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Craig Johnson on IDW Potentially Leaving Comic-Con International
posted August 6, 2008
 

Just read your piece with Ted Adams and the request for feedback -- so here's mine as EiC of comicsvillage.com and Group Editor for UK comics publisher Markosia.

The big disadvantages with SDCC Ted identifies are the opportunity cost (i.e. the manpower cost) and the financial cost of the show. As for the latter, I don't think that's a huge deal: as SDCC is a trade show, all costs of attending should be written off against tax. Unless of course the US tax system is different to the UK in this regard, which is a definite possibility.

Regarding opportunity cost, I think Ted should address why SDCC requires so much, and Wondercon so little - and see if he can leverage the Wondercon setup into a SDCC template. If it's just that SDCC has to be "bigger! better!! louder!!!" to get attention, then he may have to go the route we have to take: in that SDCC is pretty much irrelevant in terms of marketing comics, and absolutely not worth the effort. You make far bigger impact- at a far lower opportunity cost - if you cover a half-dozen smaller conventions - being a bigger fish in a smaller pond - instead of doing SDCC.

For example, the Bristol Expo in the UK each May has been running ten years, and is growing in attendance each year - with a very savvy, intelligent and knowledgeable audience of fans. The cost to IDW of a booth and a panel would be miniscule compared to SDCC, yet the impact this would have on promoting their books (especially as they have the Doctor Who and Transformers licenses) is immense.

So I would actively encourage Ted to think outside the box -- everyone does SDCC because everyone else does, but if you make the active decision to wind down your expenditure there, can you get more bang for your buck elsewhere? Absolutely, I would say!

Best wishes, and keep up the good work on THE essential comic site.