" C O M I C B O O K E - M A G " __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 2 - Volume 1 - March 13, 1995 "Brought to you from the fine folks at the COMIC BOOK Network!" Editors: Ed Dukeshire & Mike Imboden __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [-1-] The Bullpen ........................ Ed Dukeshire [-2-] The 25th Hour ...................... Mike Imboden [-3-] Reviews Vampirella Cards .................. Jeff Watts Tick Toys ......................... Mike Imboden [-4-] Change In The Air .................. William Hughes [-5-] CSNsider ........................... David Leblanc [-6-] Comicunications .................... Ryan Brewster [-7-] Feedback ........................... Readers [-8-] BBSes Linked into CBN .............. CBN Staff __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-1-]--/ THE BULLPEN /----------------------------------------------/ Happenings in the Comic Book Network! by Ed Dukeshire I can never think of what to write in this column. Soooo, I'm going to take this opportunity to run through some of the current message chains happening within the Comic Book Network echos. In no particular order. 1. MOVIES AND TV Major talk about the rumors pertaining to Jon Bon Jovi being cast as the star of the planned CROW 2 movie. Seems everyone believes this is going to be a major mistake. But, then again, didn't every- one say that about Keaton being cast as Wayne/Batman? 2. WRITERS & ARTISTS It's been pretty quiet in this area lately, but I was happy to see the echo start picking up once again. Jesse Willey just uploaded his latest chapters of "Bunch'D'Up Society" (a fanfic about super heroes in the future. "Bunch'D'Up League" (fanfic monotonous multiverse epic <-- Jesse's words, not mine! ). And something UnBunch'd - "CYBERNET WARRIOR". Check them out if you get a chance! 3. MARVEL COMICS Much talk of Marvel and Malibu tossing their characters into each others comics. Will this eventually lead to Marvel just eliminating the Ultraverse altogether? Time will tell on this one. 4. DC COMICS Mike Grell's WARLORD is the topic of discussion in this echo. Also, John Keady drops us his DC reviews for the week. Maybe I can get John to allow us to post his reviews in this e-mag? How about it John? 5. IMAGE COMICS GROO news and rumors! The news is that WILDSTORM will be releasing a card set, rumor is the possibility of a GROO animation series! Also a happy birthday to Mark Evanier! 6. COMIC ISSUES Wow! Marvel, Heroes World, DC, Diamond, Capital ... what else is there to say? Oh! There are a few message postings of the recent John Byrne AOL conference about him taking over the WONDER WOMAN run. This, I'm looking forward to! 7. SMALL PRESS / INDEPENDENTS Reminicing over the old NEXUS black and white issues, as well as mention of the upcoming card set. William Hughes posts some great "Upcoming Titles to Try", hand picked by the man from this month's PREVIEWS. 8. ACCLAIM COMICS BirthQuake is happening!! Now's the time to check out what's going on with the Valiant universe. There you have it! That pretty much sums up current message topics the past week. I actually enjoyed giving you the run down and may do so again in the future. Catch ya next iss! -- ed __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-2-]--/ THE 25TH HOUR /--------------------------------------------/ The 25th Hour by Mike Imboden I know it's only March, so this is kinda early, but I figured I'd forget about this when it was time, so here now is what I'm dressing up as on Halloween. My three year old son has decided he wants a Spider-Man costume. Ok, that's easy. I've seen 'em for $25. So he'll get one. (wish I had one). So since his costume is easy I needed to think of something to tie in with it, but what? The proportions would be off if I was Venom or some other evil doer, and although I'm not TOO particular on the look of the costume, it needs to look close. So I started thinking of some large people Spidey has squared off against and quickly thought of one very simple person to do; Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk. A pair of slacks, a white sports coat, a cane, some dress shoes, a flouncy scarf and one of those nifty "bald head" wigs. It's a snap. Remind me in November and I'll get some pictures scanned and turned into GIFs of JPGs or something. Last year the wife and I went out as Gilligan and the Skipper. This was also easy - tan slacks, a blue polo shirt and a captain's hat for me (plus some white hair spray) and a red and white rugby shirt, white pants and a "Gilligan hat" for the Wife. I gotta admit, it was fun to have an excuse to whack her over the head with something. :) Three years ago we tried the comic-themed thing. The Wife made up a real neat Flash costume for me which was quite nice looking considering it was made from red sweat pants, a red sweatshirt and a few squares of yellow felt and a couple pipe cleaners. It made me run faster too, I think. The Wife was a bit harder. While more than a couple shades on the plus side of good looking, she's a bit tall. Taller than me by about four inches. Plus, to be nice, she doesn't exactly have the figure to flounce around in say a Wonder Woman outfit or a skin-tight Catwoman get up. That left a bunch of evil doers and She Hulk. The Wife didn't want to be a bad guy, so we got a couple tubes of green make up, some green hair spray and went to town. The Wife also fashioned an outfit that looked somewhat like the costume Jennifer Walters wore as an Avenger. I only wish we had some decent pictures of that year. So how about you? Do you have any relatively quick and easy costumes to share with everyone else? Let's hear 'em! I have a nifty prize for the best one as judged by myself waiting for your efforts. Send in your ideas to me at ComicBook Net node number 23:403/0 or 23:403/2 or Fido node 1:109/748. I can be reached via the Internet at mike.imboden@f48.n109.z1.fidonet.org but I'm not sure how reliable that is as I've yet to recieve mail that way. And if you'd prefer to snail mail me you can do so by dropping a line to Mike Imboden c/o Hikeeba Comics, PO BOX 1423, Frederick, MD 21702-0423. Oh, and for those of you who've always wondered what She-Hulk would have looked like had Byrne NOT been doing a code approved book all I can say is "Weird. Naked, green women look weird." Foam packing peanuts! -M!ke -=ð /\/\!ke ð=- mike.imboden@f748.n109.z1.fidonet.org Fido -> 1:109/748 CBN -> 23:403/2 __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-3-]--/ REVIEWS /--------------------------------------------------/ Vampirella Cards by Jeff Watts Just bought a box of the new Vampirella Cards from Topps and thought I would give you guys the lowdown on the set...... This card set is Harris Comic's mealticket Vampirella's very first issue. It consists of 90 "common" cards, 6 "Horror Glow" chase cards, and 6 oversized B/W "Vampirella Pin-Up Gallery" cards inserted one per box. As an added incentive to spend your hard earned cash there is also a 90 card "Gold" set which mirrors the common set except for the addition of gold colored foil stamping instead of the normal red foil. The box contains 24 packs of 11 cards each, and each pack is supposed to contain either a gold card or chase card in addition to 10 "commons". I found this ratio to be right on the mark as I found 22 gold cards and 2 of the "Horror Glow" cards in my box. Collation of my box was excellent as I was able to collate 2 complete sets of commons. The complete breakdown appears below...... 264 total cards 90 cards for set 1 90 cards for set 2 22 "Gold" cards 2 "Horror Glow" cards 58 triples 2 quadruples My dealer also opened a box and got similar results. Your results of course may vary since we are dealing with Topps here...... The artwork of the cards contains a mix of classic Warren artwork by such luminaries as Frazetta, Sanjulian, Trina Robbins and Jose Gonzales. There is also a 9 card subset of photos of the "official" Vampirella model, the backs of which form a large pinup when assembled in a 9 pocket card holder. There is a set devoted to reprints of some of the best of the current Harris comics artists. And there is also a set titled "New Visions" produced by such heavy hitters as Boris, Julie Bell, George Perez, and Simon Bisley among others. The six card "Horror Glow" set is produced by artists with Image comics. My two cards were done by Jae Lee and by Jason Pearson. All in all I think this set is a good buy for anyone who likes Vampirella and at $35.00 is priced right. I was very happy with both the collation and the quality of the cards. -Jeff- -------------------------------------------------------------------------/ The Tick Toys by Mike Imboden I finally got my hands on a couple of the The Tick toys. The store I found them at only had The Tick and Arthur so I quickly grabbed up two of each, one for me, one for the heir to the throne, and rushed home. We opened our toys and started playing with them and right away I found a problem. More on that in a second.. The toys LOOK nice. They are bigger than your average action figure, standing about six inches tall (my Spidey guys average about 4 3/4). The detail is good, but that's easy considering they are simple characters to draw in the first place. So far, so good. If I was to just open them and display them I'd be fine, (which is what I'll do for the most part). However, they aren't too playable. The Tick only moves in a few places; The arms swing up and down, the head turns and he turns at the waist. NO leg action at all. :( Arthur's legs and arms move, no head or waist action. Each has a special action and the toys are packaged with the "feature" as pasrt of it's name. The Tick is "Bounding Tick" and Arthur is "Fluttering Arthur". The names are pretty indicative of the action - Arthur's is neat - his wings flap back and forth when you press the button on his back. The only problem, (which I mentioned earlier), is that the wings pop off easily. Dave dropped his and the right wing popped right out. I guess that's partially good, I'd rather see the wing pop off than break. The Tick bounds. Actually, it's more like he springs forward.What you do is stick your thumb on this little tab on Tick's back and push down. The Tick's torso sinks down to his waist and then you sorta pull your thumb down and off the tab - The Tick then "bounds" forward about a foot and lands squarely on his belly. Good for a laugh but not practical for crime fighting. The toys are sturdy, (except for Arthur's "breakaway" wings) and have help up to the play testing of the master. Other figures include; Sewar Spray Sewar Urchin. (UGH!) Pose Striking Die Fledermaus (this I GOTTA have) Projectile Human Bullet (probably like the Tick's "power") Man Eating Cow (this I GOTTA see) Death Hug Dean Growing Dinosaur Neil (hmmmmmm) Grasping El Seed Exploding Dyna-Mole. (I'm kinda miffed that there's no American Maid (hubba hubba) or a Chairface Chippendale).... My bottom line? If you like The Tick, grab these guys and rip open the package and play til you drop. If you don't like The Tick, well, why would buy them? (if you just collect the things they will look very nice left in the packaging). M!ke *** þ Apex v4 þ I...AM...NOT...A...ROACH. I_AM_A_TICK. *** __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-4-]--/ Change In The Air /----------------------------------------/ Change In The Air by William Hughes By now I'm sure everyone has heard about Marvel's shake-up of the Direct Market. Opinions are varied as to how this will effect the retailers and fanbase, but it's a certainty that the Direct Market as we've known it is over. While no word has been released as of yet concerning discount levels and terms to retailers, I think it's a safe bet that Marvel is firmly in the driver's seat in the comic book industry at the moment. Whether or not this effects the price you pay for comics immediately or not, rest assured it will in the long run. Even if Marvel leaves the discount levels to retailers exactly the same for the time being, sooner or later they are going to get greedy(er) and demand more money for their product, effectively cutting the throats of hundreds of retailers, and noone can stop them. Noone but you. That's right, you the consumer can send a message to Marvel Comics and the comic industry as a whole, by saying enough is enough. I know alot of you are thinking, "yeah, this sucks, but I gotta have my X-Men!" Well, what if I were to tell you that by buying the X-Men, you were helping to put your retailer out of business, and helping Marvel kill the hobby? In the long run, that's exactly what you'd be doing by supporting Marvel's move into the direct market. As long as the demand for their product is there, Marvel will continue to make these types of business decisions, and these kinds of decisions are damaging the hobby. It's killing off diversity because without the distributors, retailers will have to order direct from the smaller publishers. How many small publishers do you think a retailer can order from individually in a month? That means you may miss out on the next STRANGERS IN PARADISE, or BONE because of Marvel Comics. And do you think they care? Of course not. They don't care about the comic book industry, all they care about is there own market share, no matter how small that market may be. Marvel won't stop there, the next stage is cutting out the retailer all together. What sort of quality comics do you think you'll find if the only game in town is a Marvel store? The only thing to do is to boycott Marvel Comics entirely. Replace every Marvel book you buy with another companies, to send a message to Marvel while still supporting your retailer. Believe me, he'll be tickled pink to discover he no longer has to bow down to the blackmail of Marvel Comics. And what Marvel books are worth a crap anyway? The only titles I can think of are HULK, X-MEN and the perhaps the SPIDERMAN titles. Heck, if it'll help you kick the Marvel habit, I'll offer you some choices to pick in place of the Marvel Comics, that you'll be sure to enjoy , and it'll help you sleep better at night knowing your not helping to kill an industry. THE HULK: Seems that Peter David has quite a following for this title. Well, David doesn't just write one book, or for one company. Check out his work on AQUAMAN from DC, maybe that'll quench your thirst. Maybe THE PITT from IMAGE will take the place of this book for you. It's certainly alot easier to become a completist on that title than on The Hulk! X-MEN: Good news on this front. The man who originally made the X-Men great is returning to a regular series, one that he created. Chris Claremont is starting a brand new title called SOVEREIGN SEVEN from DC COMICS. You can be there from the ground floor. Jim Lee's WILDCATS from IMAGE would certainly remind you of some of the better artwork seen on the book. And JOHN BYRNE'S NEXT MEN from DARK HORSE is better than the X-Men anyway, even though it's currently on hiatus, you could probably find the entire run really cheap. SPIDER-MAN: No question here, Peter Parker fans will love MILESTONE'S STATIC. Incredibly remeniscent of the high school aged Parker, and best yet, it's early enough in the run for you to catch history in the making! Please consider what I'm saying. If you have a Marvel favorite title that you need help finding a suitable replacement for, drop a note in here, I'll do my best to steer you towards a suitable replacement! MARVEL COMICS MUST BE STOPPED!! Bill Hughes!! Email Address: william.hughes@p3.f744.n109.z1.fidonet.org. Message written at 4:24pm, on Friday, March 10, 1995. *** þ Apex v4 þ With great power comes great babes. þ This space for Rent... __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-5-]--/ CSNsider /-------------------------------------------------/ CSNsider 404 by David Leblanc This is the CSNsider from CSN #404, which will be in shops on 3/22/95. It is reproduced in its entirety with the expressed permission of Comic Shop News. Original Marvel bullpen vet Don Heck, whose work on Tales of Suspense/ Iron Man and Avengers in the early years of the Marvel Age of Comics defined those features, died in late February... DC has confirmed that John Byrne will be taking over Wonder Woman with the 101st issue, shipping July 13th and yes, it will be the original Diana Prince in the classic Wonder Woman costume!... Barry Windsor-Smith is readying three titles for his own imprint; he is still negotiating with various publishers to determine who will distribute his books, which should appear before the end of the year... Jeremiah Chechik has been named as producer for the animated Elfquest film from Edward R Pressman Film Corporation; look for the film in '96 or '97... Malibu Comics has signed a deal with Pressman Toys to create an UltraForce board game in 1996; this game will appear after the unveiling of the UltraForce action figure toy line in January '96... Extreme Studios has signed X-Men Alpha & Omega artist Roger Cruz to handle the art for the revamping of Youngblood later this year... Bowing to fan requests, Wizards of the Coast has modified plans for its summer-release Magic: The Gathering Chronicles "best of" card series featuring highlights from various Magic expansion sets; while they will feature cards from Legends, Antiquities, Arabian Nights, and The Dark, they will not include cards from the recently-released Fallen Empires in the initial Chronicles packs... This fall, The Animated Adventures of Batman & Robin returns to the Monday-Friday afternoon slot that Batman: The Animated Series originally occupied... Frank Miller's Sin City: The Big Fat Kill #5, the last issue of the miniseries, has grown from 32 to 48 pages, offering fans 50% more story for only $.55 more money; look for it on March 23rd... Antarctic Press had such an overwhelmingly positive response to Ben Dunn's full-color Warrior Nun Areala that they're offering a 10,000 copy reprinting (with an all-new front cover) the book to satisfy the incredible demand; the reprint should be on the comic shop racks by the time you read this... Marvel and Mongolia join forces? Sort of! Comic Images has acquired American distribution rights to the Official X-Men Postage Stamp Collection, a packaging of the X-Men stamps (featuring art by top X-Men illustrators) that were issued by Mongolia; look for 'em this summer... Extreme Studios' new Image title Mark 5 is the subject of a dispute between Image and Dark Horse, which is concerned that the title might be confused with their own The Mark (Mark 5 is an adaptation of a property optioned by Tom Cruise for his film production company); no word yet on whether this will delay the book's release... CSN #404 features a cover feature on Flash Gordon from Marvel, as well as news and more reviews (we couldn't fit 'em all in last week). The only way to get Comic Shop News is to visit a shop that carries CSN. The publication costs the shops just $.10 each and is generally free to customers. If you shop doesn't carry CSN, nag 'em until they do. After all, isn't your business and satisfaction worth a dime a week? Visit our WWW site! http://www.actwin.com/csn Ward Batty wardo@jupiter.netdepot.com Cliff Biggers cliffbig@jupiter.netdepot.com (c)1995 CSN, Inc. úúúúÄÄÄÄÍÍÍÍ*David LeBlanc> DAVIDL129@AOL.COM david.leblanc@gaquatic.iii.net RIME->5179 FIDO 1:322/518 ... "Oh god, not Troi's mother again!" - Entire Crew __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-6-]--/ COMICUNICATIONS /------------------------------------------/ Comicunications 1.9 by Ryan Brewster Ý Þ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÝ Ûßßßßßß ÞßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßÝ Ý Û ÛßßßÛ ÛßÛßÛ ßÛß Ûßßß Û Û ÛÜ Û ßÛß Ûßßß ÛßßÛ ßÛß ßÛß ÛßßÛ ÛÜ Û Ûßß Û Û Û Û Û Û Û Û Û Û ÛßÛÛ Û Û ÛßßÛ Û Û Û Û ÛßÛÛ ßßÛ Û ßßßßß ß ß ßßß ßßßß ßßßß ß ß ßßß ßßßß ß ß ß ßßß ßßßß ß ß ßßß ßßßßßßß ------------Your Not-Quite-So-Weekly Comics Journal---------- ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛÛ Û Û ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛ Û Û ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛ Û Û Û ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛ ÛÛÛÛ ÛÛÛ Volume 1, issue 9 Sunday, March 12th, 1995 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dark Horse & Frank Miller Respond to Marvel's "tactics": (an official press release from Dark Horse:) On March 2, 1995, a letter was released from Marvel announcing its intention to distribute its products exclusively through Heroes World Distribution, the Direct Market distributor it purchased some nine weeks prior. On that same day, a press release from Marvel announced that Heroes World would no longer carry non-Marvel product; that release was not sent to Dark Horse, and so Dark Horse was only notified of this development when a representative phoned Heroes World to substantiate the rumor. Dark Horse president and founder Mike Richardson comments on the situation: "Marvel Comics is not an individual. It is a corporate entity required to justify assorted decisions to its stockholders. It is the mandate of Marvel's management team to make decisions that affect those stockholders in a positive way. This is pertinent to discussions of Marvel's latest moves within the Direct Market because it will help us understand the motivations behind their recent actions. "When Marvel launched Marvel Mart (a Marvel-run mail-order operation offering a mix of exclusive and standard Marvel product), there was no malice intended toward the Direct Market. It was an attempt to increase profits. Similarly, when it began selling to Wal-Mart through ANCO at a greater discount than it sold to the direct market, it was not done to undermine the comic specialty stores; it was done to increase the company's profit base. "The exclusive line of Marvel T-shirts which were available only through mail order; the delivery schedule of the Marvel-owned Toy Biz toys which favors Toys 'R' Us over the Direct Market; and the recent American Entertainment exclusive Prime vs. Hulk comic are simply three more cases of Marvel trying to make profits grow. "It's important to understand that Marvel bears no ill will toward the comics specialty market. It has simply shown its desire to invest its money outside the specialty store market, and its willingness to pursue an agenda that often conflicts with the overall long-term health of our market. "Every retailer must now question Marvel's intentions in purchasing Heroes World. Is this the beginning of a new chapter, a re-focusing on the direct market stores which have made Marvel an entertainment giant? Or is this an attempt to gain control of the distribution and retail processes of our industry? If the former is correct, then this could be a great turning point for the market. If it's the latter, however, each retailer should ask himself if a scenario in which an individual has fewer choices and less control of his own business is a good one. "Last week, Marvel ended relationships with the Direct Market distributors, the customers who helped 'grow' and finance its business. The late Carol Kalish, who spearheaded Marvel's movement into the specialty market for many years, once told me an interesting bit of information: when she began selling to the direct market in 1982, Marvel billed $2 million for the entire year. When X-Men #1 was released, in August 1992, Marvel billed better than $12 million for that single month. That's staggering growth! Does Marvel plan to re-invest this money into our market or is Marvel moving away from the trade partners that helped bring it to its current state of success? Once again, the latter has serious implications for the consumers, retailers, publishers, and distributors that make up our industry. "As before, this move is one that the company believes to be good for Marvel. In its company catalogue, Marvel points to dissatisfaction with current performance levels as the reason for the dramatic change. It leads one to believe that further changes will be made if performance doesn't improve. One can only hope that these changes will not devastate a market that has served our industry well. "Dark Horse will respond to any changes in the marketplace in a manner that we believe is in the best interests of Dark Horse, its customers, and creators. Dark Horse has grown by re-investing profits back into the direct sales market and intends to do so in the future. For Dark Horse, this is the correct way to conduct business." Dark Horse Comics began in the back room of a comic-book specialty store in 1986. Today, they are the fourth largest publisher in their chosen market. Dark Horse is proud to do its part in growing the direct sales market by publishing the most diverse line of quality comics in the industry. ### And Frank's response: In light of current events as regards Marvel Comics and Heroes World, Dark Horse asked one of its favorite authors, Frank Miller, to comment on the situation: "Can everybody stop apologizing for them now? For decades, Marvel Comics has denied who created their characters, who made their comics worth reading. Now, having driven the best talent away, they face plummeting sales. Desperate, and terminably unable to admit that it is their own historic mistake that has made their comics so lousy, they turn on the distributors and merchants themselves, applying the same grab-it-all, control-it-all mentality that drove the writers and artists and readers away. You folks who distribute the comics, now you know exactly what they did to the artists who gave loyal service to Marvel, who showed Marvel goodwill. "Can everybody stop apologizing for them now? No, it ain't just business. It's the livelihoods of a lot of people who have done their best to sell Marvel Comics. It's the future of a vital industry and a unique story form. It's the future of comics. With their latest, crude, clumsy attempt to reverse the course of comics history, Marvel Comics resembles nothing more than the last, and final, Soviet Parliament. The old, corrupt order has broken down. So they've seized the building and ordered everybody to obey them. Then, as now, the only question is whose side the army will take. The army, in our case, is the retailers, and the readers. "Marvel Comics is out of steam. They aren't even trying to compete on a creative level. They've declared war on the free market. They've made it clear that they want to exercise dictatorial power over the comics market, and, from all appearances, they're willing to destroy the market before they are willing to change their stupid policies or to take their proper place in the market as a fading giant. "Those drunken old Soviets couldn't reverse history. Neither will Marvel Comics. We are headed for better times and better comics, with or without Marvel Comics. They'll spill a lot of blood and cause a lot of harm on their way down. They may even destroy what Phil Seuling began and so many others have busted their butts to build. But, ultimately, they're just one publisher among many, one bloated, old symbol of an order best left in our past. "My very best wishes to all of you who run or are employed in comic book shops. Marvel's just made a tough year a whole lot tougher. Good luck!" Frank Miller is the author of Sin City, the Martha Washington epic, and The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. He is one of the seven founding members of Legend. ### Other Rumors abound: Other Rumors suggest that Marvel Comics has also purchased Capital City Distribution, (One that I find hard to believe, since they have filed a lawsuit against Marvel...) and that DC and Image are going exclusive with Diamond. Some even claim that Marvel has bought Diamond! Marvel DOES Buy Another Business: It has been confirmed, however, that Marvel Comics has indeed purchased Skybox. I don't have the terms of the deal yet, but I believe they paid upwards of $150 million for the trading card company. Gen13 comes with multiple covers: Rumors imply that Image's Gen13 Vol. 2 #1 will be released with 13 variant covers. I wouldn't be too surprised..... >:( Valiant's own Earth2?: Word has it that Acclaim Comics is in the development stages of a new sub-universe imprint within the Valiant Universe; one created by the Valiant superhero Solar. Acclaim is also attempting to develop more Vertigo-like books with their Windjammer imprint. C O M I C U N I C A T I O N S F E A T U R E : A Good, Hard Look At Marvel Marvel has been doing some mighty fishy things lately. They have been "devouring companies like popcorn", having purchased Fleer Trading Cards, Welsh Publishing, Heroes' World Distribution, Skybox Trading Cards and Malibu Comics all within the last year or so, as well as reaching an agreement with Disney to publish comics created on their characters. I apologize in advance for anything I missed... it's a lot to keep track of. And now this huge behemoth is available ONLY through Heroes' World. Diamond can't carry Marvel, nor can Capitol, those two being the largest comic distribution companies in the country (and possibly the world?). We now have to decide whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. This is very difficult for us to do. First of all, we all tend to feel an impending sense of doom when taking this all in. We look at what Marvel's doing and go "Ugh. This is terrible. Those guys are out to make a quick buck and, in the process, are going to compLETEly destroy the comics industry." That is the general, emotional way to assess the situation. However, there are many different possibilities that open up as a result of Marvel's Actions: THEORY #1: The Apocalypse Theory This theory claims that Marvel's actions with bring upon the complete and utter ruination of the comics industry. While I do not believe for one moment that the comics MEDIUM will ever be destroyed, the industry as we know it very well may be. As a result of Marvel going exclusive with Heroes' World, retailers are forced to deal with multiple distributors to fill their readers' requests. Because Marvel made up such a large amount of their former clients' earnings, these clients (Capital, Diamond, etc) are forced to lower dealer discounts to compensate for losses. Heroes' World's discounts weren't very high to begin with. The retailers begin to dwindle in number as one store after another goes under because of diving profits. Because the retailers are so few in number, the aforementioned distributors go belly-up, and the few remaining either go under, or join Marvel's upcoming store franchise... The Direct Market is Destroyed. The loss of the direct market proves fatal to such publishers as Dark Horse, Viz and Antarctic, but Acclaim, DC and Image manage to stay afloat through newsstand distribution. Acclaim and Warner agree to sell their properties to Marvel because of their staggering losses. Image remains defiant. Self-publishers rely on word-of-mouth and trade journals distributed through newsstands. These strategies fail when the journals go under, and the self-publishers eventually die out. Only Marvel and Image remain. Marvel discontinues its comics department to concentrate on development of superhero movies, computer games and other such nonsense based on their properties. Image dies a slow, painful death, and the comics industry is destroyed. Only Marvel smiles. Theory #2: The "If it's broke, Fix it" theory: This theory claims that the industry is in such decline that this will actually provide a much-needed rejuvination. The industry is right now CONSIDERABLY below where it was just a few years ago. Because of Marvel's aggressive efforts to expand, investors are attracted. Readers follow Marvels' superheroes from the movie and TV screens to the comic books to follow their continuing adventures. Through these comic books, they are exposed to other sources of comics, and begin to find themselves poking around in comics stores. In the comics stores, these readers find a wealth of new characters to read about. Intrigued, they begin sampling other comics while they continue to read their current favorite Marvel comics. Other comics companies enjoy increased readership and begin to expand themselves while new comics companies begin to surface. Because the growth is gradual and caused by readers rather than speculators, the industry's growth is more secure. Eventually, larger companies like DC, Acclaim, Dark Horse and Image create (or buy out..) their own distribution systems. The Direct Market becomes TRULY DIRECT, with no middle-man distributor. The competing companies begin to offer retailers better discounts. The retailers take more risks, and the results are reflected by the fans picking up more and more books. The industry becomes about as big as the paperback book industry or the video industry. Everyone smiles. Theory #3: The Pebble-in-a-stream Theory: This theory claims that Marvel's actions will backfire on them and they will come crawling back to Diamond and Capital. The industry goes back to business as usual... The Marvel/Capital lawsuit remains in court as neither side gains the upper hand. Retailers fail to respond positively to Marvel's exclusive distribution and Marvel suffers a huge loss of sales. Marvel is forced to sell some of their departments to other interests. Heroes' World goes belly-up, and Marvel comes back to Diamond and Capital with their tail between their legs. The rest of the industry smiles. Regardless of which theory pans out, I do not believe that the comic MEDIUM will in any way be diminished. The "Comic Industry" to which I refer, is more accurately, the "Direct Comic Industry". I firmly believe that nothing Marvel does or tries to do can destroy an entire medium. Comics are here to stay, in ONE form or another. :) ________________________________________________________________________ Legal Mumbo-Jumbo: Copyright (c) Ryan Brewster, 1994. Feel free to distribute in its entirety. --- þ RM 1.3 02322 þ You always swat where he's not, or if he is aha! a spot. __________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /--[-7-]--/ FEEDBACK /-------------------------------------------------/ Let us know what you think of this e-mag. 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