On The Road to Comic-Con: Interview with Eric Powell, Creator of The Goon
Today we have another article in a series of interviews recently conducted for Technorati's Road To Comic-Con coverage. From July 12th to the 15th, nearly 150,000 people will invade the city of San Diego and its Convention Center to experience the largest pop culture event in North America. For one week, Comic-Con International is the biggest story in the world.
We spoke with Eric Powell, the creative mastermind behind the five-time Eisner Award winning indie comic book series The Goon. The series seems to take place in the Depression Era and focuses on a seemingly supernatural anti-hero who causes as many problems as he solves while dealing with villains and monsters.
It didn't take long for the conversation to jump into the business. When asked if he saw comic books achieving the same mainstream success as their film and television counterparts, he was less than positive. "Assuming everything remains the same, it probably won't," he said. "Comic books tend to be up and down and when they're up, it tends to be fads. If you look at all the attention coming from movies you'd think there would be a surge. Unfortunately, there hasn't been on."
Not only has the increase not happened, but there is constant danger contraction in the direct market. "The market is held up, mostly, by Marvel and DC, which are owned by Disney and Warner Bros.," he said, his voice suggesting some frustration even as he found something to laugh about. "If either of the overlords pull the plug on their publishing arms, comic book stores would be in a lot of trouble. Though, I secretly hope they'd replace their Spider-Man orders with The Goon."
Powell offered a simple solution to stabilizing the director market. A simple solution to offer but not one to implement. "Diversity is everything," he said. "Retailers need to take more chances with smaller publishers. Hopefully this is a way to find a broader fan base in a more natural way." One of the ways to accomplish this , he feels, might be through digital distribution.
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