DON'T LEAVE LIKE THIS

Well, this is it; the end of another year. I'm writing this a few days before you'll read it, as in a few hours I'll be off to spend the holidays with family and friends. And I haven't even started wrapping presents.

2002 - the year of the palindrome - has been an odd and important one for me. My girlfriend and I moved in together; I cemented my relationship with a couple of comics publishers; my first serialised comic hit the stands; I gained many new friends, both in and out of comics; and I made the decision to become a full-time writer.

But, you know, sod that. What's it been like for everyone else?

On Monday, Ninth Art will be running its Lighthouse Awards for 2002. I've seen the results, and it's going to be a very representative rundown of the best work comics has seen this year.

But where are the turkeys? Naturally, a comics-positive site like Ninth Art could never endorse awards that take the piss out of the industry.

I, however, have no such problems.

The following awards are inspired by Peter Gabriel's new album UP, because I happen to be listening to it right now and it's as good as any other.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present...

THE 2002 CASSANDRA COMPLEX AWARDS
Twelve Months Of Doom, Gloom and Hair Loss

The DARKNESS Award For Lining Lawyers' Pockets

WINNER: Marvel (in a non-legally-binding sense, of course)
RUNNER-UP: Gaiman Vs McFarlane

Seems 2002 was the year everyone decided to pile on Marvel. Retailer Brian Hibbs launched a Class Action suit against the publisher on behalf of retailers over the issue of non-returnable books; Joe Simon's long-running battle to regain the CAPTAIN AMERICA rights was effectively reopened when a judge reversed a previous ruling; and even Stan "I Am Marvel, You Punks" Lee threatened to take them to court over alleged non-payment of profits from the SPIDER-MAN movie.

Now, Marvel is a large company, with equally large and expensive lawyers. But I can't help feeling this rash of lawsuits might actually do the industry as a whole some good, by establishing legal precedents and encouraging people to read their contracts more closely (see next award...).

Meanwhile, Neil Gaiman took Todd McFarlane to court over the Miracleman/Spawn/Angela/Cagliosiosiostro affair, and - to the surprise of no-one except perhaps young Todd - won on every single count. So, hurrah for ethics.

The GROWING UP Award For Reading The Small Print

WINNER: Licensed Comics

This year, many US publishers learnt a harsh, but seemingly obvious lesson; "North America" is not the same as "The World."

When Hasbro representatives in Europe realised Diamond were distributing DreamWave's TRANSFORMERS comics all over the place - despite the studio only having purchased North American rights to the license - it started a snowball that is still rolling right through winter.

Other companies swiftly checked their contracts, and - lo and behold - it turned out a great many people producing nostalgia comics based on licenses, not to mention manga reprints, had only bought the same rights. But were still allowing them to be distributed all over the world.

Reports that Dark Horse (which has been in the licenses game for as long as it's been publishing) called these publishers up and snickered down the phone at them have not been confirmed.

The SKY BLUE Award For Coming Up Smelling Of Roses

WINNER: Marvel

And it's all thanks to SPIDER-MAN. After its spectacular failure to capitalise on the modest success of X-MEN, Marvel pulled out all the stops to make sure SPIDER-MAN wouldn't be the same story all over again if the movie was a success.

And by god, it was - I yawned through it myself, but evidently the rest of the world was ready for a bloke dressed in a red and blue bodysuit punching some geezer who looked like a rejected design from TOY STORY. Oh, and Kirsten Dunst in a wet top - not that that had anything to do with the movie's success. Noooooo.

And Marvel were more than ready this time, proceeding to flood the market - both comics and merchandise - with SPIDER-MAN, almost entirely at the expense of promoting their other comics. But hey, I'll bet their accountants aren't complaining...

The NO WAY OUT Award For Futile Resistance

WINNER: Future Comics.

In 2002, three veteran comics professionals - Bob Layton, Dick Giordano and David Micheline - launched Future Comics, claiming a bold new method of distribution which would get exciting new comics into stores without having to go through the Evil Empire of Diamond, or indeed any traditional comic distributors.

In a shock move, these exciting comics included the incredible new concept of (wait for it...) superheroes, with awe-inspiring names like FREEMIND and DEATHMASK - previously seen playing made-up verbs in THE DREAMING, I believe. And Future's innovative distribution program was (oh, the excitement...) to sell direct to comic stores through the mail.

All of which would have been fine, or at least "eh", if not for two things; first, within a week of the announcement retailers persuaded Future to use at least one indie comics distributor; and in December, Future relented further by getting Diamond to carry their comics from now on. Layton then told anyone who would listen that Future had never said they wouldn't use Diamond, while the comics world shrugged and said, "Told you so".

The I GRIEVE Award For Untimely Death Of A Publisher

WINNER: Chaos! Comics

I can't honestly say I ever read a Chaos publication in my entire life. But there's no denying they filled, and exploited, a profitable niche (heavy metal fans, as best I could tell) for many years. Too many, really - Bad Girls became passé more than a few years ago, and trying to flog eighty-two different versions of one comic was never going to work in the long term.

Chaos did, however, produce the greatest piece of merchandising in the history of comics, ever - PURGATORI panties. How that didn't save them, I'll never know...

The BARRY WILLIAMS SHOW Award For Washing Your Dirty Laundry In Public

WINNER: The U-DECIDE Debacle

So Peter David gets haughty in public about CAPTAIN MARVEL, and Joe Quesada gets huffy in return, and Peter David never stopped being huffy in the first place, and Bill Jemas weighs in with a Great New Gimmi- sorry, Idea - and then they all go off and make comics of their own, go head-to-head in the sales charts, and finally expect us to believe that the numbers will make any difference to whether or not one or more of the comics survive.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world wonders what's on telly this evening, and why on earth professionals seem to have forgotten how to use the phone for anything other than connecting to the Internet.

The MY HEAD SOUNDS LIKE THAT Award For Like-Mindedness

WINNER: We, The People

2002 can easily be earmarked as the year that publishers finally started listening to a vocal segment of the comics community, and realised that bookform comics - whether collections or original - really are the future. Be it smaller publishers who produce practically nothing else (Top Shelf, AiT, Moonstone, Cyberosia); other publishers getting their feet wet (Oni, Avatar); larger publishers rolling out substantial programmes of collections and OGNS (Marvel, CrossGen); DC and Dark Horse continuing to aggressively push their existing programs; or Tokyopop and Viz ruling the book sales charts...

One thing's for sure - it's no longer possible to dismiss the idea of graphic novels with a straight face. And frankly, it's about time.

The MORE THAN THIS Award For Free Money

WINNER: Hollywood. Or maybe Comics. Who Knows?

Thanks to the previously-mentioned SPIDER-MAN movie's success, 2002 was 1986 all over again; Hollywood came a-knocking, and "Comic X optioned for movie" was the year's most ubiquitous headline, as companies and creators fell over themselves to find agents, butter up producers and maybe even get haircuts.

The summer and autumn months have seen a rash of such announcements, including the so-ludicrous-it-could-only-be-Hollywood news that Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's horror comic 30 DAYS OF NIGHT had been resolutely rejected when it was originally a movie proposal - but optioned within a week of the first issue of the comic hitting the shelves.

You have to laugh.

Of course, selling an option by itself means almost nothing; it certainly doesn't guarantee a movie will be made. So how many of these sales will result in actual productions remains to be seen...

The SIGNAL TO NOISE Award For Bandwagon Jumping

WINNER: Nostalgia Comics

Proving beyond a doubt (as if there ever was one) that the current comics audience is - shock horror! - not kids, 2002 saw a flood of comics based on 1980s TV cartoons, toy licenses and other unlikely candidates.

Kickstarted by DreamWave's TRANSFORMERS and Image's GI JOE (which were at least revivals of things that had been comics in the past), the juggernaut then stopped along the way to pick up HE-MAN, MICRONAUTS, BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, THUNDERCATS and more.

The fervour (and sales figures) for these comics was almost incredible, in the literal sense, and while the juggernaut appears to be running out of gas it's certainly been an eye-opener for the industry.

Anyway, must dash - I'm off to pitch a JAMIE AND THE MAGIC TORCH comic.

The DROP Award For Plummetting Sales

WINNER: Top Cow

Far be it from me to be the prophet of doom (oh, go on then), but 2002 hasn't been kind to many comics' sales. And - if you'll pardon the conflicting imagery - standing head and shoulders above the rest is the once-mighty Top Cow.

There are other reasons, besides sales, that 2002 hasn't been good to Top Cow; J Michael Straczynski has effectively stopped producing anything for their JOE'S COMICS imprint, which had consistently been their (excuse me) cash cow for 2001; the creator-owned MINOTAUR imprint imploded under a barrage of miscommunication and mismanagement, and Michael Turner's illness deprived the company of the previously-reliable regular injection of FATHOM revenue.

But the comics themselves don't make for pretty viewing either: their nostalgia comic BATTLE OF THE PLANETS has plummeted from over 100,000 to less than 40,000 readers in just six issues. The much-feted UNIVERSE title is down from just over 50k to just under 15k in about the same time. And most of their comics have seen similar drops throughout the year...

MY GHOST LIKES TO TRAVEL

Anyway, so much for 2002; let's hope the cautious optimism everyone seems to have for 2003 is borne out.

Now go and get drunk or something, for heaven's sake.

Antony Johnston is the author of JULIUS, SPOOKED and THE LONG HAUL. His new ongoing series WASTELAND begins in July 2006.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.