The Webcomicker

The cover of the Cowboys and Aliens graphic novel.

Here’s an interesting philosophical question for you: which is more important, the continued growth of webcomics, included increased penetration into mainstream markets, or the continued status of webcomics as the independently owned “little guys” who have managed against all odds to carve out a market for themselves on the internet and enjoy some measure of success?

Because it looks like we can’t have it both ways.

Let’s talk about Platinum Studios for a moment.  Platinum Studios is (apparently) a company “that specializes in developing and adapting comics and graphic novel content to feature film, television, animation, games, the Internet, and other media.”  (From the corporate page).  It’s headed by Scott Rosenberg, who has a long and checkered past in the comics industry (more on that later).  And in one of the more talked about events of 2006, they purchased Drunk Duck.  And many people were worried about what it would mean for a corporate entity to control webcomics.

Well, as it turns out, it means about as much as what you’d expect it to mean.  It has all the advantages and disadvantages of corporate control.

Now, let’s talk about Cowboys and Aliens for a moment.  Cowboys and Aliens is an entertaining romp in the form of an Old West/sci-fi crossover.  It’s far from great literature, but it’s certainly not bad by any stretch of the imagination.  The story is entertaining, the pacing and art is decent, and they manage not to beat the concept to death.  I followed the strip online and enjoyed it enough that when they announced the book coming out I figured, why not buy it?  I buy almost every other webcomic book that comes out.

They mentioned that the book could be found at local comic book stores, and I figured “yeah, right, I’ve heard that before,” but I went into the local shop to check it out anyways (why not?  I’m there all the time renting anime as it is), and to my surprise, there it was, multiple copies of it, sitting on the shelf for 5 bucks.  And this is not some spectacular comic shop either.  I’d rate their selection as average (read - mostly DC and Marvel, with a lot of manga thrown in).
Now, this is far from a triumph for webcomics.  After purchasing the book and reading it, it was very clear to me that this was written as a graphic novel, and always had been.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was finished and ready to go to print before Platinum even bought Drunk Duck.  Cowboys and Aliens is not one of those “Drunk Duck originals” that pushed its way through the ranks to mainstream distribution.  It’s a launch title for Platinum Studios.  Rosenberg was smart enough to leverage all the publicity about the Drunk Duck purchase and launch the strip online, where it could generate some discussion and a following before releasing it in its originally intended form.  But it’s not really a webcomic, just a graphic novel serialized online that will come to an end in the next few months, and very likely not have any sequels or continuation.

But what it represents is what a corporate entity could do for webcomics (and, at least in Platinum Studios rhetoric, intends to do).  Here was a 112 page full color perfect bound book, with what I would call good printing quality, available at your average comic book store for 5 bucks.  A book collecting a comic that was originally printed on the web in typical webcomic style (five updates a week, one page per update, with creator commentary).  This was a shock for someone who’s gotten used to paying 15-20 dollars for a black and white book, plus shipping, and even more than that for color.  What a magnificent step forward.  And this could happen for any Drunk Duck comic that gets popular enough.  (On a side note: do you think this is enough of an incentive that more webcomic creators will opt to have their projects on Drunk Duck?)
However, it comes at a price.  And here’s where the disadvantages of corporate control come in.  See, the corporation, benevolent as it may be, always cares more about what is in the best interests of the corporation than the creator.  When a webcomic artist is working independently, its all about the creator and supporting them.  Sure it may cost a bit more to help out, but you get that good feeling that you’re really making some person’s dream come true.  But when there’s a corporate wall between you and the creator, you don’t know who you’re helping out, in the long run.  And this has already proved true for Platinum Studios, and interestingly enough it’s with Cowboys and Aliens again.

See, Platinum Studios made the rather interesting announcement a few days ago (although the webstie is showing a slightly less bold claim now) that Cowboys and Aliens was the top selling graphic novel of [some time period, I’m unclear on this detail].  Anyways, this smelled odd to some people, so they did a little snooping around and uncovered some shady dealings by Platinum to get this blurb for their comic.  The writer of that post seems to actually dislike the content of Cowboys and Aliens, which clearly colors his judgement somewhat, but the point is that some backroom dealing did go on.  The basic gist is that retailers were paid to stock Cowboys and Aliens and were therefore able to sell it at ridiculously low prices (apparently this only happened in some areas?  I paid full price…)  And apparently, Scott Rosenberg has a bit of a history (search his name out of that monster article) as a wheeler dealer (scroll down to the Comics Industry section).

But you know what?  This is the way a corporation functions.  They manipulate the numbers.  They throw money around so they can increase their exposure and therefore get more lucrative properties and make more money.  They don’t build publishing empires by putting up donation wallpapers on their websites.  The increased exposure and increased market penetration comes at the price of having to do all the dirty work to get increased exposure and increased market penetration.  That’s how the business world works.
So what does this all mean?  Does it diminish Cowboys and Aliens?  Certainly not to the casual reader who only cares about the content and was probably happy to see something cheap.  It certainly diminishes the perceived success of Cowboys and Aliens, and the ability of the graphic novel to “stand up on the strength of it’s own inherent quality”.  It puts an awfully big footnote into the Cowboys and Aliens story.  But at the same time, where would Cowboys and Aliens be without it?

Do we want Platinum Studios to be the “DC of webcomics”?  Do we even want a “DC of webcomics” at all?  These are interesting questions to ask, and Cowboys and Aliens raises them in a major way.

At least it’ll be remembered for that.