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Post by tolworthy on Jun 22, 2014 14:56:06 GMT -5
I was asked to review a comic recently finished via kickstarter. I've tried for a while to find the right words - the art is good (by several pros), and the story (time travel and fun) moves at a good pace. But really it isn't aimed at me so I can't do the review justice. To see for yourself, its kickstarter page is here:
This raises a wider issue: if a person can raise ten thousand dollars for a graphic novel, could a fan of old comics raise, say, two thousand dollars to reprint some forgotten classic character?
Example: character X has superb quality, was moderately popular in the 1960s, but today is making no money for anybody. So a fan says to the rights owner "let me create a 'best of' anthology from my old comics, to test the waters. It will cost you nothing, any profits go to you, and in fact I will pay you $2000 just to show I'm serious." Result: forgotten characters are now available in print.
What do you think? feasible?
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ironchimp
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Post by ironchimp on Jun 22, 2014 19:31:27 GMT -5
entirely feasibly - i know people who have done it with music reissues - but you'd need the original artwork really to get a decent result or someone who really knows what they are doing working from old comics as to get nice results can be a complicated business
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2014 21:09:58 GMT -5
Not only do I think it's feasible, it's an idea I've had for a while. It won't be completely easy, and will take a lot of time and dedication on behalf of more than one person, but I think someone with the right amount of drive could potentially found a pretty big publisher through a small Kickstarter venture.
There are public domain comics that can be reprinted with no licensing fees, but tracking down quality copies to scan and the work involved in cleaning them up for reprint is something to consider. Craig Yoe already does it for horror, and is getting into romance, but there's plenty of genres someone could jump in on. Westerns, Sci-fi, crime. And super heroes. Public domain superhero comics.
There's Euro and international comics that can be translated and reprinted, possibly for cheap.
Then there's manga, which falls under the above international comics. My idea for manga is different though, since manga is already a tough market thoroughly saturated by publishers at the moment. You have to have good stuff, and you have to shake things up. My manga idea is fairly simple, and could reach a much wider mainstream audience. Find a manga that is well regarded in Japan, already completed (material from the 70's or 80's could be a goldmine for low licensing costs), at least 400 pages worth, as many as 800-1000. Then have it translated, colorized, viewed left-to-right Western style, and printed in an oversized HC slipcase omnibus with a fancy forward from some manga scholar. It would be the most premium manga translation in the country, and could snag domestic comic fans, Euro comic fans, the more casual reader, the potential could be huge. Of course since it's color and read left to right, the manga purists would probably hate it, but I think they're a small enough niche market. If it proved successful, I can see it taking off even in Japan.
What would be really cool is finding an international comic to reprint from a country that typically doesn't have internationally distributed comics. And that may be the cheapest route to go if you're looking for licenses. Although finding quality material to scan from may be hard if the original publisher didn't keep the art or some file copies.
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Post by tolworthy on Jun 23, 2014 8:22:05 GMT -5
Thanks. I have often thought that Egmont would be an ideal publisher for this. My understanding is vague, but I think they bought a ton of old IPC comics, and don't have any way to make money from them. They seem like good people to deal with too. Some of the strips, e.g. 1960s adventures by Spanish artists, are pretty good and don't take up many pages.
I think the hard part would be finding good writing. A couple of years ago I bought a Look In anthology: I recall the art being superb, but the stories were appallingly bad. Apparently they paid top rates, but had just one guy writing all the strips, and he would literally write them all on a Thursday afternoon then go to the pub.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 23, 2014 10:40:08 GMT -5
What would be really cool is finding an international comic to reprint from a country that typically doesn't have internationally distributed comics. And that may be the cheapest route to go if you're looking for licenses. Although finding quality material to scan from may be hard if the original publisher didn't keep the art or some file copies. There's a ton of Filipino comics that have names attached that older comic fans would recognize that, to my knowledge, has never been printed in the U.S. I'd love to see a lot of that stuff. |
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Post by hondobrode on Jun 23, 2014 12:03:05 GMT -5
Why doesn't someone set up Print on Demand with Lulu ?
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Post by DubipR on Jun 23, 2014 12:18:55 GMT -5
I know Michael Kaluta and Elaine Lee brought back Starstruck to be reprinted with some additional material. It would be alright for creator owned items, but getting stuff reprinted from the Big 2 wouldn't happen due to the copyright laws and what not.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Jun 23, 2014 12:42:55 GMT -5
Easy if it's public domain characters. Complicated but possible if the rights are still owned by someone.
Eventually I'm going to have time to get back to working on my Boy Comics #120 project, and at some point when I finally finish it, I'll probably go to Kickstarter to help with it. If the rights issues can be figured out, everything else is possible.
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Post by fanboystranger on Jun 23, 2014 12:45:20 GMT -5
I know Michael Kaluta and Elaine Lee brought back Starstruck to be reprinted with some additional material. It would be alright for creator owned items, but getting stuff reprinted from the Big 2 wouldn't happen due to the copyright laws and what not. I believe the Starstruck reprints were strictly through IDW, not Kickstarter. Lee and Kaluta did use Kickstarter for a new Starstruck OGN featuring Harry Palmer, but it isn't finished yet to my knowledge. |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Jun 23, 2014 12:46:08 GMT -5
Example going right now: Aardwulf is trying to Kickstart a release of some previously unpublished Futurians stuff by Dave Cockrum.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2014 14:55:08 GMT -5
Why doesn't someone set up Print on Demand with Lulu ? Print on demand is an option, but you tend to pay more for lower quality that way. A standard floppy can be $5-$8. Imagine what a big hardcover TPB would cost? |
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Post by tolworthy on Jun 24, 2014 0:56:40 GMT -5
Print on demand is an option, but you tend to pay more for lower quality that way. A standard floppy can be $5-$8. Imagine what a big hardcover TPB would cost? That's the beauty of going for British or European comics. 22 pages can be 11 chapters. Make that 50 pages and there's a decent read. The trick is to find the right collection. A few years ago DC Thompson published 64 page anthologies of their weekly strips and those things were amazing: Thompson always gave great value per page, and 64 pages was several days' reading. Nine out of ten stories suffered from being back to back (the writing was poor), but the rare exception was amazing. |
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Post by hondobrode on Jun 24, 2014 20:01:04 GMT -5
Why doesn't someone set up Print on Demand with Lulu ? Print on demand is an option, but you tend to pay more for lower quality that way. A standard floppy can be $5-$8. Imagine what a big hardcover TPB would cost? Yes, I agree, but I would love to get some esoteric pieces otherwise not available. There's a ton of foreign stuff I'd love to get a hold of. |
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