Gemstone line expansions / online articles

Olivier (M&D) mouse-ducks at orange.fr
Fri Nov 23 02:09:55 CET 2007


John:

>>> Graphic novels (and trade paperbacks collecting comics)
>>> are the fastest growing section of the bookstore trade.
>>> Gemstone should grab it's share of that. Of course, it's critically
>>> important that only the best material be collected.
>>> [...] top-quality material (by a variety of creators) all unified
>>> by some themes: Christmas, sports, wacky monsters, space adventures,
>>> birthdays, etc. 

Darn good points I can't argue with.
I like these themes better than "Spring Fever", which does not quite seem as appealing. We know the selection will surely be good, but what can a non-Disney (Travis' "lector tiro" :D )reader think?   "cute birdies & bunnies, flowers & cuddling"?

Anything "adventure" / "weird" is most universally appealing, I imagine.
"Birthday" is a great idea, because it's always someone's birthday.

To maximize the shelf life (Gary's point), I think those all year-round themes would be better than "Spring Fever" (sorry for insisting on this one; it just apears to be the weak link to me).

Of  course, as shown by the "oh, that's right" / "I hadn't thought of this angle" remarks, we are mostly discussing this as readers in quite an idle fashion-- however much thinking we may do, it's still occasional, and in the comfort of  our carefree reader's position, which is totally different from that of  the editors and publishers who spend days thinking about it, discussing it, and are much more aware of  the ecomonic constraints and marketing strategies, which we eventually get to know (or be reminded of) through this discussion.

My absolute favorite TPB is the "Walt Disney Treasures". This was genius, and the cover was very nicely colored (in a way that emulated the DVD tins, without looking artificial). The only problem is that I haven't seen ads for the book on the DVD or in the cases, whereas the book advertises the DVD.
The choice of  stories was remarkable, too: every major author, artist and character was featured in a good story, which must have been quite tough to achieve.


Jonathan on my suggestion of  online extras:

>>>> Who at Gemstone would manage it? :) Gemstone's pretty small
>>>> (miniscule compared to Egmont) and I doubt they'd have the resources
>>>> to maintain something like that on a regular basis.
>>>> I say keep the occasional articles in the book where more people -
>>>> for now - are apt to see them.


"Scoop!" is linked to Gemstone, isn't it? Therefore, there already is someone savvy enough to put articles online.
The biggest part of  the work, I think, would really be desining the page once and for all.

Then, whenever an artist, an editor, or some other contributor, hands in a paper, they would not be so limited; I guess they are set a maximum allowed of  characters, but an editor still has to go through it; being able to put the whole thing online could make some decisions easier ("shall I keep this sentence?" "what a shame to have to drop this paragraph to make room for a larger picture").

I'm sure John Clark himself  would love to be able to write beyond the constraints of  the inside cover and that, even with experience, he still has to go over his introduction several times to make it fit.

There could be only one picture (to identify the comic immediately), but to make it really simple (and safer copyright-wise, as the licence may not extend to online articles), I suppose there could even be no picture at all, and simply references to the issue within the article.

Could a trial run be considered?



Olivier
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