SPEAKEASY CLOSES ITS DOORS

[MattBrady]

<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Speakeasy/speakeasylogo.jpg" width="175" height="110" border="0" align="right">Vito Delsante, the "unofficial" press liason for Speakeasy Comics (and a creator with two projects that were due to come out through the publisher) has sent out the following statement:

"As unofficial public relations for Speakeasy Comics, I feel it is my duty to inform everyone that as of 3:30 PM today, Speakeasy Comics has shut its doors and will not be publishing comics for, at the very least, the rest of the year. Most, if not all, creators have been contacted and informed. If I'm not mistaken, all books scheduled to ship in March will ship. April and May books are up in the air, while June books are cancelled. "

The news had been percolating throughout the industry for the better part of the afternoon, with creator Joshua Hale Fialkov (<b>Elk's Run</b>) posting on his blog (http://www.poorlydrawnanimals.com/blog/2006/02/speakeasy-rip.htm) around 3:00 pm:

<i>So, just got off the phone with Adam Fortier, President etc. of Speakeasy Comics. Speakeasy is no more. Due to some payment problems and low sales, it seems, they've had to lock up shop.

Elk's Run... well... We're working on it. The book is 90% done, and it's murder keeping it away from you guys, cause frankly, I've never been prouder than I am of the back half of the series. Everything clicks, and it's just amazing work from Keating and Noel... The type of stuff you, as a writer, only dream of having turned in.

The book will come out. You will get to read the rest of the series.

When and How are still our main questions.</i>

In a quick interview with Newsarama, Delsante said that he's unsure of exactly what the final straw for the company was, saying, "I think it just got to be too overwhelming to come out under the wave of all that came to a head recently. Late books, funding...personality clashes...I'm not sure."

Delsante added that, in regards to a "temporary" status of being shutdown, he based his feelings on a conversation with Speakeasy chief Adam Fortier, who told him that he was planning on taking some time off before making his next move.

As for Speakeasy's partnership with Ardustry (http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=50753), if forced to guess, Delsante would consider it dead. "I will say that in my eyes, it helped bring things to a hault," Delsante said. "There was talk of having hands tied, editorially, and I'm not 100% sure and I'm guessing, it seems like before the partnership, things were shaky, but we were still doing comics. I don't know what happened between then and now."

The Ardustry deal, as observers wil recall, apparantly was the beginning of a wave of cost-cutting changes for the publisher, with minimum sales limits being set into place, and titles both being dropped by the publisher, and also leaving of their own accord, such as the relatively high-profile Rosario Dawson-helmed <b>Occult Crimes Taskforce</b>, which has moved to 12 Gauge, and Frank Espinosa's <b>Rocketo</b>, which has moved to Image. Since late last year, rumors have swirled about the company, many invovling lack of payment to creators, and problems/difficulties with shipping.

In speaking with <i>Publisher's Weekly</i> (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6298175.html) about launching and living through 2005, Fortier said, ""I believe that with the advent of the DC/Marvel mega-crossovers, [those series] pushed everybody else out. It was a situation that you've got to react to."

And as for meeting sales goals, Fortier told the trade, "It's very hard to sell that number of copies [at the break-even point]. People will not really support something new. Unfortunately a lot of people lost a lot of face in the industry, and we're at the place right now where people want to believe the worst."

<b>Update 02.27 9:25pm EST</b>

In a late-day conversation with Speakeasy founder Adam Fortier, the publishing head boiled it down to simplest terms:

“We didn’t get money,” Fortier said when asked what was the big reason behind the closure was. “Money that was supposed to come through never materialized for a number of months.

“Right now, I’m working on getting money so I can pay back the printers and the creators. All in all though, the creators aren’t really owed a great deal of money – not even a Dreamwave amount, and much less than a CrossGen amount.

“I’ve called all my creators, I’ve called all my artists, and basically everybody knows that we’re going to take as good of care of them as we can. We’re not leaving anybody out in the lurch, we’re not declaring bankruptcy, we’re not running away from debt, so that’s something, at least.”

Asked if he would think about bringing the company back at some future date, Fortier said that for Speakeasy, this was it. “I don’t see Speakeasy coming back,” Fortier said. “I just don’t have any passion for this. The last number of months was full of constant problems, and the last week was just full of working…not even to keep people happy, but just to keep people satisfied. It’s just too tough. It’s not necessarily a great place to be anymore.”

“There’re so many different things, and it’s kind of tough to point to one thing and say, ‘My God, this is the one things that’s destroying all of us!’ It’s very much a self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to be very successful in the comic book industry, I believe that people believe – and so it becomes true – you need to have your series done before you solicit it. You need to be able to show people, you need to be able to give people confidence in the product, and then you need to be able to pay your bills anyway if they don’t have confidence and they don’t really want to support it. Of course what happens there, is that there’s no way to run a company like that. You just can’t do it. Nobody has money like that. Even with millions, like CrossGen, it couldn’t be done. So, if the multi-millionaires don’t have money to be able to run a company like that, what hope does anybody else have?”

As far as how many cerators are owed money, Fortier said the total stands at about six, not counting the studio, Grafiksismik, which Fortier said is a seperate case, but once that will be paid in full.

Also, according to Fortier, there are no Speakeasy books in any distribution pipeline. "We are done," he said, adding that for him, personally, he's looking at taking some time off.

"I may, once this all is settled out," Forteir said, "Just try to be a fan again. I haven't been just a fan of comics in quite a while."

[gcoleman99]

Wow. Just...... wow.

[tralfaz]

im so glad I stop collecting their books. didnt want another crossgen

[HBKShowstoppa]

Hmmmmm....havent read much by them, but from what I did read, it's a shame they're done for now.

[Hobowatcher]

I wan't more Grimoire, and Black Coat looked AMAZING.

[BlackDog]

What comics do they publish?

This is sad news nonetheless.

[Inferiority]

I know they did the first six issues of Rocketo, although I don't think they've released 5 or 6.

[Thomas Mauer]

Oh man, that's horrible!

[martinp]

What!? I am just starting to get into THE HUNGER and METAL LOCUS was also looking promising. Damn Damn Darn. Maybe another company will pick some of the titles up. What a mess for all those creators.

www.vistacomics.com

[Steve Bryant]

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed out about it, too. I've been receiving reports all last week how ATHENA VOLTAIRE #1 had sold out at Diamond.

I guess we're officially looking for a new publisher.

--Steve

[khuxford]

You had to see this coming. Their new, daring "profit AND loss sharing" approach...their attempt to own more of their products so they could steal more of those profits...all the creators jumping ship...

Can't wait to see Rich Johnston's column. The fact that it is being posted later than usual today...I'm thinking Rich will be addressing it.

[Duke Jupiter]

I'd like to know what the status is on #5 & 6 of ROCKETO seeing the light of day. I guess it's more likely that we'll see these issues first collected in the upcoming TP being published by Image.

Unless Image picks up the publishing on the book with these issues instead of starting with #7. Don't matter to me, long as I get to read 'em.

Sad news about another comics company biting the dust. The fans have spoken. I sure hope it doesn't get down to 2 or 3 companies publishing all the comics out there - that would suck.

- DJ

[atomika]

I left Speakeasy because I wanted to do more of the heavy lifting
myself.

It's neccesary for creators to do everything they can to get their baby out
there.

Comics are here to stay Speakeasy just ran into some hard times.

I wish Adam and Chris nothing but the best, they really
are great guys.

Warmest regards


Sal Abbinanti


PS- Thank you to everyone that stopped
by our Atomika booth at the NY show.

Atomika-Artist/publisher
www.mercurycomics.com

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by khuxford
You had to see this coming. Their new, daring "profit AND loss sharing" approach...their attempt to own more of their products so they could steal more of those profits...all the creators jumping ship...

Can't wait to see Rich Johnston's column. The fact that it is being posted later than usual today...I'm thinking Rich will be addressing it.

Nope, it's going up later today because of CBR. I wrote it usual time.

Arses.

[samnoir]

That is really as shame.

___________________________________

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[jltorres]

Originally posted by martinp
What!? I am just starting to get into THE HUNGER and METAL LOCUS was also looking promising. Damn Damn Darn. Maybe another company will pick some of the titles up. What a mess for all those creators.

www.vistacomics.com

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=55872

The Hunger will continue to come out as Markosia book. The article has all of the information as well as my thoughts on the present situation.

[TerryX]

Next on the list... Alias

[Cyphon]

Originally posted by Duke Jupiter
I'd like to know what the status is on #5 & 6 of ROCKETO seeing the light of day. I guess it's more likely that we'll see these issues first collected in the upcoming TP being published by Image.

Unless Image picks up the publishing on the book with these issues instead of starting with #7. Don't matter to me, long as I get to read 'em.

Sad news about another comics company biting the dust. The fans have spoken. I sure hope it doesn't get down to 2 or 3 companies publishing all the comics out there - that would suck.

- DJ

5 and 6 may never see the light of day as single issues. The trade collecting 0-6 is coming out soon from Image, and then they're off on #7, so I can't imagine they'd go back and publish 5 and 6 and singles. WHich is too bad for those of us who already have 0-4 and want to finish the arc. But, it's a great book, so if I have to pick up the trade, I will.

[xomanowarfan]

Very very sad news....

The Ardustry deal, as observers wil recall, apparantly was the beginning of a wave of cost-cutting changes for the publisher, with minimum sales limits being set into place, and titles both being dropped by the publisher, and also leaving of their own accord.

What was the deal with Ardustry? Who/what are Ardustry? Was there a newsarama article about this deal that I missed????

[xomanowarfan]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
Nope, it's going up later today because of CBR. I wrote it usual time.

Arses.

Where can I find this article?

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by xomanowarfan
Where can I find this article?

When CBR put it up.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Steve Bryant
Yeah, I'm pretty bummed out about it, too. I've been receiving reports all last week how ATHENA VOLTAIRE #1 had sold out at Diamond.

I guess we're officially looking for a new publisher.

--Steve

Steve, I hope you find one. You've got one guy who'll follow you wherever you go. I loved the first issue. Great story/great art.

This is such a shame. Speakeasy/Fortier had a great eye for talent. That company put out a lot of great stuff--and was slated to put out a lot more. I should've seen the writing on the wall when they didn't due their full-page ads in the latest issue of Previews....

[xomanowarfan]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
When CBR put it up.

Thanks. But, whats CBR? sorry if its a stupid question.

[blankpoint]

As a retailer, I think their entire launch was problematic.
I got burned on their initial run, and dropped it all a few months in, except for special orders. Almost the same for Alias and AP.

[CyclopsScott]

Man, easily my favourite new publisher of the last while, its horrendous seeing this happen. Just barely 1 year in existence.

After the pain of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang going down with CrossGen, I'm pained to see Grimoire go down with Speakeasy. Speakeasy honestly seemed like such a sure thing, especially compared to Alias, and started so strong... a title just coming out from them was enough for me to check it out, but to go under, that's just heartwrenching.

Helios also... I wonder what will happen there...

Best of luck to everyone involved... I was looking forward to Government Bodies and UTF, plus Athena Voltaire was awesome. Grimoire though was owned internally I believe, which saddens me to most to be without. Flipping over to their site, I'm seeing Hawker Hurricane which sounded like a total blast.

I was wondering when the 'bad news' that always seems to happen on my birthday would hit. There we go.

Scott Summerton

[CyclopsScott]

Originally posted by Steve Bryant
Yeah, I'm pretty bummed out about it, too. I've been receiving reports all last week how ATHENA VOLTAIRE #1 had sold out at Diamond.

I guess we're officially looking for a new publisher.

--Steve

I was onboard as I loved issue 1. Hope you guys get something soon.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by xomanowarfan
Thanks. But, whats CBR? sorry if its a stupid question.

If I start linking to LITG for whatever reason, the post gets deleted by Newsarama mods. Use Google, that's what it's there for.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Duke Jupiter
Sad news about another comics company biting the dust. The fans have spoken. I sure hope it doesn't get down to 2 or 3 companies publishing all the comics out there - that would suck.

- DJ

I wouldn't say this is entirely a matter of the fans speaking, at least not about the quality of the books. I think that it was a combination of factors which brought them down. The first being the problems they had with their printer, which caused their books to be significantly delayed. Then there the new minimum book policy (I guess brought about by the Ardustry deal), which led to a flight of talent. All of the bad press probably led to fans giving up on Speakeasy for fear it would become the next CrossGen. This, as we can unfortunately see, became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[xomanowarfan]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
If I start linking to LITG for whatever reason, the post gets deleted by Newsarama mods. Use Google, that's what it's there for.

googled it, does it stand for comic book resources? If so, I found the site and look forward to the article. thanks for the help

[ostrogorsky]

Why the delay for CBR to put the article up Rich ? The thing is ready so why hold back on it ?

Cheers

-=O=-

[Midas]

Originally posted by xomanowarfan
googled it, does it stand for comic book resources? If so, I found the site and look forward to the article. thanks for the help

Bingo. You got it.

[Cyphon]

Hey Rich, tell them to hurry up and post it. I've got 28 minutes til 24 comes on!

[Bakema NL]

Totally sucks, quite a few titles I enjoyed from them.

[The Marvel]

Well, when you Crossgen your employees...

[Psipher]

Hopefully Phantom Jack (Nowhere Man) finds a new home.

[Boyardee]

The Grimoire was a book worth reading, I hope they find a good new home, maybe with Image?

[Allen Jaco]

:(

This is very disappointing. I liked a lot of their books. It's not a good thing for the industry when companies not named DC or Marvel start dropping like flies.

The industry needs more variety if it is to survive. This only diminishes it.

[Allen Jaco]

Originally posted by blankpoint
As a retailer, I think their entire launch was problematic.
I got burned on their initial run, and dropped it all a few months in, except for special orders. Almost the same for Alias and AP.

And this is a perfect indication of what happens when comics allow themselves to be constrained into such a tight little niche pipeline.

If it doesn't feed existing customers, it's gonna lose because the retailers can't carry it. There is never any chance to grow companies or publishers or genres.

[justinalanha]

A mile away...It's bad news though.

[TwoGunMojo]

WHAT! No more Super-Crazy TNT Blast! :eek:

*cue Darth Vader voice*

NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:o :mad: :mad:

[khuxford]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
Nope, it's going up later today because of CBR. I wrote it usual time.

Arses.

LOL...they STILL haven't put it up. I don't get the problem they're having with putting it up. They can get the Chris Bachalo chat hosted but can't post your friggin' column...at this point it will be posted Tuesday after what will be their "it will be posted later than usual Monday" false advertising BS.

Sorry to hear you're not addressing it this week, Rich...will look forward to your coverage next week.

[Derek Ruiz]

Originally posted by martinp
What!? I am just starting to get into THE HUNGER and METAL LOCUS was also looking promising. Damn Damn Darn. Maybe another company will pick some of the titles up. What a mess for all those creators.

www.vistacomics.com

The Hunger has moved to Markosia


http://www.markosia.org.uk/comic/markosia_front.htm

[Derek Ruiz]

Originally posted by TwoGunMojo
WHAT! No more Super-Crazy TNT Blast! :eek:

*cue Darth Vader voice*

NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:o :mad: :mad:

Moved to Markosia called Twilight Men now

http://www.markosia.org.uk/comic/markosia_front.htm

[GrantAlter]

Originally posted by TwoGunMojo
WHAT! No more Super-Crazy TNT Blast! :eek:

*cue Darth Vader voice*

NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:o :mad: :mad:

Good news for you, bro.

SCTNT BLast is not over. They moved over to Markosia and is now called Twilight Men.

Same for Mutation (the moving over bit, not the name change).

[NightRiver]

Oh no! I was so into Grimoire and Althena voltaire! Man, i hope they get published somewhere else!

Man, Black Coat was looking so dam good too!

[Derek Ruiz]

Originally posted by GrantAlter
Good news for you, bro.

SCTNT BLast is not over. They moved over to Markosia and is now called Twilight Men.

Same for Mutation (the moving over bit, not the name change).

F'n copy cat jesus grant.

[Blast-Off]

I really, really hope Elk's Run finds a home. that book is just amazing. Seriously, there are not enough good things you can say about this thing. It's tense and a little spooky and getting better with evry issue. Can't wait for the last half of this series. Here's hoping Mr. fialkov can find a new home.

[Varrus]

I knew it... this is exactly what I was afraid of and I even had a brief discussion about it with the "Black Coat" creators in their preview threads. I liked "Beowulf" and looked forward to "Black Coat" but was really wary of Speakeasy. Looks I was justified. This sucks.

[Boyardee]

I just went to ICV2.com and looked around for how much Speakeasy books were selling, and it makes me wonder how any of these smaller publishers can stay afloat.

Talk about nickle and dimes. I'm surprised Speakeasy was around for as long as it was! Same thing goes for most of the independents, and even Image has a bunch of books only selling like 2 or 3 thousand copies, and even one or two selling less than that. IMAGE for god's sake.

Makes me sad that you have to have a Marvel or DC in front of your books title for what seems like 99% of the comic fans to pick up your book.I cry for diversity.

I say support these smaller publishers, or the entire future of the comic marketplace will be clad in spandex and jumping off of rooftops.

mmm-mm-good.

[CitC]

That's a shame.

I wonder if other small companies will start putting out shorter story arcs (1-3 issues) to keep selling books to buyers afraid of getting burned by cancelled books. I have no idea. Just wondering out loud.

comicsintheclassroom.net/ (http://comicsintheclassroom.net/)

http://comicsintheclassroom.net/citcpics/citc_banner_600x120.jpg

[TwoGunMojo]

Originally posted by Derek Ruiz
Moved to Markosia called Twilight Men now

http://www.markosia.org.uk/comic/markosia_front.htm


...And thus, peace was restored to the land and there was much rejoicing. :D

[Louis Lane]

Their demise is unfortunate, but I'm always leery of publishers who expand quickly. Hopefully, all their creators will land at other publishers.

LL

[hoarseandbuggy]

Thanks for the kind words gang. As I've said before, come hell or high water, Elk's Run will see completion.

Thanks for the support and love.

[Louis Lane]

>just went to ICV2.com...makes me wonder how any of these smaller publishers can stay afloat.

Yeah, their biggest "hit" was Rocketo, and that only sold a few thousand copies -- could have sold more if Speakeasy had reprinted them, I'm sure.

Even Usagi Yojimbo, which has been around for years and is very stable, only sells 6-7 thousand copies.

I hope other creators are being realistic in their sales projections.

LL

http://usagiyojimbo.com/dojogroup/uytom2-sm.jpg

[glecharles]

Originally posted by Louis Lane
>just went to ICV2.com...makes me wonder how any of these smaller publishers can stay afloat.

Yeah, their biggest "hit" was Rocketo, and that only sold a few thousand copies -- could have sold more if Speakeasy had reprinted them, I'm sure.
Actually, Atomika was their biggest hit, with well over 10k copies of the 1st issue sold, which was reprinted at least once, IIRC. Of course, that was one of their launch titles, back when they were able to do more targeted promotion and didn't have a slew of titles no one ever heard of for retailers to spread their limited indie budgets around. And Abbinanti promoted the hell out of the series, too, an absolute requirement for every creator these days, no matter which publisher's logo is on the cover.

It's a tough market, exponentially so for independent creators.

[Louis Lane]

>Actually, Atomika was their biggest hit

I stand corrected; I forgot about Atomika.

>Abbinanti promoted the hell out of the series

Yes, aggressive self-promotion is absolutely required. Very time consuming, though, when creators need to be working on their next script and/or page of art.

>It's a tough market

I wonder if we'll see more self-publishers with only a single title (ala Linda Medly) who then jump to established publishers (e.g., Medley moving Castle Waiting to Fantagraphics this summer).

LL

[PMB1972]

I had the chance to speak with Adam a month ago, and to get in touch with Speakeasy line, and he and Chris are really great guys. It is very sad that things like that are happening in a such large and rich country as USA. Comics are almost an original American art form (you did yellow kid, guys), it should be read by more people. It should be everywhere as an option for enterteniment, not only at some comicshops and some bookstores. You really should do something about this as soon as possible, because if a thing like low sales happens to publisher as cool as Speakeasy, it is only because there is not enough people reading comics in USA nowadays.

[Paul Sizer]

This is really sad to see, but as other posters have remarked, not completely unexpected.

This last year has seen several small imprints try to jump too fast into the big waters, releasing too many books then getting hung out to dry when the numbers on a few couldn't support the others. My local retailer told me it was really hard to deal with a big launch of new books by non-established names, even if the material was top-notch. It was sheer guess work on ordering an amount that would sell through, and sadly, most retailers can't take that big of a purchase risk on a regular basis.

It is a very tough market out there, which is all the more reason to play it safe, get a lesser number of good titles out, get a realistic assesment of what the market will do with your product, then expand slowly from there. It's certainly not as glamourous as a big launch with nice color spreads in PREVIEWS, but it's a longview that has served many smaller self publishers very well.

Overall I thought the Speakeasy books looked great and had a nice variety to them, so I hope the creators involved regroup themselves in smaller groups, crunch the numbers and figure a way to get their work out there again. I also hope the founders take some time off, re-look at things and try again with a renewed and wiser approach. It stinks to see enthusiasm put off, but it also may make them come back with even stronger ideas and business plans second time around.

Good luck to all!

[lex luthor]

Rocketo, Of Bitter Souls, The Black Coat. Money wasted. It's official, I feel like a chump.

“There’re so many different things, and it’s kind of tough to point to one thing and say, ‘My God, this is the one things that’s destroying all of us!’ It’s very much a self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to be very successful in the comic book industry, I believe that people believe – and so it becomes true – you need to have your series done before you solicit it. You need to be able to show people, you need to be able to give people confidence in the product, and then you need to be able to pay your bills anyway if they don’t have confidence and they don’t really want to support it. Of course what happens there, is that there’s no way to run a company like that. You just can’t do it. Nobody has money like that. Even with millions, like CrossGen, it couldn’t be done. So, if the multi-millionaires don’t have money to be able to run a company like that, what hope does anybody else have?”

Great attitude Adam. That's a mindset that just breeds longterm success.

[Andrew Foley]

My more-or-less my official comment, because deep down, YOU ALL WANT TO KNOW:

I'll always be grateful to Adam Fortier for publishing my first major comics work. At the end of the day, I can honestly say I believe Adam and Co. went into this with the best intentions (though probably not the best business plan.)

I'm sure some will criticize the company's willingness to publish more books than the market would bear, but I can't fault it--they published PARTING WAYS when nobody else would. It's depressing to think the decision to do so might have, in some small way, contributed to the company's current situation--in spite of overwhelmingly positive reviews, Adam's faith in WAYS was not repaid with sales. The question for me becomes, should Speakeasy have agreed to publish PARTING WAYS, or ELK'S RUN, or SHOTGUN WEDDING, or any number of other interesting, idiosyncratic projects, when the mainstream comic-buying public, or at least the majority of retailers, just doesn't seem interested in supporiting such material? From a strictly commercial point of view, the answer would seem to be "no." Speakeasy put those books out anyway, hoping quality would win the day. It didn't, and that's a shame.

So, Speakeasy's shutting down saddens me deeply. For all the company's faults--and I'm neither blind to them nor making excuses for them--I believe its loss is a blow to the comics industry as a whole. This was a publisher willing to put out non-superhero material by unknown creators (and let them retain all the property rights, to boot), and that's something I strongly believe the industry desperately needs (and only partly because I'm an unknown creator of non-superhero material). Unfortunately, with each smaller comic publisher's failure, it becomes less likely the Direct Market will take a chance on such books.

As sad as the situation is, I was terribly relieved to learn that Speakeasy is not going into bankruptcy; the publishing and multimedia rights for PARTING WAYS will be returned to me and my co-creator, Scott Mooney. I was less relieved to realize this means I owe the company three thousand dollars, but in the grand scheme of things, it's a small price to pay to retain control of a property that could easily have been tied up in lengthy and probably costly bankruptcy proceedings (ask Matt Wagner if you don't believe me.) That said, if anyone's got $3k lying around, feel free to drop me a line, because I certainly don't.

It's funny 'coz it's true!

(In the admittedly unlikely circumstance that you *don't* have $3,000 lying around, I'd appreciate it if you'd consider shelling out $12.99 at your local retailer, online comic supplier, or Amazon.com for a copy of PARTING WAYS, or, if you're *really* destitute, $3.50 for the first issue of my and Fiona Staples' five issue Satirical Vampire Epic, DONE TO DEATH, coming this July from Markosia Entertainment.
http://www.markosia.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=239)

Andrew Foley

[CyclopsScott]

Originally posted by MattBrady
Also, according to Fortier, there are no Speakeasy books in any distribution pipeline. "We are done," he said, adding that for him, personally, he's looking at taking some time off.

So presumably aside from Athena Voltaire 2 which already shipped for this week, that's it? No "March books will ship" or any of that?

Damnit.

EDIT: My mistake, Athena Voltaire 2 is next week, not this week... its not even going to make it for then...?

Scott Summerton

[Louis Lane]

>should Speakeasy have agreed to publish...idiosyncratic projects

Unfortunately, "idiosyncratic" is a pretty tough "brand" for a publisher to sell. I wonder if Speakeasy tried to establish an identity for themselves? I've looked at all their Preview ads, and I don't know what it might be.

>Speakeasy put those books out anyway, hoping quality would win the day.

Lack of captial and limited retail shelf space cases comic shops to be very conservative. Publishers need more than quality to earn retailers' business.

LL

[denseboy]

Just so everyone knows, The Black Coat will still be around.
We haven't decided what to do yet as we just learned of this news in the last few hours (we were not contacted ahead of time - Vito's press release is the first I heard of it) but the book is NOT dead.
Thanks for everyone that placed orders with us through Speakeasy and we hope you'll be patient and stick with us while we make some adjustments.
There will be a lot more information over the coming weeks on our website (http://www.the-black-coat.com) and you can sign up for updates as well.
Thanks everyone!!!

[Jim Valentino]

This is a shame.

Adam is a good guy and Speakeasy gave it a great shot.

The loss of one diminishes us all.

Best to you guys,

jim

[SalCipriano]

To echo the sentiments of my fellow creators, my book, The Hill, is not dead at all. The book is 100% done and I am in the process of looking for a new publisher. More news as soon as I have it.

I also want to say publicly that I respect Adam for calling me personally. That was a very classy thing to do.

The Hill, as well as Bio Boy, will soon be back.

Best,
Sal Cipriano

[matthigh]

>just went to ICV2.com...makes me wonder how any of these smaller publishers can stay afloat.

Well, the simple answer is that ICv2's sales figures are really only a fraction of the total comics market. As a general rule, the less mainstream a comic book, the greater percentage of its sales are outside the "regular" direct market. For many niche-market comic books, they can sell a few hundred copies through Diamond, and then a few thousand copies through other sales channels (often mail order selling, conventions, direct-to-retail, mass-market sales, etc).

Best,
- Matthew, Radio Comix and Cold Cut Dist.

[earth2tom]

We should all be ashamed for this. Why is it that we continue to support the overhyped played out machines of the larger publishers, while companies that actually produce inventive products fall? I tried to the best of my pocketbook to order a few of Speakeasy's titles and was never dissapointed by the quality. Of course I bought into the mega-crossover madness like nearly everyone else, so I ain't no saint, but couldn't we all have just dropped one or two titles that we buy out of habit and went out on a limb and try a new book or two from a small publisher? Who knows, we might actually enjoy the new titles more than fullfilling some psychological defect. Rest in peace Speakeasy. Maybe one day we will learn from the continuing massacre of indie publishers. Then again history says otherwise.

[Derek Ruiz]

Originally posted by SalCipriano
To echo the sentiments of my fellow creators, my book, The Hill, is not dead at all. The book is 100% done and I am in the process of looking for a new publisher. More news as soon as I have it.

I also want to say publicly that I respect Adam for calling me personally. That was a very classy thing to do.

The Hill, as well as Bio Boy, will soon be back.

Best,
Sal Cipriano


Keep us in the loop so I can pick it up.

[Dougy]

I'm quite saddened by this, it's such a shame when companies go down this way. I loved Atomika, I hope that the book will be back one day.

[Violent Gorilla]

Sad to hear, but really...how many small publishers have to fail before people realize the "rapid expansion" business model is flawed beyond rationality? It will kill your company faster than anything.

You have to start small and build a name for yourself. You cannot, no matter what sort of operation style you're using on the financial front, overexpand like all these companies are doing. Better to have one or two books to build a solid foundation on than several titles that dillute things for your companies small resources.

I realize most people have the best intentions at heart because you certainley don;t enter this industry because of the countless riches, but still....

[Derek Ruiz]

Originally posted by Dougy
I'm quite saddened by this, it's such a shame when companies go down this way. I loved Atomika, I hope that the book will be back one day.

Atomika has been here for a bit now

http://www.mercurycomics.com/

[mikepenny]

Helios: "In With the New" # 3 will be in April PREVIEWS to ship in June under DAKUWAKA Productions. It will feature a double-sized issue for $ 4.95 & feature a cover by "Witchblade's" Mike Choi.


http://www.dakuwaka.com/Resources/purplebar-28.jpeg

Here's the issue summary:

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Things only get worse when the team is informed of Jack's death. Ashley, Kyle and Jason are shattered, while the newcomers move to take advantage of their grief. Meanwhile, Strickland and General Harlowe continue to maneuver Neo Force toward their ultimate goals and a new and powerful threat enters the arena.
But are things truly as they seem?

Check out the newly updated DAKUWAKA web site at:
www.dakuwaka.com

Thanks to all our fans for their support through this period.
Mike Penny President / Dakuwaka
Co-creator/ Editor HELIOS

[johnturned51]

Atomika is still around, its solicited under mecury comics, has been since #5


O only got two books from them, (Atomika, and Grimoire), sad to see it go, but what can you do, most of what speakeasy "looked" like from previews didn't interest me, but as a Publisher they sounded great, hope those guys aren't done for the industry.

[EmeraldGuy32]

DAMNIT ALL TO HELL!!

[lex luthor]

Originally posted by earth2tom
We should all be ashamed for this.

No we shouldn't. The blame lies solely with the individuals who run Speakeasy Comics.

[Akcoll99]

Originally posted by Steve Bryant
Yeah, I'm pretty bummed out about it, too. I've been receiving reports all last week how ATHENA VOLTAIRE #1 had sold out at Diamond.

I guess we're officially looking for a new publisher.

--Steve


I just picked up Athena Voltaire last week and really enjoyed it. I see issue #2 is supposed to come out this week. I hope you find a new publisher soon as your book is something I'm looking forward to seeing more of... :)

[deffectx]

Originally posted by TerryX
Next on the list... Alias

shut the f-*-/+-/+-/-


this its really bad news! many people loose theirs jobs a shame really

[Eonprez]

The response to this is amazing! So I just wanted to add my .02!
Back when my book, Project EON (then with Speakeasy) was known to be late after two weeks and I couldn't get any answers as to why, I (and my fellow Chimaera Studio mates) were pretty much released from our contracts (pretty much no questions asked). Most of those books are now at Markosia (including Project EON which will be resolicited in April for a June release...just in time to compete with Superman Returns..LOL).

I wish I could say this closing was a shock to me...but it wasn't.

That said, I believe this is just the kinda kick in the @$$ this industry (the indy industry) needs to find a way to create, market, sell and PROFIT on indy comics. I believe Markosia has a great marketing strategy, but I'm not just going to write, ink and edit to leave the marketing and promo up to them. I've got about 2000 roll-over minutes that expire in June...so retailers, get ready to talk to yours truely!

Best wishes and good luck to everyone who was involved or immediately affected by this closing.

-Brett
EON

[Cray_ws]

Originally posted by lex luthor
No we shouldn't. The blame lies solely with the individuals who run Speakeasy Comics. Its not that black & white. There are many factors why small publishers go out of business, Some of it is the competition and the lack of tools to survive the competition, let alone the company's own inadeqaucies.

Even the biggest publishers have problems, but they are in a position where it has enough of a buffer to prevent from crashing to bankruptcy in such a short span of time.

It took nearly entire year for Crossgen to close it's doors. They had so many problems and not enough to buffer those problems and the competition pretty much swallowed them as they were pinned down the matt.

Blame is an easy thing to do, it's even easier in this industry full of arm-chair marketering/editor in cheifs wannabes.

I'm sadden that Speakeasy wasn't able to remain in business, I felt they contributed to great deal of creative growth in this industry. They had the best intentions of bringing diversity and published titles I wouldn't normally see from other major publishers and I applaud them for their effort.

I think instead of pointing fingers we need to agree on positive solutions so that one day there can be several thriving publishers instead of a few that publish more diverse and "idiosyncratic" titles.

[Royal Nonesuch]

Well, that just sucks.

My initial interest in Speakeasy came from the fact that it was the advertised publisher of Yoshitaka Amano's Hero. While I was looking into Speakeasy, I ran into a bunch of other stuff I liked a lot (Atomika, Beowulf, The Gatesville Company, Elk's Run), and there was a lot of stuff I was looking forward to, in addition to Hero. How unfortunate, I was holding out hope for them.

[mymeridon]

I'm looking at this with a bit of remorse for the monthly publication issue of single issues. Everyone that has their weekly comic book fix has plenty of Marvel and DC, but the Indy's need to find another paradigm.

Maybe the OGN is it...

[sloria13]

Admittedly, I've never read a comic from them, however, I hate to see independents close their doors. The true diversity comes from them, no matter how many Vertigo and Max titles are pushed out. A shame indeed.

[stlfan79]

I am crossing my fingers that Phantom Jack can land somewhere.

[Cray_ws]

Originally posted by mymeridon
I'm looking at this with a bit of remorse for the monthly publication issue of single issues. Everyone that has their weekly comic book fix has plenty of Marvel and DC, but the Indy's need to find another paradigm.

Maybe the OGN is it... Actually I think it needs to be the other way around. Big publishers can afford to put out OGNs, smaller publishers struggle. I think if people bought less monthlies and more Trades and OGNs from Marvel & DC, big publishers would put more out.

I'm also a firm believer that small publishers need to make it part of their business plan to put out trades and not rely solely on monthly sales to support trades.

Marvel & DC can afford to do OGNs, but they choose not to because the money they get from advertising.

[mymeridon]

As for independents not selling OGN's... a guy named Jim Heffron had a book called Territory 51 from Lawdog Comics. He is a one man machine and T-51 has sold more than 1500 OGN's...himself...the entire print run.

So maybe the OGN model has some merit for the smaller guy...although Jim is a really talented artist.

Hope Athena Voltaire gets picked up though.

[Mike S Miller]

This is really too bad for the industry as a whole, but for Adam and all those involved more specifically. Obviously.

Speakeasy put out some of the best independent stuff out there, and it's a shame that there just wasn't enough oxygen in the market to support their books.

It's tough. Trust me, I feel for Adam, and I know exactly what he's saying. The independent industry across the board has been hurting in a major way since last summer's usual 'blockbuster' events have dragged on through fall, winter, and going into spring and back into Summer. Look at all the numbers across the board for indy's, including Image, and you'll see a pattern. The numbers have been cut by half or two thirds or MORE all around.

It sucks. Yay for Marvel and DC who are making fistfuls of cash, but it sucks for the rest of the industry almost all of whom, like me, make comics because they LOVE comics.

But for those of you who are expecting Alias to be the next on the chopping block, I hate to burst your bubble, but don't count on it. The Direct Market may be killing indy's off one by one, but we're not solely dependent on our DM revenue for sustainability. So like it or not, we'll be around for a good long time to come.

God willing, of course. ;)


Anyway, Adam, et al, good luck with whatever paths you take in the future, and I hope you find your love for comics again.

-Mike

[lex luthor]

Originally posted by Cray_ws
Its not that black & white.

Sure it is. There is no "gray" as far as I am concerned.

I was a fan of many of their books (Rocketo, Of Bitter Souls, The Living and The Dead, Season of the Reaper, The Black Coat) and I'm sad to see them go but I refuse to blame the consumer, the retailer or the marketplace for the demise of the company.

[Strike]

@^&*ing hell!


I'm in the UK.


I go to bed last night. I wake up this morning to find yet another indie publisher pushing up daisies.

This is pissing me off.

[EmeraldGuy32]

Originally posted by Blast-Off
I really, really hope Elk's Run finds a home. that book is just amazing. Seriously, there are not enough good things you can say about this thing. It's tense and a little spooky and getting better with evry issue. Can't wait for the last half of this series. Here's hoping Mr. fialkov can find a new home. Couldn't agree more...

Originally posted by hoarseandbuggy
Thanks for the kind words gang. As I've said before, come hell or high water, Elk's Run will see completion.

Thanks for the support and love. It's really great to know that you're giving this book the dedication it deserves. Elk's Run really is something special.

[rogue_tomato]

Sad. sad news when another comic book company has to close up shop... all the best to everyone involved :(

EDIT: Oh yeah, 1000th post! :D

[BradyKiller]

Sorry to see you go Speakeasy - thought you might have a chance especially with the way the comics world has been on the upswing.

Its tough that's for sure out there - Marvel and DC are doing the best job in decades on keeping consumer money with them.

Until further notice, I give my hands down appreciation and repsect to Devil's Due - the only small publisher still rolling even with a handful of failures. Run a tight and small ship and deliver great content and it will work.

[Bakema NL]

Athena Voltaire
The black coat
Of bitter souls
Season of the reaper

These were the titles I really liked.

The first 3 will be seen again I'm sure and some creators already said so. Not so sure about the last one, but who knows.
Tough times for indies, but I'll still buy my share of them, enough interesting things to be found there.

[Strike]

Originally posted by mikepenny
Helios: "In With the New" # 3 will be in April PREVIEWS to ship in June under DAKUWAKA Productions. It will feature a double-sized issue for $ 4.95 & feature a cover by "Witchblade's" Mike Choi.



http://www.dakuwaka.com/Resources/purplebarj.jpeg

Here's the issue summary:

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Things only get worse when the team is informed of Jack's death. Ashley, Kyle and Jason are shattered, while the newcomers move to take advantage of their grief. Meanwhile, Strickland and General Harlowe continue to maneuver Neo Force toward their ultimate goals and a new and powerful threat enters the arena.
But are things truly as they seem?

Check out the newly updated DAKUWAKA web site at:
www.dakuwaka.com

Thanks to all our fans for their support through this period.
Mike Penny President / Dakuwaka
Co-creator/ Editor HELIOS


Yay! This is the one I was worried about.

By the same man who wrote Small Gods. Top stuff.

[Book of GOB]

Originally posted by lex luthor
I was a fan of many of their books (Rocketo, Of Bitter Souls, The Living and The Dead, Season of the Reaper, The Black Coat) and I'm sad to see them go but I refuse to blame the consumer, the retailer or the marketplace for the demise of the company.

But it's also important -again- to remember that many of the creators under the Speakeasy imprint jumped ship before this went down. Speakeasy was supposed to be creator-friendly, but when the situation would have hurt those creators and their creations, they did what it took to protect the properties in their best interest AND the fans that followed those titles. A lot of these titles aren't "going"... they are relocating to best serve the fans. Markosia is home to several Speakeasy titles (OF BITTER SOULS, THE HUNGER, SMOKE & MIRROR, PROJECT EON and others), ROCKETO has found a new home and I'm sure THE BLACK COAT will live on. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Most of these titles aren't necessarily dead.

Soundgarden said it best in their song "New Damage" -- "The wreck is going down, get out before you drown."

[RobertScott]

As saddend as I am to see Adam fail with Speakeasy, it wasn't a suprise to me and shouldn't be to anyone who understands the industry.

Oddly enough I just started discussing this exact thing last week, with Image Central, Speakeasy and Alias as examples, at .IF I WERE IN CHARGE (http://comickaze.blogspot.com/) , a blog about my 20+ years in the industry as a writer, publisher and retailer.

Adam's closing comments were baffling and the only truth in his declaration was that, in order to be succesful in this industry that you do, "... need to be able to show people, you need to be able to give people confidence in the product, and then you need to be able to pay your bills anyway if they don’t have confidence and they don’t really want to support it." That Adam still shirks that responsibility, blaming other sources for his failure, as well as his comparison to CrossGen are ridiculous and empasizes the up hill battle to legitimacy that this industry faces.

That is the true essence of a commercially viable enterprise. If you have a product that you expect people to pay for, to commit their fiscal interest in, be it a Distributor, Retailer or Fan, you MUST be able to earn their confidence that you're not some fly-by-night-cash-grab-flake, as well as being able to pay your bills when reality fails to meet your expectaions.

If you can't do that, you have no business calling yourself a business, you are just a vanity press. Unfortunately, these final comments from Adam are likely to be the one point that will stick for most people and I'll try to feign suprise when the next few months exposes a few new pretenders who still refuse to do their due diligence before throwing their hat in the ring of comic publishing.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by ostrogorsky
Why the delay for CBR to put the article up Rich ? The thing is ready so why hold back on it ?

Cheers

-=O=-

The editoir had urgent business to attend to. I think you could wait a few hours. Or wake up in the morning to a nice fresh column!

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by khuxford
LOL...they STILL haven't put it up. I don't get the problem they're having with putting it up. They can get the Chris Bachalo chat hosted but can't post your friggin' column...at this point it will be posted Tuesday after what will be their "it will be posted later than usual Monday" false advertising BS.

Sorry to hear you're not addressing it this week, Rich...will look forward to your coverage next week.

I can only have coverage if I know what's going on! 8-)

[Cray_ws]

Originally posted by lex luthor
Sure it is. There is no "gray" as far as I am concerned.

I was a fan of many of their books (Rocketo, Of Bitter Souls, The Living and The Dead, Season of the Reaper, The Black Coat) and I'm sad to see them go but I refuse to blame the consumer, the retailer or the marketplace for the demise of the company. Did you not read what I said about pointing fingers, and placing the blame? If I say it wasn't solely Speakeasy's fault that doesn't automatically say I'm blaming the "consumer, the retailer or the marketplace". Its not an either or situation.

Its too complex of a problem to put it all in one direction or another, because if that was the case then it would be a fixable problem and we wouldn't have so many small publishers go under.

Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image all screw up very badly and yet somehow they manage to thrive. So you can't go scrutinizing a small publisher as if the other big publishers aren't making the same mistakes. I'm not saying that we should accept bad publishing practices, I'm just saying its a very complex problem.

What we need is solutions, not finger pointing.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by glecharles
. And Abbinanti promoted the hell out of the series, too, an absolute requirement for every creator these days, no matter which publisher's logo is on the cover.

It's a tough market, exponentially so for independent creators.

Did you see anyone do more promotion than me?

The market contracted for non Big Four hideously. Non Big Two, even. See LITG passim.

[glecharles]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
Did you see anyone do more promotion than me?

The market contracted for non Big Four hideously. Non Big Two, even. See LITG passim.
I'd say you did by far the most self-promotion of any Speakeasy creator since Abbinanti launched Atomika with them. (EDIT: You also have a unique platform that most creators lack.) At the time, I thought that was all Speakeasy's doing, but realized later Sal was doing most of the heavy lifting on the marketing front.

As for the contraction, that was already happening when Fortier decided to ramp up his production and abandon his original gameplan. Check out my coverage sometime tomorrow. I just filed it about 10 minutes ago.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Mike S Miller
It's tough. Trust me, I feel for Adam, and I know exactly what he's saying. The independent industry across the board has been hurting in a major way since last summer's usual 'blockbuster' events have dragged on through fall, winter, and going into spring and back into Summer. Look at all the numbers across the board for indy's, including Image, and you'll see a pattern. The numbers have been cut by half or two thirds or MORE all around.

It sucks. Yay for Marvel and DC who are making fistfuls of cash, but it sucks for the rest of the industry almost all of whom, like me, make comics because they LOVE comics.

That is such a load Mike. Someday I'll create a chinese menu boilerplate for failed publisher/creator press releases, since they basically all borrow from the same tired, cliche'd excuses.

Marvel and DC have nothing to do with the demise of Speakeasy or any other Indy Publisher. We sell a alot of Atomeka, Rocketo, Lullabye, Lions Tigers & Bears... regardless of whether there is an Infinite House of Justice Annihilation or not.

Dreamwave didn't go under becuase of the big 2, but because of questionable business practices, as did Chaos! and CrossGen.

The problem is that most Indy's won't act with responsibility and wait until they have everything in order before launching. Doing so gives them absolutely no margin for error and they set themselves up for failure, every time.

You yourself had many questions directed at you about Alias' launch plans and virtually every concern retailers voiced, came to be.

Just Once, I'd love to see someone admit that they got in way over their head and were just totally unprepared for the reality of this business.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by glecharles
I'd say you did by far the most self-promotion of any Speakeasy creator since Abbinanti launched Atomika with them. (EDIT: You also have a unique platform that most creators lack.) At the time, I thought that was all Speakeasy's doing, but realized later Sal was doing most of the heavy lifting on the marketing front.

As for the contraction, that was already happening when Fortier decided to ramp up his production and abandon his original gameplan. Check out my coverage sometime tomorrow. I just filed it about 10 minutes ago.

I created that platform! 8-)

You have cause and effect the other way round. The market contradicted, Speakeasy tried to face that by increasing titles. Remember Speakeasy was on a fixed cost per issue, not per sale. You may want to revisit that coverage...

Say, I wonder if DC fancy buying an Elseworlds...

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by RobertScott


Marvel and DC have nothing to do with the demise of Speakeasy or any other Indy Publisher. We sell a alot of Atomeka, Rocketo, Lullabye, Lions Tigers & Bears... regardless of whether there is an Infinite House of Justice Annihilation or not.

You do. A lot of shops don't. They have fixed budgets, so do their customers, they're not as good at outreach. This is not new, it's happened before. It's just now the marketplace overall is smaller and both DC and Marvel are better at it.

[glecharles]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
You have cause and effect the other way round. The market contradicted, Speakeasy tried to face that by increasing titles. Remember Speakeasy was on a fixed cost per issue, not per sale. You may want to revisit that coverage...
Yes, but they chose a short-term fix to a long-term problem and got screwed by it. Now all these creators owe them money, and the owe the printers and their freelancers money...and for what? Because Fortier got jumpy and decided a business model which hasn't worked for any brand new publisher, ever, would work for him?

C'mon!

PS: Yes, you did create that platform. Much respect for that. I'm just saying that it's not something your average indie creator has in their disposal.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
Did you see anyone do more promotion than me?

The market contracted for non Big Four hideously. Non Big Two, even. See LITG passim.
Relevant promotion, sure.

Of the 5 copies of Flying Friar we got, we sold 2 to regular customers and 1 to someone who actually buys one of every book I stock sight unseen.

Nobody came looking for the book, nobody called about it or maybe they did and didn't find it worth buying.

In essence, nobody in San Diego noticed your "promotion".

Merely posing online, even with a popular web column, isn't promotion.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Relevant promotion, sure.

Of the 5 copies of Flying Friar we got, we sold 2 to regular customers and 1 to someone who actually buys one of every book I stock sight unseen.

Nobody came looking for the book, nobody called about it or maybe they did and didn't find it worth buying.

In essence, nobody in San Diego noticed your "promotion".

Merely posing online, even with a popular web column, isn't promotion.

Agreed.

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45483
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005007,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1693316,00.html
http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2518.asp
http://www.totalcatholic.com/universe/index.php?news_id=651&start=0&category_id=&parent_id=0&arcyear=&arcmonth=
http://aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=22414#10
http://comics.ign.com/articles/685/685905p1.html
http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=58388

Offering customers money back guarantees. Offering retailers money back guarantees.

Plus quite the active blogosphere.

[RichJohnston]

BTW, I'll buy back those 2 copies at cost plus surface postage if you like.

[magister]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Relevant promotion, sure.

Of the 5 copies of Flying Friar we got, we sold 2 to regular customers and 1 to someone who actually buys one of every book I stock sight unseen.

Nobody came looking for the book, nobody called about it or maybe they did and didn't find it worth buying.

In essence, nobody in San Diego noticed your "promotion".

Merely posing online, even with a popular web column, isn't promotion.

You bitter or just sounding that way?

Didn't see any left at Graham Crackers in the Loop.

Chicago Comics sold out the first of 5, ordered another 5 and appeared to still have them moving 3 weeks later.

Oh, wait... different stores sell different books. No, that would be a logical answer.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
You do. A lot of shops don't. They have fixed budgets, so do their customers, they're not as good at outreach. This is not new, it's happened before. It's just now the marketplace overall is smaller and both DC and Marvel are better at it.
This is an old wives tale. Besides, the outreach for individual work is primarily the responsibility of the publisher/creator, NOT the retailer.

Retailers have proven over and over that they will stock anything that sells. Here, you are confusing cause and effect.

Many retailers may not have the budget to gamble on unknowns but face it, most Big 2 books are hardly unknowns. We all know how many Spider-Man and Batman we can sell and as evidenced by multiple printings, many even underestimate what we can sell.

Most Indy's (publishers and creators) seem to end their role at "send the solicit to Diamond" relying on retailers to not only gamble on buying the book but to also market the book for them.

That is why small press, mostly unknown creators and stories, fail to gain any traction.

Another simple fact is that despite many new opportunites, including the internet, most publishers/creators have not changed the way they do business at all, reapeating the same mistakes over and over. They also seem unable to glean the subtle differences in genre, somehow believing that marketing a slice of life love story to a primarily spandex oriented audience is a wise move because they're both 32paged and bound by staples.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Which by the way was going to be the name of my new blog but the URL was way to long.;)

I started spelling out a lot of this at If I Were In Charge... (http://comickaze.blogspot.com/) last week. I'd love to hear your take as a creator and an industry observer.

[AlexLothos]

*plays taps*

Another sad day for indy books, creators, fans... :(

[BrotherI]

April up in the air? Damn. I want Amano's Hero.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by magister
You bitter or just sounding that way?

Didn't see any left at Graham Crackers in the Loop.

Chicago Comics sold out the first of 5, ordered another 5 and appeared to still have them moving 3 weeks later.

Oh, wait... different stores sell different books. No, that would be a logical answer.
Bitter, not at all. Bemused would be more accurate. Why would the simple statement of fact make you think I was bitter?

Not seeing anything left at Graham Crackers kinda proves my point. The book is still available for reorder from Diamond. If there was a demand for the book, surely Graham Crackers would have stacks available to meet it.

Chicago Comics is a great shop that really supports small press work and yet with all of the "promotion" alluded to, they sold 5 copies and have yet to move another 5 in 3 weeks?

I've been very indy supportive at Comickaze, we carry more indy and manga than all other San Diego shops combined and you might have to go all the way to Berkely (Comic Relief) to find another shop with more diversity (although Meltdown might have us beat, too).

I'd be suprised if Flying Friar or most other Speakeasy titles get racked anywhere else in San Diego and most comic buyers know we're the shop to hit if they want to see the book before buying it, rather than ordering it sight unseen.

My only agenda here is presenting the flip side of the coin, so when you see things posted here that seem totally unbelievable as presented, you'll know why.

[Kane]

This is sad sure but.... But this is not and"independent" market loss this is what happens when a company does not "market" or advertise thier product... and at the right time. Wecan't buy what we don't know about neither can we ask our shop owners to buy it...

The only advertisement for Supercrazy was here on Newsarama.... about a week or so before it's release. Speakeasy promoted it After it's release and only in thier books.
( I only use Supercrazy as an example because it is the only experience I had with SE)

This is not the market's fault or some abberation a sign of the times this is newton's law man. You get what you give. Those who are continuing from speakeasy worked like buggers to do so and they will succeed..becuse of that work.

Best of luck to all involved!-T

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
BTW, I'll buy back those 2 copies at cost plus surface postage if you like.
Thanks Rich, your guarantee was the reason we ordered 5 copies to begin with.

Selling 3 puts me in the black, and the time it would take to pull, package and mail these back would cost more than my remaining cost even.

The point was not to get paid on these issues as much as it was to point out that as much promotion as you believe was done, it failed to covert here, much like most others small press promotional efforts.

Care to share print run, initial and reorder quantities to validate your comments?

[Cray_ws]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Most Indy's (publishers and creators) seem to end their role at "send the solicit to Diamond" relying on retailers to not only gamble on buying the book but to also market the book for them.

That is why small press, mostly unknown creators and stories, fail to gain any traction.

Another simple fact is that despite many new opportunites, including the internet, most publishers/creators have not changed the way they do business at all, reapeating the same mistakes over and over. They also seem unable to glean the subtle differences in genre, somehow believing that marketing a slice of life love story to a primarily spandex oriented audience is a wise move because they're both 32paged and bound by staples. I'm curious what would be your alternative for independent publishers to do?

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Cray_ws
I'm curious what would be your alternative for independent publishers to do?
I've touched on it above but last week I started addressing that very thing a little more in depth, starting here with Abraham Maslow and the Underpants Gnomes Part 1 (http://comickaze.blogspot.com) although my comments on Fell may be somewhat applicable as well.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Thanks Rich, your guarantee was the reason we ordered 5 copies to begin with.

Selling 3 puts me in the black, and the time it would take to pull, package and mail these back would cost more than my remaining cost even.

The point was not to get paid on these issues as much as it was to point out that as much promotion as you believe was done, it failed to covert here, much like most others small press promotional efforts.

Care to share print run, initial and reorder quantities to validate your comments?

I'd have to know them first!

"as I believe"? I think I provided a few links.

[magister]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Bitter, not at all. Bemused would be more accurate. Why would the simple statement of fact make you think I was bitter?


Complaining you had 60% sell-through, so the promotion must not have worked sounded like complaining to me. Especially when talking about an indie.

Your comments are still coming out of left field.

The Graham Crackers in the Loop is not someplace I go for in depth stocking of indies. In fact, the exact conversation with the clerk went:

"Do you have the Flying Friar?"
"Is that an independent?" <points at that section>
"Yes, but I didn't see it there."
"Then we don't have it."

Not real concerned about reordering over there. Or with customer service, for that matter.

Chicago Comics _sold out_, didn't have it for ~two weeks and then it started moving again once it returned. The manager expressed some bemusement and mild surprise that it "had legs," particularly without the benefit of a "New This Week" tag drawing attention to it on the shelf.

Chicago Comics does bother to reorder, but not everyone does. Doesn't sound like a failure to convert to me. Fail to sell out, sure. Failure to make money for you? By your own admission, no.

[Blind Assassin]

Originally posted by lex luthor
Rocketo, Of Bitter Souls, The Black Coat. Money wasted. It's official, I feel like a chump.



I read Rocketo and Grimoire and Elk's Run.

I don't feel like a chump. Why do you? You were buying the books so you must have enjoyed them, right?

I enjoyed these books, was happy to support them, and look forward to the return of Elk's run so I can continue the rest of the story. Grimoire has moved to another publisher, so I will wait. And Rocketo is being taken over by Image.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
If I start linking to LITG for whatever reason, the post gets deleted by Newsarama mods. Use Google, that's what it's there for.

Don't Newsarama and CBR have an accord?

Seems not so long ago they were jointly covering the summer cons.


Growler :cool:

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by RobertScott
As saddend as I am to see Adam fail with Speakeasy, it wasn't a suprise to me and shouldn't be to anyone who understands the industry.

Oddly enough I just started discussing this exact thing last week, with Image Central, Speakeasy and Alias as examples, at .IF I WERE IN CHARGE (http://comickaze.blogspot.com/) , a blog about my 20+ years in the industry as a writer, publisher and retailer.

Adam's closing comments were baffling and the only truth in his declaration was that, in order to be succesful in this industry that you do, "... need to be able to show people, you need to be able to give people confidence in the product, and then you need to be able to pay your bills anyway if they don’t have confidence and they don’t really want to support it." That Adam still shirks that responsibility, blaming other sources for his failure, as well as his comparison to CrossGen are ridiculous and empasizes the up hill battle to legitimacy that this industry faces.

That is the true essence of a commercially viable enterprise. If you have a product that you expect people to pay for, to commit their fiscal interest in, be it a Distributor, Retailer or Fan, you MUST be able to earn their confidence that you're not some fly-by-night-cash-grab-flake, as well as being able to pay your bills when reality fails to meet your expectaions.

If you can't do that, you have no business calling yourself a business, you are just a vanity press. Unfortunately, these final comments from Adam are likely to be the one point that will stick for most people and I'll try to feign suprise when the next few months exposes a few new pretenders who still refuse to do their due diligence before throwing their hat in the ring of comic publishing.

This is one the best posts I've read in a long time. It all boils down to business basics. Cash flow and working capital are essential to get you through until you have built a repuation and broke even.

We all know the comic book market is one of the most competitive out there. Due diligence is key. I can't knock anyone for trying but I'd love to see more successful independents pass the 5 - 10 year mark.

I'm ashamed to say the only indy I'm supporting at the moment is Image and that's only because of the superhero centric lines. I supported Crossgen for their intial breath of fresh air.

It's always sad to see any publisher bite the dust and I hope the industry will be stronger because of it. Learning from mistakes etc...

I sincerely hope Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Comics) is taking notes (though I suspect he knows a thing or two about business... :) )


Growler:cool:

[Kolimar]

Sad news.

[Kolimar]

Originally posted by RobertScott
That is such a load Mike. Someday I'll create a chinese menu boilerplate for failed publisher/creator press releases, since they basically all borrow from the same tired, cliche'd excuses.

Marvel and DC have nothing to do with the demise of Speakeasy or any other Indy Publisher. We sell a alot of Atomeka, Rocketo, Lullabye, Lions Tigers & Bears... regardless of whether there is an Infinite House of Justice Annihilation or not.

Dreamwave didn't go under becuase of the big 2, but because of questionable business practices, as did Chaos! and CrossGen.

The problem is that most Indy's won't act with responsibility and wait until they have everything in order before launching. Doing so gives them absolutely no margin for error and they set themselves up for failure, every time.

You yourself had many questions directed at you about Alias' launch plans and virtually every concern retailers voiced, came to be.

Just Once, I'd love to see someone admit that they got in way over their head and were just totally unprepared for the reality of this business.

Good points.

[Blind Assassin]

Richard Branson may know something about business, but does he know anything about the comics industry?

I hope he doesn't think that people will buy the books that his company will be putting out purely based on his name alone.

but that's another topic. ;)

I was more wondering about your later comments.

You said the only indie company you support is Image.

nothing else has piqued your interest?

(I am generally curious, so please don't take this post as an attack on your reading habits. )

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by magister
Complaining you had 60% sell-through, so the promotion must not have worked sounded like complaining to me. Especially when talking about an indie.

Your comments are still coming out of left field.

Simple statement. Despite all of Rich's promotion, I saw no response in my market but felt that his offer to list my shop in his column and elswhere, warranted at least a token order of 5 copies. We sold 2 of 5 off the rack (40%), the 3rd was sold to a sub customer who takes one of every comic I stock. It had nothing to do with Rich or the book.
Good thing I didn't order just one copy or you'd be telling me it was a success because I sold through!

The Graham Crackers in the Loop is not someplace I go for in depth stocking of indies. In fact, the exact conversation with the clerk went:
You brought them up as proof that the book sold well, not me. Considering you don't know how many they sold and the fact that they saw no merit in restocking it, shows me you are conflating the facts.

Chicago Comics _sold out_, didn't have it for ~two weeks and then it started moving again once it returned. The manager expressed some bemusement and mild surprise that it "had legs," particularly without the benefit of a "New This Week" tag drawing attention to it on the shelf.
Out of 5 copies, and not yet out of 5 more! The numbers you qoute show a success of retailers to know their market, not a success of the book.

Chicago Comics does bother to reorder, but not everyone does. Doesn't sound like a failure to convert to me. Fail to sell out, sure. Failure to make money for you? By your own admission, no
Dude, I work with dozens of the top comic retailers in the world, every day and have been a retailer myself for more than 20 (the last 16 with Comickaze). Where does your knowledge of the market sales come from.

Yes it failed to make money for me. If not for my sub customer I would have lost money, on 5 copies of a highly promoted book. With my sub customer I did a little more than break even.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Blind Assassin
Richard Branson may know something about business, but does he know anything about the comics industry?

I hope he doesn't think that people will buy the books that his company will be putting out purely based on his name alone.

but that's another topic. ;)

I was more wondering about your later comments.

You said the only indie company you support is Image.

nothing else has piqued your interest?

(I am generally curious, so please don't take this post as an attack on your reading habits. )

I am, admittedly, a superhero, spandex junkie. ;) Always have been. Saying that, I also venture into good sci-fi and fantasy stories. Bottom line is they have to be good stories. Crossgen did this well (in my opinion).

Anything else that's piqued my interest after, Marvel, DC & Image? Skimming through the latest Previews;

Archenemies from Dark Horse by Drew Melbourne and Yvel Guichet

and Wolfskin from Avatar by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp

both look good. I'm trade only now so that's a factor too.

I'm sure Branson knows little about the finities of the industry but he knows the nuts and bolts, the brass tacks of how to create a great team.

And that is the key.

Gather a great team of experts around you to make up for any lack of knowledge and you'll go far. Branson always hires the best in any industry he ventures into. I have faith he'll make decent splash in the industry.

Check out his autobiography, great reading.


Growler :cool:

[The Doc]

I'm not a retailer, nor am I a comic book artist or writer, so this is just coming from a comic reader/fan perspective.

Retailers are unwilling to buy books sight unseen, for the obvious reason that if the books don't sell, the retailer is stuck with them and out the money. And for many comic shops just barely scraping by, that's money that they can ill afford to lose.

But, unfortunately, this forces readers like myself to pre-order most indie books ahead of time and, in many cases, committing yourself to buying at least three issues because of the lag time between ordering the books and when they are published.

And if you don't pre-order a book, there's no guarantee that a particular book will even be on the shelf even if you visit a shop on a Wednesday release date. For example, I'm still looking for a Grimm Fairy Tales #3 (either cover). I visited three shops in Atlanta on release day, none had any extra copies. Sure, I might be able to have a shop reorder this book for me, or pick it up over the internet, but for many readers its just so much easier to pick up that DC or Marvel book sitting on the shelf. How can an indie book expect to grow when the book isn't even sitting on the shelves even on release day? Well, the simple answer is that it can't.

I dislike the idea of having to pre-order every book that I even have a remote interest in (I don't read DC or Marvel, btw). I can't tell you how many time I've considered abandoning comics altogether due to frustration in finding books that I have interest in. I've found them, but only through perseverance (and a willingness to drive to several shops around my hometown of Atlanta, and by buying off the internet). I have no interest in following Batman, Superman or Spiderman, superheroes were never the be-all, end-all for me. I almost hate to say this, but it may now may be the time that I quit buying new issue comics at least. Why support a market that doesn't want to support fans of indie comics like me?

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by magister
Complaining you had 60% sell-through, so the promotion must not have worked sounded like complaining to me. Especially when talking about an indie.

And I'd rather that a prominent comic shop owner not associate ordering a Rich Johnston comic with having a fight with someone on Newsarama. Whoever you are, you're not doing me any favours here.

[csatterlee]

Originally posted by lex luthor
Rocketo, Of Bitter Souls, The Black Coat. Money wasted. It's official, I feel like a chump.



Great attitude Adam. That's a mindset that just breeds longterm success.

Rocketo is at Image and continuing.

Of Bitter Souls is at Markosia...and continuing.

[Sharcque]

you beat me to it, Chuck! :D

Here are all of the ex-Speakeasy books thta are now at Markosia. Hope this helps:

Of Bitter Souls
Smoke & Mirror
Twilight Men (Formerly 'Super Crazy TNT Blast')
Mutation
Lonebow
Wargod
Project Eon

Doing this from memory -- I don't think I left anything out....

[Blind Assassin]

Originally posted by Rawle Austin
I am, admittedly, a superhero, spandex junkie. ;) Always have been. Saying that, I also venture into good sci-fi and fantasy stories. Bottom line is they have to be good stories. Crossgen did this well (in my opinion).

Anything else that's piqued my interest after, Marvel, DC & Image? Skimming through the latest Previews;

Archenemies from Dark Horse by Drew Melbourne and Yvel Guichet

and Wolfskin from Avatar by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp

both look good. I'm trade only now so that's a factor too.

I'm sure Branson knows little about the finities of the industry but he knows the nuts and bolts, the brass tacks of how to create a great team.

And that is the key.

Gather a great team of experts around you to make up for any lack of knowledge and you'll go far. Branson always hires the best in any industry he ventures into. I have faith he'll make decent splash in the industry.

Check out his autobiography, great reading.


Growler :cool:


thanks for the reply. I must admit my curiousity is piqued because of Branson's larger than life personality. Is his autobiography in paperback? thanks.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Blind Assassin
thanks for the reply. I must admit my curiousity is piqued because of Branson's larger than life personality. Is his autobiography in paperback? thanks.

Always a pleasure. :)

Yes, it's in paperback.

Check out Amazon.



Growler:cool:

[Raven117]

So much for the smartest guy in comics. . .

Being smart doesn't mean you don't have to work hard.

[Doc Holiday]

The Black Coat was the title I was most interested in seeing this week, and in general; more than Crisis, more than any OYL. So I am disappointed in this turn of events. And yes, i am dismayed by the failure of yet another promising young comics company.

I thought the creators of the Black Coat did an excellent job of bringing awareness of their work to the internet. Ii wonder how many copies were ordered? Still, going to another company is tricky--Black Coat shows quality in the advance pages, very professional work. But it is black and white. Would Image publish it? I hope it goes to a high profile publisher--maybe Dark Horse?

Best of luck with it.

[RichJohnston]

So... anyone want to republish The Flying Friar? In colour maybe? European album, HC style?

[stvnhthr]

Adam Fortier, sorry to hear you are closing the doors on Speakeasy. You are an honorable man for paying off your debts instead of sneaking out the backdoor of bankruptcy. Good luck in the future.

[denseboy]

Originally posted by Doc Holiday
The Black Coat was the title I was most interested in seeing this week, and in general; more than Crisis, more than any OYL. So I am disappointed in this turn of events. And yes, i am dismayed by the failure of yet another promising young comics company.

I thought the creators of the Black Coat did an excellent job of bringing awareness of their work to the internet. Ii wonder how many copies were ordered? Still, going to another company is tricky--Black Coat shows quality in the advance pages, very professional work. But it is black and white. Would Image publish it? I hope it goes to a high profile publisher--maybe Dark Horse?

Best of luck with it.

Thanks, Doc.
We're just starting to look at what our options are.
Early on, pitching BC was difficult since it was black and white and an historical-based story. I think now that we have 3 whole books done, it should be a little easier to find someplace to land but we'll see.
As for pre-order numbers, we cleared Speakeasy's quota for issue 1. I never heard about issue 2, but all in all, I think we did very well for getting basically no support from the publisher. I'm actually excited about the possibilities that might come from working with a publisher that will help us promote the book. :)

BTW, issue 1 was supposed to ship this week and got pushed back to next week but, in light of recent events, we've put a halt to its release. Our team would rather all the books come from the same publisher and not force our fans to re-purchase issue 1 or 2. It's a shame, but it looks like BC fans will have to wait a little longer to read the book.

In the meantime, I'm going to be putting up forums on the BC website later today so if you want to talk specifically about the book or anything else in general, there will be a place to do it. I'll post again when they are up and running.

Thanks!

[Raven117]

The Black Coat rides on!

Can someone explain to me how you get in debt when everything is creator owned???

[Earl]

At least Alias management communicate with their fans a bit. I have followed both Alias and Speakeasy all along. I have about 80% of what Speakeasy publish and was getting frustrated with them. Basic questions about what comics were released and where to find them were not getting answers. Fans wanting books and wanting to spend $ with the company not even getting communication on what was available. Promises that the Speakeasy store would be getting in all the special editions for sale which (with the exception of Rocketo 0) it never did. Then killing off the thriving message boards and dumping all the great information threads took a lot of the fun out of the collecting /fan community aspects. I still think Speakeasy comics had some of the best production values out there and had some amazing creative content and will continue to look for those special edition comics I have still not been able to track down.

Earl.

[jasonm]

My only hope in all of this is that this doesn’t serve to further damage the name of indy comics as a whole. Retailers and fans alike need to look at titles on an individual basis more then a company as a whole. As shown with a number of speakeasy titles, the titles that received support will have a new life at new publishers – Indy titles are worth the effort, worth the time and worth your support. They are a variety and an edginess that if lost for good, would doom this industry to a singular voice in what should always be a chorus.

A number of titles have moved to Markosia, some to Image, still others are in negotiations with other companies. My title for one, ELLIUM, was pulled early on from the Speakeasy schedule due to a number of preventable issues and I'm currently in negotiations to see ELLIUM published elsewhere. To head off production concerns, I’m spending 2006 preparing 2-3 comics to release specifically on the web for free followed by creating all of next years books ahead of schedule.

All in all, 2006 will see a new website in May with a free webcomic or two and a forum devoted to online RPG with Ellium, and 2007 will see two 48 page one-shots and a three issue miniseries, all completed this year, well in advance of their release.

It’s my hope that by having the work done well in advance and by demonstrating the quality of the books with free releases, hopefully fans both new and old will give ELLIUM their support when the time comes.

Support ELLIUM...
Join the conspiracy!

Jason Moser
GenomeStudios.com

[Paul Sizer]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Most Indy's (publishers and creators) seem to end their role at "send the solicit to Diamond" relying on retailers to not only gamble on buying the book but to also market the book for them.

This is absolutely true! All of my work for my "MOPED ARMY"graphic novel STARTED with "send solicitation to Diamond".

I had spent nearly a year before sending out samples to indy-friendly retailers like Green Brain and Isotope. I produced embroidered MOPED ARMY patches and sold them online to the Moped Army members and through my own site to raise awareness and get interest, collecting an email from each purchase to put on a mailing list. I got quotes from industry bloggers and professionals before the book came out so that it came out with blurbs already, and so the "blurbers" could write about MOPED ARMY in their columns/blogs. I got pre-release copies of the book out to reviewers, especially in the librarian's world, who have been a HUGE boon to getting my stuff out (Sales to libraries rock, because they are NON-RETURNABLE!)
All this before the book came out...

THEN, when MOPED ARMY actually came out in September 2005, I spent the next 3 months on the "Two Stroke Invasion Tour", setting up in-store signings with indy friendly stores around my area, and doing as many cons as I could afford until the end of the year (SPX, Motor City Fall, Mid-Ohio Con, SNAP!). All in all, I did 7 signing stops on the tour, sold a bunch of books, and as of December 31 2005, had my graphic novel paid off.

Out of the initial sales, about 40% came from direct market orders through Diamond. The rest was me lugging books around, doing pre-order sales, pounding the pavement and selling direct to retailers and fans. This is what I expected it to be. I didn't hinge all my hopes on selling everything through the direct market. Truthfully, in the end, the majority of my sales will probably come from library sales and bookstore sales. I've only just now gotten orders from Borders and Barnes and Noble for my graphic novel. A really good review in VOYA (Voice Of Youth Advocates, an industry magazine for teen services librarians) will pave the way for more sales. Lots of little things producing an end result

I saw how much work Brian Bendis and David Mack did with their books when I was being published by Caliber (with my LITTLE WHITE MOUSE books) with them. Those guys busted their asses ALL THE TIME to self promote, at EVERY con I was at, keeping a very high profile online presence. Bendis was a completely hardcore promoter of his own stuff like GOLDFISH when he was with Caliber, and it paid off BIG, and obviously set him on a road to bigger things. Even while with a publishing company, these guys promoted on their own as much as they could afford to.

Carla Speed McNeil (FINDER) has self published 38 issues of her book, 7 collected editions, and I watched books fly off her table at SPX. She's also turned this into working with Greg Rucka and Warren Ellis. Again, dogged promotion, and incredible work ethic with follow through. Another "business model" to look to.

In the end, if I've had any measure of success with this release, it was because I had to commit about a year's worth of "marketing" to it's release, and then had to do the follow up as well. Obviously, as my own book, I put more effort into it, but I really think that's the key to success. It's what has made any of my indy creator friend's books successful; tons and tons of work, setting them up ahead of time, and just keeping at it. I always go back to the phrase "I'm working too hard to be called 'successful'." Truth of the matter, that's what I've seen work in this industry, and that's what I patterned my publishing business plan after.

[Jason A. Quest]

Originally posted by tralfaz
im so glad I stop collecting their books.
Translation: "I'm so glad I could help to kill the company." It sounds like Fortier's talking primarily about yet another failure of the venture-capital system, but customers not buying the books obviously didn't help.

Buy Books You Like. If they come from Marvel or DC, swell. If they come from Image, Dark Horse, or one of the mid-level publishers, OK. If they come from an unproven new publisher, fine. Just buy them.

By doing that, you're helping to ensure that Books You Like continue to be published; not buying them means you're part of the problem. Does buying from a new publisher (or a new title from an old publisher) expose you to the risk of the series being cancelled? Yes. But not buying them means you never get to enjoy them at all. Which is a bloody stupid thing to do.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by tralfaz
im so glad I stop collecting their books. didnt want another crossgen

And that is one of the reasons they closed shop, you stopped buying the books. Didn't want another CrossGen? Then you should have kept buying the books that you liked. I am not saying that it is just your fault, I am sure there are plenty of people out there just like you.
All in all this seems very typical ,from what little information that I gathered from this article, of other indpendent publishers. The same thing that happened to SE happened to First, Comico, and Eclipse. I started thinking about what the poster said that they (the poster) did not blame the consumer, ther retailer or the company for SE closing up shop. Well, if I were a creator who had a title at SE I would be looking for someone to blame, that is only normal human reaction. I think all three are to blame.
I just hope that we will be able to see some of the titles some where else. I do not know what the contracts look like but look what happened to a lot of the other characters when other companies folded. It took forever for Wagner to get back the rights to Grendel and Mage. It took Ostrander and Truman a long time to get the rights back to Grimjack and Baron and Rude only got Nexus back because Mike Richardson GAVE the rights back to them. I really hope this does not happen to the creators that were at SE. Not only does it suck for the creator but, and I am being selfish here, I want to see what happens in Spellgame. I thought that was well put together title. I'll keep my eyes open.

[Bill Tortolini]

Another sad day for INDY comics...

My heart goes out to all the creators, and I hope thier projects make it to the hands of the fans.

[Stressfactor]

Originally posted by Jason A. Quest
Translation: "I'm so glad I could help to kill the company." It sounds like Fortier's talking primarily about yet another failure of the venture-capital system, but customers not buying the books obviously didn't help.

Buy Books You Like. If they come from Marvel or DC, swell. If they come from Image, Dark Horse, or one of the mid-level publishers, OK. If they come from an unproven new publisher, fine. Just buy them.

By doing that, you're helping to ensure that Books You Like continue to be published; not buying them means you're part of the problem. Does buying from a new publisher (or a new title from an old publisher) expose you to the risk of the series being cancelled? Yes. But not buying them means you never get to enjoy them at all. Which is a bloody stupid thing to do.

I agree, although perhaps without the 'bloody'. :) Seriously though, if something interests you pick it up. If it gets cancelled or the publisher goes belly up at least you can say "Hey, it was a good ride" or "I'm glad I tried this". People keep pointing out the failures -- Speakeasy, CrossGen, Alias, but NOBODY is bothering to point out the successes -- Viper Comics, Boom Studios, heck, even Dark Horse used to be a dark horse (they didn't become horsepower overnight)! Not every indy will fail and we as fans need to consider the successes and not be so much on the 'doom and gloom', 'wailing and gnashing of teeth'.

And I hope to see more "Spellgame" as well as "The Black Coat".

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by Raven117
The Black Coat rides on!

Can someone explain to me how you get in debt when everything is creator owned???

Someone has to pay for publishing, someone has to pay for advertsing, someone has to pay the heating bill at your offices, someone has to...it goes on. Just because these titles were creator owned doesn't mean that everything was free. Man if I could get a book published for free I'd jump on it in a heart beat.

[Sharcque]

To blame someone that stopped buying Speakeasy's books as the reason that Speakeasy went under is ridiculous. And this is coming from someone that did NOT stop buying their books. From the get-go of this company, when we were all still buying their books, it didn't seem to help anything. They'd still solicit 15 - 20 books a month, and we'd go 4 weeks with maybe 1 book! This is what caused people to stop buying their books. A lot of comic buyers have an allotted amount of money to spend each month on comics. They put their orders in to their LCS based on this pre-set amount. Then their books never come in, and they're stuck with no book, wishing they had ordered something else. It's not hard to understand.

[Fletcher]

Richard Branson is starting a comic company? That would be cool. I did not find this entire thread so I may be talking out of turn here, but the one thing Branson brings to the table is cash. Buckets loads of cash. I doubt anythihg would be late coming from Virgin comics, even though it will look at DC anad Marvel, they have titles that run late. Branson also knows how to market things. heck, he already has people signed up to take tours in space and to have loved ones ashes put into space. That stuff costs over 200,000 bones but he has a ton of people on board already. Whithout even having the rocketship, or whatever they are going to use to get into space. I could see this happening and being quite succesful or......
you are not talking about Virgin's Richard Branson and I am just sounding like an @sshole. Does anyone have any links to this story. Maybe I'll google it.

[kingofcities]

Originally posted by MattBrady
In order to be very successful in the comic book industry, I believe that people believe – and so it becomes true – you need to have your series done before you solicit it. You need to be able to show people, you need to be able to give people confidence in the product, and then you need to be able to pay your bills anyway if they don’t have confidence and they don’t really want to support it. Of course what happens there, is that there’s no way to run a company like that. You just can’t do it. Nobody has money like that.

I'm sorry, and I mean no disrespect to Mr. Fortier, but that's a ridiculous statement to make. OF COURSE you need to have the product finished. You wouldn't buy a grocery store and then only put 2 cans of a six-pack of Coke on the shelf because you didn't have the cash for the other 4. Why should this industry be any different? You need to factor in ALL the costs of getting the series up and running COMPLETELY from start to finish. If you don't have the money, and again I mean no disrespect here, you probably aren't ready to start publishing a comic yet. I understand there are many aspects of running a business that are exceptionally difficult to overcome, but this doesn't seem like it's one of them.

If you don't have the money, you shouldn't be doing it, period.

That said, I sincerely wish nothing but the best for everyone involved in these books and I hope that all of the creators involved in this situation land on their feet at another publisher sometime soon. Especially Black Coat. I really wanted this! :mad: ;)

Kent

[Camelot3000]

Did this announcement really surprise anyone? If you're a loyal Newsarama reader, probably not. When creators start taking flight, the company reorganizes, titles are late and people start complaining that they aren't getting paid ... well that isn't a good sign. At least it sounds like Adam is trying to do the right thing and not screw creators out of what little money he owes them.

It just seems like indies are plagued by people who make poor business decisions ... therefore they can't stay in business. In addition, Speakeasy's titles just didn't sell. Maybe it was poor marketing. Maybe the books sucked.

I think between bad business and bad comics, Speakeasy had nowhere to go but down. Alias is next.

[Book of GOB]

Originally posted by Fletcher
Richard Branson is starting a comic company? That would be cool. I did not find this entire thread so I may be talking out of turn here, but the one thing Branson brings to the table is cash. Buckets loads of cash.

CrossGen+Bucketloads of cash= Not so much

[Camelot3000]

Branson migt have a chance.

A) He's a successful businessman
B) His other divisions can absorb losses for a while
C) He's CRAZY!

Speakeasy, Crossgen, and the many other Indy companies that have fallen before them, were not part of a larger organzation that could absorb losses from publishing. For Marvel and DC ... if they lose money on comics ... it's a tax write off. In the mean time, they get to float ideas to see what sticks and continue to build new or strengthen existing licenses. It's a win-win situation for them. I tip my hat to companies like Image, IDW, and DarkHorse who are able to make it in this market. They're smart business folk!

[Strike]

Originally posted by Fletcher
Richard Branson is starting a comic company? That would be cool.


I expect Branson will do the same with Virgin Comics that he did with Virgin Records - build it up, then sell it.

[Earl]

Originally posted by Blind Assassin
I read Rocketo and Grimoire and Elk's Run.

I don't feel like a chump. Why do you? You were buying the books so you must have enjoyed them, right?

I enjoyed these books, was happy to support them, and look forward to the return of Elk's run so I can continue the rest of the story. Grimoire has moved to another publisher, so I will wait. And Rocketo is being taken over by Image.


I don't. I enjoyed them as well, but I can see why some people would when stories end half way through due to cancellations. Especially with Rocketo we will now have some missing issues between the Speakeasy and Images ones. Hopefully that will get sorted out.

Earl.

[Earl]

Originally posted by Blind Assassin
Richard Branson may know something about business, but does he know anything about the comics industry?

?

(I am generally curious, so please don't take this post as an attack on your reading habits. )

He might not know much about the direct market but the last comic he did sold over 1 million copies an issue, so perhaps he does know comics.

[Earl]

Originally posted by denseboy


BTW, issue 1 was supposed to ship this week and got pushed back to next week but, in light of recent events, we've put a halt to its release. Our team would rather all the books come from the same publisher and not force our fans to re-purchase issue 1 or 2. It's a shame, but it looks like BC fans will have to wait a little longer to read the book.

In the meantime, I'm going to be putting up forums on the BC website later today so if you want to talk specifically about the book or anything else in general, there will be a place to do it. I'll post again when they are up and running.

Thanks!

I hope you re-consider. Given that fans will have ordered this it would be nice if we could get the copy we ordered. I would like to finish off my full Speakeasy collection - I would be sad if my 'Speakeasy full set' ends up being 1 issue short of all the issues which were printed because stock is either pulped or sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Fletcher
Richard Branson is starting a comic company? That would be cool. I did not find this entire thread so I may be talking out of turn here, but the one thing Branson brings to the table is cash. Buckets loads of cash. I doubt anythihg would be late coming from Virgin comics, even though it will look at DC anad Marvel, they have titles that run late. Branson also knows how to market things. heck, he already has people signed up to take tours in space and to have loved ones ashes put into space. That stuff costs over 200,000 bones but he has a ton of people on board already. Whithout even having the rocketship, or whatever they are going to use to get into space. I could see this happening and being quite succesful or......
you are not talking about Virgin's Richard Branson and I am just sounding like an @sshole. Does anyone have any links to this story. Maybe I'll google it.

Here ya go...

http://www.newsarama.com/virgincomics/virgincomics.htm

Growler :cool:

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Camelot3000
Branson migt have a chance.

A) He's a successful businessman
B) His other divisions can absorb losses for a while
C) He's CRAZY!

Speakeasy, Crossgen, and the many other Indy companies that have fallen before them, were not part of a larger organzation that could absorb losses from publishing. For Marvel and DC ... if they lose money on comics ... it's a tax write off. In the mean time, they get to float ideas to see what sticks and continue to build new or strengthen existing licenses. It's a win-win situation for them. I tip my hat to companies like Image, IDW, and DarkHorse who are able to make it in this market. They're smart business folk!

And DC is a part of AOL/Time Warner so I guess they can absorb quite a bit of losses as well. They can afford to keep their lower selling titles around longer than Marvel can.

Though I haven't seen DC's accounts so couldn't verify that statement ;)


Growler:cool:

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Strike
I expect Branson will do the same with Virgin Comics that he did with Virgin Records - build it up, then sell it.

And it's still going strong to this day so he must have done something right. ;) I know he did keep some connection with it when he sold Virgin Records to Thorn EMI and keeping the quality and talent was part of the deal. This would be a good thing if he repeated it here with Virgin Comics.

Good for the industry as a whole.


Growler:cool:

[Earl]

Here are the ICV2 sales estimates for some of the Speakeasy titles.
For full lists see...

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/1850.html

Adventures of Bio Boy
1: 1,016

Atomika
1: 7,756
2: 6,116
3: 5,726
4: 6,381 for both covers together
5: 4,724 (First post Speakeasy issue)

Beowulf
1: 4,663
2: 4,086
3: 3,717
4: 3,486
5: 3,130

Hero At LArge

1: 3,028

Gatesville Company
1: 2,002

Helios
1: 1,709

Hunger
1: 2,552
2: Below 2,527
3: 1,887

Mutation
1: 2,244

Of Bitter Souls
1: 2,669
2: 1,775

Rocketo
1: 2,251
3: 1,875
4: 2,078

Smoke and Mirrors
1: 2,019

Super Crazy TNT Blast
1: 1,947

The Grimoire
1: 4,814
2: 3,379
3: 3,305
4: 3,246
5: 2,994
7: 2,463

[Earl]

Examples of Speakeasy Comics that I never manged to get hold of include...

The Sean Ward Electric Comics Freak-Out
The Mercury Chronicles #0 Preview
Voicebox preview
Smoke & Mirror / Of Bitter Souls Preview Flipbook

[Darth_Barf]

I believe that people believe – and so it becomes true – you need to have your series done before you solicit it.

100% true these days thanks to image making lateness the industry standard in the 90's. It's become the modus operandi of the industry.

For everyone who thought late books didn't matter, here's your proof that they do.

That being said, I have little sypathy for any creator or company who can't get books out on time. No one owes you a living. You should get paid when the work get's done, just like everybody else who works for a living. And habitually late publishers should be barred from new solicitations and have their late products declared returnable by the distributor whether they like it or not.

Until the industry can prove (and make no mistake the burden of proof is on them these days given their track record) that it is capable of consistantly delivering product on time, Diamond SHOULD require proof that the book is done and ready to print before allowing publishers, especially fledgling ones, to solicit product.

[Earl]

Does anyone know which issues of Sean Ward Electric Comics Freak-Out were published by Speakeasy BTW?

Thanks Earl.

[Raven117]

Branson is going to kick everybodies ass in the business simply because of two things: He doesn't need Diamond, he doesn't need retailers.

He can sell at his own stores, throughout the world, the same way he ships and sells other products. Diamond can't strangle him or bully him, whimsical retailers can't sink him.

All that he needs is a few decent quality books.

It should tell you something when they start in India instead of America. India is a better industry for comics, as is Japan. Our flimsy spandex market here is nothing compared to what is going on in the rest of the world.

[CBeranek]

Damn sad news. Best of luck to all of the creators. Hope Adam finds his passion for comics again one day.

[lex luthor]

Originally posted by denseboy
BTW, issue 1 was supposed to ship this week and got pushed back to next week but, in light of recent events, we've put a halt to its release. Our team would rather all the books come from the same publisher and not force our fans to re-purchase issue 1 or 2. It's a shame, but it looks like BC fans will have to wait a little longer to read the book.


Thank you very much. Best news I've heard about Speakeasy all day. I've already committed to (re)buying Of Bitter Souls when the trade hits (reprinting # 1 - 3 as well as the never released 4 -6) so I'm glad I won't have that issue w/The Black Coat.

Also, I don't know if this is a mistake on mailordercomics.com or what but Black Coat # 3 (https://www.mailordercomics.com/prodDetail.asp?PID=85268) is available for preorder.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by The Doc
I'm not a retailer, nor am I a comic book artist or writer, so this is just coming from a comic reader/fan perspective.

Retailers are unwilling to buy books sight unseen, for the obvious reason that if the books don't sell, the retailer is stuck with them and out the money. And for many comic shops just barely scraping by, that's money that they can ill afford to lose.

Way overgeneralized. 99% of what we order is sight unseen, even Marvel and DC. But we have sales history with their characters and creators, so it makes ordering them (seem) less risky. We've seen a lot of folks who are primarily Big 2 buyers buying a lot of Keith Giffen and Brian Wood work because they have helped to build a brand recognition for their work. As I said before, too many small press works end their promotion at "send the solicit to Diamond".

But, unfortunately, this forces readers like myself to pre-order most indie books ahead of time and, in many cases, committing yourself to buying at least three issues because of the lag time between ordering the books and when they are published.
No, it should force those responsible for the books to build an audience for their work, making it more likely that the buzz will make it easier for retailers to justify ordering a few copies.
And if you don't pre-order a book, there's no guarantee that a particular book will even be on the shelf even if you visit a shop on a Wednesday release date. For example, I'm still looking for a Grimm Fairy Tales #3 (either cover). I visited three shops in Atlanta on release day, none had any extra copies.
How much do you interact with the stores you buy from? Did you let the one you bought #1 & #2 from know that you were interested in #3? Retailers can't read your mind. I have a lot of customers who ask about books I have no intention of ordering but more often than not, I'll order one copy for them to check out, even if I'm not sure they'll buy it, just because they asked. I figure if one asked, maybe 2-3 didn't think too.
I dislike the idea of having to pre-order every book that I even have a remote interest in (I don't read DC or Marvel, btw). I can't tell you how many time I've considered abandoning comics altogether due to frustration in finding books that I have interest in.
You wouldn't have to (nearly as much) if publishers and creators were doing their job.
I've found them, but only through perseverance (and a willingness to drive to several shops around my hometown of Atlanta, and by buying off the internet). I have no interest in following Batman, Superman or Spiderman, superheroes were never the be-all, end-all for me. I almost hate to say this, but it may now may be the time that I quit buying new issue comics at least. Why support a market that doesn't want to support fans of indie comics like me?
The market only ever supports what it makes a profit at, otherwise it fails or becomes a charity.

[Andrew Foley]

Originally posted by Earl
Does anyone know which issues of Sean Ward Electric Comics Freak-Out were published by Speakeasy BTW?


#5, I believe.

Andrew Foley

[Earl]

Originally posted by Andrew Foley
#5, I believe.

Andrew Foley

Thanks Andrew. I had seen #6 was out now and was not sure if Speakeasy was still involved.

Earl.

[TheRonin]

RobertScott : I am talking of my experience on the Black Coat:
- we had 3 (out of 4) books done even before book #1 was hitting the shelves;
- we called pretty much all the retailers indy-friendly nation-wide and not just those (my lovely wife and Ben did loooots of phone calls)
- we have the full issues online, lettered, and we were giving login and password to retailers so they can preview the whole book
- we printed 11x17 posters and cards and flyers to send around to the retailers to help to promote the books
- etc etc
As you can see, we didn't just stop with the solicitation to Diamond, but with everything we did, without any promotional help from the publisher, we still didn't manage to see the book published because they decided to quit (and the funny, or sad, thing is that our first book was supposed to come out tomorrow).
My point is that with all these efforts, there was something we could't control: the publisher deciding to close the doors. So, let's not blame on one part or another. There are too many factors in the game.

To everyone (in particular the big supporters like Lex, Emerald, king, just to name a few): we are decise more than ever to put the books out there. Book 1, after recent news, seemed to never get to print, which at this point is a good thing because we can start over in the new place and you guys can enjoy 4 wonderful books, one better than the other. I haven't stopped to work on the pages (done 1 yesterday and working on another today) and this tells about my intentions more than 1000 words. :)
We set up a forum on our website, www.the-black-coat.com , so please bookmark it and follow us while we hunt the right publisher (and it shouldn't take long with 3 books out of 4 ready to go) and get the books out there.

Thanks again for the support and the nice words about my work and our book :) I'll keep you updated.

Francesco

[kiddo]

Originally posted by glecharles
Actually, Atomika was their biggest hit, with well over 10k copies of the 1st issue sold, which was reprinted at least once, IIRC. Of course, that was one of their launch titles, back when they were able to do more targeted promotion and didn't have a slew of titles no one ever heard of for retailers to spread their limited indie budgets around. And Abbinanti promoted the hell out of the series, too, an absolute requirement for every creator these days, no matter which publisher's logo is on the cover.

It's a tough market, exponentially so for independent creators.

Yes, it is a tough market out there. Atomika #1 did sell quite well for them but after that first issue the book started to fall fast due to lateness. According to the latest news on http://www.icv2.com for January Atomika #6 only sold 1,154 copies and just seems to keep dropping. I think this was a problem for a few of the books they had. I still say we really need more small press books out there and more stores need to take a chance and support them.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by kingofcities
I'm sorry, and I mean no disrespect to Mr. Fortier, but that's a ridiculous statement to make. OF COURSE you need to have the product finished. You wouldn't buy a grocery store and then only put 2 cans of a six-pack of Coke on the shelf because you didn't have the cash for the other 4. Why should this industry be any different? You need to factor in ALL the costs of getting the series up and running COMPLETELY from start to finish. If you don't have the money, and again I mean no disrespect here, you probably aren't ready to start publishing a comic yet. I understand there are many aspects of running a business that are exceptionally difficult to overcome, but this doesn't seem like it's one of them.

If you don't have the money, you shouldn't be doing it, period.


Kent

That is a good example, a better example is if Viking Books solicited for the new Dean Koontz book but it wasn't ready yet and it might be late. He had this book done so Viking could start advertising and what not. Why can't the comic book industry be doing the same thing? If the whole thing is in the can you don't have to worry about anything being late, you do not have to worry about people not buying your book because it is late. Now The comic book industry as a whole has always done things backwards from the rest of the publishing world. The comic book industry takes alot of things that work for other publishers and throws it out the window. But when a company fails there is more than one person to blame and one reason for it.
Someone mentioned some success stories like Dark Horse. I remember when the company first cam out with Concrete and Dark Horse Presents and a few other titles. They found a way for it to work and be VERY succesful. The poster with his MOPED ARMY worked his tail off but it worked. There is a way to do this and do it right.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by Blind Assassin
Richard Branson may know something about business, but does he know anything about the comics industry?

I hope he doesn't think that people will buy the books that his company will be putting out purely based on his name alone.




BA not trying to attack you here but think about this, what did Branson know about aviation and air travel, what did he know about publishing, what did he know about space travel? but he has made all these things work and be succeful. The guy is a genius. He knows how to take something make it work and make people think that they want or need said item. I could be wrong here but I think that he started way back when selling albums from one little store now llok at him. He does not need to know everything about comics he hires someone that knows something about comics.

One thing that I did want to mention Comics are a buisness. No one is in this to lose money and everyone wants to be succesful. It is definilty a buisness.
Reading the two news stroies that I came along, the good onesanyhow it sounds like it is going to work. Even if they were just to stay in India with this. Think about how many people are in India, only like a jillion and a half. I only saw the art and have no idea what the stories are going to be about but when I read the names invloved it makes me very interested in what is going oto come out of it.

[Smeggy]

I love how he blames everyone and everything around him, but refuses to take any of the blame himself. They burst onto the scene with so many titles in a boneheaded attempt to flood the shelves with Speakeasy product, this was bound to happen, and many of us around here said so.

Emphasis mine:
"People will not really support something new."

"It’s just too tough. It’s not necessarily a great place to be anymore.”

"...and then you need to be able to pay your bills anyway if they don’t have confidence and they don’t really want to support it"

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=6796
"...some creators owed us large sums of money and some projects were not completed," said Fortier. "These all had a negative impact on us. Image can handle all the creator owned books they want. That's something I'll never get into again." I don't claim to know everything about comics publishing, but since when to creators owe money to the publisher? What the heck kind of brain-dead deal is that? Was Speakeasy trying to move into Print-on-Demand (POD) as well as traditional comics publishing?

[Smeggy]

Originally posted by earth2tom
We should all be ashamed for this. Why is it that we continue to support the overhyped played out machines of the larger publishers, while companies that actually produce inventive products fall? I tried to the best of my pocketbook to order a few of Speakeasy's titles and was never dissapointed by the quality. ... Maybe one day we will learn from the continuing massacre of indie publishers. Then again history says otherwise. This isn't a breast cancer research fund, moron. There is no "support" issue here. It's a commercial enterprise, and people will buy what they want, and in this specialty market, what they think they will be able to enjoy long-term. IT'S A BUSINESS, NOT A FREAKIN' CHARITY!

[Smeggy]

Originally posted by Eonprez
That said, I believe this is just the kinda kick in the @$$ this industry (the indy industry) needs to find a way to create, market, sell and PROFIT on indy comics. I believe Markosia has a great marketing strategy, but I'm not just going to write, ink and edit to leave the marketing and promo up to them. I've got about 2000 roll-over minutes that expire in June...so retailers, get ready to talk to yours truely! So, why not complete your indy projects, and sell them as original graphic novels through Lulu.com? They've got a solid reputation and have been used by Mur Lafferty from the GeekFu Action Grip and I Should Be Writing podcasts. The Ugly Hill webcomic is releasing a collection through them, and you can even get your very own shiny ISBN number and sell through Amazon.com, too.

Independent creators' over-reliance upon the traditional comics business model is the fault of the independent creators. There are other methods available, you (this is the figurative you, not you, Eonprez, necessarily) just need to complete your work in whole and then sell it in a more permanent format, the OGN. Hawk them on your sites, message boards, and pimp yourself out for interviews on news sites. In short, get off your flabby buttocks and do things differently, and dare I say it, independently.

[nenad]

Originally posted by Smeggy
I love how he blames everyone and everything around him, but refuses to take any of the blame himself. They burst onto the scene with so many titles in a boneheaded attempt to flood the shelves with Speakeasy product, this was bound to happen, and many of us around here said so.

I don't claim to know everything about comics publishing, but since when to creators owe money to the publisher? What the heck kind of brain-dead deal is that? Was Speakeasy trying to move into Print-on-Demand (POD) as well as traditional comics publishing?

If it's something like image where you pay a fee to get your books published and promoted etc...
Anyway, seems like flooding the market with books that are not supported with marketing is not a good deal. First Alias, then Speakeasy, Crossgen etc...
IDW started with only a few books by the Wood, then slowly expanding with more different titles. Also they had a identity they created. Can't say there is anything that defined Speakeasy. Don't get me wrong - lots of good books they published, but what was their line?

[Smeggy]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
Originally posted by magister
Complaining you had 60% sell-through, so the promotion must not have worked sounded like complaining to me. Especially when talking about an indie.
And I'd rather that a prominent comic shop owner not associate ordering a Rich Johnston comic with having a fight with someone on Newsarama. Whoever you are, you're not doing me any favours here. Then you should surrender to the facts, and cease your posturing.

[CyclopsScott]

Originally posted by Camelot3000
Branson migt have a chance.

A) He's a successful businessman
B) His other divisions can absorb losses for a while
C) He's CRAZY!

The thing is, whatever titles he does produce, none would interest me as much as one about a crazy wild British billionaire on insane adventures...

Scott Summerton

[Camelot3000]

Originally posted by Smeggy
I love how he blames everyone and everything around him, but refuses to take any of the blame himself. They burst onto the scene with so many titles in a boneheaded attempt to flood the shelves with Speakeasy product, this was bound to happen, and many of us around here said so.

I don't claim to know everything about comics publishing, but since when to creators owe money to the publisher? What the heck kind of brain-dead deal is that? Was Speakeasy trying to move into Print-on-Demand (POD) as well as traditional comics publishing?

Rumor has it they were nothing more than a vanity press.

[CyclopsScott]

Originally posted by Blind Assassin
Grimoire has moved to another publisher, so I will wait.

That's the first I've seen that mentioned... anyone got a link with some validity to it?

[Doc Holiday]

I've tried the link to the Black Coat forum, but it doesn't seem to work.

This title looks really professional, and I hope it goes to a top-tier publisher who really promotes it. I agree that it is better to publish all four issues with the same press, for the sake of consistency and a regular schedule.

The art looks like it is done specifically as black and white, but would the creators consider adding color if a publisher wanted it? From the samples I've seen, the publishers should be knocking down your door.

Again, good luck. I hope to be holding issue 1 in my hands soon.

[Nat Gertler]

Originally posted by nenad
If it's something like image where you pay a fee to get your books published and promoted etc...Then it wouldn't be like Image. Image's "fee" is not something that the creators have to pay; it's taken out of the sales of the book. Once the book clears that money, then profits are generated for the creators.
Anyway, seems like flooding the market with books that are not supported with marketing is not a good deal. First Alias, then Speakeasy, Crossgen etc...CrossGen did marketing on a fair number of fronts. They still had the problem of trying to be too big too fast; in their case, they had all these interesting ideas worth trying, but tried to do them all at once.

[Camelot3000]

Maybe the cost of displaying their booth in the San Diego Comic Con episode of the HBO series "Entourage" killed them as well.

[crunch-o-matic]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
If I start linking to LITG for whatever reason, the post gets deleted by Newsarama mods.

Wow, how lame is that?

[Smeggy]

Originally posted by Camelot3000
Rumor has it they were nothing more than a vanity press. You misunderstand. I'm not implying that POD is bad, quite the contrary with POD houses like lulu.com around. I'm just trying to understand how a creator can owe a publisher a little or a lot of money. The money flows to the creator, not the other way around, when done properly and with legitimacy...

[Andrew Foley]

Originally posted by Nat Gertler
Then it wouldn't be like Image. Image's "fee" is not something that the creators have to pay; it's taken out of the sales of the book. Once the book clears that money, then profits are generated for the creators.


That was also the general understanding of the agreement at Speakeasy, too. When I first heard the initial orders for PARTING WAYS, I immediately asked Adam how much we owed him and how soon he'd want it. In regards to paying the company money, I was told that that "will never happen". I'd like nothing more than to think that's still the case, but I don't dare get my hopes up. The contract is what it is, and according to the contract, creators are on the hook if the book fails to make money.

It wasn't so long ago that that was the case at Image, at least for some creators. I've heard of creators who were billed by Image when their books failed to make money, though that policy appears to have been abandoned for several years now.

Andrew Foley

[Camelot3000]

From what I understand from reading the boards on Image site, if a title isn't going to cover costs, they will recommend that they cancel the title. If a creator insists on publishing at a loss, the creator will be responsible to pick up the tab. If I am wrong, someone please correct me.

I believe Speaskeasy had the same deal, except Speaskeasy may have been less descriminating on accepting submissions. My guess is that Image would not start a title that had poor sales from the 1st solicitation ... while Speakeasy would.

[TheRonin]

Originally posted by Doc Holiday
I've tried the link to the Black Coat forum, but it doesn't seem to work.

This title looks really professional, and I hope it goes to a top-tier publisher who really promotes it. I agree that it is better to publish all four issues with the same press, for the sake of consistency and a regular schedule.

The art looks like it is done specifically as black and white, but would the creators consider adding color if a publisher wanted it? From the samples I've seen, the publishers should be knocking down your door.

Again, good luck. I hope to be holding issue 1 in my hands soon.

ooops, my mistake: I fixed it and here it is again for easy clicking ;)
www.the-black-coat.com (on the home there is a link to the forum and another to the preview pages, among others)

If they ask, we can color the pages, even if personally I would like to keep as it is because I inkwashed it knowing it was not getting colors: the black and the tones are the colors and textures in this case. Besides, getting a colorist it's gonna bring the expenses more up, and I'd rather spend that money to promote even more the books ;)

Thanks for sticking with us :)

Francesco

[Smeggy]

Even good, old, Billy Tucci is getting in the self-publishing game with Lulu. Seriously, you "indy" wannabes. If you really want to get your stuff out there without being dependent upon the direct market system, and without being a victim-in-waiting for the small press publishers, print it yourself, and stop your belly aching!
http://www.lulu.com/category/601

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by Camelot3000
Rumor has it they were nothing more than a vanity press.

A subsidy press. Which was really handy for me. I couldn't have afforded a vanity press.

[denseboy]

Originally posted by Earl
I hope you re-consider. Given that fans will have ordered this it would be nice if we could get the copy we ordered. I would like to finish off my full Speakeasy collection - I would be sad if my 'Speakeasy full set' ends up being 1 issue short of all the issues which were printed because stock is either pulped or sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

Earl, I know a lot of fans have already ordered the book once, but knowing that we can't complete the series with Speakeasy means that not only will fans need to order the book more than once, but when we find a new publisher they will have to buy it more than once as well. Completing a collection aside, from a business standpoint it has the potential to do some harm to future sales of our first issue with the new publisher - which is one big reason we don't want to do it.
Our intent is to have no issues printed through SE at all so that 1) You shouldn't have to worry about an incomplete collection and 2) You shouldn't have to re-purchase the book simply because we switched publishers.
I hope that makes sense.

Originally posted by lex luthor
Thank you very much. Best news I've heard about Speakeasy all day. I've already committed to (re)buying Of Bitter Souls when the trade hits (reprinting # 1 - 3 as well as the never released 4 -6) so I'm glad I won't have that issue w/The Black Coat.

Also, I don't know if this is a mistake on mailordercomics.com or what but Black Coat # 3 (https://www.mailordercomics.com/prodDetail.asp?PID=85268) is available for preorder.

I don't think it's a mistake. We are listed in the March issue of Previews which just came out last week. In light of yesterday's news however, issue 3 will obviously not be coming out in May.

[thepoet]

To all former Speakeasy creators:

I'm going to attempt to contact each of you in person, but I thought I'd post in a public forum as well.

I'm the online comics editor for webcomics and print publishing company KOMIKWERKS (www.komikwerks.com).

Contributors to our website and books include well known writers and artists like Eisner Award Winner Keith Giffen, Justice League Unlimited writer/producer Dwayne McDuffie, Batman and Spectre artist Tom Mandrake, X-Men artist Dan Norton, Wildstorm artist Eric Canete, Marvel artist and DC Editor Ernie Colon, Vertigo artist Shawn McManus, 100 Girls artist Todd Demong, DC artist Joe Staton, Star Wars comics artist Rick Hoberg, Pixar and Dark Horse Comics artist Bruce Zick, and many more.

After talking to the KOMIKWERKS founders, I'm prepared to offer free hosting space on our site for any disenfranchised Speakeasy creators. If you need a web avenue for your book while you're waiting for a new print publisher, you've got it. You'll even be invited to participate in the ebook deal we have with a prominent ebook distributor, as well as our merchandising program.

If interested, please contact me at steve_horton@komikwerks.com with details about which Speakeasy comic you participated in.

Sincerely,
Steve Horton
Online Comics Editor
Komikwerks.com

[The Doc]

smeggy wrote:
Independent creators' over-reliance upon the traditional comics business model is the fault of the independent creators. There are other methods available, you (this is the figurative you, not you, Eonprez, necessarily) just need to complete your work in whole and then sell it in a more permanent format, the OGN. Hawk them on your sites, message boards, and pimp yourself out for interviews on news sites. In short, get off your flabby buttocks and do things differently, and dare I say it, independently.

This is key, as I don't think that Indy publishers can really compete in the direct market as it currently exists. Most comic shop customers (and I realize this is a generalization) are either DC and/or Marvel fans, most of whom have followed their favorite characters for many years.

This isn't a complaint, the direct market is what it is. Back in the early days of the direct market (the 1980s and early 90s), sales of comic books were higher and there was room for both DC, Marvel and a number of indie publishers as well. I often wonder whether a company like Image or Dark Horse would survive if it was started today? The comic market is shrinking, has been since the big 90's implosion. The indie publishers are fighting for an ever-smaller piece of the direct market pie.

Robert Scott wrote:

No, it should force those responsible for the books to build an audience for their work, making it more likely that the buzz will make it easier for retailers to justify ordering a few copies.

Uh, just one question. How exactly are the creators supposed to grow an audience for their work, when most stores won't carry copies? Let's use an example: you hear about a particular book, let's say Rocketo since this is a Speakeasy thread. You find out that the next issue is coming out this Wednesday, and so you trek down to your LCS to try out a copy, and guess what? That's right, no copies to be had. So the promotion worked, it got you down to the shop to pick up a copy of the book, but then there was no book to be had. So, the question is, what would you do in that particular circumstance? Go home and order the issue off the internet? Try another shop? Have the LCS order you a copy? Try a different book instead? Or give up? The truth is there are many reader/fans who will in most cases just give up or, more likely, try that DC or Marvel book that's sitting on the shelf.

And therein lies the problem. The direct market comic shops cater to DC and Marvel fans, because that's what keeps them in business. The sooner most indie publishers and creators realize this and begin to seriously look into other avenues of publishing and distribution, and stop trying to compete with DC and Marvel for the monthly comic book dollar. Take a look at my example of Grimm Fairy Tales. It would have been much easier for me to order the books off of Zenescope's website. But Zenescope does not off internet ordering. That's a mistake, imo. One thing that every indie publisher needs to offer is internet store. If someone is interested enough to visit your website, telling them to order the book from your local retailer just isn't good enough. Making it easy for your customers to get a hold of your books is something that indie publishers really need to work on.

After all, look at the manga market. Manga can be found in what one might call a GN format, different from the traditional comic format. Manga is available in both comic shops, bookstores and I've even seen manga in Walmart of all places. Manga experienced growth because US manga publishers looked outside the box of the direct comic market. I'm not saying that indies will be as successful as manga proved to be, but the indies definitely need to be looking outside the box of the direct market if they hope to survive and be successful.

[bcwflash]

All i can say is i wanted Speakeasy to succeed as a new company of choices. i also wanted a place where unheard of creators could cut their teeth with their own books.
I had Nine books on my pull list for May. I'll follow these books as best i can to other publishers but i still am saddened by this turn of events.

[RobertScott]

Hey Doc, I'll give you an A for effort but an F in application. Most of what you propose is just wrong but I'll cut you a little slack because it has been presented as fact by a lot of folks, including most failed creators/publishers.

Originally posted by The Doc
This is key, as I don't think that Indy publishers can really compete in the direct market as it currently exists.
Wrong! Indy publishers can compete just fine, IF and only IF they treat it as a business and not a hobby. If there was one specific problem that could be pointed to as holding back the industry it would be that too much of the industry is being run as a hobby.

The barrier to entry is so low that anyone can create/publish a comic and anyone can open a comic shop. It's so easy and takes such a small investment, realtive to most businesses, that few look beyond the initial costs and obligations to prepare for glitches and growth. Hence the high failure rate in publishing and the stereotypical spandex clubhouse comic shop.

They hobble along hand to mouth hoping for the best, ask for understanding because they're a small business and can't afford to be more professional.[/B]
Originally posted by Robert Scott
No, it should force those responsible for the books to build an audience for their work, making it more likely that the buzz will make it easier for retailers to justify ordering a few copies.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Doc
Uh, just one question. How exactly are the creators supposed to grow an audience for their work, when most stores won't carry copies?...You find out that the next issue is coming out this Wednesday, and so you trek down to your LCS to try out a copy, and guess what? That's right, no copies to be had.
Sorry, I cut your question short because if you don't understand this, you won't understand anything else. Look at my statement again.]it should force those responsible for the books to build an audience for their work, making it more likely that the buzz will make it easier for retailers to justify ordering a few copies.
This work should have been done long before "the next issue" ever shipped, in fact long before the first issue shipped. Why are there so many copies of Marvel & DC books and so few Indy books in many shops? Because customers know and are talking about those Marvel and DC books and NOT the Indy books. Indy books that slow it down, find their market, promote their work and solicit only when they've nailed all ot their responsibilities will be competitive, assuming the content is any good.

And therein lies the problem. The direct market comic shops cater to DC and Marvel fans, because that's what keeps them in business.
Duh! Who is gonna cater to a group that isn't spending money with them over those that are? But you're nuts if you believe that a shop would not order copies of a book that multiple people are looking for.

The sooner most indie publishers and creators realize this and begin to seriously look into other avenues of publishing and distribution, and stop trying to compete with DC and Marvel for the monthly comic book dollar.
Nope. As I said, they need to create a demand for their work. If you think it's tough fighting Marvel & DC for customers, how do you think they're going to find customers in the book market or on the internet? At least in comic shops you have a customer group predetermined to appreciate comics.

Take a look at my example of Grimm Fairy Tales. It would have been much easier for me to order the books off of Zenescope's website. But Zenescope does not off internet ordering. That's a mistake, imo. One thing that every indie publisher needs to offer is internet store. If someone is interested enough to visit your website, telling them to order the book from your local retailer just isn't good enough. Making it easy for your customers to get a hold of your books is something that indie publishers really need to work on.
I'll disagree with you again. The last thing publishers should do is sell from their website. The best thing to do is to refer them to a local shop that they know (and they shuld know) stocks the book. If there isn't one, but there is a local shop, they should contact the shop to let them know that there is a customer in the area interested in the book and then send them a few signed copies to for the customer and their rack.

For ~$3-$5 they'll have a grateful customer and retailer who now is aware of the book and demand for the book as well as bringing that retailer a new customer who will likely buy other things from the retailer in addition to future issues and collections. That is how you build a market, especially on a budget.

After all, look at the manga market. Manga can be found in what one might call a GN format, different from the traditional comic format. Manga is available in both comic shops, bookstores and I've even seen manga in Walmart of all places. Manga experienced growth because US manga publishers looked outside the box of the direct comic market.
Now you're totally off course. Manga experienced growth because it rode the back of anime, hundreds of hours of televised and thousands of hours of downloadable programming. Also because it offered alternative storlines, many of which parallelled popular teen and pre-teen TV programming and video games. Toonami, Adult Swim, Kids WB, PSP, Play Station, X-Box, Bit-Torrent... heard of 'em

This is also why Transformers, Gi Joe, Exalted, Hedge Knight... bucked the odds so well in the DM. Like Manga, they had a platform to launch from. Indy's could do that too, if they quit chasing the illusive fast buck and started acting more responsibly.

IF I WERE IN CHARGE: A Comic Industry Blog (http://comickaze.blogspot.com)

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by Book of GOB
CrossGen+Bucketloads of cash= Not so much




Not even the case. First off they haven't done anything yet except realease some art, which is darn good, so I don't know why anyone would say that they are going to do things that aren't going to be much. Secondly with someone with money (bucketloads of cash) you can hire the best, you can hire proffesionals, you can make sure things come out on time. You can hire buisness people that would market things in a way totally different than what normal comic book folks are use to doing. Most people that I know that are in the marketing/ad game look at the typical comic book buisness model and can tell you everything that is wrong with it.These people that will be at Virgin would not even look at the comic book buisness model as it is today. CrossGen collapsed I don't really see this being the case with Virgin Comics.
And hey if he sells it and makes a few more million good for him.

There are a million ( okay I exagerate) ways to get your start up company going and keep it going. Will you make a million dollars your first year? More than likely not. In the next 5 or 10 maybe. But the one thing that all comic book start ups need to realize is there are really only a finite number of comic book readers/collectors. You need to get new readers involved. How you do this? Well, that I am keeping to myself, hey you never know I might win the lottery and publish something on my own. But I will say this. It is very hard for a start up to take readers from Marvel and DC or even Image and Dark Horse. What's someone going to do with their three bucks.?Buy the new Wolverine or a book from someone they have never heard of about a character they never heard of before? Wolverine wins every time.

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by Camelot3000
Rumor has it they were nothing more than a vanity press.

A *subsidy* press!

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
A *subsidy* press! For you and other creators but do you consider it a stretch to consider it a vanity press in terms of Speakeasy owner/management.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by RobertScott

Wrong! Indy publishers can compete just fine, IF and only IF they treat it as a business and not a hobby. If there was one specific problem that could be pointed to as holding back the industry it would be that too much of the industry is being run as a hobby.

IF I WERE IN CHARGE: A Comic Industry Blog (http://comickaze.blogspot.com)

Great post! :)

I'll be sure to pop into your store if I'm ever in the area and buy a trade or two. ;)

Nice to see a proper post mortem of Speakeasy and a real discussion of real business in the industry.

I think it's time for a Comic Book Publishing 'Business Plans for Dummies' type book to be published (and promoted) with input from most retailers, publishers, distributors, fans and, most importantly, successful business people from other industries.

This whole episode is good for the industry in the long run as lessons are being learned.


Growler:cool:

[Smeggy]

RobertScott, I appreciate your insight, and the intelligence of your posts, but...well...you're wrong.

Cory Doctorow published his first book and gave it away free on the internet. He did it with his second, too. That's pretty freakin' far from a traditional book launch, let alone from a new writer.

The internet is a completely viable (you are having these discussions on a message board of a comic book news site on the internet, y'know...) alternative to the direct market system you appear to be trying to protect. And I think that's what bothers me most about your last reply to Doc(?). It struck me as protectionist. You know the direct market, you work in the direct market, you live the direct market, and the idea of Billy Tucci and others self-publishing without you scares you just a wee bit. It's understandable, but your protests against such really aren't helping to move things forward, just maintaining the status quo.

Here's what indy people need to do:
1. Finish the work as a whole before publication.
2. Set up a site and generate buzz on message boards, at cons, and pimp themselves out for interviews, and they should consider the relatively new outlet of podcasting to generate even more interest.
3. Self-publish through some place like lulu.com.
4. Sell, or give away for free, single issue pamphlets as teasers of the larger work for sale on-line.
5. Offer sale links to their books on their sites to the lulu.com shopping mechanism.

This would be completely independent of a) a publisher b) the direct market limitations, restrictions, and shop owner trepidation and c) single issue pamphlets.

I understand your fears, but your whole "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" attitude toward a new outlet for indy books isn't helpful in the least.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by thepoet
To all former Speakeasy creators:

I'm going to attempt to contact each of you in person, but I thought I'd post in a public forum as well.

I'm the online comics editor for webcomics and print publishing company KOMIKWERKS (www.komikwerks.com).



Class act!

This is a sign of a professional, dynamic industry and gives hope for the future.

It's not all doom and gloom.


Growler:cool:

[bsprd]

I've been scanning as many of the posts as I could this morning, jumping around from one to another to see what everyone's had to say about Speakeasy's decline. I've defended my own company via press releases in the past, yet now I want to defend the indy publishing world if I may have a bit of a say here.

First and foremost, yes it is a difficult time for an indy publisher to move books, yet when we offered our preview book for free, close to 1,000 people downloaded it directly from our website with another 200+ ordering it through the shopping cart (print version). This tells me that there is an audience for indy/small press, and that this audience can and will be there for the books IF we can find them and NOT get in over our heads.

Many people have been talking about declining sales or not being able to be listed in Diamonds catalogue with their books. Yet there's a lot more to making a comic or graphic novel move. You need the buzz, and without the buzz and marketing, even if it's grass roots marketing with nearly no upfront money available, you CAN generate the buzz. It's difficult at times, and takes up a LOT of time, yet it's possible.

Now I have to say that I've made mistakes in the past year, and I've seen many companies out there make the same mistakes, not learn from them, and then have to close their doors.

It's not a matter of "selling through" though that's very nice. It's more a matter of making sure that your break even point is reachable.

That being said, I have to say that many indy publishers/small pressers are going to be coming out in the next year, right in the middle of 52 and Civil War and all the other mega-crossover events, and they'll make it. Some people want more than just the spandex, and that's who these new books are going to reach.

There are so many new distribution points available to the savvy small presser. Dimestore Productions and the SPA have an awesome online catalogue. For $35 through Lulu you can get your stuff put up with an ISBN on Amazon and I believe Barnes and Noble.com. The more sales points you have, and places for people to see your books, the more able you'll be able to be to move these books.

It's not just a matter of the Direct Market anymore. The internet itself is a great place to begin your small press aspirations. There are so many websites available with awesome up and coming works, and web comics are also increasing in talent.

All of this being said, the major pitfall for ANY small press company is the "solicit before it's done" mindset. We as a part of this industry can't do that, that's why press releases from my own company and other companies have ended up a bit farther down the food chain lately. We're learning not to pimp a book that's not ready for publication. Once it's ready, then you go berserk trying to get the readers to your site, or to an outlet where your book is available.

"Coming soon" is an anethma at this point, it's time for "Available now" more than anything else. Teasers are good, online previews are good, but nothing will EVER beat having the completed book ready.

In closing (Preachers say this when they have 20 more minutes to fill), I feel that the small press/indy publishing scene can do more in 2006/2007 to push this industry forward than the big two can. This might be personal motivation, hopes, and dreams, but I've seen what quality work there can be availible out there.

Peace out
--M. Oakley

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Smeggy
RobertScott, I appreciate your insight, and the intelligence of your posts, but...well...you're wrong.

Cory Doctorow published his first book and gave it away free on the internet. He did it with his second, too. That's pretty freakin' far from a traditional book launch, let alone from a new writer.
Who?? Why did he have to give away 2 books?
The internet is a completely viable (you are having these discussions on a message board of a comic book news site on the internet, y'know...) alternative to the direct market system you appear to be trying to protect.[QUOTE] And I think that's what bothers me most about your last reply to Doc(?). It struck me as protectionist.
Nope, not protectionist at all. Simple fact. DM shops and book stores to a lesser extent, offer far more benefits to publishers than direct sales.
[list=1]
customers
customers who appreciate comics.
the ability for customers to comfortably browse
interaction to answer questions and offer opinions
just to name a few...
[/list=1]

You know the direct market, you work in the direct market, you live the direct market, and the idea of Billy Tucci and others self-publishing without you scares you just a wee bit. It's understandable, but your protests against such really aren't helping to move things forward, just maintaining the status quo.
Billy Who? Billy and the others are online because their work as it stands is not commercially viable anywhere else but you tell me, if you could choose between a 2,500+ workforce to rep your work or selling it out of your livingroom, which would you choose?

Here's what indy people need to do:
1. Finish the work as a whole before publication.
2. Set up a site and generate buzz on message boards, at cons, and pimp themselves out for interviews, and they should consider the relatively new outlet of podcasting to generate even more interest.
3. Self-publish through some place like lulu.com.
4. Sell, or give away for free, single issue pamphlets as teasers of the larger work for sale on-line.
5. Offer sale links to their books on their sites to the lulu.com shopping mechanism..
[list=1]
Yes, it's hard to publish without being finished. What you should have said was finish before solicitation.
They already do and it doesn't work for most. They can't create enough buzz now to succeed with 100's of shops supporting them, how will they succeed cutting off that revenue stream?
Maybe, show me numbers that anyone is seeing significantly higher sales going that route. Also self publishing doesn't preclude DM or book store sales unless POD costs are to high to offer wholesale pricing.
I mentioned these things before but if they were doing this already and it isn't spurring sales in the DDM it isn't going to magically work online. If they weren't doing it, well shame on them.
If you're not gettin it by now, well....
[/list=1]

This would be completely independent of a) a publisher b) the direct market limitations, restrictions, and shop owner trepidation and c) single issue pamphlets.
Yep, that's why all other media is going download only and DC and Marvel are going sub only.

I understand your fears, but your whole "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" attitude toward a new outlet for indy books isn't helpful in the least.
No fears here. We just finished our best year ever, moved into a great new location almost double the size of our previous digs and our current sales are way ahead of last years YTD, despite losing McNeil, Tucci, Page, Foglio and others to the web. And it's only going to get better for me. When you can show me indy publishers/creators with over a decade of comp increases anywhere near mine, using your enlightened plan, let me know.

In fact one of the more widely accepted small press successes is AiT Planet Lar (http://www.ait-planetlar.com) . Please check out his website and let me know how many of your insightful suggestions you see in practice there.

BTW do you have any experience in retail, promotion or publishing?

[RichJohnston]

Originally posted by RobertScott
For you and other creators but do you consider it a stretch to consider it a vanity press in terms of Speakeasy owner/management.

No more than Image or Marvel.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by RichJohnston
No more than Image or Marvel.
Ummm.... at least one of those is making a lot of mony for both themselves and their employees. Don't see the connect with Speakeasy. Image Central (as opposed to Image Comics) on the other hand, I can see that argument being made.

[Earl]

Originally posted by denseboy
Earl, I know a lot of fans have already ordered the book once, but knowing that we can't complete the series with Speakeasy means that not only will fans need to order the book more than once, but when we find a new publisher they will have to buy it more than once as well. Completing a collection aside, from a business standpoint it has the potential to do some harm to future sales of our first issue with the new publisher - which is one big reason we don't want to do it.
Our intent is to have no issues printed through SE at all so that 1) You shouldn't have to worry about an incomplete collection and 2) You shouldn't have to re-purchase the book simply because we switched publishers.
I hope that makes sense.

I don't think it's a mistake. We are listed in the March issue of Previews which just came out last week. In light of yesterday's news however, issue 3 will obviously not be coming out in May.

Thanks for the clarification Ben. Sorry, originally I thought issue 1 had been printed with the Speakeasy logo and you were saying you would not be making them avaliable. If nothing has been printed yet then your position makes perfect sense and I agree it sounds the best thing to do.
Earl.

[Nat Gertler]

Originally posted by The Doc
The comic market is shrinking, has been since the big 90's implosion.No. For years now, the comics market has been growing - in unit sales, in dollar volume, and judging by the swiftly rising bookstore sales, apparently in customer base.
Uh, just one question. How exactly are the creators supposed to grow an audience for their work, when most stores won't carry copies?Part of marketing is convincing the stores to carry your work. It's part of the job. You gotta convince stores that you're doing things in terms of content and promotion which will get customers putting down cash for the book... and then you got to get customers putting down cash for the book or the stores won't believe you next time.

[thepoet]

I think the indies are being squeezed out. Answer me this - if comics sales are increasing in dollar amount and volume, how come indie books in the 1980s and 1990s such as Cerebus, Zot!, The Crow, DNAgents, Crossfire, etc, all succeeded and did well for themselves, while indie books today, which are arguably as good if not better, all fail? Indie books have a near-100% failure rate in the direct market (Failure defined here as an ongoing series cancelled before issue #6 or a limited series cancelled mid-stream).

The answer is that most comics shops in the U.S., especially the smaller ones, are benefiting from increased Marvel and DC sales, and thus order more Marvel and DC and cut back on the rest. It's time for indie books to forsake the DM and find a new market. The Web is one answer, mass market bookstores is another and self-publishing through great services like Lulu is a third.

Also, despite the increased sales, there was more consolidation. Gaming and comics stores saw a lot of closures in '05 and the downturn shows no signs of slowing. How do you reconcile increased sales with the lowest number of shops in 30 years?

[CedNocon]

really a sad news to start the year. it's 8 am and i knew i should've had coffee first. i'm a comic book trying to produce my own creator-owned book and reading about his just hits home. for me it's been a month-to-month, day-to-day struggle. i'm sure it's all the same, if not more, with everyone in this posting who are directly or indirectly connected to the indie sector. i wish all the creators, publishers, and retailers the best.

[jasonm]

Color is why I feel a lot of indy's are failing. I really think my work looks better in color as I'm sure a lot of others feel about their own work and so we see an opportunity to get it in color and jump at it. Problem is if the company and creator doesn't do enough to market it, the book that would have broke even in black and white is at a loss in color.

[MattBrady]

Originally posted by thepoet
I think the indies are being squeezed out. Answer me this - if comics sales are increasing in dollar amount and volume, how come indie books in the 1980s and 1990s such as Cerebus, Zot!, The Crow, DNAgents, Crossfire, etc, all succeeded and did well for themselves, while indie books today, which are arguably as good if not better, all fail? It was a different market, and generally each case is a specific example rather than suggesting that every creator/small press has a uniform "indy" experience; and "sucess" of each of the projects you named is subjective. Not looking to get crucified for this, but as a monthly, was Cerebus, for example, a sucess or a survivor?

But as for the crowded out comment, crowded out how? By sheer volume? We're at a relatively moderate time in terms of # of titles coming from both Marvel and DC, although it has been ramping up. That said, Bone launched in the early '90s, when the volume of titles released monthly from Mvl and DC was higher. how did it, not only survive, but thrive?

I agree with your premise, that we don't have a Cerebus or Bone of the present day, but I think saying that independents are being "squeezed out" is...well, unclear on its face, and a little simplistic when it comes to comparing previous Indy titles with those today.[/B][/QUOTE]

Originally posted by thepoet
Gaming and comics stores saw a lot of closures in '05 and the downturn shows no signs of slowing. Do you have data for that? I know we went through a massive wave, but was unaware that the closures shows no signs of slowing. Also, are you considering the increase in the number of online outlets that have shown up since the late '90s, and how that mediates the number of brick and mortars closing?

Originally posted by thepoet
How do you reconcile increased sales with the lowest number of shops in 30 years? Higher per-store volume, and increased cover prices would be the easiest factors to point to.

MattB

[Earl]

In terms of if DC are publishing more now than they used to here are the stats Mike Voiles compiled on how many DC's have been published each year. In 2005 they published more than any other year.

1970 352
1971 353
1972 369
1973 401
1974 297
1975 392
1976 389
1977 389
1978 376
1979 297
1980 335
1981 360
1982 378
1983 413
1984 447
1985 494
1986 483
1987 499
1988 688
1989 614
1990 625
1991 674
1992 760
1993 850
1994 879
1995 1067
1996 909
1997 1000
1998 1012
1999 1030
2000 1185
2001 967
2002 938
2003 1109
2004 1133
2005 1279

[Not From Around]

Originally posted by Nat Gertler
Part of marketing is convincing the stores to carry your work. It's part of the job. You gotta convince stores that you're doing things in terms of content and promotion which will get customers putting down cash for the book... and then you got to get customers putting down cash for the book or the stores won't believe you next time.

And it has ALWAYS been that way, for all publishers. Marvel and DC have a huge advantage in that they already have name recognition. But even they have to promote. How many barely publicized minis and ongoings from the Big Two have sunk without a trace in recent years?

I think everybody who tries to publish comics will acknowledge knowing that marketing is vital. The problem is coming up with a viable plan to put it into practice. It must be a terribly difficult and uncertain thing to do. But that's not to say that it's impossible--or even necessarily harder than it was a few years ago.

[Nat Gertler]

Originally posted by thepoet
I think the indies are being squeezed out. Answer me this - if comics sales are increasing in dollar amount and volume, how come indie books in the 1980s and 1990s such as Cerebus, Zot!, The Crow, DNAgents, Crossfire, etc, all succeeded and did well for themselves, while indie books today, which are arguably as good if not better, all fail? Indie books have a near-100% failure rate in the direct market (Failure defined here as an ongoing series cancelled before issue #6 or a limited series cancelled mid-stream).First off, sales are growing for several years now, but there was a big drop off between 1993 and 1998 or so. Second, you're choosing a convenient definition of success (Crossfire and Zot! both took a break after a few issues, came back in black and white, and still ended up dying) and picking and choosing successes and ignoring the many failures from the period. (The Walking Dead now has out more issues than the entire output of the Deluxe/Lodestone line, to pick one well-publicized example.)

It's time for indie books to forsake the DM and find a new market. The Web is one answer, mass market bookstores is another and self-publishing through great services like Lulu is a third.Forsaking the DM when you're printing copies for the bookstores would seem silly; at the very least, the DM is an additional sales outlet even for a bookstore-oriented book, and a more financially efficient one at that. And as Brian Hibbs is fond of pointing out, you'd be hard-pressed to find an American original comic book TPB or GN where the DM had equal access but didn't outsell the book market. (And while services like Lulu are a good way of limiting one's losses, they're not generally a good route to large sales, healthy profits, or exposure.)
Gaming and comics stores saw a lot of closures in '05 and the downturn shows no signs of slowing.Yes, and the Denver Broncos and my baby daughter won a combined 13 games last season. Of course, that was mostly the Broncos. Similarly, hobby gaming had a bad year last year, and gaming stores did close, but I don't see what that says about the comics market.

[Nat Gertler]

Originally posted by Not From Around
I think everybody who tries to publish comics will acknowledge knowing that marketing is vital. The problem is coming up with a viable plan to put it into practice. It must be a terribly difficult and uncertain thing to do. But that's not to say that it's impossible--or even necessarily harder than it was a few years ago. One of the problems is that people try to use past marketing as an example. Sometimes that works... but other times, well, it's like time travel in the DC Universe - each trick only works once, so once you know about the method, you can't use it. (Geek commentary note: I will admit that I don't know if that is true any longer about the DC Universe.)

[thepoet]

Originally posted by Nat Gertler
First off, sales are growing for several years now, but there was a big drop off between 1993 and 1998 or so. Second, you're choosing a convenient definition of success (Crossfire and Zot! both took a break after a few issues, came back in black and white, and still ended up dying) and picking and choosing successes and ignoring the many failures from the period. (The Walking Dead now has out more issues than the entire output of the Deluxe/Lodestone line, to pick one well-publicized example.)


Actually, I picked five books at random that seemed to last a good long while and that I read in the 1980s and that were indepedent. I had no ulterior motive.

Also, The Walking Dead is *not* an indie book. Image is one of the Big Four. I was specifically referring to independent publishers other than Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse. An indie book signing with Image does a great deal for sales, exposure and money-making potential (but is not a cure-all), but Image doesn't accept certain genres or styles regardless of quality due to Image's view of certain genres and their sales potential.

That being said, out of all of Image's ongoing launches in '04 and '05, how many are still continuing today? Looks like you picked a convenient example, as well...


Forsaking the DM when you're printing copies for the bookstores would seem silly; at the very least, the DM is an additional sales outlet even for a bookstore-oriented book, and a more financially efficient one at that. And as Brian Hibbs is fond of pointing out, you'd be hard-pressed to find an American original comic book TPB or GN where the DM had equal access but didn't outsell the book market. (And while services like Lulu are a good way of limiting one's losses, they're not generally a good route to large sales, healthy profits, or exposure.)
Yes, and the Denver Broncos and my baby daughter won a combined 13 games last season. Of course, that was mostly the Broncos. Similarly, hobby gaming had a bad year last year, and gaming stores did close, but I don't see what that says about the comics market.

I would say that TokyoPop's entire OEM line is doing better in the bookstore market compared to the DM.

I'd also point to many pieces of anecdotal evidence that say that Lulu is catching on in a massive way for many people, including comics publishers. It's probably the best route for Webcomics collections, for example.

By the way, how are those DNAgents and Crossfire black-and-white reprint digests going? Oh, that's right - you did one digest each and then cancelled the whole line.

Gaming and comics stores are inextricably linked, as a majority (I believe) of the remaining comics stores also have gaming areas, and vice-versa. The hobby store closure is not just due to the slowness of the gaming industry - the comics industry played a part, as well.

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Nat Gertler
One of the problems is that people try to use past marketing as an example. Sometimes that works... but other times, well, it's like time travel in the DC Universe - each trick only works once, so once you know about the method, you can't use it. (Geek commentary note: I will admit that I don't know if that is true any longer about the DC Universe.)

Well, Crisis worked well the first time (for revamping/marketing the DC universe), it's working again now with Infinite Crisis and will again in twenty years!:D

I have forseen it!


Growler:cool:

[Camelot3000]

Steven Grant's rant on the Speakeasy closure.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10

[Rawle Austin]

Originally posted by Camelot3000
Steven Grant's rant on the Speakeasy closure.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10

Read that earlier today, some good points made.

I'd like to hear Erik Larsen's take on it on his column too, also on CBR.


Growler:cool:

[Nat Gertler]

Originally posted by thepoet
Actually, I picked five books at random that seemed to last a good long while and that I read in the 1980s and that were indepedent. That's right - you were comparing the typical situation of today with selected long-runners of the past.
Also, The Walking Dead is *not* an indie book. Image is one of the Big Four. I was specifically referring to independent publishers other than Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse. If you'd care to offer up a definition of "independent" that somehow includes the Image and Dark Horse of today but excludes Eclipse of its day, I'd like to see it.
That being said, out of all of Image's ongoing launches in '04 and '05, how many are still continuing today? Looks like you picked a convenient example, as well...Why yes, my point was showing that method you used would reverse as well.
By the way, how are those DNAgents and Crossfire black-and-white reprint digests going? Oh, that's right - you did one digest each and then cancelled the whole line.Why yes, I was experimenting with a sets of books formatted more for the concerns of the bookstore market than the comic book market - you know, the sort of thing you're advocating. And I found that the bookstores didn't leap at it, and that even with the formatting the books did better in the comic book stores. And since that came at a time when I was looking to cut back on how many projects I published for non-business reasons
The hobby store closure is not just due to the slowness of the gaming industry - the comics industry played a part, as well. Care to offer up evidence?

[Book of GOB]

Originally posted by Fletcher
Not even the case. First off they haven't done anything yet except realease some art, which is darn good, so I don't know why anyone would say that they are going to do things that aren't going to be much. Secondly with someone with money (bucketloads of cash) you can hire the best, you can hire proffesionals, you can make sure things come out on time. You can hire buisness people that would market things in a way totally different than what normal comic book folks are use to doing. Most people that I know that are in the marketing/ad game look at the typical comic book buisness model and can tell you everything that is wrong with it.These people that will be at Virgin would not even look at the comic book buisness model as it is today. CrossGen collapsed I don't really see this being the case with Virgin Comics.
And hey if he sells it and makes a few more million good for him.

There are a million ( okay I exagerate) ways to get your start up company going and keep it going. Will you make a million dollars your first year? More than likely not. In the next 5 or 10 maybe. But the one thing that all comic book start ups need to realize is there are really only a finite number of comic book readers/collectors. You need to get new readers involved. How you do this? Well, that I am keeping to myself, hey you never know I might win the lottery and publish something on my own. But I will say this. It is very hard for a start up to take readers from Marvel and DC or even Image and Dark Horse. What's someone going to do with their three bucks.?Buy the new Wolverine or a book from someone they have never heard of about a character they never heard of before? Wolverine wins every time.

I think you missed my point. You said Branson brings bucketloads of cash to the table, and that's the difference between him and other indy publishers. I was just saying that more-money-than-God isn't a guarantee that his company will work because CrossGen brought bucketloads of cash and they folded.

I wasn't throwing my hands up and saying Virgin was finished before it even started, I was saying no amount of money brought to the venture guarantees success.

[xomanowarfan]

Originally posted by Book of GOB
I think you missed my point. You said Branson brings bucketloads of cash to the table, and that's the difference between him and other indy publishers. I was just saying that more-money-than-God isn't a guarantee that his company will work because CrossGen brought bucketloads of cash and they folded.

I wasn't throwing my hands up and saying Virgin was finished before it even started, I was saying no amount of money brought to the venture guarantees success.

What if Virgin brought established characters into the mix. Wouldn't that help them succed. I think they're biggest short coming is a lack of interesting content. They should have bought cross gen or better yet....VALIANT:)

[Smeggy]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Who?? Why did he have to give away 2 books?
http://www.google.com/search?q=cory+doctorow

It was a part of his plan to make a name for himself. He's been interviewed in print, television, radio, etc. He also does a lot of good work with the EFF, and is a leading proponent of the Creative Commons license.

Oh, and they're pretty good books, too. He sold more copies through his publisher than any of their other first-time authors by giving his work away for free. New models and paradigms work, creators don't always have to keep the Old Guard, like DM retailers, happy.

BTW do you have any experience in retail, promotion or publishing? Look, aside from a couple of your gently-snarky comments, you took the time to politely respond to me point-by-point. I see no need to whip out the equipment to see who's bigger here. Let's just keep our replies to our in-thread statements, and keep everything else zipped up.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by Book of GOB
I think you missed my point. You said Branson brings bucketloads of cash to the table, and that's the difference between him and other indy publishers. I was just saying that more-money-than-God isn't a guarantee that his company will work because CrossGen brought bucketloads of cash and they folded.

I wasn't throwing my hands up and saying Virgin was finished before it even started, I was saying no amount of money brought to the venture guarantees success.

I really am not familiar with CrossGen's bankground as I am with Virgin's so I can not say for sure why CrossGen failed. Somone can correct me but didn't I hear that at one point they were being sued. I'll have to google this one. But did CrossGen have the backing that a Virgin Comics will have? Did CrossGen have the tools to properly market thier titles like a Virgin Comics will? Did CrossGen have the people? Your right cash does not always mean sucess but it does mean that you can get things going and keep them going. When you have the proven track record of someone like Richard Branson your ration for successful venture is going up. If I had the money I would invest in anything Branson or Trump were behind. It could be a manure factory in Iowa I would invest.
Think of it this way for a moment. Your not a comic book reader at all. Your walking into the local Barnes and Noble and see a big display of, lets say trade paperbacks for this argument. What do you think is going to attract your attention more? the name Crossgen or Virgin? If you are being honest with yourself you know that the name Virgin will draw you over there before the name CrossGen. Most non comic book readers don't know a CrossGen from a Speakeasy from a whole in the wall. But they do know the name Virgin. And getting someone over to your display to look at your product is half the battle.
When you bring a player like Richard Branson, or someone with tons of mone, I wouldn't even call it an independent company only because when people think independent they think small. He'll make this pretty big.
As to why he does not bring established characters on board or buy *snicker* *snicker* Valiant is probably do to the fact that the company has said that they want all orginal material for comics and animation. It is probably a contract and money thing. After Valiant shut its doors who knows who owns the rights to all thise chracters. I could have a bajillion dollars to spend but if this company is wrapped up in court hearsings and what not it is not doing me any good.If you already have X amount of dollars invested why spend X more on some character that not a lot people know of? You have John Woo on board developing some ideas. Use him.
I will keep my mind open on this one, not like other posters who have said that there will be nothing of interest coming out of here and that their ideas blow already. I have not been able to read one article on what each title or film is going to be about.

[Rawle Austin]

One thing's for sure. Branson and the Virgin brand will bring tons of publicity to the industry and dare I say it, tons of new readers.

The anticipation is building already. From what I've seen so far, I will be giving them a try.

http://www.newsarama.com/virgincomics/virgincomics.htm


Growler:cool:

[Bakema NL]

Virgin is not even in the business yet and I already dislike their attitude............wow. Of course based on other opinions and news bits mostly. But the brand name itself puts me off more than getting me high on anticipation.
Based upon that ______ store they have (had?) in Amsterdam they don't win me over, I hated it. Too big, too expensive, too arrogant and snotty, I dislike these big stores. I'm not sure it even exists to this day and won't bothered to find out.
They have to come up with some very good stuff to make me buy their comics. The previews look kind of cool, but nothing that hasn't been seen before. And it's not like there's much room for more comics on my list anyway. Let's see if they can prove themselves. Having big money behind you is something else than being able to deliver good comics. This guy comes off as somebody in it just for the money. While this is of course the thought behind all of business, be it comics or something else, I still have big reservations when people/companies like this step into something.
Virgin stands for - innovation and launching, developing and opening up markets, for the benefit of the consumer - both at home and abroad.
Lines like these make me puke........just say outright you're into it for the money, then you're honest......for the benefit of the consumer........golly, now I'm happy, these guys are there just for me..............it's for the benefit of your wallet dude.

And of course they're stepping into the Asian/Indian market, there's hardly anything there yet...money to be made. He could have invested years and years ago in American comics, but why bother, this seems easier. Only now he's stepping into it.

So it's wait and see, their stuff has to be damn good for me to pick it up. This guy doesn't need the money anyway, so I'm more likely to pick up a comparable good comic from a real indie besides the regular superhero stuff that's still enough to entertain me.
If people are against big chain shops then it would make sense to be against a player like this entering the field......and on this board I read most people would be against chains. And if people look at/pick up a comic based on a name only without having cared before, a name not previously attached to comics, it says a lot about the audience and the future of the industry. You may consider it a good thing, but ultimately.....I'm not so sure. The work has to count, the stuff that's delivered, screw the name, it's hype but done in a different way.

It will be interesting to watch that's for sure. :)

[ATPComics]

Originally posted by martinp
What!? I am just starting to get into THE HUNGER and METAL LOCUS was also looking promising. Damn Damn Darn. Maybe another company will pick some of the titles up. What a mess for all those creators.

www.vistacomics.com

Thanks for the support. You'll see the first Metal Locus story in an up coming issue of Heavy Metal magazine. It's a different story from the mini-series. We're still shopping that around to see if anyone's interested.

Cheers,
Stephan

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by thepoet
I think the indies are being squeezed out...
The answer is that most comics shops in the U.S., especially the smaller ones, are benefiting from increased Marvel and DC sales, and thus order more Marvel and DC and cut back on the rest.
No it's like TV. Hundred's of channels pulling from the same viewrs. Still millions watching but more evenly spread out. In comics it's not (just) Marvel and DC squeezing, but the plethora of indy work as well. It's too easy to publish a book, but infinitely harder to succeed with it. Like anyone can have a child but not just anyone can parent.

In the old days it took much more commitment to get an indy book to market and that commitment stopped most pretenders from trying.

These days anyone with a modicum of talent and $1,000 can become a self-publisher regardles of the fact that they have no clue on how to run successful business. Retailers who are investing $10's of thousands of dollars a month on overhead and inventory have to order what they think will sell so that they can pay the bills. Because of that and performance history of companies like Acclaim, Valiant, Image, Tekno, Alias, Speakeasy... they cannot place this support lightly and it will take Indy's becoming a hell of a lot more reilable and responsible for anyone retailer to be more supportive.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by jasonm
Color is why I feel a lot of indy's are failing. I really think my work looks better in color as I'm sure a lot of others feel about their own work and so we see an opportunity to get it in color and jump at it. Problem is if the company and creator doesn't do enough to market it, the book that would have broke even in black and white is at a loss in color.
Jason, consider doing the work in color but publishing the comic in a grey scale version. It gives the appearance of color without the cost. If the work warrants a collection, do that in color.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Smeggy
http://www.google.com/search?q=cory+doctorow

Oh, and they're pretty good books, too. He sold more copies through his publisher than any of their other first-time authors by giving his work away for free. New models and paradigms work, creators don't always have to keep the Old Guard, like DM retailers, happy.


Did Google him, still never heard of him, I have a lot of Google hits too, most people have never heard of me either.

If you have relevant links to reports of his success, I'd love to see them.

Check Out Warren Ellis's Engine www.the-engine.net and you'll see me talking about that same idea for comic creators. It's something I did for my comic back in 2000 and offered up in a revised form again last year. No creators were willing to consider it.

Look, aside from a couple of your gently-snarky comments, you took the time to politely respond to me point-by-point. I see no need to whip out the equipment to see who's bigger here. Let's just keep our replies to our in-thread statements, and keep everything else zipped up.
C'mon, aside from being an odd comment from someone named Smeggy, all I'm asking is how you can be so cocksure of your statements?

Do you have any relevant work in any aspect of the industry that would make it easier to grant credibilty to your comments. Comments that I find, with over 20 years of experience in multiple facets of the industry to be less than credible.

I'm going on empirical evidence which until you show me otherwise, I have to believe vs hypothesis, which, while it might sound lovely, is just a guess.

[jasonm]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Jason, consider doing the work in color but publishing the comic in a grey scale version. It gives the appearance of color without the cost. If the work warrants a collection, do that in color.

Excellent idea.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
No it's like TV. Hundred's of channels pulling from the same viewrs. Still millions watching but more evenly spread out. In comics it's not (just) Marvel and DC squeezing, but the plethora of indy work as well. It's too easy to publish a book, but infinitely harder to succeed with it. Like anyone can have a child but not just anyone can parent.

In the old days it took much more commitment to get an indy book to market and that commitment stopped most pretenders from trying.

These days anyone with a modicum of talent and $1,000 can become a self-publisher regardles of the fact that they have no clue on how to run successful business. Retailers who are investing $10's of thousands of dollars a month on overhead and inventory have to order what they think will sell so that they can pay the bills. Because of that and performance history of companies like Acclaim, Valiant, Image, Tekno, Alias, Speakeasy... they cannot place this support lightly and it will take Indy's becoming a hell of a lot more reilable and responsible for anyone retailer to be more supportive.

This was definitly the problem, I think it was the mid to late 80s, with the black and white explosion. Anyone with a xerox machine and a stapler thought they could do something. I do not see that as much today, I could be wrong I do not know every single publisher in the market. I thought that a lot of the companies you mentioned put together a good product. I liked where Spellgame was going and hope it finds a home some where. What I see the problem,in todays market, is that these people are not running there comic/publishing venture as a buisness. It's fine and dandy that you have a great comic , the writer is the next Alan Moore and the artist is the next Frank Cho but if you do not run things like a buisness your going to find yourself out in the cold. There is a million differnt things that ( insert failed company's name here) could have done which they did not do. I refrain from giving any ideas because you never know I may one day get off my lazy hump and do something. The one thing I would do is stop begging at the table of Diamond. There are other avenues to go through that does not include Diamond.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Jason, consider doing the work in color but publishing the comic in a grey scale version. It gives the appearance of color without the cost. If the work warrants a collection, do that in color.


do you have an example of this that you could post. it sounds very interesting. Is it similar to what they are doing in Sea of Red?

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Fletcher
This was definitly the problem, I think it was the mid to late 80s, with the black and white explosion. Anyone with a xerox machine and a stapler thought they could do something. I do not see that as much today, I could be wrong I do not know every single publisher in the market.
Yeah, it's still happening because today, it's almost cheaper, about 35 cents an issue, to professionally publish a b&w comic than it was to hand produce the books of yore.

I thought that a lot of the companies you mentioned put together a good product.
Oh yeah, they did. So did Speakeasy, that's the problem. Retailers don't expect much from most indy's but when you see publishers putting out really nice books, books that meet or exceed content & production values of the big 2 it makes it harder to ignore. So you order more, build a following, count on their sales in your projections, then they start missing ship dates and then kaput! They're gone, leaving disatisfied customers and a lot of unrealized sales.

It makes retailers very leery, as in if these guys seem to good to be true, heck Crossgen made it 3 1/2yrs before going tits up, then they probably are. TPop and Viz are the only multi title publishers (of note in the DM) outside the big four that have any track record these days. Unfortunately for D&Q, Fantagraphics, Top Shelf and Alternatve Comics, who I do well with, they aren't doing enough to gain more traction in the DM (and beyond).

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Fletcher
do you have an example of this that you could post. it sounds very interesting. Is it similar to what they are doing in Sea of Red?
I'll see what I can come up with. Sea of Red is a different process, almost monochromatic (I'll have to ask Kieron and Salgood the official name).

Just to give you an idea for now, look at any manga, or Stray Bullets or Strangers in Paradise and you see what most B&W boooks look like. Not to be deragotory but it's the best analogy I can think of, they look like a coloring book. Images are made up of shapes bordered in black and either filed with black or left white.

Grey scale is like a B&W photo. Instead of 2 colors, black or white, there are up to 256 shades of grey that run from white to black. you get shadows and depth that you can't get from just b&w.

The process I mentioned to Jason is to go ahead and color the work like he prefers but using a program like photoshop, changing the colors into different shades of grey.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
I'll see what I can come up with. Sea of Red is a different process, almost monochromatic (I'll have to ask Kieron and Salgood the official name).

Just to give you an idea for now, look at any manga, or Stray Bullets or Strangers in Paradise and you see what most B&W boooks look like. Not to be deragotory but it's the best analogy I can think of, they look like a coloring book. Images are made up of shapes bordered in black and either filed with black or left white.

Grey scale is like a B&W photo. Instead of 2 colors, black or white, there are up to 256 shades of grey that run from white to black. you get shadows and depth that you can't get from just b&w.

The process I mentioned to Jason is to go ahead and color the work like he prefers but using a program like photoshop, changing the colors into different shades of grey.

I must have thought that you were talking about doing something differnt with the b&w book. Another process or something to make it look better than a b&w by someone who could not afford color so they chose b&w and looks bad. The titles you mention are good examples of b&w, he best example has to be Cerebus.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Yeah, it's still happening because today, it's almost cheaper, about 35 cents an issue, to professionally publish a b&w comic than it was to hand produce the books of yore.

Oh yeah, they did. So did Speakeasy, that's the problem. Retailers don't expect much from most indy's but when you see publishers putting out really nice books, books that meet or exceed content & production values of the big 2 it makes it harder to ignore. So you order more, build a following, count on their sales in your projections, then they start missing ship dates and then kaput! They're gone, leaving disatisfied customers and a lot of unrealized sales.

It makes retailers very leery, as in if these guys seem to good to be true, heck Crossgen made it 3 1/2yrs before going tits up, then they probably are. TPop and Viz are the only multi title publishers (of note in the DM) outside the big four that have any track record these days. Unfortunately for D&Q, Fantagraphics, Top Shelf and Alternatve Comics, who I do well with, they aren't doing enough to gain more traction in the DM (and beyond).

Then it goes back to what myself and alot of others have said that its up to the publisher/creator to make sure that the product is ready and on time. The publisher needs to show the retailor that they can deliever on time. The publisher/creator needs to run his/her project like a buisness, which it is. But even then if the publisher has all his ducks in a row he is still at Diamond and the retailers mercy. If a retailer only wants to sell Marvel and DC that is their buisness. If I were doing a project I would give the middle finger to Diamond. There is more than one way to skin a cat and there is more than one way to get my project into the hands of consumers.

[mikepenny]

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/4448/helios1pg17greyscale0fk.jpg Greyscale


http://img450.imageshack.us/img450/7007/helios1pg17bw7bi.jpg B&W

[Fletcher]

I see now what you meant. it is almost like pseudo color. How much cheaper would it be to color in greyscale on your computer and have it printed than color it in RBG on your computer and have it printed?

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Fletcher
Then it goes back to what myself and alot of others have said that its up to the publisher/creator to make sure that the product is ready and on time. The publisher needs to show the retailor that they can deliever on time. The publisher/creator needs to run his/her project like a buisness, which it is.
Yes and no. what you outline there, ready and ontime is the bare minimum that needs to be accomplished. Let's look at CrossGen as an example because despite their failure, they are a great example to emulate for any publisher that wants to succeed, they just tried to do too much too fast, kinda like Speakeasy x 1,000,000!

One year before there were any titles, characters or even witers & artists at CG, owner Marc Allessi had James Brietbiel setting up at conventions around the country giving away free CG tshirts with their logo and name on the front and the mysterious "Nothing will be the same" on the back. I was at San Diego Con promoting my mini series The End when friends came up wearing the shirt, instead of mine. When I asked why they said it was a new company that didn't have any books but was giving away the shirts as long as people promised to wear them around the Con.

There were thousands of folks wearing them that weekend and I'm sure at every other Con and instantly 10's of thousands of seeds were planted for people to think, yeah I've heard of them, when they finally announced their titles.

There were various other promotions as well, the usual ads and stories about the unique new way CG was doing business but the two things that really stood out to me were

1) the offer of a direct to the customer money back guarantee, whereby anyone buying their CG Chronicles and the first 3 issues of any of their titles, could after reading the #3 could opt to return the books and a note as to why they didn't like them to CG for a full refund (~$16 IIRC). The great thing about theat for me was, as a retailer I got to keep the money for the books I sold, even if returned and I still had a happy customer because those that weren't satisfied didn't feel ripped off, they got their money back from CG. Unknown to anyone at the time 9and according to Allessi less than 100 people returned the books) anyone who returned the books with the note not only received their refund, they also received one copy each of every other issue CG had published to date.

CG was taking the initiative to build a customer base. They new their books were good and said hey, you commited to this and didn;t like it, we bet you'll like one of these. The removed the fear of the unkonwn for readers and even retailers because we still got paid for supporting the work.

2) Allessi flying in the top 20 US Comic retailers (and me) to Florida to tour the studio, meet him and his crew and see what they were all about. Before it was time to order #1 we were sitting there with professionally published mockups printed on site, so that wee could see exactly what they were selling us. At the time their were a few skeptical retailers in the CBIA who were not going to buy any CG books calling the money back guar. a stunt/gimmick and indicative of a desparate publisher. Two of them were also on that trip to FL and left the building that day believers, and no there was no kool-aid at lunch. ;)

Why did CG fail? Ultimately I believe Mark Allessi expected too much from the Direct Market and when it didn't fall in line quick enough to support his in house production, his guaranteed salaries, health insurance, vacation pay and all of the best of the best graphic equipment, and Hollywood and other revenue producing streams didn't respond quick enough, he was left grasping at anything, like line expansion and Code 6, to stop the bleeding but it was too little too late.

Virtually everything he set out to do was accomplished, but he dug himself to deep a hole that he never completely escaped. He did however last almost 4 years and built a solid audience.

Virtually everything he did right can be replicated on a smaller level and those who take care to look at everything he did, and avoiding the mistakes, rather than just seeing that since CG got shut down everything they did was bad, can reap some decent market share, assumong the content warrants it.

Originally posted by Fletcher
But even then if the publisher has all his ducks in a row he is still at Diamond and the retailers mercy. If a retailer only wants to sell Marvel and DC that is their buisness. If I were doing a project I would give the middle finger to Diamond. There is more than one way to skin a cat and there is more than one way to get my project into the hands of consumers.
No, if they have ALL of their ducks in a row, they will not be reliant on any one thing to succeed. If they are marketing and promoting (and the book is any good at all) people will notice and buy it. Somehow, in sunny San Diego, I found Robert Tritthardt's awesome self published book, Writhe and Shine (http://www.writheandshine.com/) I don't remember how but I found it, contacted him and found out that he only made 1,000 copies and was handselling them in New Orleans. I convinced him to wholesale 50 copies to me and later convinced Cold Cut Comics Distributors to carry the book.

But back to your Diamond comments... It would be foolish as I think Nat Gertler ponted out earlier, to bypass Diamond. Allowing Diamond, the one company that has nearly a 100% access to every comic shop in the nation (and other countries) to give you even the tiniest toehold into the DM is the smartest thing you can do. Why shut down what is likely to be your largest revenue stream and the one that makes it easiest for retailers to acquire your work? I can just see Mr Pepsi or Mr Levis giving the finger to supermarkets and department stores in order to sell all of their product online or at specialty events. Just don't rely on Diamond to sell your book for you and don't limit yourself to only using Diamond.

Success means you take advantage of all opportunities instead of suicidally clinging to one and trying to force it to work. It didn't work for the unprepared Speakeasy and it didn't work for the very prepared and very well funded CG. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. George Santayana

[RobertScott]

Awesome Mike, thanks!

Also makes me think I need to tke another look at Helios.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Fletcher
I see now what you meant. it is almost like pseudo color. How much cheaper would it be to color in greyscale on your computer and have it printed than color it in RBG on your computer and have it printed?
It's color, in the same way that you would see colors in a B&W TV show.

You can color in greyscale but it takes as much effort and expense as coloring in color and with software it's very easy to render a color image as greyscale but it costs the same to print as B&W (maybe a few cents more for better paper to hold the greys) instead of 8-10x the cost for color.

So by coloring first and greysacaling for serial comics, you still get a far more attractive book at a cost that is better capabale of showing a profit and when collecting for the TPB, the color work is already done, meaning the only added expense is the color printing which will be easier to deal with because of the much greater profit margin that TPB have over comics.

And fans may pick up the TPB too, to see the work in color.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
It's color, in the same way that you would see colors in a B&W TV show.

You can color in greyscale but it takes as much effort and expense as coloring in color and with software it's very easy to render a color image as greyscale but it costs the same to print as B&W (maybe a few cents more for better paper to hold the greys) instead of 8-10x the cost for color.

So by coloring first and greysacaling for serial comics, you still get a far more attractive book at a cost that is better capabale of showing a profit and when collecting for the TPB, the color work is already done, meaning the only added expense is the color printing which will be easier to deal with because of the much greater profit margin that TPB have over comics.

And fans may pick up the TPB too, to see the work in color.

I really like that idea. Another question here from a computer illiterate person, I should say ignorant, what programs are out there that I can color my work. And how good are they? Can I get the same B&W quality as say Cerebus?

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Yes and no. what you outline there, ready and ontime is the bare minimum that needs to be accomplished.

That is why I also said that you have to run it like a business. Run your project/comic/publishing venture/ whatever as a buisness. You wouldn't set up an ice cream store with just buckets of ice cream and some cones.

[i]One year before there were any titles, characters or even witers & artists at CG, owner Marc Allessi had James Brietbiel setting up at conventions around the country giving away free CG tshirts with their logo and name on the front and the mysterious "Nothing will be the same" on the back. [/B]

IF you have the money that is a great marketing idea. Of course, if you do not have the money what money you do have is better spent on other things like printing. But what small outfit or one man self publisher has that kind of extra cash?
And to do it even before you have oine artist or one writer signed is a bit risky too. I would be willing to bet that they did have something in the can or ready to go.


[i]1) the offer of a direct to the customer money back guarantee, whereby anyone buying their CG Chronicles and the first 3 issues of any of their titles, could after reading the #3 could opt to return the books and a note as to why they didn't like them to CG for a full refund (~$16 IIRC). The great thing about theat for me was, as a retailer I got to keep the money for the books I sold, even if returned and I still had a happy customer because those that weren't satisfied didn't feel ripped off, they got their money back from CG. Unknown to anyone at the time 9and according to Allessi less than 100 people returned the books) anyone who returned the books with the note not only received their refund, they also received one copy each of every other issue CG had published to date.
2) Allessi flying in the top 20 US Comic retailers (and me) to Florida to tour the studio, meet him and his crew and see what they were all about. Before it was time to order #1 we were sitting there with professionally published mockups printed on site, so that wee could see exactly what they were selling us. At the time their were a few skeptical retailers in the CBIA who were not going to buy any CG books calling the money back guar. a stunt/gimmick and indicative of a desparate publisher. Two of them were also on that trip to FL and left the building that day believers, and no there was no kool-aid at lunch. ;) [/B]

Again that is a great idea if you have the money. If you have the money to fly people to you from across the country, if you have the money to take back the books that people bought from you. Hopefully, you would do it right. Put the money in the savings account and you still come out a little bit ahead depending on interest rates at your bank.

[i]Why did CG fail? Ultimately I believe Mark Allessi expected too much from the Direct Market and when it didn't fall in line quick enough to support his in house production, his guaranteed salaries, health insurance, vacation pay and all of the best of the best graphic equipment, and Hollywood and other revenue producing streams didn't respond quick enough, he was left grasping at anything, like line expansion and Code 6, to stop the bleeding but it was too little too late.[/B]

The it goes back to running a buisness. When you start a buisness you should not expect to turn a proft in the first two to five years. Now a comic book publishing buisness it may be longer. To gurantee these things before CG was estacblished was probably biting off more tha he could. These things should have come online in time not right off the bat.

[i]Virtually everything he did right can be replicated on a smaller level and those who take care to look at everything he did, and avoiding the mistakes, rather than just seeing that since CG got shut down everything they did was bad, can reap some decent market share, assumong the content warrants it.[/B]
Like I said before, only if the small company has the money. That is a lot of money your talking about with printing shirts, giving people back their money, plane tickets. You do need a fan base and you do need to get the word out there but for the cash strapped self publisher, or cash conscience, there are other avenues.

[i]No, if they have ALL of their ducks in a row, they will not be reliant on any one thing to succeed. If they are marketing and promoting (and the book is any good at all) people will notice and buy it. .[/B]

Exactly what I said. You need to have all your ducks in a row with everything even before printing is started on issue one.



[i]But back to your Diamond comments... It would be foolish as I think Nat Gertler ponted out earlier, to bypass Diamond. Allowing Diamond, the one company that has nearly a 100% access to every comic shop in the nation (and other countries) to give you even the tiniest toehold into the DM is the smartest thing you can do.[/B]
If I did say cut them out completly maybe I spoke too harsh. I would not cut them out completly but they would not be my means to an end. I would not be begging them to carry anything I created just so I would not fail. There are other avenues to go through.

[i]Why shut down what is likely to be your largest revenue stream and the one that makes it easiest for retailers to acquire your work?[/B]
Largest revenue stream? Maybe. Only if they will carry it and then you have to sell their new numbers. Now if we do what we have said that should not have a problem. But again it would not be my only avenue.
[i] Just don't rely on Diamond to sell your book for you and don't limit yourself to only using Diamond..[/B]
Exaclty what I have said now and before. It seems that we agree with a lot of things and are just knocking our heads together. I went to a web site for GL LABS that I read about here. The guy that runs that sells his books to schools(or is trying to at least). An untapped market if there ever was. You get one school district to buy the new book he has and BAM that is alot of books. Not only could he get the English departments he can also get the Science departments. How many English classes are there in one average high school? In one average district?

[i]Success means you take advantage of all opportunities instead of suicidally clinging to one and trying to force it to work. It didn't work for the unprepared Speakeasy and it didn't work for the very prepared and very well funded CG. [/B]
You take advantage of your opportunities,but you also make your own. You need to have some buisness sense. If CG was well funded it sounds like they might have blown their load too soon ( I think I could have come up with something better but...) with just the things that you mentioned. I would be interested in getting a hold of what actualy happened. Speak Easy's collapse, to me just my opinion, is tragic because I was really digging SpellGame.

[RobertScott]

Like I said before, only if the small company has the money. That is a lot of money your talking about with printing shirts, giving people back their money, plane tickets.
No, you're still not getting it. If you are behaving like a business and have all your ducks in a row, to use your terms, YOU HAVE THE MONEY.

If you don't have the money, you will fail. Not having the money (for many different reasons) has pretty much been the problem for every failed publisher.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
No, you're still not getting it. If you are behaving like a business and have all your ducks in a row, to use your terms, YOU HAVE THE MONEY.

If you don't have the money, you will fail. Not having the money (for many different reasons) has pretty much been the problem for every failed publisher.

No I don't think that you are getting it. There is a difference between having the money to put your project together the right way and having the stupid amount of cash to do the things you are talking about. How much did it cost to fly just you to this studio of theirs? Whether it was 100 or 50 dollars it was too much. Did they put you up in a hotel or was it one day round trip? how many of there were you again? How many t shirts did they print up for the one day? The things you are saying is not behaving like a buisness. No product yet and I am already in the whole how much? Real smart. The only buisness I have ever heard of doing something crazy like that is your higher end DOnald Trump like real estate and that guy has more money than God so it only sounds crazy.

[RobertScott]

Originally posted by Fletcher
No I don't think that you are getting it. There is a difference between having the money to put your project together the right way and having the stupid amount of cash to do the things you are talking about. How much did it cost to fly just you to this studio of theirs? Whether it was 100 or 50 dollars it was too much. Did they put you up in a hotel or was it one day round trip? how many of there were you again? How many t shirts did they print up for the one day? The things you are saying is not behaving like a buisness. No product yet and I am already in the whole how much? Real smart. The only buisness I have ever heard of doing something crazy like that is your higher end DOnald Trump like real estate and that guy has more money than God so it only sounds crazy.
Good luck with your book.

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by RobertScott
Good luck with your book.

And I would say goo luck with yours but you seem to have some Donald Trump cash behind you so I do not think that you need it.

[Ayo]

Let me just open up by saying that this is by far the most interesting discussion that I have personally read on this discussion board, to my memory.

Onto the topics at hand:

1) I never heard of Speakeasy Comics before. I'm serious. I see a lot of tearful farewells, but...the first I heard of the company is when I read the headline that they closed their doors. Maybe I'm too far underground to notice, but I don't think that's my fault.

To this, I must say that awareness is the most important aspect of marketing. So many commercials and ad campaigns of the last twenty years in all media have focused simply on getting a product's name out there. This company never got its name to me, and I must presume that it never got its name to many other people.

Now, I don't think that, based on what I can gather from context clues, that I would be a real part of their consumer base...I'm just pointing out that publicity and awareness could have been taken much further.

2) Tokyopop is the indie publisher to watch, period. I've seen it mentioned on this discussion topic, but it warrants repitition: Tokyopop are kicking ass because they found an outside market...and built it up from a tiny niche to a much bigger subculture. When Tokyopop began introducing OEL books, they did it carefully...they were clearly testing the waters, but they were able to build it up to a point where they're now drafting some top talent to do series fo them. This is amazing to me. And shows a greater level of market sophistication on each level than the vast majority of Direct Market-based comics publishers.

3) Whoever the people who made that short list of things that indie creators/publishers need to do seems to be right on the money.

These people...especially when they're a new publisher dealing with new creators...shouldn't be promising product until they know they have that product in the bag, waiting. That's just sound business. At some point, authors and publishers need to do the hard work beneath the surface.