Newsarama has confirmed the rumor that has been going around for a while now that CrossGen is in serious financial trouble. Yesterday, CrossGen laid off of up to 25 employees, from both the creative and business side. They also restructured their much heralded salary program.
Well, I can’t really say that I’m surprised. It’s incredibly difficult to launch a new comic book company, especially one based in mostly the fantasy realm. I hope they pull through and are able to right the ship because the comic industry needs all the help it can get, and CrossGen had some really good ideas about new distribution streams.
UPDATED with information about the wide spread layoffs, including comic book legend George Perez.
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I don’t know if this necessarily signals the end. It may well have prevented the end. However, it is the end of the “new model” for making comic books. They’re back to doing the same old thing now as everyone else. They just sell a lot less books.
It always struck me as odd that they chose to start a company and began with a giant infrastructure, instead of going lean and mean and letting the books grab the culture before really investing in all the other crap, like a spacious compound and a big administrative staff. Sure it makes sense if you’re starting a company in a growth industry, but it’s really hard to make a profit in comics, and they acted like it was a given.
I didn’t understand the bit where it said:
“Those creators switching from salary to page rate were also reportedly given clearance to go freelance and seek work from other sources, while those creators let go were not given the opportunity for any freelance work. ”
What does that mean? If you were fired, you’re not allowed to support yourself? That’s ridiculous. I hope that’s a mistake.
“I don’t know if this necessarily signals the end. It may well have prevented the end. However, it is the end of the “new model” for making comic books. They’re back to doing the same old thing now as everyone else. They just sell a lot less books.”
This is why I think it might be the beginning of the end. Of course, what do I know about the inner workings of CrossGen? It just doesn’t sound good.
I hope they stick around.
I read the first 2 books of Scion and they were pretty decent. The Path is also good and El Cazador was awesome.
nick
I hope they stick around, if only for the diversity they offer. Still, I’m not helping by not buying any of their books. I did buy Ruse for the entire time Waid wrote it.
The Newsarama story is updated and it looks like they’re losing Perez by the way.