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Kurt Busiek on Identity Crisis Bookstore Trade Dress
posted October 2, 2005
 

Kurt Busiek

Regarding your question about IDENTITY CRISIS...

I'm not sure what your concerns are, but as I understand it, this cover is the one going on copies for bookstore distribution, and a more traditional comics-oriented cover will be going on the direct-market copies (though naturally direct-market shops, who tend to want to make all versions of anything available, will sell a lot of those bookstore copies, too).

For my part, I'm delighted to see one of the large publishers actually using package design as part of their marketing and outreach -- this particular package is designed to appeal to readers of prose bestsellers, so it emphasizes Meltzer's name, his sales record, is designed to look more like a prose thriller than a traditional comics package, and boasts a review quote from the New York Times. But it's also got Superman and Batman (and, heck, Firestorm) on the cover, and that review quote specifies it as a comic book.

I think it's a very strong package for doing what DC wants it to do -- reaching out to new readers in bookstores. You can see something similar in the design of SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS, which in hardcover emphasized Neil Gaiman's name and pushed his best-seller status, and in TPB pushes Neil's name and the fact that ENDLESS NIGHTS itself was a NYT besteller. It's less of an obvious departure from the norm, in that IDENTITY CRISIS had a very trad-comic look and in book form has a very thriller-look, and SANDMAN's design ethic even as a comic was never a trad-comics one.

Meltzer and DC have apparently arranged another promotion, where people who buy IDENTITY CRISIS can send their sales slip in for a free GREEN ARROW: THE ARCHER'S QUEST, which encourages them to try more comics. I hope that goes over well too.

I saw the book prominently on display at my local bookstore as well, and within a minute or less of picking it up and admiring the approach, I also saw a hardcover GREEN LANTERN novel by Christopher Priest, an oversized hardcover collection those Paul Dini/Alex Ross tabloid projects and something called THE PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES (or something like that). All before getting further into the store than the "New Releases" section.

And this was right after seeing SERENITY (written and directed by a guy who writes comics) at a movie theater also showing the comics-based A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. Times sure do change...

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