News: Interview mit Mark Alessi

[Ralph Kruhm]

Ein neues Pulse-Interview. Teil 2 folgt wohl später...

MARK ALESSI, PART 1: ON THE BOOKSTORES AND BEYOND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY HEIDI MACDONALD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As publisher and founder of CrossGen comics, Mark Alessi has gained quite a reputation for being unorthodox. Observers laughed at his idea of hiring creators as employees and having writers and artists move to Florida to work in a studio situation. But 3 years later, CrossGen is still around, and with a few notable (and vocal) exceptions, the studio system seems to have been a success.
While books like MERIDIAN, RUSE and WAY OF THE RAT have gained a following, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of CrossGen's business plan is the fact that they have one, unlike most comic book companies. With a commitment to showcasing their comics on the web, moving into bookstores and libraries, strategic partnerships, and even a publishing deal in mainland China, CrossGen's aggressive marketing seems to be opening a lot of doors, including the ones in Hollywood.

It's a plan that mirrors the man behind it. Blunt yet charming, Alessi definitely talks about the subjects he wants to talk about. THE PULSE recently had a chance to talk to Alessi specifically about CrossGen's move into the book trade, but as is his wont, what was to be a 15 minute interview lasted nearly an hour and ranged over a variety of topics.

THE PULSE: How important is the book trade to comics and CrossGen in particular?

MARK ALESSI: I think the book trade is incredibly important to comics. We're talking about an industry which saw over 10,000 direct market stores 5 years ago and 2,700 today. If were talking about reaching out to new groups of readers then there's going to be a lot of new venues we have to attack and clearly, one of them, and the most important, is the book trade.

THE PULSE: What is the difference in the audience?

ALESSI: The comics shops are largely populated by people who have stayed with comics through the years. The book trade will open people to comics in a way they haven't been made aware of in even the last ten years. There's not going to be any possibility that all the kinds of variations on a theme that you would find in a direct market store would be available in a bookstore, but its going to be a tremendous venue for opening up interest in the product.

THE PULSE: How much of CrossGen's business is derived from the book trade?

ALESSI: Right now it's not as much as the direct market, but in our first 2 1/2 months we did a $1.2 million retail sell-in which the book market which is, I was told, immensely unique for new publisher to the market. We're pretty excited about it. And we built product specifically for the book trade which is something we had planned on doing from the beginning. But you have to build a large enough backlist of product to make something that's viable for the book trade.

THE PULSE: Ian [Feller] sent me a copy of the smaller Compendia line you are publishing. Is that aimed at the bookstore? [The Compendia line publishes several issues of different titles in a trade paperback format, but CG also published trade collections of each title.]

ALESSI: I'm not so sure that Compendia is the right fit for the bookstore, but I think we're going to be doing a whole number of trade paperback series in that same format. It's sort of the western response to the manga format based on price, size and proven quality. We're firm believers that if you can effectively sell a manga-sized book then you can sell even more effectively a family friendly series of adventure stories for ages 12 and up. An ongoing numbered series -- which seem to be pretty eff ective for the bookstore trade -- and do it in high quality production values which the Compendia display. No one thought that the Compendia, which you have a hold of, would come out with that kind of quality and detail.

THE PULSE: The detail is very good, and the format seems inviting. The size is proven worldwide to be popular. You will be doing trade collection in the smaller size as well?

ALESSI: Sure. Absolutely. In fact one of the strengths of our product line has been the diversity of genres and while the direct market book trade is largely dominated by the superhero type stories the fact that we have this diversity of genres -- martial arts, samurai, historical fiction, sword and sorcery, mythology, horror, comedy, magic and mysticism, mystery, sci-fi -- we think it makes it more attractive to the book trade. Particularly since all of them will be numbered in ongoing series. We can be extending it out into other maybe more consumer friendly environments, as well. The book trade market is real important.

THE PULSE: You just launched into bookstores in 2002, so you don't have that much information yet, correct?

ALESSI: We launched [in 2002] and we didn't probably launch until May.

THE PULSE: So it's a new program.

ALESSI: And we're doing surprisingly well. I didn't expect to be as successful as we were in the beginning and it's a testimony to the work of Chris Oarr and now Robert Boyd that we're having this kind of success. We've got people who understand the buyers, they understand the marketplace. We've also got a massive commitment into a library outreach program.

THE PULSE: That was my next question. How is that going?

ALESSI: Well, we seem to have a real good success rate in the market. Right now we seem to be growing very, very fast. The youth librarians particularly seem to like our products. And we've got a commitment for a special library only incentive program. It will jump start smaller to midsize libraries who have expressed strong interest in graphic novel categories. That will be unleashed early this year to help them out. And this year's really a big year for us. Logically, we do incredibly well selling in the direct market comic book trade, competing with people who have 10 to 1000 years, it seems like, of backlist product to [boost] their numbers. We're just starting to get to the point where backlist graphic novels make sense. Unlike the others, we intend to make every single book that we make come out in the graphic novel format. So in effect, people retain a great number of choices: regular comic books, Compendia, Compendia in the smaller size, graphic novels in smaller size, Graphic novels in TPB size. And then again there's "Comics on the Web" which is sort of growing like a weed. It seems to be actually increasing our sales when so many people were worried that it would bastardize our sales.

THE PULSE: You feel those fears weren't grounded?

ALESSI: First of all for the bookstores we advertise on "Comics on the Web" that you can buy the product at Barnes & Noble or Borders or B Daltons and people who are buying from us. So they get a lot press in the hundreds of thousands or millions of click throughs that occur every single month. You can't take our product and print it. You can read it forever on line, but there's a lot of things you just want to hold in your hand.

THE PULSE: Or take it with you. Do you think -- it's not as specific to what CrossGen is doing, but is the 32 page pamphlet still necessary for the graphic novel? Some people are always waiting for the trade, some get both. You are pretty much committed to publishing the monthlies and then collecting it. Would CrossGen ever do an original graphic novel?

ALESSI: Right now, I can only share with you that our plans are to produce books as comic books. The regular pamphlet size, so to speak, Compendia and then graphic novels. To be honest with you, I think in the long run the pamphlet format is going to be hard to sustain itself because it's going to be absolutely incredibly expensive. If you want to talk about gaining young readers or expanding readership, the absolute last thing you want to do is price people out of a product. Quite frankly, because all of our stories are serialized, when you read our stories in a graphic novel format there's a depth of characterization and continuing story that seems to come out that's considerably different from traditional superheros that might have 2 or 3 issue story arcs, that stand alone. Ours continue on.

We're pretty fired up about our spring list. It's fairly extensive and it's got some really strong highlights, at least predicated on what buyers and retailers and consumers are telling us. In March we released WAY OF THE RAT. Right now Chuck Russell is finishing his screenplay. We can see why he's decided to be serious about making that product. It's a book drawn by a guy who's got a 2nd degree black belt in aikido. I can't tell you how many letters we get that talk about Chuck Dixon's humor or the fact that the actual art that Jeff's drawing looks like legitimate martial arts, which makes sense because he's a legitimate martial artist. Then we're coming out with the trade paperback size, for graphic novels, we call the Travelers' series.

It's really kind of crazy: MERIDIAN is absolutely our best selling graphic novel. And yet it's one of our worst selling comics books. If you take our product and put it in that manga trim size, the same kids that are out there buying Yu-gi-oh or Marmalade Boy have a choice to take a look at our stuff which is full color incredibly detailed, continuous stories and it's at the same price or less.

THE PULSE: How many graphic novels do you intend to publish in 2003?

ALESSI: 46 plus.

THE PULSE: How many in 2002?

ALESSI: In the 20-something range. We'll probably be in the 80s to 90 at the end of 2003.

THE PULSE: You're more than doubling it.

ALESSI: It gets helped by things like unleashing DEMON WARS Volume 1. It's an all-new story so it's not an adaptation like those ELRIC adaptation that come out every year and bomb. I love Michael Moorcock and Elric but this is a brand new story. It's also going to have an original never before seen prose story by Bob [Salvatore] and it's going to coincide with the release of his new DEMON WARS hardcover and the role playing name.

THE PULSE: So it's going to tie-in with everything coming out?

ALESSI: Ron Wagner's art is unbelievable and Caesar Rodriguez, who does SCION, his coloring is phenomenal. We're putting it out in the TPB size so it can sit beside some of the other DEMON WARS product. Bob is so fired up about this, he's actually doing a national tour, largely in support of the graphic novel.

We've got to understand a couple of things that we've missed in our own trade. Kids grow up today. They're four and five-years old and they're playing sophisticated video games that I can't even figure out the rules.

THE PULSE: Yeah, they're not meant for us.

ALESSI: And they throw them into school and they have a book that says "See Jane run!" and "See spot run". Graphic novels are the bridge between high-resolution graphics, high quality art and storytelling and words and it creates a bridge to get kids interested.

THE PULSE: That's why I don't understand when people say kids don't read comics. All kids learn to read from picture books and they look a pretty similar to comics to me, so I don't understand that at all.

ALESSI: My greatest satisfaction comes from people who have told me that they read RUSE, but they are now picking up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and reading the original Sherlock Holmes or they've read SOJOURN and gone back or have never before read and are now reading THE LORD OF THE RINGS, or folks who read MERIDIAN and tell me they've read C.S. Lewis' CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. There's direct links in the types of stories that we're doing and a lot of the classics. And it's nice to be the bridge to getting kids reading the classics I was reading when I was a kid.

THE PULSE: Are you a real fantasy fan?

ALESSI: I'm a fantasy fan, I'm a science fiction fan, I'm a mystery fan...I'm a horror fan, I like some Stephen King...I like to read...I probably read 2 or 3 books a week even today.

My daughter became a big reader some of what we've done here. CrossGen is getting her started, because of SOJOURN, she read THE HOBBIT. So if we can produce material that maps to some of the most successful material of all time I think we get a chance to tie people more into comics the industry which is really graphic novelization.

THE PULSE: I always say don't distance yourself from success.

ALESSI: I like to trample in it, myself.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In part two: Diamond, Lady Death, Code Six, breaking into China and more with Mark Alessi.

[Ralph Kruhm]

THE PULSE: What else in 2003 you're looking forward to?

MARK ALESSI: I think CrossGen is going to undergo massive expansion. Next year we've got video games, we're closing development deals soon. Chuck Russell's making THE WAY OF THE RAT, I believe Bob Zemeckis will be making RTE 666. We have a half dozen other movie and TV deals in serious contract stage. I won't do a movie or a TV deal that isn't done by people who intend to make it in the near future. I'm not interested in people who are interested in optioning. I think 2003 is going to be a massive breakout year for CrossGen. I think the ability to stay long term in the game and build up a backlist and to establish an identity is critical in this industry and I think it's why so many organizations have failed. In the last 10 years there's been over 20 major comic book companies that have closed their doors. It's sort of a shame because they weren't bad comic book companies.

THE PULSE: No, some were great -- they published some of the greatest comics of all time.

ALESSI: I know have much of it collected at home and I prize it greatly because I know I won't see it again. We're really hoping that the kinds of things that we come out with in our education program next year, our extension of "Comics on the Web", which is now in five languages. It went up in Spanish about 3 weeks ago on Yahoo Espanol, the entire thing and a third of the entire traffic now comics from Mexico.

THE PULSE: I have to be honest with you, When I first saw "Comics on the Web", I'm a little jaded, but I was really struck by how much work went into it, and all the languages.

ALESSI: We jut closed a deal with South Korea and we have a deal with the People's Republic of China, in fact we have an excusive with the People's Republic of China.

THE PULSE: Now China is the Xanadu for a lot of comics publishers because it is a huge comics reading population, and you must have played some kind of ping pong diplomacy getting in. How do you see that playing out?

ALESSI: I'll share with you the feedback they gave us. They read our stories and pretty much everything goes through some degree of evaluation -- you can call it censorship or you can call it evaluation. But CAPTAIN AMERICA and SUPERMAN aren't going to be published in China. And I love CAPTAIN AMERICA but that's not happening in China. They told us there's no cultural bias in our books, there's no gender bias, no religious bias, no ethnic bias. All they found were stories. There were so many different genres covered they didn't feel we were attempting an end run on them to spout some sort of cultural doctrine that's US based. While we make comics for America, we also make comics with the world in mind.

It's incredibly amazing to get feedback from people in Norway who are excited about that fact that comics on the web will be up in Norwegian , Danish, Finnish and Swedish soon. Not that I can read the stuff. And they're excited about it! We know that the German market for comics has been slowing down radically. They've taken a terrible hit and a downturn in the last couple of years. They just recently took our entire line and it's being supported by the fact that - I don't know if you know who Globalcast is. They deal with radio consortiums in Europe and just like the deal we did with Clear Channel in the US, we have the same thing happening in Europe where comics in the web are going up all over Europe promoted on web station on website tied to major radio stations. And the fact that it will be in their native tongue excites them.

THE PULSE: Let me ask you about the two spin off lines. CGE and Code Six.

ALESSI: Well, everything is published as a part of CrossGen Entertainment. Code Six was really a vehicle to take non-CrossGen universe comics that we thought highly of and publish them with some sort of revenue split deal with the actual creator, while we retain control since we put the money and investment up to bring it to fruition. But they get a fairly substantive part of the pie. And the objective is, we're not the only ones who come up with good ideas and make good comics, we just think we have better discipline in coming out on time and high quality production value, so we've built a vehicle to have a brand name for other books. The new LADY DEATH is unbelievable. R.A. Salvatore DEMON WARS is a phenomenal story. Robert Rodi's CROSSOVERS is hysterical. It makes Chuck Dixon laugh out loud.

THE PULSE: When is LADY DEATH coming out?

ALESSI: February But it's not LADY DEATH it's a whole new LADY DEATH, in fact you'll probably that her bust has gone down 83 cup sizes. It's a story and it's designed to be a whole new variation on the theme. She looks very much similar. Again it's about a woman who doesn't fit in either world and it's a tremendous story and the art that's coming out of that team is amazing. I don't know where IVAN REIS found the insp iration, versus stuff I've seen him do before but it's unbelievable.

We feel pretty fortunate in that we've attracted an awful lot of high quality people as well as creators. We've had almost no turnover. I laugh all the time about the heat we get when someone leaves CrossGen but there's only been like 5 or 6 in 3 1/2 years, and yet you can see a 6 to 10 person turnover at DC or Marvel in a month and we do it in 3 1/2 years and I hear people acting like chicken little, running around looking for the sky to fall. So we're just lucky that we've found really good quality people, and we've given them a lot of responsibility and they've managed it themselves.

It's somewhat laughable sometimes all the accolades that have come to me regarding our product when frequently, I don't even read the bloody stuff until 2 or 3 months after it's out, because I'm too busy. Yet everybody thinks I dot every "I" and cross every "T" and so every once in a while I'll run into Chuck Dixon's office or Tony Bedard's and go, that was really cool and they'll go what and I'll name an issue from 2 issues ago, and say What a great idea! and they'll say, You just read it?

THE PULSE: So you don't read all the material before it comes out?

ALESSI: Nah.

THE PULSE: Really? Another rumor debunked.

ALESSI: I know it's part of the Kool-Aid quad. I would submit to you that I don't believe I've read a book before it's come out for over 2 years. And I would bet you I'm two months behind on most of our books, not all of them, at least, I am involved in the initial design of books because I want them to be youth friendly. I don't think we need to have blatant sexuality in books, it's always been more attractive to hint at something than graphically portray it. I'm not big on massive violence I think obviously there are consequences. We fight sword battles and do sorts of things but I don't need to see entrails coming across the page.

THE PULSE: So it's not as gutsy as you might have thought.

ALESSI: [Laughs] There you go. No scratch and sniff and you don't get to smell what it's like when organs spill out. It's not good storytelling. And we've gone away and I think part of the reason comics as an American art form don't sell very well in the rest of the world is because we've gone away from storytelling and we've started to become people who grandstand or who develop unique strategies to debunk people of the limited funds they currently have, instead of just writing great stories and hoping they come back. That's what the whole program's supposed to be about. I look at a lot of manga and it looks to me like an 8 year old drew it. But many of the stories are wonderful. When are we going to wake up and understand that graphic novels are storytelling?

THE PULSE: Kids are so much more attracted to manga. Kids don't read mainstream comics, period. They're not aimed at them and aren't appealing to them. But kids are very very excited about the characters in manga.

ALESSI: It's because of the storytelling. It's why MERIDIAN is our worst selling comic book and best selling graphic novel.

THE PULSE: Well, it has that classic girl's fantasy background. It's almost a no brainer.

ALESSI: They told us we would never be able to sell it, because if you made a story about a 15 or 16 year old girl who didn't have a Pamela Anderson bust it wasn't going anywhere. But we put it out and I think we're reprinting MERIDIAN volume 1 for the third time now. Maybe the fourth. It's incredible.

THE PULSE: What's the total print run on it?

ALESSI: Generally we do print runs between 10-15,000 for a graphic novel. It's even more interesting when you look at our books. SOJOURN is our best selling comic book and one of our better selling graphic novels. Our most frequently read book on the web is NEGATION and MERIDIAN is our best selling trade.

THE PULSE: Obviously they find a different audience. If I can just touch on Lady Death's dimensions again: can you tell me about the relaunching of the character that took place, and the thinking behind that?

ALESSI: It's probably been played out a 1000 times, so I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. Brian Pulido and I are close friends, have been for many years, I knew he was in trouble. Basically he sold us LADY DEATH with the understanding that he was going to get an influx of money and we would later sell it back to him at the same price. It was collateral for a loan is how you might want to look at it, although that's not how the paperwork was processed. And then the roof caved in on him within weeks. Everything went south and then I owned the property that a massive debt load potentially attached to it and didn't fit within our standard product line so we rebuilt with him the kind of story I think you'd find in a CrossGen line, but we've tried to keep some legitimate respect for the people who made that character so popular for so many years

THE PULSE: Because that definitely was her appearance, and not even specifically her breast size, but her general demeanor. That's what's people think of as Lady Death. What was Brian's reaction to relaunching the character as more family friendly?

ALESSI: Yes, it's more family friendly but it's not what I would call the softest of our books. If you're going to compare it to MERIDIAN I think you're being foolish. If you're going to compare it to some of out other books you're being more reasonable. It's a tough book. It's got some of the depth of the past and a little bit of the grittiness but it's certainly not something I'd be uncomfortable in having a 12 or 13 year old read. Which is basically where we attack our audience. We probably will come out with two kids books this year.

THE PULSE: Specifically aimed at children?

ALESSI: Aimed at 8 to 13 year olds. We have specific titles in mind. We'll be announcing them later this year.

THE PULSE: What's gong on with you guys and Diamond.

ALESSI: We are in contractual discussions with Diamond regarding our status with them and those talks are continuing. Like everything else in this industry you can't get a straight answer!

THE PULSE: Any other final words?

ALESSI: This last year was the year for Marvel the next year is the year of the Sigil -- I'll take it to the bank.

[LeGuy]

Original geschrieben von Mark Alessi
We know that the German market for comics has been slowing down radically. They've taken a terrible hit and a downturn in the last couple of years. They just recently took our entire line and it's being supported by the fact that - I don't know if you know who Globalcast is. They deal with radio consortiums in Europe and just like the deal we did with Clear Channel in the US, we have the same thing happening in Europe where comics in the web are going up all over Europe promoted on web station on website tied to major radio stations.

Hää? Da bringt er doch was durcheinander, oder?