The Comic Book Pipe Dream

As I’ve noted elsewhere on this site, I’ve spent the last several years working with comic book publishers, doing everything short of the actual layouts, artwork, or designs. As such, I have a fairly good understanding of how the industry works, and I thought I would offer an article that explains the process. But first, I want to preface that article with a reality check.

You see, there’s no money in comics, folks. Actually, let me amend that — there’s no money in the kinds of comics that most people want to produce. By that, I mean:

There’s no money in superhero books.
There’s no money in gritty detective stories.
There’s no money in wannabe manga.
There’s no money in biblical adaptations.
There’s no money in horror comics.
There’s no money in fantasy or sci-fi comics.
There’s no money in retro throwback comics.
There’s no money in offbeat humor comics.

And whenever there is money in one of those categories, it’s probably going to snatched up by someone who’s been in the industry long enough to realize the opportunity and smart enough to capture the market. That’s why Marvel and DC have such a chokehold on the superhero genre, which is by far the most prevalent genre in comics; they do superheroes better than anyone else, and they know how to sell to that audience. Anyone else getting into the game had better be able to stand out with a unique premise (like Mike Mignola with Hellboy or Robert Kirkman with Invincible) or they’re not going to last long.

If you’ve always dreamed of getting into comics because you want to tell stories about your childhood superhero creations, let me just stop you right here and say it: get real. Unless you’re going to produce the book entirely on your own and making money is not a concern, you’d better just kiss the dream goodbye, because no matter how determined you are, it’s not going to happen.

Am I being pessimistic here? If you’re not familiar with the comic book industry, you might think so. But, as I said, I’ve been around it for a few years now, and I’ve noticed a few things.

Every time I go to a convention, there are at least fifty to one hundred people (mostly in the Artist’s Alley) trying to promote some independent title I’ve never heard of and will likely never see again. Keep in mind that these people are paying money to showcase their books; they’re not just walking around showing people their sketchbooks. Most of these books are inferior in quality, and many look as if they were run off at the local Kinko’s. Worst of all, many of them cost more than the professionally produced comics I can buy at a retailer’s booth ten feet away.

I know what possesses these people to do it: they think that they’re going to succeed because their creation is unique enough and different enough to stand out. Some of them do have something, too. Most of them will never put out more than a couple of issues before succumbing to low sales and quietly ceasing production.

Here’s one example that a friend of mine worked on: a comic called the Oz/Wonderland Chronicles, which I first saw in 2005 at WizardWorld Chicago, published by BuyMeToys.com. It was being displayed in the Artist’s Alley and seemed to have a lot going for it. The story was about Alice and Dorothy becoming roommates and getting involved in a war between L. Frank Baum’s Oz and Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. The book looked good, had some nice art and a script by an emerging writer (my friend, Ben Avery) who had worked on some other fairy-tale style books, like The Imaginaries and Lullaby. The book even had a cheesecake variant cover from popular painter Greg Horn featuring a mini-skirt clad Alice (with a Playboy bunny tattoo on her midriff) lifting up the edge of Dorothy’s slightly-too-small blue dress. (Click here to order a copy, if you like!)

Now, I think the world of Ben Avery, and I’ll support any book he works on. I’ve known Ben as long as I’ve been working in comics. My concerns aren’t with the quality of this title, which is actually quite high for an indy book.With that said, I can’t say I’m surprised that this title has only produced two issues to date. For one thing, the idea isn’t very unique; Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Bill Willingham’s Fables both have already used the theme of taking classic literary characters and throwing them together, and both did it so well that there’s little need for more. For another thing, the book looks too young for an adult audience and too old for the all-ages crowd. I still can’t figure out who the book is supposed to be for. Third, the book is priced at $3.50, an odd price that makes it seem expensive in a sea of $2.99 titles. (Update: One year after this article was written, $3.99 is fast approaching the norm for indy books. Go figure.) Finally, the fact that the book has produced two 32 page issues in two years means that it has a very hard time reaching an audience since comics, by nature, should be hitting shelves on a regular basis.

All of these concerns boil down to the business of comic book production, or, more precisely, the marketing process. (For a refresher on this, please see my article on “The 4 P’s”). If the creators’ aims are simply to produce a comic that they enjoy, more power to them, and I hope they continue to put out more issues at whatever pace they like. But make no mistake about it:

Losing money is the purpose of a hobby. Making money is the purpose of a business.*

The comic book industry is scattered with the remains of countless independent titles that never made it past the first or second issue. A lot of them have been terrible. But some of them, like Oz/Wonderland, have been good comics. They just haven’t been good products. There is a difference.

Comic book readers are a pretty picky bunch, and they have a right to be: there are far more comics out there vying for their money than there are readers to support them. Most readers spend the bulk of their money on Marvel and DC books, partially because that’s mainly what retailers carry and partially because those books are what the readers really want to read. Plus, Marvel and DC titles are a known quantity; they come out on a monthly basis, they feature established characters, and they generally feature a good amount of action punctuated by some terrific art.

The readers who buy what’s left over tend to skew towards licensed books (be it Udon’s Capcom Comics line, IDW’s numerous TV, video game and movie books or Dark Horse’s Star Wars books) or popular, established indy titles (like Hellboy or Invincible). Very few will pick up an unfamiliar title, and if they decide to give one a shot, they expect it to continue to deliver or they’ll lose interest and move on to something else. And if readers cannot identify whether a book is meant for them or for people in another age group or demographic, they’re even less likely to give it a try.

Comic books are a quickly consumed product; they’re read and then filed away, usually not to be re-read for some time. If a publisher puts out a book and fails to deliver another issue in a timely manner, most of the readers will eventually abandon it. They can’t be expected to keep up with a story that spans four short issues, and yet takes years to tell. Nor can they be expected to care why a book has been set back, or when it has been delayed until. Publishers who expect otherwise are kidding themselves; they are the same publishers who enter into the industry with starry eyes and leave, broke, cursing everyone for not supporting them in their creative effort.

A good comic is the result of an outpouring of creative energy on the part of the creative team. A good product is the result of market research and careful business planning. For a comic book to be successful, it needs to have a combination of both categories. But that combination heavily favors product design over creative design. Consumers will buy a bad Marvel book based on a good license, even knowing that it’s bad, because they know the story will go on and that they’ll eventually be rewarded for sticking with it.

Conversely, consumers will often ignore a good independent title until they know it has a good publishing reputation because they’ve been burned by so many indy titles in the past. One recent example was Robert Kirkman’s Invincible, which struggled to build an audience for quite some time despite its high quality. When the book began releasing trade paperback collections of its early issues, readers were more willing to give it a chance and the book became quite popular.

What’s amazing about this example is that Invincible is a superhero book, the one genre in which a new book is almost always destined for failure. What helped the book along was that retailers believed in it, and pushed it; their effort was complemented by the fact that new issues of the book kept coming out and giving them something new to talk about.

And that, you see, is the trick of comic book publishing — if you can create a high quality book and treat it like a true product instead of your personal creation, you can make money doing it. Not a lot, of course; those days are long gone. The only substantial money to be made is in licensing toys, TV shows, movies and video games, and you’ve got to have a bona fide hit on your hands before anyone will be knocking on your door for those.

But for most, comic book publishing is a pipe dream. The medium is very powerful and enjoyable, yes. As I’ll share in later articles, I think the medium will become a crucial player in the future of information technology. The comic books we see today, however, are a holdover from the 20th century that will probably not last much longer in the 21st once technology shifts the publishing paradigm in some radical new direction. I suspect the growing popularity of graphic novels is an early sign that consumer tastes are changing, and I fear that the comic book industry of today will do too little, too late to prevent being crushed by the next evolution of the medium. Anyone entering the field at this stage in the game will need a good plan to be able to anticipate those changes early.

I said at the beginning of this piece that there’s no money in comics — at least, in the kinds of comics that people want to produce. But guess what? There is money in the medium. It just requires a fresh approach, a solid business plan, and a willingness to look beyond the “established” markets and find some new ones.

And now that I’ve given you a reality check, let me invite you to read tomorrow’s article, which will begin a series on how you can build a business around comics. And later this week, I’ll try to explain the submission process and why you’re not going to get your comic published unless you do it all yourself.

*This quote is based on the advice of Morris Rosenthal at Foner Books. Gotta give credit where it’s due!

Writing Scraps

by Sean J. Jordan