"THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA IS...?" DECEMBER 21, 2005
Let me get you all up to speed. Follow the journey, and when we are through the woods,
hopefully what we are left is a little understanding about the esoteric nature of the
vast infinite. Among the thought matter drifting in limbo is the nature of business.
WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT? Here it is swiftly. DC comics in recent months has
offered up a 10 cent comic of the BATMAN variety. GREAT. It is on high quality paper,
full color, and is missing nothing from it's other counterparts. GREATERER. Wow,
the big dogs have finally started using our ideas? A corporation controlled by AOL/TIME
WARNER, less? Perhaps. On the surface it seems the problems riding along the sub-concious
of up and coming sequential artists are working themselves out as we, a collective, grow
toward eventual success. Wouldn't that BE WONDERFUL? That our futures where filled with
puppies, kittens, and sweetness? I submit to you, the reader, that it may be filled with
nothing more than suckers. Think about this. They are spending more on printing alone
than the books themselves are selling for. MORE SO, they are selling them for an
ASTRONOMICAL loss.
In a business that is already a soft market they basically are donating comics?
How GENEROUS.Stay with me here. In the well to do market of retail there are FEW businesses
that can sell at a loss. One being Wal-Mart, and that is only because it absorbs loss
like a poster child for broken homes. IT RAKES IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A DAY. BUT it covers
these losses with mark-ups on other products. The comics of detectives DO NOT bring in
BILLIONS of dollars a day. Not even with movie deals like the upcoming SUPERMAN movie.
Look it up if you think my T's are not crossed.
SOOOOO. What's the deal? This stinks of the color yellow. Hearst himself would be made
proud. How do you silence those crying for change? Crying for the medium they hold dear?
Offer up their ideas as sacrifice for the use of example. SEE? SEE? It does NOT WORK!
We've TRIED THAT. What we need to do is stay the path of least resistance, and make money
where we can. Make money where we can, and lose those ideas that have gone the way the dodo.
Kill single issues, and work towards graphic novels. Get ourselves in the newstands. We
wouldn't kill your medium. Trust us.
BULLSHIT. Don't let the wool be pulled over your eyes. Dream your dreams. Don't listen to
the cynics. My words ARE NOT LAW. My words are a dream you had. Wherein the stress of
trying to emerge from your cacoon to the other side of the fence has rendered its' effect.
If even some of your vision has rung true then heed it as you will.
ILEAD MALLOY
SPACIAL TRANCENDANCE