abstractgeek

May 17, 2012 2:16 pm we do need a kirk, someone with the insight to think outside the box, to do what no one else has thought of. it really is the only way to beat a no win situation, to change the situation to one you can win rather than just trying the same things. or if the newest star trek movie is to be believed (alternate timelines can be tricky) we need someone to have sex with a hot green chick, and have her fix the situation. i volunteer for that mission

May 17, 2012 1:33 pm wow, im writing a lot today. i really should be working. i think im writing so much today because i reaaaallly dont want to be working right now, but ill pay for it by staying late to catch up on all the work i should be doing.

May 17, 2012 1:29 pm @comichron I think i overstated an issue with methods, i shouldn't have implied they are wild guesses, i shouldn't have said "make up numbers" they as you point out are estimates based on available data, and they are remarkably consistent but also most of the people with actual numbers do agree the estimates are lower than the actuals. maybe its in the math maybe the numbers you get arent as accurate as you hope. i dont know. perhaps saying the numbers are accurate representation but not exact. good enough for us to get an idea of trends and stores to get an idea of whats selling, but not accurate enough to base royalty statments on if you are a creator or publisher, but then again creators and publishers dont need to, they have the real numbers I think i let my frustration with the fact that people continully treat these numbers as actual numbers from diamond or publishers instead of what they are, maybe thats a nitpick on my part. real numbers are real numbers estimates are estimates. they each i work in the dvd business and i see the videoscan numbers every week, and i also know our internal numbers and again they arent the same. then again they really dont need to be. we and those we do business with have the numbers we need. thats really my frustration is that so many people seem to think they are entitled to this information and how they use it. i would love to know what ifanboys numbers are, like how many hits, how many podcast downloads, how many uniques, how many registered users, how many paying users. but they are under no obligation to share that and i have no right to it. even if they did or somehow we could get estimates, it would be inappropriate for me to the go "suck it newsarama and comic geek speak, i fanboy is the best" i apologize if i made it sound like you were pumping out bullshit. You clearly explain you methods and the possible errors. People dont always read the fine print (i dont, god know what i signed away when i joined this site) and misunderstand or misuse the info they get. I think your site is a great resource, especially where you track the numbers for older books based on the old statement of ownership info, which no one else does, as far as i can tell.

May 17, 2012 1:00 pm Mark waid tells a story about how some rich guy hired dc to do a custom comic featuring his son and dc heroes as a birthday or bar mitzva present or something. it was pencilled inked all by professionals and a small number were printed. must be nice to be able to afford something like that. when i hit the big mega millions lottery, ill do a custom comic featuring nothing but marvel characters reading articles on ifanboy and loving them.

May 17, 2012 12:53 pm one other thing, slightly off topic but it concerns the interview with stephenson in general. While im glad stephenson is spreading the good word about image, im a little dismayed that he has taken a page from quesada and didio by spinning things, and misrepresenting things to further his points. Sandman was not a weird deal between dc and neil gaiman. It was work for hire done by a writer at the beginning of his career with no clout whatsoever except that he was really good. Gaiman has been very clear about the genesis of the book. he and mckean were hired to do black orchid. dc wanted to get gaimans name out there before the very time consuming book came out and he did sandman, which was basically a reimagining of the dc owned kirby sandman, without being or needing kirbys sandman. all work for hire, page rate and royalties. years later gaiman asked that he get creator credit (and the expanded royalties that come with it ) since it really wasnt kirbys sandman, it was something new. Dc agreed. gaiman has no ownership and no control over the character. his desire for the character to only be done by him is respected by dc and karen berger (much the way alan moores desire was respected by paul levitz) because gaiman is close to berger and has kept a good professional relationship with dc, and continues to do things like write the introduction to annotated sandman etc. note that gaiman merely asked, he didnt threaten or boycott or call them liars and thieves publicly. years later dc asked him to write something new for sandman. gaiman asked for his royalty to be increased on sandman so his pay would be closer to the very lucrative pay he gets for writing novels. dc declined, and gaiman chose to spent the time writing a new novel. again no boycott, no internet complaining. he just said no thank you and moved on. he made more money, they didn't, they also didn't set a precident which could have cost them much more than a new sandman would have gained. as far as his statements on watchmen. he says if image was around back then, moore and gibbons would have had an avenue to publish a creator owned watchmen. apparently stephenson has forgotten that there were plenty of creator owned options back then. first comics and comico were around, moore already was working on miracleman with eclipse. dark horse was just starting and cerebus and ninja turtles had already proved the viability of self publishing and sim had already branched out into publishing creator owned titles. even marvel had the fully creator owned epic imprint at that time. They had options but with the exception of marvel those i doubt those options would have allowed watchmen to become WATCHMEN. those companies wouldn't have had the resources to get watchmen into bookstores and keep it in print, and promote the book to the level it needed to become the juggernaut is has become. If image was around back then they would have had the similar problem. Image didnt get a decent representation outside the direct market until walking dead. years after marvel and dc had really built hat business. he also nicely brushes away the fact that mcfarlane, top cow, extreme and to some extent skybound all use work for hire policies not unlike marvel and dc, where the creator of the actual book doesn't own his work, its owned by the company (not image but mcfarlane inc, top cow extreme studios etc). He is quick to take a strong moral stand against marvel and dc over their issues with kirby and moore. yet he is silent about mcfarlaines struggles with gaiman and tony moores struggle with skybound. The image partners kicked out liefeld. Shouldnt stepenson support the ouster of mcfarlane and kirkman unless they treat gaiman and moore fairly? or would that just get him fired the way quesada and didio would get fired if they publicly supported kirby and moore. Is it ethical to only stand up for ethical behavior when it wont hurt you? i love image comics, i think books like saga and fatale are among the best books published. I want to see more great stuff from image and im glad they are getting so much press, but i am bothered that they attack marvel and dc for being unethical, but then turn a bllnd eye to ethics when it suits them. at least marvel and dc dont pretend they are anything but what they are. i know image is very popular as a company among creators and fans, and mine is an unpopular and probably minority opinon, and im certainly not calling for any kind of boycott or anything. I just think we need to look at these fairly complex issues a little more closely and honestly and not in the standard "good guys vs bad guys" that it usually comes down to.

May 17, 2012 12:00 pm I think there si some confusion here about who has what numbers. Icv2 does not work with diamond as the article suggests. Diamond doesnt publish sales numbers, they publish sales RANKINGS. basically what is the top seller, the second top seller etc. they also publish percentage ranking based on the sales of Batman. Thats an arbitrary choice but based on the idea that batman is pretty consistently a top seller, and comes out fairly consistently. If you can get a firm slaes figure on one book, you can reverse engineer the numbers for other books. But there are a lot of guesses and assumptions in this process. Its not very good or accurate, but it does give a decent overall figure, and everybody that knows actual numbers agrees its always low, but the rankings are always correct. The thing is all that info is just for the consumer. diamond has actual real numbers of everything and so does every publisher and even every creator who gets a royalty statement. marvel, dc image, idw boom etc all know exactly down to the last copy what has sold (to stores at least and thats all they are concerned about) Thye dont know what each oher is selling but the they dont have to. Publishers dont need icv2. they never have. they only people who give a shit about the tcv2 or any of the other people like comichron that track/make up numbers. the publishers, distributors and creators have the real numbers, and they are the only ones who actually need them. marvel, dc image and diamond could easily release actual numbers, and they do when it benefits them, but mostly it doesnt. very few business give out that kind of data. WE want that data so we can cheer when our books are doing well, and try to support them when they are doing poorly. i al;so supect much of it is so people can use it to "prove" they are right. look at how many DC fans looked at the new 52 sales and basically said "see i told you dc was better! look at these sales, marvel sucks and marvel fans can suck it" which was followed by marvel fans saying "see i told you it wouldnt last, even rebooting everything couldnt put dc on top for long. dc sucks and dc fans can suck it" when sales dropped months later. we dont need this info.

May 17, 2012 11:36 am In the past returnability nearly killed the comic market. At a time when spiderman was a top selling book, at 300,000 copies a month, it was shipping over 500,000 copies a month. it is very hard to be profitable in those circumstances. make no mistake, the non returnablity of the direct market saved comics. In the past non returnability was a good thing as the direct market had a viable back issue business. and i don't mean speculation and high markups, i mean just having back issues of most titles so that new readers could get caught up. I worked in comics retail in the 80s and 90s and selling out was a bad thing on any big title, it meant you had a harder time getting new readers unless books had very clear new starting points. Today, books are tailored (or cancelled and restarted) to jumping on points, and the trade paperback and digital markets have largely made back issues unnecessary, so stores with back issues are stores with stock thats largely a loss. returnable product is often sold at a smaller discount to distibutors (and then retailers) to offset the added risk for publishers. going from a 50-55% discount to a 30-35% discount would mean a lot of stores would no longer be profitable enough to stay open. unless cover price is increased to bring more money to retailers, which then makes the consumer pissed. basically somewhere in the equation SOMEONE has to take a bullet and eat the cost, be it publisher, distributor, retailer or consumer. Consumers feel like they arent getting enough value for their dollar (and really they arent). distributors and retailers are already surviving on thin margins, and publishers, especially corporate ones have to meet certain minimum profitability standards, or it's financially in the interests on the parent company to just cease publishing operations and invest that money in a more profitable part of their business. to get all star trek on you, its a kobiashi maru, a no win scenario. The only way not to lose is to change the conditions of the test, and no one has really figured out how yet, though digital is pretty promising at this point.

May 17, 2012 11:15 am that was part of the Starlin Warlock saga. In many ways it was a precursor to infinity gauntlet, as it featured thanos' quest for the soul gem, which at the time was unique. The infinity gems grew out of that initial concept. It also set the stage for death of captain marvel, as it ends with thanos turned into a statue, which is how he begins the death of captain marvel. sorry to keep going on about that story, but it is really one of my all time favorites and it so often gets overlooked these days.

May 17, 2012 11:00 am My favorite take on Thanos would be from Starlins run on warlock. These were reprinted most recently (and expensively) here in the second Warlock Masterwork. http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Masterworks-Warlock-Volume-2/dp/0785135111/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337265556&sr=1-1 but were also reprinted in deluxe formats by marvel in the 80s and 90s. Starlin's Marvel cosmic has always been my favorite. The modern takes are cosmic in the sense that they are sci fi, but a very grounded sci fi, Starlin's were pure 70's expanded consciousness, acid trip sci fi, especially when he drew it. It's angst, dark humor, social commentary and wild ideas.

May 10, 2012 10:01 am To be technical Tynion IV would not be one of Saturn's moons it would be one of Tynion's moons (the fourth one to be exact) or one of Tynion's planets (again 4th) in the case Tynion was a star. It's all pretty clear if you watch enough Star Trek.