Creators: Matthew Armstrong, Bannister, Phil Craven, Steve Hamaker, Ben Hatke, Kazu Kibuishi, Johane Matte, Jake Parker, Rad Sechrist, Kean Soo Publishing Information: Villard, softcover, 112 pages, March 2008, $10 Ordering Numbers: 9780345503138 (ISBN13)
If I remember the discussion surrounding the publication of the first four Flight volumes, one of the driving ideas is that it would help a specific group of artists perhaps more attuned to illustration and animation to build the confidence and chops so that they might continue doing comics on a grander and grander scale. That's a lovely thought for a comics series, and while a lot of the work in Flight left me cold, there was so much of it in one place that it kind of felt like eating a luxurious meal at a restaurant whose cuisine I didn't take to naturally, or seeing in a movie at the Cinerama in a genre I didn't care for. What I didn't like I could appreciate; what didn't work was subsumed into memories of those half dozen or so cartoonists who seemed destined for greater things. In that way, Flight kind of worked like a classic comics anthology, just with more of an open ambition to spring its cartoonists on the world.
Flight Explorer also seems like a classic anthology, but one of those that's working out of more mundane concerns. Namely, it's directed at all-ages readers, and partly as a result it's a more portable book with a great price point that would seem to appeal to a younger consumer that might not be able to get the bigger books. As a result, there's a lot less work here, and what there is doesn't seem as inspired as some of the "I'll give comics my best shot" ethos that seemed to (and maybe just seemed to, but still) inhabit the larger volumes. For instance, work by two great talents for all-ages comics, editor Kibuishi and Kean Soo of Jellaby submit works that frankly come across as a bit perfunctory. Kibuishi's lacks the formal audacity of later Copper pieces, while the Jellaby comic is as adorable as always but seems almost pushy in communicating its warm fuzziness, like the creator was forced to come up with something heartwarming at a pitch meeting. A lively adventure short by Steve Hamaker ("All In A Day's Work") and a comedic piece by Philip Craven ("Big Mouth") seem to represented cartoonists working closer to the edge of their talents; each finds the right level of verve in terms of their presentation and both offer a kind of completeness to their stories that makes each experience seem less like an installment in some other book's run of chapters. Most of the other work I found forgettable, so many reasonably well-drawn color fantasies, like flipping through the cable cartoon channels from the treadmill Saturday morning at the gym. Flight Explorer feels like it's one or two compelling, audacious and lively efforts from completion, an anthology without a central, defining work or two. That, sadly, is also pretty common.
DAVID WELSH: Why did Tokyopop decide the time was right to branch into full-color graphic novels? Tell me a bit about the genesis of the imprint.
BRYCE COLEMAN: For quite some time we'd been looking at potential licensed properties from all over the world, not just Japan and Korea. And there is so much cool stuff out there, especially in Europe. Titles that we would have loved to have gotten our hands on. Books that we were sure could find an appreciative U.S. audience, but were all but unknown in the States. The problem was, that for the most part, these properties were all in color, and we found ourselves lamenting, "Man, we'd love to publish that, but we don't do color. Oh, well." It just got to the point where the timing felt right. Where, as a company, we'd established ourselves as global thinkers, not to be pigeonholed into a single, narrow category. Tokyopop has always been about creating cultural and artistic bridges, so this seemed like a natural progression. It was our publisher, Mike Kiley, who gave us the marching orders to start the line several months ago, and I couldn't be more excited.
WELSH: What's the scope of the line? Are you focusing on a particular genre or tone, and is there a specific audience demographic you're trying to reach?
COLEMAN: The scope of these graphic novels so far is pretty varied. One of our launch titles is Orange by Chinese manga phenom, Benjamin. His work is all in a real world setting, dealing with young adult themes, but the artwork is done in this stunning, painterly manner that gives it all a vibrant, intense, dreamlike quality. We'll be following Orange with another book by Benjamin, Remember. Brilliant stuff. But we also have some epic fantasy titles, like Luuna from France. This property has been hugely successful in Europe. The art is absolutely lush, with a high-end animation look to it. It's the story of a young Native American girl about to enter her rite of passage only to find herself on a dangerous quest to end a curse on her tribe. Reading this series is like watching a fantastic animated feature play out before your eyes. Pixie is another of the early titles in the line. A little closer to a traditional manga aesthetic than Luuna and lighter in tone, it's a fantasy tale set in the fictional world filled with magical kingdoms, thieves, princes and creatures galore. This one's lots of fun.
So, while the scope I think will be expansive in both genre and tone, we're looking at attracting an audience demo of both girls and guys, in the teen to older teen range. We're definitely not doing "kiddie books" with these graphic novels, but while some will be more real world and sophisticated, others will simply be awesome tales of fantasy and adventure.
WELSH: Tell me a bit about the search process: how is Tokyopop finding these works? Is it similar to the licensing process you use for manga, manhwa and so on?
COLEMAN: Well, obviously we didn't have the clearly established lines of acquisition like we do on the Japanese and Korean manga right out of the gate. You can't walk across the Tokyopop office without tripping over a Japanese or Korean speaker, but as we tried to gather coverage on some of these early titles, we suddenly found ourselves asking, "Okay, anybody here read French?" But other than that basic challenge, it's a continuing learning process to try and understand the landscape of graphic novels in Europe. Trying to divine what will work in the U.S. market is going to be based largely on our intuition, practical research and, hopefully, a little bit of luck. Will the fact that a title was successful in Europe translate into sales here? That's what we're trying to get a handle on, but I think we're making some exciting choices. Right now, our mandate is this -- find titles that either embrace some kind of manga aesthetic at a high level of artistry, or simply anything that is just too freakin' unique and cool to pass up!
WELSH: Have you determined a general release schedule -- how many books you'd like to release in a given year?
COLEMAN: Oh, sure. We're looking at releasing five series, covering about eight volumes, in 2009. Moving on to 2010 we're looking at going up to about 10-12, and ramping up even more in 2011. We want to be prudent as we develop the line and are trying to choose the licenses carefully. I really do think that these graphic novels have tremendous potential in the U.S., so I'm hopeful that the line will eventually become one of the staples of what we do.
WELSH: The first three books announced in the Tokyopop Graphic Novels line have dimensions of 7" by 10". Is that the standard size for the imprint, or is there some flexibility depending on the individual work in question?
COLEMAN: Good question. Yup, those will be the dimensions for pretty much everything in the line. Of course, should there be a special project that demands a different treatment, we'll take it on a case-by-case basis. We really feel that consistency will be an important factor in the success of these graphic novels. I think one of the reasons that European titles haven't been well received in the U.S. market in the past, is because the trim size of the originals, especially the French Bande Dessinee (what we'd call graphic novels in the States), are far too big to fit on U.S. retailers' shelves. Not to mention most bookshelves at home. This trim size will allow these graphic novels to fit perfectly alongside most traditional graphic novels and trade paperbacks. Another thing people might not know is that many of these original books are only about 50-80 pages per volume. We're binding up anywhere between two to three original volumes to make one of ours, giving the buyer more bang for their precious buck.
WELSH: What new marketing and production challenges has the line presented? What are some of the key differences in preparing books like these for the market as opposed to black-and-white manga?
COLEMAN: From a marketing perspective, the challenge is going to be generating excitement about this new venture in a manner that lets our traditional fan base know that there are some incredible works here, and that they're bound to love them. But also, to alert readers who may fall just outside that sphere. People who possibly, while thinking some our manga looked cool and interesting, just couldn't get by the whole "black & white" aspect of it. I think part of the trick will lie in being clear that we're not starting a whole new business with these color graphic novels, but that this is just a continuation of the innovation Tokyopop has become known for.
And of course, we're hoping that with the more traditional trim size, we'll be able to penetrate the direct market shelf space in a way we never have before. I see these books being able to sit right alongside everything from an American Splendor collection to a TP of The Ultimates.
The production challenge with these color graphic novels basically comes down to the accelerated schedule. Due to the cost of printing the books in color, these will mostly be manufactured in China, which for us means sending the books to press at least a full two months earlier than we send out the regular manga. As the editor in charge of these books, my biggest concern is making sure I've got everything together and made the English adaptations the very best they can be, and not having that early deadline catch me unprepared. But I know that once we get the first few of these out, we'll get into a groove and it'll be like second nature for us.
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(Images from Orange, Pixie and Luuna)
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David P. Welsh has loved comics since his parents first used Archie and Casper to sedate him during long trips in the family station wagon.
He's worked as a reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, and later sold out for the glamorous world of public relations. Prior to relocating to The Comics Reporter, he wrote his Flipped column for Comic World News for just over three years. He's written articles on comics for print outlets and a variety of other web sites.
He lives in West Virginia, which he says has gotten a lot easier since the Starbucks and Barnes & Noble opened up.
You may e-mail David with questions or commentary You can write to this site about David's columns
Pirkola Assailant Seeks Plea Agreement
According to the latest local news update, one of the three men accused of robbing and shooting the comics retailer David Pirkola is seeking a plea agreement for his role in the April 25 incident which put Pirkola into the critical condition where he has since remained. Marvin Michael-Marquis Jones, a 19-year-old, waived a probable cause hearing on charges of armed robbery and attempted murder. Another suspect remains in custody while a third is being sought by police.
Mark Heath has announced the end of his feature Spot The Frog, which will come to close in early July. I liked Spot, which I thought was nice-looking and always pleasant, the kind of feature that once upon a time you grew up and had pleasant memories of it having run in your local paper even though you kind of felt that no one else remembered it. I think there a couple things we can take away from the departure of another modestly successful strip, including 1) a book collection isn't a sure sign of success, as people have believed since Garfield became a hit; Spot the Frog had I think two, and 2) it's really tough out there for work to find traction unless it break out. I think that's where the declining number of newspaper spots and the increased churn in terms of dumping and trying strips is most greatly felt. Is there no such thing as a newspaper strip middle class anymore?
NCS, AAEC Against Orphaned Works Bill
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is urging its members to write their congresspeople against the Orphan Works Act of 2008, while the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has penned a letter from both organizations making official their objection to that bill's passage. What's missing, Dirk Deppey points out, is a concise and concrete dissection of the bill's potential evils. On the other hand, I'm not sure that not being able to run off on one's fingers exactly what's wrong with a piece of legislation means that you can't or shouldn't object to it with the rough conception you do have of its likely impact.
FIBD vs JM Thevenet Trial Concludes This short piece at BdZoom indicates that the court case between former Angouleme Festival Director-General JM Thevenet and the organization that owns and runs the show over Thevenet's 2006 dismissal has ended with enough satisfaction on both sides each was able to muster a kind word about the other.
My first reaction is that only on Planet Bizarro or after some catastrophic development would this be a bookstore distribution arrangement because of the fine deal FBI has with WW Norton. In fact, a major driving force with the recent format change on The Comics Journal was to give Norton a better shot at distributing their flagship magazine after years of pathetic returns from Diamond. So if true this would almost certainly be a DM-only deal.
My second reaction to that is that this would have an effect on almost nobody except Tony Shenton, which should give you an idea of the state of Diamond alternatives in this day and age. The wider rumor could be an extrapolation from FBI ending their relationship with Shenton, although that's a supposition on a rumor with about two too many leaps of logic to take seriously. What else...? The key, I think, would be how any such deal would have an impact on Fantagraphics' direct sales to retailers. I would also guess that if it could be leveraged into better re-order and inventory control through Diamond's services, it could be beneficial to the iconic alt-comix publisher. The symbolism of Fantagraphics, a company that avoided going exclusive with Diamond during the more than a decade ago distribution wars and that also declined to back a heaving and collapsing Capital out of both a real sense that not capitulating was important and that it was possible to see an upgrade in treatment merely by selling more books, might be the biggest reason people pay attention to such a story.
* the writer Marc Sobel continues his issue by issue look at the best comic book series of all time, the first volume of Love & Rockets. He's just exiting what I thought was a magic period for the book when a lot of hugely awesome short stories supplemented a lot of the longer serials, but the longer serials that were still going proved to be pretty astonishing.
* the Thought Balloonists team takes a two-sided look at Brian Chippendale's Maggots. I disagree with a lot of the premises floated -- I could give two shits if Maggots has an influence on future Marvel Comics, and I don't see all that much wisdom in the kind of snotty, dismissive statement from a student I was in the habit of making 20 years ago because I was a hungover punk who didn't want to put effort into understanding anything -- but Maggots is a work that deserves to be discussed at every opportunity.
* the publisher and packager Dynamic Forces/Dynamite signs with Diamond for exclusivity up and down their various targeted distribution companies. It's always amazing to me when a company does this, because I always assume that they already have a deal like this one.
* my father loved this book, and I think it's one of the best titles to any collection ever.
* finally, Tim Broderick writes on promoting one's work. It's a fine piece of its type, although I always get a little irritated by the notion floated that only giant authors receive publicity support. There are a lot of fine, hard-working PR people that work at smaller and boutique publishers. For that matter, there are a lot of ineffective douchebags that work at big publishers, too.
Creator: Jason T. Miles Publishing Information: self-published, mini-comic, 36 pages, 2008, no price Ordering Numbers:
One tends to either like these kind of abstract drawing minis or not. I do when there's a compelling visual element, and Jason Miles' latest offers at least a couple of interesting ideas. His lumpen, bone-shape figures compress and move apart like one of those art videos that slipped into an episode or two of Electric Company once upon a time. The trick is that it's possible to see both human figures in the way they're piled, and a kind of broader life itself, in the way they heave and move, but also I think rudimentary language in terms of how elements are spaced on the page. It's easy to forget about the power of spacing and building figures and representing language on the page; in that way, at least for those of us that like thinking about such things, Medicine Show cam serve as a reminder of comics' essential power, the way things work in their primal form, like an acting exercise that drops speaking and representational action for a play on figures in relation to one another.
A Thought Or Two On The Notion Of Comic Books Costing Too Darn Much
Let's talk comic books. On Thursday, I bought the above comics and paid almost $19 for the pleasure. The total was slightly shocking to me, because five comics still feels in the hand -- my hand -- like a $10 purchase. Truth is, five comic books hasn't been a $10 purchase for a long time. I knew that, and I didn't know that, if you know what I mean. In my defense, I rarely buy comics and when I do, it's usually one or two as a courtesy to the store I just spent a half-hour casing or a couple hundred dollars' worth around the holidays from Chuck Rozanski or Buddy Saunders. I like all of the comics I purchased Thursday, but for maybe the first time in my entire life of buying comics, I experienced a twinge of regret as the $20 left my hand. "I probably could have spent that twenty bucks more effectively," I thought.
I've always been loathe to throw my lot in with the crowd that constantly yells, posts and cavils that comic books cost too much. They remind me of those people that complain about gas prices but drive everywhere they possibly can in giant sports-utility vehicles. I suspect that for a lot of those people it's not that comics cost too much as much as comics no longer are as cost-effective to enjoy in the very specific way they demand to enjoy them. I tend to be more of a mind with people like Jeff Smith, who's argued in the past -- and if I'm misremembering this, please consider the substance of the argument without the pedigree -- that comics have value as a permanent, perpetual resource for entertainment that buttresses the temporary nature of that first, sweet read. And yet if I'm honest with my own reaction to the way things have progressed, I have to admit that maybe there are points on both sides of the argument.
Jeff Smith's comics in serial form are indeed worth their cover price, largely because, well, he's Jeff Smith. His comics are well-designed, strongly executed and in his life's work to date, Bone, they were part of a propulsive narrative serial of the kind that greatly rewards an interactive installment plan. But let me state the obvious: most comics aren't like Jeff Smith's. Most comics aren't that well executed nor are they as attractively designed nor are they always part of a focused serial that flatters the format. Even the best serial comics only approach those standards occasionally, it seems, in between larger segments where nothing very much at all happens and what happens doesn't happen in a way that's memorable. Serial comics readers remember the good runs for decades afterward, and I think live in partial denial about the dominance of the fallow periods. Because the issues sell at least some copies no matter what, because comics doesn't really have a system where a terrible comic book will sell 10,000 copies one issue after selling 100,000 copies even though the newer issue might deserve to sell that poorly, the system and its aggressive pricing mechanisms stay in place and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
Another source of imbalance, I think, is that the newer, higher prices put a strain on the consumer in a way that cheaper comics did not, partly because of the nature of that consumer. (I don't know how exactly the inflation works out, and I'm not sure that it matters as much as the perception and reaching a perceived tipping point, but calculators like this one suggest prices almost 3X ahead of inflation since 1981.) The fragmentary nature of American comic books post-1980 encourages the purchase of a wide array of comics, an experience where the consumer finds satisfaction across several titles in part because it's missing at any one time in a single series. This isn't a strict rule, and I'm certain there's someone out there that only ever buys comic books with Black Bolt, for instance. I'd strongly suggest that the weight of anecdotal evidence indicates the thrust of that description is true. Surely the average, desirable, expected comics customer since the early '80s -- the person that pops to mind when someone says "comics reader" -- is a person that buys a number of comics instead of just one or two. Here's the thing: the price of serial comics right now makes sense for the reader that only buys one or two comics. It makes much less sense, almost no sense, for the consumer that buys the number of comics most knowledgeable people would gut-reaction say marks an average fan's consumption level.
This mismatch of price point and assumed primary experience practically guarantees a constant winnowing of the core fan base into smaller and smaller numbers, those that can handle and will endorse the spending of whatever X-amount of dollars that seems to be the required entry point for full-bore, quality readership. One of many, many reasons manga has been successful is that it not only seems to connote value on a one on one basis -- a manga trade vs. a comic book -- but that the perceived value works according to a standard model of participation. A lot of folks seem to feel that buying x-amount of dollars in manga has a better chance to give you a more rewarding experience than buying x-amount of dollars in American comic books. They have a point. Throw in the lack of discipline ingrained in the North American Direct Market model -- the mysterious way these books come out, the stacking of certain titles on certain weeks, the lack of guarantees regarding creators and the related notion that a book may not even continue if the creative team simply decides not to follow through -- and it's a wonder that anyone, even a tremendously skilled and resourceful buyer, continues to adhere to that debilitating consumer relationship.
It's clear why the publishers that effectively produce serial comics stay the course: serial comics can be hugely profitable, or at the very least constitute a key part of a lucrative publishing cycle. If nothing else, serial publication provides multiple opportunities for publicity and marketing. Serial comics is a growing market for a few major publishers, showing signs of healthy sales beyond the top five or ten all the way down the line. Moreover, there's a sense, I think, that certain serial comics may continue to sell at a profit no matter how high the prices rise -- as long as they don't rise too quickly. Publishers and retailers may talk about killing the golden goose by making them too expensive or through other poor publishing habits, but that the goose is golden seems understood. Heck, we already know a lot of comics will sell at least a moderate amount no matter how frequently or for how long they fall into a creative stupor. The system is so effective in moving a big chunk of comics at prices that push the limits of good sense that efforts to provide an alternative to this sales pattern are looked upon with distrust and scorn. For instance, some retailers see a comic priced to sell at a lower point to a different stratum of fan not as a unique business model with its own positives and negatives but as a rebuke to the current system and a lost opportunity to maximize the amount of cash a comic book with that title's level of appeal might generate.
A big danger, I think, is not that serial comics becomes a market that's wholly unprofitable. Mind you, this has already happened for certain actors in that marketplace. In case you missed it, maybe the best-selling alternative comic in history in an aggregate sense abandons the comic book ship this year. I'm also at a loss to name a half-dozen hit independent comic books since 1993. Still, what seems to me a more likely outcome is that the comic book market becomes a market that fails even more spectacularly to realize its long-term potential and further risks not being able to provide its unique value to the wider world of comics. The serial comics market of a generation past set the groundwork for the current, ongoing, vital groundswell of trades and graphic novels by allowing a wide variety of creators an opportunity to hone their craft over time and a large number of readers a chance to follow and understand and sample them over the same amount of time without great risk, nurturing a love for the form as well as for individual books. I owe much of the breadth of my comics reading habits to the ability to try out new comics at a cheap price, and I bet that's true of a lot of readers ten years on either side of my age.
That market has been replaced by a half-virtual marketplace that may allow one to sample or read some comics without purchase, may bury other comics outright, and all the time hounds the reader to make one more purchase in their comfort zone. It's a market that can be outright hostile to new work that doesn't look a lot like other comics in the top slots. The fact that a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book can break into the Diamond top ten doesn't seem to me as important as the certainty we will never return to an historical moment when a significant number of creator-owned books could sell 6500 or 9000 or 12000 copies, you could count on their presence in most major markets, and creators had a chance -- only a chance -- to build the beginnings of a career interacting with a readership multiple times a year over a several-year period, all without having to earn back an advance. I would argue it's more important to the general health of the art form and the industry that the next Jeff Smith be able to generate 30,000 in comic book sales than it is that Marvel moves 130,000 units with Stephen King's name on them. I'm not sure the existing Jeff Smith gets to that sales point without some struggle. And I don't think it's as easy as the on-line comic replacing the serial comic as the entry point; that's a seismic shift in culture and in the nature of the reading experience for me to believe it does exactly the same thing. In fact, I would argue that as a group the current on-line comics models come closer to encouraging a medium more like comic books in the 1940s than comics in the 1960s or 1980s.
I once wrote that the only comic book that was too expensive was a bad comic book, and I think that's true as far as it goes. But I also think that a market that allows us to experience not-great comic books is part of what makes most of us better, more passionate readers, and a significant part of what provides the marketplace with the great talents of tomorrow. Do comic books cost too much? Yes. They're too expensive to facilitate a multi-level, satisfying buying experience -- the experience that structurally they cultivate -- for all but a declining few. The squeezing of profits through elements like pricing that outpaces inflation leads to an ossified marketplace that has come dangerously close to fully abandoning its role as the fertile, chaotic creative ground that feeds the medium entire. I'll take it all back if in 10 years the sons and daughters of the bookstore and the free comic on-line can boast of as many great cartoonists in their generation as the Direct Market babies are now able to point to in theirs, and if they have as many readers who know and care enough about their medium of choice to make an eloquent case on those artists' behalf. As is the case with so many things in life, we may only find out what we're missing when it's gone.
The Artist Gene Colan Is Suffering From Liver Failure And Could Use Your Help The writer Clifford Meth reports on the well-respected and well-liked veteran mainstream comics artist Gene Colan's liver failure, Colan's general mood and an effort to help Colan that includes an auction in threeseparatepostings at his blog. Mark Evanier writes about Colan here. The full text of a letter from Adrienne Colan that went out to Colan fans can be found here. Ed Brubaker and others have filled my inbox this morning with encouragement to write on the issue, all testifying to the lovely character of Colan and his wife.
The Colans find themselves without the ability to pay what are massive, mounting medical costs, which is why I'm asking you to consider helping out in any way you can through the information provided in the above links. Colan was a key player in mainstream American comics for three decades, particularly in broadening the artistic range represented by 1960s Marvel Comics through frequently lovely, lush work on titles like Daredevil and the Iron Man stories in Tales of Suspense. I think what's particularly worth noting is that Marvel has been asked for help. Colan played a key role in creating and developing the two properties that happened to launch both phases of Marvel's major movie-making history: Blade, in his Tomb of Dracula run, and his work on those Iron Man comics. There's no reason on earth why that company shouldn't spare what will probably amount to a single cash payout during a single quarter to a single board member to someone that paved the way for that success. I hope they come through.
Complainant On MacKinnon Cartoon This article in the Chronicle Herald News Metrogets into the thinking of the complainant who asked that police and other authorities investigate an April editorial cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon as potential hate speech. And that's pretty much it. I guess there's some news value in that Zia Khan is going to see what happens and then decided how to press his case.
* Masayuki Ishikawa won the Tezuka Osamu Manga Grand Prize for his comedy medical series Moyashimon, about a medical student who can see bacteria in creature form, as depicted above (although I bet that's from the anime). It had been nominated for three years running. The short work prize went to Yumiko Oshima for "Gou-Gou Datte Neko De Aru" and a special prize went to Osaka Prefecture's International Institue for Children's Literature. Ishikawa will recent an approximately $20,000 (USD) prize; the others will receive awards worth approximately $10,000 (USD). Judges included Moto Hagio.
* The Japan Cartoonists Association announced the winners of their 37th Cartoonist Awards on Friday. The Grand Prizes went to Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and 21st Century Boys as well as Hiroko Minami's Hina-chan no Nichijo. The association also gave out four additional awards in various categories. Minami and Urasawa will receive an approximately $5000 (USD) cash award at a ceremony on June 13. Judged included Monkey Punch.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
Debra J. Saunders meets with Jyllands-Posten editor Flemming Rose and comes away basically adopting his point of view on the Danish Cartoons Controversy. I really disliked this article. The use of the phrase "mostly unflattering" seems to me an untenable one, and this is the first time I'd heard the recent plot to kill Kurt Westergaard involved beheading him, which I guess could be true but the emphasis of which also seems like loaded language to me. It's probably also worth noting that as far as I know, there hasn't been a trial yet.
Mostly, though, I think she fumbles a lot of her points outright. Criticizing Rose and Jyllands-Posten for their asinine free speech stunt is in no way the same thing as absolving the alarmist imams for their much more significant, crucial and direct role in fanning the flames that led to the riots and deaths, as her article suggests. On the flip side, her logic in suggesting that the Chronicle and papers like it might possibly be absolved of their abandonment of their journalistic mission because they routinely don't want to offend anyone is ridiculous. As she points out in noting the role of the imams and their addition of fake imagery to what they presented around the world, what the Danish cartoons looked like was at the heart of that news story; people who saw them were crucially informed in a way that people that didn't were not. News organizations that failed to provide this information to their readers failed them. That's simply not the same as intentionally insulting a religious group in service of presenting an opinion -- which is more along the lines of what Jyllands-Posten did, if you stop and think about it.
* the great Lynda Barry is profiled in the New York Times. The writer, Carol Kino, does a particularly admirable job in summarizing Barry's hard-to-pin-down new book from Drawn and Quarterly, What It Is, in a way that makes it sound compelling, which it is.
* I thought this piece was way more thoughtful a criticism of Marvel Comics than I'm used to seeing from anyone, let alone a newspaper. It ties in some of the unfortunate aspects of the old comics with several little talked-about aspects of the new. It basically says that a lot of them are jingoistic, which is something I feel occasionally when I read certain Marvel comics. It's to the point where I wonder if progressive ideas, which I know many of their writers espouse in general, can even be articulated through Marvel's characters and their modern take on plot-lines. Anyway, good short article for a general audience, no less. Plus the Stephen Colbert stuff is pretty funny; that guy has a future.
* finally, J. Caleb Mozzocco took notes at the Scott McCloud/Jeff Smith joint appearance/interview in middle Ohio, with interesting results. I appreciate Jeff's endorsement of this site, and the casual honesty of both cartoonists when it comes to subjects like making money on the Internet.
I've known Joel Meadows since the mid-1990s, when he was editing the upper-level mainstream focused comics magazine Tripwire -- maybe the first of the niche magazines to go for that Wizard for people that don't like Wizard audience -- and I was working at Fantagraphics on The Comics Journal. He was also one of those guy that I always used to see in San Diego, to the point where the convention seemed weird when we didn't bump into one another. It's taken more than a decade, but last summer's annual format for Tripwire seems like it may be the one that will work for the publication. Meadows is also working right now on publicity for a book he co-edited with Gary Marshall that grew out of Tripwire's "Studio Space" feature. I was happy to talk with him about both projects.
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TOM SPURGEON: Joel, let me catch folks up on plans for Tripwire. Are you guys settled into the yearly annual publication from now on? What might keep that from happening?
JOEL MEADOWS: We are pretty settled into the yearly Annual publication for Tripwire as last year's was a bigger success than we thought it was going to be, so at this point it makes sense to continue with that frequency. The new Annual is in the latest Previews so barring tidal waves or natural disasters, then I think we're set on bringing out another Annual for the end of July.
SPURGEON: Were you generally happy with the way your first annual turned out? What do you think was strongest, or on what did you hear back most positively? Is there anything you did in that issue that you will definitely not be doing in the future?
MEADOWS: To be honest, I was very happy with about 95% of what was in the Annual last year. From a content point of view, I think our Simpsons feature which included a new Matt Groening interview was probably the highlight of the issue. The strip content split the readers but we are doing it again. The feature I don't think we thought out well enough in terms of content was the piece on London's film post-production boom and for our film content this time around, I done a lot more research for it and framed the features a lot better. So, no I don't think there's anything we did first time around that we won't be including in the future although I'm hoping we come up with a better design for the Power List!
SPURGEON: Joel, why print at a time when most people are going on-line with increasing intensity? Is there a time when Tripwire might have a stronger on-line presence?
MEADOWS: What can I say? I started with print way back in 1992 and while I certainly wouldn't denigrate online as there is some intelligent content there, I still feel that we can deliver the most depth and breadth from a print title. We are currently working on a stronger Tripwire presence online and hope to have a fully-fledged website up and running by San Diego.
SPURGEON: Tell me about the initial idea for the Studio Space project. How has it changed from your initial conception? Who was the first artist profiled? Why?
MEADOWS:Studio Space came out of Tripwire because back in 2003 when we relaunched the magazine as a full-colour 100 page periodical, we published three "Studio Space" features (John Bolton, Phil Hale and Tim Bradstreet) and they went down very well. So when we were forced to mothball the magazine, myself and my partner on the magazine, Gary Marshall, both thought that it was too good an idea to discard and it was a concept that could work perfectly as a book. Initially, it was to have a dozen artists including Matt Groening and Gerald Scarfe but we revamped the list to make it comic book illustrators. Although if anyone looks at the book, they will see that, although the 20 artists are best known as comic guys, they have a lot more strings to their bows. Phil Hale was the first Studio Space interview in the magazine but Duncan Fegredo was the first interview for the book and he was first just because I have known Duncan for a long time and felt comfortable going up to see him.
SPURGEON: Was it difficult getting the book published given its specialty nature and what I remember to be a similar project from Dark Horse? I seem to remember that there was quite an odyssey there.
MEADOWS: We first started pitching the book at the London Book Fair back in 2004, so it has been a four-year struggle to get it out. The book you are talking about from Dark Horse, The Artist Within, while a worthwhile project, is predominantly a coffee-table photo book whereas Studio Space is about the interviews and the work. We landed the first publisher for the book back in 2005 but unfortunately the advocate for the title left that publisher and it was left floundering until the publisher chose to cancel it. Then we spent a few months talking to different people and it was Richard Starkings from Active Images who recommended Image and we struck a deal with them in Summer 2007. The specialty nature of the book was a problem with some of the mainstream book publishers but it wasn't an issue with Image.
MEADOWS:In The Studio does have some similarities with Studio Space, except that its subjects are less mainstream than ours. To be honest, this is the danger of having waited so long to get it out as it was an unusual idea back in 2003 but, as time has passed, others have decided to try the same tack. I think that Studio Space is less academic than In The Studio, something that I hope is helped by my background in journalism.
SPURGEON: How did you get Michael Moorcock to provide the introduction? Was that written specifically for the book?
MEADOWS: I have interviewed Michael on a couple of occasions and we are interviewing him again for this year's Tripwire Annual, so I don't know him well but I know him well enough so I just asked him. We also got a Guillermo Del Toro foreword, which was very exciting. Both pieces were written especially for Studio Space.
SPURGEON: Is there anyone you wanted but didn't get? Didn't you try to get Moebius?
MEADOWS: There are a number of artists who we had planned to be in the book. They shall remain nameless for reasons of diplomacy -- but one proved to be impossible to pin down for a single lengthy interview and another excused himself from the book because we couldn't offer him any money for publishing his work. Yes, we did try and get Moebius but we couldn't come to a arrangement that was satisfactory for all concerned.
SPURGEON: Is there anything you got that didn't make it into the book? Could there be a sequel?
MEADOWS: Myself and Gary have already sat down and worked out a list of another 40 artists we would like to interview, so we potentially have enough for two sequels. There are a couple of artists we removed from the first book that we intend to stick into the follow-ups. Of course, the sales on this one have to warrant another volume but we are eternal optimists.
SPURGEON: Joel, I have to be honest, but some of the preview photography I saw for the book looked a bit muddy. How much photography is in the book, who took the photos and are you satisfied with the reproductions throughout?
MEADOWS: Each chapter has a photo of the artist in their studio, I took about seven of the photos, Gary took a few others and the rest were supplied by the artists themselves. What you saw was a low-res galley of the book so the photos should be brighter and less muddy when they are actually published. I would have liked to have re-shot some of the photos but we didn't have the chance. If we do another book, we shall make sure that all the images are of a suitable standard for publication. It's one of the things we learned during our time on the book.
SPURGEON: I like the vast majority of the artists you profile, but they all seem to me to be of one type -- high-end mainstream craftsmen. Did you think about including any cartoonists more typically thought of as alternative or that work in a funny animal style or even newspaper strips or panelists? Why does that kind of artist interest you?
MEADOWS: Being honest, we wanted to make the first book as accessible to the mainstream as possible and yes we could have included cartoonists like [Dan] Clowes or [Posy] Simmonds but this first list does reflect the sort of artists that myself and Gary are drawn to (if you'll pardon the pun). Many of these are also artists that we had gotten friendly with over the years too, interviewing them for Tripwire and building up a rapport with them. We do plan to include artists like Roger Langridge, Mark Schultz and Frank Cho next time around to increase the breadth of artists in the book. Also, with the alternative artists, In The Studio seemed to do a fine job covering that sector, so we didn't want to step on their toes or duplicate what they had done.
SPURGEON: We're doing this interview mid-April. What are you doing PR-wise to support the book in the marketplace? Generally for you, what's next?
MEADOWS: First on the agenda is a launch of the book in paperback at the Bristol International Comic Expo which runs from May 9th to May 11th. The show features a number of artists from the book, like [Walt] Simonson, [Sean] Phillips, Fegredo, [Dave] Gibbons and [Bryan] Talbot and it is our home show, so it seemed to make sense. Then we have a signing at Forbidden Planet in London on Saturday 7th June with Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Duncan Fegredo and Sean Phillips, which will be exciting to have those four together. Then for the US market, we will have a presence at Image's booth at San Diego in July. We are also looking at some events at Book Expo America at the end of May and a Waterstones signing in London in the second half of June but these aren't firmed up yet. Next on our agenda is a long sleep (if only)! Actually we are finishing off the next Tripwire Annual, which has a brand new Tommy Lee EdwardsDoctor Who painted cover, as well as trying to make another one or two Studio Space books a reality.
*****
* cover to next Tripwire
* cover to last Tripwire
* cover to Studio Space
* roughs of two pages from Studio Space
*****
Studio Space, Joel Meadows and Gary Marshall, Image Comics, 320 pages, May 2008, 9781582409085 (ISBN13), $29.99
*****
Editor's Note: Joel asked me to change the Bristol information because the interview was coming out while the show was going on rather than beforehand, but I'm not sure why it has to be changed and I figure you can all parse out the fact that the interview was done before this weekend and refers to an event this weekend.
If I remember the discussion surrounding the publication of the first four Flight volumes, one of the driving ideas is that it would help a specific group of artists perhaps more attuned to illustration and animation to build the confidence and chops so that they might continue doing comics on a grander and grander scale. That's a lovely thought for a comics series, and while a lot of the work in Flight left me cold, there was so much of it in one place that it kind of felt like eating a luxurious meal at a restaurant whose cuisine I didn't take to naturally, or seeing in a movie at the Cinerama in a genre I didn't care for. What I didn't like I could appreciate; what didn't work was subsumed into memories of those half dozen or so cartoonists who seemed destined for greater things. In that way, Flight kind of worked like a classic comics anthology, just with more of an open ambition to spring its cartoonists on the world.
WELSH: What's the scope of the line? Are you focusing on a particular genre or tone, and is there a specific audience demographic you're trying to reach?
WELSH: The first three books announced in the Tokyopop Graphic Novels line have dimensions of 7" by 10". Is that the standard size for the imprint, or is there some flexibility depending on the individual work in question?
My first reaction is that only on Planet Bizarro or after some catastrophic development would this be a bookstore distribution arrangement because of the fine deal FBI has with WW Norton. In fact, a major driving force with the recent format change on The Comics Journal was to give Norton a better shot at distributing their flagship magazine after years of pathetic returns from Diamond. So if true this would almost certainly be a DM-only deal. 
* the Thought Balloonists team takes a 
Jeff Smith's comics in serial form are indeed worth their cover price, largely because, well, he's Jeff Smith. His comics are well-designed, strongly executed and in his life's work to date, Bone, they were part of a propulsive narrative serial of the kind that greatly rewards an interactive installment plan. But let me state the obvious: most comics aren't like Jeff Smith's. Most comics aren't that well executed nor are they as attractively designed nor are they always part of a focused serial that flatters the format. Even the best serial comics only approach those standards occasionally, it seems, in between larger segments where nothing very much at all happens and what happens doesn't happen in a way that's memorable. Serial comics readers remember the good runs for decades afterward, and I think live in partial denial about the dominance of the fallow periods. Because the issues sell at least some copies no matter what, because comics doesn't really have a system where a terrible comic book will sell 10,000 copies one issue after selling 100,000 copies even though the newer issue might deserve to sell that poorly, the system and its aggressive pricing mechanisms stay in place and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
This mismatch of price point and assumed primary experience practically guarantees a constant winnowing of the core fan base into smaller and smaller numbers, those that can handle and will endorse the spending of whatever X-amount of dollars that seems to be the required entry point for full-bore, quality readership. One of many, many reasons manga has been successful is that it not only seems to connote value on a one on one basis -- a manga trade vs. a comic book -- but that the perceived value works according to a standard model of participation. A lot of folks seem to feel that buying x-amount of dollars in manga has a better chance to give you a more rewarding experience than buying x-amount of dollars in American comic books. They have a point. Throw in the lack of discipline ingrained in the North American Direct Market model -- the mysterious way these books come out, the stacking of certain titles on certain weeks, the lack of guarantees regarding creators and the related notion that a book may not even continue if the creative team simply decides not to follow through -- and it's a wonder that anyone, even a tremendously skilled and resourceful buyer, continues to adhere to that debilitating consumer relationship.
That market has been replaced by a half-virtual marketplace that may allow one to sample or read some comics without purchase, may bury other comics outright, and all the time hounds the reader to make one more purchase in their comfort zone. It's a market that can be outright hostile to new work that doesn't look a lot like other comics in the top slots. The fact that a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book can break into the Diamond top ten doesn't seem to me as important as the certainty we will never return to an historical moment when a significant number of creator-owned books could sell 6500 or 9000 or 12000 copies, you could count on their presence in most major markets, and creators had a chance -- only a chance -- to build the beginnings of a career interacting with a readership multiple times a year over a several-year period, all without having to earn back an advance. I would argue it's more important to the general health of the art form and the industry that the next Jeff Smith be able to generate 30,000 in comic book sales than it is that Marvel moves 130,000 units with Stephen King's name on them. I'm not sure the existing Jeff Smith gets to that sales point without some struggle. And I don't think it's as easy as the on-line comic replacing the serial comic as the entry point; that's a seismic shift in culture and in the nature of the reading experience for me to believe it does exactly the same thing. In fact, I would argue that as a group the current on-line comics models come closer to encouraging a medium more like comic books in the 1940s than comics in the 1960s or 1980s.
The writer Clifford Meth reports on the well-respected and well-liked veteran mainstream comics artist Gene Colan's liver failure, Colan's general mood and an effort to help Colan that includes an auction in 
* the great Lynda Barry 
MEADOWS: To be honest, I was very happy with about 95% of what was in the Annual last year. From a content point of view, I think our Simpsons feature which included a new 
