Arsenic Lullaby - Casper the friendly ghost wrap up

When we last left our hero...he was trying not to let the newly introduced, obtrusive ads on steemit irritate the shit out of him and ruin the whole platform for him...

BUT before that he was badgering another publisher, let's finish that, eh?

Casper The Friendly Ghost wrap up

It's taken me awhile to write up this final installment of me trying to convince American Mythology publishing to have me do work on Casper. It's taken me awhile because I know full well it's more entertaining when I'm ranting and raving. But... I wasn't harmed, or even surprised by how this all shook out. It was pretty clear early on what we were dealing with (which is why I didn't take up the offer from those of you fellow pros and store owners who offered to speak on my behalf...I appreciate you and I didn't want to waste your time)

That "what we were dealing with" demonstrates a larger point about the comic book industry, and is the only reason any of this is worth recapping...

Put your business owner hat on for this. If you are not a business owner, put yourself in that position, and let's break this down.

You publish comic books. You have rights to publish Casper the Friendly Ghost, for a period of time...costing you 10-20 grand.

Casper has 70 plus years of brand recognition! A household name all across the world! with cartoons and movies, and every generation of reader knows who he is!!!

With this at your disposal, the TOTAL number of copies you are moving combined from every comic book store in the U.S. and Canada.

is...

5000-6000 copies per issue.

That's 5.00 a book, the distributor is taking about 60% of that, from what's left you minus the cost of printing of a four color book, shipping, and whatever you pay the people who make it.

You're not doing great.

You're not doing great in large part to not being able to get any traction on the internet. You publish six or so different comics that you've gotten the licensing for The Three Stooges, Underdog, and the like...with all of that combined, your FB page has under 2000 "followers", same with your twitter, your Instagram has about 200. and you have no presence anywhere else. If you make a post and get 20 people to click "like" it's high water for you.

Pure and simple you aren't moving many units, and you aren't able to cause a stir to increase it.

Have you assessed that situation? Good.

Out of the clear blue, along comes a writer an illustrator who expresses interest in working on Casper. He is a veteran of the industry who has been nominated for major awards in the U.S. and Europe. He has written for Comedy Central, He has 6 years of working for Mad Magazine under his belt, and has done work for several other notable publishers. He has a enthusiastic cult fan base who are active on social media. His social media presence dwarfs your company, having about ten times the reach you do.

He comes to you looking to work on Casper, and........you say no thank you.

Oh yes you do...but it gets worse.

He redoubles his interest and mentions on his FB page that he's interested in working on your book. This sends his readers to you FB page requesting to see him work on it. You're normal response to a post is about 15 likes...after his mention you have, in one day, 60 plus people commenting on your page that they'd like to see his work on Casper. A handful of those people were comic book store owners who don't yet order any of your books. None of them said anything derogatory about the current team, just expressed excitement at the idea of him working on it.

and you....delete them all, stores included. You don't respond, you don't plug any of your current writers, illustrators, or comics....you just...delete them. And it took a bit of vigilance to keep your page free of anyone looking to see this guy on your books, because the requests just...kept...coming.

He continues to make his case online with several blogs about the history of Casper, and even the techniques used in illustrating such a story. This too gets far more interest than anything you've been able to do on your own. Despite him making no insult whatsoever to anyone currently working on the book, and the blogs being, for all intents and purposes, a endorsement of the character you publish. His intent presence overshadows your own considerably and him tagging you on these could be sending many many new readers to your page.

You...untag yourself.

Yep, you turn off a one way valve to your own page.

He illustrates a parody page of Casper, entertaining his readers, keeping them interested in the cause and demonstrating the inimitable skill in story telling and meticulous illustrating he is know for. This too get several score more notice and interaction online than anything you have been able to do.

You...continue to ignore it.

His final post regarding it was on Instagram. Just give the side by side comparison of his page and yours and ask yourself if maybe this guy could help you sell more books.

You...

Him...

And he built that following without 70 years brand recognition. But, you ignore it all, and what you didn't ignore you deleted...including at final count about 30 comic book stores that don't yet order anything from you.

That's what you did. A top talent with a fans base that could boost your sales and interest in your book considerably attempts to work for you, and you give it a pass. I guess you are happy with only selling 5-6000 units.

If you are an actual business owner, you probably think I'm making this up. nope. Some of the more cynical of you thought early on that I had them react this way to build suspense. nope.

I didn't even get around to firing all my arrows...I didn't do any interviews on comic book podcasts, blogs, or youtube channels, I didn't mention it on Instagram until the end. I put about as much effort into promoting this cause as I did complaining about my seasonal effective disorder and yet, still could have handed them at the least 30 plus stores that would not sniff in their direction otherwise...AND made sure the stores had readers coming in for copies. But...if they are happy with 12 likes and think the internet is made up of the same climate that it was in 2005...what's the point? Well...yeah, it was pretty funny when Arsenic Lullaby fans took over that publishers FB page for about a week, and we could have easily shanghaied their hashtags...if they knew how to use/make any...but they don't. For me it was becoming hitting a punching bag that didn't have any stuffing in it.

Not wanting me on board, for whatever reason, is no excuse for the lack of promotional savvy they showed here. They pissed away a golden opportunity to get into more stores and get more readers and get more interest, whether they wanted me on board or not. They COULD have tried wooing my fans and the stores that wanted to see me work on it. They could have used the whole thing to help their branding "we pride ourselves on Casper being wholesome entertainment for kids and would never have this lowlife on board" ...or say that nicer...or less nice...the point is they could have done anything to keep the snowball rolling downhill but instead they ran away and hid.

A more pathetic display of lack of ability to work the internet, you couldn't ask for.

This is all made all the more idiotic by the fact that they don't actually own Casper, they have a limited licensing agreement with a limited amount of time attached. They only have a certain amount of time to generate as much revenue as they can before it expires.

I've noticed that at the tail end of this thing that at least they started getting some shares on their posts...from the people they publish/who work for them. So...there's that. They at least started telling the people they pay, to share their posts. So...there's that. They at least started doing that (...after the momentum I handed them had passed.)

If I was trying to get a job as an accountant or dental assistant or something...you could say my methods were...obtuse. But as far as getting in on a project in a creative industry, in the modern age we live in...showing that you can bring some heat to the party is page two of your resume. Every other creative industry has figured this out.

Comics however ,as usual, is behind the others. It is usually behind because you can't run as fast with a millstone around your neck.

Here's the thing for all of you who don't know much about the comic book industry, you might find this interesting in a morbid way. The catalogue that every comic book store orders from has about 500-600 comic books in it every month, from about 200 total different publishers. Let that sink in for a second...now understand that only about 150 of those books will still be around in a year and the rest will be replaced by hundreds of other comics...that will also quickly dry up and blow away. About 25 publishers actually know what they are doing and have a plan...and the rest are only here until their mid life crisis blows over and/or their disposable savings dries up and/or their ego can't take any more beating.

That's a small percentage of people fighting to grow an industry having to drag the rest along kicking and screaming.

In the comic book industry...well actually, this can apply to life in general but for now we'll apply it to comics specifically, there are three basic motivations to entering it

1- They have something to contribute and feel compelled to do so
2- They want to make money and feel they can do so in this field
3- They want to feel cool and be able to tell people that's what they do.

those are the three basic reasons, and any person can have one or all or some combination of percentage of several or all.

The first reason will keep you growing, keep you working, keep you putting out quality.
The second reason comes with a competitive drive. You are competing for the money, thus you need to make smart decisions and have some element of what you put out be better than others.
That third reason...that keeps you pretty short sighted. It restricts you from avenues of success that don't directly feed your ego.

My friend came up with a perfect analogy for these types "they are the comic book publishing equivalent of some guy micro brewing his own beer in the basement, spending a week on his logo and 3 minutes looking up a recipe on the internet"

You probably work with a few number threes. The guy who rearranged the schedule for no particular reason other than to show that they did something. It's a drive that doesn't take you further or put a larger goal in mind other than to be able to say you did something. "hey lookit me! I'm important" is the goal and everything else is way back second to that...including results. There is a f*ckton of people with reason number three in the comic book industry, a much larger ratio than in other creative fields, and I have a ...kernel of a theory on why that is that maybe I'll get into some other time.

Number threes are the flopsum and jetsum that make up about 150 pages of a three hundred page catalogue that all comic book publishers are in. They are the 20 deep stack of issues on the rack collecting dust in the place that a comic book published by someone who knows what they are doing should be. And they are , at times, taking up those pages and rack space with books that are a faint shadow of what they could be despite the potential of the intellectual property they license.

If you knew the amount of valuable, household name, intellectual property in the comic book industry...that is in the hands of people with no clue what to do with it, it would make your head spin.

And that's possibly the biggest reason comics are not growing.

Casper is a perfect example because it is a character that SHOULD be a lynch pin for the entire industry. It's G rated and well known and COULD be perfect for older readers to pick up for their kids nieces , nephews...or for kids going to the comic book store with their parents to get interested in. It should be a "gateway drug" for lack of a better term. Instead it's selling...6000 copies on it's good months.

How many comic book readers are there in the U.S.? and how many of them have kids? or grand kids? Would the comic book industry's future look better or worse if a major household name character aimed at young/new readers was doing better than f*cking 6000 copies? Y'think? Maybe?

Understand that this attitude and lack of ability to adapt is not a rare one. It is all too common and you can point right at it when you see that the comic industry has stayed stagnant over the past ten years while comic book properties have become king of all media.

There ARE publishers large and small that are really trying to give it a go. Trying to be innovative, trying to branch out, trying to capitalize on the exposure comics are getting in other mediums, trying to grow. And they are bogged down, surrounded by, and flanked on all sides by that giant percentage of people who have no idea what they are doing, don't have a plan, don't think they need a plan, and think that as long as they are not specifically losing money than that's pretty good...because it appeases their mid life crisis without costing them the savings that a new corvette or set of golf clubs would.

Just imagine being in an industry...any industry that produces a product- beer, cereal, blue jeans, watches...and 75% of the products you compete with have no business even being on the shelf and weren't advertising at all. Being better than the competition is a good thing, but everything has a tipping point. If 75% of the watches made were chunks of sh*t that couldn't keep time...you'd no longer be fighting to show you make a better watch, you'd be fighting to show that ANY watch might be worth having, that they very concept of going to buy a watch is not a fools errand.

It'd be like being the only prostitute in the city that doesn't have the clap. It wouldn't matter how hot YOU are because the notion of picking up a prostitute would be synonymous with getting the clap.

...uhm...THAT...was an unfortunate analogy. But...still pretty on the nose.

It's been like this the ENTIRE time I've been part of the industry, and it's maddening. It's strange, but to me it's more maddening now than when I was just starting. Because I look on instagram and look around at comic cons and see a lot of young new talent, people with actual drive and actual voices, and see their main obstacle is the same thing that was my main obstacle back then, pros and publishers that are just...in...the...fucking...way. Taking up shelf space, taking up tables, taking up pages in the catalogue...for Lazy, uninspired, half assed attempts at producing something...ANYTHING...that actually benefits the medium or the industry or even themselves.

I've seen these people come and go and come and go and the end result is a f*cking garage full of comics that never sold, and possibly a hand full of kids who couldn't get past them who very well may have actually made a contribution that mattered. They other bring no new readers to the party, are in the way of other publishers in the catalogue and on shelves, and are constant pitfall to stores who can't always be sure which books are going to be supported or not by online promotion until they are stuck with them.

I'll see these types at a comic-con, and then see some kid with a portfolio full of work that puts most of us to shame and I want to take that kid and say "we're going to kick that display over and set your stuff up at their table". Because having to compete with that kid's talent and innovation is going to keep us all honest. and That kid knows way to promote his/her stuff that we haven't thought of. and that kid might pass us all up and bring so many new readers in that we all benefit. That might happen...it sure AF won't with the other.

Anyways...that's wrap on that. I've go things to do.

well...for now it's "us" but I feel myself becoming impatient again, and there's other places I could be where people disagree but do so because they all give a damn.