Comments on: Geppi and museum profiled http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/ The News Blog of Comics Culture Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:31:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Torsten Adair http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402522 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:12:04 +0000 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402522 Ahem... you forgot to mention the annual comics contest in the very same issue. The winner gets a year long contract with City Paper. With the internet, does the small press need Diamond? With trade distributors offering competive terms versus Diamond, do we need another comics distributor? Theoretically, a creator, like Phil Foglio, could publish on the web, sell the collection via trade distributors, and avoid Diamond completely. Ahem… you forgot to mention the annual comics contest in the very same issue. The winner gets a year long contract with City Paper.
With the internet, does the small press need Diamond? With trade distributors offering competive terms versus Diamond, do we need another comics distributor? Theoretically, a creator, like Phil Foglio, could publish on the web, sell the collection via trade distributors, and avoid Diamond completely.

]]> by: Alan Spinney http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402278 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:13:39 +0000 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402278 Good point about competition in Distribution. That's what is lacking in the marketplace. Plus, how do I get to read my first comic as a kid now? Do I find it at a friend's house, slabbed in plastic? Do I see it in a long box? At the age of 8 or 9, do I still get to see a few comics on a spinner at the local book chain and decide to buy my $4 comic there? Good point about competition in Distribution. That’s what is lacking in the marketplace. Plus, how do I get to read my first comic as a kid now? Do I find it at a friend’s house, slabbed in plastic? Do I see it in a long box? At the age of 8 or 9, do I still get to see a few comics on a spinner at the local book chain and decide to buy my $4 comic there?

]]> by: John Weheat http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402231 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:40:23 +0000 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402231 HABE has some good points I think. What we need is another "Diamond" to compete with this one and even the playing field. Any really rich people out there want to give it a go? HABE has some good points I think. What we need is another “Diamond” to compete with this one and even the playing field. Any really rich people out there want to give it a go?

]]> by: Christopher Moonlight http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402210 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:29:40 +0000 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402210 Ouch! Ouch!

]]> by: HABE http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402197 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:22:39 +0000 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/12/geppi-and-museum-profiled/#comment-402197 "When comics largely stopped being sold at newsstands, these critics charge, they stopped being impulse buys for kids and became collectibles for an increasingly closed market of adult readers who wanted the same-old superhero stories, squelching innovation among publishers not willing to risk unfamiliar material on a shrinking audience..." If they exist more than rhetorically, these unnamed critics have everything backwards. Despite what it has become under the Diamond monopoly, the Direct Market actually gave rise to indie publishing and alternatives to superhero titles. Without it, Marvel and DC would likely be the only comics publishers around, still dishing out supes and little else. 1. The print-to-preorder and nonreturnable Direct Market system made independent publishing financially possible for those who would otherwise have been relegated to the zine and xerox underground -- at best. At worst, they wouldn't have bothered publishing at all. 2. Many newsstands did not stop carrying comics, and it's hard to see how the Direct market could have been a factor with those that did. Marvel, for example, continued to issue separate Direct Market and Newsstand editions before, during, and after the "collectibility crisis" mentioned above. More importantly, before the Direct Market, minor publishers never had a chance to even get on a newsstand. You think it's hard to get carried by Diamond? Try a newsstand distributor. They make Diamond look like a doting grandmother. For these reasons, I think all the premises mentioned in Baltimore City Paper article are completely wrong. “When comics largely stopped being sold at newsstands, these critics charge, they stopped being impulse buys for kids and became collectibles for an increasingly closed market of adult readers who wanted the same-old superhero stories, squelching innovation among publishers not willing to risk unfamiliar material on a shrinking audience…”

If they exist more than rhetorically, these unnamed critics have everything backwards.

Despite what it has become under the Diamond monopoly, the Direct Market actually gave rise to indie publishing and alternatives to superhero titles. Without it, Marvel and DC would likely be the only comics publishers around, still dishing out supes and little else.

1. The print-to-preorder and nonreturnable Direct Market system made independent publishing financially possible for those who would otherwise have been relegated to the zine and xerox underground — at best. At worst, they wouldn’t have bothered publishing at all.

2. Many newsstands did not stop carrying comics, and it’s hard to see how the Direct market could have been a factor with those that did. Marvel, for example, continued to issue separate Direct Market and Newsstand editions before, during, and after the “collectibility crisis” mentioned above.

More importantly, before the Direct Market, minor publishers never had a chance to even get on a newsstand. You think it’s hard to get carried by Diamond? Try a newsstand distributor. They make Diamond look like a doting grandmother.

For these reasons, I think all the premises mentioned in Baltimore City Paper article are completely wrong.

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