The End of Caliber

For a long time, this blog has focused on the Caliber days as a lot of people seemed interested in how things transpired with that company. This will be the last of that look back as I wanted to wrap things up and concentrate on newer things going on although next time, I’ll bring everything up to date.

 I do realize that I am forever associated with Caliber, and willingly so, but Caliber hasn’t published anything in over a decade yet I’ve been busy in the comics world. But saying that, Caliber is not completely dead. I still maintain the company for the intellectual properties and there is still some activity going on which I’ll touch upon next time. 

 Towards the late 90’s, the market had undergone a drastic upheaval. Diamond was the sole distribution and that had impacted Caliber considerably since Capital had consistently sold more books for us than Diamond did. When Capital went under, it seemed our Diamond orders didn’t go up and that always left me wondering what happened to those orders.

 Of course, the collapse of the market impacted all publishers and it was a major case of comic retailers tightening their belts. This shift also coincided with the newer strategy of shops ordering less and less titles for their shelves and relying on orders and commitments from their customers by the use of Diamond Previews advance orders. 

When I started Caliber, it was after the explosion of creator owned books that changed the industry during the 1980’s. Comics pulled themselves out of simply being known as adolescent escapism into a viable form of fictional expression. They were becoming treated as serious literature. The speculator boom in the early to mid 1990’s changed that momentum and even though comics benefited short term from the speculation boom, the burst soon followed. 

Caliber was always a company of change, I mean, we had to be. We were constantly adapting to the situation as we didn’t have enough behind us to remain in one targeted direction. Towards the end of the 90’s, we had strategized in a number of different directions. We launched the Tapestry line (in fact, I believe the Tapestry line was the last featured cover on Capital’s Advance Comics-the forerunner to Diamond’s Previews), and this line was geared towards young readers. It got a lot of attention and acclaim but little in sales. We also started producing lines of comics geared specifically for targeted audiences as we developed relationships with some mail order companies that would guarantee a minimum purchase (and this was quite large). But they soon collapsed as well. 

Towards the end, it got to the point that we were scrambling to sell anything. The Internet helped us a lot and I believe we were one of the first publishers to offer an online store but there was a great reluctance at that time for consumers to put their credit card information online. I remember we had to take a lot of the credit card information over the phone for our online store….which sort of defeated the purpose. There was no paypal in those days. 

For me, it got to the point of questioning the continued existence of Caliber. I didn’t just want to put out product, I wanted to put out unique comics but the shift towards what was selling was so dramatic that it seemed only superheroes or licensed characters had a chance and I wasn’t interested in either. I never saw Caliber as a company to give me a job and income, but rather one to expand the concept of what comics were and could be. Of course, money was important, I mean, you can’t ignore the realities, but when the financial aspect becomes the only aspect, well, it just seemed like it wasn’t worth it. 

With sales dwindling and the market shift impacting the entire comics industry, it really just came down to a single question…what was the point anymore? Eventually, Caliber had dwindled down to just three of us and we were spending more time constructing the company as an Intellectual Property holder instead of comics. But we came close, unbelievably close, to a couple of deals which would either solidified Caliber as an IP company or via a sale which would have substantially benefited all of us at Caliber. But we didn’t. I am forever indebted to Nate Pride and Chester Jacques for riding that last leg of the journey out at a sacrifice to themselves. Although it never came to pass, if it had, it would’ve been because of the efforts of those two. 

Caliber didn’t have a dramatic ending; it just sort of faded away. The last office space wanted a renewal on the lease and I didn’t sign it. I moved it to my home office and essentially just stopped soliciting any new titles until eventually, Caliber just dropped off the consciousness of the comics industry. It was a long, drawn out death and I really can’t say when it hit me that Caliber was gone. It was there, then sorta there, and then, not there. 

Towards the end of Caliber, I remember my brother contacting me about an article he had seen in the paper about how colleges were short on science teachers. Since I had a Masters in Biology, although I had never used it since graduation, he thought I should look into it. I figured I could look into it and possibly earn some money to help offset the lack of income that Caliber was not providing. I interviewed at one college and five minutes later, I had a part time job teaching Biology. Within a year or two, I was teaching at a number of different schools and found out that I had to turn down work as I could only teach so much. 

On the writing end, of course, I had written a lot for Caliber (and sometimes under pseudonyms) and I liked writing comics. I had written prose stories, poetry, and even some longer fiction but writing comics was the most satisfying. I had been contacted through the years by a number of different editors from other companies to write either my own titles or theirs. It was always a quick dismissal on my part because I didn’t want to write for someone else. But now, I started becoming more receptive to the idea. I wasn’t at the stage where I would solicit for work, but I thought that if I did do some higher profile work, it could benefit my own titles. This is a very common strategy nowadays and some people were doing it back then. 

Joe Pruett, one of the key Caliber guys (well, most of them were key) had left years before and started writing a number of Marvel books. I remember talking to him about the process of writing for Marvel and at that time, it was under heavy editorial control and almost seemed like micro-managing. Although fans undoubtedly see the allure of writing Marvel characters, the process itself seemed stifling. It wasn’t creating comics, it was just a job. That didn’t seem appealing to me at all. 

So, I concentrated on the teaching. And I loved it. I was perfectly happy moving onto a new career although because I had created and owned so many properties, I was in constant discussion with a number of people regarding those. But the entity of Caliber Comics had ended. No big announcement or anything, it just wasn’t there anymore.

 Or so I thought.

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Caliber pt. 12- Caliber and troubles

Well, getting close to wrapping up the discussion on Caliber. I think probably two more posts as I want to concentrate on what’s happening now. But again, I get asked so often about this time period and people seem to have a genuine interest so I do want to sort of conclude it.

I left off last time talking about my discussion with Todd McFarlane about not only my future as Vice President of his company but Caliber as well. It had become an either or situation…either Caliber is rolled into McFarlane Productions or Caliber (and me) leave. Of course, I was torn. Obviously, I didn’t want to abandon Caliber as I had put so much into it over the years. But, even though I did not own any of McFarlane Toys, I was one of the founders and had seen a handful of us take an idea and spin it into an industry changing multi-million dollar company in less than three years. So, there was a bit of sadness in contemplating leaving something.

But there was also anger. Not resentful anger but more of a frustrational one. I think the problem was that others couldn’t conceive on my ability to multi-task in so many areas. I was VP of the toy company, publisher of a major independent company (Caliber), writing a number of titles on a regular basis, and owner of a chain of comic shops. I assume they (and I was never sure of who “they” were…it could’ve been just Todd) were worried about burn out on my end. And I know Todd was a huge believer in not letting work consume your life and to make sure there was balance of work and home. Yet, I maintained that. I was with my kids in the morning as they got ready for school, I was home just about every night for dinner and we all ate together (and I usually prepared dinner), I never missed any of the kids’ events, etc. Sure, I would go back in later at night to work or work from home, but that’s what I did instead of watching TV or movies. I think I did a good job of maintaining a proper balance of work and home even though others may not have seen it.

I think I was also very good at recognizing the skill sets of employees and giving them the opportunity to do their job, which of course, lessened my direct involvement. I was never a micro-manager but saw myself as an overseer and let people do the job they were hired for. At my stores, I had good managers and with Caliber I had Jim Pruett and other editors were perfectly fine in fitting my concepts into theirs. I had a staff at the toy company and a personal assistant that I swear could read my mind.

So, I was a bit pissed about the whole situation as I felt that someone else’s guidelines were being applied to me. But at the same time, I understood I was drawing a salary from McFarlane Toys and it was to be expected that I would devote ALL my time to it. I got that and if I was in his position, I’d likely do the same thing. I’m not trying to placate anyone but just accepting how I really would’ve felt if the roles were reversed. I also got the idea of rolling Caliber into McFarlane Productions…it made sense, a lot of sense.

When Todd and I talked, I really had no idea of what I was thinking. We talked a long time and I don’t want to get into what was essentially a private conversation but it was a pleasant one and not an ultimatum filled one. I had always gotten along with Todd pretty well and we both knew the extent of what we were discussing. It was at one point that made my mind up. Todd was explaining that if he was going to be in charge of Caliber, he was the guy in charge and I’d have to live with that. Then he said, for example, he might decide that one month, all Caliber titles would have to be purple. I remember a long period before I responded. It wasn’t about the “purpleness” --- Todd often used extreme examples to get the point across as the point was the important thing, not the example. I mean, I knew he wasn’t going to make all the covers purple but it was to showcase the situation. And when I answered, I knew my mind was made up and so did Todd.

I said I don’t like purple.

Todd said something to the effect of “there you go” and that was pretty much it. Again, for Todd, it was one conversation of dozens likely that day but for me, it was a major dramatic shift. Now, I had planned on all the contingencies and so I had gone through the numbers over and over. I’m pretty handy with excel spreadsheets and I worked out so many different scenarios of Caliber on its own. I felt that it could do quite well. When it came down to making the decision, my always supportive wife said do what I felt was right, nothing else mattered.

So, I left. Of course, I took Nate Pride (production) and Jim Pruett (editor) with me. I also took my assistant, Nancy Durand as well as Joe Martin and Tim Parsons. I took a couple of other people who would help with warehousing and mailings. I found a building not too far from the toy company and also near my house and it was not an elaborate place but very nice…actually sort of Zen like and everyone had their own offices plus we had quite a few common areas and large enough basement to serve as the warehouse.

The relationship with the toy company remained as people would go back and forth for lunches and we even formed a joint team for softball leagues. I visited the toy company probably a couple of times a week so the split was very amicable.

With Caliber at this time, things were shifting quite a bit. I was bringing in more company owned titles and we were branching out to quite a few name creators. Joe Pruett was hired and moved up from Atlanta to serve as Creative Director and was instrumental in obtaining a number of major series from big names. The Caliber lineup was always changing as creator owned titles moved in and out. Brian Bendis had left and gone to Image. I worked with David Mack on where to take Kabuki as he wanted to do it in color and the fact was, we couldn’t sell enough in color but if he took it to an independent company that could sell color titles, he’d get enough sales. Sure enough, when he went to Image, his sales skyrocketed. Same creator, same book…just different logo on the front. Such is the comics biz.

But Caliber had some great titles as along with Moebius Comics, we had Garth Ennis and John McCrae on Dicks, plus Maze Agency and Mr. Monster returned. We had signed up Whitley Streiber’s Communion and Brian Lumley’s Necroscope and relaunched the acclaimed Mr. X in both a comic series and full length stories in a science fiction themed anthology called New Worlds.

I think that first year was the best selling year in the history of the company.  I know on a personal level, they were the best times I ever had with Caliber. The Caliber staff got along very well and I think everyone worked really hard yet also had a great time. It was one of those fun places for just about everyone working there. Even now, many of the guys, and I keep in constant touch with almost all of them; say it was the best job they ever had.

Obviously, it wouldn’t last. Problems appeared on a number of different fronts. For one, our graphic novel printer screwed up and our graphic novels fell apart. Caliber was big on graphic novels and that put a severe dent in our reputation. We had nearly 70 graphic novels before the whole graphic novel explosion took off. The printer agreed to reprint all the books and they sent them out to the comic shops but after about a month, those too started falling apart. It was not only financially devastating, it was embarrassing. All we could do is have a toll free line that people could call and we would ship a replacement copy out, no questions asked. However, we found after almost two years of doing this, we still had a number of calls coming in, we found out a couple of creators were selling the defective books to fans and then telling them to call us for free replacements.

It was also at this time that we realized just how bad the sorting of the Power Cardz had been. We had purchase orders in the millions of dollars and when the printer screwed up the allocation of the cards, the purchase orders were cancelled or product returned. It was a massive blow, I mean, a massive blow…especially to Joe and Tim who had worked on the cards some 16 hours a day for months on end. They were also to benefit from a bonus based on profit for their work and now there would be no profit, in fact, money would be lost. I ended up suing the printer and it took years to get settled but by then, the printer had gone bankrupt and I got nothing but the victory in court.

There were some other situations that occurred about the same time, all hitting Caliber with some extreme problems. From our printer rep committing fraud to a printer deciding to use Fedex for overnight delivery on 1,000’s of books because they blew the deadline, none were as major as the Power Cardz screw-up which was like a punch that totally deflated everything.

Even with all the problems and situations, I think we were pretty resilient and managed to construct some strategies that might just see us through but eventually, there were just too many things…most out of our control, that Caliber…or rather what I wanted Caliber to be…couldn’t survive.

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Caliber pt. 11- Divided Duties

As I mentioned before, the three years I was at McFarlane Toys was a hectic blur. The company was growing so fast, it was almost impossible to keep up. As the Detroit area offices expanded a couple of times, it was decided the best move was to build a new building, perfectly suited for our needs as warehouse and offices. I was heavily involved in designing the building and laying out the floor plan and that was an interesting exploration of just all the little things you have to consider.

The Powercardz game we released did pretty well. It wasn’t a great seller but it was sort of a trial run. We expanded into signing up Spawn and were also in discussions with Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee to do games based on their properties after the release of Spawn. Obviously the success of Spawn PowerCardz that was going to determine if we continued. We brought up another guy from Kentucky in Tim Parsons who worked with Joe Martin on the game. I have to give Joe and Tim most of the credit for the game as they handled the majority of it and worked their butts off for a very long time.

On the Caliber line, I wanted to continue the regularity that we were starting to have with our titles and in an effort to be less at the mercy of late artists or those who moved on quickly to the big guys, I decided to develope some titles that we would control.

I created Raven Chronicles with some assistance of one of my employees, Chet Jacques. This was about a team of paranormal investigators exploring claims of the unknown. Made of believers and skeptics, it has an interesting dynamic with members of the team featured each issue. Sort of like X-Files meets Mission Impossible (the TV show, not the movies). The plan was to have each issue self contained and that way I could bring in different writers and artists and keep it on a regular schedule. We published 16 issues but I ended up writing about half as I enjoyed it so much. Raven Chronicles became sort of my shared universe as I utilized the characters in many other titles I wrote such as Seeker, Red Diaries, Saint Germaine, Helsing, and even Jim Pruett utilized the characters in his Black Mist series.

Another title I started to develop was Inferno. I had just a vague idea of a city of Hell where immortality reigns along with corruption…a place you could see the sins of the past mixed in with today’s. I did a short prelude of a traveler getting to the gates but just didn’t have time to do much with it. I turned it over to Mike Carey with Michael Gaydos drawing it and they ended up doing a five issue series on it. We share the copyrights on it equally and it will be collected from Transfuzion Publishing this summer.

While these “company owned” titles (which meant me) were being developed, I had brought in many creators to participate in the concepts of not only these, but to bring in their own. Some of the creator owned titles Caliber released came out of this confab but mainly it was to develop some of the titles. The hardest one was Searchers. This was about the descendants of many of the great Victorian heroes and the featured worlds of Verne, Haggard, Doyle, Wells, and others. They were brought into reality so you had Moriarty, the Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, Captain Nemo, Professor Challenger, and many more all mixed together. This was done years before Alan Moore launched his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

There were a number of proposed ideas for the Searchers and I only had a guideline as I didn’t want to restrict anyone else’s ideas. I finally chose the plan from Chris Dows and Colin Clayton and the Searchers was released. I also utilized Chris and Colin to develop another property I had which was The Disciples and they fleshed it into a series that was eventually published by Image Comics.

Somewhere along this time, we got involved with Susie Owens and her Flaxen character. Bill Liebowicz of Golden Apple Comic had worked with Susie on the character so we worked with them to release the comic. Susie traveled with us on the convention circuit and was a tremendous hit. She marketed the hell out of the book, and herself as well, and though she was focused and determined, she always remained a very sweet person. The comic was written by James Hudnall and illustrated by Brian Bendis and David Mack…which was sort of an unusual match but it worked.

Deadworld and Realm had gone through their re-launches but began to sputter primarily due to artist schedules. I had tried to anticipate this by putting two artists on each book to alleviate the demands. On Deadworld, I had Troy Nixey pencil and Galen Showman ink and for The Realm, I had two different artists draw different characters and scenes so each was only drawing half the book. Brian Bendis and Donald Marquez split the book between them and I figured things would go twice as fast. Well, things change in independent comics and most of them were quickly hired away or moved onto their own projects. So, after about a dozen issues or so, both ended.

Deadworld had been optioned by George Clooney’s Maysville Pictures and then put into development by Warner Brothers. I put Deadworld on hiatus figuring I’d see how the movie developed and not veer off into any directions that might conflict with the move. For the Realm, I had been writing it but I was a reluctant fantasy writer and yet I knew that a lot of people still wanted The Realm. I decided to put someone else on the book. Bendis submitted a proposal to take over the book but he soon shifted more towards his crime comics. Joe Martin was a huge fantasy fan. We talked about my desire to relaunch The Realm and he was having some conceptual ideas about his character series, Seeker. So, we decided to switch. He would write The Realm and I would take over his Seeker. I did five issues of Seeker but he and artist Phil Xavier did 18 issues of the newly renamed Realm as it was called Legend Lore. They did a fantastic job on it and it had great critical acclaim particularly amongst the pure fantasy fans.

As all of this was going on- the launch of a number of Caliber titles, the Spawn PowerCardz production, and the Stabur line of books and projects, the demands of McFarlane Toys increased. It wasn’t just a handful of guys in the back room….now it was a major multi-million dollar corporation with many employees, some of who I barely knew as we were bringing them in fairly fast.

An area that was also taking up a lot of time was the exploitation of the Caliber properties in Hollywood. There were a number of meetings, some with the top executives of the major studios. We prepared property bibles for many of the titles and were in deep discussions with a lot of the executives. The Caliber catalog was being actively shopped and actively pursued and although nothing really came out it in the end, it was really close in many cases. Yes, some properties were optioned but that’s really no big deal.

It became evident that I was spread too thin (and that didn’t even include the stores I still had) and a decision had to be made. I couldn’t keep doing it all. I had to decide on Caliber/Stabur or McFarlane Toys. Frankly, I didn’t think it was a problem and although I put in a lot of hours, I knew it wasn’t a permanent situation. I don’t think that the heavy schedule impacted anything I was doing but some felt that no one can work that many in so many different directions without burning out. But even on a personal level, I had a very understanding wife and when I was home, I was home. I was still heavily involved with raising my kids and the family life. It’s not that I was gifted in any way, but I knew how to compartmentalize and I was able to focus intently on the issue at hand and deal with things without it escalating to a worrying situation. To me, it wasn’t a problem and there was no let down in the work itself. Of course, it couldn’t continue forever, but Jim Pruett was assuming more of the duties and plans were to bring in more editors. Joe Martin and Tim Parsons had both stepped up in this area as well as did Chet Jacques.

It came to a head one day as I came in to work. I remember because it was my birthday. In a way, it was an ultimatum…I had to choose. I could stay with McFarlane Toys with the hefty salary I earned as Vice President of the company or leave with the Caliber line. If I stayed with the toy company, the consideration was that Caliber would be consumed by the toy company, or actually the parent company of TMP (Todd McFarlane Productions).

I had a couple of days to think it over and had a lot of discussions with Paul about it. Paul was torn about it as he knew it made sense and could catapult the Caliber titles with Todd’s name behind them yet he was also an entrepreneur in the truest sense and always felt that it was best to be your own guidance regardless of all else. He even considered leaving with me but he was co-owner of McFarlane Toys and CEO.

So, the ultimate decision came down to Caliber with all of its possibilities…both good and bad or to continue with McFarlane Toys solely and give up Caliber. To Todd, it was likely just one of many things he dealt with on any given day, but for me, I knew it was a momentous decision. We set a time for the discussion which was a couple of days away and then it was a case of deciding what I was going to do.

It was an interesting conversation I had with Todd, one that lasted a long time, and surprisingly, it wasn’t until the conversation itself that I eventually made up my mind.

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