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Bad Idea Comics
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53 posts in this topic

I can get behind no variants and no 2nd printings, but no digital and no TPB plus a limit of 1 per customer in a base of 20 stores cuts a huge % of your potential customers out.  The math above sums it up too, you’ve got a loss leader strategy in place and unless you have deep pockets it’s not sustainable.  Still, impressive creator list and Valiant did some good titles back in the day.  I wish them well but I think they’re making some big mistakes.

Edited by AndyFish
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7 hours ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

They've released a single image and you've concluded already that they're ripping off two specific things?

I made an observation. You'd think the first title for such a limited release project would be something fresh and unique to set itself apart. Perhaps it is, but that image sure looks a lot like the previous works I pointed out. Then again, what the heck is original nowadays? Rare is the truly unique creation.

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6 hours ago, AndyFish said:

I can get behind no variants and no 2nd printings, but no digital and no TPB plus a limit of 1 per customer in a base of 20 stores cuts a huge % of your potential customers out.  The math above sums it up too, you’ve got a loss leader strategy in place and unless you have deep pockets it’s not sustainable.  Still, impressive creator list and Valiant did some good titles back in the day.  I wish them well but I think they’re making some big mistakes.

Perhaps there's more to the story than we all know at this point. But if not, yeah, I don't really get it and I'm pretty certain we'll some insane sales prices on Ebay as some of those issues hit the secondary market.

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3 hours ago, KEY ISSUES Comics said:

I made an observation. You'd think the first title for such a limited release project would be something fresh and unique to set itself apart. Perhaps it is, but that image sure looks a lot like the previous works I pointed out. Then again, what the heck is original nowadays? Rare is the truly unique creation.

Someone once said that there are only two stories; a person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. Everything is variations of those two. Kindt has written enough interesting comics that I think this won't be a clone of something else.

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11 hours ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Someone once said that there are only two stories; a person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. Everything is variations of those two. Kindt has written enough interesting comics that I think this won't be a clone of something else.

Maybe. Who knows until it comes out. Once again, my comment is solely based upon the image/visuals.

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On 2/6/2020 at 2:01 PM, WoWitHurts said:

How many copies of any given book would they sell in those 20 shops (the only distribution)? 10? 20? More?

 

I would say 20 is optimistic but at 20 x 20 shops = 400 issues sold per single issue. But let me say they sell 2000 single issue comics @ $4 cover price. $8000 gross and at a 50/50 split with the stores. $4000 comes back to the company.

 

Costs. Line Art, Inks, Colors, letters. Low estimates would be $120/$100/$75/$30 or $325 per page. They say perfect bound books so I will say conservatively a page count of 40 pages. $325 x 40 = $13000 for a single comic.

 

If they just print the 2000 issues sold an estimate cost for printing is $3500

 

That's ($16500) - $4000 = ($12500) in the hole for every single issue comic. Not including any overhead or shipping costs from the printer or to the stores.

 

I guess 20 copies per store is massive underestimation. Since there will be only 20 stores at select cities, it would easily be in the hundreds. I mostly shop online on eBay or comic stores like MCS. But, if Houston or Austin gets a store I will drop by to collect their comics, at least for the first few months.

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13 hours ago, allthingskryptonite said:

I guess 20 copies per store is massive underestimation. Since there will be only 20 stores at select cities, it would easily be in the hundreds. I mostly shop online on eBay or comic stores like MCS. But, if Houston or Austin gets a store I will drop by to collect their comics, at least for the first few months.

For the Month of December The Amazing Spider-Man sold 67,111 copies to comic book stores. There are approximately 2300 stores. That's an average of  29 ASM orders per store. I just don't see a new company product which there are tons of every month selling better than ASM. I concede they may sell more than 20 but hundreds I am not sure about. The model still does not work at 20 stores x 200 copies per store. Less of a loss but a loss none the less. Don't get me wrong, I hope they do well. I am simply responding to the OP's question of if it is a good business model.

I would like to see comic stores go to a returnable model. It would help Independent publishers get their books into stores. As it is right now the Comic stores take all of the risk and if they mess up their orders any given month it could be a huge loss. The additional cost of printing more copies is worth getting 1-5 copies in every store.

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Just throwing this out there...

Dinesh Shamdasani was "forced out" of Valiant because DMG wanted 100% control of the company.  In order to do that, DMG had to "buy out" Dinesh for the full value of his ownership in Valiant at the time.

Right after DMG bought him out of Valiant, Dinesh is known to have (publicly) put quite a bit of money into comics and comic art, specifically, he bought the original art cover of Amazing Spider-Man #300.

Now, it is entirely possible that Dinesh has set aside a certain amount of money... possibly a large amount of money... ONLY for one purpose... to potentially lose it by doing something fun for him... hiring all his favorite people from Valiant to create some new comics and -NOT- worrying about making a profit.

I don't know for sure, but we all have that "what if I won the lottery?" dream, right... well what if you did?  What if you bought incredible comics and comic art and then just decided to have some fun hiring professional comic artists/writers/editors/etc., to make a few comics just for the heck-of-it?  What if there wasn't even a thought about profits?

Bad idea?

Edited by valiantman
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https://aux.avclub.com/the-original-a-i-shifts-the-course-of-history-in-this-1841556596

"With Bad Idea, there are absolutely no constraints with storytelling or format or concept. It really is in a lot of ways the pinnacle—the kind of thing I’ve been working toward my entire career. Total artistic freedom and the financial ability to not only work with the best artists in the industry, but also to dictate the format and the roll out and how these comics will reach the reader. And thanks to my partners, Dinesh and Warren, I think we’ve really built something unique that hasn’t been seen in the comic book industry before.” -Matt Kindt

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22 minutes ago, Second Blight said:

Bad Idea was only formed to generate some comics and IPs for Hivemind to make into movies. Seems that's what these indie publishers do these days.

If that's all they're doing, they didn't need to name themselves "Bad Idea".  They would be "Same Idea".

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47 minutes ago, Second Blight said:

Bad Idea was only formed to generate some comics and IPs for Hivemind to make into movies. Seems that's what these indie publishers do these days.

Except Dinesh is definitely a *comics* fan. He wants to make comics. That there is a profit potential in adaptation into other media is a huge plus, of course, but I don't think that's the "only" reason.

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7 hours ago, valiantman said:

Just throwing this out there...

Dinesh Shamdasani was "forced out" of Valiant because DMG wanted 100% control of the company.  In order to do that, DMG had to "buy out" Dinesh for the full value of his ownership in Valiant at the time.

Right after DMG bought him out of Valiant, Dinesh is known to have (publicly) put quite a bit of money into comics and comic art, specifically, he bought the original art cover of Amazing Spider-Man #300.

Now, it is entirely possible that Dinesh has set aside a certain amount of money... possibly a large amount of money... ONLY for one purpose... to potentially lose it by doing something fun for him... hiring all his favorite people from Valiant to create some new comics and -NOT- worrying about making a profit.

I don't know for sure, but we all have that "what if I won the lottery?" dream, right... well what if you did?  What if you bought incredible comics and comic art and then just decided to have some fun hiring professional comic artists/writers/editors/etc., to make a few comics just for the heck-of-it?  What if there wasn't even a thought about profits?

Bad idea?

And that's great. It is what I am doing myself on a smaller level. That does not make it a good business model which is what the OP was asking. Again, I wish them all the best, I would love to see a work around to Diamond.

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8 minutes ago, WoWitHurts said:

And that's great. It is what I am doing myself on a smaller level. That does not make it a good business model which is what the OP was asking. Again, I wish them all the best, I would love to see a work around to Diamond.

Well, I was really up for discussing any aspect of the venture. But I figure until we know more about the books, the business model is definitely something different from how other companies are running themselves, and therefore ripe for discussion I think. I imagine there's more to how they're going to be working that will make a little more apparent sense to comic fans as they reveal more info.

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9 hours ago, WoWitHurts said:

For the Month of December The Amazing Spider-Man sold 67,111 copies to comic book stores. There are approximately 2300 stores. That's an average of  29 ASM orders per store. I just don't see a new company product which there are tons of every month selling better than ASM. I concede they may sell more than 20 but hundreds I am not sure about. The model still does not work at 20 stores x 200 copies per store. Less of a loss but a loss none the less. Don't get me wrong, I hope they do well. I am simply responding to the OP's question of if it is a good business model.

I would like to see comic stores go to a returnable model. It would help Independent publishers get their books into stores. As it is right now the Comic stores take all of the risk and if they mess up their orders any given month it could be a huge loss. The additional cost of printing more copies is worth getting 1-5 copies in every store.

I believe the correct analogy here would be: instead of being sold at 2300 stores, if ASMs are only sold at 1 store in 20 select citites, would it sell ~30 copies/store or more? I would say it will sell in thousands/store. 

The first issue(s) would sell out of sheer curiosity. Subsequently, it depends on how good the art or story is received by the readers. 

As far as enforcing one copy per customer that does limit sale. Many collectors prefer to buy 2, one to read and one to preserve. But it is difficult if not impossible to enforce. I am sure that certain eBay stores would have it up for sale as soon as it releases.

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Interesting strategy but a lot about the business model doesn't make sense.

1. No digital. Digital is where the future growth of the industry is. The LCS is dying a slow death. That's like a move studio saying "we're only making DVDs. No streaming whatsoever."

2. No collections/TPBs. If the books are good, these are evergreen revenue streams with bigger margins than the floppies. Why forego all that extra cash?

3. Limited rollout to 20 stores. I get they are circumventing Diamond and self-distributing, cutting out the middle man, but as discussed there's no way these books can be profitable when they are available in only 20 stores.

4. Only one copy per customer. Why do they care? Why limit the number of books you can sell? Not to mention if people want to circumvent this rule they can and will easily. Also they are creating a secondary market of which they make no money from.

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Some of Valiant's titles have slow, decompressed plot progression which reads best in a (physical or digital) collected format.

So, little interest from me in this new imprint with its stated limitations.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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25 minutes ago, divad said:

 

Bad Idea Comics

Aptly named . . . :sumo:
 

Yeah, I think they know. lol

We have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm reminded how many (millions of?) people thought "another movie about Joker that's not even part of DC continuity is a bad idea".

That bad idea turned out to be... pretty big, or so I hear.  :foryou:

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