One Week to NaGraNoWriMo!

Just one week remaining until I start in on NaGraNoWriMo: National Graphic Novel Writing Month. It's my version of NaNoWriMo, in which I'm going to try to write the script to a 175-page graphic novel during the month of November.

I've pretty much decided on which of my ideas I'm going to attempt, but now I'm getting all nervous about whether or not I'll be able to make it through. I've never written a comic script for anything before, so 175 pages seems like a big task. I'm sure that I'll learn a lot in the process, and in the rules of NaNoWriMo, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to get done!

At least one other person has said that they'll join in as well. Any more takers? Who knows--maybe we can start a new movement!

Review: Action Figure #1

Action Figure #1
by Richard Marcej
Baboon Books, $3.50

In the first issue of Action Figure we are introduced to Richard Marzelak, a twenty-nine-year-old artist who works a 9-5 job at a toy company by day and draws comic strips for submission to the syndicates by night. Richard works in one of those offices we frequently see or read about in entertainment media that have the unfair, hard-ass boss; the sleazy sexual harasser, the impossibly unobtainable beauty, etc. In this first issue, Richard gets pulled off a plum assignment that is being given to the new artist and is instead stuck on a nowhere, no-brainer panda bear assignment instead, just as work comes down that the company has landed a plum contract with a Japanese anime property.

In his cover letter that came along with the review copy, Marcej as much as admits that he's drawing heavily on his own career as inspiration for this comic. He's no Harvey Pekar, and there's just too much in this first issue that feels like standard sitcom set-up. There are a couple of ways that Marcej could take the story to give it more of a unique vibe: bringing us deep inside the world of toys; and/or showing us why and how Richard Marzelak is a unique and interesting person in that world.

Fortunately Marcej has a couple of things going for him in this first issue. He has a good sense of storytelling and design; the comic flows very smoothly, and there's wonderful use of third color spot reds to highlight when Richard's active fantasy life takes over his attention. It's also an inherently interesting setting for a workplace comic, as long as the story gets beyond the standard office tropes.

According to Marcej this first issue did not meet Diamond's order threshold and will not be carried by the #1 distributor. Which is a shame, because this is an attractive, solid comic with an eye-catching cover and high production values, and one that shows promise. So while you probably won't be able to find it at your local comic store, if it sounds interesting you can order it directly from the self-publisher.

Rating: 3 (of 5)


(A review copy of this comic was provided by the creator.)

New Library Comics: Week of October 16, 2006

Here are the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Akahori, Satoru. Sorcerer hunters /Los Angeles, Calif. : Tokyopop, c2000- vol. 1

Arkas. You bring out the animal in me!-- Grunt! : crazy combinations /Athens, Greece : Grammata, c2004.

Baumann, Suzanne. Beasts of ball point : a sketchbook mini /Hamtramck, MI : Suzanne Baumann, c2005.

Bieri, Sean. From the desk of business chimp /[United States?] : Sean Bieri, c2005.

Bieri, Sean. Jape. /Hamtramck, MI : Sean Bieri vol. 2 no. 1

Brown, Jeffrey (Jeffrey David), 1975- Every girl is the end of the world for me : December 26 2003 - January 15 2004 /Marietta, Ga. : Top Shelf, c2005.

Campbell, Eddie. The dance of lifey death /Paddington, Australia : Eddie Campbell Comics, c1998.

Cater, Donovan. Moore /Eastland, Muskegon, Mich. : Powernut Comics, c2002- vols. 1-2

Davis, Andrew. Heavenly friends /Greensville, SC : Wide Awake Publications, c2003.

Davis, Andrew. Young Billy Clockout : somewhere between Memphis and Hawaii /Greensville, SC : Wide Awake Publications, c2002.

Dondero, George M. DirtBoy /Napa, CA : Moronik Comiks, 2005- no. 1

Feazell, Matt. AntiSocialMan. /[Minneapolis, Minn.] : Not Available Comics, 1982- no. 6

Feazell, Matt. CuteGirl. /Detroit, MI : Not Available Comics, c1994- nos. 1-3

Feazell, Matt. The amazing Cynicalman. /Hamtramck, MI : Not Available Comics vol. 2 nos. 5-13

Golden-age science fiction treasury /Longwood, Fla., AC Comics, c2006- vol. 1

Hotwire comix. /Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, c2006- vol. 1

Japan : as viewed by 17 creators /[Wisbech, England?] : Fanfare ; [Tarragona, Spain?], Ponent Mon, c2005.

Kalesniko, Mark. Alex /Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics, c2006.

Keret, Etgar, 1967- Pizzeria Kamikaze /Gainesville, Fla. : Alternative Comics, 2006, c2005.

Kurata, Hidevuki. R.O.D., Read or die /San Francisco, CA : Viz Media, 2006- vol. 1

Manjula Padmanabhan. This is Suki! /New Delhi : Duckfoot Press, 2000.

Micheluzzi, Attilio. Johnny Focus /Roma : Lizard Edizioni, c2004- vols. 1-3

Moore, Alan, 1953- The complete future shocks /Oxford : Rebellion, 2006.

Moore, John Blair. Invaders from home!!! /New York, N.Y. : Piranha Press, c1990- no. 1

Panel (Columbus, Ohio) Panel. /Colmbus, OH : Panel, c2003- nos. 1-2

Put the book back on the shelf : a Belle and Sebastian anthology /Berkeley, Calif. : Image Comics and Belle and Sebastian, c2006.

Robot : super color comic /Carson, CA : Digital Manga Pub., 2005- vol. 2

Tales from the Inner sanctum : a horror anthology /[Los Angeles?] : Steveniles.com, c2004.

Thompson, Albert Benjamin. Husk /[United States?] : Lucky Cobra Pub., c2005.

Van Loon, Borin. The Bart Dickon omnibus : including, in its entirety, "a servered head", a graphic novella ; /Ipswich : Severed Head Books, 2005.

Weinstein, Lauren R. Girl stories /New York : Henry Holt, c2006.

Wide awake 666 : a horror anthology. /Greenville, SC : Wide Awake Press, c2006.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

King Solomon leads the charge on Art Adams' cover to Tom Strong's Terrific Tales #5!

(Standard disclaimer about intelligent talking gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Ms. Dewey

Ms. Dewey, a front-end to Microsoft's Live Search, is a search engine with attitude. Your searches are 'hosted' by Ms. Dewey herself, an attractive librarian who not only serves up your results but also make comments while she does so. There are plenty of little easter eggs to be found depending on what you search for; try searching for 'comic blogs' or 'comic books' and see what she says...

Diamond and the Long Tail 2

Over a year ago I wrote a blog post about Diamond and the Long Tail. This past Monday Chris Anderson was on campus and gave an interesting presentation about the Long Tail, which got me thinking about it again.

In particular, I decided to take a look at actual sales numbers from Diamond to see if any Long Tail lessons can be learned.

Anderson argues that--absent any market barriers--the natural shape of markets is to follow a power law. This can be visualized by graphing sales rank against number of units sold; on a log-log scale, the graph will be a straight line. Barriers and inefficiencies will cause the tail of the line to bend downward, and the area between the ideal straight line and the downward curve represent lost sales. Typically said graph will resemble a straight line at the top, but at some point it will deviate from the line; this represents an inflection point, and is a point where an analyst can look to see what the problem is and identify solutions.

For example, here's Anderson's graph (taken from here) of US Box Office Gross vs. Film Rank for 2003-2005:



You can see the inflection point at around 350; it turns out that the carrying capacity of US megaplex theaters is a little more than 100/year, and thus over three years they show approx. 350 movies (out of the approx. 13,000 movies that were show in film festivals over the same period).

Anderson surely explains this better in his book, but I think you get the jist here.


So I decided to do a little graphic of my own. I took the Diamond sales figures for August 2006 and graphed them out (click on the graphs to view them at a readable size):

Here's the raw graph:




Here it is as a log-log graph:




And here it is with an idealized market line imposed:



It's not surprising to see that the graph looks like many other markets. What is surprising to me is how soon the inflection point hits: right around rank #45. Looking at the raw data, it appears to be right between #45 (Sensational Spider-Man 29: 55,300) and #46 (Green Lantern Corps 3: 51,400). Put another way, that's right at about the mid-list for Marvel, just after the top books for DC, and above any other publisher.

Putting some names to the numbers: Comics like Y, the Last Man (91: 25,800), Fables (92: 25,300) & Runaways (93: 25,000) could probably be selling another 15-20,000 copies every month. Way down at the end of the tail, books like Gold Digger, Rocketo, & Action Philosophers which are selling 2,100 copies could be selling around the 20,000 range.

This represents quite an unserved market for Diamond. Of course the next question is where is that unserved market going? I suspect there are several places:

* Other distributors (for non-exclusives)

* Newsstand sales (things like Cartoon Block Party & Archie Dougle Digest)

* Trade collections (readers who don't get a comic monthly through Diamond wait for the trade, either at their local store or at a book store or through Amazon)

* Unserved at all (people who would enjoy the comics but don't know about or can't find them)

All of these of course are the concern of Diamond. The last should be a concern to all publishers.

The follow-up question after this is why is the inflection point occuring, and how can it be eliminated? I don't have a good answer yet, but I suspect it has something to do with either the promotional outlay, the 'rack space' for new comics in a typical store, or some combination of the two.

Any other thoughts?

Cheesecake/Beefcake Appreciation Week

Kalinara & Ragnell have arbitrarily declared this to be Cheesecake/Beefcake Appreciation Week. So here are my contributions:

First for the Beefcake, here's Brett Booth's cover for the upcoming Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter; Guilty Pleasures #2, showing that Booth and Dabel Bros. know exactly what the appeal of Laurell K. Hamilton's vampire series is:




For the Cheesecake, here's Frank Cho's cover to Liberty Meadows #12: