Ralph Kruhm
16.01.2003, 08:00
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.
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.