There Goes Neutro!
...right down the drain after I had the post all laid out nice. Fooey. Will attempt this again later.
More thoughts on the place of print-on-demand in comics? Sure.
Currently, we have no relationship with Diamond Comic Distributors. Back in the mid 90s, we put out an issue of SHADES AND ANGELS (essentially the first chapeter of NUMBERS) through them, and before that there was ED #1 (first appearance of ZOO FORCE) as 3CG. Now that we're distributed by a book distributor (Ingram) and a reorder distributor (Cold Cut), Diamond is more of a nice but not necessary deal. Ingram has a much greater reach (we are better represented in our local bookstores than in our local comics shop), and with Diamond you're in the catalog for a month, then poof! Diamond's desire for exclusivity precludes any other arrangements.
Still, those who know a bit about comics distribution look confused when I explain that no, we're not carried by Diamond, we're carried by a much larger book distributor--silence. What could be bigger than Diamond in comics? Diamond has done a good job of convincing folks that being in PREVIEWS is a stamp of approval, a mark of quality, proof positive that your work stands tall with Certified Cool books like LIBERALITY FOR ALL. I tell these folks there's a bigger arena out there for comics, and that there are multiple paths to the palace of wisdom here.
Print-on-demand is still like magic to me, even. In a poster we did for THE CHANGING BOOK, Fred Haygood tells Tom Hobbes that the process may involve "fairy dust and taco sauce for all I know, but at the end you get a real book." Still seems that way to me too, Fred. Instead of landing books at all the US comics shops, we can now hit any store on the map, worldwide. It means entering the arena of the book industry itself; and when folks there are still calling graphic novels a "genre", it can seem like a much better idea to scuttle back to the home crowd.
So here we are, making longform comics, skipping the monthlies and making exactly what we intended in the first place. We made a book with Matchbox cars and handpuppets; we made a multi-part original graphic novel series with cliffhangers; we have coloring and puzzles; we are doing more as I type this. I have a figure from a printer that I got a few years ago when (pre-POD) I was looking into an offset-printed version of NUMBERS. Eleven volumes of print-on-demand books later, I find we could do thirty more volumes before we exceed that cost. Where the off-set NUMBERS could have been, at best, in a couple issues of PREVIEWS, these eleven books are perpetually orderable through any outlet that uses Books In Print. That's the killer figure.
But, then the problem goes back to, who's buying? A thought for another post...
More thoughts on the place of print-on-demand in comics? Sure.
Currently, we have no relationship with Diamond Comic Distributors. Back in the mid 90s, we put out an issue of SHADES AND ANGELS (essentially the first chapeter of NUMBERS) through them, and before that there was ED #1 (first appearance of ZOO FORCE) as 3CG. Now that we're distributed by a book distributor (Ingram) and a reorder distributor (Cold Cut), Diamond is more of a nice but not necessary deal. Ingram has a much greater reach (we are better represented in our local bookstores than in our local comics shop), and with Diamond you're in the catalog for a month, then poof! Diamond's desire for exclusivity precludes any other arrangements.
Still, those who know a bit about comics distribution look confused when I explain that no, we're not carried by Diamond, we're carried by a much larger book distributor--silence. What could be bigger than Diamond in comics? Diamond has done a good job of convincing folks that being in PREVIEWS is a stamp of approval, a mark of quality, proof positive that your work stands tall with Certified Cool books like LIBERALITY FOR ALL. I tell these folks there's a bigger arena out there for comics, and that there are multiple paths to the palace of wisdom here.
Print-on-demand is still like magic to me, even. In a poster we did for THE CHANGING BOOK, Fred Haygood tells Tom Hobbes that the process may involve "fairy dust and taco sauce for all I know, but at the end you get a real book." Still seems that way to me too, Fred. Instead of landing books at all the US comics shops, we can now hit any store on the map, worldwide. It means entering the arena of the book industry itself; and when folks there are still calling graphic novels a "genre", it can seem like a much better idea to scuttle back to the home crowd.
So here we are, making longform comics, skipping the monthlies and making exactly what we intended in the first place. We made a book with Matchbox cars and handpuppets; we made a multi-part original graphic novel series with cliffhangers; we have coloring and puzzles; we are doing more as I type this. I have a figure from a printer that I got a few years ago when (pre-POD) I was looking into an offset-printed version of NUMBERS. Eleven volumes of print-on-demand books later, I find we could do thirty more volumes before we exceed that cost. Where the off-set NUMBERS could have been, at best, in a couple issues of PREVIEWS, these eleven books are perpetually orderable through any outlet that uses Books In Print. That's the killer figure.
But, then the problem goes back to, who's buying? A thought for another post...
posted by John Ira Thomas at
11:04 AM
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