I mean Craig Thompson only got paid $300 for Blankets by Top Shelf.

My solution is simple. I can’t afford it, but I will ask our local public library to buy it. Luckily, they have an excellent graphic novels section (which includes earlier Kramers Ergots), and I will pitch this as an important addition to their long-term collection of fabulous books. With a bit of luck, they’ll buy it, and then not only will I be able to read it, but also everyone else in Auckland, New Zealand.

Wish me luck! (and maybe suggest the same to your own library)

P.S. If the public library don’t buy it, I’ll try the University Library and the Auckland City Art Gallery library. Neither would be as good, but at least there’ll be a copy somewhere in Auckland for people to access.

These are my comments. My opinions. My philosophies. Backed by fact.

Re: Free - it will be free…and it will pay handsomely.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

You seem to think that by creating several differently formatted books that it somehow diminishes the work itself. I would argue otherwise. I also don’t see a problem with a publisher and creator getting paid from as many avenues as possible.

Literary works are reissued in a thousand different formats and optioned for films and lunch-boxes and masters’ paintings are recreated as posters and prints and t-shirts and tote-bags and lightswitch plates and mugs for the same reason other things are mass-produced: BECAUSE THOSE SELLING THEM WANT PEOPLE TO GIVE THEM MONEY.

If it was just about accessibility and getting as many people to see the work as possible it would all be FREE.

Actually, no. My work has been seen on DVD, The Scifi Channel and been sold to territories around the world. It’s never been in a theater. I believe it’s also available for download.

I would also point out Ipod and Iphone sales as disproving your argument that we don’t want our culture to be portable and accessible. YOU may not, but there are more of us than there are of you. The figures don’t lie.

I have no problem with Sammy producing a $125 book. I voiced the opinion and made the argument that it does “comics” (both as a media and an industry) little good as it limits the audience. The project, IMO, is one borne out of an approach of “exclusivity and collect-ability” and as the comics market shrinks and shrinks, it runs counter to a healthy, diverse market where a wider range of genres exist and flourish.

IMO: Accessibility and diversity are what’s required.

Literary masterpieces are mass-produced all the time in a variety of formats - hardcover, softcover, trade, illustrated, graphic novel versions. Posters and Prints of famous masterpieces of art are sold all the time. Mostly by museums. Why?

BECAUSE THEY WANT PEOPLE TO SEE THE WORK.

Is this book going to get a purchaser into a comic store to try other material? Will Comics retailers order this book, or instead order multiple copies of other comics that come at price points that are easier to take a risk on?

The comments in this and the other thread suggest limited sales, even lost sales…and that, to me, equals failure.

There should be a $125 book, but there should also be a $50 book or even a $25 version or an online download. Something that people can take a risk on, read and then expand their repertoire by picking up other works by the authors. It’s not an “all or nothing” situation here, despite how KE has set this up.

No we don’t. You do. See? You can’t see past your own paradigm. You admit you’re a screenwriter who believes his work can only have an “impact” if it’s box office boffo. You must appreciate that others might not measure “impact” in the same way that you do.

There are millions of stories out there that you do not have access to for a million reasons. That does not necessarily mean that they have failed. Success doesn’t have to always have to be measured number of units moved or tickets sold. Not everything has to be mass-mediated.

An art object goes into a gallery for three weeks and is seen by a few hundred people before it disappears into a private collection, unlikely to be seen by many people after that. It has a story invested in it by the artist. Does the artist consider herself a failure because that story only impacted a few hundred people or is she happy that it had an impact on at least one?

The story a grandfather tells about the war at the kitchen table that moves his grandson. It may never leave that kitchen and never be known by more than the people at that table. But it inspires the grandson to write the story as a screenplay. He pitches it, but the time isn’t right for war movies and so it gets shot down and never read but by a few. Is it tragic that the grandfather’s story isn’t made into a feature film starring Tom Hanks? Or is it worth enough that the story impacted the grandson?

Am I dismayed that I can’t engage the trillions of hidden stories in our world? A little, but I’d need a trillion lifetimes to know them all.

Some (most!) stories go out into the world in small, intimate, relatively low impact ways. And those are not necessarily tragedies. Why is that so hard to accept? Why can’t they be intimate and treasured? Why do they have to be turned into feature films with Burger King collector cups?

In the meantime, $125 is not *that* big a barrier.

I think you’re missing the whole point, and at the risk of beating more and more dead horseflesh I have to say that this is a discussion that relates to “accessibility” not a all-encompassing paradigm of what a “comic book” is or isn’t.

“Subway readability” = portability, and while this may not factor into your habits, we see portability affect our lives in many other ways: IPods, laptops, cell phones, etc… We like having our culture accessible no matter where we are. We also want to access it when we want.

In today’s society we can access our favorite television shows in a variety of ways:

- We can pay (heavily) to watch it on a paycable service like HBO or Showtime.
- Or we can download individual episodes or get a season pass from ITunes.
- Or we can wait and see the show for “free” on an ad-supported channel like CBS has done with DEXTER.
- Then, if we like the show and want it for our “library” we can pay to have a DVD set.

Different formats, same stories. Accessible from many levels.

What KE #7 is doing is limiting the ways people can access the stories within its covers. That, to me, goes against the very notion of storytelling which is an artform meant to be shared - ideally with as many people as possible. Good stories are an experience, and they make an impact. Books are meant to be read. Movies are meant to be seen. Does it really matter if the books are being downloaded or that the movies are seen on DVD rather than in theaters?

This is a philosophical debate to be sure, but it has very real, very important economic consequences.

I wish Sammy all the luck in the world, but I know as a (screen)writer, I personally want my work seen by as many people as possible. I want it to make an impact.

I think that this format, at this price point, limits that impact.

All that being said, this decade is coming to an end. The Kramers bullpen is mostly on the other side of 30-years old, and many are moving into new phases of their careers.

From that standpoint, putting out a volume of the series that is indisputedly more exclusive and will reach less readers may be a signal that the Kramers generation may be at the end of the road. I mean, the book IS big enough to be a tombstone.

There are people who aren’t limited by a paradigm that a comic book has to be cheaply printed and readable on the subway. (Really? Subway readability is a measure of validity?) They have a completely different view of comics, books, art and the value (culturally or monetarily) of all three. If this book popped up in a different arena, say, a store specializing in art books, the price alone would be intriguing enough to make someone check out the content… and then buy it.

http://tinyurl.com/6kt6qh
http://tinyurl.com/67o5vv
http://tinyurl.com/5lx4nj

And you can imagine that some of the following might be priced at a touch more than $125:

http://www.aragopress.arago.co.uk/artistsbooks.html

I can understand how Kramer’s Ergot #7 could be $125. I’m intrigued. My only bar to buying this would be budget, but I’ll be looking for it at Bud Plant in San Diego.

Harkham is getting some great advertising value out of all of this.

for two such highly regarded people in the world of comics like Sammy and Alvin, this seems like a disaster from where i’m standing.

feels like in the minds of a lot of loyal fans of Harkham and the series (myself included) the frustrations over knowing they will be unable to purchase (or reasonably justify a purchase) something that we’ve all spent the better part of two years eagerly anticipating has far overshadowed any enthusiasm that used to fill that space.

i’m sure the fine people at Adovah and Buenaventura sat down, looked at what they had, crunched the numbers, and made a sound and logical decision on the price of the book.
but whatever perfectly good reasons they may have had haven’t stopped the first major week of internet buzz from being 90% negative and the other 10% defensive

There is one book store that bought two such volumes from another publisher and they are still standing up on the floor for months collecting dust and serve as a bridge for insects that crawl from the floor to the comic shelves. I never saw anybody pick up those books. They seem like props from Irwin Allen’s movie set of Land of the Giants.

Not the most practical thing. Imagine reading that in the subway. There is no newspaper that will cover that thing if you are ashamed to read things like that in public. It would be funny to see somebody read that in a park, it would a story indeed. The general public would find it an oddity.

Hardly an exacting standard. In all seriousness, though, I find it hard to believe that anyone is going to spend $125 on a high-end art book for their first comic. This is going to sell to people who already have a strong interest in lit-comics.

I think there’s a degree of wishful thinking in the idea that avant-garde experimentalism is going to “expand the audience” in any terribly meaningful way. The audience for this stuff is pretty minimal in any medium. At best, it makes the point that “comics aren’t just for kids” - but (a) everyone knows that, and (b) it makes that point by demonstrating that comics are also for the sort of people who go to arthouse cinemas, rather than by showing that comics are for adults in general.

Or maybe Harkham should’ve found a cheaper printer instead.

I hope I’m wrong, though!

-B

But for me personally, it makes a good comparison simply because if I was going to buy Sandman it was going to be in the oversize. I felt as if it was the only choice available to me (simply because if I purchased the series in the more slight volumes I would immediately feel buyer’s remorse that I had not purchased the much nicer version—as I am not in the position to purchase both). In this sense, I was in a position not dissimilar to though contemplating the purchase of Kramers Ergot. There are consumers out there for whom the book might make an enticing purchase and, as ever, only the content can justify the price tag. Or not justify it.

In any case, the book is clearly meant to get into the hands of those who will most appreciate it—and that doesn’t strike me as a bad thing. And I write this as someone who has never read Kramers and never until this post heard of Sammy Harkham. And strangely, I’m interested in the book because of this marketing strategy.