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COMICS!!! |OT| March 2020 | According to Ireland, St. Patrick threw all the snakes out of ComicERA. He missed some.
- Thread starter Messi
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Yea they might be telling some people to "put their pencils down", but I bet a lot of people are going to keep on trucking, if only to give themselves a good lead on books with scripts already turned in.
Hell, give the slow people like Cheung on something now lol. They might actually get 1 or 2 issues done in time.
Hell, give the slow people like Cheung on something now lol. They might actually get 1 or 2 issues done in time.
lol
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Gonna file that one incase SGM doesn't do something stupid in the next week.
Comics aren't canceled because of the virus, they're canceled because Animal Crossing has halted work-at-home productivity.
🤔
sorry to hear about the migraine!
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Messi out there typing "incase" more often than "in case" to the point that his spellcheck knows which is more common.
DCBS manager asked about how she thinks things will change in the market:
"I believe that three to six months from now the comics industry will look nothing like it did two weeks ago.
My hope is that all of us make it out of this, because without a strong direct market there is not a strong comics industry. I am certain that every part of the supply chain will be re-evaluating their business and will put measures in place to make sure they are prepared for any event of this magnitude going forward. Every small business will re-prioritize and evaluate every level of their business, from suppliers and shipping companies, to product mix and number of employees needed."
www.newsarama.com
"I believe that three to six months from now the comics industry will look nothing like it did two weeks ago.
My hope is that all of us make it out of this, because without a strong direct market there is not a strong comics industry. I am certain that every part of the supply chain will be re-evaluating their business and will put measures in place to make sure they are prepared for any event of this magnitude going forward. Every small business will re-prioritize and evaluate every level of their business, from suppliers and shipping companies, to product mix and number of employees needed."
DC | GamesRadar+
www.newsarama.com
Well they're the ones that are stopping comics from being distributed. It's absolutely the right thing to do, BUT, if you're in the business of dumping out comics at stores' doors, it's a pretty big impediment, and the way you make sure it doesn't happen again is probably along the lines of finding (or creating wholesale) an alternative.
no one company should have that much power. the coronavirus isn't its fault, but the industry should never have been in this position in the first place.
I hate Diamond, and was all "fuck diamond" a few days ago. But there's nothing they can do. A lot of books are printed in different countries. There are a lot of floppies and Hardcovers (image especially) that are printed in Canada and those printing places have been closed so there is no supply there for diamond, regardless of monopoly. Plus with the boarder closed, trucks carrying comic books wouldn't be able to fit the "essential service" criteria.
We knew you were tall, but we didn't know you were also 75 years old.
i's spend an evening every week drinking long island ice teas playing bridge with y'all
Yeah, so it's like I said before. They can't let digital just run while floppies pile up. That means a full-scale delay, which hits everyone going down the line, because if your books aren't coming out, there's no reason to pay for more future work.
DC will use the time to probably rework 5G editorially. Marvel will probably rethink some books like New Warriors. Quiet behind-the-scenes noodling, since no books will be coming out.
Yeah. Let's see how it plays out. I always thought Diamond was at fault but it also makes me wonder how they can hold companies the size of DC/Marvel hostage in this day and age where every store is one email away. I sometimes think DC/Marvel have conveniently used Diamond to deflect criticism from their lack of returnability. It is easy to put out a 100 new #1s when the burden of failure doesn't hit them directly.
no idea what you mean by letting floppies pile up unless you mean books would have to be caught up to digital once everything starts working again. which is fine and would work out a lot better than just having... nothing for several months.
folk don't even understand how incredibly harmful pressing pause will be. the lost business would be staggeringly worse than continuing digital. businesses that survive this downtime are going to go through a second exodus once books start back up again no matter what. but keeping interest and excitement in comic going for the time being will save a lot of them.
Smaller publishers can't afford to pay people to do lite work while they can't sell current books, and it would be a bad idea for Marvel and DC to do it on smaller books, but Marvel and DC should absolutely be paying creators on the big cancellation-proof books to get ahead. If you're drawing Batman or Amazing Spider-Man or Strange Adventures, you should be drawing during this time and getting paid for it. Artists are always right up against these deadlines, and this is a good chance to avoid future delays and give us a few less fill-in issues or single issues with like five different inkers.
this is a made-up problem. if they keep rolling out digitally, come the reopening of the direct market marvel and dc aren't going to just print 3-4 past books all at the same time as regular printing. they'd figure out a way to roll things out smoothly.
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I don't trust them at all to do that. I don't know why you would.
They could just not release comics for 6 months. Let the creators keep creating them but start releasing them in Nov.
Or pause weekly comics and start creating once a month OGNs or a digital only anthology.
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The first point is what he is saying will do more damage that continuing on digitally. I think it's crazy to try appease 10% of the market vs 90%.
you don't know why you would? why the comic industry wouldn't act to protect the direct market in the worst disaster since the crash? it wouldn't even be hard. you just cancel all orders, which has probably already been done, right? and then you allow reorders for the missed books spread out over months while you're still putting out new books. it'd even be a certain success given the speculator nature of the direct market. people would want those gap-months, especially if you make it a big relaunch event or w/e.
and that's jsut one really basic way for the industry to handle it.
logically, that's the healthiest way to do things, keep paying people, and then help the direct market come back together after the coronavirus. i don't think these companies have their shit together tho. i don't think marvel or DC care about their own creative talent enough to keep paying them while only bringing in digital-level sales. i just see this as an exercise in speculation -- what these companies should be doing for the health of the industry.
I mean, if digital was ongoing, then floppies would—when everything is done—pile up at physical comic stores. Not only does it devalue the physical product, it also leaves stores with books that people might not want.
The problem with A) is publishers aren't going to want to take the financial hit, with no money coming in. The problem with B) is it wouldn't cover all creators, probably just the exclusive folks, and then you have to wonder, where do those stories fit.
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As of this Wednesday diamond were still asking for order forms for June and FOC for May.
comics that may or may not even get finished for months ahead. i dont see how a chicken with its head cut off still running is reasonable evidence that we should all keep acting like its alive.
Print comics are going to change. It's going to be longer than the quarantine to get everything smoothed out. And that is if all countries involved in printing comics end quarantine in the optimistic time frame of summer . Printing companies are laying people off. They will have to staff up. The publishers will have to make a call on what to order from them comic stores will have to make new orders. If comic stores are open. Comic stores are going to have to beg all the people who currently aren't picking up their boxes to get comics that have been sitting there since before april 1. So much lost money for LCS there.
If that's true, you'll see CMX alive and kicking on Tuesday night.
i'll say the same thing I said to messi. this is a made up problem. if marvel/dc do go digital for the several months of quarantine we're looking at, physical comics aren't going to just keep getting made. orders aren't going to just be kept rolling out with diamond and printers shut down, then instantly when the direct market opens suddenly there's 4+ comics dropped for each series. if all-digital does happen, the direct market return would have to be rolled out slow. there's no other way to mechanically do it.
and the bigger point, even if floppies did "stack up," it would still be better for comic shops than killing the industry for 4+ months. the industry would lose so many readers, so much talent. if it survived, it'd take years to recuperate. digital only for several months would at least be life support.
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Shops shouldn't have been repeatedly told by DC a statement was coming... They still haven't been told anything. They are meant to be partners.
DC feels leaderless right now. DiDio, for all his faults, would have at least put out some kind of statement and clarified what the plan was. I don't know what Jim Lee's doing but staying silent is creating uncertainty for a lot of businesses that are barely staying alive.
There's a reason movies are delaying theatrical instead of just going to streaming. Getting physical die hards to get excited about picking up months old content ain't happening. Retailers aren't just being greedy in calling for them not to do a full digital shift.
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