The first three DC Star Trek annuals are my 'go to' stories. 'All Those Years Ago . . .', 'The Final Voyage', and 'Retrospect'.
Comics worth reading?
- Thread starter Happenstance
- Start date
I’m definitely ready for a new publisher. I wouldn’t care who, just a fresh start. I think IDW has run its’ course. Did I hear that they might be on the verge of going under?
The comics division of IDW had major losses a few years ago, like eight figure losses, though I don't remember the specifics. I don't have the impression that they're on the verge of going under.
Back to the issue of Star Trek comics, I feel like they never really found a publishing model for Star Trek comics that worked for them, and sometimes they really seemed to flail. Ever since the last Kelvinverse ongoing ended they've been especially flail-ly.
I used to keep up with IDW’s Trek output by buying the e-comics through Comixology, then using the “back-up” feature to download them as a .cbz file, and side-load them to Comic Flow on my iPad. That was my least annoying, most enjoyable way to consume comics.
But Amazon, which has owned Comixology for something like a decade, just decided to destroy the Comixology experience by merging it with the Kindle app, eliminating the Comixology app and the Comixology website. No more “back-up” to .cbz.
So, I’m done buying comics. But I’m not particularly bent about it, because I haven’t really liked anything from IDW in years. I agree with Allyn. “Flailing” is a great way to describe what IDW has been up to for at least the past half-decade.
But Amazon, which has owned Comixology for something like a decade, just decided to destroy the Comixology experience by merging it with the Kindle app, eliminating the Comixology app and the Comixology website. No more “back-up” to .cbz.
So, I’m done buying comics. But I’m not particularly bent about it, because I haven’t really liked anything from IDW in years. I agree with Allyn. “Flailing” is a great way to describe what IDW has been up to for at least the past half-decade.
Looking at their Wikipedia page, it looks like they're lost the license to Transformers and G.I. Joe and laid off several employees due to Covid-19 as well as a switch of distribution from Diamond to Penguin; so maybe it's time to switch publishers - but who would want it. Marvel is a part of Disney and DC is Warner Brothers. Maybe Dark Horse or Dynamite!
Right. The free market means that any publisher or broadcaster can compete for the right to release anyone's product. The trend these days is to keep everything strictly within corporate families because of the saving that provides in licensing fees and such, but it would be outright illegal to forbid other publishers or broadcasters from competing for the rights.
Is that true? How can you force a company to outsource something?
While I don't see Dynamite licensing Star Trek, if they did I'd be pitching Nick Barucci on a Star Trek/John Carter of Mars crossover the afternoon the licensing deal was announced.
And, while I have no interesting writing them, I'd read Dynamite's inevitable Trek/Vampirella and Trek/Red Sonja crossovers.
That's not how it works. A publishing company is a separate business from a TV or movie studio, even if they have the same corporate parent. The publisher is the customer for the studio's product; they pay for the license to its content. And other publishers have the right to compete for the same license by offering to pay more for it. Having only one permitted customer for a product would be a monopsony, allowing no competition. So you have it backward -- you can't forbid customers from competing fairly for a property. If a company sells only to itself (or rather, its own corporate partners), that's anti-competitive and bad for consumers. It's not how the system is supposed to function.
Star Trek comics have always been licensed to companies with separate owners from Star Trek itself. Gold Key, Marvel, DC, Malibu, Marvel again, TokyoPop, IDW, they've all been outside companies that paid Paramount/CBS for the right to publish tie-in comics. So I don't know why you'd think it couldn't or shouldn't work that way.
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Well, the two that I was going to recommend were the Boldly Go and the Mirror Universe saga. I have been really been impressed with anything else recently.
IDW has republished a few of DC collections.
I was thinking Dark Horse could a good home for Trek, but now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know if they're doing tie-ins at all any more. They used to do Star Wars, Buffyverse, Serenity, Predator, and Alien, but all of those have gone to new publishers.
The Witcher, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Critical Role. So, there's some licensed works there still.
The fact that people have done a thing doesn't indicate to me that they are legally obligated to do a thing. Does Paramount/CBS have an internal comic publisher, anyway? If Paramount/CBS decided it wanted to only publish books in house, what legal standing would, say, HarperCollins have to stop them?
First off, again, there is no "in house" here. Paramount/CBS doesn't own a comic book company, as far as I know. So I have no idea why you're even making this argument.
Also, you're still making the mistake of treating all the companies owned by the same corporate parent as a single company. That's not how it works. A studio that creates a series and a publisher that licenses it are two different companies, even if the same conglomerate owns them. So you're defining the issue completely backward here. Nobody's talking about forcing the seller to sell a product to any particular buyer. What we're talking about is not forbidding multiple buyers (i.e. publishers) from having a fair shot at making an offer for the product (i.e. the license). It's not about "forcing" the studio to sell the license -- what a bizarre way of twisting it. It's about making a good enough offer to convince them to sell it to you instead of to somebody else. It's about having the right to make that offer instead of being shut out of the competition.
The point is that if one seller and one buyer do business exclusively with each other, then there's no competition and that's bad for the market, the consumers, and the employees. That's why there are anti-trust laws. Monopolies and monopsonies are bad.
And I'm quite certain we've had this same conversation before.
You're the one who said, "it would be outright illegal to forbid other publishers or broadcasters from competing for the rights." I just don't really believe that if Paramount decided to only offer the Star Trek books license to S&S, anything would legally prevent that. They can take bids if they want to take bids (and indeed, as you say it's in their best interest to do so if they can get more money). But surely they don't have to let publishers compete for the rights.
I mean, sure. But all kinds of corporate practices are bad for the market, the consumers, and the employees but still permitted.
Well, consider this your opportunity to convince me.
I'm not talking specifically about Paramount. I'm debunking the widespread and truly quite alarming misconception that it's somehow obligatory for content creators to release their product exclusively through outlets that share their corporate owners, or that it would somehow be wrong for it to happen any other way. Like I keep telling you, you're looking at this backwards.
Why bother? You obviously completely ignored it when I made the exact same points back then.
The moment you provide some evidence, I will happily believe you. I can't believe you of all people are upset at someone asking for substantiation of unsubstantiated claims.
"Evidence?" You need evidence that anti-trust laws exist, that there are rules against monopolistic business practices? You've seriously never heard of any of this?
I'm not making any "unsubstantiated claims." You're just completely missing my point in a totally bizarre way. You've latched onto one sentence in isolation, twisted it into something nonsensical, and ignored the wider context that makes it clear what I'm actually talking about.
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