Dallas Fan Expo: the Spectre of 90’s speculation haunts us

There is something amiss at Dallas Fan Expo, besides the spirit of the 90s being in full effect.

May I interest you in a variant for your variant? How about a foil one?

I understand wanting to make event exclusives and variants as a good way to reward fans for making the effort of coming out to the con but we need to dig a little deeper to see something odd. Taking a look at the variants that were being sold at Dallas Fan Expo this past weekend there are some forgivable retailer sins like foil variations of pre-existing things or variants on facsimile reprints but what is going on at TidalWave goes even further. But first we need to take a walkdown to the 90s and Revolutionary Comics to get some better context.

I want to give a huge shoutout to Jay Allen Sanford, i’m basing most of this from his article Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics: The Inside Story of a Local Publishing Empire, you should really check it out here. It’s an incredible read.

Let’s start in the 80s with Stuart Shapiro, a comic book collector, convention organizer who also ran a rock & roll memorabilia business. 

From Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics: The Inside Story of a Local Publishing Empire:

In a self-penned bio, [Shapiro] described how he got into the business of selling T-shirts, patches, backstage passes and pop culture clutter. He was still called Stuart Shapiro then, living near Detroit and promoting comic conventions and record collector shows. “[I] printed up a few thousand black and white eight page catalogs and within six months (mid-1984) I was just barely making enough money to walk away from the convention business. Actually, I drove away. To San Diego…I changed my name to Todd Loren. I guess I thought it was a rebellious thing to do, and I always liked the name Todd.”

So Shapiro, now Todd Loren, starts publishing books about music acts. He did this through Revolutionary Comics and their Rock & Roll Comics series.  It starts with the first issue of a book based on Guns and Roses. They hit it big, it makes sense to link both music fans with comics about their favorite artists, Sandford recalled in the article “I was amazed when that first issue of Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics, on Guns N’ Roses, sold almost 10,000 copies in just a few short weeks. Those were big numbers, even in those days of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

The comic was black and white, on cheap newsprint and crudely drawn, with several factual errors and misspellings. The flimsy publication felt like a Home Depot mailer than a comic book, but collectors were snapping it up. Especially after Rolling Stone mentioned that GNR’s lawyer Peter Paterno sent Todd a cease and desist order. Todd’s comic biographies were strictly unauthorized, or unbiased as Todd would say, which made his publications sound more like journalism and less like crass exploitation (as they were already being called by critics).

From there Loren is very aggressive about giving writers control to go anywhere their biography comics take them, and he takes a bit of a journalistic approach to be truthful in these books.

Todd wasn’t interested in publishing illustrated press releases. He wanted Revolutionary’s writers to feel free to call it like we saw it, to talk about the heroin and the illegitimate kids and the backstage gangbangs or whatever. GNR’s lawyer never filed their lawsuit, but comic collector magazines like Comics Value Monthly were already calling Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics revolutionary. Which is what Todd named his company, Revolutionary Comics. “I wanted to do a comic that had all the sex and drugs that is rock and roll,” Todd wrote. “Rock and roll is bigger than life. The stage presence these bands have…they don’t need superpowers because they’re already hero worshipped by their fans. And those fans love to spend money on anything featuring the bands they love.”

The legal trouble really comes about when making biography comics about Bon Jovi and Motley Crew, who at the time were managed by the same group, Great Southern/Winterland Productions. Their lawyer does not take kindly to these books but oran is to diffuse the situation.  However this wouldn’t be the last time Revolutionary and Great Southern would clash.

Issues number three and four, on Bon Jovi and Motley Crue, brought the momentum to a halt. The bands had exclusive merchandising deals with Great Southern/Winterland Productions. To their lawyer, Ken Feinswog, Todd’s comics were bootleg merchandise, akin to an unauthorized T-shirt.

“He managed to scare most of the major comic book distributors into dropping all of our books,” Todd wrote after distribution of the Bon Jovi comic was halted. “Never mind that he had no legal grounds to make his threats, never mind that licensing rights such as those which Great Southern owns do not entitle anyone to censor First Amendment protected free speech.” 

It became a freedom of speech issue with Loren making the argument that he was much more like a newspaper than a PR release for these bands.

“Todd’s argument was simple and eloquent. If Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone don’t have to pay someone every time they write about them (and show a picture), why should Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics? Todd was sure that his own unauthorized bios, like any tome by Kitty Kelly or any magazine article, were First Amendment protected free speech. “We keep hearing words like authorized, permission, sanction, approval. [I] yearn for the day when we can hear these words replaced by quality, integrity, truthfulness and objectivity. We’re not merchandise. We’re a communications medium just like newspapers. We shouldn’t have to have permission to write about someone.”

Now this rings fairly correct to me, maybe I’m just hedging my bets and prematurely tying it up with a journalism angle, but the argument is still true.  Those biography books work to tell the accurate story of these celebrities, some might be unflattering but they are functionally true by a journalistic standard…they would get sued off the planet if they were libelous.

Sadly, it starts going downhill for Loren the second time Revolutionary and Great Southern clash in court, this time over a New Kids on The Block book.

In mid-April 1990, U.S. District Judge John S. Rhoades declared that RNR #12 could legally be distributed, because it was part biography and part satire. His twelve page ruling stated “Bookstores are filled with biographies – both authorized and unauthorized – of public figures. And, while the subjects of such biographies may be offended by the publication of their life stories, they generally have no claim for trademark infringement.” He added that “It appears that the First Amendment may trump any claim that the plaintiffs have for trademark infringement.”

Even Spin Magazine would swing and miss on the issue and not understand what biography comics are and do.           

Spin Magazine accused us of “ripping of rock and rollers with relative ease…selling standard biography material in the form of cheesy comics.”

Todd wrote in reply “How can Spin be objective? They depend on the record companies to provide them with the materials, the information, the access and the advertising which keeps Spin in business.”

The Revolutionary Comics debacle set the precedent for biography comics. The rules were that as long as you didn’t infringe on copyright or trademark you were in the clear. Loren had destroy the original New Kids on The Block comics because they had their logo but he would continue to make books.

Todd had to destroy 12,000 copies of the original comic printing, creating a rare collectible which now goes for around $20.00 in comic shops. He spent over $18,000.00 in legal fees

So let’s leave that there but please I beg you read Sandford’s article because the story doesn’t stop there. But we have established that biographical comics are a viable way to publish a story. There are legal guardrails and you must stay in line but as long as they are true and diligently researched it’s ok……now lets talk TidalWave.

In addition, I just want to take a moment to mention that a lot of this comic history isn’t digitized so it’s kinda murky unless you talk to the people involved. That goes for both Revolutionary and TidalWave. So to the best of my ability and this incredible interview on The Industry of Comics last year, lemme try to explain some of the talk of Dallas FanExpo this last weekend.
 
TidalWave Productions were founded in 2007 by Darren Davis. Davis is prolific in his previous work in entertainment as well as being part of the early WildStorm crew, working with Jim Lee, so he is definitely an industry veteran. TidalWave does original books like 10th Muse and Legend of Isis. In 2008, Davis realized that they could pivot to Hillary Clinton and Sara Palin because of the election, and in fact IDW were doing their own thing with Obama and McCain books.

TidalWave later found big success with a series on Taylor Swift but legal troubles came about 15 years later when Swift’s legal team had problems with the biographical comics he made that continued the story of the original Taylor Swift comic. Female Force: Taylor Swift #2 Comic Elite Dazzler Cosplay Virgin Variant was too close on likeness and TidalWave got a cease and desist letter for it. 

“It wasn’t just ‘Hey, stop doing that’ it was “we want to know how many you sold, how many were printed. We want invoices from the printer, we want your Shopify backend data, we want the facts, we want all of this’” said Shawn Hudachko in The Industry of Comics podcast last year       

Swift’s lawyers were gonna figure out how much money they made and also figure out damages on top of it. However they were saved by the fact that none of the books had shipped. This legal close call was huge and even Hudachko acknowledges “if someone does look at this the wrong way, it’s only a matter of time before the Marvels and DCs of the world decide to say stop, that’s it. The more we poke the bear the more likely the bear is going to slash back.”

The last ingredient to this biographical comic market business that we need to look at Dallas Expo and the modern push to retailer and incentive variants. If you are like me and like James Tynion IV books you know what I’m talking about. (Hi James! I’m a huge fan)

So let’s this add together: we have biographical comics that are riding a very thin legal line to make sure they publish; you have a sea of variant covers; and you have the ever present ghost of speculation that has always been a part of comics and collectibles.

Lemme show you the list of Dallas Fan Expo Variants, by looking on CovrPrice.

Here is a post from Instagram advertising those books

Again we are still within the boundaries of what is allowed but the manufactured level of scarcity and deluge of variants should work as a canary in the coal mine for retailers and the comic book industry at large. As well as the little fact fact that Star Wars is a trademarked property.

We gotta remember that the economy of collectibles is only held up by the value that the buyer is willing to pay for. Most publishers, including the big two have given air to the new and current variant craze market and when it really hits the fan is when people are paying upwards of $200 because the next Doomsday movie might be a big hit. This is the modern comic bubble that we will have to come face to face with. The FOMO and speculator market could really be an issue here.

Comic book retailers and fans are welcome to partake in this at their own risk and I assume some retailers aren’t too happy about it. This isn’t the kind of thing that will make comics look good to a general market, if anything it will look like the comic nerds never learned anything from the 90s bubble.

Again, this is entirely in the clear from a legal standpoint because of the legal battle between Revolutionary and Great Southern but it could really sour the general public if this speculator market bursts and these variant biographical comics lose value. Fans would be right to ask why the $200 dollar book has it has lost it’s original value.

The fear is that someone from a law firm that is employed by these worldwide intellectual properties looks at this in the wrong light. Something that Nintendo has shown no qualms in having like when they sued a someone for modifying and selling Nintendo Switch consoles last April.

For the last time, these might be just at the limit of what is okay within copyright and TidalWave have been subject of previous legal action. It’s only a matter of time before this is seen by the general public. If it’s in the form of a huge lawsuit, it could make the comic book industry look like it hasn’t evolved since the hazy days of the 90s. It doesn’t hurt retailers and the comic book industry yet but it does seem like a ticking timebomb that they are selling to people who may not understand what they bought because they wanted to get in early on as a speculator on a unauthorized collectables.