| Interview mit Dirk Wood von Dark Horse Comics (OmU) |
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| Geschrieben von Marc-Oliver und Björn | ||||||
| Freitag, 16. November 2007 | ||||||
Seite 2 von 2  The US publishing house Dark Horse Comics, located in Milwaukee, Oregon, was founded in 1986 by comics retailer Mike Richardson. Today, Dark Horse is one of the largest and most prominent independent comics companies in the United States. Its publishing strategy rests on two main pillars. The first consists of creator-owned material by gifted and acclaimed creators such as Frank Miller (Sin City, 300), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), John Byrne (Next Men), Paul Chadwick (Concrete), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Eric Powell (The Goon) and Matt Magner (Grendel). Second, Dark Horse has also proven to be proficient in the acquisition and care of the comics licenses of popular science fiction and fantasy franchises like Aliens (at Dark Horse since 1988), Predator (since 1989), Star Wars (since 1991), Buffy (since 1998), Conan (since 2003), novelist Michael Chabon's The Escapist (since 2004) and Serenity (since 2005).But Dark Horse is present in other areas as well. The manga market, which has exploded in the last ten years, is being served with titles such as Akira, Oh My Goddess! and Lone Wolf & Cub. The in-house film production company Dark Horse Entertainment has produced movies like The Mask, Mystery Men and Hellboy, and is currently at work on Hellboy II. And recently, there's been Dark Horse Presents, a comics anthology created in cooperation with MySpace that's available exclusively and for free on the internet.  So, all told, that's more than enough reasons for Comicgate to get in touch with Dark Horse. A first attempt was met with success in 2006, but faulty technology prevented it from being preserved for posterity. At this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, another opportunity presented itself. On the final day of the event, Björn Wederhake (in picture: middle) and Marc-Oliver Frisch (left) made their way to the Dark Horse presence and, amid boxes, bins and homebound human beings, sat down with Director of Marketing Dirk Wood in an orphaned neighboring booth. Mr. Wood, who together with his Dark Horse colleagues Matt Parkinson and Lance Kreiter is also known as "Tiger & The Scorpion," didn't let on that he'd played sudorific rock shows on the two preceding days at Frankfurt's Spritzehaus pub. After inquiring whether the recording device was really, actually working this time, he patiently and confidently faced our questions. BW: Tell us a bit about yourself and the job you're doing at Dark Horse. DW: My name is Dirk Wood, and I'm the director of marketing at Dark Horse Comics. Which means that I'm essentially in charge of all the marketing we do, whether it's trade shows, advertising, websites - just sort of the public face for getting our stuff out there. MOF: Marketing is a good buzzword, I think. Because we just talked to David Lloyd [V for Vendetta artist -ed.], and he was a little disappointed with the promotion for Kickback. DW: Yeah... why, that's an interesting place to start. We love the book. Kickback has been a great book for us. It's a bit of a challenge, when you have 400 books a year, to give the same attention to everything, and there are budgets and things like that. But, you know, we've tried to do our best for David. We love David, and hopefully we can do some more projects together. BW: What he said in the interview was... he felt a bit like you dropped the ball because there was the V for Vendetta movie and he felt that his profile had never been higher. DW: I would just say I have a difference of opinion, and leave it at that. BW: That's fair enough. Are any more Buffy or Firefly series planned? DW: Well, after we finish Season Eight [of Buffy -ed.] - I believe around 30 issues is what we have planned now - we will be doing Season Nine. So, Season Nine will be happening. In terms of Serenity, we're doing a new series that starts around, I believe, January. It's a sequel to the comics series before. Very excited about that, obviously. It's been a huge hit for us.  MOF: You've had some great success with Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently...DW: Yeah, absolutely. It's been great. It's been one of our bestselling comics in the last ten years. MOF: It's been released in the direct market, so far [through which comics specialty stores in the United States and elsewhere are served with US comics product -ed.]. And you've also had Conan, which was a big success in that market when it came out. And you've had Hellboy, which, I think, profited from the movie even in the direct market, which is unusual. I was wondering how significant that market is to you, because obviously those projects are ultimately geared towards bookstores. DW: Well, to me the direct market is the most important part of our business. Y'know, it's really responsible for us and our existence. Of course, we want to sell our books to absolutely everyone. That should be our goal. Whether it's a ten-year-old girl going into a book store or a 40-year-old man going into a comic shop or toystore. To me, the most important thing is fairness across all the markets. The way I always look at it is, if we sell a Hellboy book to someone at a bookstore that wouldn't normally go to a comic shop... well, maybe they'll buy the next one at a comic shop. So, just getting it out there and just increasing your fanbase across all the markets ultimately should be good for everyone. Us, bookstores, comic shops... everyone. MOF: Do you think there's still potential in the direct market? Common wisdom says that it's basically drying out, and that the future of comics lies in bookstores and elsewhere. People seem convinced that the direct market has no future, to put it bluntly. DW: Well, I would say differently. I have a difference of opinion on that. I think there were a few years that were rough for the direct market, but this year has been a great year for us in the direct market. Better than any in the last ten years, probably. And I actually see it growing.  You've got the direct market and the book market. The interesting thing to me is that there seems to be sort of a new model in the United States growing, which are direct market stores that are much more focused on the graphic novel than on the original pamphlet. And they're expanding it by doing really interesting things like galleries, art shows. There's kind of a third market developing. Like real hip, urban type comic shops. I think what's happening is the direct market is actually in a growth period and has a chance to grow. It's just changing.I do think that the old model comic shops, they've had some rough times. But if they alter their business a little bit, there's a chance to really do well. So, it's actually, I think, a really interesting growth period, and there's a lot of potential in the direct market right now that we haven't seen in a few years. Personally, I like that. I like seeing it turn around. The reason, I think, that the perception is that the book market is the future is because comics have become much more mainstream. The fact that comics are going to a wider audience, while it seems like that only benefits the bookstores, I think, in the long run is going to benefit everyone. Including the direct market. MOF: I've done a few pieces on comic book sales and mostly, what I have to rely on are those Diamond numbers - the index information and the resulting estimates. There's been quite a bit of controversy concerning their accuracy, but it's the only information we've got, basically. So I wondered if you have any thoughts on that. DW: Are you talking about the direct market Top 100 books and all that kinda stuff? MOF: Yes. DW: I think they're pretty good at it. Like anything, it's a challenge, when you're selling books all over the world, to keep records like that. But I think they're pretty good. One proof of that is that recently we felt our market share was increasing and that was reflected in Diamond's reporting. Our market share is going up this year, which is great. So, I may be more skeptical of Diamond's numbers if we're, like, "Hey, our sales are going up, how come your information isn't reflecting that?" But it is. So, I think it's pretty on the money. MOF: Digital comics are obviously becoming a huge factor, and probably becoming a larger one as time goes on. You've got Dark Horse Presents, a new anthology which is on the web only. What are your thoughts on digital comics and piracy? How does it affect you? DW: It's a really intersting topic to me, because it's such an unknown quantity in terms of, "What will this really do?" To me... the very essence of comics is that feel. I mean, taking home a comic, you're reading it, putting it in your bag, putting it in your longbox... and even graphic novels. Obviously, there's a new generation of people that are much more used to the idea of enjoying things online and not needing that paper thing. But comics are a little different than books or prose, because to me there's something to the art... It's so much more tangible than when you just see it on the screen. However, they seem to be making great strides in making it more of an experience to see it online. We have a new format on Dark Horse Presents on MySpace that's much better than it was. When you see the pages flip, it's kind of a virtual experience of reading a book, rather than just looking at a PDF.  I think there's no question that digital is going to be a huge part of the future. I don't think, personally, that it'll replace the business in any way. It's an interesting time for us, because Dark Horse Presents is an idea we came up with together with MySpace. Obviously it's a great marketing tool for us to get the thousands and thousands of people at MySpace to pay attention to us. But, really, what we're trying to do is to sell books. If someboy reads the Joss Whedon "Sugar Shock" book online, we're hoping that attracts them to Dark Horse to buy Buffy or some of the other things that we have. So, I think the jury is still out on what digital comics mean. I don't know how you guys feel about it, but it's a bit of a risk for us right now. Because obviously we have to pay our artists and we have to pay our writers to generate all this stuff that we're not charging for. The accountants of the world have a hard time understanding why that makes sense.BW: But, do you think that an alternative like iTunes is possible? Where you put something online and people pay less than a real comic book would cost, because you don't need to pay the printers? Do you think that this would be a viable or possible alternative? DW: Yeah. I do think it is, and I think eventually that's the way it's gonna go. I don't think that this will ever replace what exists, but I think it could be an additional market. And obviously, the idea of selling a whole bunch of books without having to pay for printing is appealing. So, I think it's something that we'll definitely try in the future, but it's just a matter of kind of getting to that place. BW: Just assuming that digital comics become more popular: Do you think this will cause a slump in foreign sales or in selling your licenses because everything is available in the original online? DW: Hard to say. I don't think so. I think it will affect it the same way it does in America. This is my own, personal opinion, but I don't think things like, let's say iTunes, are really, ultimately cannibalizing record sales. If somebody buys a song or two then they wanna go out and buy the whole CD. I don't have any proof of that and I know there's certainly people who feel differently about that. I think the way that the internet has affected sales of things in general is more that the internet is its own entertainment vehicle. Years ago I was in comic retail. And one of my best customers came into the store, and he said, "Y'know, I'm gonna have to start cutting back on my comics." And I was like, "Why?" And he said, "Well, I spend all my time on the internet." I'd have thought, maybe he's buying things on the internet. But in actuality, he just spent so much time on the internet, he didn't have time to read all his comics anymore. I think it's sort of the same thing with iTunes or music. It's not that they don't want CDs. It's that they spend all their time on the computer anyway, so they may have their music there, too. So, I don't know. It's all sort of a philosophical topic. Ultimately, in terms of the foreign editions, I would suspect if it did affect anything, it would be sales of our English books overseas. I think there will always be a market for Hellboy books in Greece, in Greek. Or wherever. Ultimately, it's probably a question for someone smarter than me. But it will be interesting to see. BW: Then there's the question of piracy. Because nowadays the thing is: Something hits the market and it takes like ten minutes for people to scan it and you can get it on P2P networks and Rapidshare. So, how does that affect your business right now? DW: I don't think it's affecting us very deeply right now. But obviously, it is a concern. I don't think any industry wants people taking things that you could otherwise profit from. It's not good for the artists, that's for sure. They need to get paid royalties as well. It's something we always are aware of, but I don't think its affecting us too deeply. We've had a couple of situations where things had leaked out... and you don't want to cause problems with licensors. Things like that. But I think, more than anything, it's something to keep your eye on, and make sure that things are done properly and that you steer clear of things best to be avoided. MOF: On a somewhat related note, Marvel have put large runs of their books on DVDs recently, like 500 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, for example. And you've also got large archives of material - you've been around for quite some time now. Have you ever considered something like that? DW: I'm not sure that we've considered it on DVD specifically, but we've definitely considered it. We were gonna do something similar with a lot of the "Comics' Greatest World" material. I don't know. It's come up... I'm not sure that we have zero plans to do that now. I know that Playboy magazine did something similar, where they released their entire run of Playboy on DVD. I don't know, we'll see. That's an interesting thought. That's something I'll have to ask around back at the office. Marvel's back catalogue is so giant from that early stuff. One thing about Dark Horse... I'm not even sure that this really relates... but there's a lot of pride in the company in terms of the history, of what we have done. And so, I suspect there might be a real hesitation to release that in any format that we feel cheapens the material. And also, keep in mind that Marvel owns all of their stuff, whereas we have a lot of licensed material, we have a lot of creator-owned material. They're not just our books, they're their books too. But in terms of our company-owned material, I suspect we may do something like that in the future. BW: So, some of the stuff you've had success with recently, as always, were movie licenses and the books they were based on. There's this one thing we asked you last year, about retailers complaining that with Sin City and with Hellboy, there weren't enough copies for comics stores when the movie came out. And this year, with 300, there were the same complaints.  DW: Well, this is the thing: It's always a challenge. And, I think, around the time of Hellboy, in particular - the first Hellboy - we had a lot of challenges with that, and there were actually complaints from all markets on that. The direct market tends to be the most vocal - they blog a lot, they talk... But in terms of 300, believe it or not, while that perception was out there, we had more books available than anyone could possibly buy.We had 80,000 books on the water at any given time. The thing is, we have to stay in business. That's the most important thing. I believe - and some of this numbers may be off, but it's in the ball park - if we sold about 180,000 copies or something like that this year of 300, but there's an additional 100,000 books out there, with the returnability factor of the book market, it's a very risky proposition to have that many books out in the market. There was a couple periods where it became tough. It would be like, one week, they wouldn't be here, but they'd come. But in actuality, for the year leading up to the movie, we felt we had a huge quantity of 300. In fact, almost too much. So, it's a bit of a juggling match. It's hard to guess right all the time. But I think we are learning. I think we're getting better. BW: Any other movie deals in store? I mean, there's the Hellboy Animated thing, and afterwards...? DW: Hellboy II is coming, and we're really excited about that. Universal has it now, and because of Guillermo del Toro's increased presence since Pan's Labyrinth, they've actually, I believe, doubled the budget compared to the first. And so we have actually a ton of Hellboy product coming out, and a lot of it's gonna be showing up plenty before the movie, and we're gonna have lot's of copies, too. So, that's the plan. MOF: There are rumors that Baltimore, the novel by Mike Mignola, is going to be a comic. Can you say anything about that? DW: It's funny you mention that. Baltimore, as you know, is a novel by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola. I know that they signed a movie deal just recently. I don't know if we've been in talks with those guys, but - literally yesterday, here at the Fair - we were talking amongst each other and saying, boy, we need to talk to those guys and see if there's interest there. I would suspect we would want to be in the Baltimore business. We work really well with Mike and with Christopher. So, I would hope so, but I've no news on that. That's in actual. BW: Did you see anything of interest on the Book Fair, maybe any German comics, where you said, "This is really interesting"? Or any foreign material which you're considering to publish? DW: Unfortunately, we're so busy at the booth that I wish we could spend more time going out and seeking these things out. But we did get the chance to do a little bit of that. There are a couple of things that we saw from French publishers in particular that are really interesting. We have great partners in France, like Dargaud, Delcourt or Soleil. We've all worked together in the past. It's a bit of a challenge always, because all of the different markets have such different sensibilities. Just because something, say, is popular in Spain or Germany definitely doesn't mean it's gonna be popular in America, and vice versa. But we've had some success with things in the past and we're always looking. But there were a couple of things this year I thought were really intriguing. We're mailing lots of packages back to the editors so they can take a look at 'em.  MOF: You've had the Star Wars lincense for quite some time now, and I think it's been doing quite well in the direct market. I don't know how it's been doing in the book market...DW: Quite well, quite well. MOF: Can you say for how long you've got the license? Because there've been rumors that someone else was interested, and... DW: I actually can't remember right now how long our contract's for. But, as far as I'm concerned, we hope to have it forever. We love working with Lucas, and it's been a huge hit for us this year, particularly in the direct market, but the book sales have skyrocketed, actually. Legacy has been a great hit for us. I think there's always been other publishers interested. Particularly around the time the movies were [coming out]. Obviously, everybody wanted a piece of that. I think Lucas - well, I can't speak for them - but I think they've been real happy about our direction with the the stuff lately. When the movies stopped, there was a legitimate concern that we had to do something new and interesting or it was just gonna fall away. But it turns out, it's been exactly the opposite of that: that our sales since the movies stopped have actually gone up significantly. And, well, I think one of the reasons for that is that they've sort of given us new editorial freedoms that we didn't have before. As soon as the movies were done, they were sort of like, "Hey, go tell some stories." So, that's been great. MOF: That would've been my next question, actually. How many restraints or limitations are there to what you can do in the comics? DW: Well, there used to be a lot more. So that's been real exiciting. For example, Legacy centers around a character - Cade Skywalker - who is a descendant of Luke Skywalker, who is addicted to drugs, and is a bounty hunter hunting Jedi. I think a few years ago they would not have let us do something like that. Still, of course, they have to approve everything. It all has to go through Lucas. But they're really easy to work with and I think they're generally exicted about what we're up to. So, that's a good thing.  BW: Maybe I'm wrong with that, there was this story where Chewbacca died. I think it was in a comic first... or was it book?DW: Comic. BW: So, was that like your idea or where the guys from Lucas comin' to you: "Hey, we've got this idea!" DW: You know, I'm not sure. But that was a series called Star Wars: Chewbacca that came out in the mid- to late nineties. I'm pretty sure that was generated from our editorial department. But it may have been Randy Stradley, or it may have been from our writer himself, or... I'm actually not sure. Whoever it was, it was a good idea, though. Poor Chewbacca. MOF: How important is your website to your business model? In comparison to the other publishers in the American market, it's very well-done. DW: Thank you. Boy, I wish Matt Parkinson was still here, but he had to fly out this morning. He's in charge of the website, he's the online marketing manager and I think he does a great job. It's extremely important to us. I think, going back to your question about digital comics, it's all kind of moving into that direction. It's integral to us. We have a lot of sales generated that you can actually track straight off that website. It's a great way to interact with fans... and retailers, and distributors, and creators. Beyond that, we also try to do a kind of viral, grass roots type marketing on things like our website, YouTube, MySpace, stuff like that. It's just... getting it out there. MOF: We were wondering where your logo was coming from, as well as the name "Dark Horse Comics." Where did it originate, and who designed the logos? DW: Well, there's a good question. It came from Mike Richardson, who is the president and publisher. I'm not quite sure where he got the idea, actually. But I do think, looking back in history, it was a great, appropriate name for the company. It really had a lot to do with the fact that you had Marvel and you had DC and they were running everything. And here we come with some real interesting, alternative comics to that, and at a great time for it too. A lot of black and white... it was just like: Here comes the dark horse on the outside. I'm not sure what his exact inspiration was. I don't know if he was just eating a sandwich one day and went, "Hey...!," But I think it was a great, great title. BW: One question on the format. Several times you mentioned that you really like the German format used by Cross Cult [Cross Cult is publishing several Dark Horse titles in German, e.g. Sin City, Hellboy and The Goon -ed.] and you're considering doing something like that. Was that just kidding or was are you really considering to go small, hardback books, black and white.  DW: No, I definitely wasn't kidding. I kinda recall that conversation, but one thing about us is that we are open to any format ideas out there. It makes it a challenge for our guys in the warehouse. But we're doing large over-sized hardcovers of Mignola's Hellboy stuff now. We have a book coming out, called Perry Bible Fellowship, that's been a huge success for us, that's kind of small and square-bound, and with built-in - sort of - bookmarks. We're open to any ideas like that. For a little while, in the book market in particular, everyone got really enamored with the manga format and that was kinda like a really uniform size. And I think that some publishers, ourselves included, kind of shoved things into that format, just to appeal to the book buyers. I think, looking back, that was a bit of a mistake. I think it's most important that we just try to present the material in whatever format makes the most sense for that art or that vision.And again, that's another situation where we are working with the artists and authors, as well. For example, Kazuo Koike's Lone Wolf & Cub - when we released that series, it was a very unsual format, and it was basically at Koike's request. He wanted to see it in that format. I can't argue with Koike, so we said, 'Okay.' And it turned out to be great. So, it's a partnership. But I'm not sure there is a format we haven't done at this point. We're always experimenting. BW: I've got one last question I always ask, because I try to broaden my mind: Any comic you read in the recent past, doesn't even have to be Dark Horse, where you say: "That's my favourite right now. Go check it out"?  DW: Wow. Sure. I'll start with a Dark Horse thing because this legitimately is really cool. We're doing a comic called The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance [emo rock band -ed.]. It's been a huge hit for us, and I think it's really interesting. First of all, it's not a vanity project in any way. He is a comics guy, and it really comes out in the work. Grant Morrison was a big influence on him. And he's going after something that I think is very ambitious. He's going after a real sort of adult, cool, thought-provoking storyline. And the fanbase that seems to be coming in are a lot of young girls, so it'll be interesting to see how they'll take to it. Because the material to me is geared for a very intelligent comics reader. But that's exciting.In terms of other companies... I would say that I really enjoy the Ed Brubaker Captain America stuff from Marvel. I thought that was actually really good. Yeah. I don't know. That's the best of their line out there. BW: Okay, thanks for the interview. DW: Thanks, guys. RELATED LINKS: darkhorse.com: Official website, featuring lots of previews, downloads, message boards and the complete backlist Dark Horse MySpace Presents: The publishers' new webcomics outlet Image sources: darkhorse.com, picture: Daniel Wüllner
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Kommentare (1)
carsten
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... Sehr interessantes und gutes Interview. Ihr traut Euch ja recht forsche Fragen. Danke dafür. |
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