NEWS AND RUMORS
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Comic Industry Unites to Save Top Shelf
Comic Industry Unites to Save Top Shelf
It always seems that bad news makes the best news: Another blunder by Marvel, another comic legend passes away, another story of the industry in crisis. Today, news of the best kind. The comic industry is alive and well, thank you. And it has the strength and courage to save a publisher well worth saving. Just two days ago, news broke that Top Shelf Productions, a publisher that specializes in alternative comic publications, was facing finacial crisis due to circumstances beyond its' control. The following press release was e-mail to retailers on April 3rd:
"Dear Comics Fans,
We have just been informed this week that our book trade distributor has
filed for bankrupcy (Chapter 11). They will continue to operate and
hopefully recover - and we will support this all we can (as our industry
needs them, and they are good people) - but unfortunately, this has
happened at a time when they owed us an enormous sum of money (over
$80,000.00 minus returns). And to make matters worse, the most recent
check they cut us, for almost $20,000.00, bounced this week, in turn
causing the last 30 checks we wrote to printers, conventions,
cartoonists - practically every aspect of the business - to bounce (or
be held) in turn.
To put it bluntly, even with all the hard work we've put in over the
years, if we don't raise $20,000 this month, it could realistically
force us to suspend publishing operations for the foreseeable future.
It's hard to believe but a big domino has fallen right on top of us at
the worst time possible. So, that leaves us no choice but to be honest
and ask for your help.
If 400-500 of you can find it in your hearts to each spend around fifty
bucks on our core list of books below, this would literally pull us
through - We mean that. We've got such a strong future schedule, and so
many cool things to announce soon (including two more Alan Moore
projects and two Film & TV projects), that I'd hate to think that we'd
have to pull the plug right before we just were about to arrive.
In any event, if you can find it in your hearts to help us out, we will
be eternally grateful. We'll be manning the phones personally on this
"drive," and we'll also be sure to keep you informed -- hopefully
letting all of you know in three-to-four weeks that everything's okay
(with your help, that is.)."
It didn't take three to four weeks. The e-mail was distributed to retailers on Top Shelfs regular list, but then was picked up by Warren Ellis, who sent it to everyone who is on his subscriber list for his "Bad Signal" e-column. Word spread quickly, retailers called other retailers and then called Top Shelf to place orders. Just over 24 hours later, the following e-mail was sent by Top Shelf:
"What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday morning at 8:00AM, April 3rd,
Top Shelf was effectively put out of business, and on Tuesday evening by
8:00PM, April 3rd, Top Shelf was remarkably back in business. There are
not words suitable to express how honored and thankful we are that
within 12 hours this amazing comics community took it upon itself to
bring us back to life. And in this case, it might also be said that the
power of the internet was fully realized.
On Tuesday, after we made the announcement of our book trade distributor
filing for Chapter 11 (and the subsequent fatal impact that this had on
our own operation), we received over 200 phone orders and 850 on-line
and email orders to boot. This staggering 1000 orders has not only made
us operational again (and put several thousand copies of our graphic
novels into circulation), but has also reaffirmed to us that the comics
industry is back, revitalized, and ready to take on the world. We're
even estimating that over 100,000 people received the news or were
personally involved in the discussion of this on-line event on that day.
With this overwhelming support, combined with the (now contradictory)
fact that Top Shelf has always prided itself that every order would ship out the very next day, we ask for your patience in letting us get all of these graphic novels, comics, and CDs to you. We hope to have everything shipped out within the next few weeks. In the meantime, if all this activity has made you curious about our books, we would encourage you to ask for them at your local retailer, so that everyone along the chain, retailers and distributors alike, can also benefit from this spur of interest. And while this interest in diversity is at the forefront of everyone's mind, we encourage you to continue in the exploration and discussion of comics from all the publishers doing quality work these days: DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, CrossGen, Viz, Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, Oni Press, NBM, Drawn & Quarterly, Cartoon
Books, Alternative Comics, Highwater Books, the publishers we represent
(like Eddie Campbell Comics, etc.), and all the rest (that we apologize
for not having the space to mention by name today).
If we've learned anything over these last seven years - and witnessed it
absolutely this week - we're all in this together. And the growth and
development of this amazing medium is in the most capable hands
possible: the fans of this industry.
We'd also like to take a moment to give a special thank you to a few extraordinary people and organizations:
-- Warren Ellis and the Warren Ellis Forum. We've always known that the
Warren Ellis Forum was a formidable entity, dedicated to the discussion
and support of quality comics all over the industry, but their
mobilization in this instance was unprecedented. We can't absolutely
determine what percentage of all the orders were from this distinguished group, but our estimation is that it was significant. We cannot thank Warren or the supporters of his forum enough (http://www.warrenellis.com
& http://forums.delphiforums.com/ellis & http://www.artbomb.net).
-- CrossGen Comics. Mark Alessi and the CrossGen staff collectively
bought $5,000.00 worth of graphic novels and will donate them to the
public library system. This completely novel and generous gesture not
only helped to keep us going (in a big way), but also promises to expose
hundreds of people and libraries to what comics can bring to the world
of art and literature. This stunned us, and is a testament to CrossGen's
contribution to our industry (http://www.crossgen.com).
-- Rick Veitch and Matt Brady of comiccon.com's Spash and Newsarama
pages. Their amazing coverage, on-line discussions, and links for this
event spurred on an uncountable array of support from the industry
(http://www.comiccon.com).
-- Neil Gaiman. Neil took it upon himself to discuss our situation
within his daily on-line journal, which just happens to be the most
visited daily journal on the web. And since he's been known to have a
fan or two (including us), we've been getting a nice bit of support from
there as well (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp).
-- And no less amazing than that of the above, the collective efforts of
the crews at http://www.artbomb.net, http://www.sequentialtart.com,
http://www.comicbookresources.com,http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com,
http://www.icv2.com, http://www.grayhavenmagazine.com,
http://www.popimage.com, http://www.shotgunreviews.com, the members of
the Brian Michael Bendis message board
(http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/bendis/), etc., who all rallied
their subscribers, who in turn proudly stated that they had come from
one of these very active sites.
-- And lastly, but never least, the comics retailing and distributing
community. They are the front line of our industry, and behind the
scenes they have always been the ones that have kept the independent
publisher alive. The show of support from this community has not only
been amazing on this particular day, but has ALWAYS been there from the
first moment we entered the business. They have been the group that has
supported us the most.
Again, we want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts -- we
could not have done it without you. Top Shelp will continue to try and
put out the best books possible, and we look forward to not only
thanking each an every one of you personally at the Cons this summer,
but also being able to now make some rather cool announcements in the
coming weeks that should be fun and beneficial for the entire industry
as well.
On behalf of Brett Warnock and myself.
Truly, your friend thru comics,
Chris Staros
Top Shelf Productions
PO Box 1282
Marietta, GA 30061-1282
USA
Top Shelf Productions publishes the work of, amoung others, Eddie Campbell, Alan Moore, Ed Brubaker, Craig Thompson, Alex Robinson, and Peter Kuper. Only Fantagrahics and perhaps Drawn And Quarterly can claim such an impressive line up of important alternative comic writers and artists. That the industry still has the strength to save such a vital publisher makes up for all the negative press that Bill Jemas can ever hope to create.
