Two Stories That May Not Be Stories

* I'm not really equipped to have an argument about on-line anything with Cory Doctorow, any more than I'm prepared to go up against Tommie Harris in a one on one football pass-blocking drill. That said, I always think these sorts of download comics now articles/exhortations miss a huge point. Mainstream comics don't act like a standard entertainment market. About 25 years ago -- by invite, mind you -- comics shifted the most significant burden and risk from suppliers to retailers. Since then, they have set about slowly boiling away any and all remaining notions of consumer-reward rationality and logic from this system. The end result is a market that is high-strung and fragile and resource-light in a way that makes Aesop's grasshopper roll his eyes. A shift in emphasis, any significant change in readership, even with greater rewards at an unspecified point down the line, could shred the existing market in a way that simply isn't as crucial a risk for any other industry. You can argue standard models and cross your arms and harrumph in comics' direction all you right, but comics' On-Line Solution will either be specifically tailored to comics, or will come from the outside and capsize it. That's not a culture that can change on its own, not in that way. Not since maybe 1987 or so.

* As I said a couple of times during this site's Comic-Con International coverage, 1) there are going to be several issues involving the hassles that arise out of the show operating at full capacity over the next five years, and 2) that an immediate issue is press access. Heidi MacDonald making note of this at her The Beat is interesting mostly because it reminds that the press access issue is an issue of attendance and crowds, too, and her comments section reveals what I'm sure is a significant backlash of "to heck with the press, anyway; this show is for the fans" sentiment.

I think this is a fun issue to talk about, but not one that's really significant or even one that requires a daunting solution. There are simple administrative procedures that can limit the number of press people asserting their presumed access in a way that has nothing to do with their work, while getting those press folks who need to do their jobs into the areas they need to be. For instance, a "comics track" designation on my badge and the ability to skip the line and know I have a seat would have led to my covering at least the two Image panels on this site, while still keeping my ass away from the chair desired by some Heroes fan in the big hall. What might become interesting is watching how the con negotiates the needs/desires of their most important relationships -- with the on-line press -- and the needs/desires of the attending studios, whom I presume may have different priorities and press targets. I'm sure it will work out, and imagine most articles between now and then are going to hash out the issue because it's fun to do so.

* Speaking of which, don't the general panel attendance issues and the issue of people squatting presentation to presentation make moving that whole part of the show off-site and into a bigger hall a no-brainer?
 
posted 3:06 am PST | Permalink
 

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