Completing today’s personnel merry go round, Alan Payne, formerly of IDW, has joined Dynamite as Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Payne perviously worked at ToykoPop, Malibu and Dream Haven Books, so suffice to say he’s one of comics most experienced execs in the book trade, and he should do a lot to grow Dynamite’s trade and Grumpy Cat business.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity to be involved in expanding Dynamite and working with it’s fabulous staff. I’ve always admired Dynamite’s ability to initiate programs for properties from Red Sonja to Army Of Darkness, Vampirella, Flash Gordon, The Shadow, Doc Savage, Bob’s Burgers, and recently one of the greatest icons known world wide – James Bond. This is a great time to be a part of their continued growth,” says newly appointed VP of Sales & Marketing, Alan Payne. “Dynamite has some amazing properties that appeal to a wide variety of fans and we are going to have a lot of fun getting the next round of amazing books into the hands of current and new readers.”
“Alan’s experience in bringing comics and graphic novels to a larger audience is second to none. He helped blaze the trail of graphic novels to bookstores beginning with manga and took TokyoPop to the height of their success. After joining IDW, he was instrumental in building and establishing one of the most successful bookstore programs in the industry bringing licensed and creator driven comics to a larger audience,” says Dynamite CEO/Publisher, Nick Barrucci. “We are proud to have someone of Alan’s reputation and expertise joining the Dynamite team as our Vice President of Sales & Marketing and bringing Dynamite to the next level, taking our diverse library of comics to a larger audience.”
Any feedback on the size of the ‘comic book’? I do not believe that publishing is dead, especially when we have never in the 21st Century experimented with producing/publishing/and distributing our own books locally, outside of 20th Century distributor Diamond, especially. Given the present situation is economically dire, perhaps after the things collapse and we rebuild then we can eventually have comics be made more economical through cheaper sources of energy, and by not out-sourcing everything we make =there is a such thing as a ‘local business’… ?
There is no way you are going to gain new readers, and enter new markets just based on online comics, and the flimsy pamphlet sized ‘comic book’ filled with ads. Kids will wait in line for hours/days for a brand’s exclusive T-Shirt that offers nothing, so they will buy larger magazine sized, book sized volumes that can offer more visually than today’s kids sized comic books -and magazines and books do not have batteries that run out, or an internet connection that keeps dropping. Keep the current size, but offer just as much additional diversity in the medium, like just as Marvel is trying to push gender/ethnic/religious diversity instead of actual new innovative content (their animation shows are terribly worse too -soo lame, soo bad). Given though the artwork in all publishers is amazing, but limited to the pamphlet w/ads, ‘comic books’.
You cannot expect new readers to enter the 20th Century comic book store, or even take the term ‘graphic novel’ seriously -not the NEW readers. This is sequential, now ‘comic books’ I am referring to. We have ‘new readers’ who have grown up as Generation 911-snitch, gossiping online, bombarded with ads disguised as entertainment and cheap hidden fee that accumulate debt, leaders have no accountability, and no one graduating from high school still has no idea where town hall meetings, or city council meetings take place, and the things like traffic get worse and worse, and then you got 60 minutes recent story about Oxycontin/synthetic heroin; synthetic heroin, Oxycontin/Vicodin use has QUADRUPLED since 1999, and then all that heroin from Afghanistan still makes it over here for the cheap fix to take over when the pills get too expensive for the new suburbanite, and rural heroin users -and this guy in this article is probably ‘corporate’ -metrics, data mining, predictive analytics, comic shops, and barnes and noble, and merchandising is what matters to this guy. I wonder how long until his job will be outsourced to India… LOL.. meh
-And all of those kids in HBO, and 60 minutes documentaries about the increase in synthetic heroin and heroin use, they all say how there is nothing to do where they live. How do you gain new readers when all we do is sit in traffic, act like bigot consumers, push someone’s corporate policy at work, when we are not starting as ads disguised as entertainment w/commercials, no journalism only ‘news’, and more and more and more asphalt, strip malls, junk food, and traffic?
Do you think Dynamite will just end up getting bought by like Image, or merge w/Oni -hey, maybe they will take their turn w/this new guy at Shark-Man, every other publisher has…
Congratulations to Alan! I knew someone would snap him up.
Congratulations Al! And also to Nick and Juan for scooping him up.
For Aaron Browne…what the hell are you on about? The story is an announcement about Dynamite bringing a top guy into their operation. There’s nothing in that piece that connects with your comments.
Glad he’s staying in the industry!
Congrats!
Dynamite is expanding outside their early pulp catalog into licensed titles! We’ll see where they go… maybe books for kids and teens? Maybe original graphic novels?
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