Keynote Address: Art Spiegelman — “What the !@##*! Happened to Comics?!”
Art Spiegelman—Writer, artist, Pulitzer Prize winner

“When everything else is put onto a Kindle, comics will be the last book standing,” Spiegelman declared confidently. Comics are printing, according to Spiegelman. “The format is crucial.”

Spiegelman went through a history of popular comics in the U.S., evolving from early newspaper comics to compellations to floppy superhero books. “It keeps reinventing itself because if it didn’t it would die,” he said.

Maus, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight Returns were once the entire graphic novel section in the bookstore (in the late ’70s or early ’90s), but the section died out because there was nothing else on that level. The section filled up with “do-it-yourself Dungeons and Dragons books,” Spiegelman said.

In the 2000s “comics reached critical mass,” Spiegelman said, citing Ghost World and Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth.

Black Hole by Charles Burns was “…many years in the making, and that’s key.” Spiegelman believes in single creators, and he believes they need to take a long time.

“Your future lies in the Avant-Garde,” Spiegelman said, even if you don’t think it does. “[The Avant-Garde] has to be nurtured, even in hard times, because that is where the next fad is coming from.”

Spiegelman took a few minutes to plug Toon Books, a series for beginning readers. Spiegelman is listed as the “Series Advisor” on the website, and he said at the panel that he co-created the book line with his wife. “Kids are not all ages,” Spiegelman says. An eight- and five-year-old don’t have much in common.

During the Q&A, one audience member asked about webcomics. Quoting someone else, Spiegelman said, “Each medium cannibalizes the one before it then moves on.” Movies started off as picture plays, after all. “We’re living through something as big as the invention of moveable type,” Spiegelman said, referring to the internet.

Although Spiegelman gave a nod to manga during the panel, and mentioned Tezuka’s Phoenix, I don’t think he sees the bigger picture. I believe that while the Comics Code squelched the growth of American comics for decades, manga moved on in a beautiful parallel evolution, and it flourished. It’s no wonder that young people today look to manga for inspiration about what comics can be.

Literary Adaptations — Building on Success
Jennifer Besser – Editor, Disney Book Group
Les Dabel – VP Bus Operations, Dabel Brothers Productions
Sherrilyn Kenyon – Bestselling Author (Lords of Avalon)
Betsy Mitchell – VP/Editor in Chief, Del Rey Books
Ruwan Jayatilleke – VP Senior VP Business Development & Acquisitions, Marvel Comics
Marco Pavia – Associate Publisher, Tokyopop
Robin Ferth – works with Stephen King in the Dark Tower adaptation (Co-writer for Dark Tower)
Calvin Reid, Moderator – Senior News Editor, Publishers Weekly

Nothing particularly world-shattering came out of this panel. Literary adaptations are very popular right now in the comics world; the <>Warriors books and Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas collaboration are top sellers. Personally, I hated the first Odd Thomas book—I guess I really don’t like Dean Koontz! Adaptations like these are a safe bet for tough economic times, but it’s hard for me to get excited about authors I’ve never read being adapted into a format I’m obsessed with.

Les Dabel and his brother began their adaptations by emailing 25 authors asking if they could adapt their stories. Only George R. R. Martin responded, and he said no, but they kept bugging him until he gave them a short story, “The Hedge Knight” to work with. It was a big success and they’ve gone on to work on lots many other authors’ adaptations.

Sherrilyn Kenyon was severely dyslexic and could only read comics when she was a kid. “If it weren’t for my brother’s Spiderman comics I would be illiterate today,” she said. They’re doing Lords of Avalon as comics (Marvel) and graphic novels.

According to Marco Pavia, the Warriors manga came out of Tokyopop’s partnership with Harper Collins. Tokyopop’s approach is not to directly translate the stories, but to make prequels, sequels, and side stories. Tokyopop will have “a lot more Warriors” in the future.

Calvin Reid asked the panelists to discuss the art and format of their books. According to Betsy Mitchell of Del Rey, “The cost of these projects, whether they’re black and white or color is so significant… that we want to reach as wide of an audience as we can.” She described a Venn diagram of readers. Older readers will buy hardcovers, but for younger readers it’s a smaller trim size, black and white, and paperback.

Kenyon demanded that her manga should be in black and white, and her comics in color. She grew up at Titan Comics in Atlanta, and knew exactly what she wanted—she even came to the first adaptation meeting with a list of artists she wanted.

“We look for artists that are fans of the material, and if they’re not, we make them a fan,” Dabel said, “My brother quizzes them.” The artist illustrating the adaptation of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files has never been published, but after two sketches Butcher was sold.

Reid said, “You’re all working on best selling authors, but these books won’t appear on the New York Times Bestseller list—because they don’t track comics.”

Mitchell once had a book at #17 on Bookscan but freaked out when she realized it wouldn’t be on the New York Times list. She called Paul Levison and asked him if he felt this way about Watchmen. “Yes. Welcome to the club,” he said.

All of the publishers agreed that they were only interested in working with authors who want direct involvement in graphic novel projects. “If there’s no author investment, and it’s only for dollars,” Ruwan Jayatilleke said he walks away. He wants some kind of heart to his projects.

“We wouldn’t be interested if the author wasn’t interested,” Pavia said, “Unless that author was Oprah.”

Comics on the web – Marketing Tool or Revenue Stream?
Eric Beaulieu – General Manager, Transcontinental Tansmedia
Richard Bruning – Sr. Vice Pres, Cr. Dir. DC Comics
Stu Levy- Chief Executive Officer, Tokyopop
Dave Roman, Associate Editor, Nickelodeon Magazine; co-founder, Lunchboxfunnies.com
Ira Rubenstein, Executive VP Global Digital Media Group, Marvel Comics
Moderator – Milton Griepp, President, ICv2

“It’s not as simple as putting a pdf up there,” Ira Rubenstein said of putting comics on the web. “We need to bring books to different platforms,” such as videogames and handheld devices like the Kindle. “I don’t think the comic book is going to go away, just like Jeff Basil says he doesn’t believe the book is going away,” Rubenstein said.

Dave Roman agreed that the future is multiplatform. “Younger kids don’t seem to have a divide between print media and other media.”

This year, Stu Levy was focused on digital reading devices. “For me it’s all about the device,” Levy said. “I personally believe we will come to a time when books become irrelevant,” he continued, adding that he didn’t doesn’t think anything from the current generation of ebook devices will become the next ipod. Maybe e-ink will be the next wave, or maybe Apple will come out with the next big hit.

The panelist continually brought up iTunes, comparing the world of online music to the state of online comics. Rich Bruning pointed out, “iTunes made digital music work,” saying that the ease of recommendations and one’s ability to discover bands in the iTunes store make for a great shopping environment. People pay for iTunes because it’s easy to use, Bruning said.

Levy did not seem happy with this analogy. “Less than 10% of people downloading .mp3s are paying for them… that’s why the industry has consolidated. Dave, you couldn’t quit your job and live and off your webcomic, could you? Your life would be very different.” Dave Roman had to agree. “99% of what’s read online is free, that’s why newspapers are dying,” he said.

“Wait a minute, Americans read?” Levy said sarcastically.

Of periodical comics (floppy comics), Bruning said sales are about the same, but trade paperback sales are up. Periodicals only work for certain titles. “You don’t buy a book by chapters,” Bruning said. Bruning has customers who “came back to comics” in their 40s and 50s because of trade paperbacks. It is an audience of people who won’t go back to a dig for a single issue they’ve missed.

Roman agreed that moving the content is important—just like how .mp3s play on your ipod and on your computer. “Until this device happens, owning something to read is very different.”

“Most people I talk to don’t read books more than once,” Roman pointed out. The idea of collecting is a comic book mentally. “The idea of a rare digital file may never happen.”

Ira said, “That’s like saying YouTube is a real entertainment channel.” (”It is!” many members of the audience exclaimed.) “People still want their Lost and their Heroes.”

“I wouldn’t buy a Lost DVD right now” Levy said glibly.

“I disagree about the Lost example,” Roman said. Webcomics are “serialized entertainment” viewed at your leisure.

“We’ve moved from a broadcast experience… to a more personal user experience,” Beaulieu pointed out.

“You can create a more intimate relationship with your audience,” Roman said, expanding on the idea. Roman used to sell self-published comics through Diamond. He was happy if he could find 2,000 people who liked his comic. On the internet, he can reach a much larger fanbase, because he is reaching people who would never walk into a comic shop or a Barnes and Noble. Dave has created superfans who buy everything he does.

Levy seemed skeptical of finding new audiences on the web. “Getting people to focus on your content is getting harder and harder,” Levy said. “The audience is fragmented and the web is filled with free entertainment… There’s no way to monetize.”

Griepp asked the panelists to speculate about the next five years. “TV was supposed to kill radio,” Beaulieu said.

The internet will “…transform the whole industry top to bottom,” Beaulieu said.

Levy said, “I think big hits will survive,” and followed up with, “I don’t believe in the long tail anymore, and I really used to.”

Roman asked, “Will magazines be around in five years? The best ones will, but… you gotta go where the people are.” Roman said, “I think the best content will survive, regardless of the media.”

Comics and Social Networks
Scott Allie – Senior Managing Editor, Dark Horse
Joe Keatinge – PR & Marking Coordinator, Image Comics
Joe Quesada – Editor-in-Chief, Marvel Comics
Filip Sablik – Top Cow Productions, Inc.
Milton Griepp, Moderator – President, ICv2

This panel started off a bit slowly. Apparently, Dark Horse has a big presence on MySpace where they put up some free comics. Very recently, the person in charge of MySpace comics was laid off, and the changes that might bring have yet to be seen.

Joe Quesada mentioned Twitter several times, but it seemed like the most relevant social networking site to comics is DeviantArt. DeviantArt has had a huge impact on how editors find artists, but it didn’t occur to the panelists to discuss it until the panel was nearly over.

Griepp asked the panelists about the impact of sales on printed material.

Scott Allie replied, “MySpace DarkHorse presents was online first, as an experiment to see if it [the book] would then sell, despite being online for free for a while first. It sold well, better than other things.”

Joe Keatinge agreed, “Our anthologies sell well despite (or because) of pages and pages online for free.”

Filip Sablik had the same experience, “The book we gave away entirely on Neworama is one of our bestselling trades.”

“So we’ve all had the same experience,” Allie said.

Quesada made the excellent analogy that there was a time when only away games were televised because there was the belief that TV would kill ticket sales to Madison Square Garden. “After the home games were televised ticket sales and season ticket sales actually went up.”

“You put it out there and people love it or hate it, but their very passionate,” Quesada said. Just to stir up the online community, Quesada admitted that he has started saying something stupid on purpose with each of his post, so it would “catch like wildfire and start people talking.”

“When you hear crickets, it’s not going to do well,” Quesada said. “Very positive or very negative reactions are a good reception.” Quesada has made his personal email address public to fans, and gets mail constantly. He has responded personally to hundreds of emails about “One More Day” with Spiderman. It’s a small enough industry he’s able to do that. Most fans, with the personal explanation of what Marvel was trying to do, wrote back saying, “OK, I’ll give it a shot.”

Being in print still has a kind of cache. “Some of our most successful books have huge letters columns,” Keatinge said. Fans want to see if their letters got in.

Allie agreed, “People will mention online if they made it into the letter column.”

Griepp asked the panelists about to describe the industry five years from now.

“People still watch Lost on TV and not just DVD because they want to part of that conversation—some people buy trades for the same reason, they don’t want to be locked out of the discussion,” Sablik said.

“Friendster doesn’t exist anymore, MySpace comics might be gone in a year or two…” Keatinge said, “…it’s difficult to predict two years, let alone five.”

Keatinge mentioned the impact of DeviantArt, “I put a book together almost entirely via social networks—finding an editor online, finding artists on DeviantArt, etc.”

“We used to discover new talent at conventions,” Quesada chimed in. “Now we discover them through social networking.”

“It’s easier to find them internationally too,” Allie said, mentioning artists he had worked with in Ireland.

“I told a guy not to bring his painting portfolio to a con, just put it online,” Quesada said.

Allie has not met 99% of the artists for one of his books face to face. He doesn’t do portfolio reviews at shows at all anymore.

“We regularly go on DeviantArt looking for new talent,” Sablik said. “Sometimes just for spot illustrations.” Quesada mentioned that Udon Press’ hot new talent is a sixteen-year-old girl from Japan who entered their online Street Fighter contest.