NYCC '08: EDITORS BUZZ PANEL

[ChrisArrant]

In the opening day of the 2008 New York Comic-Con, editors from various publishing houses sat in on a Reed Exhibitions Convention staple, the "Editors Buzz Forum". Billed as an "undiluted editorial 'buzz'" straight from the people that make sure it happen, the panel is intended to reveal editors' personal perspectives and insight into their books and creators.

The panel started with DC Comics Editor-In-Chief Dan Didio, Harry N. Abrams Senior Editor Charlie Kochman and Ginee Seo of Simon & Schuster. Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly moderated the panel.

DC's Dan Didio started the panel, discussing the upcoming Final Crisis miniseries and the wrapping up of their second weekly series, Countdown, which he jokingly refered to as week 103 of "DC held hostage". He then highlighted the buzz surroung Grant Morrison's upcoming Batman: R.I.P. storyarc, and Gail Simone's upcoming Wonder Woman arc entitled "Rise of the Olympian". The surprisingly coy Didio mentioned a "big" Superman project in the near future, but couldn't reveal more at this time.

Ginee Seo introduced herself as the Editorial Director of her own imprint at Simon and Schuster, and the happiness in directing it. She admitted to a long-held desire to get into the graphic novel market, and beamed at recent signing of a children's graphic novel by cartoonist Hope Larson. Seo described Larson's book as aone about a girls' camp, but "it's really so much deeper than that".

She also revealed that Simon & Schuster are doing out a graphic novel adaptation of the young adult prose series Pendragon by D.J. MacHale. Seo admitted that when she originally read Pendragon it its prose for it "wasn't really her thing", but the samples coming in of the graphic novel "wowed" her.

Seo then went into her childhood appreciation of comics, revealing that she was part of "a Marvel family" which was quickly followed by an apology to the present DC EiC Didio. Without missing a beat, Didio admitted to being "a Marvel kid" growing up as well. She also brought up Evan Kuhlman's The Last Invisible Boy as a "heavily illustrated book" buy not quite a graphic novel. Kuhlman was found, So said, at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont.

Next up was Harry N. Abram's Charlie Kochman, who led off his part of the program discussing a collection of Kyle Baker's Nat Turner books through them, as well as a project entitled The Last Straw. Kochman stated Harry N. Abrams will be pushing more comic book projects out shortly, but the officially announcement about the line in detail would be later this year at San Diego Comicon. Panel moderator Calvin Reid noted that Kochman's informal mentioning would act as a sort of announcement in itself, heralding Abram's entrance into comic books for the first time.

The moderator kept the conversation flowing when he directed a question of event comics and the editorial struggles involved with DC's Dan Didio. Didio responded that editorial has 20 people and 65 books that they head up in a given month. Dido noted that there are positives and difficulties with anything they do. Specially, he brought up that rabid fans want big events where everything changes but nothing changes. The challenge, Didio stated, is “how do you give the illusion of change when nothing changes”.

The other challenge in the event comics struggle according to Didio is the how the evitable crossover stuff of event comics throws off storylines in other books. The risk of that, Didio explains, is tht "if it doesn’t seem important enough, crossovers turn off fans more than entice them". With Final Crisis, Didio said that only things Final Crisis-related will crossover and will be branded. Only these "important" tie-in issues will be branded so that readers don't feel like they're being short. Furthering this focus is the hiring of a story editor in Didio's deparment, who he described as "like central bookkeeping". While not naming their name, Didio described the person's job as "to know basically where all stories are so that they don't have to call 20 different people for each item".

Conversation then turned to Simon & Schuster's Seo, who related her discovery of Hope Larson's work through her agent; while she had seen Larson's book prior, it was a script sent by her agent that led her to take her first hard look at Larson's work and she immediately "loved it" and "things just fell together".

Harry N. Abrams' Charlie Kochman talked about his first days at the publishing house, and how he felt that three comic book artists deserved to be on the same shelf as the great artists of the Renaissance: Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner.

Kochman then discussed Diary of a Would-Be Kid, describing as "not exactly comics" but very related. "It is one of those examples of just being in the right place at the right time," Kochman said. When the creator initially approached Kochman about publishing the book, Harry N. Abrams weren't publishing comics at the time but were open to the idea. Kochman went on to describe it as a unique book, that is neither comics or traditional nor prose. The art style was "very inviting", Kochman said, and "able to be imitiated". The editor described it as a hit just just right for the kid set.

At this point, the panels began answering questions from the audience.

The first audience member asked, "What work do you appreciate from another publisher, either in sales success or artistically?"

Seo admires Harry N. Abrams' Diary of a Would Be Kid on the kids side, and titles like Persepolis and other works from Pantheon on the adult side.

DC Editor-In-Chief Dan Didio admitted to having a hard time answering the question, describing is view of any competition's line-up with "an analytical mind". He revealed that he "doesn't read it for fun", and when he sees something he likes that DC isn't doing (or doing well), it can frustrate him. For fun, Didio likes to read trashy novels to relax.

Harry N. Abram's admired American Born Chinese, and regrets not getting to sign it up for his publishing house when he had the chance. Didio chimed into say he had frustration regarding the author Gene Yang, because DC "really wanted to sign him up for something" but that Yang's schedule wasn't open long enough to get it done.

Moderator Calvin Reid, who was formerly the editor of the graphic novel imprint Reed Graphica for Reed Press, shared his own feelings on the subject. He related to his obsession with "hi-tech" manga such as Gunsmith Cats, Dominion Tank Police, Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell

The panel was then asked about the role of viral marketing in graphic novel publishing. Kochman spoke about Diary of a Would Be Kids website receiving 50 million unique visitors prior to it being published. He further related that marketing to kids can be very tricky, and that there are strict rules about e-mailing to kids. He related rules against direct emails to kids and additional emails. Once the book was in stores, Kochman said, a one time email blast was sent out and the next week "the book was on the Best Sellers list".

Simon & Schuster's Seo said that the desire is to have all online marketing "go viral" but not do what is considered "viral marketing" these days.

Didio weighed in with his perspective that "viral marketing" is a bit of an "oxymoron". He said that anything created in a marketing department is too calculated and not natural enough to be "truly" viral. "It's a disserve to your product and your fans" to treat them like idiots, the DC Editor-In-Chief said. Didio explained that DC Comics has a distint and clear audience, and that the best way to get information out is in a "clear message". Playing "coy" and doing "games" occasionally is an option Didio said, as the fans are steeped in the lore and enoy trying to put the pieces together from interviews and such. But the "misleads" and "creating an artificial groundswell" wouldn't work with their fans, Didio said, because their fans would see right through it.

A librarian in the audience asked about early-entry kids reading and the trent of pulling kids in on properties that appear in other media. DC's Didio pointed to their Johnny DC line for a kid-friendly variety,but that the majority of their market is 16 years-old and up. Didio related DC's attempt to capitalize on the viewership of the Teen Titans GO! animated tv show with a companion comic, but that the results were "neither fish nor foul". According to Didio, the comic attracted an audience older than the TV show but younger than the regular Teen Titans book in the main line. Didio hoped to be more successful with their recently debuted Tiny Titans book from Johnny DC.

Another audience member raised their hand to ask what could be done to help new adult readers get into reading comic books and graphic novels.

Harry N. Abram's Kochman stepped in to say that as an editor he acts as a proxy for the reader. "You have to make sure that the work is clear to the reader and, if not, figure out a way to get the writer and artist to make it so," he said. Kochman tries to add an introduction or afterword to the book by the creator or a third party that might help explain the property a little more. He always has in the back of his mind the idea of giving a book to his father and having him be able to understand it, like the story he related of handing his father the Death of Superman novel and it had everything he needed to enjoy and follow the story.

Seo wanted to address the issue of getting past the “gatekeepers”: getting readers to understand and accept the graphic novel as a worthy form of literature. Seo thinks we’re in a great time and age where there are so many creators and projects out there that there is something truly there for everyone. She feels it is more of a publicity thing…that there just needs to be a way to raise public awareness about the form, as there is product already there for everyone.

Didio added that kids are a little more accepting of trying new things. Getting adults into it is harder, because they may have preconceived notions about pictures and words. He doesn’t think the new adult brought into reading graphic novels is really going to gravitate to his product, because someone picking up Blankets or Persepolis won’t all of a sudden decide to pick up Superman and Wonder Woman.