Tom Brevoort’s questions from the floor series of blog posts gets to the meaty subjects. First up, foreign royalties:

Like our editorial staff, our accounting department is lean, and the revenue derived from overseas editions isn’t so great that it woul justify the manhours it would take to determine that somebody was owed a three-dollar check for a story that had appeared in Zimbabwe and to cut it.

Then, Marvel’s increased output in terms of how many titles they publish:

Well, hopefully, the reason for the increased output is that there’s more business happening in the Direct Market (and judging by the sales chart, the competition isn’t tapping into it.)

Both of which are but cheap segments of the greater picture. Go see the context they’ve been cruelly ripped from.

…over on Matt Fraction’s Image message board:

Jason Aaron is going to be doing a 3 issue run on Black Panther this summer.

Well, damn. That could be fun.

Want to be depressed? Take a look at Marc Oliver-Frisch’s analysis of the DC sales figures for February, where good books like The Brave and The Bold are being treated remarkably shoddily by the market:

This book is tanking spectacularly. The Brave and the Bold #10 was the last issue drawn by George Pérez, apparently, so the numbers are unlikely to improve.

To be honest, you can’t blame DC for giving an artist of Pérez’s caliber something else to draw. For whatever reason, people are dropping this book like it was the plague. The year-on-year performance is a disaster by any standard.

I have to ask: Why have orders for the series dropped so dramatically (over 50% in its first year)? It’s a great book with a “name” creative team that consistently delivers on a regular basis. Why aren’t you all reading it, readers?

Because Tom Brevoort’s answers to readers’ questions are worth posting about every day - I’m entirely serious about that, by the way - here he is, talking about marketing’s effect on editorial over at Marvel:

I think that most people have an imprecise picture of just what marketing does, and what their responsibilities aer, and so it’s easy to think of them as evil suit-wearing guys who are out to destroy everything good and worthwhile in comics. (And in some periods, they may have been just that way.) But at least at Marvel right now, the Sales and Marketing Department works hand-in-hand with editorial, each team managing their own side of the equation. So nobody in marketing says, “Hey, you must do this story!” or demand a certain villain or whatnot. What they will do when appropriate is pass along the feedback they’re hearing from the retail community (and, by extension, the readership), and they may make suggestions for what they feel could improve sales or generate a response from the marketplace. But those suggestions are just that: suggestions. Sometimes we act on them, sometimes we don’t, and sometimes they start a chain of events that results in something far different from what they were suggesting in teh first place. But editorial doesn’t work for Sales and Marketing–it’s a completely separate area.

Tom Brevoort on artists using photo reference (in response to this image by Greg Land, in particular; the animated version showing just how often Land re-uses the same poses, as well):

[E]every artist uses scrap to some degree. The history of comics is cluttered with artists who’d swipe their way to fame and glory. Now, today, the technology makes it all the easier to pull from all sorts of other sources as well–photographs or 3-D models or digital images or whatever. But it’s really all in how you use it. I wouldn’t hire a guy I didn’t think could draw the story effectively, but if the guy can do it, then he can do it. A buddy of mine from my art school days had a saying about art that I still use today: “If it looks good, then it IS good.” There’s more to what a guy like Greg Land brings to his page than his scrap, and that’s evidenced by the sales of the projects he draws–if the readership unilaterally decided to turn on him because of the way he uses sources in his artwork, then he’d probably have to approach things another way. But that hasn’t happened–there’s a tempest-in-a-teapot among a small group of people online, but that’s about it.

Paul O’Brien looks at the February sales figures for Marvel books, and finds himself surprised by a couple of things, including X-Force being the #1 book for the month:

Didn’t see that one coming, to be honest. Aside from the fact that I was expecting FANTASTIC FOUR to top the chart, I had this book figured for the lower end of the top ten. But apparently “Messiah Complex” did a better job of promoting this new series than I gave it credit for, and the variant covers don’t hurt…

I realise it may seem a bit churlish to say that [the Millar/Hitch Fantastic Four] has underperformed when its sales have almost doubled. But with Millar and Hitch, I kind of expected a number one placing. I certainly thought they’d break the 100K mark. Remember, February is a quiet month. If this had come out in January, then sales of 92,654 would have seen it place at number 13, just below MIGHTY AVENGERS #7. And this is the first issue with the new creative team, which means it’s probably going to drop next month.

So either there’s something odd going on here or this isn’t set to be a top ten book. And since there’s nothing else odd about the chart, I’m assuming the latter. That’s some way below my expectations when it comes to a new project by the creators of ULTIMATES.

It’s not all bad news for Millar, mind you; Kick Ass became the top-selling Icon book with its launch issue.

Mark Millar held another of his irregular “Millar Hours” yesterday, taking questions from posters on his message board and letting us know that he happens to love the Fifth Dimension and thinks that John McCain has “Captain America level integrity”. What, you want to know about his comic work? That’s under the jump.

(more…)

Very sad news from Mark Evanier, who’s had to announce way too much of this lately:

One of the most prolific artists to ever draw comic books, Jim Mooney, passed away in Florida on Sunday. He was born in 1919 and had been in failing health for some time, especially since the passing of his wife Anne in 2005.

Mooney was one of the greats. He’ll be missed.

Over at Whitechapel, Warren Ellis is continuing to talk about leaving Thunderbolts and his stance on creator-owned work:

I actually had no intention of going back into WFH (work for hire). The creator owned stuff was selling to expected numbers and things were ticking along fine.

What happened was that Mark Millar and Brian Bendis got in touch — they’d hit a scheduling wall and weren’t able to service twelve issues of ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, and asked me to help them out. And when your friends ask you for a favour, you do it, you know? So I said yes, and got to work.

That’s how I ended up doing more superhero comics.

The first odd thing happened after the first issue came out. Now, remember, I’d been doing mostly original material for the previous few years, and doing fine. But I was suddenly flooded with email from kids — teenagers — who had never heard of me before. What was happening, it turned out, was that I was reaching seven or eight hundred stores at maximum, and there was anything up to a couple of thousand stores who just weren’t ordering my stuff. I remember talking this over with people at Marvel and particularly DC, and it turned out that this was in fact the case — that two thirds of comics stores really don’t order much other than superhero comics and a few licensed books. And in those years of doing my own thing, the audience had turned over to the point where there were people who’d never read a thing by me. It hadn’t been all that long ago that I’d been selling 200,000 copies of DV8 and 150,000 copies of WOLVERINE, I thought…

The second really odd thing came in some months later. Sales of TRANSMET TPBs spiked massively. And the only thing that had changed was that I was writing UFF. What had happened was that these new readers had liked UFF, gone looking for other stuff by me, found nothing in their local store, gone to Amazon or bookstores, and picked up TRANSMET books. A few months later, I saw numbers on all my other creator-owned TPBs pick up too.

And now we can sell more than 12,000 copies of CRECY in a matter of months.

And what’s REALLY strange is that I discovered Marvel under Joe Quesada and Dan Buckley is in fact a really nice place to work.

The thread also features appearances from Brian Wood, B. Clay Moore and Jonathan Hickman.

Marvel B0y jumps whatever credibility shark (s)he hadn’t already jumped:

And you want a spoiler, here’s the spoiler. Here’s the dark little secret that no one outside the office walls is talking about: Joe Q is about two weeks away from getting fired. Not just shown the door but having it slammed so hard it knocks him on his ass. He can sing and dance about how much of a success OMD was as much as he wants but everyone knows he messed up. Both licensing and west coast are pissed and even people in editorial know it was a mistake. There have been at least three meetings in the last couple of weeks about how we can get Peter and MJ back. Everything from lets just say it was an April Fool’s stunt to Peter’s been a Skrull since right before the unmasking has been thrown out there. (of course they have overlooked the best and most logical fix…it was Mysterio messing with Spidey’s mind!)  So the writing’s on the wall and Q knows it. He looks terrible, he’s hardly in the office anymore and when he is, he just sits in his office with the door closed the whole time. He even got disinvited to the Iron Man premiere in NYC! So when it happens, remember you heard it HERE first, Quesada is done at Marvel.  Don’t be surprised if you start reading MyCup of Blah-Blah-Brevoort sometime soon!

The Bendis Board reacts: (more…)

Pressed for time and subject matter, Tom Brevoort opens his blog up to questions from the floor:

Next week, I want to do five posts each one answering a fan-asked question. That’s where you all come in. And just to make it interesting, let’s run this like the pick-lists we did a few weeks back: in other words, each poster can ask two questions in the reply thread here, but anybody can veto any question for any reason. By Monday morning, hopefully we can have five questions or close to five questions that people really want to hear about, and that’ll carry us through another week.

So, Internet, what is it that you really want to know?

I honestly hope that he doesn’t regret asking that question. Not only for the obvious reasons, either; Tom’s a smart man, and I’d love to see him answer some good questions.

Johanna Draper-Carlson explains how to get yourself added to review comp lists:

You look cheap and greedy if you start asking for review copies before you have a substantial body of reviews to show your ability and dedication. Write well, a lot, and regularly.

When you put up your site, there’s nothing wrong with including a brief notice in the sidebar, something to the effect of “Review copies may be sent to me at (address)” or “Please email me for information on where to submit review copies” (if you don’t want to publish your address; if you do, I suggest using a PO Box). But don’t start asking everyone and their dog for free comics until you’ve been doing this a while and can show consistent publication.

Worth noting is the first of her “other tips” on the subject: “You won’t get on DC or Marvel’s comp list.” No free copies of every issue of Avengers for you, sadly…

…because Mike and Cary are the creators on Secret Invasion: X-Men:

“It’s a huge core cast,” assures the writer. “All the [characters from UNCANNY X-MEN and ASTONISHING X-MEN], all the students [from NEW X-MEN], and some mutants like Iceman and Cannonball who aren’t on any team roster but [will be] at ground zero when this crisis [hits]. The only heavy hitter we won’t get to use is Wolverine because he’s busy elsewhere.

“In ‘Messiah CompleX,’ the X-Men were a tightly-knit team facing a small army,” Carey continues. “Here the X-Men are a small army facing a full-sized invasion force, complete with air support, heavy artillery and some of the dirtiest weapons you could hope never to see.”

Valerie D’Orazio is thinking about what “making it” actually means:

Getting angry, feeling entitled, all this shit — it’s pointless. Because I’ve seen too many people driven figuratively or literally insane by this desire to write/draw mainstream comics. It’s as if even if they reach that level, things will mysteriously be “okay” for them.

Getting your first comic gig does not put you on easy street. If you are prone to negativity, you will find a whole new bunch of things to bitch about. And you will still have to prove yourself, issue-by-issue. You don’t just cinch your first fill-in and suddenly become Bendis. Bendis didn’t even suddenly become Bendis.

Given the crap Bendis gets from the internet on a regular basis, both deserved and not, I think you can argue that Bendis isn’t even Bendis more often than not in most people’s eyes.

That sound you just heard was my nerd head exploding after reading Jeff Katz talk about what’s following Booster Gold’s Zero Hour tie-in:

I’m not even sure. We were talking about doing these types of crossover issues very early on, and I can tell you that we have “Booster Gold” #1,000,000 upcoming. I would have loved to get in “Armageddon 2001” somewhere in there too.

I loved DC One Million… *sigh*

The fans are turning on Marvel B0y:

“Wow, this doesn’t read like ‘viral marketing’ *AT ALL*.”

“Really, I respect what you all are doing here, viral marketing is very useful….but I hope you use this as a learning experience. The interwebz are very savvy. You can do better. Oh NOES THERE IS a SKruLL iN MARVELLS OFFICWS!!”

“Oh, Marvel(’s)_B0Y! i’m starting to wonder about your jen-der constantly, my copy machine using friend… You should stop taking pictures of your bosses office, b0y– and you’ve gone from copy machine to marketing machine in a week’s time.”

Apparently, that’s what happens when you write posts that say things like:

Brand New Day – say what you will about how they got there, the stuff coming up is even better than these past few months.  Two words:  Kraven.  Venom.

The Byrne Board wonders, just how greedy was Bob Kane?:

“I remember that Bob Kane said in some interview that he created Dr. Death, The Monk, the Batman, and the Batarange.  Everyone knows that Gardner Fox created Dr. Death, The Monk, the Batplane, and the Batarange.  Why would Bob Kane take credit for things that were really Gardner Fox’s ideas.”

Byrne himself weighs in:

“Having taken credit for everything Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson did, Kane was on a roll!”

Harsh but fair, really. Further in the thread, and needing to be seen to be believed: Kane swipes Todd McFarlane and Kane’s gravestone, which credits Batman’s creation to God.

Marvel B0y is still around, apparently:

Well “True Believers,” the drama continues! After my LJ blog got taken down on Saturday, I thought for sure I was walking into an ambush this morning. But as you can see, I live! I thought the man was on to me but apparently, they still have no clue. I clocked in, fired up the computer, and all my files were still there.  No security to escort me, no being called in to Bogart’s office and definitely no ten people who already knew who I was. And the best part is that everyone thinks I was caught. Anyone that called in sick or who took off is now assumed to be me. Priceless. All morning a group of editorial sleuths thought it was JG until someone finally told them that he sent an email saying he was sick. This is the best reality tv I’ve watched in months.

The question is, is it the real Marvel B0y?

(Thanks, Jeff.)

Ahead, apparently, of a story in the next issue of The Comics Journal, both Valerie D’Orazio and Alan David Doane revisit bad comic stores of their youth:

Downtown in Greenwich one day with mom and my younger brother, we went into Hughes Newsroom. Ah-ha! There on the bottom tier of a two-tiered magazine rack were the comics. Well, you knew they had to be here somewhere, right? 1980 was still in the beginning years of the direct market, and comics were living out their dying breaths in the mainstream magazine distribution chain, so they generally could be found in most towns, but you had to look.

I grabbed as many as I could afford (read: talk my mom into buying for me) and went up to the counter. And here is the meat of this tale, which laid buried in my mind until Val brought it back for me in her post (linked above):

The old man, Hughes himself, took the stack of maybe half-a-dozen comics. He put them on the counter. He put the palm of one hand on the bottom half of the cover of the top book on the stack, and then, one by one, he bent the covers back to see the prices and ring them up on the cash register.

Again: He put the palm of one hand on the bottom half of the cover of the top book on the stack, and then, one by one, he bent the covers back to see the prices and ring them up on the cash register.

In my head, a voice screamed: OH MY GOD. HE IS KILLING MY COMICS. STOP KILLING MY COMICS!

In the store, a young teenage boy smiled meekly as the old man, Hughes himself, handed me a bag with my now-ruined comics and no doubt told me to “have a nice day.” A day he had just destroyed by KILLING MY COMICS.

The fans at the Bendis Board are wondering it’s time to finally admit that short, hairy Canadians can have their day:

“Is Wolverine iconic yet? I define ‘Iconic’ to mean several things. But in this case I mean, can the general public identify them by sight? Can they describe their powers and idea accurately in one or two sentences? Then the character in question is iconic… [I]n the eyes of the general public, does Wolverine stand with Spidey, Cap, and the Hulk yet? Is he an Icon? I’m thinking he is.”

Considering his appearance in three blockbuster movies, as well as cartoons and all manner of merchandise, it’s a surprising question if only because it seemed such an obvious yes. But not everyone agrees:

“Right now I basically consider the mainstream comic icons to be those my parents and older generations can instantly recognize as easily as youthier groups. Those would be: Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and the Hulk. Flash and Aquaman are definitely in there more than anyone else, but probably aren’t as much so as the first list. Wolverine will without a doubt be on that first list in a few generations. Older generations don’t know him as well, and I don’t think they ever will, just because they’re old and they suck. But, they’re gonna die, sooner than the rest of us. With younger groups Wolverine is as recognizable as any other comic character, period.”

(Youthier?)

“DC supporting characters like Lois Lane, Alfred, and possibly even Jimmy Olsen are more iconic than anyone from Marvel except for possibly Spider-Man and maybe the Hulk. Wolverine will probably never quite read that stage. Because he isn’t even really ‘iconic’ in any way.”

“‘Iconic’ and ‘popular’ seem like two different things in my head. Might be just me, though.”