How to use this Page

Another jam packed and fascinating discussion among people who have a lot to say. nycParticipants:

Print vs. Digital–War, Co-existence, or Collaboration
Publishers, retailers, and others on how the digital revolution will impact on print sales.
- Ted Adams, CEO of IDW Publishing
- Eric Beaulieu, Vice President Premedia, Transcontinental Transmedia
- Dave Bowen, Director of Digital Distribution, Diamond Comic Distributors
- David Gabriel, Senior Vice President of Marvel Comics
- Alison Hendon, Youth Selection Team Leader, Brooklyn Public Library
- John Riley, owner of Grasshopper Comics
- Moderated by Calvin Reid, Senior News Editor, Publishers Weekly

This is easily one of the most interesting panels I have ever participated in. The panel consisted of:

The Medium and the Message–Digital and Creativity
How will the digital medium affect how comics are created?
- Mark Waid, Chief Creative Officer, BOOM! Studios
- Dave Baxter, Deputy Director of Robot Comics and Senior Agent at Killing the Grizzly
- Alex de Campi, Writer, Director
- Douglas Wolk, Author
- Rantz Hoseley, CEO, Longbox
- Mark Siegel, Editorial Director, First Second Books
- Moderated by Heidi MacDonald, The Beat

No, that’s not a reference to what I felt like the Sunday after fighting my way across last weekend’s uber-crowded, nerd sweat fueled NYCC convention floor.  Of course, you know that already.  You know what I’m talking about, people.  I’m talking about the highly anticipated AMC TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s much beloved comics series, The Walking Dead, coming to your TV this Halloween (Series premiere October 31st, 10/9 C).

AMC

And let me tell you with no exaggeration, people – you better be there.  And if you’re going out on Halloween, you best DVR that shizz.  It’s looking good.  We’re talking Appointment TV good.  I can’t imagine there’s many Beat readers out there who haven’t read the comic – especially when well respected, taste-making comic book store proprietors from coast to coast, with as varied ouvres as Chris Rosa of LA’s Meltdown Comics to Gabe Fowler of Brooklyn’s Desert Island, are putting the new releases at the top of their own personal reading lists.  But even if you haven’t dived into Kirkman’s magnum opus yet, it looks like the TV series will distinguish itself in a way that will attract new readers without alienating longtime fans of the comic.

Image

I had the pleasure of chatting with the cast and creators of the show at NYCC.  They all seemed to be gelling well  and genuinely proud of the show (Mild Spoilers ahead if you have NOT read the first collected volume of The Walking Dead).

Look! Here’s Shane (Jon Bernthal), Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), looking awfully cozy for three points of a love triangle…

Shane, looking appropriately guilty next to a clueless Rick and a lovely but distracted Lori

Callies, who plays Lori, said that viewers who’ve read the comic series will see a whole new dimension to the Rick/Shane/Lori relationship on the show, but she thinks comics fans will be happy with it.  She sees all three characters as close and mentioned how AMC Walking Dead Executive Producer, Writer and Director, Frank Darabont, is a master of fleshing out compelling backstories. So look forward to seeing a different kind of character study than you see in the graphic novels (with all three actors confirming that we’ll be getting some childhood backstory flashback action with Shane and Rick).

That kind of talk plus the hunky piece of man candy that is Jon Bernthal pretty much equals a confirmation that Shane’s not going to die off as quickly as he does in the comic.  This appears to be a newly imagined Shane we’re dealing with here, but Bernthal also hinted that Shane will remain hateable and lunkish.�

Don’t worry, we’re not going to spend the next five weeks going over reactions to New York Comic Con…probably just this post, our own wrap-up and whatever news fall-out emerges. Fun Fact #1: this year it’s been hard to find personal blog accounts of the show. Like San Diego, NYCC has become the province of a lot of professional bloggers and journos, so even a Google blog search comes up with lots of variations on “Marvel vs Capcom!”.

Fun Fact #2: even thought own our immediate reaction to the show was that it worked for what it was supposed to be, there has been a lot of complaints. This isn’t really surprising — there were a lot of rough patches in security, crowding, scheduling and more — but it shows that the crowd had high expectations for the kind of experience they were going to get, and when it fell short, they felt it.

Anyway, here’s a trip around the web starting with an actual con report by Gavok of 4th Letter. Like we said, not too many of these.

§ CNN has a very even-handed report tat covers the good and the bad and has a slideshow to boot.

§ Steve Bunche has three posts worth of cosplay photos and Artist Alley shots. More here.

§ Scott Kurtz taks about the showdown that wasn’t:

Saturday evening was also supposed to be the night of the much anticipated debate between myself and Ted Rall. Plans were to keep the name calling to a minimum and try to really discuss the issues and see if we could come up with some solutions. But two days before the convention, Ted emailed to let us know he had double booked the weekend and was needed in Portland for a book signing. Honestly, it’s for the best. The debate is over. Digital is here. The business models are real, and people like Ted can choose to keep their heads in the sand about it if they want. They can rage against the machine for all the good it will do them. I think I’m pretty done with the arguments at this point.

§ Whitney Mathseon foundFive awesome comics.

§ A link to the Podcasting Panel.

§ Augie De Blieck has observations of the trenchant kind.

So that’s the folks who had a good time. Of which there were many. But some people just didn’t.

Reed Pop vp Lance Fensterman blogs about the show here, and owns up to the overcrowding and the disorganization. The comment thread afterwards has a LOT of complaints, from Keystone GUests John Romita Sr &Jr not showing up for their Sunday signing, to issues with over crowding, and the problem of whether the New York Anime Festival was shunted to the side or not.

§ Former NYCC and Otakon staf

While we consider NYCC a complete success from where we stand, it wasn’t without problems — mostly in security and crowd control. While we’re working on our full write-up, Evan Dorkin has some comments that give the other side:

Saturday however, was, for me, a bummer. I really wished I had stayed home. My signing went okay but I really regretted not scheduling it for Friday as DHC originally planned. It was a nice hour. The rest of the day I was mostly bored when not driven nuts by the over-crowded aisles, filled with too many inconsiderate folks walking with their heads down while texting or talking on phones, jerks stopping to talk or take pictures of cosplayers in the middle of the aisles (the larger cons really need to have a Pathetic Masturbators Photo-Op Area, because that shit’s just out of control), cosplayers stabbing people in the necks, stomachs and elsewheres with prop swords, spears, and whatever-the-fucks they’re carrying from Final Fantasy Infinity, oafs knocking into people with their backpacks and not even having the common decency to say “excuse me”, etc.

The show is a huge success, obviously, good for them, but it’s overstuffed, I mean, they have exhibitor tables right outside the friggin’ bathrooms, fer corn’s sake, and fate forbid a fire ever breaks out while the cattle drive is in the halls. I realize NYCC does not exist to be entertaining or even palatable to one Mr Evan Dorkin, I’m not asking for more art comics or more Godzilla events or more whatever for me, personally — and I’m not asking anyone to change anything, or even wishing they’d change anything — except how they handle the flow of human beings in the hall, and how they communicate to some of those human beings that they need to act responsibly and sensibly while at the event.

It’s been a long year of change in the comics industry, and New York Comic Con feels like the end point of an arduous but rewarding journey. We were just doing a search for blogs posts about the show and already found fairly fascinating two think pieces that show the ascendance of nerd culture as a boon — or a threat depending on how you view it.

Simon Pulman has a blog called Transmythology, devoted to transmedia storytelling, and his take on the con presents a thoughtful view unencumbered by the kind of fretting most comics types have:

One final thing that struck me as strange about digital comics: apparently, Marvel views digital comics as a way to drive traffic back to the comic book store.  Its hope is that people will read a comic on the iPad, become intrigued by the story, and begin buying physical books; it even structures special offers around this concept.  I still cannot believe that this is actually Marvel’s business plan – I’m quite confused to be honest.  To me, they are saying to readers “now that you’ve enjoyed this conveniently accessible, digitally malleable version of the story, please drive to the comic book store to buy the physical copy of the next issue – for more money.”   That seems incredibly backward to me, and I’d love for somebody to explain to me why it’s not.

I have two general impressions from Artist’s Alley.  The first is that these creatives are in the same state as most of the representatives from the big brands: they know that digital and multi-platform storytelling are going to be important, but they have absolutely no idea how.  The second is that there are far more skilled artists than storytellers in the independent space.  Most of the comics I looked at featured exquisite artwork married with clunky dialogue, uninteresting plotting and (more often than you’d think) uncomfortable themes.  Therefore, I would suggest that seasoned storytellers have a great opportunity to partner with skilled artists to collaborate on something new – and great.

And then we have IGN’s Michael Thomsen with Medium Anxiety: Culture Shock at New York Comic Con — Thomson must have been really traumatized by the show because he found is cacophany of fandoms, images and ideas quite alarming:

While comic books are fundamental, they have evolved into one of the most obscure of all the forms of human creativity. Walking through the clustered halls of New York Comic Con, the East Coast’s biggest celebration of all things nerd, I can’t get away from the impression of a community stuck in a loop, speaking to itself in idioms that seem to have long ago lost their power. This is the world of cosplayers, high-detail miniatures, crates of old comics, and rows of new ons—most of which offer escapist parables in high fantasy, science fiction, spandex super powers, or reinterpretations of anthropomorphic manga cuties. These are the ugly stereotypes that give weight to the worst interpretations of “nerd” and “dork.” And yet, taking NYCC as a reasonable representation of what comics have to offer, the stereotype is more true than not. Comic books are juvenile, vulgar, mimetic, and fixated on escapist tropes of the most impersonal scale. That’s not all comics have to offer but it’s an ugly majority.

15 Comments on NYCC 10: 3 1/2 days that changed the world, last added: 10/12/2010

Display Comments

Elayne Riggs said, on 10/11/2010 6:49:00 AM

Not seeing you was one of the only low-lights of this con for me, Heidi. I’ve actually finished my con report “early” for once:

http://elayneriggs.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-york-comic-con-2010-report.html

Mostly photos but hey, if anyone’s interested…

Van Jensen said, on 10/11/2010 7:02:00 AM

It was a heck of a good show. I was a little disappointed to only be there on Saturday. And, like Elayne said, sorry to miss you, Heidi!

Torsten Adair said, on 10/11/2010 7:09:00 AM

Well, there was some synchronicity (Howdy, Van!) and some surprises. I missed Elayne, didn’t notice my coworkers, but I did visit the people who were stationed at booths.

Overall, a great show, I posted my highlights via Facebook.

Kate Fitzsimons said, on 10/11/2010 10:12:00 AM

Wow at the Michael Thomson article. Is it just me or can it be summed up as “Eew! People got geeky fan cooties on my comics!”

There are shows celebrating wonderfully personal and rarely escapist self-examining indie comics and creators – they’re called Stumptown and MoCCA. If there weren’t it would be sad and point to a lack in comics culture, but they do exist and they are beloved.

But there are also things most comics fans like which, gasp, could be described as nerdy and dorky. OH NO! Is it really a sign of lack of creativity or some deep personal failing to spend three days a year playing with your favorite toys which, yes, other people designed? Or does it just hurt the self-image of people who like comics and had somehow managed to convince themselves that “geeks like comics” was a terrible false stereotype?

J. K. Simon said, on 10/11/2010 11:59:00 AM

Protip regarding the Michael Thompson piece: Anybody who considers ‘escapist’ storytelling to be an inherently bad thing is a tiresome, pretentious snob utterly incapable of providing anything close to an interesting or useful insight.

Conscript said, on 10/11/2010 12:18:00 PM

“One final thing that struck me as strange about digital comics: apparently, Marvel views digital comics as a way to drive traffic back to the comic book store. Its hope is that people will read a comic on the iPad, become intrigued by the story, and begin buying physical books…I still cannot believe that this is actually Marvel’s business plan. That seems incredibly backward to me, and I’d love for somebody to explain to me why it’s not.”

Because it’ll work. It might only work 1% of the time, but it will still work. The real thing that interests me is whether the new paper-comics customers brought in by digital will even compensate for all the customers that will move from paper to digital because it’s cheaper.

Digital and paper will need to fuel each other for either to succeed.

Torsten Adair said, on 10/11/2010 1:04:00 PM

I can see Pullman’s reasoning.

However, here is something I realized this weekend at the Con:
Yes, I can find all sorts of obscure stuff on the Internet.
But how can I find it if I don’t think to search for it? Or even know about it?

I found some color film (CMYK separations) of Jack Kirby’s New Gods at the Con. Sure, I could probably discover that online, IF I knew to search for it.

I discovered a brand new graphic novel adaptation of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, illustrated by Eric Drooker! From Harper Collins, one of the biggest publishers in the U.S.! I actively search for new GNs, and knew nothing about this.

Had I not walked by each and every booth at NYCC, I would have missed both.

Working at Barnes & Noble, the idea was to make each store a community center. Find a way to encourage people to come to the store. Once they are inside, then you sell them passively by them walking down the aisle to the cafe, or actively by engaging them. Offer a loss leader like cheap soda or a free item, and the money lost on that item will be recouped by selling other items to the customer.

Bookstores offer certain things better than the Internet:
* expert human interaction: answering questions, recommending titles, discussing the title.
* browsing: almost a zen state, as your eye scans titles, not looking for anything in particular.
* an excuse to leave your computer/office/home.

The new business philosophy is: What can be sold in a physical store which cannot be digitized? What services can a store offer which cannot be replicated online? How can I make my store a destination, and how do I convince people to visit on a regular basis? How do I get people to advertise for me?

Tom S said, on 10/11/2010 1:39:00 PM

I think it was just a very crowded show and it wasn’t as good as last year. Those who are focused more on the NYAF aspects really thought it was a bad show. They really need to put a harder cap or use every inch of the space. They didn’t use Javits NOrth and the four floor for examples.

Synsidar said, on 10/11/2010 2:01:00 PM

The key sentences of Thomsen’s essay on NYCC and comics might be these:

These are the ugly stereotypes that give weight to the worst interpretations of “nerd” and “dork.” And yet, taking NYCC as a reasonable representation of what comics have to offer, the stereotype is more true than not. Comic books are juvenile, vulgar, mimetic, and fixated on escapist tropes of the most impersonal scale. That’s not all comics have to offer but it’s an ugly majority.

Thonsen’s perspective is one that many writers and readers outside the comics field probably share. Creativity and originality in superhero stories are discouraged, because new characters lack name recognition and original plots are confusing to readers. But the alternative is endlessly recycled material.

Thomsen probably has as much respect for close-ended graphic novels as he has for literature generally.

Someone could refute Thomsen’s attitude toward comics and related culture by explaining what, exactly, was the point of remaking NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

SRS

Torsten Adair said, on 10/11/2010 2:02:00 PM

The fourth floor was under renovation, which is why Hall 3C had the two detours.

NYAF, when it was separate, had the dealers and the artists alley in Hall 1B, right next to Hall 1A where the panels were held. This year, the dealers were “mainstreamed” on the Third Floor (which I’m sure the dealers appreciated, given the floor traffic), while the Artists Alley was kept downstairs, outside the panel rooms in 1E. Big events (like jPop stars) were held over in 1A, which would affect the mood of anything happening in 1E.

As for traffic, I avoided most of the floor on Saturday, but Sunday was almost sold out, and I had no trouble navigating the aisles that day. They probably will expand into 1B and 1C, but the question is, how do you move people downstairs without them feeling segregated from the action up on the Third Floor?

Kate Fitzsimons said, on 10/11/2010 2:53:00 PM

Synsider, that’s not a particularly fair challenge. Was the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street useless as art? Well, yes. Probably. (Though it did make money, and I imagine it made its audience happy, and that’s no small thing.) Was The Dark Knight useless as art? Many mainstream critics would beg to differ.

Could superhero comics benefit from being more open and original? Sure! In fact, you’ll find many mainstream superhero comics creators saying that very thing, and working towards it. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good comics being produced.

But more to the point of his article at length, he doesn’t like fan culture. He doesn’t think cosplayers are suitably creative. He’s astonished by all the nerds and dorks there doing their nerd and dork things. There are so many of them! They play the accordion while dressed as Boba Fett! It horrifies him. He doesn’t think any of it is creative enough. They are dressing like other people’s ideas! They are enjoying somewhat cliched escapist entertainment!

And yet, is the lack of creativity really what disgusts him? Is dressing in typical clothes for one’s age cohort while watching period cinema or enthusing over sports particularly creative? No. And somehow I doubt he’d be as horrified by it. Most things that most people do for light entertainment during their leisure time isn’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Thomson seems appalled by the sheer exuberance and numbers in which people he does not approve of are unashamedly celebrating the aspects he does not like of a medium he loves.

Thomson might well respect closed-ending original graphic novels, and that’s a completely valid preference. (In fact, I’m pretty sure he does care about graphic novels or he wouldn’t be as horrified in the first place.) But coming to New York Comic Con and expecting that to be the norm is ill-informed bordering on disingenous.

He is shocked, shocked to find that there are nerds and dorks at this comic con!

It’s like ordering a cheese pizza when you hate cheese – yes, it will have cheese, and thus you will hate it. Perhaps you ought to have ordered a cheeseless pizza instead. But many, many people do enjoy it, and the fact that you don’t doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them or their pleasure.

AO said, on 10/11/2010 5:43:00 PM

@ Torsten Adair, As someone who (I believe) has been buying a lot of books lately (10+ per month), but none of them from a B&N, I have to say that very little that you mentioned would entice me to visit one or your stores. And the few things that sound promising in the abstract, would likely not translate well into the real world (at least for me). "Yes, I can find all sorts of obscure stuff on the Internet. But how can I find it if I don’t think to search for it? Or even know about it?" That's a great idea in theory, but the reality is that you don't have room in your stores for much of a selection. After the DVD's & Blu-Rays, the cafe, the Calendars and other items that are related to books but are not books, you simply don't have that much space to begin with. And then what space you do have needs to include titles like LOTR, Twilight, Harry Potter, etc. that are hardly unknown to most consumers. If there were a B&N that was able to stock hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of books, then it would increase my interest in visiting your stores because I would think that I might find several somethings of which I was previously unaware. But you just don't have that much space, so selection can never be one of your strengths. "Working at Barnes & Noble, the idea was to make each store a community center. Find a way to encourage people to come to the store. Once they are inside, then you sell them passively by them walking down the aisle to the cafe, or actively by engaging them. Offer a loss leader like cheap soda or a free item, and the money lost on that item will be recouped by selling other items to the customer". This is another reason why I'm not often a B&N customer. When I think of a bookstore, I think of going there to buy books. If I were to want a cheap soda or a free tchotchke then my primary destination wouldn't be a bookstore. And this also highlights one of the primary distinctions that separates a B&N store from Amazon, Book Depository, etc. They offer the best discounts on the books themselves, while you look to offer great discounts in other areas. As someone who is primarily interested in buying books, your deals simply don't seem very applicable to my situation. But a bigger barrier that prevents me from going to a bookstore isn't the free stuff, it's all the people who sit around and read for free and make your store a USED bookstore rather than a NEW bookstore. Lots of people who aren't washing their hands after using the bathroom, and are sneezing on the books and eating over the books and sometimes smearing the ink and folding spines and paper and so on and so forth. Perhaps I am in a minority in this, but I know that I am far from the only one who equates "Brick & Mortar Bookstore" with "Used Bookstore". If you could only find a way to shrinkwrap new books (perhaps all but one copy?), then it would be a big help in restoring confidence in the cleanliness of your wares. "Bookstores offer certain things better than the Internet: * expert human interaction: answering questions, recommending titles, discussing the title." Not necessarily. When dealing with a person, we never know what their likes and dislikes are, and where their interests lie. If someone believes that Twilight is the greatest piece of literature from the last 20 years, then there's a fair chance that I'll feel quite unhappy with anything else that they choose to recommend to me. If I ask the person whose strength is in historical biographies for suggestions about sci-fi titles, then there's the definite possibility that they won't be able to provide much help to me. Or if I ask a romance fan about war titles then the result could be the same. With the online recommendations and reviews, then we know what people who have read a book think of it, and often we can see more than one opinion. Both are more useful imo then any conversations that I have ever had with any bookstore employee. "The new business philosophy is: What can be sold in a

Chris Hero said, on 10/11/2010 8:56:00 PM

I’ve been buying comics (and books and movies and music and video games) on-line only for the past few years and I have to say, I’m learning about so much more than I ever did from going to a store. Between Amazon’s reviews and discussions and forums, I’ve learned about *way* more than any store could possibly have a knowledge base about. 2dopeboyz.com in particular has been a godsend.

ed said, on 10/12/2010 2:41:00 AM

Good to see that The Beat has recovered from the food-sourced downer of a mindset at SDCC three months ago to tackle the task of entering Javits and experiencing NYCC/NYAF on its own terms…

As ever, I find these NYCC recaps more instructive in what they don’t remark upon rather on what they do:

Again, NO comments on the pervasive presence of the Gaming Industry on the Javits Floor? Pre-Con articles seemed proud to tout that various Gaming-related Exhibitors accounted for a full quarter of the total (500+?) booths. As a non-attendee, I GOOGLE’d “new york comic con” for news and updates during the past weekend… and it seemed like more than HALF of the news searches referred to upcoming videogame releases. (And photos of the booth for the “Michael Jackson Experience” for the Wii looked HUGE.)

Nothing on the second-class treatment of the Anime fans who went to Javits for the “NYAF” portion of the Convention? Shunted off to the side by the larger and dominant “NYCC” half, and its Cosplayers either mocked or leered at by the attending Mainstream MARVEL/DC fans? Checking the Exhibitor List at the NYCC website, I counted some 90 “NYAF” tagged exhibitors; I wonder how did they fare with the overwhelming non-Anime Fans? And much longer will REED Pop Group ‘blend’ the Anime Festival with the Comic Con with this uneasy Convention mix?

And finally: I know the REED p.r. spin is that ‘NYCC is the COMICS Convention of Conventions/It’s the anti-SDCC!’… but how accurate is it really? Granted, there were NO presentations, panels or attending Movie Stars for the upcoming TRON,
CAPTAIN AMERICA, THOR, AVENGERS, COWBOYS AND ALIENS and GREEN LANTERN films nor WB handing out ginormous bags as at SDCC this past summer— surely East Coast Nerds would’ve enjoed a “Flynn’s Arcade” set up in a nearby warehouse?— but other NON-Comics elements at Javits this year seem to undercut that p.r. spin: that 25% Gaming Industry presence + 90 NYAF booths + The CULTYARD’s “art, design, collectible toys, pop-tech and fashion of the underground pop culture scene” pavillion to me adds up to a total of nearly HALF of NYCC’s booths as NOT being “Comics”. Maybe it’s time to start a new meme: NYCC is the mostly-Comics Con?

Fascinating— and revealing— reading here.

/laptop analysis of a Con I didn’t attend OFF

Dara Naraghi said, on 10/12/2010 6:48:00 AM

“photos of the booth for the “Michael Jackson Experience” for the Wii looked HUGE”

It was.

True, there was little to no HOLLYWOOD presence, at least not like there is at SDCC (although I did see the Green Hornet car and bike on display), but there was a huge presence from the gaming industry. And heck, even half of the Marvel booth was dedicated to video games.

And here’s my little observation/commentary on the state of actual comic book publishing: the T-and-A comics publisher Zenescope had a larger booth than Top Shelf and Oni combined.

Add a Comment