1:27 PM
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It's official so now I can at least talk about it. Desperado Publishing has moved to IDW where it will become an imprint of that company. That gives Joe Pruett the autonomy he wanted and yet still be part of the growing IDW Publishing. I'm not exactly sure how that will be in regards to MY stuff but I'll worry about it as it comes up. Joe did tell me that IDW was interested in printing the Deadworld material. It appears that the Slaughterhouse hardcover will be coming out from Desperado at the beginning of the year. The delay was due to negotiations going on as it was supposed to be out in October. Sami Makkonen finished the book a long time ago and in fact, finished his following project, The Looking Glass Wars with Frank Beddor. A real fantastic looking book (as an aside, see Frank being interviewed about that on Good Morning America here). It's kinda funny as I still regard IDW as a "new" company but I see that they're celebrating their ten year anniversary. When I look back on it, that's about how long Caliber was around although at the time, it certainly seemed longer than that. Maybe because it just consumed my life so much at that time. I put in an awful lot of hours, which I'm sure most people do who own their own business, but I was always careful to be home and spend time with the kids. I'd mostly work when they were not at home or in bed. Even though Caliber ended, I don't feel like it was a waste of time or anything. I mean, one bad break here or there cost the company and most of it was sort of out of our control. I don't dwell on what could have been but sometimes when I discuss things with some old "Caliber" people, it does come up. Mainly it was the Power Cardz situation and the graphic novels that fell apart. I recently got a link to an article sent to me about a creator who worked for Caliber and he said in an interview that Caliber did the bad binding on purpose. I mean, just how idiotic is that? With the end of the year coming up, it's time to make plans for the convention season. I don't do many shows. I will be at the new Chicago convention (C2E2) and looking at the Traverse City show again. Not sure about Motor City even though its in the neighborhood and I'd still like to do Heroes Con one of these days. I may even do San Diego this year...still a bit early to decide for sure. I'm looking at a couple of horror shows as it seems I do better at those but shows are not a necessity for me and though I enjoy them once I'm there, I usually dread thinking about attending them. As an update on the movie. Things are moving along as they need to so that's good. So far, happy with the script and just have to wait and see how things play out. One thing about Hollywood, it does not move at a breakneck speed...
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From author Gary Reed who writes graphic novels and other books and is the publisher of Caliber Comics and was the publisher of Transfuzion Publishing. He is also one of the co-organizers of Detroit Fanfare.
4 comments:
Just wanted to say it's interesting reading about your thoughts about Caliber Comics, and the comic industry.
Quite a lot of great talent was discovered because of you - so as a fan of some of those talented artists and writers. Thanks!
Hi Gary,
Honestly, not dwelling on the past and seeing it as part of the process is the healthiest and smartest thing you could do. There are so many disgruntled creators and publishers that feel they've been dealt a bad hand by "something" out there". Just keep doing what you've always done and take it one step at the time.
I am one of those old "Caliber" people. I worked for Gary for about four years and, believe me, I wish things had turned out different. I would love to still be working with the old crew. We had an absolute blast, and Gary is the best boss I could ever hope to have (and fortunately, did...thanks for all the late night dinners at, what was it, Shakey's?).
Anyhow, I was directly involved in the PowerCardz situation, which was no one's fault except for one dishonest shyster who not only conned us and screwed the company out of a windfall of profit, but preyed on a lot of other folks, too.
I also know for a fact that the whole bad glue/binding situation was a complete screw up on the printers' part. It was by no means done intentionally. To spread a rumor like that is truly asinine! That's just plain ridiculous. What could possibly be the reasoning for us to put out thousands of graphic novels that essentially fell apart upon the first read? How does that reflect on the publishing house? Is there any positive aspect to something like this? I'd like to hear this creator's reasoning.
Last, I would bring up one other thing, and that's the whole Capital City getting bought by Diamond thing that sort of threw a wrench in the works, too. I won't comment further here, out of respect for the fact that this is Gary's blog, but I will say that things could have been much different if the comics market hadn't become so monopolized.
Oh well...what ya gonna do? Like David (Kaos Moon) Boller said (Hi, Dave!), don't dwell on the past. It's done and gone.
Joe,
The restaurant was Silverman's which has now gone out of business.
The situation with the Power Cardz was made worse because the shyster, as you put it, represented a company and through their actions screwed up the cards and eventually drove them out of business. The lawsuit went on for years and I won, but by that time, they had gone bankrupt and had no assets to claim so it was all for nothing.
I have pretty much moved on but every once in awhile, I'll get in a conversation with a creator and there is a reflection of what might have been.
But it does seem all so long ago now.
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