THE PULSE: What else in 2003 you're looking forward to?
MARK ALESSI: I think CrossGen is going to undergo massive expansion. Next year we've got video games, we're closing development deals soon. Chuck Russell's making THE WAY OF THE RAT, I believe Bob Zemeckis will be making RTE 666. We have a half dozen other movie and TV deals in serious contract stage. I won't do a movie or a TV deal that isn't done by people who intend to make it in the near future. I'm not interested in people who are interested in optioning. I think 2003 is going to be a massive breakout year for CrossGen. I think the ability to stay long term in the game and build up a backlist and to establish an identity is critical in this industry and I think it's why so many organizations have failed. In the last 10 years there's been over 20 major comic book companies that have closed their doors. It's sort of a shame because they weren't bad comic book companies.
THE PULSE: No, some were great -- they published some of the greatest comics of all time.
ALESSI: I know have much of it collected at home and I prize it greatly because I know I won't see it again. We're really hoping that the kinds of things that we come out with in our education program next year, our extension of "Comics on the Web", which is now in five languages. It went up in Spanish about 3 weeks ago on Yahoo Espanol, the entire thing and a third of the entire traffic now comics from Mexico.
THE PULSE: I have to be honest with you, When I first saw "Comics on the Web", I'm a little jaded, but I was really struck by how much work went into it, and all the languages.
ALESSI: We jut closed a deal with South Korea and we have a deal with the People's Republic of China, in fact we have an excusive with the People's Republic of China.
THE PULSE: Now China is the Xanadu for a lot of comics publishers because it is a huge comics reading population, and you must have played some kind of ping pong diplomacy getting in. How do you see that playing out?
ALESSI: I'll share with you the feedback they gave us. They read our stories and pretty much everything goes through some degree of evaluation -- you can call it censorship or you can call it evaluation. But CAPTAIN AMERICA and SUPERMAN aren't going to be published in China. And I love CAPTAIN AMERICA but that's not happening in China. They told us there's no cultural bias in our books, there's no gender bias, no religious bias, no ethnic bias. All they found were stories. There were so many different genres covered they didn't feel we were attempting an end run on them to spout some sort of cultural doctrine that's US based. While we make comics for America, we also make comics with the world in mind.
It's incredibly amazing to get feedback from people in Norway who are excited about that fact that comics on the web will be up in Norwegian , Danish, Finnish and Swedish soon. Not that I can read the stuff. And they're excited about it! We know that the German market for comics has been slowing down radically. They've taken a terrible hit and a downturn in the last couple of years. They just recently took our entire line and it's being supported by the fact that - I don't know if you know who Globalcast is. They deal with radio consortiums in Europe and just like the deal we did with Clear Channel in the US, we have the same thing happening in Europe where comics in the web are going up all over Europe promoted on web station on website tied to major radio stations. And the fact that it will be in their native tongue excites them.
THE PULSE: Let me ask you about the two spin off lines. CGE and Code Six.
ALESSI: Well, everything is published as a part of CrossGen Entertainment. Code Six was really a vehicle to take non-CrossGen universe comics that we thought highly of and publish them with some sort of revenue split deal with the actual creator, while we retain control since we put the money and investment up to bring it to fruition. But they get a fairly substantive part of the pie. And the objective is, we're not the only ones who come up with good ideas and make good comics, we just think we have better discipline in coming out on time and high quality production value, so we've built a vehicle to have a brand name for other books. The new LADY DEATH is unbelievable. R.A. Salvatore DEMON WARS is a phenomenal story. Robert Rodi's CROSSOVERS is hysterical. It makes Chuck Dixon laugh out loud.
THE PULSE: When is LADY DEATH coming out?
ALESSI: February But it's not LADY DEATH it's a whole new LADY DEATH, in fact you'll probably that her bust has gone down 83 cup sizes. It's a story and it's designed to be a whole new variation on the theme. She looks very much similar. Again it's about a woman who doesn't fit in either world and it's a tremendous story and the art that's coming out of that team is amazing. I don't know where IVAN REIS found the insp iration, versus stuff I've seen him do before but it's unbelievable.
We feel pretty fortunate in that we've attracted an awful lot of high quality people as well as creators. We've had almost no turnover. I laugh all the time about the heat we get when someone leaves CrossGen but there's only been like 5 or 6 in 3 1/2 years, and yet you can see a 6 to 10 person turnover at DC or Marvel in a month and we do it in 3 1/2 years and I hear people acting like chicken little, running around looking for the sky to fall. So we're just lucky that we've found really good quality people, and we've given them a lot of responsibility and they've managed it themselves.
It's somewhat laughable sometimes all the accolades that have come to me regarding our product when frequently, I don't even read the bloody stuff until 2 or 3 months after it's out, because I'm too busy. Yet everybody thinks I dot every "I" and cross every "T" and so every once in a while I'll run into Chuck Dixon's office or Tony Bedard's and go, that was really cool and they'll go what and I'll name an issue from 2 issues ago, and say What a great idea! and they'll say, You just read it?
THE PULSE: So you don't read all the material before it comes out?
ALESSI: Nah.
THE PULSE: Really? Another rumor debunked.
ALESSI: I know it's part of the Kool-Aid quad. I would submit to you that I don't believe I've read a book before it's come out for over 2 years. And I would bet you I'm two months behind on most of our books, not all of them, at least, I am involved in the initial design of books because I want them to be youth friendly. I don't think we need to have blatant sexuality in books, it's always been more attractive to hint at something than graphically portray it. I'm not big on massive violence I think obviously there are consequences. We fight sword battles and do sorts of things but I don't need to see entrails coming across the page.
THE PULSE: So it's not as gutsy as you might have thought.
ALESSI: [Laughs] There you go. No scratch and sniff and you don't get to smell what it's like when organs spill out. It's not good storytelling. And we've gone away and I think part of the reason comics as an American art form don't sell very well in the rest of the world is because we've gone away from storytelling and we've started to become people who grandstand or who develop unique strategies to debunk people of the limited funds they currently have, instead of just writing great stories and hoping they come back. That's what the whole program's supposed to be about. I look at a lot of manga and it looks to me like an 8 year old drew it. But many of the stories are wonderful. When are we going to wake up and understand that graphic novels are storytelling?
THE PULSE: Kids are so much more attracted to manga. Kids don't read mainstream comics, period. They're not aimed at them and aren't appealing to them. But kids are very very excited about the characters in manga.
ALESSI: It's because of the storytelling. It's why MERIDIAN is our worst selling comic book and best selling graphic novel.
THE PULSE: Well, it has that classic girl's fantasy background. It's almost a no brainer.
ALESSI: They told us we would never be able to sell it, because if you made a story about a 15 or 16 year old girl who didn't have a Pamela Anderson bust it wasn't going anywhere. But we put it out and I think we're reprinting MERIDIAN volume 1 for the third time now. Maybe the fourth. It's incredible.
THE PULSE: What's the total print run on it?
ALESSI: Generally we do print runs between 10-15,000 for a graphic novel. It's even more interesting when you look at our books. SOJOURN is our best selling comic book and one of our better selling graphic novels. Our most frequently read book on the web is NEGATION and MERIDIAN is our best selling trade.
THE PULSE: Obviously they find a different audience. If I can just touch on Lady Death's dimensions again: can you tell me about the relaunching of the character that took place, and the thinking behind that?
ALESSI: It's probably been played out a 1000 times, so I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. Brian Pulido and I are close friends, have been for many years, I knew he was in trouble. Basically he sold us LADY DEATH with the understanding that he was going to get an influx of money and we would later sell it back to him at the same price. It was collateral for a loan is how you might want to look at it, although that's not how the paperwork was processed. And then the roof caved in on him within weeks. Everything went south and then I owned the property that a massive debt load potentially attached to it and didn't fit within our standard product line so we rebuilt with him the kind of story I think you'd find in a CrossGen line, but we've tried to keep some legitimate respect for the people who made that character so popular for so many years
THE PULSE: Because that definitely was her appearance, and not even specifically her breast size, but her general demeanor. That's what's people think of as Lady Death. What was Brian's reaction to relaunching the character as more family friendly?
ALESSI: Yes, it's more family friendly but it's not what I would call the softest of our books. If you're going to compare it to MERIDIAN I think you're being foolish. If you're going to compare it to some of out other books you're being more reasonable. It's a tough book. It's got some of the depth of the past and a little bit of the grittiness but it's certainly not something I'd be uncomfortable in having a 12 or 13 year old read. Which is basically where we attack our audience. We probably will come out with two kids books this year.
THE PULSE: Specifically aimed at children?
ALESSI: Aimed at 8 to 13 year olds. We have specific titles in mind. We'll be announcing them later this year.
THE PULSE: What's gong on with you guys and Diamond.
ALESSI: We are in contractual discussions with Diamond regarding our status with them and those talks are continuing. Like everything else in this industry you can't get a straight answer!
THE PULSE: Any other final words?
ALESSI: This last year was the year for Marvel the next year is the year of the Sigil -- I'll take it to the bank.
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