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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 29, 2015 13:01:30 GMT -5
Had a bunch of operating capital.
A progressive ahead-of-their-time attitude towards digital and TPB repackaging of their books.
Female creators, characters, and - what seemed to me on an anecdotal level - a relatively large number of female readers.
Not incredibly high but consistent quality across their whole product line that Marvel or DC never really achieved.
Looking back they seem really ahead of future trends and groundbreaking. Why did they only last from 1998 to 2004?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2015 13:03:22 GMT -5
Had a bunch of operating capital. A progressive ahead-of-their-time attitude towards digital and TPB repackaging of their books. Female creators, characters, and - what seemed to me on an anecdotal level - a relatively large number of female readers. Not incredibly high but consistent quality across their whole product line that Marvel or DC never really achieved. Looking back they seem really ahead of future trends and groundbreaking. Why did they only last from 1998 to 2004? Mark Alessi -M |
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Post by coke & comics on Dec 29, 2015 13:21:27 GMT -5
Had a bunch of operating capital. A progressive ahead-of-their-time attitude towards digital and TPB repackaging of their books. Female creators, characters, and - what seemed to me on an anecdotal level - a relatively large number of female readers. Not incredibly high but consistent quality across their whole product line that Marvel or DC never really achieved. Looking back they seem really ahead of future trends and groundbreaking. Why did they only last from 1998 to 2004? I think mrp has it. You can get all the basics right and still be a douchebag. Gotta also pay the creators. |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Dec 29, 2015 13:51:07 GMT -5
But Didn't he actually pay the creators quite fairly, until the money ran out?
I remember a great Kevin Eastman ITW in the Comic Journal, where he exposed the concept of Tundra (his publishing company) and its inherant failure, artists working with artists : he gave the artists he contracted fair and advanced payement, and they all failed to ever deliver on time becasue if you give a comfortable position to artists, they'll start procrastinate. This is true in all the cases of artists I've seen, it certainly is of me. So I wonder if the creators at Crossgen aren't also responsible for the failure, as you could feel that none of them were 100% solely invested in this adventure, even if it was probably the best money gig they got in years.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2015 14:15:41 GMT -5
This will be anecdotal, but I had a long conversation with a creator who worked for him, one who is generally very outspoken and truthful about the industry, and he basically said Alessi would say or promise anything to get you to sign on exclusive with Crossgen and once you did he would try to hold you over the barrel with it. He ran the company like a medieval fiefdom and considered all the creators essentially his serfs. He was deceitful and only cared about making money no matter what he said in the industry press. He wanted to be lauded for everything he did and honesty was optional coming from him but he would blacklist anyone who lied to him or made a promise they couldn't keep. He'd walk around the Crossgen bullpen and tell artists to stop and redo things his way even if it made no sense or if it meant scrapping an almost done page and starting over, or dictating script changes after the lettering and coloring were done requiring entire pages to be redone but if you then missed a deadline he would punish you (and in the opinion of that creator the changes were always for the worse but if you tried to object or point out something flawed in his point of view you would get shitlisted by him). He wanted everyone working in the bullpen even if it meant relocating to Florida, would do things like promise to help reimburse moving expenses and then tell them something like well your page rate should have been enough to cover moving expenses, why do you think I paid you so much. He would be cheerful and pleasant when talking to you and as soon as you walked away start ripping you behind your back to your peers and again if someone objected or called him on it, they just painted a target on their back. He basically alienated his creators and editors but they were locked into exclusive contracts and leases they had signed when relocating to Florida to become part of the studio based company, so couldn't viably financially break free.
At the end of each day he would go around to see how much each bullpenner had gotten done and then start scolding those who didn't finish enough work in his opinion, basically what am I paying you for, I gave you this gig you owe me better than this type of stuff.
He essentially made it a terrible working environment, was dishonest with his employees and distributors/clients, threw good money after bad with terrible business and creative decisions and pissed away any working capital the company had to work with even if it meant shorting payroll.
So yeah to repeat my initial answer, Mark Alessi.
-M
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Dec 29, 2015 15:04:15 GMT -5
Interesting... so he was a sociopath.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 29, 2015 15:13:59 GMT -5
This will be anecdotal, but I had a long conversation with a creator who worked for him, one who is generally very outspoken and truthful about the industry, and he basically said Alessi would say or promise anything to get you to sign on exclusive with Crossgen and once you did he would try to hold you over the barrel with it. He ran the company like a medieval fiefdom and considered all the creators essentially his serfs. He was deceitful and only cared about making money no matter what he said in the industry press. He wanted to be lauded for everything he did and honesty was optional coming from him but he would blacklist anyone who lied to him or made a promise they couldn't keep. He'd walk around the Crossgen bullpen and tell artists to stop and redo things his way even if it made no sense or if it meant scrapping an almost done page and starting over, or dictating script changes after the lettering and coloring were done requiring entire pages to be redone but if you then missed a deadline he would punish you (and in the opinion of that creator the changes were always for the worse but if you tried to object or point out something flawed in his point of view you would get shitlisted by him). He wanted everyone working in the bullpen even if it meant relocating to Florida, would do things like promise to help reimburse moving expenses and then tell them something like well your page rate should have been enough to cover moving expenses, why do you think I paid you so much. He would be cheerful and pleasant when talking to you and as soon as you walked away start ripping you behind your back to your peers and again if someone objected or called him on it, they just painted a target on their back. He basically alienated his creators and editors but they were locked into exclusive contracts and leases they had signed when relocating to Florida to become part of the studio based company, so couldn't viably financially break free. At the end of each day he would go around to see how much each bullpenner had gotten done and then start scolding those who didn't finish enough work in his opinion, basically what am I paying you for, I gave you this gig you owe me better than this type of stuff. He essentially made it a terrible working environment, was dishonest with his employees and distributors/clients, threw good money after bad with terrible business and creative decisions and pissed away any working capital the company had to work with even if it meant shorting payroll. So yeah to repeat my initial answer, Mark Alessi. -M This was essentially what I'd heard/read online from comic news sources and Crossgen creators as well. So, yeah, it seems to have been mostly on him and financial mismanagement. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 29, 2015 15:16:07 GMT -5
I was really sad Crossgen didn't make it. They had interesting, unique books from good creators. I know this is going to sound weird coming from me, but I think they tried too hard to tie things together.. the books they were doing made alot more sense separately than as a shared universe.
I also would have loved the anthology style trade they were doing to catch on.. that was a great idea (so I
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2015 20:53:50 GMT -5
I was really sad Crossgen didn't make it. They had interesting, unique books from good creators. I know this is going to sound weird coming from me, but I think they tried too hard to tie things together.. the books they were doing made alot more sense separately than as a shared universe. I also would have loved the anthology style trade they were doing to catch on.. that was a great idea (so I Ah but the shared universe concepts were essentially Alessi's and were what he wanted in all the books. He wanted the line to be a tribute to his "genius" of an idea on ow to tie everything together. But whatever. I avoided the company when it was coming out until very late int eh game, and did like what I sampled, so I have tracked down some stuff since they folded-one shop I went to had a bunch of Crossgen trades for $2 each and some Forge/Edge volumes for a buck each. Someday I will fill in the holes to read more of it, but it's stuff I find in quarter and fifty cent bins for the most part now so I just wait 'ti I find stuff cheap. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2015 21:17:29 GMT -5
I like Sojourn and Greg Land. I remember buying a whole run of them from...gasp!...Mile High Comics....
I giveth not one arse that he traces as long as the finished product on paper is nice to look at.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Dec 29, 2015 23:14:24 GMT -5
I shared this out in facebook land and got one other perspective that I thought was a very reasonably explanation for how Crossgen failed: ...Comic readership was probably at it's lowest ebb EVER during the exact years they were operating. And those that were buying comics (myself included) weren't going to invest time and money in a new company/comic universe that was inevitably going to fold no matter how good it looked. We had already been burned by Valiant, Ultraverse, a unified Image universe, etc. By that point, older readers were too jaded and there weren't enough new readers to support anything.
... by '98, most of the new universes had been launched and already failed. If Crossgen had been in the midst of the early 90's glut or if they had been launched around 2010 when people were starting to get interested in comics again, they might have had a better chance. In '98, comic sales were so bad that Marvel gave their top 4 titles to the exact same guys who "screwed them over" to leave and form Image. Desperate times. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2015 23:30:24 GMT -5
I shared this out in facebook land and got one other perspective that I thought was a very reasonably explanation for how Crossgen failed: ...Comic readership was probably at it's lowest ebb EVER during the exact years they were operating. And those that were buying comics (myself included) weren't going to invest time and money in a new company/comic universe that was inevitably going to fold no matter how good it looked. We had already been burned by Valiant, Ultraverse, a unified Image universe, etc. By that point, older readers were too jaded and there weren't enough new readers to support anything.
... by '98, most of the new universes had been launched and already failed. If Crossgen had been in the midst of the early 90's glut or if they had been launched around 2010 when people were starting to get interested in comics again, they might have had a better chance. In '98, comic sales were so bad that Marvel gave their top 4 titles to the exact same guys who "screwed them over" to leave and form Image. Desperate times. Well if you look at Comichron, Crossgen, with far fewer titles than Dark Hose and Image, was pulling in a comparable percentage of the marketshare as either publisher by 2002, 2 years into the launch. So they were selling at least as much (more if you consider there were fewer titles to make up that %age of marketshare) than the most successful small publishers of the time. So it's not that retailers/consumers weren't buying the books, they were selling at more than respectable numbers for a non-big 2 publisher of the time. The difference, DH and Image had managements teams that knew how to conduct business to keep the business viable. CrossGen didn't. -M |
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 30, 2015 13:20:57 GMT -5
Combination of things, but Alessi's mismanagement seems to be the main part.
Also Crossgen comics tended to be a bit more expensive than other comics at the time (I believe they were like $3 and other published were at $2.50 or so? Don't have any here to check.)
And putting out singles, then collecting those same issues in anthologies, trades, digests and selling them digital. I loved the digests and the anthologies, but doing all of that at the same time was stretching themselves too much, I think.
And finally the insistence that all tied into the larger story while many titles would have been stronger on their own premise.
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Post by coke & comics on Dec 30, 2015 13:25:19 GMT -5
This will be anecdotal, but I had a long conversation with a creator who worked for him, one who is generally very outspoken and truthful about the industry, and he basically said Alessi would say or promise anything to get you to sign on exclusive with Crossgen and once you did he would try to hold you over the barrel with it. He ran the company like a medieval fiefdom and considered all the creators essentially his serfs. He was deceitful and only cared about making money no matter what he said in the industry press. He wanted to be lauded for everything he did and honesty was optional coming from him but he would blacklist anyone who lied to him or made a promise they couldn't keep. He'd walk around the Crossgen bullpen and tell artists to stop and redo things his way even if it made no sense or if it meant scrapping an almost done page and starting over, or dictating script changes after the lettering and coloring were done requiring entire pages to be redone but if you then missed a deadline he would punish you (and in the opinion of that creator the changes were always for the worse but if you tried to object or point out something flawed in his point of view you would get shitlisted by him). He wanted everyone working in the bullpen even if it meant relocating to Florida, would do things like promise to help reimburse moving expenses and then tell them something like well your page rate should have been enough to cover moving expenses, why do you think I paid you so much. He would be cheerful and pleasant when talking to you and as soon as you walked away start ripping you behind your back to your peers and again if someone objected or called him on it, they just painted a target on their back. He basically alienated his creators and editors but they were locked into exclusive contracts and leases they had signed when relocating to Florida to become part of the studio based company, so couldn't viably financially break free. At the end of each day he would go around to see how much each bullpenner had gotten done and then start scolding those who didn't finish enough work in his opinion, basically what am I paying you for, I gave you this gig you owe me better than this type of stuff. He essentially made it a terrible working environment, was dishonest with his employees and distributors/clients, threw good money after bad with terrible business and creative decisions and pissed away any working capital the company had to work with even if it meant shorting payroll. So yeah to repeat my initial answer, Mark Alessi. -M I don't have quotes handy. But I'm pretty sure several prominent creators are on record saying precisely that. Guy seemed to have a good head for marketing. A bad one for human resource management. And a somewhat skewed one for editorial. |
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Post by coke & comics on Dec 30, 2015 13:30:07 GMT -5
I was an immediate adopter of Crossgen. Oversaturation eventually took me away from it. I began just buying it all, while only really loving Scion and Meridian. But as they put out more and more, I couldn't buy it all, so I cut what I cared less about, leaving me essentially with Scion and Meridian. And then life and budgets got in the way and I eventually lost track of both those titles as well.
I've since picked up a couple trades from each and would like to have the whole series in trade.
I also gave Crossgen digital a go, as it was like $2 a year. I think they were just too ahead of the times in this, and technology in terms of tablets and e-readers wasn't quite ready. I think my digital subscription is part of what convinced me I could let Meridian and Scion go, but then I didn't get the same joy reading the comics on my laptop. It was a bit cumbersome and I just found myself choosing instead to read from the physical comics I owned. I was only freshly at the point where my buying had surpassed my reading. For my first decade of comic collecting I read everything as I bought it. But at that time I had fallen behind. And since I was behind on my physical books, I feel even more behind on my digital reading, and eventually Crossgen was just a memory.
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