7/27/2009

The Direct Market Ghetto

Panel from Elmer #1 by Gerry Alanguilan
Filipino comics creator Gerry Alanguilan is considering not distributing his ELMER graphic novel through the franchise after learning that they charge a 40-50% reseller fee. National is by a significant margin the largest bookstore chain in the Philippines, so the decision severely limits his ability to attain broad national exposure. His comments encapsulates the available options for Filipino indie comics creators (which is almost everyone): "Within Metro Manila I already have several comic book stores that could carry it for me, and with more comics conventions in a year where I could sell these, I could make reasonable business with this, as I have done the previous individual issues of Elmer."