Got it? OK, now here's Mr. Manley's.
The gist: D'Orazio thinks that within a few years time Marvel, DC, or some other publishing company will swoop in and take advantage of the increasingly popular venues on the internet (i.e. specific blogs or web comics) by buying up the best of the best and making them subscription sites, while stressing that their brand is the authority (for web comics, blogs, etc.), effectively making all other venues irrelevant. Manley, clearly taking issue with her lumping web comics into the mix, not-so-respectfully disagrees, flat out saying that D'Orazio is wrong. He cites the web comics creators who commented on D'Orazio's blog, basically saying they're doing fine and it would take a lot for a D.C. or Marvel to buy them out. He also says the internetZ is very big and there's room for everyone so play nice.
"But what's your opinion on this, Paul?" It's true, this is my blog so rather than spew out other people's opinions I might as well offer my own insight, right? After all this is a topic I'm interested in, and after the Comics and New Media debacle at Comic Con some real and interesting discussion about web comics is very welcome here at Wednesday's Child.
Overall I think it's clear that Manley's argument is flawed, and for a few reasons. First off, in his third paragraph he says
I don’t say this to call her out necessarily, but to point to it as an example of the kind of thinking that I’ve been running into pretty consistently since becoming CEO of ComicSpace and meeting lots of people in the “comics industry” (quotes because the Marvel/DC axis is not the only comics industry — it’s one of several, and not even the biggest).Now, when you talk about the colloquial "comics industry" rather than the comics industry proper, yes Marvel/DC actually are the big boys. I'm not even sure the companies he mentions afterwords,the rest of the "comics industry", have more pull even if we are talking about the industry proper; DC is owned by Warner Bros., and both Marvel and D.C. have become powerhouses in the world of film as well as comics. Their resources are superior to many other, if not all other, comics-based companies. So, yes, Marvel and DC are formidable, to say the least.
However, while Valerie uses DC or Marvel as an example, she explicitly states in the entry, "If I was DC or Marvel (or any other media company)..." So, ok, let's say Scholastic, United, or Viz are more financially equipped to buy out certain web comics. The concept is exactly the same isn't it? If Scholastic bought all of the best web comics and started their own site, discouraging people from viewing other comics, its the same as if Spider-Man and Wonder Woman were doing it.
Second: yes, it's all well and good that these creators are doing well for themselves now, and its nice to see idealism at this stage; that sort of "damn the man! you can't buy me!" mentality that comes with freelancing and ends with a steady paycheck. But I doubt whatever "expense" it would take to buy them out would be any skin off of Paul Levitz', or Joe Quesada's (is anyone above him at Marvel?), or Richard Robinson's back, especially when one of these companies can offer mass marketing and merchandising well out of those creators' reaches. If after a few years web comics skyrocket into incredible popularity then what Valerie's saying makes good business sense, and publishers would be foolish not to capitalize. It's happened with independent film companies, TV stations, radio stations, etc.-- what makes web comics immune?
Lastly, this comment:
I’ll make a prediction of my own. Marvel and DC are no more in a position to 'take over' webcomics than they are to 'take over' any of the other comics industriesis a little ridiculous, no? This is not like Marvel saying "hmm I think I'll purchase Scholastic today". "Web comics" is not a company, its a series of independent creators and smaller websites (and a series of tubes). That means you buy out one by one by one until you have all the ones you want, and it makes the rest irrelevant because they're not under the Scholastic or Marvel or whatever banner. Its the same exact thing that's happening with "real" comics-- yeah, Fantagraphics and D&Q and all of those great small publishers make amazing, subversive material. But its really just that: a counter-culture within a counter-culture. The "big two" still have the larger market shares, and with Diamond's new standards that's only going to get worse. The caveat here is that on the web its much easier and cheaper to produce for a site or blog than it is in print, but I think this will more be a victory by promotion rather than by capital. Sure there's room for all kinds of websites with all kinds of services, but some will be more accepted than others and a web comic on the Zuda imprint gets more publicity than one on Modern Tales.
His post is dismissive at best and patronizing at worst, and his stance is that he knows more about the subject than his reader does and that's that. And that's true, if we were talking about the current state of web comics. But what we're talking about is the future which is, if you'll excuse my French for a second, something he doesn't know dick about. Me neither, and neither do the Valerie D'Orazios, or the Richard Robinsons of the world, so we're all just speculating, and I think he's wrong, and he can think I'm wrong, and I'm coming from historical perspective and he's coming from personal experience, and that's all fine. Hey, if he ends up being right I'll be the first person to say his dick is so much bigger than D'Orazio's. I'll write a whole post about it. The subject line will be Look at the size of that cock, you guys. But you can't title a blog entry Occasional Superheroine doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about, and go around making bold statements like "you're wrong", and then follow it up by saying you're not trying to start a fight. Because, yeah congrats, I'm sure more people read your blog today because of it but there's no need to be such a dick you know?
7 comments:
So all this anger is about the title? Good to know.
I guess if I had entitled my post "Occasional Superheroine doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about," you'd have a great point there at the end. I didn't. I could have come up with a more clever title. I dunno. Mostly, I tried to be respectful in my post. I'll continue to try to be. I'd appreciate the same treatment from the people who disagree with me, but I understand how this is the Internet and all.
No anger here, I'm just pointing out the fact that you were kind of being a condescending dick. I mean yeah you're right, you stopped short of actually saying the words "you don't know what the fuck you're talking about"; but even a statement like "you're wrong" is sensationalized when used as a headline, and I find it hard to believe you didn't know exactly what you were doing. The whole post had an air of loftiness.
I'm not trying to be a dick, nor am I Ms. D'Orazio's personal defense attorney, but if you act like a jerk you're gonna get called on it.
Eh, I wouldn't worry about it.
It's a Knee Jerk Reaction post.
Paul, I'm with you & D'Orazio on this one.
If I had a dollar for every artist who caved to a regular paycheck from a big company in any medium... and who can blame them?
You struggle for years perfecting your art and praying that someone else takes it in and appreciates it, let alone make enough money to live off of it. When a big company comes around with a checkbook and a promise of larger readership, it takes a mighty stubborn person to turn that down.
I agree with you on Manley being a dick. It took him 246 words of belittling OS (not counting the belittling title) before he finally started making his argument.
But I think he makes one very valid point: There are new webcomics popping up all the time. Because of this, I think his prediction about Marvel and DC having a very profitable presence in webcomics is more probable than OS' prediction that they will be the only or even tha main source for webcomics.
I'll take that point that he made a bit further. If the top 5, 2, or even 1% of webcomics were bought up by large media companies, there would be a FLOOD of new webcomics by authors and artists hoping to make the same big kind of payday. Granted, a lot of them will be crap, making the ones purchased by large media companies look that much better. But many of them (in terms of total numbers compared to now, pre large media company purchases; but by no means anywhere approaching a majority both now and then, post large media company purchases) will be quality work. And people are cheap and will keep watching the free ones. That's not to say there won't be people who pay for the good ones. But that's just that many more webcomics that large media companies will have to compete with.
Now, I think the best thing for large media companies, specifically DC and Marvel, would be to publish all of their comics online, and charge monthly subscriptions. They could run all sorts of package deals (as mentioned by OS). For instance, Marvel could run a package where for X dollars a month you get unlimited access to Spiderman, X-Men, and X amount of other "large" comics, and then a bundle of like 5 or 6 "small" comics, including the webcomics they purchased. At the same time, they could run all sorts of forums and blogs out of the Marvel website that you would only have access to if you were part of some monthly subscription plan. And they could have the plans range from just access to the forums and blogs to access to the entire Marvel collection.
I've gone off course here. Point is, there will still be a lot of quality webcomics that people will read without paying for. And everytime one gets purchased, there will be more new authors, if only to try and have their work purchased.
And also, Manley was a dick.
Ben: A lot of good points there, but the most intriguing to me is the prospect of subscription blogs (ha! and not because I actually think I'd benefit from such a thing, because clearly that's not the case). ESPN.com does this now with their ESPN Insider columns, written by people like Buster Olney and Peter Gammons, two baseball writers with tremendous credibility. There are tons of subscribers, and even though the information eventually gets leaked to non-subscribers anyway I still know people who have purchased the package just to get their news first. Marvel or DC or another publishing company could absolutely benefit from that. I mean, what if Tom Spurgeon took the Comics Reporter into a pay-domain? That would completely change the game. I'm certainly not insinuating that he would but all it takes is a big splash like that to get the ball rolling.
Right Paul, and I absolutely think that will happen. But using your ESPN example, ESPN is also littered with tons of columnists for whom you do not have to be an Insider. I'm willing to bet that outside of a couple of Insider guys (Gammons especially), the free (Outsider?) reporters wipe the floor with the insiders in terms of number of readers.
Imagine if ESPN were to all of a sudden become a completely pay site. How long do you think it would take for CNNSI, FoxSports, or CBS Sportsline to become the dominant sports website? People won't pay when they can get almost equal quality items for free.
To make the analogy work, ESPN, Foxsports, CNNSI, and CBS Sportsline would be like the top percentage of webcomics. They would all have to go pay site at once. That's like a large media company buying up the top webcomics and making them pay sites. But you know that other, smaller sports websites (something like Yahoo! Sports) or a brand new sports website would gain popularity among those who either can't or won't pay for the big boys.
Same thing would happen for webcomics. Not to mention all of the entrepeneurial authors and artists who will try and get in fast and make a quick buck.
Bottom line: there will always be more.
The best analogy I can come up with is music. Some new band is starting up and they give away they're music on CDs or increasingly on online mediums like MySpace or FaceBook. Then they get a following and start charging for merch and shows (let's compare this loosely to ad revenue since this is the beginnings of income for the band, even though there is out of pocket expense from the consumer). Eventully the band gets big enough that they get signed by a label and the prices go up. Then they get signed by a major label and the prices go WAY up, but now you can catch "New Band" opening for Modest Mouse (how's the major label treating you guys? I'm sure you'll just cry into your big pile of money).
But at the same time, there are 1000 new bands that start up every day to replace the ones signed to major or even independent labels.
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