Looking Back

Looking at the date, it dawned on me that in a few months, it will be 20 years since I started Caliber Comics. That’s a lot of years and even though Caliber occupied my life for a good 11-12 years, when I think back of it ending around 2001 or so, it seems so very…very…very long ago. Almost a distant memory.

Since that time…and that time referring to the “end” of Caliber…things certainly have changed. My four daughters have aged, a couple of them growing to adulthood. I started teaching and now consider that my occupation rather than being writer or publisher---except for the summers, that is. I don’t teach in the summer and devote myself writing.

When I started in the comics business, first as a retailer then a convention organizer before entering the publishing field, I was one of the young guys. Well, not really. I wasn’t that young but certainly younger than I am currently. Now, I see that there are a lot of young people…and some not so young. The comics market, especially because of the boom in the graphic novel field, is bringing in all kinds of people and all various ages. There is no young guard coming in and pushing the old guard out the door because of new ideas. In fact, it seems that the young no longer have a monopoly on new waves of technology that they used to have. To some extent, sure, as you don’t see too many senior citizens texting or trying to determine whether Comcast, AT&T, and whatever local provider there is will supply you with better HD programming. But that other group, slightly above middle aged but not close enough to senior status (and fighting it tooth and nail) are embracing the technology as much as the young people.

That seems to be happening in comics as well. It’s quite a mixed bag of creators when you attend a convention. It used to be the older people were the seasoned vets on the downside of their career or perhaps just relishing in the years of success they had. Nowadays, they’re just as apt as the teenager next to them in pushing their new self-published title. About the only difference it seems is at the bars at night. That seems to be the domain of the young still (and obviously, there are some notable exceptions).

With Transfuzion starting up, I am continually amazed at how much simpler things are now. The technology just makes things so much easier and much more efficient. At Caliber, we were pretty advanced as far as technology went. I remember we had to explain what a zip drive was to a printer. We launched a web site earlier than most and had one of the few shopping carts. It was a tedious process to input an item for the cart and there was an incredible reluctance on consumers to use their credit cards. That was well before payment management companies such as PayPal came along.

We got our first computer right after Caliber started. I had hired Kevin VanHook for editorial help and he actually used a computer. Kevin only stayed about a year before he left to find a successful career in Hollywood in writing and directing films. But when he left, we bought his computer. It was an Atari. The memory was so meager that we could only print out half a page of text so all of our text pages had to have the two halves taped together.

When you wanted a black page, you had to either have something black already or get out those huge markers that would usually end up giving you quite a buzz for the evening and a terrible headache the next day.

One memory that I remember quite well was when I was putting together a 32 page booklet as a promotional item. It was a brochure of our titles, and I’m guessing it was to be a handout at conventions. Caliber had a lot of “dark” titles so most of the design featured black pages with white text. At that time, Guy Davis was working for me in production. It was right before he landed the Sandman Mystery Theatre job that would cement his career.

We had to use a lot of black pages but we had a ready source. One of the first titles Caliber produced was The Crow. Initially, The Crow didn’t sell that well and even when it started to move and we had to go back to print, each printing was only a couple thousand copies. It wasn’t until the announcement of the movie that The Crow really took off. But anyway, The Crow had almost a solid back cover with just a small amount of text on the back (maybe it was the inside back cover, can’t quite remember). So, to get the black pages, we would rip off the back cover of The Crow issues and just paste over it. Yeah, I know what the issues eventually became worth in the price guides, but at that time, who knew? I think Guy and I did the entire 32 page book in one day. I’d write and type up the text, print it (again, only half a page at a time) --- we’d go over the design of each page, and then he’d use a photocopy to get images from the comics and shrink or blow up the images as needed and paste them up with spray mount. The outside of the office door was a mucky mess of overspray from the spray mount and the vapors were so strong that the spraying had to be done outside.

I’d like to say those were the good old times but when I’m using Photoshop and just bringing in digital images…I just can’t.

Production isn’t the only thing that has changed. The incredible avenues now open because of the internet is unbelievable. Yes, I know Diamond is still the gorilla for the direct market but there are so many other areas that are much more accessible now. Libraries, independent and chain bookstores, direct mail, and other avenues are open simply because you can access them.

Of course, the main thing dampening all this accessibility and ease of production is increased competition. Whereas the “old days” curtailed the potential for a lot of people to enter the market, now almost anyone with a computer can get in on the action. And when you bring in the whole idea of webcomics, well, that just changes everything.

When I was a retailer, I carried virtually every single comic that came out and I had a pretty good idea of what every publisher and creator was up to. That was my job and my stores were extremely successful because we catered to that independent market. I look at things nowadays and I don’t know how retailers can keep up things. They have the usual print suspects but what happens when a webcomic decides to put out a physical copy. How do retailers know if it will sell? If it’s real popular, doesn’t that mean everyone has already gotten the material off the web? The saving grace for the retailer again comes down to distribution. The ability to get re-orders in today’s market is so far superior to what it used to be. Retailer can order light (and usually do) because they know that if the book takes off, they can usually get more copies.

I guess what triggered all this is getting prepared to head to Chicago Con (oops…Wizard World Chicago). It used to be an annual thing when I had Caliber and even prior because of my own conventions and stores but I had missed about 6-7 years straight. Now, I’ll be attending the third straight one. It certainly isn’t what it used to be and I’ll determine this year if I’ll return for next year. Fortunately, there’s enough old friends at the con that make it at least enjoyable.

But man, I sure see a lot of old people there.

Note: This blog is now being carried on the blog page of ComicsRelated.com along with a number of other blogs all in one place so if you get a chance, check it out. Also, there is a message board for Transfuzion and Desperado, so if you have any questions about anything I’m working on for those two companies, drop a note.

Here's the cover to HELSING, another recent release that I'll have with me at Chicago.

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Projects Update

Since I get emails asking, I figured I'd might as well use this opportunity to play catch-up on some of the various projects that I'm working on.

I've mentioned before that I'm working on a novel and it requires an enormous amount of research and I've done most of that as well as making notes on my general outline. I don't get too specific in my pre-writing but I do try and figure out the general structure of things. I took a break from that before I start devoting 4-6 hours daily on writing that for most of the summer.

So, for the break, I put together some more books for Transfuzion including SEEKER and ZULU NATION. Both will be at Chicago Con and neither will be available via Diamond. Seeker was offered but Diamond said the orders were too low and I didn't bother soliciting Zulunation as I can't see comic shops supporting something like that. But the plan initially was to make many of the books available online or direct anyway, so no big deal.

The SINERGY compilation is lagging a bit behind as I have to redo some of the scans and I had some new pages from different artists being added. Still looks to be late summer for that one.

In the "break" from the novel writing, I actually did quite a bit of comic scripting. I have an original graphic novel coming out from Desperado with art from Wayne Reid and it's about a smuggler in the pre-revolution colonies who terrorizes the British as the SCARECROW. Using a Scarecrow as a foil is not wholly original as it has been done before with Dr. Syn, Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, Nathaniel Hawthorn's Feathertop and Percy MacKaye's Scarecrow but it's one of those projects that keeps festering in me so I finally decided to do it. It's coming out later in 2008 and will be entitled "A MURDER OF SCARECROWS".

I also have a four issue limited series I wrote called "THE RAIN PEOPLE" which is utilizing some characters from RAVEN CHRONICLES although this is meant to stand entirely on its own. I don't have an artist yet so I'm hoping that perhaps I can find one at Chicago Con.

But most of my work has been on DEADWORLD. I wrote two full length stories that will be part of an anthology and these were drawn by Bill Bryan and Wayne Reid respectively. They were to be part of DEADWORLD: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD but that project has been put off because some of the contributors bailed at the last minute and some of the stories turned in for this all new anthology were, uh, let's just say not as good as the sample art had led me to believe they would be. It happens. But the good news is that the anthology will continue andI have some more stories coming but now it will be coming out from Desperado and be entitled "DEADWORLD CHRONICLES"...and we're looking at an October or November release.

Speaking of Deadworld, things are going quite hectic there. The action figure from Shocker Toys is geared to be in the second wave of releases from them, the Halloween mask is coming along nicely, the Frozen Over mini-series from Desperado is wrapping up, and there's going to be another mini-series coming out, starting in October.

The new mini-series is called SLAUGHTERHOUSE and I'll come back to writing it. We haven't decided yet how to work it out in terms of whether it will be a mini-series or part of the numbering of the Deadworld series...or both, but either way, it is a story that is meant to stand on its own and new fans can come right into it without knowing what has happened before.

I wanted an artist who could give a very powerful look to it and when Sami Makkonen signed up, I was very pleased. He has a stylized form but I think it will work out great. You will be hearing a lot about Sami soon with his work on the Split Lip and The Chemistry Set anthologies plus the graphic novel he's doing with Elizabeth Genco called BLUE, also from Desperado Publishing. It looks very cool.

Sami is a Finnish artist so it adds to the different nationalities I've worked with on my stories. I've had British, French, Malaysian, Indonesian, and Serbian so far. I have to bug Sami for some information on Finland as that is the nationality in my family that I associate with most. My great grandparents came from Finland and I believe they ended up meeting on the boat and got married. As a kid, the Finland side was the predominate side and my dad had learned to speak Finnish before he learned English. My kids hear about the Finlander side of the family but with all the nationalities they have mixed in their blood, it's just another perspective. My wife is Japanese, Polish, German, and English while I also have French and Irish to go along with the Finnish (plus a little Mongolian thrown in) so they're quite the melting pot. None of our lineages go back beyond four generations here so I guess we're part of what is considered the American fabric of immigration.

So, in the last couple weeks, I completed 8 comic scripts and the original graphic novel, so I've been busy. My next break will come at Chicago Con where I'll be bringing all of my graphic novels. I was quite shocked when I started thinking of how many books I'll have there. Of course, I will have all of the Transfuzion books but in looking at the number of books that I'll have there "representing" my work, it's going to number around 20. I didn't realize that I had done that many trades in the last couple of years.

On some other news, I may not have mentioned it before (or perhaps I did...not sure), me and Guy Davis are waiting to hear back regarding a new edition of BAKER STREET. The previous one, put out by Byron Preiss and distributed by Simon and Shuster, is out of print so it will be nice to get it back in print.

When Chicago Con (guess officially it should be called Wizard World Chicago, but I still call it Chicago Con) gets closer, I'll know the exact table number that I'll be at. Transfuzion will be set up in Artist's Alley along with the Mob Rules group which includes Rafael Nieves and his cohorts. I'll also be bringing Nate Pride with me. Nate, in addition to being a great artist, was responsible for so many of Caliber's designs even on a lot of creator owned books.

Just wanted to give an update. More before Chicago. Again, the plan is to try and keep things more updated on Transfusion's and Desperado's message boards, both of which can be found on ComicRelated.com.

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Motor City Con

Just spend the weekend at this year's MOTOR CITY CONVENTION and have to say overall, I was pretty pleased with it. The con is celebrating nearly 20 years but it doesn't seem to have the audience it once had but when you're talking about comics, the differences from during that time have changed in just about every facet.

The con is still reliant on media guests and of course, this leaves much less in the budget for comic guests. It was still a decent list of comic creators though. Attending this year were: Dick Ayers, Chris Claremont, Guy Davis, Chris Jones, Matt Feazell, Al Feldstein, George Jeanty, Vince Locke, Bill Loebs, Mike Okamato, David Petersen, Arthur Suydam, Bernie Wrightson, Chris Yambar, and dozens of other creators. Dave Sim and Herb Trimpe were scheduled but canceled.

The celebrity list (these are the ones that I'm at least somewhat aware of anyway): Walter Koenig, Mickey Dolenz (from the Monkees...), Eric Estrada, Lou Ferrigno, Margot Kidder, Joe Pantoliano, Tom Savini, Billy Dee Williams, and many others with good representation from the various Star Trek and Who Wants to be a Superhero shows. There was also a VERY large contingent and display for the 501st Legion which I'm not entirely sure what they were but they hosted a party and genuinely seemed to have a good time. Not for me personally but I thought overall a great addition to the con.

I realize that the media guests bring in the people but it does take away from the "comic book" feel of a con. It may be the only way they can pull in enough numbers perhaps.

I've always wanted the Motor City Con to do well for a couple of reasons. One is that is in my "backyard"...I'm about a 12-20 minute drive from it. But another reason is that even though I never had anything to do with the Motor City Con, I like to think that I got the ball rolling when I was doing conventions. I started up King Kon and did that for three years. I did the first one at Eastern Michigan University which is very close to the University of Michigan so it got a good crowd. I moved it to Dearborn and after I stopped doing the cons because of family obligations (we started to have kids...something had to go), Motor City followed up at the Dearborn site before moving a few years ago to the much larger Novi site.

King Kong was the first attempt to have a major con in the Detroit area which was one of the prime areas in the early days of comic fandom (most notable were the Triple Fan Fairs). During the three years I had the con, we had some pretty good guests....Harvey Kurtzman, Dave Sim, John Ostrander, Richard and Wendy Pini, Larry Marder, Tom Mandrake, Jan Duursema, Dan Mishkin, Gary Kohn, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, and dozens more that I'm drawing a blank on.

When Caliber was going full steam, Motor City was "our" con and we would have 10-20 booths and bring in a lot of our talent such as Guy Davis, Vince Locke, Brian Bendis, Mark Ricketts, David Mack, Susie (Flaxen) Owens, etc. We did it a couple of times at Chicago but Detroit was a mainstay.

So, I like to see the con do well and I remain optimistic especially after talking with the new guest liaison, Jeffrey Serling, and he seemed determined to put more "comics" in the comic con in upcoming shows. I think that he's going to be more aggressive in that area and I'll likely pester him with some suggestions.

Personally, I have no complaints as they gave us a fantastic spot and so Transfuzion had an end cap. At the booth, joining me, were Ralph Griffith and Stu Kerr, who had the new printing of the OZ graphic novel to show off plus some upcoming stuff. Also there was Mark Bloodworth who had two Transfuzion books in Jack the Ripper and the Raven Chronicles tie-in, The Ripper Legacy. Plus he's done quite a bit of work on Deadworld over the years. Mark was the penciler on the very first comic story I ever did (preceded the Baker Street series by about a week).

However, some of the artists who had purchased space and formerly got booth arrangements were moved to the Artist Alley spot. Everyone agrees that having an Artist Alley area is good but some felt it wasn't explained to them before hand.

Some of the dealers reported less than enthusiastic sales and I don't know if it was because there were a couple of dealers blowing stuff out right off the bat or just the economic times in Michigan which is likely the worst in the nation. But the crowds were pretty good, especially on Saturday as it was a fight just to navigate through the dealers' area.

And that ties into another problem. One set of bathrooms. I didn't mind it so much as I'd just take a different path each time and ended up seeing the whole con that way but some people said that the lines got long sometimes. Not sure what the organizers can do about that as it's a facility problem.

So, not really any major problems but some glitches (such as a boring program guide and quite a few mis-spellings on people's names).

I thought the crowd was pretty strong, particularly on Saturday. The dealers' areas was very crowded and lots of people browsed the Transfuzion booth. I can't blame the con if they don't buy anything...there job is to get people there but they can't make them purchase.

But sales were pretty brisk and consistent. Nothing particularly sold well but I think I sold at least one copy of everything I had there. I had most of my books from Image, Desperado, Penguin, Actionopolis, etc. plus nine books from Transfuzion and some odds and ends of Deadworld stuff (mini-statures, CD-rom, etc) and took orders on the King Zombie mask and showed production pictures of the King Zombie action figure.

I got a chance to show two collections coming out soon, RAVEN CHRONICLES and HELSING. Raven got a pretty good response and when doing the notes for it, I remembered how much I enjoyed writing it. Raven Chronicles was my personal shared universe that I wove into other series. In addition to the Raven stories, I used the characters in other series such as Saint Germaine, Red Diaries, and Helsing and a cameo in Seeker. The characters were the main characters in Ripper Legacy and Jim Pruett used them in his Black Mist series (as Black Mist is actually one of the Raven members). I've talked in the past about doing the Raven team as a young adult novel series but I'm certainly open to doing more comics with them. Now, just have to find the time.

Got caught up with some professional friends who I rarely see. Of course, had a chance to talk to Ralph, Stu, and Mark at the booth. Nate Pride who was such an integral part of Caliber was there and he's coming with me to Chicago now. Obviously had a chance to spend with Guy Davis and Vince Locke, two frequent collaborators of mine. Guy and I hope to announce a new publisher for the Baker Street collection soon and we discussed some "Hollywood" happenings. But as usual, until something actually occurs, it's just talk. Vince and I talked about a Deadworld project that should excite the fans and I hope to reveal more about that soon. I had a chance to talk with Chris Jones. He told me that his long run on Batman Strikes is over as DC is canceling the series soon. We did have a chance to go over some details of the Boston Bombers collection he's putting together for release from Transfuzion very soon. Also got a chance to talk with George Jeanty who has done some work for Marvel (I think) and is now doing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He's another talented artist that got his start at Caliber (he did a book for me called Paridigm).

The convention unfortunately doesn't have too much of an active "after hours" vibe. The con is located next to a very busy area with a large shopping mall, numerous smaller malls, and a ton of restaurants to everyone disperses. The convention hotel has a nice bar and many of the guests end up there. I have to say that Motor City has a good track record of many of the celebrities mingling with the comics folks in the bar. Eric Estrada, for example, made many fans happy as he was relaxing in the bar and open to talking with people.

I played pool (and poorly as usual) with Mike and Diana Okamato...two friends from the early days of Caliber. Even though I've never worked with them professionally, they are convention friends who I've enjoyed over the years.

As I mentioned, the 501st Legion had an official party but I wasn't about to venture into a room of Star Wars fans although from what I saw, everyone that attended had a good time and I was glad to see the event.

For a few years, Caliber used to host a party at the convention and we would take over the entire lobby. A lot of people wondered how we could afford it but I think, with one possible exception, hosting the parties never cost me a penny. So, here's a tip if you want to host a convention or trade show party. Talk to the hotel and guarantee them a certain amount of liquor sales. I think we guaranteed $1,000 or something like that. They put in cash bars and you host the party to get people to come. Of course, make sure you put our some appetizers such as pretzels, peanuts, and cheese with crackers. Yes, all salty food (people would be amazed at how much salt is in processed cheese)...and I think we fell a few dollars short only one time. It was a win-win situation for everyone.

Overall, I was very pleased with the con. I had a good time as much as I could--as after doing so many conventions and trade shows, I usually approach them with dread rather than anticipation.

I'm hoping that things shift towards a more comics oriented con with some new blood in terms of guests and dealers and it would be nice to get some publishers to attend.

This has gone on way too long so I'll wrap it up now...

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