The Class of 2005: A Tough Year for Comics Start-Ups

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on January 10, 2006 Sign up now!

by Heidi MacDonald -- Publishers Weekly, 1/10/2006

Is it possible to launch a new comics company in the existing market? 2005 saw two very ambitious launches of comics lines, Speakeasy and Alias, but both have been plagued by problems of all kinds, including mass cancellations and restructuring, leaving observers to wonder just what it takes to start a successful comic book publishing company.

Although graphic novel sales continue to rise, sales of traditional comics periodicals show only modest growth—the most recent analysis from ICv2, for November, shows GNs up 89% while comics are up just 3%. While Marvel and DC continue to make a strong showing with their big event-driven crossovers, at the lower end of the sales chart, it's a struggle.

Alias was founded by artist Mike S. Miller as a line of all-ages comics. Miller announced a large-scale launch plan—12 titles to appear last April, with a price of just 75 cents an issue. Unfortunately, the books all shipped late, and continued to appear at irregular intervals. While such books as Lion, Tigers and Bears and Lullaby found an audience, Alias was soon plagued by charges of non-payment, printing delays and several studios taking their books elsewhere.

In November Alias announced a restructuring. Publisher Brett Burner, who also owns Lamp Post Printing, bought out other Alias partners "in reaction to the lateness and the continued mishandling of certain financial responsibilities."

Miller did not respond to Comics Week's requests for an interview, but writer Ryan Scott Ottney (The Legend of Isis), who recently joined Alias as communications coordinator, commented on the difficulties in launching a comics company in the current marketplace.

Ottney points to bad communication as one of the factors that weighs against a new company. One of the culprits: the Internet. "There have been several publishers within the last few years that were killed by bad press and Internet campaigns, and they did very little to counter those claims. Once something is out there, true or false, people will always believe the worst and it will snowball from there."

Ottney says that Alias is now operating completely on generated income and is working to improve public communication, while continuing to generate what he hopes are strong titles, including Hyperactives and Victoria's Secret Service.

While Alias's publishing ups and downs have been played out in a public arena, Speakeasy has recently begun to show some cracks. Speakeasy launched in March, with founder and publisher Adam Fortier drawing on years of experience as a consultant to such companies as Dreamwave, Devil's Due and IDW.

Speakeasy started out with a mix of company-owned titles, such as Grimoire and Beowulf, and several creator-owned titles, including the critically acclaimed Rocketo by Frank Espinosa, and received generally positive response from creators and the press. However, as the year drew to a close, Speakeasy also experienced an exodus of titles and printing woes (ironically, caused by Lamp Post's withdrawal from printing other companies' comics). Fortier announced several changes to the business model, including a partnership with Hollywood's Ardustry Entertainment, and a controversial plan to cancel books that did not reach a certain sales level and publish them on the Web instead.

Fortier acknowledges the difficulty in competing against Marvel and DC in a market that resists new work. Although he did have a business plan, it didn’t make it through the summer. And in a comic shop market dominated by super-hero comics from big publishers, retailers began to lose faith in smaller companies. "I believe that with the advent of the DC/Marvel mega-crossovers, [those series] pushed everybody else out," he says. "It was a situation that you've got to react to."

The superhero domination of the direct-sales market makes it an uphill struggle for startups. "It's very hard to sell that number of copies [at the break-even point]," Fortier continues. "People will not really support something new. Unfortunately a lot of people lost a lot of face in the industry, and we're at the place right now where people want to believe the worst."

Moving forward, Speakeasy has reorganized, cutting back on the number of creator-owned titles and focusing instead on licensed books, many of them acquired through the Ardustry deal. There will be original material by higher-profile personalities as well. The first to be announced is Occult Crimes Taskforce, created by actress Rosario Dawson. Speakeasy will also be working with famed film designer Patrick Tatapoulos (I Robot, Underworld, ID4) and director Pitof (Catwoman) who is doing an original graphic novel with them. Kiss legend Gene Simmons will also have some non-Kiss-related projects. Other high-profile licensed titles will be announced shortly, Fortier says.

While Alias's and Speakeasy's travails have been daily fodder for message board speculation, another company that launched in 2005 has managed to navigate the waters more successfully. Boom Studios is the creation of producer Ross Ritchie, and has succeeded thus far by having very modest goals to begin with. With only two books published a month, Richie has been able to snag A-list talent, including Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatties, whose Hero Squared has been a modest success for the publisher. Boom was even named Best New Publisher by Wizard Magazine.

Richie says that staying small is part of his strategy, comparing his venture to HBO. "I didn't want to be have product every night in prime time, but the things I do I can do really well." He's also aware of the pitfalls other companies have encountered. "I think the mistake that people make is having high expectations for their sales and they don't look at the cold hard reality of what if you don't sell that many books. If you walk into the marketplace thinking you're going to sell 15,000 copies, it doesn't happen and you have a rude awakening. I go to freelancers and say, the market is rough and these numbers are not going to be good and can we all work together." Even with this low-key approach, and with his Hollywood connections, Richie can get properties into development, which boosts everyone's bottom line.

Next year, Boom will raise its output a notch, launching War of the Worlds 2, a sequel to the H.G. Wells classic telling of the aliens' return, and Jeremiah Harm, by Giffen and Lobo writer Alan Grant.

For Giffen, a veteran writer with a long track record at both Marvel and DC, a company like Boom provides a vital outlet for new ideas. "The major publishers are pretty much constrained by the market," says Giffen. "It's not worth their while to take a risk that would attract a fringe audience."

Despite the rocky road for those trying to start new publishing companies, people are still going for the brass ring. The Italian company Narwain is launching a series of titles this year, and Virgin Comics, a venture funded by Virgin's Richard Branson and run by Gotham Entertainment's Gotham Chopra and Sharad Devarajan, was just announced.

Asked what it takes for a company to succeed, Ottney is philosophical: "Success is relative. I don't know that anybody could ever start up a new publishing label without any bumps in the road. I think some things that help would be to produce quality books, with great characters, by great creators. Without that, you've got nothing."

"You have to be realistic in the market," said Richie. "Tons of people are not realistic."