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Don't Call It A Comeback by Josh Dahl

Each week I use this space to talk about comics from my point of view.
In the mid 90s I tried to break in to comics as part of a wave of small press publishers. It didn’t work out and we all moved on. Now, ten years later, we are back to try it again. So now I take a look at the industry, art, and business then and now.

Last week, I wrote about how comic book conventions have changed. They have changed quite a bit due to pressures from technology, money, and personal taste. I talked about the changes I have seen in that regard last week. Those changes have been subtle and pervasive.

But, all of those different nuances are not really the things that were immediately apparent to me. The most distinct changes I noticed were in my own perspective on modern conventions.

In the years in between the demise of my old company and the debut of my new one, I kept attending cons as a fan, and occasionally as a member of the press. So, honestly, I didn’t really perceive all the more subtle changes happening. I didn’t really see it clearly until I was working on last week’s column.

The changes in me, though, they jumped out at me as we were setting up our booth for this spring’s Motor City Comic Convention. I had become a jerk, and I liked it.

Way back in the day, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We just knew that we were a comic book company, and comic book companies were supposed to do comic conventions. So, we did them.

We sold books. With our very limited understanding of distribution and marketing, conventions were basically our only opportunity to make sales. We made these sales with the idea of building a fan base and creating a demand for our product, but we had no real way to exploit that fan base if it ever did foment. It was like every time we were starting fresh with the fans.

We also met the other small pressers. We traded books and sized each other up. There was support and sharing of ideas and resources. I am sure that there must have been petty back-stabbing and in-fighting, but I don’t think I ever saw any. I do remember an artist who had signed on to illustrate some work with our company suddenly disappearing. A few months later I recognized his name at another company’s booth, hard at work. He was greeting people and selling their product, but when he saw my name he was suddenly shy. I think that was my only real taste of small press drama. Oh, that and the deep, cancerous, conflicts we all had with my former publisher that tore our company apart at Mid-Ohio Con.

Most of my interactions with other small pressers were great. It was one of my favorite things about doing them. Arriving for the big show and seeing who had made it through from last year. It just felt cool to walk around, read each other’s badges and ask thing like “How you guy’s doing here?”, “Moving a lot of books?”, and “You guys doing Chicago?”

It felt like I was a professional comic book creator.

As I said last week, it gave us a sense of legitimacy. Being there, showing off, talking shop, it felt like the real deal.

So how about now? Does it still feel that way. Of course, but it is different.

And the difference, as I said is in me and my perception of things.

A lot of what the con is for the small press exhibitor has remained the same. What has changed is the same thing that lets me come back to this after all these years. It is the same thing that allows me to throw that same hat into that same ring and believe that this time we really will succeed.

It is this: I know that I have learned from the past. I noticed it right then, when we were setting up that Monolith booth of the morning of Motor City Con. I wasn't excited about meeting the other small press guys. I kind of didn't care.

It feels cold and mercenary to state it flat out like this, but they aren't going to do anything for us. They aren't going to buy our books, and we aren't going to buy theirs. They are not our target. Readers, and most importantly, retailers are the target. Those are the people who will actually be spending money on the comics that we are making.

Chumming around with other creators made me feel like a pro back in the day, but knowing enough to recognize those feelings as warm-fuzzy fluff is what made me feel like I had earned the hard wisdom to make it really work this second time around.

The old sense of legitimacy was gained just by walking through the door, but this new one came from recognizing in myself that I had grown and learned from my experience. It made me feel like a jerk, but it also felt really good to know that I now had the capacity to recognize that some jerkiness might be called for.

I had moved from wanting to make comics, to making the decision to produce and sell them, and on to the hard decision of being a jerk about it.

Ok, now I should say that I did meet a lot of cool people at Motor City, and I did also learn a lot of great stuff and make some solid contacts. It really does benefit the small-press creator to have contacts in the field.

The point that I was over-stating above is that those contacts are valuable and precious gravy, but they are never going to be your main consumer audience.

Anyone can cultivate a sense of legitimacy and confidence from buying some table space at a convention, but nowadays I get that fix from the knowledge that we have learned from the past and are doing it right.

Or, rightER, anyway.
 

Visit Josh Dahl at his website www.monolithllc.com