Future
The formation of Future Entertainment (or "Future Comics") was announced by Bob Layton and Dick Giordano "at a press conference on Saturday, June 9th, 2000," during Charlotte, North Carolina's Heroes Convention.
In addition to wanting to produce comics for the 'Average Joe', Layton and Giordano had heard numerous retailers decry "the callous way they were being treated by Diamond," so Future intended to revolutionize comics distribution by directly selling to readers and retailers alike via the Internet. For two years after the initial launch, Layton and Giordano "mapped out a daring, but sound, business plan that would allow an independent publisher to be profitable in a market dominated by Marvel, DC and Diamond." Realizing that the workings of the direct market ultimately played a large factor in the survival of the smaller publishers, they decided that the best way forward was to circumvent the distribution network offered by Diamond (and therefore the steep discounts at which Diamond buys from publishers), cut out the middleman and distribute Future's titles through the Internet, through the "Future Comics Retailers' Club". In addition, Future's "sales department a toll-free 1-800 number," and sold direct to fans.
Future Comics debuted its first title - Freemind #0 - in August, 2002. Co-written, edited and inked by Layton, with Michelinie as co-writer, Giordano penciling and colors and letters by Miguel Insignares and Albert T. DeGuzman respectively, Future Comics was soon being praised critically as a new Valiant or Marvel. Future's second title (Metallix) followed a few months later, and their best-seller, Deathmask launched in March 2003, by which time "almost half of 1,100 comic retail shops in America were signed up" to buy direct from Future.
Before Deathmask would reach shops, however, Future's distribution system underwent a radical shift.
Read more about this topic: Future Comics
Famous quotes containing the word future:
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—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question, or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Plato—who may have understood better what forms the mind of man than do some of our contemporaries who want their children exposed only to “real” people and everyday events—knew what intellectual experience made for true humanity. He suggested that the future citizens of his ideal republic begin their literary education with the telling of myths, rather than with mere facts or so-called rational teachings.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)