Sep 12
Housekeeping
Posted on Sunday, September 12, 2010 by Paul in Uncategorized
The X-Axis is still on holiday, but not for very much longer. Might do a midweek wrap-up when I get back. Might not. The tension is unbearable, is it not?
And I’m pretty sure that sales post will be up at the Beat by now. I’m sure some kind soul will post the link in the comments thread.
Alas, no sales post at The Beat yet…
Yep. Remember when Paul used to post them to Usenet and they were up well before the end of the month? The Beat’s now at the point where they’re getting posted halfway through the FOLLOWING month! [And, clearly, Paul wrote it before he went away, which means it must have been written before the end of August..]
Remember when The Beat got even slower at putting up the columns, after already being consistently late?
Looking back at the 2010 columns, The Beat tends to put columns up in the first week of the second month after the info date. (So the June column is posted early August.) The worst in the last year were the May columns, which didn’t appear until the middle of July (14th for Marvel and 16th for DC). On the other hand, the fastest was February’s column which was posted March 31st.
I remember more than once Paul mentioning a column had been completed and turned in, but The Beat would fail to post it sometimes until weeks later. I recall one time the DC column was blamed for the delay, because The Beat liked to post them together and the DC one was running late.
Here’s what I bought yesterday at the Birmingham Zine Festival:
James Nash’s skyscraper-format diary comics. Touching, often mundane, often surprising subject matter, in a format that I am fucking stealing fudge Fell fudge slimline, Nash format is where it’s at, Eisner-meets-Shirow hell aye.
(jamesnashlovesyou.com)
Untranslated, by Lando, who if there’s any justice at all will soon be your new favrit comics artist. Classic British science fiction with a touch of European style.
(decadencecomics.com)
Ink Soup #5, various, awesome.
(ink-soup.blogspot.com)
Dan Berry’s Onion Soup, recipealongacomics.
(thingsbydan.co.uk)
The Society For The Promotion of Vestibules And Vestiblue Awareness, Rice/Ross/Holiday
(vestibules.tumblr.com)
What Are You/People I Know #5
(timothywinchester.com)
No Guts No Glory (not really a comic)
(ngngdesign.com)
The Internet on Paper #1/Oblast #5, Matthew Murray
(should I link to 365zines.blogspot.com, again? Heh. Sorry, Matthew.)
And two back issues of Star Love Stories In Pictures, romance comics with random stock photos of ’80’s pop stars who look like they have no idea why they’re on there, either. Commando-format love stories (closest modern equivalent being Erica Sakurazawa) of the sort I wish I was writing (well, I’d rather mine were more modern in their outlook and attitudes towards women, but there you go).
Total aceosity (almost).
The girl who sold me the Star stories has a stack of them at home she wants rid of. Jesus, but I want ’em. Wonder if she’d consider a trade…
//\Oo/\\
A quick one to ask why Al isn’t writing any reviews here anymore.
What was the point of The Beat forming its own unique site from Publisher’s Weekly if it can’t maintain a decent schedule?
I mean, articles are clearly being posted over there, but if they have Paul’s analysis, what’s the reason behind the delay?
After two weeks, the analysis should be “returnable,” at which point Paul can just post it up here.
I suppose the MTMs get more views/comments at The Beat. One does feel that Miss Beat could spend less time posting whole tiers of boring, self-indulgent con reports, though.
MA> They formed their own site because PW didn’t want them any more and kicked them out.
And the MtMs are pretty pointless when they’re so late they go up AFTER the next set of sales figures come out, as they’re increasingly doing…
Typing_Monkey: Long story short, I just don’t have the time any more. I’ve been working on something else for the past year, which isn’t likely to be finished until maybe a year from now, and it’s been taking up an awful lot of my spare time (what little hasn’t been sucked up by wedding preparations). I’d love to have the time to write reviews here, but short of installing a whole load of extra hours into the day or quitting my day job, I don’t see it happening for a while.
The Beat posted the Indie July analysis today, so the Marvel and DC columns will probably be posted over the next two days. They tend to do one per day, though the order between the columns themselves appears random. (Sometimes Marvel is first and sometimes Indie is first.) Heck, they don’t always get posted back to back. (For example, the three April data columns were posted over a four day period.)
As for The Beat in general, the only reason I visit the site is for the sales columns. I wouldn’t even check the main page at all, except that they often don’t post the DC column to the “Sales Charts” category, and will often wait a further week or more before they reclassify it.
DC-column guy here.
The delays are indeed down to me, mostly, since I usually turn in last and Heidi wants to run all three columns on consecutive days.
For instance, Paul turned in the July column August 29, I turned in September 8, so by the time his column is posted (presumably) tomorrow, it’ll be more than two weeks since he wrote it.
I can see why that’s a source of frustration, and I also understand the motivation behind Heidi’s approach. The thing is, it takes how long it takes. Can’t speak for Paul, but doing the numbers and writing the column takes the better part of a full work day for me, give or take a couple hours; sometimes I manage to cram that into two weeks after the ICv2 estimates are out, sometimes it takes three or four.
I’m aware it’s not fair to the other guys, and I hate to keep them waiting, but there’s not much I can do about it. For what it’s worth, we’ve never had a skip month for the last six+ years, and the columns are usually – though not always – out before the next set of estimates is released.
(And also, for the record, Paul has my admiration for turning out out pretty much all of his comics stuff like clockwork.)
Reboot:
“And the MtMs are pretty pointless when they’re so late they go up AFTER the next set of sales figures come out, as they’re increasingly doing…”
I disagree. Analysis takes time, and it’s not like we’re months behind. If it’s just the raw numbers you’re looking for, nobody’s stopping you from running them yourself.
Well, better late than never, and that monthly consistency is appreciated, as wonky as it sometimes is.
For what it’s worth, this one was very, very close to not getting written before I went on holiday. If I hadn’t been going away, it would certainly have spilled into the following week. And as Marc says, these things take an awful lot of time. (Plus, I’m pretty sure DC still put out more books than Marvel, so his will take longer than mine.)
It is up, at last…
http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/09/15/marvel-month-to-month-sales-july-2010/
It is up on the same day that Paul is back in action. So, hrm, not sure whether to call that up before Paul got back from vacation or not.