Monday, November 28, 2005

A Great New Game!

Yes, it's time for a great new game which we just invented. It's called There's No Such Website! and your mission, should you choose to accept, is to spot the fib. Below are links and descriptions for five websites. Four of them actually exist on the Internet. One is a phony that we made up. Study all five and see if you can guess which link won't lead you to the website in question. There is no prize for this except that you get to visit four weird websites and to feel smug if it doesn't take you five clicks to find the phony. Enjoy.

• Project: Denny's - A group of enterprising folks attempt to visit every Denny's Restaurant in the world and to collect souvenirs from each. To be followed probably by Project: Forest Lawn.
• Hats of Meat - An entire website devoted to the fashion of wearing steaks, chops and other cuts of beef on your head. For those who like a little cholesterol in their headgear.
• McDonald's Employee Simulator - Now, from the comfort of your own computer chair, you can experience what it would be like to work for McDonald's making burgers. And just think: You'll be making approximately the same salary.
• The Helium Tabernacle Choir - A choral group of twenty professional singers performs great hymns ranging from "Amazing Grace" to "Shall We Gather at the River?", all after inhaling large quantities of helium. The soprano hits notes only a dog can hear. [Requires RealPlayer]
• Cats in Sinks - A collection of thousands of photos people have taken of their pussycats sitting in their sinks. Very useful.

• Posted at 6:59 PM · LINK

Deck the TiVo!

Here's an article on some of what we'll be seeing in the way of TV Christmas specials the next month. And there are a few paragraphs about A Charlie Brown Christmas.

• Posted at 5:36 PM · LINK

Go Read

Go read Leonard Maltin on the business of putting out (and putting together) DVDs.

• Posted at 5:29 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Seymour Hersh on what's happening with Iraq and what's going to happen. I think there's something in there to worry everyone.

• Posted at 11:55 AM · LINK

Claypool Crisis

In the eighties and early nineties, the comic book business went through major upheavals with new companies and new distributors coming and going like lawyers for Saddam Hussein. Some very large operations went from zero to sixty and back again so rapidly that once, when I attended a distributor's national sales meeting, three publishers who'd been expected to exhibit had gone under between the time they bought display space and the date of the event...and less than a year later, that distributor had gone under. When the smoke and acquisitions and bankruptcies cleared, a lot of publishers were history and one outfit — Diamond — controlled distribution. There are other means of getting your product into comic book shops but no known success stories that prove that. If I were publishing and Diamond wouldn't carry my wares, I'd stop publishing and go do something more promising than distributing to comic shops without Diamond. Like opening a CompUSA in Amish country.

One of the unexpected survivors of all that publishing turmoil was a small line called Claypool Comics, which may be the best-kept secret in the industry. Since 1993, they've quietly been releasing 2-3 black-and-white comics per month for a small but loyal following. At a time when few new comics make it past a dozen issues, the bi-monthly Soulsearchers and Deadbeats are each approaching #76 while the monthly Elvira is nearing #153. This track record has not always been appreciated by comic book shops. Ask dealers what they want out of the publishers and the first thing you'll usually hear is "A consistent product that comes out on time every month." Great...but they will often cut back on orders for books that meet that standard so they can order more of the "hot" one-shots and heavily-promoted limited runs.

Recently, Diamond decided to lop off some of the weaker-selling books from their roster. These are probably titles that do make a small profit and for all we know, may be a reason some customers come into comic shops at all. But right now, Deadbeats and Soulsearchers aren't making the cut, meaning that unless they suddenly show a jump in sales, Diamond will decide they aren't worth distributing. That would be a shame. In those books, my pals Richard Howell and Peter David are crafting consistent, well-written tales without gimmicks or "special events." Deadbeats describes itself as a "punk vampire soap opera" and Soulsearchers is a solid super-hero spoof with supernatural themes. If you haven't tried either, it may be now or never. And if you have tried them and drifted away, now would be a good time to jump back on the bandwagon.

Diamond, of course, is well within its rights to not distribute anything it considers not worth its time. I wonder though if certain long-running projects shouldn't be grandfathered in because they do have steady followings. That's something a lot of current top-selling titles haven't been able to manage. I spoke to a friend of mine the other night who's drawing a new book for DC and the hope is that it'll do well enough to stick around for two or three years. Beyond that, no one dares dream. While the marketplace does need the top-selling books, it also needs the long-selling books...the ones that do not postulate a complete turnover of readership every year or two. I sure hope Claypool keeps all three of its titles afloat, if only to remind others that it can be done.

• Posted at 10:47 AM · LINK