It may still be August, but the Calvin Reid nevertheless has next year’s New York Comic-Con on the brain, how else to explain his lead PWCW story on organizer Greg Topalians’ plans to reach out to small press publishers and other alternative circles:
In an interview with Topalian, he also noted the absence of indie houses like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly at this year’s NYCC and said he plans to reach out to small indie comics publishers to offer assistance and to encourage them to exhibit at next year’s show. “If a press wants to come and can’t for money or whatever,” said Topalian, “we want to try and help them get here.” In addition Topalian outlined plans for all-day kids’ programming on Sunday and “comic book”-themed programming areas—“Batman” or “Manga”-themed areas, he said—added to help fans navigate the Javits Center, as well as adding roving helpers to answer questions and hand out maps.
I don’t mean to criticize, but I think the story would be more buzzworthy if Topalian could actually have bragged that one of those “indie houses” was actually scheduled to appear at the con. You can reach out all you like, but that in and of itself doesn’t necessarily merit a feature article. (Though I am glad to hear they’ll be expanding their space at the Javits.)
Also in this week’s edition: an interview with Kyle Baker about his new Special Forces series; an article on the new, ongoing Halo comic; and a look at Viz’s plans to publish Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tekkon Kinkreet. Man, I want that book bad.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:55 am
PW needs to do a newsletter on comics every week. Something like this is more their speed than World War Hulk.
Still, reporting this increases the chances of them getting some movement from the publishers, I’d think.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Uh, we DO do a newsletter on comics EVERY WEEK. It is called Publishers Weekly Comics Week. Unless you were being funny.
Subscribe free here.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Any confusion about what Topalian intended is entirely my fault. The point of story was to show that Topalian wants it known that NYCC will work with any indie press to help them attend NYCC if they want to attend. It was not meant to name drop D&Q or Fantagraphics. The fact that D&Q and Fantagraphics did not attend NYCC was noted by much of the comics press following this year’s NYCC and PWCW is not the first to note that they did not attend. The story was never intended to announce anything but a willingness by NYCC to work with indie presses and offer assistance when they can. Indeed Topalian told me at the time that he had made overtures to Fantagraphics and they still had declined to attend. I didnot include that in the original story because it seemed unnessary. My apologies for any confusion.
August 30th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Speaking as someone who has exhibited at both NYCC so far my advice would be to look at making your existing exhibitors happy rather than reaching out to new ones. I always wonder when I hear things like a promoter is “reaching out” to try and get exhibitor X when exhibitor Y is there, paying money and maybe thinking of bailing on the show because the things not worth the cost. It makes me wonder what kind of incentives are being tossed out to potential new exhibitors at teh expense of the early adopters.
If NYCC really wants to reach out they could do more to make their exisiting exhibitors experience better and let the satisfied customer do your outreach.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:12 am
I’ve been planning on attending the NYCC this coming year… till I found out the Small Press booths are going for $850. They might want to start by making it more affordable for indy publishers to exhibit. Just my 2 cents.