SPLAT! Makes Splash

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on March 18, 2008 Sign up now!

By Laura Hudson and Heidi MacDonald -- Publishers Weekly, 3/17/2008 5:04:00 PM

Who wants to make a graphic novel? Apparently everyone, if the mood at the first SPLAT! graphic novel symposium held March 15 was any indication. Over 150 cartoonists, editors, publishers, librarians and would-be cartoonists, attended the one day symposium held at the The New York Center for Independent Publishing. Organized by a committee led by NYCIP's Karin Taylor and Leah Schelbach, from an initial idea by First Second's Gina Gagliano, the event provided a forum for all levels of the still-burgeoning graphic novel field to come together and share ideas. According to Taylor, the crowd was primarily professionals. She added that the creator’s track in particular was more popular than expected, calling the whole show a success that "exceeded expectations."

The symposium was planned “to allow those who are already involved with graphic novels to further increase their knowledge, and to give those who know little more insight,” Taylor said. While noting the first year was a definite success, nothing has been decided about making it an annual event.

The day was divided into three tracks of programming, including one devoted to workshops with creators, another covering publishing and a third primarily for librarians and booksellers. All levels of the field got a lively discussion.

Scott McCloud (l.) and Calvin Reid

The event kicked off in the morning with “Who’s Reading Graphic Novels,” a panel that included retailers Alex Cox (from Brooklyn’s Rocketship store); B&N graphic novel buyer Jim Killen and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo from the McNally Robinson bookstore in SoHo. The panelists took turns surveying everything from the impact of comics on film and TV to the popularity of memoirs like Fun Home and the general growth of nonfiction and other genres in comics. The cumulative effect of this new genre diversity, said Killen and the others, has created a new kind of comics reader. “Someone who wants the graphic novel they read about in the New York Times,” said Killlen.

Whats in a Graphic Novel panel

As graphic novels become increasingly popular, they also attract more controversy, a subject explored by a panel titled “Dealing with Challenges to Graphic Novels in the Library.” The panel, moderated by Diamond Book Distributor sales manager John Shableski, featured Comic Book Legal Defense Fund director Charles Brownstein, librarian, VOYA editor Stacy Creel, and comics creator Nick Bertozzi.

“I’ve felt the very real effects of censorship running up against commerce,” said Bertozzi, whose critically acclaimed graphic novel about cubism, The Salon, led to the arrest of a Gordon Lee, a comic book retailer in Georgia, when an excerpt featuring a naked Picasso was accidentally distributed to a minor in 2004. The controversy has since hurt sales of the book, said Bertozzi, as some retailers decided not to carry it for fear of prosecution.

Lee’s defense in the case, which is still ongoing, has been financed by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. “That’s why the Fund is here,” says Brownstein. “No one should go to jail for comic books.”

Creel emphasized the importance of having an established and updated policy for book selection that librarians know and follow when they receive a challenge to a book.

Brian Wood (l.) and Alex Cox

Bill Roundy, the curator of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in New York City, moderated a panel called “Writing Autobiography,” with various creators of graphic novel autobiographies like K. Thor Jensen, Siena Cherson Siegel, and Gabrielle Bell as panelist.

The panel discussed the creative process of translating personal events to a narrative within a graphic novel and the ethical issues of including real individuals in a creative work, and how they chose to handle that in their own autobiographies. Unlike Bell and Siegel, Jensen said that the integrity of the work needed to be prioritized over the feelings of the people involved. “Self-censorship for any reason other than trying to help the story is harmful to you as an artist,” said Jensen. “But then, I have no friends.”

Gabrielle Bell (l). and Siena Cherson

The "Comics: For Kids, Too" panel included cartoonists Frank Cammuso and Misako Rocks, Scholastic's David Saylor, and Nickelodeon Magazine's Chris Duffy. Moderated by Janna Morashima of Diamond Book Distribution, panelists talked up planned kids' graphic novel sections at Barnes and Noble and Borders as potentially groundbreaking elements of a still-emerging but hugely promising category, as shown by the success of Naruto, Bone and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Saylor noted that after a long period of kids' comics being something of an economic non-starter at mainstream publishers, the time was right for a renaissance. "It’s a lot of things coming together after a long period of grassroots change," he noted. While book fairs and libraries are a strong foundation for the growth of kids comics, Morishima noted that it's still a slow process as creators can only turn out so much work. "It can be tough to build an audience of if you’re only able to release one book a year. Scholastic got lucky with Bone and most manga is all [completed] too. With the new stuff it’s going to take a while. Kids like a series. If they like one thing they like five of that thing. We have to build the category before we get that stuff."

Dean Haspiel

On the Web comics panel, moderated by Colleen Venable, cartoonists Ted Rall, Rich Stevens, Dean Haspiel and Raina Telgemeier presented different takes on the form. Rall contended that despite the opportunities the web provides for wider distribution, it lessened the opportunities for making money. "In the early part of the last century, cartoonists made 200-400K a year,. Now if you make 20K now you're lucky," said Rall, even while agreeing that with blogs, forums and websites, almost all cartoonists are essentially cartooning on the web now.

Stevens, whose Diesel Sweeties was actually picked up by Rall for newspaper syndication countered that "There’s the same amount of dollars being paid to cartoonists," and that different revenue streams meant there were as many ways to make a living as before.

Merchandising is still a key part of the financial equation for web cartoonists. Stevens runs a thriving business in t-shirts and other merchandise but Haspiel confessed, "I’ve never done a coffee mug or panel or t shirt. I thought that ultimately my part is telling good stories."

(l. to r.) Editors Kate Farrell, Tricia Narwani and agent Bob Mecoy

The day's panel sessions ended with "How To Get Published: A Comics Publishing Primer" featuring agent Bob Mecoy, editors Trisha Narwani (Del Rey) Kate Farrell (Henry Holt) and CB Cebulski (Marvel.) The panelists stressed that breaking in via slush pile was not really an option. Narwani and Farrell can only go through it infrequently, and at Marvel writers are actively discouraged from sending in unsolicited ideas. Mecoy, who quit the editing business five years ago to become a book agent noted, "Five years ago my list was about 50% fiction 50% non-fiction. Now my business is about 50% books and about 50% graphic novels."

Mecoy emphasized that before making a submission, research into the person you were submitting to and the market you were aiming for was essential. "Know something," he stressed several times. "Your submission has to answer a question and it's the question that editors ask every morning: 'What do I need?'"

The panel pointed out that the odds of getting accepted purely on the strength of a script for a graphic novel was extremely unlikely. Narwani noted that finding a good artist was much harder than finding a good writer, and she did not have time to find an artist for a script most of the time.

Cebulski agreed that breaking in as a writer was more difficult than with art, where a quick glance can determine the level of relative talent. He suggested using blogs and message boards as a way to establish oneself in the comics community, saying that editors at Marvel did take note of such things. .

Raina Telgemier

The day ended with a wine and cheese reception and cartoonist guru Scott McCloud and PWCW's Calvin Reid in conversation. Reid asked McCloud how the current graphic novel boom has evolved and McCloud noted the usual suspects: comics loving readers who grew up on the groundbreaking efforts of the '70s and '80s gradually rising to positions of power at the media elite. "And we woke up about three or four years ago and we realized that the inmates were running the asylum," said McCloud. "The public perception has been helped enormously by people who knew what they were talking about.

"The other half was that what they were talking about was that comics got better," he continued. "The greatest victories are when something on the page lives up to the potential."

The manga-reading audience is still coming of age, according to McCloud, and the creative contingent nurtured at indie shows like MoCCA and SPX, and via the internet, is still maturing "The rebel army is getting into their X-wing fighters," he said. "There's a biodiversity of materials, the diversity of ideas being discussed leads to a cross pollination and a much healthier comics industry."