I'm a starter, not always a finisher. I have three journals I've written in over the last few years, countless mid-way through stories, proposals, projects, etc. I generally write every single day, but I don't write every single day about the same thing.
I think it's about time I started finishing things.
SO, giving the the blog thing another try. I read countless blogs about all my interests, so writing a blog about those same things should be doable, yes? Yes.
In terms of those interests, and what will (hopefully) be written here: Stories, writing, comics, food, Crazy nights with my roomies, movies, music, and whatever else catches my fancy.
Right now my fancy is on an oft-mentioned topic of mine: Digit distribution, specifically of comic books.
The direct market for comics is a niche and incestuous marketplace. Growth is the comic book industry and slim to nil, and the demographic has shifted upwardly the last twenty years. The kids that grew up with comics, wanted "edgy" in the 90's, which gave way to Image comics, foil covers, and Rob Liefield drawing big tits on Captain America.
Those mid-twenties kids became mid-thirties, the near forties, and the now the comic industry is all about nostalgia: Bringing back the Silver Age of comics. Lets bring back dead characters such as Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, and the like. DC relishes in nostalgia these days. It's like watching an old man masturbate to pictures of his wife when she was young and had perky tits.
Marvel is no better, relying less on nostalgia, and more on "Hey you like this character? Awesome. Here's 50 comics he is starring in. Oh, and we're jacking up the price."
I wrote something about comic prices last year, and I'll sum it up here: $3.99, for a 22 page comic with advertisements, is not worth it. It's not. And I thought, once the companies went to digital distribution, they would alter prices. $.99 for a digital version of a comic sounds reasonable, and yet, the companies are still charging up to $4 for a digital version. Sometimes, I feel like the comic companies want digital distribution to fail, to protect the direct market. That's some serious bad hat, Harry.
Warren Ellis, a creator who always tends to be ahead of the curve, touched on this topic in a recent post here. FreakAngels, anyway you look at it, has been a success. Giving free, weekly chapters of a serialized story, then making the money back on the collected edition. This, to me, is how the comic industry should move forward with. It's a proven model, with PVP and Penny Arcade leading the way in how to make money with webcomics. The popularity of Ipads and the advancement in e-readers, such as Kindle and Nook, will make this an even more popular method of distribution.
There were other things I wanted to touch on, but I'll save that for later. I don't want to make this blog post too long.
Since I talked about Warren Ellis, if you haven't, check out his work. Crooked Little Vein is a fantastic novel, and if you are at all interested in comics, then just grab any comic with his name attached. They're all that damn good.
More later.
-K
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