The webcomics blog about webcomics

Hmmm … Very Hmmm

DC Comics publisher/president Paul Levitz in a multipart interview from late July in San Diego; this is the part about online comics.

While we’re waiting for the Zudacontracts to show, here’s the key argument in favor of it from the guy who’s ultimately responsible for its success or failure:

At the end of the day, what you’re supposed to do as a publisher is create an opportunity for creative people to reach an audience and make a living in the process, and to earn your pay doing that by how you physically create the product for people, how you market the product, distribute it, connect it. Webcomics enable some people to bypass that all, and do it all themselves because they want to do it themselves and that’s a wonderful thing, but it’s also a hard thing.

Translation: “Webcomics hard.”

Analysis: Duh. Any creative endeavour that produces something worthwhile is hard; if a creator cares to put less than 100% into achieving a vision, I’m probably less than 100% interested in whatever gets produced. Please note that I’m not saying Only individual expressions of art are valid and if you lack the talent to handle the business and marketing ends of your art and you live a miserably poor life as a result, too bad.

But I am saying that the more — let’s call them agendas — come into play from people who aren’t the possessor of the creative vision but retain an ownership stake, the greater the — let’s call it dilutive — effect it will have on the creation.

Thinking back to my conversation with Robert Khoo at SDCC on the topic of collectives, I’m becoming more convinced that there’s a market for — let’s call it a turnkey webcomics management solution — Khoo-like people to handle the business aspects of a webcomic or collective, allowing the creator(s) to focus on creating, but not acting as a traditional publisher. It would be a revolutionary shift in the publishing model, but hell — isn’t revolutionary what the internet is supposed to do best?

I’m becoming more convinced that there’s a market for — let’s call it a turnkey webcomics management solution — Khoo-like people to handle the business aspects of a webcomic or collective, allowing the creator(s) to focus on creating, but not acting as a traditional publisher. It would be a revolutionary shift in the publishing model, but hell — isn’t revolutionary what the internet is supposed to do best?

This is a brilliant suggestion. In my mind I imagine the partnerships as being very much like rock bands. Just in the sense that rock bands have managers which allow them to focus on their music. And give them someone to yell at when they are frustrated with fast money and cute girls.

But really: it’s not so different from the Ancient Greek and Elizabethian model of artist and patron? Which has actually been in use for a very long time, and to me anyway, seems like it might be a more natural thing. When did all of these corporations take over the business, anyway?

When they became the only people interested in being patrons.

Seriously, rich people used to be patrons because their hired artists would create great works in their name, or their image, or whatever, and that was a requirement of patronage. Beethoven LOST patrons because he would be paid to create some great symphony for a rich baron or earl or whatever and would go off and create whatever the hell he wanted instead.

I don’t think the model of artist and patron is something we’d want to fully embrace…

I agree with Christopher; patrons became pretty notorious for introducing their requirements or tastes into the creative process, and don’t really meet my little idea of management-for-fee (to put a name on it).

I am excited about “…a market for — let’s call it a turnkey webcomics management solution “ — whoever builds and hosts it will need some kind of compensation unless they are a rich patron. But aren’t there some comics hosting sites out there already? But who besides DC’s Zuda comics are doing the whole marketing to the readers thing? It seems that creators managing their web comics site is the easy part, it’s the promotion part that is really needed. If someone were to create both the turnkey site hosting AND promotion, where the creators retained all rights, would the creators be willing to share in the sucess of the promotion with the promoters???

Robert Khoo handles promotion. If we could clone Robert Khoo, I’d buy two. Of course there is demand for Khoos. But is there supply?

But I am saying that the more — let’s call them agendas — come into play from people who aren’t the possessor of the creative vision but retain an ownership stake, the greater the — let’s call it dilutive — effect it will have on the creation.

This is the most telling part of your observations to me. Not only because the publisher is fronting the money and therefore feels a need (and a reasonable one) that their money is being well spent, but because in this case the publisher is opting to keep ahold of said creation once the ties to the creator are severed. And DC does not exactly have a clean record where this kind of thing is concerned.

I think also what’s hardest here is that many art schools fail to teach anything about business either in promotion or pricing or really in any aspect and learning something about any of it when one is just happily making a web comic seems really daunting.

[…] Gary Tyrrell dissects DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz’ comments on webcomics from yesterday’s ICv2 […]

The Khoo approach is really the superstar model. Khoo saw that Penny Arcade could become really big and he helped guide it there. Rememeber PA has a staff of 10 now – it more than spits out enough revenue for Khoo to make a living at just it.

That’s just not going to be a model for the vast majority of good webcomics (let’s just put aside not-good webcomics because no one’s going to make money at that) in that same way that most book authors are musicians/bands don’t do that. But most published authors and musicians do get agents who provide services to a stable of clients. That kind of approach could work for a lot of webcomic creators.

The services such a webcomics-agent would provide may not be all that different than things like Zuda but the perception (and probably the reality) would be different. There’s a trust issue with entities like Zuda (and other publisher-back arrangements) that wouldn’t be there with something like CAA for webcomics.

We don’t need a turnkey service paying like “auto-Khoos” or anything like that. I can just imagine a bunch of wannabes thinking– DAMN! I can be a business consultant for webcomics! — It’s not as easy as that.

It’s imperative that ALL cartoonists learn to be good businessmen and think outside of the boxes more. I’d like to suggest to anyone, reading minds like Seth Godin, Hugh Mcleod, start thinking like those guys and you’ll be well on your way.

I highly suggest “Small is the new Big” by Seth Godin.

Webcomics aren’t much different than any “indie” print comics at the moment. The creators are expected to do the bulk of the promotion. Image might get you a mention in Previews but as creator you have to knock on retailer’s doors to get them to order it. Unless you are working for hire it’s up to you, the creator, to make sure people know about it. But, like Levitz said, not everyone wants to deal with it themselves.

I meant enlightened patrons, christ. Obviously I’m not talking about jerks who want complete creative control. Those would be called “proxy artists”, I think.

Really not trying to crap on you, NRTCC, and art history isn’t my strong suit, but I can’t really think of any non-jerk art patrons from the period when the patronage model was in full swing.

Also, what I had in mind (and this is very sketchy so far) was not to have a creator dependent on a patron, but to pay somebody to perform certain tasks for them. As DJ pointed out, creators should learn about the business end of the bid’ness … but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t take advantage of specialists with certain skills.

If you run a business, should should have a lawyer and an accountant; it’s not a stretch to have (perhaps part-time) a business-manager type if you don’t have the skill or time to handle that end of things.

OK, a part-time business manager type (for those that aren’t interested in doing it themselves) An agent that handles the promotion of your comics for a percent. So you combine a comics hosting site (like DrunkDuck or ComicGenesis) with a manager that will promote you. Is that the package we are looking for?

Paul Levitz has blue hair.

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