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Bob Layton has been in the comic industry for 30 years. He's best known
for his runs on Iron Man with David Micheline, but he's played the role
of editor and small publisher in more recent years. In this interview we
talk about his experience with the business end of comics and his new
creative project called "The Colony" which is being posted on his
website (http://www.BobLayton.com) for free.
Jamie:
For a long time you were a freelancer at various comic companies and
no doubt probably got lied to and dicked around by an editor or two
along the way. Then, you became an editor at both Valiant and Future
Comics. Did becoming an editor change your perspective on the why bad
things happen in comics?
Bob Layton:
I'd like to think that the drive for me to enter management came from my
frustration of being (as you say) 'dicked around' by editors. No doubt
that there are legitimate reasons for editors and freelance creators to
clash, but the majority of troubles come from a lack of communication
and basic cowardice. So many of those in management fail to show respect
to the people who work for them-they fail to return phone calls---or
they make creative decisions without discussing those changes with the
artists and writers simply because they'll do anything to avoid
confrontation. I've made a lot of mistakes as an editor-but evading
problems wasn't one of them.
But to answer your question, being on the other side of the desk DID
change my perspective. Most notably, I came to realize that there's
more to the system than simply being creative. It's a business and
those involved in management have to treat it like a business to be
successful.
Jamie:
Which editorial decisions did you make that you regret the most and
take the most pride in?
Bob:
The biggest regret was taking the deal with Diamond to
co-distribute Future Comics. It was short-sighted and foolish to
abandon the self-distribution business model that was beginning to show
signs of success.
The decision that I'm most proud of was fighting management for
colorists' royalties at Valiant. As a result, we became the first
company to acknowledge that colorists deserve the same financial rewards
as the other people involved in the creative process.
Jamie:
How did the ups and downs of your time with Valiant Comics affect
your relationship with Jim Shooter?
Bob: Jim and I haven't spoken since that day in Baltimore when he tried
to fire me for not supporting his illegal attempt to takeover Valiant.
Let's just say that I've seen the real Jim Shooter and it wasn't pretty.
Jamie:
When you were EIC of Valiant, Joe Quesada did some covers for Solar.
Considering this was early in his career, did you tutor him on anything?
Bob: No. Although Joe worked as a colorist in Knob Row early in the
company's history, I can't take any credit for tutoring him.
Jamie:
If those Western Publishing characters (Magnus, Turok, Solar, etc.)
came up for auction again, would you consider buying them?
Bob: Buy them? You must think I'm rolling in dough or something! Even
if I could, launching a new line of superhero books in this day and age
is almost impossible. I'm still a firm believer that creating properties
is ultimately a better business move than acquiring them.
Jamie:
I've heard some people suggest Deathmate is when the bubble burst on
the comic industry. Does your experience agree with that?
Bob: That's an absolutely absurd statement. It is ridiculous for anyone
to lay the blame of the industry's decline on any single project or
company. The Death of Superman is a better example of what lead to the
industry's downfall than a poorly-conceived project like Deathmate.
Greed was the ultimate culprit.
The big publishing companies simply got greedy and lacked the foresight
to see that large wall looming up ahead.
I recall sitting in a meeting with my business partners, Jon Hartz and
Steve Massarsky (back when Valiant began taking off), where we mutually
agreed never to print over 500,000 copies of any of our titles. I knew
that the speculator numbers were not reflective of the number of actual
readers in the comics market and I dreaded the repercussions from
over-saturating the marketplace. My business partners initially agreed
to that principle and, for a time, we had a moratorium on the number of
copies we printed.
Of course, greed--is a bitch. Eventually, the temptation became simply
too great to resist and they began printing to speculator demands. That,
in concert with the similar attitude of the other large publishers,
proved to be the 'straw that broke the camel'.
But, no one project can be blamed for the fall of the direct market.
Jamie:
Do you think the comic industry is better or worse off without the
speculators?
Bob: I believe that we'd be in much better shape if they had never
reared their ugly heads. The business will never truly recover from what
happened.
Jamie:
Did you self-finance Future Comics?
Bob: Yep. Although I had a couple of investors jump in when we began to
hit financial bumps in the road.
Jamie:
How much money was lost on Future Comics?
Bob: I'd rather not say. Let's just say that it wiped me out financially.
Jamie:
When you were first running Future Comics, you were doing direct
distribution to over a 1000 comic shops. How on earth did you get all
those books out?
Bob:
Future Comics had a revolutionary business plan which used the
Internet to exclusively self-distribute our publications.
The "established distribution system" required a three-month arc from
publisher solicitation to shipping of the product. Solicitation info is
often "hopeful expectations" on the part of the publisher. Additionally,
there is little or no interaction between publisher, retailer and reader.
By reducing lead time (we solicited via the internet within 30 days
before shipping) and eliminating layers between creator/publisher and
retailer/reader, Future reacted more quickly and communicated more
readily with the consumer. I liked the distribution side because I got
to talk to the retailers myself, and sometimes, I'd make a sweetheart
deal with somebody who's been extremely supportive of us. Or-- I'd
sweeten the pot a little to get them to handle our books for the first
time.
The main drive was getting our entertainment in the hands of readers and
working with all the retailers that assisted us in doing that. I had a
terrific staff that made regular calls to retailers, packed and shipped
the books and did the follow-ups on the orders. For the retailer, since
we shipped all of our titles to them at the same time, they saved money
on the freight side, as well as received deeper discounts than they
would have with Diamond.
It was the advent of the internet that made all that possible. That was
something that wasn't practical during the Valiant days.
Technology has certainly opened new doors to selling and distributing
merchandise.
Having met most of the retailers at one time or another, Dick Giordano
and I felt it would make sense to create a business where the retailers
would actually have some input in our decisions. We would have a company
that's friendly to them and tries to give store owners a break with a
product that they can actually make a decent margin on. We knew how
tough it was for most retailers just to keep the doors open, so we
wanted to create a line of books that didn't "break the bank", while, at
the same time, maximized their discounts and the service they received.
In the early days of the company's conception, Dick and I extensively
researched the economics of self-publishing. As an independent, how
could we make our little company healthy and profitable?
As it turned out, the only solution was to cut the middleman out-namely
Diamond.
Future Comics developed from the idea that if we cut Diamond out of the
mix, our comics could be profitable without having to generate huge
sales figures.
Although Future Comics didn't succeed, I still believe that the business
model is sound and that, one day, someone will follow in our footsteps
with the concept of self-distribution.
Jamie:
You said Future Comics was looking into doing shopping mall kiosks
for selling your comics. Why did you not go that route?
Bob:
Simply put-we ran out of money and went out of business before we
could invest in that program.
Jamie:
In your December 05 letter column you mentioned a publisher was
interested in bringing the Future Comics material back in print. What's
the latest on that?
Bob:
Negotiations are ongoing.
Jamie:
On your site, you've mentioned you think Diamond and (printer)
Quebecor want to put indy comics out of business. I've heard this about
Diamond before, but never about Quebecor. Why would they want to hurt
indy comics?
Bob:
It's all about the bottom line . . . money.
Quebecor and Diamond pretty much control the entire business side of the
comic industry.
During the time when we were publishing Future Comics, there was more
than a hint of collusion between Quebecor and Diamond. Our books began
to get printed days or weeks past the scheduled press time and were
frequently mishandled in shipping and customs. All of this resulted in
nothing but huge financial problems for us.
It was a regrettable miscalculation on our part to accept Diamond's
offer to co-distribute our products instead of staying the course with
our original business plan. However, the promise of doubling our sales
and reaching profitability in our first year of operation was too great
of a temptation.
As I said earlier: "Greed--is a bitch."
It was no secret that Diamond wanted our continuing self-distribution to
cease. In analysis, it was more advantageous for them to put us out of
business than to promote us.
It was a win/win situation for them, looking at it in hindsight.
If we suddenly took off-Diamond had another major publisher and a new
source of continued revenue.
If they squeezed us out of business, then self-distribution was dead and
there are more rack spaces for their existing companies.
Quebecor has a huge investment in the printing of comics for the larger
publishing companies. Small press eats up press time and resources
while representing a large financial risk for them. I know for a fact
that Quebecor financially ate a huge 'shit sandwich' with the
bankruptcies of CrossGen and Future Comics. Since then, they've been
working in concert with Diamond to stack the deck in their favor, as far
as indy comics go.
So-- to take our lumps, Mark Alessi and I are somewhat responsible for
this.
But this sort of behind-the-scenes collusion has been going on long
before there was ever a CrossGen or Future Comics.
In hindsight, it now seems clear that getting rid of the small press is
the best way for the two (Quebecor and Diamond) to insure spreading the
finite amount of consumer dollars evenly amongst their larger and more
profitable clients.
So today, Diamond is placing Draconian regulations on distributing small
print runs of comics.
End result: More rack space and press time for their larger clients with
less financial risk for them.
Jamie:
Do you think there is a general problem with the way the Direct
Market works? As in retailers buying non-returnable books 3 months in
advance and the various forms of marketing publishers have to do to deal
with that?
Bob:
A great deal of what passes for comic book marketing is an emphasis
on hype and controversy, rather than merely producing quality stories
and letting the product speak for itself.
The whole concept of 'blind bidding' on a product, that you get stuck
with if it doesn't sell, is totally screwed-up, in my opinion.
I made Future Comics returnable because I truly believed in the books
and was willing to share the risk WITH the retailers. The comic market
gets buried in a ton of inferior products because the publishers use
marketing hype to snowball the public. That puts the majority of the
financial risk onto the little guy who owns the corner comic shop who
has to order the stuff-even though he has little idea of the actual
quality of the books.
Jamie:
If you were in control of Diamond, what changes would you make?
Bob:
I've always been concerned that the sales figures continue to
shrink since '96 and that nobody seems to be doing anything to bring new
readers in. Instead, the industry has taken steps to catering to the
die-hard fans and not creating products that are appealing to the
general public.
The comics industry seems to be upset that there are no new people
coming in and, though they are trying things to get people into the
comics genre', like Free Comic Book Day, it doesn't seem to be working.
I believe the problem is primarily that today's comics are being
produced for that niche' audience and, as a result, they are generally
not accessible or attractive to the general population-the folks with
all the money.
I'd pressure the publishers to produce more quality products for a
general audience and find new venues to sell those books in.
Jamie:
You've been involved in publishers when they've rose and crashed. How
do you know when it's time to pull the plug?
Bob:
When people start jumping out of windows . . . ?
Jamie:
You have been posting a Colony comic on your website. How long is
intended to go?
Bob:
All the way to the end. That'll be about 100 pages from now. Keep
in mind that I'm only producing the second act of a three-act drama. I
still have acts one and two to make.
Jamie:
What is your eventual plan with Colony? Is this something you are
putting online and hoping to sell movie rights to or do you plan on
publishing it on paper when it's done?
Bob:
Yes-to both questions. I've had several big-name Hollywood
producers read the entire screen treatment and continuity bible for
Colony and they absolutely loved it.
However, my Rep kept hearing back that they thought the scope of the
premise was simply too big for the small screen. That's when I decided
to do the comic version first--to show the folks in Hollywood how the
words on the page translated, not only into powerful images, but a
workable and compelling, continuing story. George Lucas did the same
thing when he had Ralph McQuarrie do those now-legendary preliminary
paintings for Star Wars. Once the executives saw those, they were able
to visualize what he was attempting to accomplish.
Jamie:
What is it about Colony that excites you? You've been doing comics
for 30 years, is there anything different for you in this project?
Bob:
Colony is something that I've been working on since the day I left
Valiant -- ten years ago.
Colony is, at its essence, an allegory to the founding of Australia, set
in science fiction settings.
And, no--it doesn't have space dingoes.
I have some Hollywood projects that haven't seen the light of day yet
that I am very proud of.
Colony is certainly at the top of that list.
What excites me about the series is that it's my first comic for mature
audiences only and that it's a totally character-driven adventure.
Oh-there's a big set pieces and enormous conflicts-but the heart of
story is the individuals caught up in madness. I love stories about
reluctant heroes and my main protagonist-Scott Landus-is the epitome of
that type. As the story progress, Landus goes from being just a regular
guy who is simply trying to save his own ass-to an iconic, mystical
figure-against his will, of course. And nearly everyone in the series
carries around some startling and dark secrets that will revealed as the
story continues.
The story is about forming a new world and a new government out of the
"dregs of society".
By the end of Act Two, criminal and patriot, thief and benefactor,
sinner and saint, alien and human--will have to learn how to live
together in peace and face the seemingly- insurmountable task of forging
a new society. The Colony, with its incredible diversity and clash of
cultures, will have to become strong enough to resist the horrifying
retaliation that the Galactic Confederacy will inevitably launch.
But, that will be another story . . . for another time.
The idea for doing the series as a web comic came to me after receiving
my monthly web hits report. Once I realized that I was getting over
200,000 hits a month, I could conceivably get more regular, monthly
readers than any given issue of Marvel's X-Men. Also, a built-in
audience for the property will only add to the concept's marketability.
The story, written and inked by me, is based on Act Two of my original,
three-part screen treatment and is currently being serialized
exclusively on my website-www.boblayton.com.
Regards,
Jamie Coville
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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