When we first spoke to Ace Masters, publisher of Masterpiece Comics, at the 2007 Phoenix Comicon, he gave us an upbeat rundown on his books, clearly excited about the stories he was telling. At the 2008 Phoenix Con, Masters had a different story – that of an indy guy in a tough market that’s closing in on him.
Pink Raygun: When we met you last year, you seemed really up and positive about everything. A year later, you seem much darker.
Ace Masters: In terms of dealing with Diamond and some of the things that have gone on, yeah. Mentally, I’m in a much better place. Just with the way the books are going, it is a little more disappointing and we’re having to take a step back and look at everything. But, I’m someone who never gives up. I’ll still be putting out books that will get ripped to shreds by some people and enjoyed by others.
PRG: You’re an indy publisher. Is this what you do for your living, or do you have other work that supports this?
AM: Yeah, I have another job. I’m a local property manager. It actually gives a lot of time to do writing and work on stuff.
PRG: What are some of the problems you’re having with Diamond right now?
AM: Diamond seems to be cutting out a lot of things and the biggest thing is meeting the purchase order – the break even point they want of the $1500 per issue. They’re talking about dropping books after the first issue even though we got close to that break even point. But, they’re apparently dropping a lot of titles around the board. I don’t know if you talked to Johnny Allen, but they may be dropping Stickman, and that’s been selling fairly well. A lot of people have gotten their books dropped in the past couple of weeks.
PRG: When we ran into you earlier this morning, you mentioned that something was going on with the printing situation?
AM: The only thing I know for a fact is that Quebecor is in bankruptcy The shares apparently fell down to one cent a piece and according to someone I talked to earlier, the shares went back up but there’s a different symbol by the Quebecor share now. So, the rumor is going around now that DC and Marvel might by it out, if they haven’t already. But, that’s just a rumor.
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That would potentially not be good for the big indies who print with Quebecor, especially after the Color World thing in the 1980s when Marvel and DC bought them out. But, that could have a negative effect on the industry as a whole and I’ve wondered myself if that’s the reason behind some of the weird moves that have happened in the past few months with Marvel, DC and Diamond.
PRG: So, those are your challenges now. What were the biggest challenges when you launched Masterpiece Comics?
AM: Getting people to pay attention. Getting the titles and the name out there and getting people to take what we’re doing seriously. Unfortunately, some people will see the books and say I’m just trying to impress Marvel or DC because so many guys start out with the self-publishing thing just to get in at Marvel or DC, then they never finish off what they were doing. It makes a lot of the smaller guys, I don’t want to say “look bad”, but it gives the impression that that’s what we’re all trying to do. I still have people say I’m not serious, and to those people, I say, “Look at the table”. I wouldn’t have all these out here if I wasn’t serious about it.
That was the obstacle then, and still somewhat now even though we have more people who know about us. The biggest obstacle is trying to get the retailers to stock us, order the books, and getting people who want to read the book to at least order through a retailer, not just expect us to be on the shelves. So many people think their guy will order it and put it on the shelf because it’s in Diamond, and that’s not always the case. The only books guaranteed to be on the shelf are Marvel and DC.
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PRG: Not even that anymore. I think the whole comic retailing business is a$$ backwards. It’s the only business I know of that I, as a consumer, am expected to take responsibility for knowing what’s coming out months down the line and place an order or show up the day it’s released, or I miss it entirely. Dealing with the comic marketplace the way it is, it’s almost a fool’s game. It’s almost impossible to be a start up and make it.
AM: It is. The sad problem is, and I talked to Diamond about this and a sales rep who agreed, I would say about 35% of the retailers are not carrying independents, period.
PRG: What are you doing outside of Diamond and conventions to get your books out there so people can see them?
AM: Anything I can afford, actually. I did a lot of promotions, printing up 100 preview copies and sending those to different venues. Postcards. Now, if Diamond does drop it, we’ll take a step back and re-plan for a couple of months, then start calling around retailers and offer them a better discount to order straight from us than what they got from Diamond. The only plus is Diamond hasn’t dropped me yet. I’m still a vendor for now.
PRG: How about on your own website?
AM: We have the website out there. The biggest problem I’ve had is that the webmaster – the same guy who draws Fireblast – lives in Indonesia. He was doing it for nothing – everyone else wanted a ton of money for it. The biggest problem has been keeping it updated because of the problems they’ve had over there with the storms. We’re working on getting that fixed. We might just pull the site down for a little while, revamp it completely and bring it back with a store and everything. Take a step back to go forward.
That’s probably what 2008 is going to be for the most part – a regroup. I’ve decided to just do Full Moon Craze this year and then build up more and get a whole line of stuff ready for 2009 and learn from the mistakes and the things that went wrong. My motto has always been there’s no such thing as failure – there’s only a learning experience and you go forward stronger from it.
PRG: You mentioned the artist on Fireblast is in Indonesia and the Wild Boys artist is in Brazil. How did you hook up with these guys?
AM: Digital Webbing. Originally, I was working with a film company called V Multimedia. I was writing some scripts for them and the guy brought me on to run the comic book division. We were going to do some titles that they had created and I originally was looking for artists for those titles. But, that fell through and then I pitched my own projects to these artists and they agreed to come on board.
PRG: Are you paying page rate or are they partners in the project?
AM: Their wages are flat per issue rates, just what I could afford to pay them, basically. They’re a lot cheaper than most domestic artists. So many want $100 per page from anyone. They think that if it’s starting salary at Marvel, it should be starting salary anywhere. It’s not viable for any independent publisher to pay out that kind of money. That would be $2200 a book and you’d be lucky if you make that back. If you’re spending more money on the books than you can afford, you’re not going to do anything. That’s a big drawback on the indy scene – finding artists that are not only willing to work with you and grow, but are reliable and aren’t just looking for the next opening at Marvel and DC.
PRG: From John’s perspective as a working illustrator, his time and skills are worth X number of dollars and so he wouldn’t consider doing an entire comic book – which would take an entire month – for anything less than two or three thousand dollars. Because of that, do you find that the artists you hook up with or ones who approach you tend to be a little less skilled than you might like?
AM: Less experienced, yes. Less skilled, not always. It’s a catch 22 – you have to do something to get noticed and get in and if it’s your first gig, you shouldn’t demand $100 a page. Sometimes you have to take what they give you. If you’re a pro, you’ve been around for a long time, yeah. If this is the first thing you’ve ever done, you’re pushing it. I was paying my artists $500 an issue – that’s what I could afford and that’s what they agreed to. That’s what I’ve offered other people – I had one guy come back and demand $500 a page. I said he wasn’t gonna get that anywhere unless his name was Jim Lee.
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PRG: How much of the artwork are your artists doing?
AM: They did the pencils, inks and colors. I paid $500 for the pencils, then $200 for the colors and inks.
PRG: Knowing what you know now, would you have started this up?
AM: Yeah. This isn’t just some fly by night thing. This is what I love to do. I’m a writer. I love to do this stuff. Whether it’s the comic books or the films, this is what I love to do, this is what I want to do with my life and that’s why I’m pushing it so hard.
For more on Ace Masters and his comics, visit his website at Masterpiece Comics.
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