About a month after I started working at DC Comics back in 1973, I arrived at the office one morning and was confronted by Vice President / Production Manager Sol Harrison. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Startled, I replied, “I work here.”
“I know that. You’re supposed to be in New Jersey, picking up the Comicmobile.”
Yes, the Comicmobile, that fabled vehicle of comics history that many have heard of but few have seen (and even fewer have actually purchased anything from). For those of you who are unfamiliar with it: It was Sol’s idea that if kids living in the suburbs couldn't get to the old “mom and pop stores” that sold comics, we should bring the comics to them. So he leased a big blue van, had “The DC Comicmobile” painted on it, and plastered super-hero stickers all over it. Then he stocked it with leftover comics from the DC library and sent Michael Uslan (much later the executive producer of the Batman and Swamp Thing movies, among lots of other things) out on the streets of New Jersey to sell them.
When it was time for Mike to leave for the University of Indiana, Sol decided that I should take the Comicmobile to Long Island. And I knew I was supposed to pick it up, but Mike and I had worked it out that I would do so the following day.
Sol, however, did not agree. Midge Bregman, his secretary, handed me money for train fare, told me what little town in the Garden State I was taking the train to, and shooed me out of the office. They did give me time to make my one phone call -- to tell my parents I would not be coming home from work that night!
Mike met me with the Comicmobile and we spent the afternoon and evening riding around, ringing the bells and selling comics at local parks, beaches, and in front of other places potential customers were gathered. He had "lovely assistant” named Robin working with him and, frankly, I think she attracted more than one father of small children over to be persuaded into buying a few comic books.
I slept at Mike’s parents’ home that night. They were as surprised to have an overnight guest as I had been when I learned from Sol I was going to be one. And the next morning, after going over what was in our “inventory” and how to keep track of the money, Mike was off to Indiana University and I was on the road back to Long Island.
Those of you who are unfamiliar with the roads of the New York metropolitan area probably don’t know that there are no commercial vehicles allowed on the parkways; they are only allowed on expressways and turnpikes. The Comicmobile, decked out with all its superhero decals and such, would not qualify as anything other than commercial. Needless to say, it made my trip home all the more interesting as I had to abandon some of the familiar routes for other highways and byways.
At one point, while driving through New York City, I passed a college friend, who was quite startled to see me. Our paths have never crossed again and to this day, I’m convinced he thought my job in the comic book industry was delivering them to stores. And when I arrived home and parked the garish-looking van in front of the house, my father’s first comment was, “I sent you to college for four years so you could drive a comic book truck?”
The hardest part about driving the Comicmobile on Long Island had to be getting a vendor’s license for each of the townships I would be working in. Each town – Hempstead, North Hempstead, Oyster Bay, and Huntington – had its own set of requirements and its own set of rules. They did have one basic rule in common.
Where Mike had had it fairly easy in New Jersey, being able to drive to a local park or beach and set up shop in the parking lot, the powers-that-be on Long Island were nowhere near as liberal. I was prohibited from bringing the Comicmobile anywhere near beaches, parks, schools, and pretty much any other place kids might be. Instead, I was reduced to driving up and down individual streets, holding a set of bells out the window and ringing them vigorously. (Since DC had only leased the van, there was no way Sol was going to let me mount the bells on it.)
As those of you who have lived in areas that were served by an ice cream man might guess, I was often mistaken for someone selling Popsicles and Klondike Bars. There was, in fact, one little boy who would demand a Creamsicle every Thursday when I showed up. And all he ever had to pay for it was a nickel. I’m not sure what an ice cream bar cost in those days, but it was certainly more than 5c.
Over the six weeks that I drove the Comicmobile, I did develop something of a regular clientele. And some of the customers would request specific issues that I could often find among the leftovers in the DC library. This resulted in one of the most amusing tales of my Comicmobile adventures, when Joe Orlando tried to have me arrested.
One afternoon I was in the library, loading a box with a variety of books from the shelves therein. Joe, who did not know who I was, saw me and hustled down to the office of Vice President Sol Harrison. “Call the cops! There’s some kid in the library stealing books,” he told Sol.
Sol followed him back up the hall, took one look at me and said, “That’s not some kid; that’s Rozakis!”
For years after that, I would kid Joe about how he almost sent me to jail.
When school started, the Comicmobile’s hours of operation were severely reduced and Sol decided it was time for me to come back and work in the office. I’m sure part of it also had to do with the fact that we were barely making enough to cover the cost of gasoline the van was guzzling… and gas was only 20c a gallon at the time!
The Comicmobile was shipped off to comics dealer Bruce Hamilton out in the southwestern U.S. for continued "testing." The entire project, however, met an untimely end when the Comicmobile came out on the losing end of a collision with a semi.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Fanboys
Long before I was a comic book professional, I was a fanboy, though we were not called that back then. We were often geeks or nerds to those who did not share our passion for comics, but we just thought of ourselves as fans.
My particular niche in fandom was as a letterhack, one of those readers whose letters appeared quite regularly in the books. From 1970 till I started working at DC Comics in 1973, there was not a month that went by that I did not have a missive or three appearing in print. All told, 135 of my letters were published.
Over the years, many people asked how I got so many letters printed. Well, I wrote a lot of them, over 500, in fact. And the fact that I typed rather than hand wrote them helped, I'm sure.
In my years at DC when I was on the other side of the lettercols, choosing the ones to use and writing the answers, I always appreciated the typewritten ones. There was one regular writer who always used a purple pen, using both sides of sheets of loose leaf paper. And while he often had interesting things to say, it was a pain reading his letters.
After three years of constant letter-writing, when I was in my senior year at Hofstra University, I decided to try to arrange a visit to the DC offices. I called their number, asked to speak with Julie Schwartz, and was put right through. I was startled when he answered; after all, this was like calling the White House, asking to speak with the President and suddenly finding the Commander-in-Chief answering his phone. Equally surprising was that Julie knew who I was and readily agreed to have me come up for a visit.
During that period, I had also started making up comics-related crossword and word-find puzzles for a couple of fanzines. Figuring that E. Nelson Bridwell, who was Julie's assistant editor and one of the first of the generation of fans who got into the comics business, would enjoy them, I brought copies along. As I was handing them to Nelson, Julie said, "Hey, what are those?" I explained, he grabbed them, and said, "I'll be right back." With that, he left the office, returning a couple of minutes later with Sol Harrison, the V.P. of Production.
Sol was impressed with my handiwork and asked if I could make up puzzles specific to Superman, Batman, and the Justice League. I replied that I could. "Then do three of each and we will buy them," he told me.
That was on a Friday afternoon. The following Monday I was back at DC with three crosswords, three word finds, and three mazes. I had used graph paper and a black marker to make the grids and lots of press-type for the numbers on the crosswords and the letters in the word-finds. All they needed was some stock art from the DC files and they were ready to go. For this, I received a check for $135 -- $15 a page, making me an "official" comics freelancer.
Over the next few weeks, I tried to come up with plots for stories that would interest Julie. Julie was receptive to my submitting them, but nothing got past the plot stage. (One that I recall had Superman getting a super-ulcer because he was stressed out over some problem; it was a story best left unwritten.)
Then one afternoon, I was sitting in the Hofstra yearbook office and got a phone call from Midge Bregman, Sol's secretary. She said that Sol needed to speak with me about something important, that they'd called my home and my mother had given her the yearbook number.
Sol got on the phone and asked, "Do you know anything about Tarzan?"
In fact, I knew quite a bit, as I had over the past year or so been reading all of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books -- not just the Tarzan novels, but the John Carter, Pellucidar, and lesser-known ones as well.
"Great," said Sol, "I need three Tarzan puzzles on Monday."
Graph paper, press-type, and black markers at the ready, I put the pages together and was at DC the following Monday morning. It turned out that Sol really did need the pages in a hurry; they were being used in a tabloid-sized collection of Tarzan stories that came out about eight weeks later, making those puzzles my first published work.
Concurrent with my visits and freelance work, DC had announced the Junior Bullpen Program, an idea of Sol's in which the company would hire a writer and an artist to work on staff. I had hoped that, with my inside track, I would be considered for the program.
So, with my college graduation imminent, I asked Sol if I had a shot at the program. To my surprise, he hired me as a production assistant and one of the first things he had me do was go through all the submissions he'd received for the program! (Among the "finalists" I culled from the mountain of submissions was that of Marty Pasko, another longtime letterhack whose name I knew but had never met. When Sol asked which one I would pick, I pointed out that Marty lived in New Jersey and it would be a lot easier for him to take the position than someone outside the NYC metro area. Sol agreed that it made sense and Marty got the nod.)
About a month after I joined the staff -- just in time for the big company move from 909 Third Avenue to 75 Rockefeller Plaza, by the way, leaving me wondering if one of the reasons I was hired was that Sol figured I could lift a lot of boxes -- Sol told me he had a new project for me. I would be taking over driving the Comicmobile from Michael Uslan. But that, as they say, is a story for another day...
**
A final note:
Outside of comics fandom, "fanboys" has a completely different meaning. It is a way to remember the seven words that are used as conjunctions in compound sentences. And while its use is now quite common -- I've had students in my CTY writing class tell me their teachers invented it -- you can trace its roots back to a grammar book written a number of years ago by my wife Laurie. She was writing about the conjunctions and asked me if I could come up with a mnemonic to make them easy to remember.
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.
Who better to come up with that than one of the original fanboys!
My particular niche in fandom was as a letterhack, one of those readers whose letters appeared quite regularly in the books. From 1970 till I started working at DC Comics in 1973, there was not a month that went by that I did not have a missive or three appearing in print. All told, 135 of my letters were published.
Over the years, many people asked how I got so many letters printed. Well, I wrote a lot of them, over 500, in fact. And the fact that I typed rather than hand wrote them helped, I'm sure.
In my years at DC when I was on the other side of the lettercols, choosing the ones to use and writing the answers, I always appreciated the typewritten ones. There was one regular writer who always used a purple pen, using both sides of sheets of loose leaf paper. And while he often had interesting things to say, it was a pain reading his letters.
After three years of constant letter-writing, when I was in my senior year at Hofstra University, I decided to try to arrange a visit to the DC offices. I called their number, asked to speak with Julie Schwartz, and was put right through. I was startled when he answered; after all, this was like calling the White House, asking to speak with the President and suddenly finding the Commander-in-Chief answering his phone. Equally surprising was that Julie knew who I was and readily agreed to have me come up for a visit.
During that period, I had also started making up comics-related crossword and word-find puzzles for a couple of fanzines. Figuring that E. Nelson Bridwell, who was Julie's assistant editor and one of the first of the generation of fans who got into the comics business, would enjoy them, I brought copies along. As I was handing them to Nelson, Julie said, "Hey, what are those?" I explained, he grabbed them, and said, "I'll be right back." With that, he left the office, returning a couple of minutes later with Sol Harrison, the V.P. of Production.
Sol was impressed with my handiwork and asked if I could make up puzzles specific to Superman, Batman, and the Justice League. I replied that I could. "Then do three of each and we will buy them," he told me.
That was on a Friday afternoon. The following Monday I was back at DC with three crosswords, three word finds, and three mazes. I had used graph paper and a black marker to make the grids and lots of press-type for the numbers on the crosswords and the letters in the word-finds. All they needed was some stock art from the DC files and they were ready to go. For this, I received a check for $135 -- $15 a page, making me an "official" comics freelancer.
Over the next few weeks, I tried to come up with plots for stories that would interest Julie. Julie was receptive to my submitting them, but nothing got past the plot stage. (One that I recall had Superman getting a super-ulcer because he was stressed out over some problem; it was a story best left unwritten.)
Then one afternoon, I was sitting in the Hofstra yearbook office and got a phone call from Midge Bregman, Sol's secretary. She said that Sol needed to speak with me about something important, that they'd called my home and my mother had given her the yearbook number.
Sol got on the phone and asked, "Do you know anything about Tarzan?"
In fact, I knew quite a bit, as I had over the past year or so been reading all of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books -- not just the Tarzan novels, but the John Carter, Pellucidar, and lesser-known ones as well.
"Great," said Sol, "I need three Tarzan puzzles on Monday."
Graph paper, press-type, and black markers at the ready, I put the pages together and was at DC the following Monday morning. It turned out that Sol really did need the pages in a hurry; they were being used in a tabloid-sized collection of Tarzan stories that came out about eight weeks later, making those puzzles my first published work.
Concurrent with my visits and freelance work, DC had announced the Junior Bullpen Program, an idea of Sol's in which the company would hire a writer and an artist to work on staff. I had hoped that, with my inside track, I would be considered for the program.
So, with my college graduation imminent, I asked Sol if I had a shot at the program. To my surprise, he hired me as a production assistant and one of the first things he had me do was go through all the submissions he'd received for the program! (Among the "finalists" I culled from the mountain of submissions was that of Marty Pasko, another longtime letterhack whose name I knew but had never met. When Sol asked which one I would pick, I pointed out that Marty lived in New Jersey and it would be a lot easier for him to take the position than someone outside the NYC metro area. Sol agreed that it made sense and Marty got the nod.)
About a month after I joined the staff -- just in time for the big company move from 909 Third Avenue to 75 Rockefeller Plaza, by the way, leaving me wondering if one of the reasons I was hired was that Sol figured I could lift a lot of boxes -- Sol told me he had a new project for me. I would be taking over driving the Comicmobile from Michael Uslan. But that, as they say, is a story for another day...
**
A final note:
Outside of comics fandom, "fanboys" has a completely different meaning. It is a way to remember the seven words that are used as conjunctions in compound sentences. And while its use is now quite common -- I've had students in my CTY writing class tell me their teachers invented it -- you can trace its roots back to a grammar book written a number of years ago by my wife Laurie. She was writing about the conjunctions and asked me if I could come up with a mnemonic to make them easy to remember.
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.
Who better to come up with that than one of the original fanboys!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Three Jacks
[SPOILER ALERT: The following will discuss the last episodes of Lost, 24 and Law & Order.]
In a little more than 24 hours, three landmark television series came to an end. And in the world of cosmic coincidences, each had a major character named Jack.
The most ballyhooed conclusion was that of Lost, the end of which has been in the works for more than three years since the producers set a fixed target for wrapping up their story. Dr. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) was established as the hero from the very beginning (though there were originally plans to kill him off halfway through the first episode). Like all the other people who survived the plane crash, he had major character flaws. And, as in any good story, he overcame them and became a better person.
Opinions about the finale are quite mixed. Many fans complained that there were not enough answers. What was the deal with the electromagnetic energy? What was the significance of the numbers? What was the Island? Lost started out seeming to be a straight adventure show with some sci-fi elements thrown in (the monster) and we expected a logical explanation. We had to suspend our disbelief and accept a smoke monster, then time travel, then "magic."
But this was a show about people... and, as in real life, we will never get all the answers. There are plenty of things happening around us all the time and we will never know why or how they happen. And through it all, one thing remained logical and consistent -- the people. They evolved throughout the series and I don't think there is one of them that you could look at and say, "Wow, that's way out of character." That is the beauty of the story they told.
==
Unlike Jack Shephard, Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) of 24 seemed to be infallible... and indestructible. In his most recent "very bad day," he was shot, stabbed twice and beaten up numerous times, yet he managed to carry out all his plans. And, as usual, his understanding of the situation was always the right one.
This season's adventure seems to have received more jeers than cheers from fans. There were numerous elements that echoed previous seasons, perhaps the most annoying being the discovery of yet another mole inside CTU. For a government agency pressed to battle terrorists and uncover plots against the nation, they have the worst record for vetting potential employees ever. An ex-boyfriend and a county sheriff did better at finding the mole than the personnel department at CTU.
As always, Jack uncovered the plot behind the plot and forced the exposure of it all by the end. As a result, President Taylor is about to resign and former President Logan has committed murder and suicide. (Talk about out-of-character actions: Taylor went from being the most level-headed 24 president since David Palmer to being one step removed from whacko Charles Logan, who became her advisor.)
And, also unlike Jack Shephard, whose final reward really was a reward, Jack Bauer ends the series as a fugitive from both the American and Russian governments, with the possibility of a theatrical movie in the works. Of course, Jack could just change his name and apply for a job at CTU. Given their record, it is unlikely they would discover him.
==
The final Jack is District Attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) of Law & Order. Though no longer a central player in the program, having moved up from being the tilting-at-windmills Assistant D.A. to barking-at-A.D.A.s boss, McCoy has been a mainstay of the program for sixteen years. (Does anyone even remember when Michael Moriarty filled the A.D.A. chair?)
Since the announcement that the show would not be renewed for a 21st season just came a few days ago, the season finale was not that different from many other episodes. It did bring to a close the career of Lt. Anita Van Buren, which they did know about because S. Epatha Merkerson announced she was leaving the series after seventeen years, but we get no other closure here.
I don't know that we will actually miss Jack McCoy the way we will miss Shephard and Bauer. Despite being part of our TV world for more years than the other two combined, we know very little about McCoy. Until recent years, the L&O formula did not allow for much character development, and what there has been since is minimal. Other than the promotion, the 1995 McCoy is not much different from the 2010 model.
Which is as it has to be. The police and the district attorneys will continue to protect the people of New York for many years to come, in reruns if nowhere else, so except for particular "ripped from the headlines" cases, what worked fifteen years ago should still be working fifteen years from now.
==
All three programs have made their mark. Law & Order established a format for police procedurals/legal dramas that has been successfully copied numerous times. 24 took the action/adventure format, glued it to the old movie serial concept, and provided a roller-coaster ride that often kept us on the edge of our seats, wondering what could possibly happen next. And Lost gave us a one-of-a-kind saga that is likely to be imitated but never equalled.
And for each, we say, "So long, Jack... and thanks for all the entertaining hours."
In a little more than 24 hours, three landmark television series came to an end. And in the world of cosmic coincidences, each had a major character named Jack.
The most ballyhooed conclusion was that of Lost, the end of which has been in the works for more than three years since the producers set a fixed target for wrapping up their story. Dr. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) was established as the hero from the very beginning (though there were originally plans to kill him off halfway through the first episode). Like all the other people who survived the plane crash, he had major character flaws. And, as in any good story, he overcame them and became a better person.
Opinions about the finale are quite mixed. Many fans complained that there were not enough answers. What was the deal with the electromagnetic energy? What was the significance of the numbers? What was the Island? Lost started out seeming to be a straight adventure show with some sci-fi elements thrown in (the monster) and we expected a logical explanation. We had to suspend our disbelief and accept a smoke monster, then time travel, then "magic."
But this was a show about people... and, as in real life, we will never get all the answers. There are plenty of things happening around us all the time and we will never know why or how they happen. And through it all, one thing remained logical and consistent -- the people. They evolved throughout the series and I don't think there is one of them that you could look at and say, "Wow, that's way out of character." That is the beauty of the story they told.
==
Unlike Jack Shephard, Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) of 24 seemed to be infallible... and indestructible. In his most recent "very bad day," he was shot, stabbed twice and beaten up numerous times, yet he managed to carry out all his plans. And, as usual, his understanding of the situation was always the right one.
This season's adventure seems to have received more jeers than cheers from fans. There were numerous elements that echoed previous seasons, perhaps the most annoying being the discovery of yet another mole inside CTU. For a government agency pressed to battle terrorists and uncover plots against the nation, they have the worst record for vetting potential employees ever. An ex-boyfriend and a county sheriff did better at finding the mole than the personnel department at CTU.
As always, Jack uncovered the plot behind the plot and forced the exposure of it all by the end. As a result, President Taylor is about to resign and former President Logan has committed murder and suicide. (Talk about out-of-character actions: Taylor went from being the most level-headed 24 president since David Palmer to being one step removed from whacko Charles Logan, who became her advisor.)
And, also unlike Jack Shephard, whose final reward really was a reward, Jack Bauer ends the series as a fugitive from both the American and Russian governments, with the possibility of a theatrical movie in the works. Of course, Jack could just change his name and apply for a job at CTU. Given their record, it is unlikely they would discover him.
==
The final Jack is District Attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) of Law & Order. Though no longer a central player in the program, having moved up from being the tilting-at-windmills Assistant D.A. to barking-at-A.D.A.s boss, McCoy has been a mainstay of the program for sixteen years. (Does anyone even remember when Michael Moriarty filled the A.D.A. chair?)
Since the announcement that the show would not be renewed for a 21st season just came a few days ago, the season finale was not that different from many other episodes. It did bring to a close the career of Lt. Anita Van Buren, which they did know about because S. Epatha Merkerson announced she was leaving the series after seventeen years, but we get no other closure here.
I don't know that we will actually miss Jack McCoy the way we will miss Shephard and Bauer. Despite being part of our TV world for more years than the other two combined, we know very little about McCoy. Until recent years, the L&O formula did not allow for much character development, and what there has been since is minimal. Other than the promotion, the 1995 McCoy is not much different from the 2010 model.
Which is as it has to be. The police and the district attorneys will continue to protect the people of New York for many years to come, in reruns if nowhere else, so except for particular "ripped from the headlines" cases, what worked fifteen years ago should still be working fifteen years from now.
==
All three programs have made their mark. Law & Order established a format for police procedurals/legal dramas that has been successfully copied numerous times. 24 took the action/adventure format, glued it to the old movie serial concept, and provided a roller-coaster ride that often kept us on the edge of our seats, wondering what could possibly happen next. And Lost gave us a one-of-a-kind saga that is likely to be imitated but never equalled.
And for each, we say, "So long, Jack... and thanks for all the entertaining hours."
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Collect Them All
With magazine sales dropping ever lower, more and more publishers seem to be trying to boost sales by creating "Collector Editions." Specifically, publishing the same issue with a variety of different covers. Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide do it from time to time; if the cover feature is about a hot TV show or movie, there will be a set of covers, each featuring a different star or stars from it. It makes me wonder, though, how many extra copies they sell. Is there really much a collector's market for old issues of EW?
The variant covers have become a mainstay in the comic book business. In the first two weeks of May, for example, DC Comics produced a dozen comics with variant covers (and one of them had two). One can only presume that there are still enough fanboys out there clamoring to have one of every version that makes this viable.
But while this is now a gimmick to sell more copies of an issue, its origins in the comic book business were for the opposite reason: We had sold too many copies.
In the autumn of 1989, DC was releasing the first issue of Legends of the Dark Knight, a new Batman title. It was a period when comic book shops were plentiful, there were multiple direct market distributors of the books, and competition was fierce among them. Anticipating major sales of a new #1 issue starring the Dark Knight, the shop owners ordered substantial quantities.
[A quick aside to those who don't know how the "Direct Sale" comic book market works: In the traditional publishing business -- for books, magazines, newspapers, et al -- the stores receive copies on a returnable basis; whatever they sell they pay for and what they don't sell can be sent back for a credit. In the comic book business, the store owners order copies of the books at a substantial discount, but they cannot send them back, so they will order only what they think they can sell.]
When the orders for Legends of the Dark Knight #1 came in, they were much higher than expected. Bruce Bristow, who was head of the Marketing Department at the time, feared that there would be many thousands of copies unsold and that that could have a critical impact on the cash flows and financial stability of many of the shops. So he proposed a way to make the copies more collectible: We would add an "over-cover" to the issue, producing four different versions, that would prompt collectors to buy four copies of the book instead of one.
And that is what we did. LoDK #1 had four versions -- the same Bat-emblem with a lime green, blue, pale orange or magenta background. (You can get a look at them here: http://www.dcindexes.com/gallery/browse.php?select=!dc/legendsdarkknight) As hoped, the variants did increase the sales of the books for the shops. And a whole new marketing ploy took hold in the comics business.
One amusing note about LoDK #1. As the Production Director, I was directly involved with this, including ensuring that equal numbers of each version would be shipped to each distributor and, through them, each store. To that end, I was in the Ronalds Printing plant as the books were being bound and watched as one of each version came off the machine consecutively, over and over. Every carton of 200 books contained 50 of each and if you pulled any four consecutive copies out, you would have one of each.
Within the first week of sales, however, we started getting reports about how the blue version was the rarest or how we had under-printed the orange version to make it more collectible. All of this supposition was based on someone going to his local shop and finding differing quantities of each color. But the reason there might be no more of a color was not that we had under-printed them; it was that that color was the most popular. Not everyone was going to buy four copies of the same magazine; those readers who bought only one picked the color they liked best. In fact, if the shop had only the magenta ones left, that is the version least likely to be in collections... and it would ultimately be the rarest!
In the two decades since, all the comic book publishers have jumped on the multiple-cover bandwagon. So it must still be working as a way to pump up sales or they presumably would have stopped by now. But with standard comic books selling for $2.99 to $3.99 each, how many readers can afford to buy more than one? And after you've read one copy, are you going to even open another?
Too bad I'm not selling this blog. It would be interesting to see what would happen if I posted this same essay with four different titles...
The variant covers have become a mainstay in the comic book business. In the first two weeks of May, for example, DC Comics produced a dozen comics with variant covers (and one of them had two). One can only presume that there are still enough fanboys out there clamoring to have one of every version that makes this viable.
But while this is now a gimmick to sell more copies of an issue, its origins in the comic book business were for the opposite reason: We had sold too many copies.
In the autumn of 1989, DC was releasing the first issue of Legends of the Dark Knight, a new Batman title. It was a period when comic book shops were plentiful, there were multiple direct market distributors of the books, and competition was fierce among them. Anticipating major sales of a new #1 issue starring the Dark Knight, the shop owners ordered substantial quantities.
[A quick aside to those who don't know how the "Direct Sale" comic book market works: In the traditional publishing business -- for books, magazines, newspapers, et al -- the stores receive copies on a returnable basis; whatever they sell they pay for and what they don't sell can be sent back for a credit. In the comic book business, the store owners order copies of the books at a substantial discount, but they cannot send them back, so they will order only what they think they can sell.]
When the orders for Legends of the Dark Knight #1 came in, they were much higher than expected. Bruce Bristow, who was head of the Marketing Department at the time, feared that there would be many thousands of copies unsold and that that could have a critical impact on the cash flows and financial stability of many of the shops. So he proposed a way to make the copies more collectible: We would add an "over-cover" to the issue, producing four different versions, that would prompt collectors to buy four copies of the book instead of one.
And that is what we did. LoDK #1 had four versions -- the same Bat-emblem with a lime green, blue, pale orange or magenta background. (You can get a look at them here: http://www.dcindexes.com/gallery/browse.php?select=!dc/legendsdarkknight) As hoped, the variants did increase the sales of the books for the shops. And a whole new marketing ploy took hold in the comics business.
One amusing note about LoDK #1. As the Production Director, I was directly involved with this, including ensuring that equal numbers of each version would be shipped to each distributor and, through them, each store. To that end, I was in the Ronalds Printing plant as the books were being bound and watched as one of each version came off the machine consecutively, over and over. Every carton of 200 books contained 50 of each and if you pulled any four consecutive copies out, you would have one of each.
Within the first week of sales, however, we started getting reports about how the blue version was the rarest or how we had under-printed the orange version to make it more collectible. All of this supposition was based on someone going to his local shop and finding differing quantities of each color. But the reason there might be no more of a color was not that we had under-printed them; it was that that color was the most popular. Not everyone was going to buy four copies of the same magazine; those readers who bought only one picked the color they liked best. In fact, if the shop had only the magenta ones left, that is the version least likely to be in collections... and it would ultimately be the rarest!
In the two decades since, all the comic book publishers have jumped on the multiple-cover bandwagon. So it must still be working as a way to pump up sales or they presumably would have stopped by now. But with standard comic books selling for $2.99 to $3.99 each, how many readers can afford to buy more than one? And after you've read one copy, are you going to even open another?
Too bad I'm not selling this blog. It would be interesting to see what would happen if I posted this same essay with four different titles...
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Law & Order: Comic Book Unit
Last night's episode of Law & Order began with a man who was murdered, apparently by someone who stole his collection of rare Golden Age comic books. That the victim was locked in a dog cage and run through with a sword, well, I suppose that was their not-so-subtle jab at comic book fans being odd.
The detectives visited a comic book shop and a discussion of the missing books began. Green Lantern #6 was mentioned, as was All-Flash. But then, presumably to drive home that these were not million-dollar copies of Action Comics #1 or Detective Comics #27, they mentioned Johnny Thunder, Doctor Mid-Nite, and the Gay Ghost. The latter resulted in a raised eyebrow from one the detectives, but it was explained that the term had a different meaning in the 1940s. "He was cheerful." (In the 1970s, when DC reprinted one of the stories, the character was rechristened the Grim Ghost.)
As the comic book readers among you know, neither Johnny Thunder nor Doctor Mid-Nite nor the Gay Ghost had their own magazines. The first JT, he of the magic Thunderbolt that was summoned any time he said "Cei-U" (pronounced "say you," so he said a lot more often than he planned), was a back-up feature in Flash Comics through much of the Golden Age.
A cowboy hero of the same name debuted at the end of the 1940s and starred in All-American Comics and All-American Western. The only time there was a comic book titled Johnny Thunder was in the 1970s and it featured reprints of the cowboy's adventures.
Doctor Mid-Nite, the blind crimefighter with an owl as a sidekick, prowled the night in All-American Comics and was a member of the Justice Society in All-Star Comics.
The Ghost appeared as a back-up in Sensation Comics and never had his own title.
The missing comic book collection turned out to be part of a larger scheme. The victim had intended to hide his money from his wife by claiming to have lost a fortune by investing in a less-than-collectible assortment of comics. Other than another comment about the Gay Ghost, it did not come back into play until the courtroom scene at the end.
During questioning, the D.A. holds up a comic book (in a Mylar Snug) as one of the books in the collection. Rather than using an actual Golden Age book, it was a dummy titled Team Action.
Team Action?! Really? If you're going to go to the trouble of making a fake book, why not at least continue the thread and have a fake issue of The Gay Ghost?
One final note on the episode: As soon as I saw that comic books were involved in the plot, I expected to see that the writer was long-time L&O and comics scribe Gerry Conway.
'Twas not the case, however. If it had been Gerry, it's a safe bet all the comic books mentioned would have been real.
The detectives visited a comic book shop and a discussion of the missing books began. Green Lantern #6 was mentioned, as was All-Flash. But then, presumably to drive home that these were not million-dollar copies of Action Comics #1 or Detective Comics #27, they mentioned Johnny Thunder, Doctor Mid-Nite, and the Gay Ghost. The latter resulted in a raised eyebrow from one the detectives, but it was explained that the term had a different meaning in the 1940s. "He was cheerful." (In the 1970s, when DC reprinted one of the stories, the character was rechristened the Grim Ghost.)
As the comic book readers among you know, neither Johnny Thunder nor Doctor Mid-Nite nor the Gay Ghost had their own magazines. The first JT, he of the magic Thunderbolt that was summoned any time he said "Cei-U" (pronounced "say you," so he said a lot more often than he planned), was a back-up feature in Flash Comics through much of the Golden Age.
A cowboy hero of the same name debuted at the end of the 1940s and starred in All-American Comics and All-American Western. The only time there was a comic book titled Johnny Thunder was in the 1970s and it featured reprints of the cowboy's adventures.
Doctor Mid-Nite, the blind crimefighter with an owl as a sidekick, prowled the night in All-American Comics and was a member of the Justice Society in All-Star Comics.
The Ghost appeared as a back-up in Sensation Comics and never had his own title.
The missing comic book collection turned out to be part of a larger scheme. The victim had intended to hide his money from his wife by claiming to have lost a fortune by investing in a less-than-collectible assortment of comics. Other than another comment about the Gay Ghost, it did not come back into play until the courtroom scene at the end.
During questioning, the D.A. holds up a comic book (in a Mylar Snug) as one of the books in the collection. Rather than using an actual Golden Age book, it was a dummy titled Team Action.
Team Action?! Really? If you're going to go to the trouble of making a fake book, why not at least continue the thread and have a fake issue of The Gay Ghost?
One final note on the episode: As soon as I saw that comic books were involved in the plot, I expected to see that the writer was long-time L&O and comics scribe Gerry Conway.
'Twas not the case, however. If it had been Gerry, it's a safe bet all the comic books mentioned would have been real.
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