Prophet of Doom

It's hard for me to see how comics reinvigorate themselves as a commercially viable artform without capitalizing on the digital format. Print may not be dead yet, but the trend across multiple industries is clear. Newspapers are dying out and book, music and video stores are closing. Meanwhile digital distribution and viewership of the same content is on the rise.

It might be bad news for some comic shops, but the industry can't afford to artificially protect them from the same trends facing other industries if it comes at the expense of delivering what the modern consumer demands. At the same time, maybe a compromise could be reached, with some content exclusively distributed online and some only in print.

The internet and digital age simply offer too many advantages to the consumer to be ignored. You get instant delivery, you have a potentially unlimited array of choices available, you save time and gas money and you don't have to worry about storage space or disposal of physical goods.

The side effect for comics, that would be beneficial in my opinion, would be removing the collectibility factor as a driving force in the marketing. For the industry to still be relying on this with alternate covers, chase covers, #1 issues and so on given how far readership has fallen is just pathetic. It's as if they've lost so much respect for themselves that they're willing to swindle the village idiot out of his money just to survive. If comic publishers knew that their only chance to drum up interest was through great content, then we might see more great content. There would still be the opportunity to print collectible editions just as music LPs are still being made for collectors, but collectors wouldn't be expected to be the primary audience. Story "gimmicks" like the Death of Superman might still happen but at least people would be reading and judging the stories rather than leaving them sealed in a polybag.

One challenge in changing media is structuring the business so that it can make a profit. Whether it's through advertising, subscriptions, per-issue purchases or some combination is a question that needs to be worked out. Certainly an advertising-only policy would help boost readership. At any rate, I think there has to be some way for the reader to sample the comic and than an easy way to purchase or subscribe.

Other things may need to be tweaked for comics to succeed in the digital arena. I think a weekly rather than monthly publication schedule, maybe 6 pages per week, makes more sense online. People's attention spans are shorter now and unlike with print, this wouldn't be a cost problem. Drawing the comics in a widescreen format to fit modern monitor resolutions also makes sense. Movies have changed their aspect ratio over time so I think comics can do the same successfully. More controversial might be adding sounds or animation enhancements to an online comic book presentation, but I feel it'd be fair game to let a creator experiment with possibilities like that if they wanted to.

Are they using them for anything? At all?

Too bad. Did you have to sign away rights to the property in return for funding?

Thanks for that detailed explanation. Wonder how much Marvel paid Neary to fabricate both the idea and the comic itself. Damn, those guys are a-holes.

I actually reviewed Marvel UK's Plasmer in the 'Nuff Said APAzine back when it came out, and I knew/suspected at the time that it may have been a book produced solely to sabotage DEFIANT. Now I know. (Still, it was actually, fortuitously, a very funny book. The Plasmer character was female.)

Naturally, I lamented the end of DEFIANT, and esp. its best title, Warriors of Plasm. It was true science fiction, and perhaps the best American SF comics ever, in no small way thanks to the amazingly alive and detailed art by Dave Lapham. I would have loved to see it continue for a hundred issues. Is there any hope at all of bringing it back in some form?

I can answer that. DEFIANT's flagship title was called Warriors of Plasm, and just then Marvel UK had a mini-series called Plasmer, so they sued over right to use the word "plasm" in a title. Whether Marvel UK's book was a coincidence, or created specifically to sabotage the DEFIANT title, I don't know. Maybe Jim does.

(Incidentally, though, the Plamer mini-series was actually hysterically funny, and I couldn't help buying it, even though I was entirely on Jim's side in the lawsuit.)

I'd be interested in hearing more about Defiant too. I've still got the Plasm and Dark Dominion 0 card sets sitting in one of my boxes.

Jim, You said, "The recent collapse of the sports trading card market presages the biggest threat now facing the comics industry….Comics are an entertainment medium first and collectible merchandise second."

Given that, why on earth did DEFIANT create Plasm 0 and Dark Dominion 0 as trading card sets, which basically put the collectible aspect before the entertainment aspect (since it's difficult to be entertained by a comic book that's missing panels)? Note that this question is being asked by a person who did buy at least one box of Plasm cards — and that was after I had bought the Previews issue that included Plasm 0 for free (which is another marketing move that has me scratching my head). –MikeAnon

Things you don't see can be just as informative as the things you do see. If you can imagine an animal with a less evolved eye learning for the first time that the input it's receiving in the form of light is relevant towards navigating or feeding… it would be silly to assume there isn't a new frontier out there or a new sense that we currently deny or disregard.

I think your words were prophetic. You spoke warnings when everyone around you said otherwise. I think those who speak prophetically do consider their words to be common sense.

I once looked at a girl I really liked and told her she'd quit her job in 9 months. She assured me that she could not do that and that her job was very important to her. 9 months later she quit her job. She just walked out. My prediction was common sense to me because I knew she could not control her moods. I knew that she'd be at a boiling point in about 9 months. I didn't want to be right, but I was. I actually wish I was wrong more often.

Getting back to the title…. it's important to know that a prophet is always out of sync with "now". A prophet says "beware" when everyone is happy and celebrating. A prophet is happy and filled with hope when others are down and depressed. A prophet's mind lives in the future and the present day is old news to them.

Defiant (or more accurately, "Enlightened Entertainment Partners") did apply for a Trademark on "Schism", but stopped publishing comics several months after the application, so technically they never owned a Registered Trademark for "Schism".

And I guess I'm in the minority, in as much as I enjoyed the period of time during the early 1990's where places to buy comic books littered the landscape. It was cool to have over a half-dozen stores selling comics no further than a 20-minute drive from where I lived (quadruple that number for 45 minutes to an hour away). Sure, it was obvious which owners were only selling comics to make money, but more stores meant that I never had a hard time finding almost anything I wanted to buy, new or old. Fast-forward to today, where I have to drive at least 30 minutes to get to the closest store, and there are only five shops total that are within an hour's drive from my home.

To be fair, I don't feel that the majority of 90's comic sellers that I ran across were pushing people to buy multiple copies of anything, they simply saw comics as an easy way to make money. Most of the stores who jumped on the band-wagon did a decent job of having a nice variety of new books, and all but a few were quick to acquire items for their "back issue bins". A lot of these types of sellers also sold sports cards, so when comic sales dropped, "no more comics", they simply switched to something else (Beanie Babies were the next big thing, if I remember right). They didn't talk about comics to customers too much because they were fans of sports cards. I always heard them talk passionately to their customers whenever I was in their stores about the latest "hot item" in the world of sports collectibles, but hardly heard them say anything about comics because it wasn't their hobby.

The only time I remember overhearing a "speculator" talking about comics was at a flea market, where one dealer with one lousy box of comics was talking to another dealer, going-on about the 100+ copies of Lady Death # 1 he had stock-piled, drooling at the thought of all the money he was going to make reselling them. I walked away, rolling my eyes.

Yes, they are similar, but Trademark protection is limited so companies don't go hoarding Trademarks they aren't going to use. Trademarks are to protect consumers so that some competitor of one product doesn't copy the logo of an established product and try to pass it off as the same thing.

I think it's reasonably safe to assume that the Trademark for Schism (if DEFIANT ever applied for it) had lapsed long ago. The notion that a company can use a logo like that and own it for life without using it horrifies me a bit. That would be akin to cybersquatting where companies were buying up domain names and not using them.

Trademark law actually makes sense in the current era. Copyrights do not since they no longer encourage innovation and progress.

Kintounkal, you sort of make a good point.

Here's Marvel:
http://i.newsarama.com/images/MMXI_SCHISMfull2_02.jpg

Here's Defiant:
http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/6/69676/1377164-warriors_of_plasm_13_00_large.jpg

The words "Schism" are pretty similar, indeed.

Go figure that the Marvel one is done by Greg Land, though.

I seriously doubt that there is an active trademark for the Schism logo. A similar logo would be fair game.
I'd be more concerned about the story elements which the movie Hancock swiped from Broadway.

Jim,

The Defiant books are still some of my favorites. Is there any chance you could elaborate on the direction you wanted to take those characters. Is there any chance we might see them again someday? Do you have any ownership of the characters you have created over the years? If you could return to any of the universes you have created, which would it be, and why?

Thanks for the great blog.

People underestimate how much the baseball strike had on the comics collapse.

Unfortunately, the low profit margins at the retail level, the lack of business savvy, and the time spent simply running the store sap a store owner's motivation to aggressively market the product. In the 90's, the convention dealers were "weekend warriors" with low business overhead. They promoted comics by selling to their friends and neighbors. Diamond eliminated sub-distribution in the 90's which hurt both the marketing of comics at street level, but also a store's ability to flip comics quickly in volume and reap the benefits of a better discount. Currently, no one can afford to adequately promote comics and no one is. Now is the time that comics need to be promoted more than ever. The distribution chain is the bottleneck. Publisher need to break away from their idiotic contracts with Diamond. They need to push comics out on all fronts through as many outlets that are willing to distribute them. Digital distribution is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The recording industry lost millions of dollars when the digital distribution age came upon them. It is now evident that digital distribution has leveled out and the income is not going to get them back to their earlier sales levels. Digital distribution alienates the collector which was the most loyal customer that comics had. At Coca Cola's most prosperous time in history, 80% of the profits went back into marketing.

When I was little, Captain D's and Big Boy restaurants had their branded comics in the front of the store. Comics were on the mind of the general public. Now comics are relegated to low rent strip malls. When you walk in, a customers is faced with smelly geeks boisterously spouting alien RPG dialogue as they roll the dice on some game of fantasy. The back issues have stacks of worthless unsalable comics piled up on top of them. The employees are burnt out and wondering how they are going to pay their rent at the end of the month. It a dreary, uninspiring atmosphere unless you have been indoctrinated into the culture. Heaven forbid someone walk into a comic book store and handle it like they would a magazine at the grocery store. They'll get their head snapped off and receive a lecture about the horrors of adding a spine crease and devaluing the comic.

Collectors' appetite for #1 issues is seemingly insatiable. It's a sad state of affairs for those of us who prefer good stories. Now major titles are relaunching from #1 much more often than once a decade, and it's becoming very difficult to keep track of what's what. I blame the companies (the Big Two); they don't really seem to care about the loyal readers. OTOH, I can see why they want to relaunch a title when the sales numbers drop off as quickly as they do. It's just hard to see how this sort of trick can keep working in the long term. Maybe the era of the pamphlet comic is coming to an end. Is this a good or a bad thing?