Commenting on Someone Else's Resolutions for Others
Broken Frontier's
Matt
Maxwell (not a permalink) has a list of New Year's Resolutions for
various members of the comic book industry. One that confused me
was his
resolution for "
Shonen Jump Boosters":
I hereby resolve to remember that the lion's share of
Shonen Jump are sold on newsstands (and on newsstands,
if you're only
returning fifty-five percent of your run, you're doing GREAT).
Who was disputing that
Shonen
Jump does the bulk of its business on newsstands? Looking
at
ICv2's
estimates
every month, it's obvious
Shonen
Jump's numbers aren't coming from the Direct
Market. If the point was that newsstand sales operate differently
than Direct Market sales, I don't see how this downplays the
impressiveness of
Shonen
Jump's success. After all, Viz has managed to steadily
increase sales of their anthology whereas Marvel's attempt at a
newsstand comic magazine (
Ultimate Marvel Magazine)
fizzled in less than a year.
Other than that, I really liked his list. The only change I'd
make would be the addition of a resolution for one more comic book
publisher:
CrossGen
I hereby resolve to pay in full (ideally including interest) the
freelancers who remain unpaid for their work. I also promise to
apologize for any insults or insinuations I leveled against the wronged
parties, and for the many missed deadlines I promised to make payment
by.
I'd almost forgotten about this situation, but then I saw the headline "
CROSSGEN '03 NEWS ROUND-UP" over on
The Pulse. I assumed it was a round-up of The
Pulse's coverage of the freelancer story, since that was the biggest
news involving CrossGen last year, but it's really just a
self-congratulatory press release touting CrossGen's achievements and
accolades from last year. I know it's only natural for a company
to want to pump up the positive aspects of its record, but it's hard
for me to muster much enthusiasm for a company that has treated its
creators so poorly.
