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Von Allan is a talented writer/artist from Canada. He creates lovely graphic
novels featuring feisty little girls that I immediately felt a connection to when
reading the first story. In this interview, Von and I discuss his past, his present
and his future.
Sheryl:
You started out as a writer/artist relatively late in life. Can you share why that is?
Von Allan:
Well, this is a smidgen tricky so first a little background. I fell in love with comics when I was about 8 years old. I had just moved from living in a very small town to a new life in the Nation's Capital and the big city was a little spooky. I was a shy, introverted kid for the most part. Meeting new friends was a challenge, but I was fortunate enough to meet and become friends with a few neighbourhood kids who were into comics and shared their comics with me. That was an amazing experience. I don't actually remember my first comic. What I do remember is just being amazed at how cool they were. And how much comics, especially superhero comics at the time, spoke to me.
I think part of it is that this was still fairly early on in the Direct Market's history, around 1982 or so. Everything felt very fresh, exciting and new. It's funny; a lot of people have discussed how poor the reputation of comics is. How dismissed they are. But while I felt a smidgen embarrassed to read them later on when I was a teenager, those early years had none of that. They were cool, plain and simple. And so much damn fun. Part of that was what was happening in the pages of comics like Marvel's Uncanny X-Men, but part of that was just how many possibilities the medium seemed to have. New companies were forming (Comico, First, and Eclipse to name but a few) and new writers and artists were constantly being discovered (my personal favourites being Matt Wagner and Dave Stevens).
On top of it, Ottawa did have a nifty comic shop (the late, lamented Capital City Gum, Cards and Comics) and the same friends who introduced me to comics also introduced me to that store. They carried quite a variety of comics in a very well-organized way. In other words, not cluttered like a flea market or crammed musty used bookstore. So not only could I read comics, but I found a handy place where they were easy to get.
Now, the thing with all of this is that I never felt, not for a moment, that I could really make comics. I was just re-reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics the other day and he makes the point that when he finally got into comics he got into them hard - drawing, and drawing, and drawing because he was so influenced by them. That wasn't me. I had no self-confidence to do that kind of thing. I guess my feeling was that people were just born to do it. They could draw, right off the bat, right from the time they could toddle, and that very clearly wasn't me. Being poor didn't help. There was no money to take drawing classes even if I thought I could draw. Hell, scrounging together money to buy comics was tough enough. So the long and the short of it was that I never really tried. A few tracings and whatnot here and there. But that was it.
What changed was that I grew up. Started running a bookstore. Met artists, both writers and visual artists, of one stripe or another and started to realize just how much work and craft went into it. I also realized just how few of them drew naturally. It's work. Practice, work, failure, learning from one's mistakes, more work and practice, bad days and good days. Wash, rinse and repeat. So, being unsatisfied at the time with the bookstore (primarily because I was paid terribly for running the entire operation) and with the marvelous support of my wife, I literally sat down with Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and started to learn how to draw. I really wasn't sure if I would go anywhere with it. I just wanted to learn. Initially I just worked at it on weekends and in the evenings. And I kept at it, something I would never have done when I was younger. I wouldn't have had the confidence to get over the bad days back then. But one of the brilliant points about Betty Edwards is that she realizes that confidence is a very tricky thing when it comes to visual art. So she helps you, right there in the book, get over that. Slowly but surely, she's walking right with you. It's a very hard thing to put into words; I mean, I've never met her and I'm sure she has no idea I even exist. But it's true all the same.
I got better, slowly but surely. And eventually made the decision, with my wife's support, to leave the bookstore and basically become a self-taught student. Took a few classes here and there, but primarily I'm self-taught. And that's how I got where I am now.
Sheryl:
I disagree with you on one thing. You say drawing is just a skill, that anyone can learn to do it. I maintain that one has to have innate talent to start because all the practicing in the world won't help someone who lacks potential. So, have you had formal art training? How did you learn to draw? How did you learn to paint? I'm quite impressed with your painting ability, by the way. I can draw, I cannot paint.
Von Allan:
Nope, I disagree. Passionately. I really do. Drawing is a skill. There are geniuses, to be sure. But even in that category there is much room for debate. The notable example is Van Gogh, who was ridiculed and dismissed for most of his life for being a hack. And he died penniless as a result. It's only afterwards, in hindsight, do we (and I use "we" in the Western societal sense) realize how amazing he was. Van Gogh is fascinating because you can actually see him struggle with anatomy and form. Struggle with perspective. He's struggling right in front of our eyes because a lot of his earlier art, sketches and whatnot, still exists. And he got better. And then developed his style. Took chances. Experimented. Tried things. That is what art is all about for me.
I think some artists hit on this earlier than others. At a younger age. One teacher I had felt that some kids, the kids who blossom in art early, either get the right type of positive intervention and nurturing at the right time to keep them going. Or they're just too stubborn and self-confident to stop. I agree with that. And I wasn't that kid.
All of the key, core elements of art are something we need to learn. Anatomy. Perspective. Light and Shadow. Line. On and on. Some of us might have an early knack for one or more, even perhaps all, but most don't. We learn. We grow. Where "talent" (and I use that word carefully) comes in is once those skills are acquired, at whatever age, we can then use the tools we've learned to express ourselves in an individual way. Maybe society at large won't think that such expression is particularly interesting. That's the risk with art. Certainly for a guy like Van Gogh, who was dismissed in his own lifetime. Plus, we all need to figure out ways to eat, pay rent, clothe ourselves, pay for art supplies, and all of the sundry parts of existence. It's hard to do it full-time, especially if there's no money.
So no, I don't really believe that one person has "potential" while another one doesn't. It takes skill and then it takes passion. Despite that, there's work that strikes a chord with society at large and there's work that doesn't. So-called "Outsider Art" being a great example of the latter, but it's still art.
In terms of formal training, I've had very little. Most of the teachers didn't "get" comics and what I wanted to do, so it wound up being a bit of a road block. I did have one tremendous teacher and she was amazing. For the most part, though, I've book-learned as I described above.
Sheryl:
One of the things about your art that stands out is the realistic depiction of the characters. Their movements and the facial expressions are quite believable. Do you use photo reference to draw?
Von Allan:
Sometimes I use photo reference. But mostly I use "me." Looking in mirrors, that sort of thing. I like realism so what I've tried to do as much as possible is be on the realistic side of things when it comes to my art. I'm not a big fan of the looser "cartoony" approach that's big in indy comics right now. My influences are more old-school (Alex Raymond, Mac Raboy, and Dave Stevens). Man, those guys could draw!
Sheryl:
One of the things I really like about your published work to date is that it features spunky little girls. How did you decide to use these characters to tell a story?
Von Allan:
One of the things I believe in is that, when you're first starting out and trying to get established, doing work that's similar to a lot of what's out there won't really help you. There are obviously exceptions to this (and there's a certain argument that can be made for doing work that appeals to the existing customer base), but there's risks, too. We've all seen derivative super hero comics for example, that really bring nothing new to the table. The '87 black and white implosion being another example. And on and on. Trying to create new ground is risky, too. Is there an audience for what I want to do? Am I good enough? How do I connect with that audience? In my case though, I felt (and feel) that doing work that's different than what's out there is a good approach to take.
Now, in terms of "Li'l Kids" that actually feature young girls as main characters, that was mainly decided on two factors. The first was that I wanted to do a few short stories that could explain some of the back story to "the road to god knows..." Stories that wouldn't really fit in the main book, but are still a part of that world. Since Marie and Kelly, the two main characters in "road," are about 13 or 14 when it takes place, going backwards meant going younger. So the short stories take place when they're about 8 years old.
Another factor was that "Li'l Kids" is a bit of a proof of concept, too. My next project, tentatively called "Stargazer," features three young girls as the protagonists. I needed to be able to draw convincing children and so the three "Li'l Kids" stories gave me a chance to do just that. That's it, that's all. North American comics haven't used children all that much, especially when you compare that to illustrated children's books that are sold in bookstores. Marvel's Power Pack is one example of a kid-oriented title but there's not too much else out there. Stargazer is my attempt to see what I can do with young characters in a fantasy setting.
Sheryl:
"the road to god knows..." is a story that features Marie, the tomboy main character and her mother Betty, a disintegrating schizophrenic. The schizophrenic mother is drawn from your real life. Having had a daughter who is on the autism spectrum myself, I know that living with someone whose brain doesn't process information the same way as ours does can be an adventure. There are upsides and downsides to having someone in the family like that. In my case, my youngest had a very interesting vocabulary that sort of migrated into a secret family language that we use today, even though she doesn't use that vocabulary any more. Another good thing that came out of it is that my oldest daughter developed an acute empathy for the disabled and matured at a very young age. One of the downsides was that our autism spectrum daughter would have all day screaming marathons periodically. Sometimes starting it out in public, and I'm sure every parent within a 2 mile radius thought we were the worst parents in the world, "allowing" her to be like that. It was part of her disability and there really was nothing to do to stop it. Thankfully, she also outgrew it. So...what's the upside and the downside of living with someone with schizophrenia? How did it affect you?
Von Allan:
My mom was one of the most empathic people I've ever met. She was remarkably sensitive, truly caring, and a wonderful person. She also had a lot of demons. Where those demons came from are very difficult for me to know. Part of the problem with a diagnosis like schizophrenia is that it's very hard to know if that's really what was going on or if there was something else. Or a combination. Because my mom died when I was 20, there's no simple answers out there. She died deeply troubled and most of my questions will never be answered. There'll always be a lack of closure as a result. It doesn't help, of course, that I'm no expert in the field and, on top of it, much of what I experienced with her was experienced when I was a kid. Since I was an only child and introverted on top of it, there wasn't much of a frame of reference for me growing up. It was really when I hit my teenage years that I began to really understand that my mom wasn't "normal," at least outwardly compared to most other moms. Though ironically enough, most of my friends had mom's who weren't that normal, either. Not much frame of reference there!
The difficulty with living with her is that I never understood her triggers. I still don't to this day. She would have good days, bad days and some terrible days but I have no idea what caused what. That created a lot of uncertainty with her as I got older. A fair amount of tip-toeing around her and the like. Then again though, I was a teenager. So despite all of that, I still challenged her. And I'm damn sure that I frustrated the hell out of her at times. I think most teens will push hard against whatever parental boundaries are there as they become more self-aware. Possibly reacting for the sake of reacting, too. While I don't remember doing anything "just because," I do know that we had some battles that are, in hindsight, pretty silly. Oy!
I think that one of my mom's gifts was seeing the world in a very holistic way. As a young boy, she went out of her way to teach me a respect for life and an understanding of death (that things die) that was pretty neat. She saw a lot of beauty in the world. I think the ugliness though, wore on her. Probably more so then most people would find normal. I think this, combined with what she was going through internally, would tend to paralyze her. She wound up eventually having nervous breakdowns and being institutionalized at multiple times while I grew up. What triggered that is completely beyond me. As best as I can determine, she was almost experiencing flashbacks. Or what she thought of as flashbacks. See? I'll never know. Was there abuse in her background, as she sometimes alleged? Dunno. Was what she was recalling real memory? Or was it her brain misfiring and creating false memories? Dunno. Or was it some combination, childhood trauma leading to schizophrenia that caused more damage? Dunno! And I'll never know.
What I do know is that I miss my mom. I miss that she died before I really ever had a chance to talk with her as an adult. To get to know her better as a person who wasn't "just" my mom. And maybe get a chance to better understand her. That could be naïve; that might not have happened and her death might have forestalled far more negative things that could have happened down the road. Dunno. But I would have liked to have had the opportunity. Life unfortunately, can be hard at times. Bad things do happen to good people. My mom, for all of her flaws, issues, and struggles, was a really good person.
What I tried to do in the story is put that very uncertainty in it. And hopefully show that a person can still be a good person despite having these issues. I think that Betty, Marie's mom, is very clearly a good person. She's just struggling with issues that she can barely define, let alone cope with. There's no villain in the story and the antagonist is really circumstance, not a Machiavellian individual or group. On top of it, the story is told from Marie's point of view, so she's only seeing what's happening to her mom. She doesn't, like I didn't, have any idea why things are happening. And there's little she can do to alleviate any of her mom's suffering. It's tough.
Sheryl:
Marie's support system of her friend and her little sister are what saves her, I think from taking missteps in growing up. Was there someone there like that for you, or is this just part of the story? I find it interesting that we never see Kelly and her little sister's mom.
Von Allan:
Kelly and Emma are really amalgams. I didn't have any friends that are directly comparable to those two characters. What I did have were friends, good friends (two who I'm still very much in contact with now), that helped give me a chance of getting away from things for awhile. One of the tough things about being a kid is just talking about these things. I was shy, I was embarrassed and I was ashamed by a lot of what I experienced growing up. My mom's mental state. Our poverty. That sort of thing. It seems so silly now; I mean, anyone who judges someone for that kind of thing you're better off not having in your life. At least from my point of view. Of course, we all know that people can be cruel and I think I worried about what people would think far too much. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have a great understanding of what was going on with my mom and again, I didn't have enough experience to say that some of this wasn't "normal."
But my friends, perhaps without even realizing it, gave me a chance of escape. To get my mind off things. To laugh and play and just get away from things. It's very clear to me that my life probably would have been very different, perhaps much darker, if I didn't have that support group there. In the story, I wanted to show exactly that without hammering the point home. Marie has friends that her mom doesn't. That makes a huge difference.
There are very few adults in the story. Marie's mom, her dad, and her teacher are just about it. The adults that are there are encountered in passing (even Marie's mom); I didn't want to them to have that much of a role because the story isn't about them. And I think that teenagers - or perhaps I should say my own experience as a teenager - see adults in a very different way then adults see one another. As obstacles and barriers. Arbitrators. That kind of thing. A very different world. In Kelly and Emma's case, their mom (and their dad, for that matter) are not important and as a result, are never seen.
Sheryl:
What does the crow symbolize in the story? I always hated dissecting stories in college, so I now ask rather than work it out for myself :P
Von Allan:
Hope and wisdom. It's actually a Norse reference. Odin's two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, are symbolic of wisdom. And the questing for wisdom. The raven is in the short story The Old Crow to symbolize young Marie's realization that things are not right with her mom. But at the same time, that she'll be ok. It's the only time in any of the four stories (the three shorts plus "road" itself) that any overt symbolism takes place. At least symbolism I planned, at any rate.
Sheryl:
In Brawl, Marie's dream could have been taken from my dreams as a kid. I thought I was the only one who dreamed about superheroes! Another illusion shattered. Did you have those dreams, too?
Von Allan:
Oh, yeah, definitely. I think that crosses gender and that both boys and girls dream of that kind of thing. I dreamt a lot of escape. Of having power. Or maybe a better way of saying it would be empowerment. I realize that other people have written extensively on this role in super hero comics and, while I'm not sure I agree with everything on that front, there is something to be said about being frustrated at one's current circumstance and wishing there was a quick and easy way to change that. There's also a sense (I think Ty Templeton mentions this is in an old Prisoners of Gravity interview), that no one knows how special we are inside. That the person others are seeing isn't really real and there's something much more marvelous but hidden from view. This is something that I think the super hero stories (as well as stories like Harry Potter) hit on really, really well.
Sheryl:
Speaking of comics, what comics did you like as a kid and what comics do you like now? Has there been a sea change over the years, or did some things just stay with you?
Von Allan:
I've read a range of stuff and I enjoy quite a bit of diversity. I will say that character matters far more to me now then it might have when I was a kid. And the other difference is that I'm far more "questing" in terms of what I'm looking for (i.e.: 60s Marvel and DC comics plus undergrounds like Arcade The Comics Revue) as compared to when I was younger and pretty much stuck with what was on shelves in a given week. One thing that has changed is I don't enjoy at all, the intensive cross-continuity and mega-crossover stories that are fairly extensive today. I much preferred stand alone titles that didn't cross-over all that much.
All that said, a lot of the stories I enjoyed as a kid I still enjoy now. Early favourites were John Byrne's Alpha Flight (as a Canadian kid, how could I not!), Claremont's X-Men, Walt Simonson's Thor, Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans, various Flash stories, Layton's various Iron Man runs, and I loved Wolfman and Perez's Crisis on Infinite Earths. Oddball tastes included Truman's Scout, Henry and Dillon's Axel Pressbutton (which I'm sure I was reading when I was ten, which probably explains a few things!), Stevens The Rocketeer, James Dean Smith's wonderful Boris The Bear, and then later the whole range of Valiant Comics (especially Barry Windsor-Smith's work including Archer and Armstrong).
Sheryl:
I know you are redoing parts of "the road to god knows..." Why are you doing it?
Von Allan:
Well, the main reason is that I think I've become a better artist, a stronger artist, and some things that I found acceptable at one point I no longer do. I think one thing that's forgotten with artists is that we do get stronger as time goes on. One gets better. I was really worried when I first set out to do "road" to try and keep to a schedule. That meant some drawings tended to be rushed, especially in the early pages, and maybe were a bit sloppy. Another factor is that I found working as small as I had to a problem in certain panels and a poorly executed drawing would be the result. It's a struggle making comics. A fun struggle, but a struggle. Plus we all have good and bad days. For all of these reasons I wanted to go back in and correct things that I felt needed some work. I think it wound up being about 15% of the entire story, plus some tweaks that effected everything (I re-lettered the entire story and I also went in and spotted blacks in what I think is a more dynamic and confident way.)
Actually, the blacks are a good example. Spotting blacks scared me. I couldn't do it well, I knew I couldn't do it well, so avoided doing it like the plague. I'm now much more confident with them. So I wound up tweaking and adding blacks even to drawings I was otherwise content with just to make sure the entire story had a cohesiveness to it - I didn't want to just add blacks to a panel here and there. That simply wouldn't have worked.
If you ever look at the early published work by guys like Barry Windsor-Smith, George Perez, Matt Wagner and John Byrne, you see that they struggled. While I would certainly never put myself in their class, I actually find their struggles heartening. They're struggles are there, in print, for everyone to see. I think one thing that's been lost in comics as the medium as matured, at least in North America, is that the readership is not as tolerant as they used to be for new voices and rougher work. Artists get better. Suck less. It's my mantra!
The first one (page 05 comparison) shows a good example of how I've tweaked things. In the original, there were very few blacks, aside from in the buildings. So that's obviously changed. Also, I had skewed the perspective in the original version, trying to show Marie's uncertainty and hesitation. The problem, I think, is that I didn't go far enough. So, the background just looks like bad perspective instead of her peculiar emotional sense. I fixed that to make the perspective more traditional in the redraw. That part was actually a digital fix as opposed to a redraw.
The second one (page 31 comparison) is a full redraw. I had really struggled with the teacher when I initially drew those panels, so I just completely replaced them. You can also see the new lettering, too.
Lastly, the third one (page 32 comparison) is a bit of a mix of the first two. Like page 05, I strengthened the blacks quite a bit. But like page 31, I added a new drawing, this time completely replacing Kelly with a better posed and drawn version. It's hand drawn and manually placed on the bristol board, but I digitally cleaned up a little bit around her to make her fit in better with the rest of the original drawing.
I should add that these are JUST the black and whites. No grey washes because I still need to do that part. It has been, as I think you can imagine, a lot of work! But hopefully the new versions work for you.
Sheryl:
How did you get involved with Girl-a-Matic? They are redoing the site right now, so I don't even know what the goal of the site is, aside from having a bunch of web cartoons. Maybe you could tell me about that.
Von Allan:
Oh, that's pretty straightforward. Through the Livejournal blog my wife and I run we wound up getting to know a few people online. When we exhibited at APE '07, I wound up meeting some of these people face to face and gave out rough galleys of "road" to a number of them, including Lisa Jonte, the editor of GaM at the time. A few months later she did a call for submissions and I pitched "road" to her. She accepted it. It went as simply as that, probably helped by the fact that she knew the entire story was completed, could hold it in her hand (rough as it was) and read it. And it would serialize on time, too.
I'm not that privy to the changes that are going on, save for the fact that the umbrella company, Web Comics Nation, merged with ComicSpace and the new company was able to get venture funding. That's led to a new business plan and a new re-model to all of the sites (including WCN, GaM, Graphic Smash, Serializer, etc...). How GaM will develop and involve once the revised site launches is beyond me, though. I'm not even sure I'll be a part of it or not.
Sheryl:
I've seen a little bit of your upcoming project Stargazer. Would you like to tell people about the basic story and what you are trying to achieve? Where will we be able to find these new stories?
Von Allan:
"Stargazer" is an attempt to do a pure fantasy story with kids as the protagonists. And do it in a way that isn't cutesy or otherwise devalues and demeans children. Hopefully, if I've done my job right they'll be believable characters, warts and all. I can't reveal anything about the plot right now, though. While the script is done, some things just need to be kept secret!
I wanted to do something that's different. And I wanted to see if I could write (and draw!) kids convincingly. And I wanted to do something that would serve as a bit of a thematic follow-up to "road" and yet be very different at the same time. I think "Stargazer" accomplishes that.
The plan right now is to serialize it on my own website (vonallan.com) beginning in the next few months. I want to "bank" a number of pages before the story launches online, mainly so that the chances of me missing any updates is very small. I still need to determine if it'll be in colour or not, too. The latter is both more labour intensive and presents issues with print publication, but I'm hoping to solve that one way or the other soon.
I have no idea what those print publication plans will eventually be, so that means I need to keep things a bit open-ended right now. That'll shake out in one way, shape or form in the near future, though.
Sheryl:
Once upon a time, you were a manager of a bookstore. Do you think your business experience helped you navigate the business side of comics? What DO you think about the business side of comics and the state of the art nowadays?
Von Allan:
I don't think it really gives me any special insight, except perhaps a better understanding of the concerns that Direct Market retailers have, since they are somewhat similar to book retailers. Comic shops have it tough - they purchase non-returnably, often-times ordering comics sight unseen, and wind up getting blamed by a variety of people who are not sympathetic and/or do not understand how difficult their job is.
I do think that Diamond's monopoly, while making the supply chain more efficient and dependable, has hurt the Direct Market in a number of ways. Diamond uses what, to my mind, is an outdated frontlist ordering system when it comes to comics and to a lesser extent, graphic novels. Save for some rare exceptions, they don't stock titles over what retailers initially order. That means that it's far harder for a title to build on word of mouth attention, positive reviews, and the like. If a retailer happens to sell out of something and tries to re-order it, it can prove extremely difficult to do so. Add in Diamond's re-order penalty and it's encourages more frontlist ordering at the expense of re-orders. This is fundamentally a different ordering model than what the book industry uses (not to argue that the book industry doesn't have its own hurdles to overcome).
Independent titles have a difficult time competing on discount with Diamond's four brokered publishers (Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse). That means that a retailer who purely looks at discount will often find that they're unable to "keystone" their investment (i.e.: earn back double what they invested) and often will disregard a title, regardless of other merits, due to discount alone. While I think retailers miss out on the benefits of a high stock turn rate when they do this across the board, it's hard to blame them for their cautiousness when they order non-returnably. The risk ultimately, is theirs. And as the retail landscape over the past 20 years or so has clearly showed, retailers who increase their inventory speculatively wind up closing their doors pretty quick if the sales don't materialize.
While I don't think anyone is naïve enough to think that indy comics, on the whole, would ever compete with Marvel and DC's market dominance, a lot of the growth of indy comics in the 80s seems to have disappeared. Partially because it's very difficult to grow a title when Diamond has no impetus to stock it over initial orders. In some ways, I actually wish that Diamond would make getting into their catalogue harder, but when a company or title is listed, they would then stock it to a deeper extent in their various warehouses to fulfill potential additional demand. This does happen, but it's piecemeal at best.
This goes a long way to explaining why many of the independent publishers (Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly to name but two) have opened up retail comic stores of their own. This would have been unheard of 5 years ago. It puts publishers in the peculiar positioning that they're now competing with the very retailers they sell to, at least in some markets. It does highlight Diamond's inefficiency and I think a competing national distributor, well-financed and with access to the same brokered publishers that Diamond distributes, would level the playing field. I just don't think it'll happen.
To my mind, Diamond is actually somewhat vulnerable to the changes in publishing that are occurring at an increasing rate. Print on Demand is becoming a major alternative to traditional offset publishing and eliminates the need for publishers to carry large inventories. One would think that Diamond would be in a unique position to offer this service to publishers - they wouldn't have to increase their warehouse inventory at all; rather, they could use the technology to fulfill retailer demand (both initial front list and re-orders) in a remarkably efficient way, without increasing their warehousing expense save for the cost in the POD technology itself. To my knowledge though, this hasn't been done. The key is that someone will do it. Amazon is already doing it (my book, "Li'l Kids," is a POD title that has exactly the same listing space as, say, a Stephen King book does. Or an Alan Moore graphic novel does). Diamond could be at the forefront of this, using a combination of POD and offset printing to grow the Direct Market in a way that would insulate it against future competition. They already have captured the comic shops. It wouldn't have taken much effort at all for them to capture the publishers, too. That they haven't done this may just be their Achilles Heel down the road.
Comics and graphic novels aren't going anywhere. If you think about it, comics are created almost the exact same way that they have been over the past 100 years. Paper. Pencil and ink. Colour. Saddle-stitched and now, with collections and original graphic novels, perfect binding. The way I make comics isn't that different than how Siegel and Shuster made comics. While computers have created new efficiencies, especially when it comes to lettering and colouring the books, how artists make comics hasn't changed all that much. But the mechanism of how comics and graphic novels are manufactured, shipped and sold has been constantly changing in their entire history. From sales on newsstands and pharmacies to flea markets and bookshops. To bundled and distributed with magazines and newspapers to the creation of the Direct Market and multiple specialized distributors. To a distributor war and eventual collapse and consolidation that led to Diamond's eventual monopoly over the field. And in the next 10 or 20 years, what? I doubt very much it'll be the same as today. What if Marvel, or DC, or both end their partnership with Diamond? What if subscription orders for monthly comics were available through Amazon? Barnes and Noble? Or on the distributor side with Ingram and Baker & Taylor? The latter is already capturing graphic novel sales from Diamond as retailers seek out distribution alternatives that maintain, or exceed, Diamond's discount structure. Distribution will change. It's just a question of how it'll look at what the role of Diamond is as the changes develop. And of course, as we've seen with Marvel's aborted Heroes World distribution attempt, some of these changes can happen very quickly.
Sheryl:
Is cartooning a full time job for you? Or is this a side project until you get the movie option?
Von Allan:
Hah! Movie option. Heh. I'm lucky in that right now it's a full-time job, though I do have an unrelated part-time job and, until recently, I actually had two of them. My wife is the main bread-winner, though. If I was alone however, I would have to be using a lot of my spare time to do it. She is remarkably supportive; without her, while I think I would still be making comics, I would have to be doing it in a very different way.
Sheryl:
Is there anything else you might like to add?
Von Allan:
Dear god, no, I think that covers everything! :)
Additional information about Von Allan:
My first graphic novel, "Li'l Kids" (ISBN: 978-0-9781237-1-0) is now available! Links for a free PDF Ebook and to online retailers for a physical copy are at http://www.vonallan.com/shop.html
And my original graphic novel "the road to god knows..." (ISBN: 978-0-9781237-0-3) can be now read entirely online at http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/godknows.php
Web: http://www.vonallan.com
Blog: http://vonandmoggy.livejournal.com
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