The comic book industry begins to reopen...while continuing to shoot itself in the foot.
NEW COMIC BOOKS ARE SHIPPING AGAIN
Diamond Comics Distribution will start shipping NEW comic books again this week! That good news for comic books stores, publishers, and YOU.
And Diamond has a way you can help to...
...gimmie a minute
Look uhm...I am actually very good at being a team player, even though it seems like I'm often at odds with people. You just gotta think about how many years I have been part of the comic book industry and the thousands of entities I've dealt with in one way or another...how often do I ACTUALLY break bad on someone? Not very often, really. I'm just, well, let's put false modesty a side for a moment...I'm really entertaining when I'm blasting someone. And so it's gets spread around and gets attention. And hey, it doesn't hurt my brand any if they think the guy who writes Arsenic Lullaby is a lunatic.
I can be, and am very adept at, being a team player...at understanding the goal and each persons role in reaching it. But, I'm having a little trouble with this right now...It's not them, it's me. It's the stress and uncertainty of the past few months. All that is rolling around in my head, that energy, and it's aching to have a target. It's my problem.
...mostly.
...sort of.
Okay. Deep breath. We are trying to save an industry here...Comic shops have been closed/without new product for months and we need to jump start this! Let's just "team player" this mutha fucking blog, right?!
Right! Let's go!
In the run up to March 20th's NEW COMIC BOOK DAY, Diamond comics has a whole marketing strategy here...of some kind...if you can call it that. No no...no...don't...don't look for flaws...write the blog. Be positive. People are trying to accomplish something here. Let's pitch in....okay ...okay
They even put together this dumbass logo! Look!
What in the holy clusterfuck is that eye sore you might ask?
STAAAAP! NO! I got off the rails....let me try again.
"Well, that is a curious logo...I wonder what that's all about?" You might ask yourself...if you've gotten laid in the last 20 years, and have an actual life that doesn't revolve around comic books, or aren't so steeped in them that you don't understand that what is "iconic" for die hard fans is obscure to everyone else. AND EVERYONE ELSE IS WHO YOU NEED TO BE SPEAKING TO.
...ops...
I can do this, turn a negative into a positive.
Hey! Here's a fun bit of trivia for you! Back in the late 1950's there was a whole actual congressional hearing about comic books and if they were detrimental to children's mental growth. So, to pander to congress, and also to knee cap one of the larger publishers, a bunch of entities of the comic book industry got together and created the Comics Code Authority. They had a set of rules that needed to be followed- what can or can't appear on a cover, how much gore is too much, how much cleavage is too much, words you can't say...the usual stuff an organization that thinks they are everyone's mother would come up with. And if you didn't follow the rules, you could not have their stamp on your cover, and if you did not have your stamp...you had a snow ball's chance in hell of getting any distributor to carry you or a store to put your book one the shelf.
The stamp looked like this...
Which is what this comeback logo looks like! Sort of...in a sense that they both have a stamp border, and a round thingy with lines going off the sides...
As the years went on, publishers ignored the rules more and more and eventually the Comics Code Authority and their stamp wasn't worth anything and it hasn't been used in about 20 years.
...and for reasons I cannot fathom, instead of using and kind of image or silhouette or symbol that any normal human being would identify with a comic book. They used that as the template. And Fucking jammed it with so much ...
Sorry.
The logo's fine. I mean, Sure, no one who reads it could possibly know it has anything to do with comic books, unless they recognize that stamp...which would leave out anyone born after 1990, which would be everyone you would be wanting to get the attention of, BUT the message is there.
The message of, some setback happened to...something...and there is a comeback of some kind in the works.
...why it's right there in the hashtag! #backthecomeback
Back the comeback...It couldn't be any more clear. What else could that possibly be pertaining to? Except, maybe sports, or an election, or...maybe.... anyone or anything on the earth that could have a setback and needs to come back from it. and it's being used in a time where everyone and everything on earth has suffered a set back and needs a comeback from it. and so ...probably 48,000 different entities could start using that same hashtag at any moment...
Me, myself, personally, I would have ...oh...I dunno...used the words COMIC BOOK...ANYWHERE IN EITHER THE FUCKING LOGO OR THE FUCKING HASHTAG
...COMIC BOOK...
COMIC
BOOK
FOR FUCKS SAKE
"this really isn't the time to be crapping on things, this is the time for positive energy"
Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right.
Although, one could argue that this is exactly the time for harsh discerning scrutiny. So we come back lean and mean. Take people out of roles they are not suited for and put them in other roles.
...I can almost guarantee you whoever came up with that got a promotion.
You ever have one of those moments where you put your head in your hands and cry and laugh at the same time...or it starts as one and turns in the other? I'mma go do that right now.
and uhm...I'm gonna try this again tomorrow. Okay? I just...It's possible I'm just not in the state of mind to see the good in anything right now.
I'm sure they did their best...it's not like they are in the business of marketing or anything, or in an industry that lives or dies on creativity and innovation. I think the first thing I EVER learned about business it that you don't highlight a negative. That's why something is presented as "New and Improved!" not "we fixed it!".
This is like having a t-shirt that says "we really gotta get our shit together, because we're almost fucked!"
How about #newcomicsareback
You got "new" in there, that's positive. You got "comics", WHICH IS WHAT WE A TRYING TO SELL, and "back", which gives a feeling of it being an event...an event that has been waited for. It took me four seconds to come up with that. It's a by product, the ability to adapt, of being an independent. You learn to fight for every single shred, and capitalize on every single situation...and it's maddening when you see people who should have picked up that tenacity at some point, completely lacking in it.
I'm going to get a drink...lay down...and thank the heavens above that my skills and intellectual properties are able to exist and thrive on several other mediums.
Here's the link to the page they set up, that's all about this...whatever the hell it is. Make sure you got to your local comic book shop this week!
There are t-shirts for sale there with that stamp logo, and proceeds go to struggling comic book shops. That would be a great t-shirt to get. I'm dead fucking serious. Because you could keep that shirt and have a dozen opportunities to wear it over the next few years. When your sports team is behind in the playoffs, some corporate pep rally, any event at all about overcoming something. No one will even know it's really about the comic industry in 2020.
TO BE FAIR TO DIAMOND, HERE IS SOME TOUGH LOVE FOR THIS ENTIRE INDUSTRY. This industry needs to start operating like an industry and stop being four different work-forces that all think they can do each others job. Diamond is a distributor. It is NOT their job to handle promotion, That is not their skill set. Take orange juice, for example. Does the orange juice distributor put out ads? NO! Minute Maid orange juice promotes itself and the stores promote that they carry Minute Maid orange juice. That is how it f*cking works. "Works" being the key word there.
Publishers handle promotion, customarily, although in this new age the creative teams also need to pull their weight online. The distributor needs to focus one GETTING THE BOOKS TO THE STORES. From the time a publisher tells Diamond they have a book to sell, and that book actually getting to a reader, it currently takes TWO TO THREE MONTHS. That is untenable in 2020 and beyond. Diamond needs to be working on shortening that not dicking around with promotions, making a website for it, and dicking around on social media.
See this?
That is "BAD OPTICS". My sister has more followers than that and she's just posting pictures of food. The twitter page is just as anemic and their FB page has 600 some odd followers. THAT LOOKS TERRIBLE FOR ALL OF US. STOP IT. STOP....IT. Arron Rodgers is an excellent quarterback, but if he tried to be a linebacker he'd lose the game for the entire team. Get it?!
Do your job, get the books to the stores. The rest of you ( us) need to do OUR JOB and get people back into stores. We need to do that NOW...relentlessly. Anyone who is not actively raising hell about stores reopening will have themselves to thank if this industry goes belly up.
I will give them this...when you go to that link you see a bunch of comic books. And that is ALL the industry needs to be doing now, showcasing great comic books at every possible opportunity.
I apologize for the shit mood I'm in. That is not an excuse to ignore the vital advice I laid out here.
Later.
MY work can always be found at https://www.arseniclullabies.com
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Heh, my news feed is showing many comic-related articles, but a couple of days ago I was intrigued to see that yellow-stamp in the thumbnail with an obscure title. I read the title two or three times, and could not figure out what is was about, but -being there when Marvel titles carried the CCA stamp- some synapses in my dead brain fired and got working.
"This feels familiar..." I thought and dismissed the entry from the feed, not caring to think more about, my brain being already under serious stress.
Later, I was watching the Nerdrotic show in youtube and he made the exact points you make above. It is impressive to see how easily the obvious thing is ignored by major players in the market. Put the damned word "COMICS" there, so we instantly know what it is all about!