Abstract
This article provides a new perspective on comics publishing in the Philippines, particularly when compared to the cheap, mass-market image it used to carry. It also opens discussions on electronic publishing, piracy, exploring untapped markets both locally and internationally, among others. In-depth interviews were conducted in order to investigate the firsthand experiences of contemporary comic book publishers in the Philippines. We limited our study to independent publishers, noting that their experiences are also testament to the end of the monopoly of big, commercial presses in comics publishing. Findings reveal that comics publishers in the Philippines (1) belong to a close-knit community of creatives and academics; (2) benefit from comic conventions and cult followings; (3) manage to operate with insufficient support from local bookstores; and (4) use various coping strategies in the form of novel roles, products, and distribution systems.
Introduction
Comics in the Philippines remains an understudied area. Such a state of affairs may be attributed to various factors: the limelight being on the Japanese manga (Cohn, 2010; Hayley, 2010; Schwartz and Rubinstein-Ávila, 2006), comics studies being a relatively less developed subject area (Groensteen, 2009; Hatfield, 2006), or the fact that comics characters by the companies Marvel and DC in the United States reign in terms of global attention (Gerde and Foster, 2008; Pepper, 2015). In fact, the impression for some is that Filipinos involved in the comics industry are merely foreign workers who illustrate for Marvel and DC (MacDonald and Yeh, 2015). As we investigated the experiences of contemporary comics publishers in the Philippines, we find that such is but a fragment of the grander scheme of this industry in the country. The thesis, then, of this article is that literature understates the contribution of the Philippines to the comics industry.
One of the most in-depth studies on this subject is May Jurilla’s examination of the business of comics publishing in the late 1940s to the mid-1980s (2008). After which, a few notable scholars such as John Lent (2015) as well as MacDonald and Yeh (2015) explored the area, but presented it either within the context of other Asian comics or the work of a specific cartoonist. Jurilla notes that comics publishing in the Philippines has a history of best seller success, but it was neither unchallenged nor lacking in operational concerns. For one, during the height of its popularity in the 1950s, comics were labeled as ‘the devil…threatening the future of the Philippine nation’ (Jurilla, 2008: 128), an ‘“important culprit” behind the lack of a reading public in the Philippines’, and as ‘low class’, ‘garbage’, or ‘a handful of ludicrousness and nonsense’ (Jurilla, 2008: 129) by critics. Most of said critics belonged to the conservative, religious universities in Manila, who had great influence back then.
Censorship was also a recurring issue, with the progress of the industry stymied due to strict censorship by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s and again in the 1970s during the Martial Law years under the Marcos administration. And while the enterprising Ramon Roces 1 did revive Philippine comics during this era, he also monopolized the industry, killing off the smaller presses that dared to venture in the same business. As Roces passed on, however, so did the success of his comics. Atlas Publishing, the flagship from his chain of comics publishing firms, was sold shortly after his death in 1996. It eventually closed down in 2006.
Today, issues present themselves in different forms. Interviewees spoke of inconveniences brought about by local bookstore distribution, author concerns on piracy, and the weak buying power of the local market. No longer are local monopolies in existence (so far), but more threats from overseas are currently in the market. In spite of these, we find that comics in the Philippines are not a lost cause. Jurilla herself acknowledges that while local comics are not anymore regulars in newsstands, a Filipino comic book revival is in the works. In the four themes that emerged from the data, we will discuss how those who came after Roces were able to revive a dying industry. We detail how they (1) belong to a close-knit community of creatives and academics; (2) benefit from comic conventions and cult followings; (3) manage to operate with insufficient support from local bookstores; and (4) use various coping strategies in the form of novel roles, products, and distribution systems.
Method
Bahl (2015) takes issue on the fact that academics have not been as attentive and welcoming to comics as they should be. Most studies on comic books are framed through the lenses of literary criticism, dismissing it as merely a genre and not a stand-alone medium. This study, hence, looks at the contribution of comics (the medium itself and not the contents) in book trade through the people who produce them: publishers.
In-depth interviews were conducted in order to investigate the firsthand experiences of contemporary comic book publishers in the Philippines. We were unable to source an official list of comics publishers in the country. This may be due to the informal organization structure of an industry trying to rebuild itself. The best source of information which reflects the number of current players is the list of exhibitors from Komikon, the biggest and longest-running Filipino comics convention. A total of 12 sponsors (including two of the three publishers in this study, Meganon and Anino), 49 comics creators (some publishers, some independent authors), and 100 exhibitors (composed of sellers of sundry items related to comics, such as stickers, button pins, and patches of comic characters) were listed for Komikon 2017 (Komikon, 2017). It is difficult to ascertain who among the 49 comics creators are publishers and who are authors, as some of the latter use pseudonyms that may sound like company names. However, this still gives us a snapshot of the industry.
Given the population size, we limited the study to independent publishers, noting that their experiences are also testament to the end of the monopoly of big, commercial presses in comics publishing. While we acknowledge that leaving out the bigger presses might lead to a narrower, less generalizable study, such is a trade-off, we are willing to sacrifice for rigor and depth. Noting that the target participants belong to such a small group who are well acquainted with one another, we implemented snowball sampling to find interviewees. Recruitment was done by electronic mail correspondence opening with a self-introduction as well as an overview of the nature of the research. E-conversations were kept brief and informal in order to set the foundation for having intimate and involved participants (Marshall and Rossman, 2011). Paolo Herras of Meganon Comics, Jamie Bautista of Nautilus Comics, and Carljoe Javier of Anino Comics were then enlisted and interviewed in this manner. Aside from knowing each other from the comics publishing field, their teaching stints (in well-known universities in the Philippines) also afforded them to interact with one another. The interviews, which were semi-structured, lasted between 2 h and 3 h. Questions revolved around the following topics: how they became publishers of comic books, their typical working day, and best and worst experiences. Originally in a mix of English and Filipino (mostly English), translation was conducted shortly after conducting the interviews. Coding was conducted with the aid of NVivo software (version 11).
Findings
In this section, the themes that emerged from the data shall be discussed, particularly, that Filipino comic book publishers (1) belong to a close-knit community of creatives and academics; (2) benefit from comic conventions and cult followings; (3) manage to operate with insufficient support from local bookstores; and (4) use various coping strategies in the form of novel roles, products, and distribution systems.
Belongingness to the creative and academic communities
Richard Caves (2000) spoke of a set of intermediaries involved in each creative realm as he presented his work on the creative industries. He recounted that sociologists aptly refer to these intermediaries as ‘gatekeepers’, as they choose which artists and whose works move on to the next round of production. According to him, although these people also conduct comic book publishing for the sake of advancing the arts, it is inevitable for them to consider profits as well. Clark and Phillips (2014: 1) also contend that publishers are not mere ‘middle men’ but instead act as mediators who not only make authors’ works public, but also contribute value to their manuscripts, while making sure that their intellectual properties are protected. Those who are masters of their craft are able to build authors’ careers and maintain a loyal following for them. In the following narratives, we find that in the Philippines, these current gatekeepers and mediators are artists themselves who apparently did not meet the standards of bigger, more established publishing houses. As such, these artists established their own companies and became their own publishers. It was hence unsurprising that all three comic book publishers professed a belongingness to the creative community. Furthermore, they also belong to the academic community, exhibiting a strong membership in what scholars refer to as ‘symbolic elites’ (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) or the individuals who possess much symbolic capital, for instance, journalists, writers, artists, directors, academics, and the like (Van Dijk, 1989).
Paolo Herras of Meganon Comics is an independent film director and writer, as well as a self-published author of graphic novels and children’s books. A comparative literature major, Herras considers writing as his entry point to the creative circle. He also worked in advertising for a couple of years – where he met Tepai Pascual, a graphic artist, who eventually became the cofounder of Meganon. Herras had a brief stint as a lecturer in the University of the Philippines and the De La Salle University College of Saint Benilde, before using his savings to direct his own independent films.
Carljoe Javier of Anino Comics is likewise a creative writer. He is a published author of fiction, and has worked in the independent publishing scene for the past few years. He majored in creative writing, and did his master’s thesis on a market study of alternative publishing. He also taught comics writing in the Ateneo de Manila University.
Most entrepreneurial of the three, Jamie Bautista, is a graphic designer by trade. His family owns a printing and publishing house. This allowed him to branch out and start Nautilus Comics on his own. Of the three, only Bautista is able to maintain a full-time comic book publishing career. He also had a brief stint teaching comics understanding in the Ateneo de Manila University. Even after starting publishing, both Herras and Javier have to keep their stints on filmmaking and freelance writing, respectively, as their comic book earnings could not sustain them financially.
All three publishers were avid fans of comics prior to publishing them. It was straightforward for Bautista, who has been a fan of comic books since he was in grade school, but ‘became more into it’ in high school. The same goes with Javier who notes, ‘I wound up in the comics industry because I really love comics. I was writing about comics, and I was writing comic strips.’ Javier further recounts: ‘I used to hang out a lot at Sputnik in Cubao X (Sputnik is a small comic book and toy shop located in hipster community Cubao X, next to other eclectic shops and novelty stores), comic cons [conventions] and things. I made a lot of friends with other comics creators, and so I’ve always been wanting to make comics.’ Aside from hipster communities and comic cons, Javier also mentioned meeting people with whom he collaborated during the two occasions he taught comic writing classes in the Ateneo. From there he relates that this got him ‘involved in the scene’ of ‘indie comics creators who are roughly my age or younger than me’ and that if you ‘hang out and you’re all creative people you wind up deciding to do projects together.’ He also noted that these same people he dealt with years ago have become the big names in the current local comic book publishing arena.
Bautista recounts his teaching experience in the Ateneo, stating, ‘I taught a comm[unication] class about comics understanding, and then one of my students there was really smart, Elbert Or, who’s also a comic creator now, and we became friends after the class.’ Bautista recounts how or actually challenged him to make their own comics, and with some financial backing from another one of Bautista’s relatives, he set up his own company in 2003.
While the other two met their initial collaborators while teaching them, Herras claims that collaboration comes in the form of a ‘date’. ‘If I like you, you like me, we can collaborate’, he explains. Being a comic book fan is also quite different for Herras, in that he follows the work of certain people. Showing some artwork, he narrates, This one is done by Carlo Rozzi Clemente, and I love his work for Darwin’s Association for Delicious Evilness which is part of the Abangan (an annual anthology of the best Philippine comics), the 2014 best comics…I am a fan of his work so I commissioned him to do the [artistic] work [for my writing].
It is worth mentioning that this overlapping of the people who teach, study, and create comics suggests a niche community who seemed to have formed themselves instinctively, reminiscent of Robert Escarpit’s cultured group. He described this group as ‘persons having received an intellectual training and an aesthetic education advanced enough to enable them to exercise literary and personal judgments, having sufficient time to read, and having enough money to buy books with regularity’ (Escarpit, 1971: 59), forming an exclusive, closed caste within its members. To further strengthen this argument, during the course of the interviews all three mentioned the two other publishers (among other names in the industry). As Bautista notes, ‘We all know each other. Well, most of the artistic communities here in the Philippines are like that,’ reiterating the niche creative community of comic book publishers, and the creative industry in general. Such is evocative of what many sociologists refer to as networks of informal contracts that bind the creative industry participants together (Caves, 2000).
Of comic conventions and cult followings
In this section, we first discuss how this tight-knit community is evident not just as makers of comics but as consumers as well. After which, we talk about how comic conventions are better outlets for sales compared to local bookstores.
Bautista recounts that they have a loyal and dedicated local fan base. He attributes the rise in the number of Philippine comic book conventions (as well as their sales figures in such events) to them. A typical comic convention, like the big Komikon (the annual Philippine comic convention) [which] comes [in] November, typically brings in 3[,000] to 4,000 people for a day. And [in] half [a] day […] there are times we can hit three fourths of our breakeven point […] They’re the ones who’ll [go], ‘Oh, here’s the new book! He’s very good! You should check him out!’ They’ll give [the books] as gifts […] It starts there. We, me and my wife, were saying ‘Should we come up with our book launch? No – let’s just do it at the convention!’ People are there anyway! We don’t need to spend money; the booth is only 4,000 Pesos (85 USD). Then there are people who are already fans. They’re not going anywhere, [and] I’ll go there anyway so might as well just [get a booth]. You know they’ve moved more copies on the first day of Komikon than when we launched the last book I did. So that’s just gigantic. That’s gigantic because when I would launch a literary book, if I sold 40 copies on the night, that’s considered very good. And then if comics, a hundred. And then for literary launch[es] today, that’s forty in like a personal launch. [And] this is like a hundred copies you’re competing with – all of them in Komikon. So it’s great. We took a leap of faith. We were brave – or stupid – or both. So we printed in time for the Manila International Book Fair and then we did well. We did okay, because it was a big risk for us. The booths were very, very expensive. So we got one booth at the far back, by the stage where nobody wanted [to be], and we’re lucky to, to not lose money. We’re lucky that we didn’t fall into debt. We didn’t.
From these narratives it can be easily surmised that comic book sales in the Philippines are not lacking. In evaluating highly salable books, Hype: Bestsellers and Literary Culture (Helgason et al., 2014) notes that critics tend to look skeptically at best sellers due to their lowly language, plots, and story lines. For these reasons, critics consider the phenomenon of the best seller as a threat to literature, a similar concern with regard to the past image of local comics. However, according to contemporary publishers, they are servicing a reader base that belongs to a higher class – economically and even culturally speaking. Javier notes that there really is a great demand for comics, and the market is quite different from the market of previous decades. I would probably say our target market, Anino fans, are comics fans who are pretty well read in comics. And essentially like my thinking is Filipinos love comics, and we want really good comics. We’re willing to buy really bad comics, actually. Because you know if you go to Komikon, there’s a lot of great comics, there’s also a lot of bad comics. People will buy everything because people want comics. People want to support local comics illustrators, and I want to reward that support by like providing really good stories.…Because Filipinos, you know, the Filipino comics [reader] wants to read more Filipino authors. It’s great because this is an audience that’s been built up by Komikon for the last ten years, so really like I’m just kind of swooping in and benefitting from the infrastructure that’s already been built. So this consumer is, you know, a Filipino comics fan,…if you’re reading and you can afford a book for 200–250 pesos, you’re obviously a little bit better off, that you’re not trying to cover your basic [needs] – and then if you’re looking at Anino comics, then you probably respect that level of comics creation. We’re really trying to do things that are different. Like every single book that we put out is different from anything else that’s been put out in the market. In the comics market. And we make a clear, like a tended path. So I’m sure that the other publishers would say the same thing, but it’s true like I’m keenly aware of what other publishers are putting out, am keenly aware of the kinds of things I would like to put out. The variety is, one of the most flattering things is like Andrew Drilon, whose book we just released, said we’re like top shelf, which is just this great range of very different kinds of comics. So you know, when I say it’s different and alternative and it’s a different level, am sure we’ll have superhero comics ‘cause I love superhero comics, but it’s different. And we have manga but it’s different. So we’re not trying to like fit into other genres and copy them or try and like, obviously we have a view towards what will sell. We don’t go on and say, ‘What is selling? Let’s make something like that.’ What we do is, let’s make something really good that people would want to buy [it]. And so if that’s our thinking then that’s also an awareness of our readership. So these are people who want really good comics. And are willing to, you know, support creators by buying the books.
The publishers clearly do not share the same opinion. All three publishers wish to extend readership, again through different means, and in varying degrees. Herras deems it high time that publishers expanded their local readership outside of the loyal buyers they currently have. Justifying their decision to get a booth at the MIBF, he says, ‘We wanted to promote the comics event, because [it felt like] it’s the same bubble. It’s like were living in a bubble that it’s the same readers, same attendees, so we wanted to grow that.’
While Herras holds a national perspective, Javier believes that they have already covered the local market. Javier reasons that publishers need to go international to gain from economies of scale, not just for themselves as publishers, but for their authors as well. As he notes, I think local distribution, at least as far as Anino’s concerned, is very strong but what we need is that larger distribution into regional markets, because once we move into regional markets with scale, and then you can tap these bigger markets. Because it really sucks if we’re a nation of what? a hundred million people and then for you to be a literary bestseller you have to sell 1,500 copies. It’s a .005% of the population just to be a bestseller. It’s kind of a shit number. You know so if the best you can hope for in a local publishing is like 1,500 copies, how much can you sell that for? 150, 300 [Pesos, 3 to 6 USD]? So how much will the author earn from that? Nothing, basically.…If we want to be successful, we need to scale, because that scale allows us to sell more copies and it allows us to pay creators better so that they can keep making comics. Because that is the worst thing that people are dealing with, that they have to stop making comics because they have to make a living, ‘cause comics doesn’t earn enough. So if it breaks down at the point of the creator, how are we gonna sustain an industry? Basically you have tens of thousands of people buying comics regularly. When you look at the distribution say of like, what is a literary bestseller? You move a thousand copies in a year. For comics you can move that much quicker. Our first print run of Light, which was substantially more than 1000 copies, sold out in a few months. So these move faster. I feel like there’s a much wider readership in comic books than in traditional literature, not to say that there isn’t a readership [in the latter] but particularly the local, like Filipinos who read Filipino literature, there is a bigger population of Filipinos who read Filipino comics than Filipinos who read Filipino literary work…And you don’t necessarily have to be a comics fan to buy and read Filipino comics, whereas buying and reading Filipino literature is actually a big step for a lot of people.
Lack of local bookstore support
Aside from the lack of digital distribution systems, there was also clear evidence of a complicated relationship between comics publishers and local bookstores. Javier uses the term ‘challenge’ to describe them, as local books (including comics) are …in some forsaken corner, and then it’s just badly organised. It doesn’t matter which books are these. It’s badly organised. You don’t know how to find it, [and] when you ask the people, there they’re like ‘I don’t give a fuck!’ [The case is like,] ‘We [bookstores] need books for distribution,’ but bookstore distribution doesn’t really take care of the local books. You know it’s really weird, I wanted to give somebody a copy of my book…I couldn’t find it in the bookstores. I couldn’t find my own book in bookstores – that I just launched recently! Finally, I did manage to find a copy, but you know, it’s in one corner, hidden, which is, you know – it’s not gonna get found! The random person [who] wanders into the bookstore is not gonna find it. And I don’t know what’s to be done about that – I’ve been thinking about what’s to be done about that for the last I don’t know – ten years? But nothing’s changed and there’s you know, it’s [like there is] this power struggle and it’s [the case that] somebody [should be] saying, you know, ‘I want to prioritise local books.’ Nobody’s doing that. It’s so difficult. I mean I’m sure you can dig up in your research how much bookstores get. Right? So when you compare that to you know – how do you sustain a cultural industry? Without say, government support, to subsidise the cost of these things? I know NBDB [National Book Development Board] is doing their best. You know there are taxes on the use of paper, things like that, but what we really need is real support because if you leave the market [by] itself, you’re screwed!…And I’m not saying that we need to be protectionist about it but it needs this concerted effort towards prioritisation of Filipino literature in terms of readership, a valuation of that. The Philippines isn’t set up to be business-conducive to small, medium enterprises. We had a hard time. All of these government agencies give you a hard time. DTI [Department of Trade and Industry], BIR [Bureau of Internal Revenue], the easiest thing to do is get your ISBN [International Standard Book Number]. I mean, Jesus, 500 Pesos (10 USD) for a book, is really, really rough. Right? If your salary is like entry level 15[,000, 314 USD], 18,000 [377 USD] so every payday if you spend 500 Pesos for a book, that’s quite expensive. And so what’s to be done? If it’s left to the market? There has to be something. We control the cost of our books. We do not, as best as we can, we don’t sell anything above 300 [Pesos, 6 USD], that’s our magic price point. Anino books are 200, 250, 275 [between 4 to 5 USD], the figure plays around that. And we think that’s our reward to the comics reader. Our books in National Bookstore are placed with the likes of F Sionil Jose (a prolific Filipino novel writer), so how’s that? Even the one here [in Bonifacio Global City], [but] at least here the comics are grouped together. [In] Alabang Town Center – we’re behind the freaking wall! We’re behind the pillar! That’s Filipiniana ah! [We only have] one shelf! And you can’t see [the books]! Our worst experience is always when it comes to finance or distribution, [and] delivery. It’s not easy to carry a heavy box of books and [have to go] through security. [It’s like] going through the people in charge who just want to get their day through, right? The finance, not just the collections – that one is to us our – things that we hate to do. …like [in] National Bookstore, you don’t just bring it to one place and then they distribute. You have to ship to every single branch…we’ve been spending the last two weeks distributing our colouring books to every National Bookstore…that’s like 200 branches, you know? And Metro Manila [has] 100. Well [for] provincial [branches] you give it to one then they spread [the copies around], but [in] Metro Manila [you have to bring the books to] every single one, and per branch, you line up, and you wait, and then you submit. So it took us three to four weeks just to [distribute] – and that’s just National Bookstore. We still had to deliver to Fully Booked, Powerbooks, and the others.
Javier also shares a higher opinion on comic book events. I still really price events as great opportunities. Events, book fairs, launches, and then you go on the strength of those, on the strength of the launches, you post the pictures and then people are like, ‘Shit! I wasn’t able to go to the event!’ and then they go to the bookstore and then they try [to find the books] there. The problem of course we had with…comics back…in 2003, 2004, was we were competing with bigger publishers like Summit, who is of course, Robinsons. And because they are part of a bigger company, [they did not have to do] many [of the] things we have to do. Distribution, all that, they of course, that’s part of their strength. So those are the barriers to entry, for example, what would cost us a lot of money to distribute to different bookstores, they just ride along with their distribution system for their other goods. And the other thing with the model we were doing is we were going through the magazine channel, which is different from the book channel. Books are different that books have a longer shelf life, while magazines have a 30-day shelf life. And most bookstores, like [in] National Bookstore, if you’re part of the magazine rack, after 30 days – we [bookstores] pull you [products] out. We had to talk to them and say this is a comic, it’s not like news…it doesn’t get stale! We kinda had to fight about it.
Novel lessons and shifting roles
Bautista, being the entrepreneur that he is, discovered an effective way (at least for Nautilus) of working around such distribution problems. We do our own distribution. Because I used to have a distributor – there are some companies who do distribution only and we actually offer this to other authors. What they do is…usually if you’re the author then 15% goes to you, [and] retailers can get anywhere between 45, 50, [or] 35% of their cover [price]. National Bookstore is 40 [percent]. When we first started, [they got] 50%, that’s why they have the biggest cut, half of that [cover price] goes to you [bookstore], right?…And they’re the most difficult ones to distribute to…and then you have also the distributor who will be the one to distribute. They will get another 10 to 15%. So we were like, ‘Ah, we’ll keep that [portion] instead, so we just do it in house…but [then] again if you are a single author, I don’t have time to spend three weeks driving to every single National Bookstore, waiting in line. I’ll just give up 10% of my [earnings]. So you have to factor that into your cover price. But at the same time if I make it [cost] too big, it might not be competitive, so those are the things you try to balance out. So we offer that service…of distribution to self-publishers. You’re the self-publisher, so you keep most of the sale but you have to expect, from your cover price 50% will go to the retailer. So…we just say that 50%, you remit it to us, when we remit sales to you, we’ll give you back 50% of the cover price because the other 50% will go either to the retailers. Whatever’s left, we keep. So [the self-published author] just asks us to deliver it, the logistics deliver it to the bookstore, so we get a 15% cut for doing that. So again the publisher is the one who put out the most risk. We’re very low risk there because it just goes with our other books. We didn’t have any cash out. Our release schedule’s a lot smaller than before, because now we just do two or three books a year at most. We don’t have a big [release]…So what we try to do is, like [for] National Bookstore, now we say, we won’t do all the branches anymore. So now based on our [past experience], we know which branches will sell, so we just focus there. So a lot of it now is trying to be very focused also. Of course entering new fields like adult colouring books [and] prose, it’s so different. For us, we always know that [to do] with comics, with Arnold’s stuff or [his] comics. The comic events is [sic] where we make our bread and butter. It helps subsidise a lot of the printing cost. If we launch during a comic event, we can go a long way towards covering our print cost just that weekend, a big chunk, but that adult coloring books, that doesn’t sell in that event, or the prose [books] there are no similar events for that, so that’s a longer game. So were like, ah okay, so that’s [just] something we haven’t found yet. So colouring books were finding bazaars, but there’s no one bazaar that’s as big as Komikon you know, [where] the fan base is as rabid, you know. It’s more events for this one so we have to spend a bit more. So that’s the new challenge, each book is kinda different in a way. Most conflicts we have is [sic] about [going] digital. I’m a very strong believer of digital. Arnold’s very hesitant about it, so his books right now we don’t have them [in digital format]. I’m still trying to get some of it [on] digital but he’s still very antsy about it. He’s had bad experiences with it. Like his wife was a graphic designer also, [and she] once saw a shirt that took one of her artworks online, then made shirts out of it, then they heard [about it]. A friend told her, ‘Micah did you see your design? It’s being sold in this store!’ So after that they became guarded about it. Because again that’s part of the risk of going digital. So they’re a bit gun shy about it. But because most of our books now are Arnold’s stuff, that’s why most of the print stuff we do is his stuff. So there’s not much conflict in the sense that the way I resolve it is that if its Arnolds stuff, well do it the traditional way, print, and digital comes into play only in marketing. But when I want to explore digital like creating digital content, then I do it myself. I’ll ask for his help maybe but it’ll be my IP [intellectual property]. My old issues that are pamphlet type, we’re having a hard time [selling them], again because the bookstores are distributing [them] as a magazine, or they display it spine out, and if you display them like that, nobody would be able to see them. So you know…people don’t have time, not many people have the dedication to stick with just one title and wait the month. They’d rather have the complete book that you can read it by one [sitting]…It shifted away from serialised episodic stories to big graphic novels that are complete stories. Or even if it is episodic it’s like each episode should be one to 200 pages that comes out, more like books, that comes out yearly or you know, every two years. The old method, which I still do, is when you do want to see episodic stuff, has shifted to digital. But then it’s not anymore monthly. It’s now daily or weekly…It’s a whole new ball game you know. So I’m trying to figure that out because looking at myself, that’s how people are now. Because around 2000, 2003, that’s when the shift happened when Atlas Comics, which used to, you know, used to print all that horoscope comics, Aliwan, shut down. Well, you know, you used to move millions of copies then suddenly they couldn’t anymore. My theory was that, ‘cause they were now competing with 50 Peso [one USD] DVDs and MP3s. So comics used to be cheap entertainment, but what happens when you have cheaper entertainment? It becomes just like a commodity. The cheapest wins. And because it’s print and you’re competing with digital pirated stuff, comics cannot rival those. He tied up with Sterling in 2008, 2009…They tried ‘cause he just felt that people just weren’t doing it. So he even got a government grant [in addition to funding from Sterling] Javier is…Comics were 10 Pesos [0.20 USD] each. And then he got all the old guys, tried to release weekly and he distributed it in the LRT [Light Rail Transit]. How long did that last, 6 months? Then [it] shut down. Nothing. And we were watching [it happen], but I kinda felt that it’s not going to work, mainly because his assumptions were, he just thought that, people just weren’t trying, or they gave up too soon, but he didn’t change anything from the business model. Nothing changed.
Darnton’s Communications Circuit defined the external forces influential to the life cycle of the book as follows: intellectual influences and publicity, economic and social conjuncture, and political and legal sanctions (1982). It may be derived from these narratives that some comics publishers were cognizant of the external forces influencing the life cycle of the book, and they used such knowledge to their advantage. The significance of the external forces in the life cycle of the book has further been strengthened through the experiences of comic book publishers. Not only were these forces evident, but an acknowledgment of these also aided the publishers in the conduct of their professions. Pricing, for instance, is heavily influenced by the economic and social conjuncture of the Philippines. Their awareness of the lack of local bookstore and government support and valuation for local comic books also encouraged them to create their own distribution channels.
Conclusion
In this study, we found that comics publishers (1) belong to a close-knit community of creatives and academics; (2) benefit from comic conventions and cult followings; (3) manage to operate with insufficient support from local bookstores; and (4) use various coping strategies in the form of novel roles, products, and distribution systems.
Similar to the experiences of Philippine university press publishers, their affiliation with the creative and academic communities gave weight to their opinions on what is good and bad material particularly in the realm of comic books. They also get their return on investment from comic conventions, having a targeted market come to them instead of the other way around. Some of them believe this is a small bubble that needs to expand – albeit in different forms. One opinion states that non-comics readers in the Philippines can and must be reached through other events (outside of comic cons), while another believes that comics readers in other countries, particularly those in the region, should be pursued. Such a point of view opens the discussion on electronic publishing. However, some are still uncomfortable with the idea, particularly authors, as piracy is rampant in the Philippines.
Local bookstores were portrayed, at best, as an operational nuisance. A lack of patronage was evident from the publisher-unfriendly costs they have to bear in order to display their books in some ‘God-forsaken corner’ ‘behind the freaking wall.’ However, they do acknowledge that these bookstores are also heavily taxed by the government, therefore merely passing on the burden to them.
Philippine contemporary comics publishers acknowledge that local distribution may still be improved. They hence took upon this role themselves – distributing other fiction and nonfiction books from smaller players (mostly self-publishers) for a fee. This enables them to benefit from economies of scale, lessening the financial burden of bringing their books to local bookstore branches. Others delved into merchandise such as adult coloring books in order to keep the business afloat. Some look to new business models, but at this point, specifics are inconclusive.
This study provides a new perspective on comics publishing in the Philippines, particularly when compared to the cheap, mass-market image it used to carry. It also opens discussions on electronic publishing, piracy, exploring untapped markets both locally and internationally, among others. But, more importantly, it portrays the value of understanding the external forces influencing the life cycle of the book. Philippine comic book publishers were able to revive what was supposedly a dying industry, something which monopolies and bigger presses of ages past were not able to accomplish. Change, at least in the aspect of comics publishing, is coming indeed.