For followers of comic history, the Comics Journal website is reprinting a Gary Groth interview with Kevin Eastman where he talks about Tundra, his well-intentioned-but-ultimately-doomed publisher from the early 1990s, and it is a must-read, if only to see just how the best intentions can end up going so horribly, horribly wrong:
I believed I was armor-plated and unstoppable. I thought I would have all the resources I needed with some of the finest work from some of what I thought were some of the best creators in the field, and that this would be the “comics company” that would break down some of those barriers. By the time I arrived at the cold “reality” of my “fantasy,” I’m killing myself for something that’s never going to work: it’s too late! This whole time, as long as I’m physically awake, I’m working. Either related to Mirage or related to Tundra: In a bed that I made myself, for sure… I really thought that Tundra would be something. But it was ludicrous. I thought I would spend a year forming this brilliant company that would break all the rules. I’d bring all these talented people in and then expect them to climb inside my head, read my mind, and try to make these impossible things happen. At the same time I’m a poor leader crippling them.
It’s fascinating, occasionally breathtakingly ludicrous, stuff. A must read.
January 9th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
I remember reading this interview when it was new and the two things I found most striking were that Kevin would pay large advances for books without ever listing them in the Diamond catalog, and then the orders he’d get didn’t even cover the advance he’d paid out. But the biggest problem wasn’t Kevin’s fault and was an event which insured that no one would ever follow in his footsteps–that being that he’d pay creators large advances and then they’d never turn in the work! A year would go by and he’d suddenly realize that a number of books he’d contracted for hadn’t turned in a single page. This insured that no future publisher, no matter how much money they had behind them, would ever make the same mistake. I know someone who was doing a book for Tundra and he penciled all his pages, turned them over to the inker who was paid in advance, and months later was being yelled at by Tundra because the book was late and he discovered that the paid in advance inker hadn’t even started his work yet and had spent all the money he’d been paid to do the inking.