getting a new supernatural adventure comic in front of lots of people who read only Buffy or may not be reading comics at all–that can be a good idea.

Did you order Hexed #1? If so, how has it done?

We had seen early previews of the book and liked it, so we ordered slightly above what we ordered of similar titles. Even though we didn’t know about MySpace, it was clear that BOOM! was giving this book extra marketing elbow grease. We sold most of our order the first day, which is not what you expect, so I would say it has sold well. BOOM! also provided extra overship copies, which means we still have plenty in stock and are not scrambling to reorder.

Have any of your customers who bought the book mentioned the MySpace promotion?

No. But most peole don’t tell you why they are buying a book. The fact that a significant number of people picked up this book on new comics day means they heard something about it.

Has the MySpace promotion affected how you plan to order future copies of the book?

As always, the goal is to reorder what you can sell. I want to make sure I have enough of the upcoming issues to meet customer demand.

What was your reaction to how the promotion was communicated, via the video from Mark Waid?

It was a good way to get a message out. It’s more fun to click on a video starring the writer of EMPIRE, KINGDOM COME and some of the best FLASH stories ever than to read a press release. It had an in-your-face quality and it addressed all the key issues. Retailers get nervous when publishers experiment if the results of the experiment mean the retailer is stuck with comics they can’t sell. But BOOM! listened to retailers through message boards, e-mails and in discussions with ComicsPRO members. That’s the Comics Professional Retail Organization, and we represent probably 25-30 percent of the top 500 accounts BOOM! sent the extra five copies to. So they made a real effort to make this promotion retailer-friendly.

The key for me is returnability of the product. That shows me the publisher is standing behind it. They think their efforts will sell more copies, so they are willing to say, “If we’re wrong and you lose sales, we will take the books back and you don’t have to pay for them.” When a publisher shares the risk and gives you a money-back guarantee, I am very supportive.

*****

Brian Hibbs, Comix Experience in San Francisco:

In general, what are your thoughts on companies putting their comics out on the Web for free like this? Do you think it ultimately helps or hurts sales (or neither)?

In general, I think that same-day release of digital and hardcopy isn’t the best idea. There’s no evidence yet as to the sales results, but I have a slightly difficult time believing that free full-copy releases is going to spur many (any?) people to rush into a store to buy the same object they just read for free, and it MAY cause someone who would have bought it to not do so. Or it may not. There’s not enough evidence to cogently argue it either way.

Did you order Hexed #1? If so, how has it done?

Yes. I ordered two copies, and received another five as a “Top 500” account. We’ve sold two.

Ask again in a month for a real answer, as it hasn’t even been 48 hours yet!

Have any of your customers who bought the book mentioned the MySpace promotion?

No.

Has the MySpace promotion affected how you plan to order future copies of the book?

Not directly – if we don’t sell another copy, I’ll order two copies of the next solicited issue. If we sell more, I’ll order the appropriate number of copies.

What was your reaction to how the promotion was communicated, via the video from Mark Waid?

Mark hit the right notes, but I always think it is a bad idea to do what is intended as promotional efforts without informing retailers FAR ENOUGH IN ADVANCE that we can make adjustments one way or another. I can visualize some stores ordering MORE copies if they had known that the publisher was behind it.

If anything, it reminds me a little of the promotions for the Ultraverse line of books – they spent tens of thousands of dollars in taking out construction site advertising, etc., but never bothered to tell stores who were located in impacted cities that it was going to happen. What few consumer requests that were made couldn’t be acted upon in a timely fashion, because no one bothered to inform us.

The BEST promotions are ones where the retailer can REINFORCE the publishers message. That really can’t be done with 24 hours notice.

Having said THAT, making the book be fully returnable at least addresses a good deal of the risk calculation that was the failing of the North Wind version of this plan. So, yay for BOOM! on that one at least.

*****

Randy Lander, Rogues Gallery Comics & Games in Round Rock, Texas:

In general, what are your thoughts on companies putting their comics out on the Web for free like this? Do you think it ultimately helps or hurts sales (or neither)?

I don’t think it hurts, in most cases. I think it can help, although I think that it helps more in the case of books that build buzz online and then translate into graphic novel form (Dark Horse has been particularly good at this with their webcomics collections and MySpace collections). I’m not convinced that it works to put single issues online simultaneously. But BOOM! has sales figures to back up that it *did* for North Wind, and I’ve got anecdotal evidence from my mid-sized shop in Texas, so… grain of salt and all that.

Did you order Hexed #1? If so, how has it done?

We did order Hexed, and the sales have been a bit on the slow side, thus far. But several of the staff enjoyed the book, which will definitely help hand-sell it as time goes on.

Have any of your customers who bought the book mentioned the MySpace promotion?

Nope.

Has the MySpace promotion affected how you plan to order future copies of the book?

Nope. When it comes to ordering books, I have a pretty simple rule: If it sells, I’ll order more, if it doesn’t, I’ll order less (or none).

What was your reaction to how the promotion was communicated, via the video from Mark Waid?

Well, I was in with the retailers who had no problem with the North Wind promotion, so I really didn’t need my hand held on this one, either. To be honest, I didn’t watch the video… I heard all I needed to hear from the press release. But I thought it was a smart business decision and a classy way to handle what can be a prickly group of customers.

*****

If you’re a retailer with an opinion on this, feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email; if I get a few more in, I’ll run another post.

Chip Mosher at Disneyland

Yesterday Mark Waid, editor-in-chief of BOOM! Studios, announced via a YouTube video that BOOM! would post full issues of their Hexed mini-series on MySpace the same day the book was released in stores, just like they did with the North Wind mini-series a year ago. As I was already talking to Chip Mosher, their sales and marketing guy, about several other things going on with BOOM! when the video was released, I was able to sneak in a few questions about the promotion as well.

My thanks to Chip for his time.

JK: Last year BOOM! put the complete North Wind mini-series up on MySpace Comic Books, with each issue going up on the day it hit retailers’ shelves. And now you’re doing it again with HEXED. Why did you choose HEXED, versus any of your other titles?

Chip: Right time. Right place. Right book.

Personally, I see Hexed as one of the books that is kicking off BOOM! 3.0. I consider Mark coming on board as E-i-C as BOOM! 2.0 — where he spearheaded the stabilizing of the line-up and built up editorial. I look at this next year as BOOM! 3.0 — where the promise of Mark Waid as E-i-C is realized in full. The team here at BOOM! is running on all cylinders. You’ll see a whole host of books coming out of BOOM! in the next year, shepherded by Mark and the editorial team, that will just rock your socks off.

Hexed, page 5

JK: Some retailers were unhappy with the North Wind promotion last year, saying they wished they had known you were releasing the book online the same day it would be in shops before they placed their orders. So what did you do differently this time around to communicate with retailers about the promotion?

Chip: Well, not only did Mark do the video announcement, but we did a separate announcement aimed directly at retailers to answer their concerns. The promotion as a whole came out of those concerns. We listened to the retailers and came up with a great promotion because of just that.

JK: And are you offering them any kind of incentive to encourage them to order more copies of the title?

Chip: We’re calling this the “5 for 500 Program” – because we sent five extra copies of Hexed #1 to the top 500 retailers. We made issue #1 completely returnable, and we are offering a 3 percent reorder incentive for all the books in the series. BOOM! is taking all the risk onto ourselves and shipping extra copies to retailers for them to sell at no risk to them, because that’s how confident we are in this book and in this promotion.

Hexed page 6

JK: Looking back, BOOM! took some hits over the North Wind promotion, but overall how did the book do?

Chip: Well, we sold out of issue #1. But more importantly, we sold 30 percent more copies of issue #4 than we did of issue #3. With a five issue mini-series, this just does not happen. As Mark states in the retailer video, the only way these numbers make sense is if people went to MySpace.com/comicbooks, read issue #3 online and then went out and bought number #4 in the stores. I know this didn’t add up to some, but you know, people buy DVDs of TV shows they see for free all the time, so it really shouldn’t come as too big a shock that giving something online for free spurs sales.

In the end, we had a lot more supporters than detractors on the North Wind promotion. And I think by doing the “5 for 500 Promotion” hand-in-hand with full returnability that we have really addressed most if not all of the concerns out there.

JK: I want to talk about some of BOOM!’s plans for the future, but first, let’s talk about where you’ve come from. The last couple of years have been pretty big for the company, with Mark Waid coming on board, the Disney/Pixar license deal, not to mention a pretty big increase in staff. Can you give us a little perspective on how BOOM! has grown since you joined?

Chip: When I came on board July of 2007, Ross Richie had done a brilliant job building the company. The original vision for BOOM! that he and Andrew Cosby had — that of doing high-concept genre books — had really taken off. And they had gotten to a point where they needed to staff up. Right after I was hired, we announced Mark Waid as E-i-C. From the point Mark came on board, the company has expanded slowly but surely, and most importantly, in editorial and under Mark’s editorial guidance. Right now, we have Matt Gagnon as managing editor, who is doing a terrific job and has spearheaded the Farscape line. Then there is Ian Brill, who is heading up the Warhammer books and several other projects. Last but not least, there is Paul Morrissey, who is heading up the Disney books, which include our Pixar and Muppets lines.

Hexed #1

Chip: Mark is one of the greatest writers comics has ever seen. The guy has so much range. Go back and read his original Flash run. Then read Kingdom Come. Then read Potter’s Field. This man knows how to write, and his level of quality, consistency and diversity over the last 10 plus years is astounding. Now that BOOM! 2.0 is coming to an end, and the company is running at a nice clip, it’s only right that we let Waid have some fun writing some new books for BOOM!

In March, he’s writing The Incredibles: Family Matters, which is just amazing. After that … well, I can’t say. All I can say is that it is going to shake the comics industry to its core.

7. When can we expect the core-shaking to commence, or at least when will it be announced?

Chip: Sooner than you think!

JK: What were some of the genres fans said they wanted to see Mark tackle?

Chip: Basically the fans came back with every genre you could think of. You know the success of BOOM! stems from us doing what other companies don’t. We do high-concept genre books that exist somewhere between the Big Two and the indie art comics scene. It’s a space that we just flat own. And I think that’s part of the genius of Ross and Andy’s original vision for BOOM! You know, why would you want to do an ongoing superhero comic and compete with the Big Two? They are experts at that. They do that every day. You’d be crazy to compete with that. Which is why what we do at BOOM! works so well. They don’t do what we do. We don’t do what they do.

JK: So let’s talk about some of those books … Farscape #1 came out on Christmas Eve, and you announced a second printing on Monday. So I’m guessing sales at the retailer level exceeded your expectations?

Chip: Yes, Santa came early this year! Okay, seriously… Farscape #1 has done great. And while it looks like the weather stopped some stores from getting their copies on time. But even with that hiccup, the reorder activity was so tremendous that we sold out and now are going to a second printing. We are all really happy about how well this book has performed for us.

JK: The reaction to these sorts of announcements always fascinates me. While the publisher obviously wants to play up the fact that the book sold out from the distributor — which is what we’re talking about in this case, correct? Not that the book can’t be found on any retailer shelf anywhere in America — you typically see comments about how the book probably had a low print run, someone didn’t anticipate demand, etc. As a sales and marketing guy, what’s your perspective? And beyond orders from retailers, what goes into the decision to overprint something?

Chip: When a sell-out happens at the distributor level, obviously we want to get the word out to the fans so they have a chance to get a copy. As a sales and marketing guy, I want everyone who wants a copy of the book to get a copy of the book. We had strong initial orders from retailers for this book and tried to meet the expected demand. But sometimes you can’t anticipate just how strong the fan reaction is going to be.

JK: What are the plans for Farscape after the initial mini-series?

Chip: We’re doing a follow-up called Farscape: Strange Detractors. Rockne S. O’Bannon is back writing with Keith R.A. DeCandido. On this series, we have newcomer Will Sliney on art. It’s looking great.

JK: Are you guys hearing feedback from Farscape fans? I remember fans of the show being pretty dedicated. Are retailers seeing a different set of customers coming in for the book?

Chip: The Farscape fans have really been driving the success of the Farscape #1 comic. We have really great relationships with the fan sites and have become close personal friends with a ton of the ‘Scapers out there. I suspect retailers are seeing a lot of new faces in their stores because of this book.

The Book of BOOM!

JK: Another area that’s been relatively successful for you guys, but may be under the radar of some comic fans, is the Warhammer franchise. Who is the average customer for these books? Has there been crossover with gaming fans? 

Chip: The Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 licensed comics have been a big success for us. Now that the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMORPG is out, I think the general populace has a better understanding of the different Warhammer universes and the following they have. Comic fans love these books, and Warhammer fans seek them out. It’s an awesome sight to behold!

JK: What’s the Book of BOOM! in the online game?

Chip: We are doing a promotion with our new trade paperback, Warhammer: Crown of Destruction, that will have a scratch-off so you can get an online item in the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning game. This item is aptly titled the Book of BOOM! which gives you the power to go… BOOM!

JK: Was that your idea, or something Electronic Arts asked to do?

Chip: It’s something that grew up organically with the relationship we have with them. BOOM! did the graphic novel pack in for the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMORPG and counting those sales, we had a graphic novel that did as well as Watchmen last year.

JK: Any updates on the Disney stuff you guys are doing, both Muppets and Pixar?

Chip: In March, You’ll see the debut of all new Incredibles stories written by Mark Waid in The Incredibles: Family Matters. Did I say all new stories? Let me say that again: all-new Incredibles stories! By Mark friggin’ Waid. You can’t beat that.

And that’s not all, folks. We are coming out with Cars: The Rookie, which goes into the untold origin story of Lightning McQueen. Add to that, Roger Langridge doing The Muppet Show …. well, it’s going to be a great month for Disney/Pixar fans.

BOOM! ad from Previews

JK: You sent over some ads that ran in the latest Previews, featuring the first Disney and Pixar titles. So Mike Mignola and Michael Avon Oeming are doing covers for Incredibles? How did that come about?

Chip: Did Oeming knock that cover out of the park or what? It’s … just… incredible. (Couldn’t resist). Everyone is a big fan of Oeming’s work here at BOOM!, and we just contacted him out of the blue and viola, you get the best bunch of variant covers ever. Mike Mignola’s cover is actually a variant poster from the original release of The Incredibles movie. We just knew we had to use it for the variant cover.

JK: Who is working on the Cars title?

Chip: We have some great newcomers on this book, Alan J. Porter is writing with art by Albert Carreres. You’ll be seeing much more from them in the future. Fans of the film will l-o-v-e this book!

JK: Are you working with Disney to get them into the parks or their stores? And in general, what’s it been like to work with Disney?

Chip: Working with Disney is a dream come true for all of us at BOOM! And they have been great to work with on these books. While I can’t get into specifics about specific business deals, we are working on getting these titles out to as many places as possible.

BOOM! ad from Previews

JK: Something else in the latest Previews that jumped out at me was Caped, as I don’t remember hearing much about it before seeing it here. What is it?

Chip: I have a press release just about ready to go on that one. Basically, it’s an awesome superhero funny book in the vein of Hero Squared. Caped follows Jimmy Lohman, a superhero’s assistant. As the copy says, “Millions would kill for his job, he’s just not one of them.” It’s written by South Park‘s Josh Lobis and Darin Moiselle, and is just brilliant.

JK: As a smaller comics publisher with some pretty big-name franchises outside of the world of comics, what are some of the things you’re doing to bring in new fans? How do you turn a gamer who buys the Warhammer comic into someone who buys your other books, for example?

Chip: I want as many people reading comics as possible, and I think as an industry we are all guilty of preaching to the choir and not thinking outside the box in terms of promotion and developing content to bring in new readers. This is a particular passion of mine and of BOOM!’s in general.

I feel like our video game scratch-offs that we are doing with the Warhammer series and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMORPG go a long way to helping in that cause. Managing Editor Matt Gagnon and I recently did a big presentation to Farscape fans at the recent Farscape Creation convention. We are always thinking about innovative ways to get the word out about comics. Just look at our Hexed promotion.

JK: If a first-time publisher came up to you and asked for advice on how to market and sell their comics, what are the, say, three key things you’d tell him or her to do?

Chip: I only have one piece of advice: Look at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite.

This is similar to the promotion they did last year for North Wind. Many retailers were upset over that promotion, specifically because they didn’t know about it before they placed their orders for the book. You can read some of their reactions here.

So is BOOM! doing things differently from last time? Here’s Mark Waid again, with more details on some promotional offers for retailers … he notes the book is completely returnable and the top 500 retailers in the country will receive five free copies:

Check back tomorrow for a Q&A with Chip Mosher on this and other BOOM!-related topics. The first issue will be up on MySpace Comics tomorrow at 11 a.m. Pacific.