Whew, boy, what a tough couple of months. While there has been some
joy (receiving the
City of Ottawa grant and being shortlisted for the Peter
Honeywell award being the best), for the most part it has been
one helluva frustrating slog. I’m going to do my best to outline
what the current situation is, mainly to help solidify
my own thoughts on what’s gone wrong. Or, to put it another way,
what hasn’t?
To put it bluntly, sales are not good. Worse, every attempt I’ve made
to mitigate that has failed. What’s discouraging for me is that I
clearly have no fan-base. How
do I know that? Well, sales (both in print and digital) are the
biggest example. Sales are extremely poor and are
not getting better. In
fact, they are getting progressively worse. In different
circumstances, that would be enough to shut the series down. In fact,
I have
done exactly that
in the past (specifically with my previous graphic novel series
STARGAZER, ended
after two volumes,
and with the digital-only series METAL GODS, ended
after four issues).
What
makes WOLF’S HEAD
different from those two? The biggest difference is that WOLF’S
HEAD has never reached the Direct Market and, as a result, has been
cut off from its largest potential audience: comic book fans. Mixed in
with that are the aforementioned awards and grants; these have been especially
important in teaching me that WOLF’S HEAD does
have merit in certain (local) art circles, but there’s a “circuit
break” between that and the larger comics community world-wide.
In
fact, one of the biggest examples I could point to in terms of
specific
my role with in
the comics community is the utter lack of media coverage and interest
in my work. Not just with WOLF’S HEAD and not just recently; a
significant disappointment to me was when the documentary film I’m
in (titled I AM STILL YOUR
CHILD) received no traction whatsoever with comics media. If the
film had been covered, then more people might have been introduced to
both me and my work. I
had partially launched WOLF’S HEAD with exactly this in mind: maybe
my role in the film would help galvanize interest and awareness in
the series. Since
that didn’t happen, WOLF’S HEAD did not receive the momentum from
the film that I hoped it would.
Diamond and the Direct Market
This
has been difficult for me to place, mainly because getting a direct
answer from
Diamond
Comic Distributors has been so difficult. For those who don’t
know, Diamond is the largest distributor of comic books in North
America and Great Britain and they also distribute comics and related
merchandise throughout the world. Prior to 2020, they were a
de
facto
monopoly in
the world of comics;
however,
with DC Comics breaking from Diamond in early June 2020, the monopoly
label is harder to apply. Diamond was also a
de
facto
monopsony; though that, given
DC’s departure,
is harder to apply,
too.
For
a small press like Von Allan Studio (that’s
me, folks),
Diamond plays a critical role in facilitating sales of comics and
graphic novels to comic book stores. Fortunately, I have an account
in good standing with Diamond; in
fact,
STARGAZER
was
distributed into the Direct Market (under Item Numbers NOV101057 and
AUG111259) through
Diamond a decade ago. Unfortunately, my amazing sales rep departed
the company and his replacement has been fairly problematic. This
is key: while
Diamond never outright
rejected WOLF’S HEAD, they’ve never accepted the series, either.
In other words, WOLF’S HEAD exists in a sort of limbo
for the past few years.
That
has been dismaying for a few reasons:
-
WOLF’S
HEAD is a far stronger work than STARGAZER and it remains baffling
to me why the latter was accepted for distribution while the former
hasn’t been.
-
“Limbo” also means
that WOLF’S HEAD could be accepted for distribution with
Diamond
tomorrow…
or never.
-
The
specific
format
of
the
print versions of WOLF’S HEAD was a result of attempting to meet
Diamond’s specifications.
While
I don’t want to stray too far into the weeds here, the basic
process works like this: once Diamond has agreed to take on a title
for distribution, each issue/volume has to maintain a minimum sales
threshold or risk cancellation. That threshold is based on total
dollars; so selling 1,000 copies of issue 1 of a $2.99 US series
results in a total dollar amount of $2,990.00, but selling 600
copies of issue 1 of a $9.99
US
series results in $5,994.00! But that requires a print format that
justifies the higher cover price. To
do just that, I
went with a trade paperback trim size and approximately 60 pages of
content per
issue for
WOLF’S
HEAD.
I
felt that this would give the series the best chance of meeting
Diamond’s benchmarks while still giving readers a terrific
experience.
Now,
if Diamond had formally declined distributing WOLF’S HEAD, then I
would have went in a very different direction with the print version
of the series. Since I was in “limbo,” however, I decided to go
ahead with it, hoping that, as the series progressed, Diamond would
get on board and
distribute the series.
Sadly, that has never happened, leaving me with a print format that
I’m not particularly happy with.
I did
manage to get a few Canadian stores to pick up the series. But a
combination of the pandemic (see below) and bad luck have basically
ended that experiment. The store that did the best with the series
was Librairie Astro in Montreal. Sadly, they closed in the summer of
2018 and I lost one of my biggest advocates. Strange Adventures in
Halifax
was
carrying the series,
but has apparently stopped. I say ‘apparently’ because I’m not
exactly sure what happened; I suspect the audience simply never
developed for the series.
What format
would
I be happy with? Well, either
a saddle-stitched periodical series (i.e.: ye olde 32 page comic) or,
better, a
beautifully
produced hardcover
series that collected each story arc.
As
it stands, I suspect the next release of WOLF’S HEAD (issue 7) will
be the last with
this 60 page format.
Comics Media
Without
Diamond distributing the series, gaining
media attention for WOLF’S
HEAD
from “comics media” (for lack of a better phrase) has been
problematic. Some of this is understandable; a lot of comics media
supports the Direct Market and are
very
plugged into Diamond’s distribution
cycle. WOLF’S HEAD
lack
of distribution with Diamond falls outside of this purview and,
as a result, few media outlets have been interested in discussing the
series.
What’s
been frustrating to me is that WOLF’S HEAD
is
broadly distributed. Finding the series is not difficult for either
readers or retailers, primarily because WOLF’S HEAD has world-wide
distribution through Ingram. This also means that the series is easy
to find at
online at retailers like
Amazon,
Barnes
& Noble,
Chapters/Indigo,
Waterstones, and
so on. However, from the point of view of “comics media,” this
isn’t
enough. Worse, this
lack of distribution from Diamond has
also disqualified WOLF’S HEAD from the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic
Book Creator Awards (while
I’m not positive on
this score, I
believe that the “Shusters” require distribution through Diamond
for eligibility).
More
importantly, the lack of media attention has meant that the series is
pretty much unknown with the audience I need the most: comic book
fans. Especially comic book fans who
like independent or alternative comics (or “comix”). It
is very hard to grow a series if your
key demographic doesn’t know you exist.
Comics
Media are
also tricky to talk about because there’s a split in what
and who receives
coverage. More mainstream sites like Comic Book Resources or
Bleeding Cool
tend
to focus on corporate intellectual property. This means titles from
Marvel, DC, as well as licensed properties. Sites like The Comics
Journal focus on more literary titles. Unfortunately, either due to
the lack of distribution from Diamond or other reasons, I’m
persona
non grata
with both. And that’s certainly not for
lack of trying on my end.
The
knock-on effects of all this is problematic. As a simple example,
there is now a great deal of scholarship being conducted on comics
with some truly fascinating insights from
some remarkable scholars.
Unfortunately, comics scholars aren’t, as far as I can tell, aware
of my work. Or even aware of me, for that matter. A
second example are librarians.
Librarians
have become key advocates
of comics, but I’ve never managed to gain library support for
WOLF’S HEAD outside of my
own
local Public Library. WorldCat
certainly
illustrates
this plainly.
This
is disappointing because my work
has
been
in libraries in the past,
but without awareness of the series it would be difficult for a
librarian to justify the purchase of the series, especially given the
times of austerity we’ve been experiencing for the past twelve
years.
COVID-19
The
pandemic has effected everyone. In the face of the death toll (it
boggles my mind that 200,000 people have died in the United States
alone and we’re not that far from 1,000,000 dead throughout the
world), it’s a bit hard to think of anything else, but there
have
been knock-on effects for everyone, even those who haven’t directly
been hit by the virus itself.
Obviously
declining retail sales are a significant example. The effects are
more horrifying when you think about food scarcity, layoffs,
evictions, and the like. Yes, it could certainly be worse; in fact,
I’d argue that one of reasons that COVID-19 has
not been as
horrific as, say, the 1918-19 Influenza pandemic is that there are
still enough social programs by various levels of government to help
prevent the situation from spiraling out control. Plus science has a
far greater understanding of how pandemics spread than it did back in
1918-19. Still, the official governmental responses has been
problematic (really? 200,000 dead in the US?) and we are clearly not
out of the woods yet.
Since
art tends to be a discretionary purchase, in the face of the global
pandemic my print sales have declined. Not that sales were robust
before 2020, but the pandemic has destroyed them. While book sales in
general slumped when the initial lockdowns occurred, there seems to
be some evidence that book sales are now stronger,
at least in
some
markets. Unfortunately, this has not led to any sales growth for
WOLF’S HEAD or any of my other backlist, though this is not
surprising given what I’ve outlined above.
Digital Comics
What
about digital sales? WOLF’S HEAD is available on both ComiXology
and Kindle and released in periodical format (i.e.: approximately 30
pages) for $1.99 US each. This
format has not led to strong sales. In fact, sales have been very
weak. Kindle is almost a non-starter; while it doesn’t take too
much work to format titles for Kindle (using the Kindle Comic Creator
software), I’ve only had a handful of sales in this format. My
ComiXology sales have been marginally better, but ComiXology (and
Kindle, for that matter) really require reader awareness and interest
when
seeking
out titles. What
do I mean?
Well,
there’s
a conundrum with digital discovery
that I don’t think has been solved yet. In a ‘brick and mortar’
environment, people can stumble
across titles that they might not have known about simply because they are
on a shelf, let
alone activism from a passionate sales staff.
While COVID-19 has obviously effected the ability of people to enter
into retail stores of all types, this
is still a key element of what makes ‘brick and mortar’ stores so
compelling. Wander in, stumble across something interesting, buy it,
and try it. With digital comics, it would appear that you really need
to know what you’re looking for. I realize that
digital does allow some
degree of browsing, but (at least from my point of view and
experience), this doesn’t seem to work all that well in
practice.
As
a result,
my digital sales have been very poor. What I find interesting about
this is that my 2020 experiences with Kindle and ComiXology mirror my
2014 experiences with ComiXology and my series METAL GODS. Things
really haven’t changed all that much at
all.
Where Things Are At
As
disappointing as this has been, the good news is that the comics art
grant from the City of Ottawa has helped mitigate some of the damage
detailed above. In fact, if it was not for the art grant and the
Peter Honeywell award shortlist, I suspect I would cancel WOLF’S
HEAD immediately. As it stands, WOLF’S HEAD will continue, at least
through the current story arc, and then I’ll revisit in 2021.
Self-publishing
is hard. Frankly, I’ve never wanted to do it, not because I’m
against self-publishing
per
se,
but
because of the
immense
amount of work
involved in doing
it. Hell, I already wear all the hats (writing, art, production,
etc…).
Adding “publisher” to that list is a
bridge too far.
I badly need a publisher. I badly need an agent, too.
With
WOLF’S HEAD, it’s hard to know how things will go. My efforts to
find a publisher for the series will continue, though that is one
helluva slog right now (my jealousy of authors with formal publishing
contracts knows no bounds!). For the short term, this means that
WOLF’S HEAD will probably be turned into a webcomic.
Webcomics
actually terrify me. While once-upon-a-time I did do
a
webcomic through
Girlamatic
(THE
ROAD TO GOD KNOWS...),
that
was both a long time ago and with a group of allies. Doing it alone
is scary. And WOLF’S HEAD was
never
designed to be a webcomic; I’m leery of how transitioning the
series to that format will work in practice. At the same time, I know
that a
WOLF’S HEAD webcomic might be the best (only?)
chance
that
the series
has to find a real audience.
To
paraphrase one of my favourite movies, “art is a cruel mistress,
but she is her own reward.” Easier
said then done. I
don’t like writing and drawing in a vacuum. While I’ve never
minded the solitary nature of the craft, my stories are meant to be
read.
I’ve
never wanted to make ‘outsider art’ that few if anyone reads. My
goal was never to ‘hermetically seal’ my work from the world at
large, either.
It’s
not a fun feeling to be where I’m at, struggling to find an
audience and struggling to make a living at it. Solutions
are difficult to find. And the loss I’ve been feeling is difficult
to place. Given the state of the world (not just with COVID-19 but
with the wildfires in California and Oregon, the explosion in Beirut,
and so on), there’s a lot to be thankful for. There really is. Art
and writing bring me a great deal of joy, not to mention the fact
that I’ve
grown
a great deal as an artist.
I’m
extremely proud of WOLF’S HEAD, despite the terrible sales and lack
of awareness that it even exists. I think it’s some of the best
work I’ve ever done. And it’s been a joyful experience, too.
It
would just be truly awesome to be able to share that joy with
readers.
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