Jeff Marsick, Best Shots team member, wrestling contributor, film guy, lover of fast cars . . . he's an interesting cat. He's also a fine comics writer, knocking out Z-Girl and the Four Tigers, Dead Man's Party and Wendover. Here, he holds forth on the comics industry . . .
When Troy asked if I wanted to write a piece for Shotgun’s phoenix-like emergence from its ashes, I think my brain imploded: “Sweet! I’ll bloviate about the comic book industry—no, wait, Shotgun has too much wrestling with not enough motorsports and being the resident auto racing nut(job), I’ll discourse about NASCAR! No no—the OSCARS! Yeah, that’s the ticket. Oh, but then I do have some thoughts about the current crop of “The Voice” contenders (surely I’m not the ONLY one who thought Erin Martin in Round 1 wasn’t so much Feist-y as much as warbling like a garroted cat, right? Right??).”
So many choices to pick from. It took some time to pick a direction, but I finally went with the Oscars NASCAR why Michele Bachmann is underappreciated barking about comic books:
1) Now is the time for indie creators. Speaking as one of said creators, I don’t think there’s ever been such a wide field of opportunity for us “little people”. And thanks goes to the digital domain whose horizon extends from Comixology at one end to webcomics at the other, with Kindle and Nook in between. Self-publishing in all forms is riding the digital wave, all of us aspirants following in the footsteps of standard bearers like John Locke and Amanda Hocking who paved the way, ninety-nine cents at a time, for our dreams to possibly someday see reality.
BUT, just because it’s easier now to get your comic book out there doesn’t mean a) anyone’s going to care or b) that enough people will hear your message no matter how many hours you’re Tweeting or booking Face. One thing that needs to change is…
2) We need more indie comic reviewers. More respected websites and writers to put their name and rep behind a book they stumbled upon at a convention on their way to get a pretzel. I smirk when a reviewer says “Oh, come on. I review indie comics. I read Image, Dark Horse and BOOM! all the time.” This is probably going to incite hate mail but y’know what? Those ain’t indie, folks. Let me throw some NASCAR on it: DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Image are the Sprint Cup Series of comic books. Top tier. IDW, BOOM! and Dynamite are the Nationwide Series. Second tier (Minor League to the bat and ball crowd). You want INDIE, step off the reservation and find The Camping World Series West division of comics: Big Dog Ink, Studio Z, ComixTribe, Blacklist Studios, et al. Trawl the Small Press aisles at conventions and seek out diamonds buried in that there rough.
There is some GREAT stuff out there that people are putting blood, sweat, tears and the fullest limits of their credit cards into (there is some awfulness, sure, but I’m in the driver’s seat right now, so hush). Yet no comics journalist out there seems to want to take a chance. The mentality seems to be, if it ain’t in Diamond, it’s dead to me.
Diamond. Ah, yeah. Therein lies the crux.
So maybe the answer is…
3) The little guys need to consolidate. Instead of a dozen different “studios” putting out a dozen different books, combine everyone under a single banner. One publisher with a catalog of a dozen books. Keep your identity, like an imprint, but make a united front, a force with numbers that would be attractive to Diamond. Stronger titles will pull weaker titles up (sure, a slew of weak titles can kill the strongest of titles, but I’m going glass-is-half-full right now so leave me my moment, willya?).
I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, dummy. That’s been kinda done before. It’s called Image.” And my response (after “Uh, DUH. I KNOW.”) is “Well, why can’t it be done again? Image Mk II?”
Us little indie creators are all a bunch of floating island states, bemoaning in our best Rodney Dangerfield how we don’t get no respect, that the Small Press area of SDCC has over the years become the Smaller Press area and in a couple more won’t even be inside but will be outside surrounding the Porta-Potties, and that we’re so fringe we’re most comfortable at our own special small press expos where attendance is measured in the hundreds. Dozens of disparate voices ignored like noseeums.
Banded together, however, as a collective, a cabal, a horde…maybe we make enough noise to be noticed and change the face of indie comics. And the “mainstream” market should WELCOME this because the indie realm provides new voices and talent to titles that month after month seem to be stuck in neutral.
New talent, though, can only be cultivated if…
4) Editors are held more accountable to their books. Look, a writer can write anything they want (hells bells, even OJ wrote a book) and an artist can draw anything they want. Editors, however, are the gatekeepers of publishing. They are the skippers of their titles. If a title is languishing, it should be on the editor to fix the problem: axe the writer, deep-six the artist, make the artist the writer and vice versa, do SOMETHING to inject life into a book. And if the editor can’t…
They’ll be replaced with someone who can.
I used to berate writers and artists, even intimated a couple times that pursuing a new line of work would be best for everyone involved, but I don’t so much anymore. Someone is letting average or subpar work slide by and it’s THAT person who needs to be called on the carpet.
An editor’s job, however, might run smoother if…
5) A creative type isn’t allowed to work on more than one title per universe. (Yeah…this one’s gonna win me no friends, I’m sure.) If you’re working on a book for the regular 616 Marvel universe, you shouldn’t be allowed to work on a second title in that same world. An Ultimate title? Fine. But not two Ultimate titles. A DC title and a Vertigo title? Carry on. Two DCnU titles? Flag on the field.
I feel this especially with writers. Typically there’s one title where they just nail it, while the second one feels phoned in and after that, well, I think there’s osmosis involved. Focus all of your energy on ONE task, on ONE title and make that your best effort.
Oh, you can rotate teams or individuals around for an arc or two, sure. But I think all of us fans would be blown away by the quality that would come out if everyone had their niche, their explicit focus and nothing more.
I love comic books. I love reading them, love creating them, love talking about them. And while I won’t say the current system is broken, I think it could use some shaking up and in some instances, tough love.
Change or die isn’t just a storyline in Stormwatch, y’know.
Good stuff, Jeff!
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