…and next to the term “Pyrrhic Victory,” you’ll see a picture of “Captain Marvel.”
The book appears to have a lock on winning the “U-Decide.” Except on his website, Joe Q. has effectively promised I’ll be fired if I ever write a negative word about Marvel ever again. Because it means I’m not on his team.
Me, I didn’t know Marvel still had a team. I know, because I used to play on it. Softball. I pitched. Sometimes I was catcher if my knees held up. And Volleyball. There used to be glorious volleyball games.
And we’d play against other publishers, including DC. And everyone got along. Because there were always public disagreements, jibes, challenges between companies at conventions, etc., but in the end, everyone understood: It’s comics, for God’s sake.
Those were great days.
I miss those days. Days of a sense of community.
Days of teams.
Ah well.
I don’t do well with threats.
PAD
• 
Just a quick note to wish Peter, Peter’s family, and all the other posters here a happy 2003.
Peter: I’m sad to see Supergirl ending, and will be even sadder if Captain Marvel ends. I enjoy your writing, and can imagine many comics that I’d love to read if you were writing. I’m looking forward to “Fallen Angel”, and whatever else you wind up writing this year.
Here’s something no one has suggested (as far as I know). This is pure fantasy, mind you. But Peter has been in sales, he’s been in writing, he knows a lot about the business, he has a lot of opinions on how it’s run, and he seems to have a pretty good attitude to the other people in the comics field — fans, retailers, fellow creators, even editors and other management folks. Can you imagine Peter as EIC of Marvel…
>>Just a brief note to say that I have read many of Mr. Davids novels and I find him to be an excellent writer. After meeting him in San Diego I also found him to be a exceptionallly nice man. I don’t know if he will ever work with CG but I hope he wouldn’t be restricted because of his high moral values, I’d like to think that’s what we are all about. With great respect for Mr. David. Mark<<
I’m not sure what that means. Did CrossGen say or do anything that’s immoral? If they did, I missed it.
Someone sent me one of their Code Six contracts complaining that it was out of line. I read it over. Seemed pretty routine. Not the world’s most lucrative deal, but certainly nothing unethical.
Nor have I ever considered it amoral that they want people located in Florida. If that’s a condition of hiring, then that’s a condition. You know that going in.
I think Mark Waid isn’t happy with them, but I’ve no idea what that’s about and wouldn’t presume to judge.
So I feel like there’s something I’m not getting here….
PAD
For those of you not wanting to sign up for Joe’s board-0 i highly recomend it. The Peter David thread is a hoot.
Joe is really really silly. From what I read peter- all you have to do is call him and talk to him about your concerns before your rant becasue thats waht Kevin Smith does.
“As for Kevin, nothing he’s said in a public forum has come as a surprise since we’ve discussed it several times over the phone.”
So call him, tell him whats bad- then write about it here!
Hey Peter –
Just a thought- since he is saying all this stuff on his forum- why don’t you reply there? Thats one way to talk to him about it, and he cann’t get mad since its a topic he started.
Just a thought….
So I feel like there’s something I’m not getting here….
PAD
You need to see the whole thread. Someone else posted that they were under the impression that you did not want to leave the Boston area because of your family. I think that’s what he was talking about.
Let me try the link again with html code: click here
Hopefully that will work. If I remember the code right. Probably not.
My mistake. Long Island.
I thought I read you lived in Boston. Oh well.
Having read Capt. Marvel #4, I’m going to try to finger (just had flashback to first page of CM#4) why it is that Joe Q may have it in for Peter David.
Peter David is a stone cold madman.
I mean that in a good way. I believe Joe Stracynski and Harlan Ellison are considered exemplars of those who funnel personality damage into creative writing.
But Bre’r David, you take the cake and eat it too. Clearly, the hopelessly grounded Joe Q can’t cope with this.
Cryptic allusions to spoilers that won’t do much to cushion the blow of palm against forehead when the think-they’re-wary pick up CM # 4:
Are ‘Ep’ and ‘Ent’ related to a Dr. Strange character? Is this character a hermaphrodite?
Is Genis’ grumbling about disorderly events related to why No-One has it in for him?
Will Mordecai P. Boggs dare enter the Microverse?
I’ll pay the cover price to know, and a couple of bucks more besides. This story is _fun_.
I’m not sure what that means. Did CrossGen say or do anything that’s immoral? If they did, I missed it.
Just guessing, but maybe your criticism of his saying he’d “destroy Marvel”? In any event, he seems to be taking it in generally good humor.
The moral comment was a response to a poster who said something along the lines of PAD would not work for CG because of his high moral values…
I didn’t quite get it either…
Just want to throw something out here that Warren Ellis posted on his mailing list, regarding the Marvel price-hike:
“Retailers have to order a rather large
dollar amount of Marvel comics
before qualifying for a better
discount level. Banging seventy-four
cents on to these books, many of
which have a devoted fanbase, will
actually make it easier for a lot of
retailers to hit that discount plateau
while ordering much the same
number of books. I haven’t run
hard numbers, and it’ll obviously
vary from shop to shop, but there’s
a distinct possibility that some
retailers will be better off.”
(I took out his rants about how stupid all internet posters are for not realizing this)
So it may make more sense from a retailer standpoint, although the fans will still have to eat the cost.
Well, actually someone suggested that Peter’s outspokeness might sway Marak against from wanting to work with him. A second person commenting on it somehow decided outspokeness meant high moral values, and that’s what Mark then responded to saying that high morals is what Crossgen is all about. Basically it was a game of message board telephone.
No logic whatsoever behind price increase is better for retailers because the, “Banging seventy-four
cents on to these books, many of which have a devoted fan base, will actually make it easier for a lot of retailers to hit that discount plateau while ordering much the same number of books.”
All retailers will purchase their comic books at discount in order to compete with other comic stores in the area. If they cannot keep up with the minimum amount needed for the discount they won’t stay in business for the simple reason that the their profit margins or even the amount the can discount a book is lessened because they have to essentially buy the product at a higher cost then their competitors. Any store (comics or otherwise) that cannot afford to purchase enough product to get it at discount will soon go out business. In any form of retail you will find large buying groups that give smaller businesses the same kind of discount purchasing power as the larger chains. Even very small retail outlets normally purchase product at prices very close to the of the larger chain stores. The large profit that these large stores make is normally because of the bulk of product that is sold, not because of a larger profit margin per individual product.
They may qualify for the discount more easily (that they have to qualify for anyway) but are left with fewer titles in their store at higher prices. Maybe Marvel shouldn’t be hiring “artists” to do their “business” strategies.
Well, our shop is primarily an anime shop, but we’ve also been selling mainstream comics over the last year or two. It’s been an uphill struggle and we’re still trying to expand our selection without losing money on it. As a result we still order relatively small numbers, and always get the lowest possible discount from Marvel. (Although I’d like to go on record as saying we believe in and follow the policy of “if it sells out one month, order more next month!”)
If the new rates earn us a higher discount, that’s all well and good and I’ll be happy. But if the books don’t sell because my customers are scared off by the higher cover price then the extra discount does me no good.
Of course, manga comics have had cover prices of $2.99 for a long time now, and some of them, specificly from Viz and lately Dark Horse, are $3.25, $3.50 or even $3.99 each month. So some of our customers may already be acclimated to the new price. But I doubt it; oddly enough we have very little crossover. The customers who come to our shop for mainstream titles buy very little or no manga, and vice versa.
I’ve always had the mentality that I’d rather sell a lot of something at a lower price then only a few at a higher price, but that’s probably part of why I never pass those pesky IQ tests!
-Fer
Well, in a static universe with just one publisher, Ellis’ comments might make a little sense.
But there is always some fall-off in sales and resistance to higher prices (74 cents here, 74 cents there – pretty soon you’re talking about real money), and Marvel is not the be-all and end-all in comics; Marvel retailer orders do not exist in a vacuum. There are lots of other publishers and lots of new titles coming out all the time – some customers drop one title to jump onto a new one – these (and similar) factors must also be taken into account each and every month when placing orders.
Plus, I’d be willing to lay a substantial sum that Marvel will shortly change their terms for reaching specific discount levels, justifying it by saying that the higher prices mean that too many retailers are getting a better discount, cutting into Marvel’s and Diamond’s intake, and probably after receiving some pressure from larger-ordering retailers that Marvel is making it too easy for the little stores to approach their discount levels.
It is high time the powers that be realize that, at this point in time, many, many comics retailers have shops located in smaller towns and cities, with a finite audience (not that that audience cannot be expanded – but that is a question for another day), and cannot be expected to automatically bump up orders when the result would likely be increased non-selling copies.