It seems like just about every new online start-up or big merger you read about today is promising some kind of media revolution. If you believe the hype, the Internet is going to replace television, bring us movies on demand, and fix it so you'll never buy another audio CD again.
We've been slowly inching toward these and other ambitious goals ever since I first heard the promises back around 1995, and we've still got a long way to go. But on Saturday, visitors to this year's Alternative Press Expo got a chance to observe the digital revolution underway at full speed in another medium: the humble art of cartooning.
The Expo, called APE for short, is an annual gathering for writers, artists, publishers, and distributors of small-press and underground comic books, graphic novels, and zines. Hosted in San Jose for some five years, a scheduling conflict brought APE 2000 to Fort Mason.
The change couldn't have been more appropriate. San Francisco is a cultural mecca for online content; and like no other industry, comics publishing is rapidly turning to the Internet for a chance not only to expand, but merely to survive.
Since 1995, an estimated one-third of all comics stores nationwide have closed their doors. Overall sales of superhero magazines, the mainstay of the comic book biz, are at their lowest point in 30 years.
Where once there were three major distributors of comics and graphic novels for retailers to choose from, now there is only one. And in December 1996 Marvel, publisher of such characters as Spider-Man and the Hulk, underwent Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings from which it has yet to fully recover.
With movies, television, and video games all siphoning away the pocket change of today's adolescents, Marvel must increasingly rely on licensing its characters to these other media for revenue. Ditto DC Comics, publisher of Superman and Batman, itself now a subsidiary of Warner Bros. For these "Big Two" publishers, cartoons and toys make the money, while the comics themselves have become almost a sideline.
So-called "alternative" publishers, like Seattle's Fantagraphics or Massachusetts-based Highwater Books, have it even worse. Sans capes and cowls, their comics are aimed at an older audience than the Big Two's: typically college students, with more disposable income than the average 7th-grader.
But without a stable retailing and distribution system, the little guys too are feeling the pinch. Sales have gotten so bad that many artists produce comics solely out of love for the medium, relying instead on avenues like commercial illustration to make a living.
True to comic book form, however, there may yet be hope. And for many, artists and publishers alike, that hope lies in computers and Internet technology. By reducing the costs and logistical challenges involved in producing, marketing, and distributing comics, modern digital techniques might yet restore life to this unique artform.
While traditionally an analog bunch, more and more comics artists are using computers to take the drudgery out of their work. Some have begun to experiment with 3-D modeling and elaborate Photoshop effects, but in most cases the changes are happening behind the scenes, in ways you might not expect.
Today, almost all comics are colored digitally, reducing pre-press costs. And computer typesetting has all but universally replaced traditional hand lettering. The practice has become so commonplace that several companies now sell fonts specifically designed to aid cartoonists.
As San Francisco-based poster artist Frank Kozik explained at APE, "Before, you used to draw a piece of black and white art, and then just filling in the letters used to take all day... Now, with the computer, you can pick any font that exists, type it in, and it comes out perfectly."
For Kozik, like many cartoonists, the time savings gained through digital techniques is a godsend. "I want every piece of equipment out there," he says. "Every crazy scanner, every new generation of graphics software."
But the impact of computers on modern cartooning only begins at the drawing board. Without a doubt, the biggest benefit to comics has been the explosion of the Internet. In light of the thousands of retail comics stores that have closed their doors in recent years, many are hoping the Web will provide new avenues to connect cartoonists with their audience.
San Francisco-based comics publisher and distributor Last Gasp is one of those seeing promising returns from a Web presence, according to employee Michelle Schlachta. "Mail order is booming," she confirmed at Last Gasp's popular APE booth. "It's maybe 2-3 times what it was."
Schlachta speculates that the secret may partially lie in the ease with which an online catalog can be updated compared to a traditional print catalog. "New releases get added to the site as they arrive," she says, "and we have a guy who scans in the covers of new materials so people can look at them."
Many retailers feel that the Web is definitely the key to the future of their business. At a panel during last year's San Diego Comicon, all retailers present agreed that at least 15 percent of all comics sales would occur online.
Chuck Rozanski of national mail-order house Mile High Comics put the figure as high as 75 percent — and he's putting his money where his mouth is. Rozanski recently signed on to a partnership with Amazon.com that allows him to sell his inventory through Amazon's zShop web-stores.
Others are betting big on an online future for comics, as well. Visitors to this year's APE were greeted with a free shopping bag courtesy of San Francisco-based startup NextPlanetOver.com. NextPlanetOver aims to be an online superstore for what co-founder David Reid calls the "entertainment hobbyist" market.
The e-commerce site sells comics, toys, Japanese animation, and all the other tchotchkes you might typically find in comic book stores. Venture capital funded, the company has already secured $5 million in backing.
The appearance of these large online sales ventures has sparked debate amongst the comics retailing community. Some feel that the heavy investment received by companies like NextPlanetOver will make the death of the brick-and-mortar comic store a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Others see the transition to a Web-based marketplace as a good thing. Among them is longtime cartoonist Rick Veitch, himself co-founder of Comicon.com.
In place of the traditional "direct sales market" of distributors and retail stores, Veitch envisions something he calls the "connect sales market." Through the Internet, he feels, small press and independent cartoonists can reach their audience directly, removing themselves from the mass-market economics of magazine publishing that have never really worked for comics.
Still others look to the Web as a means to deliver a whole new kind of comics: no publisher, and no paper involved. Artists like Mark Badger and Understanding Comics author Scott McCloud are using the Internet to deliver comics that side-step the boundaries of the traditional print medium.
Almost every table at this year's APE had some kind of sign promoting a Web site or email contact address. For comics, no doubt this can only be seen as a good thing. Comics, as a medium, has found a way to survive since around the 15th century.
Despite the current rough times, computers and the Internet seem the ideal tools to carry it into the 21st — and maybe, into a new renaissance for the form. Cartooning, inherently inexpensive entertainment to produce, is certainly poised to make the leap to online delivery sooner than movies or television. As a fan of comics myself, I look forward to seeing what happens.
