Author Topic: The business of comics  (Read 25714 times)

Offline mark

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2017, 10:04:42 AM »
This is from Diamond's New Comic Publishers Information Guide.

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Proposed terms of sale

Diamond distributes on a buy/sell basis. We purchase your products for one price and sell them to our customers for another. Because we price our products to our customers up front, we need to know at the time of solicitation, what our cost will be. For comics, we generally work on a percentage off of the cover price. Other aspects of trade terms-such as payment terms, minimums and increments, and shipping responsibility-will be negotiated when your comic is accepted and before it is solicited.

DISCOUNT

Diamond generally receives a discount in the range of 60%-70% off of the US retail (cover) price. (We pay $.89-$1.19 for a comic with a $2.99 cover price.) Please indicate your proposed discount with your terms of sale.
...


Later on, in the example form they give, you have to fill out the cover price and the proposed discount. They don't mention a negotiation process, but I imagine there is one if they do not like the terms. So if I propose a comic based on my excitement-filled life as a data scientist and give a cover price of $10.99, they would reject that on the grounds that it is too expensive for the market and they would not sell enough. Or if I propose a more standard price like $3.99 but also a low discount to them, they would demand a higher discount since nobody know who the heck I am and the market for mathematical adventures is presumably small.


Offline matthew

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2017, 10:14:44 AM »
things have changed a bit. you still pay shipping costs to get the book there, from the printer. so.....

all mass bulk prices:
28 cents printed
10 cents shipped
38 cents total


89 cents paid by diamond
51 cents total



not counting publisher fees, or marketing, or artist and writer fees.
not bad. if you act as the publisher and write and draw your own book.




looks like marvel and dc are just shooting everything at a wall, watches to see whta sticks, then uses those bits for a movie. comic books are reduced to just public test material, that pays for itself. just barely.
but then the book publishers are just a arm of a larger company now, and will act so, i guess.

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #17 on: Today at 04:01:18 AM »

Offline mark

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #17 on: April 20, 2017, 11:09:33 AM »
Very interesting numbers, thanks!

On the flip side, I'm curious how long the "brick-and-mortar" shops will stay viable. Where I live, several of the stores closest to me have closed, others have moved to more affordable but less desirable locations. Some of the only comic book stores that really seem to be doing strong actually focus on other things, like collectibles, and just have the comics as sort of a side business. It's a stark contrast to ancient times when I was a kid. Of course I had to walk a mile uphill in the snow to get to a grocery or convenience store, but those stores would have comics. Now the closest store to the town I grew up in is about 35 miles away. 70 miles for my college town.

I suppose more things are moving to online purchases, and I do some online preordering myself, but in the stores there's always the chance to notice something than you hadn't planned on buying and discover new things.

Offline matthew

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #18 on: April 20, 2017, 07:38:54 PM »
i have a plan, a new business model, that will make back-issues king, over a 4 year span. gimmie a few more months. i cant reveal it, or else i cant get in on the ground floor.



p.s. color interior comics cost also twice as much as color cover and black and white insides.....

Offline AzT

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #19 on: April 27, 2017, 07:40:11 PM »
Revisiting the great point made by [member=3]Chris[/member] upthread that "comic artists are in fact artists and are underpaid"

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Working as an artist in comics is a dream job for me, and it’s one I’ve been fortunate enough to find success with. In my 10 years as a comics artist, I’ve had the chance to tackle incredible work-for-hire jobs like Moon Knight and All-Star Batman. More importantly, I’ve been able to launch INJECTION, a comic I co-own at Image with Warren Ellis & Jordie Bellaire. It’s been an incredible stretch of time, and I’m grateful for the opportunities. However, as I look at the landscape of the medium I love so much, I believe there’s a massive problem with the perception of my profession: I call it “Art Cred.”

“Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers.” “Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.” “Garth Ennis’s Preacher.” “Mark Waid’s Daredevil.” Sound familiar? When people talk about comics, they often attribute the work solely to the writer of the project, and artists are rarely credited as co-authors of the work. The comic book medium has a substantial issue with artists getting the credit they deserve.

You may be wondering why that is a bad thing. Consider how many news stories you’ve read about creators being harmed as a result of ownership issues. Think back to the many creators having health issues they can’t afford. It’s awful and heartbreaking, but here’s another question: how many times has it been an artist in this situation? Why is it that so many illustrators tend to be the ones forgotten over time? How is that possible in comics, a visual medium?

Consider this: you spend a year drawing an epic science fiction story. You design the characters, the spaceships, the aliens, and the technology. You spend 10 months barely seeing your friends and rarely getting out of the house in order to keep up with the schedule and to do the best pages you can. Eventually, the book is announced and the headline reads “WRITER’S SCI-FI PROJECT.” Pages of your artwork illustrate the piece, but there’s no mention of who drew them. Now imagine the project is adapted into a film, video game, or TV show and is consistently credited as WRITER’S SCI-FI PROJECT with no mention of you or your work. This is a regular occurrence.

Everywhere I look-from press releases announcing movie deals to reviews on comic sites-this issue rears its ugly head. It started driving me crazy. So like any brilliant hero of our age, I took the issue to the internet! I started cataloging examples whenever they’d arise with the hashtag #ArtCred on Twitter.

There are many explanations for this common phenomenon. Many comics reviewers lack the vocabulary to speak about art in a critical way, and instead bury the art in a single paragraph with rote commentary. The proliferation of double-shipping books at Marvel and DC, books that rotate art teams while keeping the writer consistent, train the reader to see the artist as secondary to the process. Even the generally higher output of a writer compared to an artist leads to higher visibility and better name recognition.

That’s not to say artists are blameless. We have an awful habit of devaluing ourselves. We undervalue our work and shy away from attention, even though we secretly crave it. But in this day and age, if you’re not seen to be doing the work, then you’re not considered to be part of the process.

What can we do about this? To start, I would look to the work colorists have done in the past couple of years. They organized and became vocal. Colorists pushed for cover credits on DC and Marvel books, and were successful in their efforts. Like colorists, we need to talk openly about this and support each other’s efforts. Your favorite comics are built on the hard work of artists, and to not appropriately credit them devalues the work itself. Watchmen would not be the book it is without Dave Gibbons. The same can be said for Wes Craig’s work on DEADLY CLASS, or Fiona Staples’ work on SAGA. Artists are co-authors of the work, and for them to be seen as anything less damages the medium we love so much.

As creators of comics, the only currency we have is the quality of our work and our back catalog. We need to be careful about the projects we take. Strive to work on signature projects, works that are appreciated as the result of singular voices joining in a unique collaboration.

Credit is important. It helps build our bodies of work, aids fans of your first book in checking out your next one, and gives you a solid foundation, regardless of the writer you work with. Getting credit means that if your work is adapted to other mediums, you are part of the process. Artists need to stand in front of the work and make sure we’re seen as co-authors. We need to lead by example.

If artists were considered creators on the same level as writers-no more, no less-then they would be able to build more solid and reliable careers. Artists would have the resources necessary to train the next generation and build properties from the stories and characters they co-created. Relegating artists to being small cogs in the machine of making comics is to deny to ourselves what is truly great about the medium.

One of the most important shifts in comics happened when the Image Comics founders told the big companies that they weren’t working for them anymore and created a fair deal for creators that has had a profound effect in our industry ever since. We should remember the power we have and what can be achieved if we work together.

After all, drawing is creating too.


Offline Chris

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #20 on: April 27, 2017, 08:53:08 PM »
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Revisiting the great point made by [member=3]Chris[/member] upthread that "comic artists are in fact artists and are underpaid"

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Thanks for the shout out.  :)

I'll ad hoc this.  That was my intention in starting the Comic Art Appreciation thread, not just for original artwork, but to showcase comic art as a legitimate art form.

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Comic artists (and their fans) have struggled with the legitimacy of the work for a very long time in that while the subject matter may have previously been geared towards kids, there is true art and skill and beauty in what they create outside of the subject matter (and within) of super heroes for example.

The good artists have to have an understanding of anatomy, lighting, perspective, foreshortening, motion, proportions, visual properties of surfaces (like metal vs cloth vs stone), converting 3D images to a 2D surface, as a silly example fashion, etc, etc, etc.  But the most important quality to me personally is:  The good artists make it compelling in that the image speaks to the viewer in some positive way.  These are the qualities of any graphic artist whether they be a painter or digital artist or comic book artist.

As far as I know, most comic artists don't make more than a $xxx/page freelance rate with no benefits, contracts, unions(?), etc and the standard comic is 32(?) pages.  There are very wealthy comic artists, but they are the rare exception and not the rule.

The feeling that I have always had about this from a pay perspective is (I may be right or wrong) that they are treated like the crew on a movie set who don't get paid very much because most people are just happy to be on the set and are less concerned about the pay than the experience.  If I am wrong about how it works on a movie set or any of my other "facts", I apologize and please treat this as an editorial/opinion.

The big difference with comic artists that I have seen interviewed or spoke with personally is they would like to be recognized for their skill and would like to be compensated in accordance with that skill and I agree with them.  One nice thing is that artists are getting some of the recognition at least as part of the last decade's comic book/con/movie/TV boom.

Sorry for the musings, but this is a topic near and dear to my heart in that I love comics and in particular comic pencils.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2017, 11:35:13 AM by Chris »

Offline matthew

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #21 on: April 27, 2017, 10:27:13 PM »
bob layton talks comics business. (i am a vol. 1 iron man fan...)




Offline mark

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #22 on: April 30, 2017, 10:06:29 AM »
Not sure if this is the best thread for this but some 70s footage from "The World of Comic Books" documentary that they showed at SDCC some years back.



Watch it and you're 16 minutes closer to finding out about your hotel.

Offline AzT

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #23 on: May 03, 2017, 11:00:33 PM »
Recognition of contributions made, always relevant to the business of comics:

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The history of comic book superheroes is littered with stories of creative geniuses who never got the proper credit or compensation for their work."Batman & Bill" tells one of them.

The documentary, available starting Thursday on Hulu, chronicles the quest of a writer, Marc Tyler Nobleman, to find out exactly who Bill Finger was and why his contributions to Gotham's Dark Knight were largely ignored through the decades. The film delves intensively into the nuts and bolts of a drama that's as old as human ambition and as relevant today as Batman is.

The short version is that Bob Kane had a long, lucrative career as the famed creator of the DC icon, while Bill Finger was an unacknowledged ghost writer who rarely appeared in public and never got recognition for developing Batman's major elements, from key characters to his origin story and beyond.

The longer version covered in "Batman & Bill" involves how Nobleman unearthed a trail of facts in what became a dogged effort to rewrite the legacy of Finger, who died alone and in poverty in a New York City apartment with eviction notices on its door. The film is basically a detective story about a detective story and, in some ways, it's also a memoir for Nobleman. He's shown asking his daughter about his work: "What's my job?" he quizzes her. "Bill Finger," she says. "What do I do?" he continues. "Bill Finger," she repeats.

The comics cognoscenti, who are aware of Finger's saga, should still find much to appreciate in the documentary, which includes interviews with Kevin Smith, Todd McFarlane and people who knew Finger personally. Viewers going in cold deserve to not have the outcome spoiled here. Suffice it to say that truth and justice usually win out in superhero tales, even if a long, hard struggle must happen to get there.

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Offline AzT

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #24 on: May 08, 2017, 06:27:21 PM »
To "develop another 'Marvel' in the Asian market;" will Camsing International Holding realistically achieve that via this acquisition?

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Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment has been acquired by the Hong Kong-based Camsing International Holding, report Deadline. Camsing Chairman/CEO Vivian Lo said the intent behind the acquisition is to "enhance Camsing's comic intellection property creation capability by working with Lee," and also to "develop another 'Marvel' in the Asian market."

“Adding Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment to the Camsing Family and having the distinct pleasure of working with the icon himself, marks an extraordinary opportunity for Camsing,” said Shane Duffy, Camsing's United States Vice President. “It will be a true pleasure to bridge our full portfolio of marketing platforms, distribution channels and theme parks around Stan’s endless list of unreleased IP laden entertainment properties. We are excited that he has allowed us to participate in his next chapter and look forward to strengthening his already guru metal legacy.”

POW! Entertainment was founded in 2001 by Lee, along with Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman, as a whole for Lee's new creations in comic books, television, film, and other media. With Camsing's acquistion, Lee will relinquish the role of POW!'s Chairman but remain as the company's Chief Creative Officer. Duffy will become POW's CEO, with Champion continuing as President.

“I believe the merger will bring significant synergy by combing POW!’s existing intellectual property library and Camsing’s strong IP merchandising network in China, therefore creating value for our shareholders," said Lo. "At the same time, this deal will enhance Camsing’s comic intellectual property creation capability by working with Lee, who is a global proven name. The group will continue to produce better products and content for its global customers and develop another ‘Marvel’ in the Asian market.”

Lee would reportedly continue to develop and produce unspecificied POW! projects.

Offline matthew

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #25 on: May 10, 2017, 07:25:06 PM »
archie comics, which makes almost all it's money from collected comics into digests, which then sell in places other than comic book stores.... will be selling marvel digests.



i know.





and bill finger's estate will never get any money. credit in the comics and movies, but never money. bob kane made sure dc signed papers "admitting" him the sole creator of batman, no matter what, or else he would pull batman out of dc. its a done deal.

Offline AzT

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #26 on: May 18, 2017, 11:26:05 AM »
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Want to Edit the BATMAN Titles? DC is Hiring You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

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DC has a job posting for a Group Editor to oversee its Batman titles. This is a position formerly held by Mark Doyle from February 2014 until his recent promotion to Executive Editor. The question of who would succeed him is one both creators and staffers working on Bat-titles have been wondering about... and with good reason; according to DC's job posting, those titles account for "approximately 1/3 of the profitability of our publishing line."

"DC Comics seeks a Group Editor for the Editorial- DC Comics department. Position will manage and oversee an editorial group dedicated to the Batman Family, as well as specified DC Universe, which present approximately 1/3 of the profitability of our publishing line," reads the job posting. "Create new storylines that expand the character mythos and build on the existing foundation of the DC Universe."

Here is a listing of the responsibilities and requirements of the position:

Job Responsibilities:

Manage the editorial product based on existing IP and leverage their wide, commercial appeal to expand readership.
Identify and develop new, world building editorial product designed to expand on the franchise or group of titles when and if possible with the key creative stakeholders of the licensed IP.
Manage the creative process for editorial products from conception through publication. Ensure that schedules and quality standards are met.
Seek to innovate and utilize new technologies to best reach existing fans of licensed IP and brand build with IP partners.
Seek ways to freshen ongoing series with new talent and story lines.
Oversee approval process to streamline and optimize communication and collaboration between editorial and IP stakeholders.
Supervise and develop team members.
Other duties/projects as assigned.
Job Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent experience.
7-10 years directly related editorial experience.
2+ years experience managing a creative team.
Ability to manage a creative team.
Knowledge of comic book industry strongly preferred.
Knowledge of art (ability to discuss composition, design, etc…) required.
Copyediting and proofreading skills preferred.
Ability to meet deadlines required.
Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing required.
Ability for some light travel strongly preferred.
Must have the ability to communicate effectively and tactfully with managers and other levels of personnel.
Must have the ability to pay close attention to details.
Must have the ability to organize.
Must have the ability to work well under time constraints.
Must have the ability to handle multiple tasks.
Must have the ability to meet deadlines, manage multiple project elements simultaneously.
MAC/PC proficiency required.
Domestic travel up to 10%.
 
Do you have what it takes, and are you willing to relocate to Burbank, California for this full-time position? Apply over at the Time Warner careers page and thank us later.

Offline RTFirefly

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #27 on: May 19, 2017, 06:44:00 AM »
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archie comics, which makes almost all it's money from collected comics into digests, which then sell in places other than comic book stores.... will be selling marvel digests.



i know.





and bill finger's estate will never get any money. credit in the comics and movies, but never money. bob kane made sure dc signed papers "admitting" him the sole creator of batman, no matter what, or else he would pull batman out of dc. its a done deal.

Bob Kane relinquished all rights to Batman when he signed that contract. He did not own the character and therefore could not pull the character from DC as far as I am aware. I am pretty sure the Finger estate gets something from the created with credit. 

Offline matthew

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #28 on: May 19, 2017, 10:26:45 AM »
superman creators were to get nothing when the first movie was being made. yet credited in the film. the movie producers had to be shamed into giving some money, which was then used in court to demand money. so no one will ever make that mistake again. also proves that one can give credit and not pay. they can request not to be credited however.

Offline AzT

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Re: The business of comics
« Reply #29 on: May 21, 2017, 05:26:36 PM »
Paging Marvel and going further on artists getting credit for their work (which fuels the business of comics):

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Romeo Tanghal, a comic creator in his mid-seventies, is best known for his inking work The New Teen Titans for DC Comics, but worked on hundreds of titles over the years at DC. He also worked at Marvel Comics as well, on Captain America, Fantastic Four, the New Universe, and more. There is a big difference though. He writes on Marty Pasko’s Facebook page, as part of a thread in which Pasko praised Jenette Kahn and Paul Levitz for introducing royalty rates and media payment schemes for creators, such that Marvel had to follow suit. Or rather, they did for some.

Romeo Tanghal Sr. If Marvel followed suit. i never received 'Royalty' from them. I sent them letter to inform my recent address, Email address and nothing in return. Ive been receiving 'Royalty' from DC for maybe 10 years or more but never with Marvel. Hey! Marvel! I worked for you!

He did. On these titles at least. Reprinted and available digitally without generating any… “incentive payment”.

    Barbie #44 (1994)
    Captain America #377, 424 (1990-1994)
    D.P. 7 #1-7 (1986-1987)
    Dazzler #42 (1986)
    Fantastic Four #303, 317, 321, 323-335 (1987-1989)
    G.I. Joe a Real American Hero #105 (1990)
    Impossible Man Summer Vacation Spectacular #1 (1990)
    Marvel Graphic Novel: Willow movie adaptation (1988)
    Marvel Spring Special #1 (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark movie adaptation) (1988)
    Marvel Super Special #40 (Labyrinth movie adaptation) (1986)
    Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. vol. 2 #15-17 (1990)
    Psi-Force #7, 10, 17-18 (1987-1988)
    Saga of the Original Human Torch #4 (1990)
    Savage Sword of Conan #182 (1991)
    Thor #399, 422, Annual #19 (1989-1994)
    Thor Corps #3-4 (1993)
    Visionaries #1-4, 6 (1987-1988)
    West Coast Avengers #23 (1987)

Maybe someone at Marvel could get in touch? And let him know the lay of the land?