Good article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/nyregion/the-battle-for-a-comic-empire-that-archie-built.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
This reply was deleted.
Good article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/nyregion/the-battle-for-a-comic-empire-that-archie-built.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
Replies
Ouch! All is not well in Riverdale! Bummer, as I'd seen that company as the happiest place in comicdom. I guess now that title goes to Bongo Comics.
Even that objective article makes it pretty clear where the problem lies. If nothing else, she's being proven wrong by objecting to Kevin Keller and the Archie Marries series.
It's clear there was no real succession plan in mind, and for a family business, that is almost always a disaster waiting to happen.
-- MSA
One side of the family wants Archie to expand for the future while the other apparently wants it to be the 1950s again. Definitely something in the water there....
While I agree with your position Mister SA, I can also see her's, at least in regards to the fear of Archie becoming "too big" and losing it's identity, let alone the risk of winding up on the wrong side of a business venture or two that might endanger the company.
Yet there has to be a happy medium between the two sides.
And while the Goldwater and Silberkleit families are both quite active in the company, whatever happened to Maurice Coyne and his heirs? Do they still fit into all of this? And if so, how? For what started out as a friendly venture between three lifelong friends, they're strangely silent in all of this.
...I haven't heard of anything regarding Maurice for a long time ~ Presumably he left to pursue his family's interests in the pompatous of love ??!!??!!??!!??!!??!!? ( Okay , okay , I couldn't resist.....................)
Certainly there can be a problem with expanding too quickly and growing beyond your means. But most family businesses have a tendency to spend too long doing what they do because they've always done it that way and not wanting to change. And there's no question the times are changing for comics.
There didn't seem to be any programs that she objected to that hadn't been successful, and the reports from a variety of sources on the way she treated employees gives that view a lot of credibility, IMO. Granted, it sounds like there's some blame to go around.
The notion of co-CEOs is a bad one right from the start. I'm not sure where the compromise position is when one person wants to add characters and titles and the other doesn't.
They introduced Kevin in the Veronica comic before spinning him off when he got so much press and apparently sales. Likewise with the Archie Marries series, which began as mini-series in an existing title and then expanded from there. Those seem like prudent ways to test the water and expand based on results.
His comment that "Archie will be profitable in 2011" makes me think that's not always the case, or might not have been in some scenarios. If that's true, making changes seems to be an important way to go, and doing them incrementally is the best approach for that.
-- MSA
I totally agree with everything you said in your last post Mister SA.
But I would like to add that any additions/changes should also make sense from a creative standpoint as well as a business one, for we can both name plenty of instances over the years where a publisher has thought of the $ and not the long term affect on their characters and story lines.
The Kevin Keller and Marriage ideas were handled well on both fronts.
But do you have any idea whatever happened to Maurice Coyne and his heirs?
...Present-day Archies are (in the Archie , not Sonic , etcetera titles) emphasizising reprints a bit more , even reprinted covers , and Archie has REALLY cut down on the 32-page Archie titles . The ARCHIE newspaper strip has switched to re-runs recently , which might be more the syndicate's doing , but still...
Emerkeith Davjack:
"...I haven't heard of anything regarding Maurice for a long time ~ Presumably he left to pursue his family's interests in the pompatous of love ??!!??!!??!!??!!??!!? ( Okay , okay , I couldn't resist.....................)
I just copied my vinyl LP to CD the other day...
"My dearest darling, come closer to Maurice so I can whisper sweet words of epismetology in your ear and speak to you of the pompitous of love. Even though our road is rough and long, for you to leave me at this time darling, must surely be wrong. So come back and reconsider one more thing. Maurice is the only one to make your little heart sing.
I don't know why you won't make no more apple pie. Since you've been gone it's been starvation mama, ever since I lost my probation. Don't you remember the time that you ended up in jail? That's right darling, it was Maurice who went your bail. Now, there's just one more thing that I want to say before you turn and walk away
...Thank you , Henry , I don't believe I've ever had a SMB album in my life...Of course , I know his hits/radio songs , and knew he quoted from his " mythology " in " The Joker " ( Say !!!!!!! That title !!!!!!! ) :-) ? ) .
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next