[Before Carol] People Were Making Change Out of Tackle Boxes

July 10, 2020 11:28 AM

"I think Carol was probably the second-best marketer in the history of the business, behind only Stan Lee. Carol's greatest strength in being in charge of the then-nascent direct sales department was in building up and stabilizing the retailers." An oral history of Carol Kalish, who made an indelible impact on the comics industry as Marvel's Direct Sales Manager in the 1980s.

Retailer Brian Hibbs' 2010 remembrance of Kalish: "Once upon a time Marvel, under Carol's DM sales team, was the most DM-friendly publisher."

Writer and former Kalish assistant Peter David, 1991: "Ariel's birth had gone smoothly on Labor Day of 1991. Over the next several days I called a number of friends and joyfully informed them of the advent of my third daughter. I didn't call Carol. Damn me, I didn't call Carol."

Gary Groth, Fantagraphics Publisher & The Comics Journal Editor, 1991: "Her gift — or genius — was exploiting markets, manipulating public taste, pandering to the lowest common denominator. [...] They prey upon the ignorance of children and the stupidity of adults..."

posted by Alvy Ampersand (11 comments total)

Groth has done good work over the years with The Comics Journal but Christ, what an asshole.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:13 PM on July 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

David's Last Word on the back and forth/uproar that followed from Groth's editorial.
posted by zamboni at 12:14 PM on July 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

DC Comics just recently broke Diamond’s 25-year monopoly on direct sales distribution. Marvel is sticking with Diamond for now, even though—by most accounts—Diamond has been really, really shitty at what they do.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:14 PM on July 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Even though I've been into comics for most of my life I'd never heard of Carol Kalish before. Of course I only learned who Steve Geppi was once the whole Diamond/DC break-up went down a couple of months ago so I guess I just don't pay attention to anyone beyond the actual creators of the comics that I want to read, and maybe their editors. But reading up on her I can't help but think that it would be great if there were more Carol Kalishes working in comics today because the current retail model for comics isn't healthy at all.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:41 PM on July 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Wow, what a fascinating story. It's impossible not to imagine what possible alternate timelines would have unfolded if Kalish hadn't died so young. Like, would she have been able to keep Marvel from going bankrupt? And if so, that probably would have meant that they wouldn't have had to sell off the movie rights to X-Men, Spider-man, and the Fantastic Four. On the other hand, in the link that zamboni posted, Kalish always had her eye on something bigger and wasn't going to be at Marvel much longer. Would she have been able to launch her own publishing company? The ideas she had that the people in the oral history article talk about seemed really, really good to me, especially the part about trying to get a deal to do Spanish-language comics.

Meanwhile, this little tidbit from the oral history article is just great to me:

People used to say back in the '80s that Carol Kalish was responsible for selling more Fantagraphics books than [Fantagraphics publisher] Gary Groth. Because Carol so thoroughly made it her job to improve the retail operations throughout the industry.

Given how much Groth has made clear his disdain for Marvel, I'm sure it would burn him up inside to see those words with his own two eyes.
posted by mhum at 4:08 PM on July 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I first heard of Kalish when she was chosen for the Eisner Hall of Fame, but it hadn't registered at the time that she'd died as young as she did. To have had that much of an impact in so short a time is astonishing, and her induction wasn't a surprise. As mhum implies, it's tempting to imagine what would've been if she had continued to live for awhile longer.

This bit from the oral history link jumped out at me:

Bank: "I think Carol was the one who said, 'Let's bring manga in. Let's get Akira.' Obviously it doesn't happen without [translator/importer] Toren Smith, but she was the one who pushed for that to happen at Marvel."

I had no idea that she might've been involved in the English-language publication of Akira, which was a groundbreaking moment for manga (and Asian comics in general) in the West. Marvel did a great job with it at the time, too.
posted by May Kasahara at 4:58 PM on July 10, 2020

Marvel did a great job with it at the time, too.

I remember Epic Comics was given heat over charging so much for each issue of Akira. This was the late 80s and Epic had put incredible resources into digitizing the process of coloring and redoing the voice bubbles, from vertical to horizontal, to aid in translation. They did well, at first, but I suspect Marvel lost interest as issues came out less frequently, after issue 16 or so, when Akira loses it.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:14 PM on July 10, 2020

I remember Epic Comics was given heat over charging so much for each issue of Akira.

I don't know what else they could have done at the time. It was a niche product and each issue needed to be twice as long as usual to account for the slower pace, compared to American comics. Going "unflipped" would've been cheaper, but that was unheard of back then (Toren Smith, for one, thought unflipped manga wouldn't ever be commercially viable).

I wouldn't be surprised if most of Marvel's Akira revenue came from the international licensing of their flipped/colorized version as opposed to direct sales.
posted by May Kasahara at 11:18 AM on July 11, 2020

It was worth the money, no question. It all went into the final product, as probably any reader will also attest. I'm just reminiscing.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:42 PM on July 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Took me three seperate re-issue runs to collect the full set of Akira.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 9:38 AM on July 12, 2020

Just reading the headline was enough for me to know exactly who this was about.

Other than being a voracious reader of comic books when she died, I have no association with the comics industry. Yet, I remember how much praise Carol got regularly. That CBG at the end of the oral history I believe was almost entirely devoted to remembering Carol. (May have been the next issue when people had time to gather their thoughts. The larger point remains.)

By all accounts, Carol made the world a better place.

.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 5:50 PM on July 13, 2020