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Mig Da Silva
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 900
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | 1
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QUOTE:
| Now you're just not making sense. To reiterate, you spoke of the mid 90's market as somehow a downturn from the end of the 80's, early 90's, when in fact the speculative market era of comics saw millions of copies in sales. |
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I said no such thing.
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| Sales before then were NOT good and the upswing in the mid 90's was a hoped for phenom that has occured in comic cyclically almost since the beginning. |
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I thought my post was extremely clear. Sales pre-90's were better than what they are today.
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| If anything, the anemic Direct Market you refer to was much more prevelant before the 90's boom. |
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Direct-Market in the 80's? Now I'm stumped.
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| How is this a contridiction? Of course if the product sold they would have had money! DUH That's like saying Coke wouldn't sell if no one bought it! |
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It's not. But mentioning "They ran out of money" is akin to saying "It's just broke", as if it had broke itself. It ran out of money because amongst other problems, it never came in as fast as it went out.
If they were spending so much investment capital, and starting so many books, they sure must've been confident on their new "sophisticated" beyond Marvel\DC model. Apparently, as i claimed, too much.
Or to put it popularly, they bitten more then they thought they could chew.
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Mig Da Silva
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 900
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | 2
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QUOTE:
| I think Mig is forgetting the original point he was trying to make. |
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The point i made was that CrossGen had a model where some of the things you were yearning for existed - Finite stories. Characterization driven stories where there's actual change, not illusion of change, like in silly Stan & Ditko forever comics.
They tried it. It failed.
The ran out of cash doesn't cut it. They only ran out of cash because they had high hopes for a product the market said no.
And you want M***** to try a model that ended up bankrupt?
Fine by me, it's not my cash.
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Dennis Calero
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 June 2006
Posts: 504
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | 3
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"I thought my post was extremely clear. Sales pre-90's were better than what they are today. "
That's the point this is saying that a crumb of food is better than an atom of food. Neither one is good and neither one is enough.
"Direct-Market in the 80's? Now I'm stumped. "
The direct market begain in the early 80's. Help me to understand what you're confused about?
"Or to put it popularly, they bitten more then they thought they could chew. "
I dont argue with this in the sense that in hindsight, Crossgen would have given their books a better shot if they had built their line up slowly, one book at a time. I think I made that point already.
Edited by Dennis Calero on 18 June 2006 at 3:57pm
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Dennis Calero
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 June 2006
Posts: 504
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | 4
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"The point i made was that CrossGen had a model where some of the things you were yearning for existed - Finite stories."
No, they didn't. Their books were almost all continuing stories meant to last as ongoing titles, so no, you are wrong and wrong. Can some of you other guys back me up here?
Edited by Dennis Calero on 18 June 2006 at 3:58pm
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35945
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | 5
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Mig Da Silva wrote:
| Or to put it popularly, they bitten more then they thought they could chew. |
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FINALLY! This is what I've been saying since the start. Not that CrossGen's bankruptcy had anything to do with comics that didn't have superheroes, not that it had anything to do with some nonexistent Millar/Bendis/Moore style of writing, and not that some of their titles were finite. CrossGen simply expanded past the point that it could survive. As I said earlier, it grew too fast, too soon. CrossGen ran out of money.
In a world where IDW and Dark Horse are surviving and thriving on licensed product and non-superhero comics, many of which are finite (either a certain number of issues in a run or a series of mini-series), I find the argument that CrossGen failed because of the fact that it eschewed superheroes to be suspicious at best. I also don't think they eschewed heroes because of some elitist stance that said they weren't good enough, as most pros who worked for the company were/are proud of their work on superhero titles at Marvel and DC, but that the company was founded with the hope that there would be an audience that the big two weren't reaching. They found it, pretty quickly I might add, but then grew too big for their britches instead of gradually growing their line and fan base. In other words, they bit off more than they could chew from a business standpoint, not a creative one.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | 6
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Dennis Calero wrote:
| Can some of you other guys back me up here? |
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What do you think I've been doing, Dennis? Whistling Dixie?!?
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Lance Hill
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2005
Posts: 991
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | 7
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QUOTE:
The point i made was that CrossGen had a model where some of the things you were yearning for existed - Finite stories. Characterization driven stories where there's actual change, not illusion of change, like in silly Stan & Ditko forever comics.
They tried it. It failed. |
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And yet Tokyopop and Viz succeed. Finite stories were not the reason CrossGen failed.
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | 8
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Just so I'm clear:
Mig's point is that because Crossgen tried to do comics that featured non-superheroes that "grow" and "change" in finite stories, and the company failed, then that's some sort of conclusive proof that non-superheroes that "grow" and "change" in finite stories can't ever work? That just doesn't make sense. That's like a big corporations saying, "Well, you know we tried to have a woman as CEO, but she was incompetent, so we certainly won't try that again." As Matt Reed and Dennis have been saying, Crossgen failed because of bad business choices, not bad creative ones.
Edited to ask:
Are you the same Dennis Calero drawing X-Factor?
Edited by Matt Linton on 18 June 2006 at 4:17pm
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Dennis Calero
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 June 2006
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | 9
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Yes.
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Matt Linton
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Joined: 13 December 2005
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | 10
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Cool. I hope you're the regular penciller post-Sook. I was pleasantly surprised by the pages you did during his run.
Back on topic: The other thing wrong with Mig's analogy are companies like Valiant, Defiant, Malibu, and others that tried to do fairly traditional superhero comics outside of Marvel and DC and also failed (for different reasons).
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Mig Da Silva
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 900
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | 11
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QUOTE:
FINALLY! This is what I've been saying since the start. Not that CrossGen's bankruptcy had anything to do with comics that didn't have superheroes, not that it had anything to do with some nonexistent Millar/Bendis/Moore style of writing, and not that some of their titles were finite. CrossGen simply expanded past the point that it could survive. As I said earlier, it grew too fast, too soon. CrossGen ran out of money.
In a world where IDW and Dark Horse are surviving and thriving on licensed product and non-superhero comics, many of which are finite (either a certain number of issues in a run or a series of mini-series), I find the argument that CrossGen failed because of the fact that it eschewed superheroes to be suspicious at best. |
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Well, fortunately or unfortunately this where we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
IDW and Dark Horse - whom i consider extremely professional, and have a nice set of balls for going against the big two - "thriving" means peanuts compared to what the big 2 make. And it's not been getting better, the positions of all other than the big 2 has degenerated in market percentages.
Now i ask. Why should M***** or DC move into the direction these 2, once 3 (IDW,DH,CrossGen), are going?
The market does not want superheroes that age, nor finite concepts. I'm not saying i agree with it. I just read the market.
I say the market does not want an aging Spider-Man. Now M***** does it wants with it.
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Mig Da Silva
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 900
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| Posted: 18 June 2006 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | 12
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QUOTE:
| Mig's point is that because Crossgen tried to do comics that featured non-superheroes that "grow" and "change" in finite stories, and the company failed, then that's some sort of conclusive proof that non-superheroes that "grow" and "change" in finite stories can't ever work? That just doesn't make sense. |
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Of course it doesn't make sense, it's not the point i made :-) It's almost there though. Here's the point i make:
"Super-heroes that "age", "grow" and "change" don't work."
Ipsis verbis.
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Topic Closed)
