From: [t--mp--n] at [clipper.robadome.com] (Mark Thompson) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc Subject: CON: Diamond Retailer's Thang Report Date: 2 Jul 1994 01:34:45 GMT OK, if Francis is being delayed, I'll pop in here with my summary of the Con: The Diamond Retailers Seminar June 12-14 1994 Baltimore, MD Highlights and Comments --------------------------- (Note that I am a cynic and an Indie-lover. My opinions necessarily cloud my reviews and your mileage definitely varies). I was fortunate enough to attend the 11th Annual Diamond Retailers Seminar this year, wearing the hat of my own (fledgling) comic-book mail order business. Since I specialize in independents and manga, I was especially keeping my eyes open for the small-press stuff. I was somewhat disappointed, but only somewhat. Ah, well, I'll be at San Diego, where there's much more. Yow - even keeping it brief, this thing is now 350 lines. Sorry about that. - Tekno Comix Never heard of them? Neither had anyone else. But they were the (background) talk of the Seminar - they had the smoke and mirrors polished up big time for the Exhibit Room - unbelievable set up, including a huge, 25-TV Video Wall, and some sort of smoke machine. The attraction in their booth was that they had set up a virtual reality arcade game, where you competed with another player. You put on the goggles and went around smashing the pterodactyls and stuff. People thought it was pretty cool. It didn't escape our notice that they had no *product* to show, though... their video screen had people *talking* about these great comic books they were doing in November, including Neil Gaiman writing "Mr. Hero", about a steam- powered Victorian-era robot, and Leonard Nimoy writing about Earth's first contact from outer space. But no samples, no art, nothing but people *talking* about the books they were doing. Hmmm... Well, November *is* a while off yet. I'm reserving judgment until August, and frankly, I'm kind of hopeful. Some of the writing talent they have lined up for this imprint is amazing: Isaac Asimov (he created his comic for them before he died), Gene Roddenberry (ditto), Anne McCaffrey, Mickey Spillane, John Jakes, and some others I can't recall. The organizers of this comic-book company are apparently the original organizers of the Sci-Fi Channel, which is how they got to meet and work with Roddenberry and Asimov. And Nimoy, for that matter. - Dark Horse New Nexus series, with Baron and Rude, coming up. Mask movie looks fantastic (of course). Likewise, they showed about 15 minutes of "The Shadow" - that looks *real* good! Much better than I would have thought, frankly. Comics: Tarzan/Predator at the Earth's Core. (And they aren't kidding.) Also, Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, adaptations of Harlan stories by various people. Sounds good. All in all, they're really pushing diversity. I hope other dealers/folks were listening. Diamond seemed to give them a big nod and push... - DC Overall, a competent and informative presentation, mainly focusing on Zero Hour, of course, and complete with a Q&A session afterwards. The only Q&A I recall is "When *is* Sandman ending?" DC's response: "We have no idea. Every time Neil says he's going to be done at issue such-and-such, some artist he likes comes up and says 'geez, I'd *love* to do a Sandman story', and Neil says 'Gee, I've been thinking about this story that would be *perfect* for you', and he goes to Karen and asks 'Would it be all right if we extended Sandman just a *few* issues more?'. And Karen ponders for all of a few seconds and says 'All right.'" I think this was Bob Wayne talking. I remember that he summarized the whole thing with this: "So if you want Sandman to keep running, keep introducing Neil Gaiman to artists." - Marvel The stupidest comic-book session there (there were stupider card-company sessions). The "anchor" of their presentation was a 20-minute video tape where some baseball announcer is talking about their new books and some established titles as though they were baseball teams. Very little hard information. Stupid metaphors which made you just want to fume: "Generation X - a team of rookies! But as they step up to bat, will their manager, straight out of the major leagues, manage to control their firebrand pitcher?" What the *heck* is that supposed to *mean*? They didn't bother, for instance, to tell us who was *doing* the series... They apologized yet again for the Marvel Mart disaster, and tossed around some numbers that basically made us realize they care less and less about comic book fans and comic book dealers. They're looking to become Disney (and they said this *proudly*) where they are marketing their *characters*, not their comic books. Comics are now only about 35% of the Mighty Marvel Empire (and that's shrinking). Cards are another 25-30%, and licensing I guess is the rest (the details are getting fuzzy now). Opening "Marvel Stores" is just a logical step. They don't care about the comic book reader anymore - they care about the *general public*. So if something they does pisses off readers (oh, say, telling us that the character we've followed for 15 years hasn't *really* been Spider-Man), they don't care much - they're aiming at grabbing Joe Public's attention (like DC did with Superman 75). What really ticked me off (and also made me think that Marvel is getting downright desperate; this is the first time in recent memory that their market share is down around 30% (instead of ~50% as was the norm not too long ago)): They actually *said* that dealers should buy more Marvel comics and "resist the temptation" to buy those nasty other comics, like Bone and such. They grudgingly admitted DC might be OK, but that was *it* - they tried to paint it as "your customers are getting confused - there's too much product on the shelves. They'd much rather be seeing their old friends like the Hulk up there than that new stuff they've never seen before. And it's much harder to *predict* your sales of those nasty independents. Wouldn't you rather stay with a steady, predictable diet of Spider-Man?" *glahhhh* At first I wanted to scream, but as I thought about it further, I decided that Marvel's getting desperate and is resorting to "please buy our books" tactics and browbeating and bullying. I note they barely covered their storylines or upcoming books at all. Apparently what little energy they have left has been put into strongarm blustering instead of *good books*. :-( - Image Spaceship Image's presentation was kinda bland, Beau Smith and Larry Marder insisting that all was going to be OK, that Image was going to be fantastic. Riiight. They were willing to poke fun at themselves (Beau mentioning that something was "as confusing as listening to Todd count to 21"), but in general they just kept saying "isn't this all great?!". I dunno - Larry and Beau are OK guys, but as Beau put it, he's there just to take the considerable heat Image seems to generate every time they put their foot in their mouth. Like, about every couple of weeks or so. :-( Chris Claremont, though, will be writing an arc of Shadowhawk (!) (this was announced by Silvestri himself). Then, there were hints of a "Chris Claremont's Huntsman" miniseries sometime in '95. Out in the exhibit room, Image had a giant spaceship, shaped something like a small shuttle, which you could walk into (something like an exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry). It's supposed to be the Youngblood airplane or something. It's not bad - pretty decent, actually. I breathed a sigh of relief - that thing was *supposed* to be right in front of me at WonderCon, but Image couldn't figure out how to transport it - it's all one piece and it didn't fit on the truck they had. I guess they found a bigger truck for the Seminar. I'll bet it'll be at the Chicago Comicon and San Diego Con. And I'll bet the line to get in will be enormous and it'll be swamped by 12-year-olds. *sigh* They showed a film clip from the Youngblood animated show. It was maybe about 3 minutes long, and just had a battle of Youngblood versus some robots who just pop up in the desert. Typically, the battle didn't make much sense. Even in a 3-minute clip, continuity problems abounded. I don't see how even *kids* are gonna be able to watch this with a straight face ("hey! she was *knocked out!*"). - Chris Claremont He is now: - writing WildCATS & Shadowhawk for Image - writing Aliens/Predator for Dark Horse - writing Prudence & Caution for Defiant - writing Sovereign Seven for DC Is this the first time a writer has been working at four comic companies *simultaneously*? And it's four of the top five, too - the only one he's not working for is the one who fired him. - Topps Annnounced that Mars Attacks and Zorro are both doing quite well for them (!) Also announced they have the rights to do a "Duckman" comic book (starting in November) and an "X-Files" comic book (starting in December). There is apparently a Rob Liefeld cover on 1-of-every-5 copies of the first (just out) issue of "Victory", the Kirbyverse book. Apparently, after Jack passed away, Rob called up and said he wanted to do a cover or something "for Jack". Since Topps was already booked, artist-wise, they agreed to do a "limited cover variation" for him. Yes, this *is* going to be a repeat of the SPlatt mess from Prophet. *sigh* - Malibu Didn't pay for much time at the Seminar itself but held little mini-seminars in the Exhibit Room. They're having a big Firearm crossover called the Rafferty Saga coming up later this summer - it'll be in Firearm for 12 issues running, and each month it'll cross into *one* other book. The intent is to get Firearm readers to at least *sample* the other Ultraverse titles, while giving other title-followers a glimpse at Firearm. Ultraforce will be premiering in August, the new team book with art by George Perez. Yay! "Bound in" with it (and they haven't decided how to do the "binding" yet) will be a card to go with the Ultraverse Masterpiece series from Skybox. Hellboy and Sin City will both continue ad infinitum, or at least as long as sales hold up. Monkeyman & O'Brien, their own series this fall. - Skybox New Ultraverse Masterpiece Series looks really good - all Dave Dorman art. - Defiant Jim Shooter started his entire talk with a long rebuttal of Frank Miller's keynote speech (see below) as it pertained to Shooter's time at Marvel. And you know, for the first time, I felt that what he was saying was *true*. It didn't feel padded or fake. He left out the grandiose "I invented the graphic novel" claims, and talked about real innovations that I'll bet he *did* institute or push for at Marvel. Royalties, for instance. He claims they didn't exist when he took on the Editor- In-Chief post and he instituted them. Health benefits for artists. Return of artwork to all sorts of old-time creators *except* for Jack Kirby - because the lawyers wouldn't let him (since Jack had that lawsuit against them). He says he knows he didn't get everything the way he would have wanted it, but that he made some enormous strides, at a mainstream publisher. Heck, at the number *one* publisher. And he virtually demanded to be recognized for that. And for the first time, I thought maybe he *does* deserve some credit there. I've been following the whole "Shooter-as-God" thing since last year's Defiant launch, and didn't believe a word of it when he spoke last year. He was too full of goofy claims, and had no meat or backstory. Just line after line: "I invented graphic novels. I made artists more comfortable than ever before." blah blah. But this time, he had specifics, and he didn't claim to have done everything. But he *did* claim to have done *something*. Hmmm... He then went on to do a "dramatic reading" of the general backstory of Schism, the upcoming crossover. Next was a general introduction of the Defiant crew, and then that was it. - Starchild Going to second prints on 2-7, 3rd print on 1. First trade paperback, collecting 1-12, out towards end of year. Definitely wants to a do a limited-edition hardcover of the trade (James says it's been a "lifelong dream" to have something solid he can put on his shelf and say "I did that!"). - Chaos! Will not reprint any issues of Lady Death, ever. Brian Pulido says the production problems with the cover for number 1 were enough to make his head spin and he will *not* do that again. The trade paperback of Lady Death comes out next month. Another Evil Ernie series is coming up, and possibly another Lady Death mini in early '95. Right now he's really pushing his new "Lynch Mob" book, due out any second now. - A-V (Cerebus) Funky - no display booth, just a sofa, two chairs, and a coffee table. Being short on sleep, I never had the time to stop and talk, but it looked comfy... - Frank Miller/McCloud/Kitchen : The Speeches The highlight of the Seminar was Frank Miller's Keynote Speech at the Gemmy Awards. After listening to it, Tim and I looked at each other and walked out. We couldn't sit and watch something as banal as the Gemmies after listening to Frank. We spent another hour or so in our hotel room talking about what Frank said. I didn't agree with some of it, but it was forcefully delivered, and he certainly brought up some topics which engender discussion. It's gotten a little fuzzy in the intervening weeks, but I have it on tape at home and will probably relisten to it sometime soon. His basic theme was creator-ownership and how it should be the *norm* in the industry. He tore into work-for-hire companies, and shredded Marvel in a number of ways (interestingly, he left DC alone, except for one oblique reference). He said, for instance, that he knew what he was getting into when he worked for Marvel, but he was too caught up in his love for the work. He says he knew that when Marvel promised that he would be the only person to ever write Elektra, they would keep that promise for as long as it felt convenient to them. He ripped on Marvel over and over, castigating them for not returning Jack Kirby's art. And he drew parallels to Marvel wanting fans to be loyal to their characters, but that it got Chris Claremont not one *drop* of loyalty from the company, even when he had written their bestselling book for a decade and built it into the powerhouse it is today. He shredded Marvel over and over, and his only reference to DC was to say that he had made more money from Dark Knight than Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Dick Sprang combined. He commented on Image, praising them to high heaven, and accusing retailers of hating Image "because they had the guts to break away" from the slave ship. He castigated early comic publishers for routinely shredding artwork instead of returning it to the creators. There was more, but it's getting hard to remember. Quite a speech. There was also a noteable speech by Scott McCloud, talking about expanding the horizon of the art form and expanding the market *at the same time*, and how both really *depend* on each other. His was another fascinating talk. Denis Kitchen gave a short history of his time in comics - from the colorful early days of Kitchen Sink, through the founding of his own early distribution system, up to the beginnings of Diamond itself. It was fascinating - did you know Denis had been working for Phil Seuling for years as a flyer artist when Phil started the Direct Market? He offered Denis a chance to get in on the beginnings of Seagate... and Denis said no. He couldn't figure anyone would *want* to buy comics in such a fashion. Topics for the next note: Some answers from Diamond people: - why they barely carry adult books, and when they do there are *no* descriptions. - why they so often *refuse* to carry good books, like True Swamp, and Blue Moon Book 2. But this note is huge already, so those'll have to wait for the next one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Thompson | ROLM PhoneMail Prompts / UI [t--mp--n] at [clipper.robadome.COM] | A Well-Rounded Individual. More cookies please!