Can creator owned comics save the comics industry?

[Ascended]

Overall I personally believe this would be a good route for many creator-owned comics to take.

To add to this, I'd say that there's likely a good amount of creators who want their characters to outlive them. Look at Spawn; Todd McFarelene (however you spell his name) has overseen the comic in a producer type capacity but hasn't been hands on for ages (though I guess he's gone back now?) And I suspect that Mignolia (spelling?) would be quite happy to know that Hellboy was going to continue after his work is done. What artist doesnt want his work to outlive him, after all? I'd think the biggest difference between creator owned work and the guys who do work for hire is that the creator owned folks are more invested in making sure the right people take over for them, as opposed to the work for hire guys where its all just corporate profit mongering.

[FanboyStranger]

To add to this, I'd say that there's likely a good amount of creators who want their characters to outlive them. Look at Spawn; Todd McFarelene (however you spell his name) has overseen the comic in a producer type capacity but hasn't been hands on for ages (though I guess he's gone back now?) And I suspect that Mignolia (spelling?) would be quite happy to know that Hellboy was going to continue after his work is done. What artist doesnt want his work to outlive him, after all? I'd think the biggest difference between creator owned work and the guys who do work for hire is that the creator owned folks are more invested in making sure the right people take over for them, as opposed to the work for hire guys where its all just corporate profit mongering.

Mignola would probably be okay with BPRD continuing in some capacity as long as John Arcudi and Scott Allie were involved, but he's always had a planned ending for Hellboy. I believe he's stated that we are a third of the way through the Hellboy saga with Hellboy in Hell being the second third.

McFarlane basically just uses Spawn to shill for the toys he's making in a given year.

[Darrin Kelley]

Yes, Creator Owned properties are the future of the industry.

However, it likely will not be the big companies putting out the creator owned products. But independant publishers.

Marvel and DC have become stagnant. They lack the will to pursue anything but firmly established properties. They get to play it safe and pursue properties they already know to be successful.

Independants live by taking risks. So that's where any true chances will be taken.

[FanboyStranger]

Dc continues to put out creator-owned properties through Vertigo, and I'd say most of them are somewhat risky. Federal Bureau of Physics, The Kitchen, and The Names are great books, but they don't seem to be safe to me.

[RobinFan4880]

I think TMNT is the best example of what an indy comic can do if it has a unique idea, solid creators and piques the interest of people outside the industry.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I don't know if creator owned comics can save the comics industry in terms of dollars and sense (does it really need saving, as far as this goes though?) but they're definitely the way forward artistically, as the Big 2 sink further and further into corporate meddling and event-driven nonsense. Not to say that there aren't good Big 2 superhero comics but they no longer feel like the future to me. But then, didn't Robert Kirkman say this a while back?

[FanboyStranger]

I think TMNT is the best example of what an indy comic can do if it has a unique idea, solid creators and piques the interest of people outside the industry.

Yeah, I agree with one caveat: most people have no idea that TMNT was a comic first or that a TMNT comic even exists. Everything else about the property is huge.

[GlennSimpson]

OK, let me see. So "saving the comics industry" would involve, basically, getting more people to buy comics. Now, for people to buy comics, three things have to happen:

1. They have to know about the comic.
2. They have to be able to find the comic.
3. They have to enjoy the concept and content of the comic.

So looking at the proposition being posed here, that having more creator-owned work would make people buy more comics, let's take each item.

Knowing about the comic. I suppose in order to discuss this, it would matter how far "creator owned" is going. Is it an Image type situation where they handle marketing, printing, and distribution in return for some cut of the sales (I assume)? Or is it some guy doing everything out of his garage? In order to market a comic, you're going to need some infrastructure. So I think who owns the characters here doesn't really matter - you are going to need some big business to get people to know about it. However, arguably people might be more inclined to keep up with the latest work by a given creator once they are familiar with him or her, so it could help there once the person has a name.

Being able to find the comic. In many ways, this is same as above. But maybe it's not so bad - with digital comics it's possible to get comics in people's hands fairly easily, assuming you got the first part done. But I don't know that there's any distinct advantage to creator-owned in this area either. Ownership really doesn't affect this either way.

Having the comic be good. Frankly, this is largely subjective. You do have the the real world situation that most of the most recognizable and desired characters are corporately-owned. So in terms of giving people concepts they are familiar with (like Superman), creator-owned isn't really helping. If we assume that creator-owned is going to generate the most new concepts that are going to somehow "catch up" with Superman, Batman etc. (such as Walking Dead), then maybe. It's a question of tried-and-true vs. new-and-different.

So overall...not sure creator-owned is going to make a difference one way or the other. Not saying it's a bad thing. I might be inclined to think that the "donut" of career might be the thing to do - start out in small press as an audition or act of love, then use that to get noticed by DC or Marvel to get your name out there, and then use that name recognition to go back and do creator-owned when you have an audience that will buy something just because you wrote or drew it.

[GlennSimpson]

Yeah, I agree with one caveat: most people have no idea that TMNT was a comic first or that a TMNT comic even exists. Everything else about the property is huge.

Yeah, it's like the Wonder Woman situation. Gillions of people around the world know who Wonder Woman is, but that doesn't translate into comic book sales.

[FanboyStranger]

Yeah, it's like the Wonder Woman situation. Gillions of people around the world know who Wonder Woman is, but that doesn't translate into comic book sales.

I'd even argue that's the case with Superman, sadly.

[Darrell D.]

We have seen that creator-owned books have been the steady growth segment for the N American industry in the past few years. However, it is useful to point out that what the article is arguing is already going on at DC with Vertigo and at Marvel to a lesser extent with Icon. Also, as we've been discussing in the Doom Patrol thread, DC did experiment with creator-participation contracts in the '90s, and for the most part, few of the characters stuck around, barring Jack Knight and Hitman. I don't think the returns were worth the rights sharing in DC's eyes.

The unspoken element of this-- and this is a major sticking point-- is that fans seem reluctant to try things that aren't familiar in this conservative market. You hear about the great sales for Image creator-owned books, but what you see on most of them is excellent numbers on the first issue, then mediocre numbers as the series continues, some of them lower than both Marvel's and DC's cancellation points. It isn't a matter of quality, either-- if people were truly looking for DC's best superhero book, they'd be picking up Astro City, but it's not in-universe and sells around 20,000 copies monthly. Most fans seem to be looking for the same things they've always read in the books they buy, not trying something new. It's not something people want to hear, but it's born out by the sales charts.

I thought DC owned Hitman and Jack Knight outright.
It's the North American market that is glutted with the corporate super-heroes. Europe, from what I have learned, has a strong market for all types of genres in comics, with a rights program that lines up with normal (not comics) publishing model.

[Darrell D.]

Yeah, I agree with one caveat: most people have no idea that TMNT was a comic first or that a TMNT comic even exists. Everything else about the property is huge.

Eastman and Laird were smart about holding on to the rights and only licensing the concept. Boom. Millionaires overnight. The cartoon and action figures is what set it off.
There is an amazing interview with Eastman by Gary Groth on the TCJ archives, I think, it is an amazing read.

[FanboyStranger]

I thought DC owned Hitman and Jack Knight outright.
It's the North American market that is glutted with the corporate super-heroes. Europe, from what I have learned, has a strong market for all types of genres in comics, with a rights program that lines up with normal (not comics) publishing model.

No, they don't. They share the rights with Ennis/McCrea and Robinson respectively. That's why the characters have not been allowed to appear in other books without the creator's blessing. Hitman only appeared in Resurrection Man because Garth used to work with Dan Abnett on revolving Strontium Dogs stories (Garth wrote The Gronk, Dan wrote Durham Red), and he let Grant Morrison use Hitman for a brief moment in JLA. Robinson has only let David Goyer (who co-wrote Starman for a year), John Ostrander, and Geoff Johns (with either Robinson or Goyer) use Jack. What I'm not sure on is if those rights can be bought back because of so much specific DC reference in the series.

Yeah, Europe has a more robust market overall. Best selling books sell in the millions, and it's a variety of formats, including plenty of work aimed at children. (That's why I'd argue that Disney's biggest comic creator isn't someone from Marvel like Bendis or Hickman, but Carl Barks or Don Rosa. Disney comics sell like hotcakes in Europe.) I'd say that the major difference is format, though. You're getting a nice, mostly complete story told in a more expensive album format when the book is ready. While I'd love to see it, I don't think the N American market can sustain that kind of product beyond a handful of characters and creators. DC seems to be trying with the Earth One line.

[FanboyStranger]

Eastman and Laird were smart about holding on to the rights and only licensing the concept. Boom. Millionaires overnight. The cartoon and action figures is what set it off.
There is an amazing interview with Eastman by Gary Groth on the TCJ archives, I think, it is an amazing read.

Yeah, I was young when the cartoon first came on, and I remember the craze. I even remember that my younger brother had a Usagi Yojimbo action figure from the TMNT collection! I wish he had held onto it.

[Darrell D.]

Yeah, I was young when the cartoon first came on, and I remember the craze. I even remember that my younger brother had a Usagi Yojimbo action figure from the TMNT collection! I wish he had held onto it.

I was about 21 when the cartoon came on, but I remembered the Turtles, I picked up the first two issues of the book when it came out in ...I wanna say 84 or 85.
It was crazy how much my nephews went gaga over them. They had TMNT everything..bedsheets, quilts, cups, toothbrushes..