“No, stop it already”: The National Post’s Afterword blog interviews the Essex County trilogy’s Jeff Lemire as part of their countdown to next weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. The format is a bunch of short, random questions given short answers, giving the Q and A more of a quiz-like feel. The answer above was to the question “What comic should be adapted by Hollywood that hasn’t?” You’ll also find links to similar features they’ve done on Dash Shaw, Adrian Tomine and others, and more will presumably follow throughout the week, like these ones on J. Torres and Ryan North, so you may wanna keep your eyes peeled.
“God-Man: The Movie”: This week Ruben Bolling’s Tom The Dancing Bug features a trailer for the dark superhero movie re-invention of the strip’s resident superhero, the most powerful superhero of them all. Out-dark that, Christopher Nolan!
“[B]ut a long time ago that what’s the Direct Market was set up to do: give people a chance to buy the one comic book they wanted to buy”: Tom Spurgeon ruminates on news that cartoonist James Turner’s new series Warlord of IO doesn’t qualify for Diamond’s new minimum standards, and what that means not just for Turner, but for the direct market and comics in general. Well worth a read.
“We’re out there…and we’re working very closely with other divisions to see what’s the best way to get this thing into the most hands”: Over on the main site, Matt Brady recently conducted his regular chat with Dan DiDio about all things DC, and that’s how DiDio responded to the question of whether or not there was “any kind of marketing push centered on Wednesday Comics in order to get the word out about the material to the audience beyond the Direct Market.” I hope to God DC’s already sending review copies to, like, every newspaper in America. Given how big the “newspapers are dying” story has been played up in the media recently, particularly in newspapers, I imagine arts editors all over would be thrilled to write a story about comics/superheroes (a hot trend!) that so consciously tries to replicate the unique experience of reading a newspaper (a thing newspapers love talking about!). Plus, Neil Gaiman is involved, and the media loves talking to/writing about him. He’s like the most affable comics figure in the world, this side of Stan Lee. I’ll honestly be both surprised and disappointed if I don’t see at least as much attention paid to Wednesday Comics as I did to the Batwoman’s-a-lesbian story in 2006.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:48 am
“I hope to God DC’s already sending review copies to, like, every newspaper in America. ”
Dan Didio says that the marketing department of DC is totally not under his control so often that I think he get gets paid to do it. There are numerous books over the last few years that would/could have gotten press easily if it had just been sent out to the media. The all-spanish issue of Blue Beetle is my favorite example. How did that not get mentioned in every Spanish newspaper in the country?
I have not seen too many (if any) examples of DC’s Marketing department doing much of anything to push their books outside the comic shops.
Back in the 90’s when Warner Books was publishing DC’s Trade collections, they went out to the regular media reviewers list. I have no idea how many people get review copies of new TPBs and Graphic Novels now. I’d be curious to know.
My great fear is that DC as a whole will “decide” (a word which here means “making a choice after a period of serious thought”, so perhaps it’s not the best term) that Neil’s name, along with the unique format will be all that’s required for the media to find out about the book, and will do little to nothing to publicize it.
Weeks ago I made the suggestion that they actully PUT an issue (or more likely a four or eight-page abbreviated edition) INTO the Sunday comics section of a few papers in the country like an ad supplement. It would be massively expensive, but it would get the word out to more people than a review in Entertainment Weekly would do.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
DC has a marketing division?
May 4th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Vinnie said: “Weeks ago I made the suggestion that they actully PUT an issue (or more likely a four or eight-page abbreviated edition) INTO the Sunday comics section of a few papers in the country like an ad supplement. It would be massively expensive, but it would get the word out to more people than a review in Entertainment Weekly would do.”
That’s right, and I mentioned that something like that isn’t unprecedented. A few years ago, The first 12 issues or so of Amazing Spider-Man (that’s right, the original Lee/Ditko stories) were reprinted and ran as inserts in newspapers across the country. Each issue was split up into two parts, so it took two Sundays to get the whole reprinted issue, but it was still cool stuff.
I never figured out why that promotion even happened (a way of getting people excited about Spidey 3? Not sure), but it was still a cool way to get Marvel product into people’s hands. DC should’ve thought about a similar concept when dreaming up Wednesday Comics.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Joe H said: “DC has a marketing division?”
Hey, cut them some slack! Imagine how hard it is to market genius editorial decisions like: “Let’s kill Bruce Wayne and replace him for who-knows-how-long right after the newest Batman movie became one of the biggest hits ever,” or “Let’s have Superman leave the planet and not appear in either of his usual main books for at least a year,” or “Let’s do a weekly comic featuring our three most famous characters but then have them all disappear for about half of the series,” or “Let’s take the one meaningful death DC ever did and bring that character back just because I love the Silver Age,” or… Eh, you get the idea.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Of course, if you look at a quality book like Manhunter, and how it didn’t catch on, I can understand how you might be amzzed to learn that DC does indeed have a marketing department.