December 23, 2008:

THE BLUEWATER COOLER: Publisher Darren G. Davis rants and raves about the comic industry: ISSUE 2

I thought I would make this a light blog entree due to the holidays. I just did a pretty candid interview with Comic Con: The Pulse.

I wanted to talk a little about the books that have been canceled at Bluewater. I am really disapointed about "Ret Rommane" being canceled after issue #1, after Alan Brooks' run on "Ray Harryhausen Presents: Flying Saucers vs. the Earth." His creator-owned book was pretty amazing and had the same feel as FSVE. Also canceled was the "Waterbury" series, our first jump into the manga world. Sales for the issue were less than 500 copies. This will be released this as a graphic novel in the near future. It is a really good story.

We were lucky that Diamond did not cancel "Bartholomew of the Scissors." The cutting-edge book was accepted by Diamond before they changed their policies. This book will do better in trade paperback form. Look for it in March. Go out and support the independents!

If the book does not start off strong, Diamond will not cut a purchase order for it. This is a good business plan for Diamond but not for small publishers like Bluewater. At this point, we need to sell at least 1,500 copies in order to secure the book. I remember the days at Image, when we sold more than 100,000 copies of "10th Muse" #1, now a lot of Image books are falling below even the 1,500 run. Back then, we had to pull in at least 9,000 copies to break even on a color comic book. Nowadays, I have no idea how companies like Image manage to be profitable.

Once upon a time, Bluewater was called TidalWave, and its books were published by Image, led then by Jim Valentino. At first, Valentino loved TidalWave's work and we loved working with Image and Valentino. What Valentino didn't love was our interest in publishling more than the in the Image agreement (books like Judo Girl, Zak Raven & Atlas). We wanted to grow, and when we asked for more, Valentino called us arrogant and pushed back.

The banter was professional until Valentino insisted on making decisions on the books' creatives. We did Randy Green's "The Dollz" and Valentino made us change the spelling of thechange the spelling of "Dolls" to "Dollz." Randy Green was annoyed with this, but we had to pick our battles back then. Image had been founded on the priciple that creators ruled the books, not publishers, which is what made them so attractive. But soon enough, we were at odds with Valentino over all things creative. He called us punks in the press and underestimated our resources. One of the TidalWave books featured a celebrity of sorts, Sable from the WWE. She brought us national attention, and our press agent sent out releases about our partnership. Valentino didn't want news distributed about our books without first going through him, so he came unglued with each release. As our relationship with Image unraveled, we learned we weren't alone in our frustration with Valentino and the newfound corporate (business?) mentality. Devil's Due, Hurricane and Red Star also reported they felt creatively stifled. TidalWave's three-year relationship with Image ended at the same time as our comic-book colleagues and we left together.

When we launched "10th Muse" in 2001, we were called into Top Cow's offices. Top Cow editor Matt Hawkins said that Top Cow was concidering filing a cease-and-decist order over the lightning bolt on the Muse's face. Top Cow has a character called Velocity with a similar mark. I mentioned that their character Rip Claw character resembled Wolverine and Psylocke from the X-men also had a similar mark on her face and they the issue. The story behind the lightning bolt is we were working with Sable from the WWE (Rena Mero) at the times and didn't want to cover her face with a mask, so I used Zeus' lightning bolt. Coincidentally, the meeting with Hawkins came the same week Diamond reported "10th Muse" was No. 6 on its best-selling list, above all Image books.

Another Image Comics note: when Alias Comics went under, we contacted Image about going back. We pitched them "10th Muse," "Legend of Isis" and the Ray Harryhausen line of comics. They said no to all; they did not want to do bad-girl books. What was strange was that the new head of Image, Erik Larson, knew "10th Muse" was not a bad-girl book. We had done a crossover with "10th Muse" and Image's Savage Dragon that same year. He also did not like the art on "Ray Harryhausen Presents: Wrath of the Titans". I was shocked. Nadir Balan's artwork on this book was amazing and one of Bluewater's highlights. Larson's critique confirmed it as time for me to self publish.

I really liked what Image comics represented in the '90s. I was proud to have the Image "I" on my books. Since my departure, Jim Valentino and I have made amends. I would love for him to do a cover for Bluewater. Even though Image Comics passed on us a couple years ago I have great respect for them. I look at Previews each month and see the route they are going. It is good to see "Invincible" and "Noble Causes" still going.

I've received requests from readers to gossip in this blog. They want dirt on the inker wrote about in my last blog. This blog is more of a place for me to rant and rave about the industry (and its players) than a funnel for gossip. Of course, names will be mentioned, but only if they're relevant to the context of my experiences including misfortunes with a particular inker.

Have a great holiday. Until next time,

Darren