Crossgen is good, what happened?

Cyberstrike · Post by **Cyberstrike** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:33 am

Meridian and Scion were my favorites.

ncameron · Post by **ncameron** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:57 pm

My understanding of the final straw for Crossgen was that things were going okay, they were cutting back some of the line and with the negation war hoping to relaunch the most succesful titles and no longer worry about sigil continuity. Shades of U2k...

But then Borders or Barnes and Nobel returned all of their overstock and since book stores sales were returnable, they no longer had the cash reserves to operate.

-neil

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:26 pm

ncameron wrote:My understanding of the final straw for Crossgen was that things were going okay, they were cutting back some of the line and with the negation war hoping to relaunch the most succesful titles and no longer worry about sigil continuity. Shades of U2k...

But then Borders or Barnes and Nobel returned all of their overstock and since book stores sales were returnable, they no longer had the cash reserves to operate.

-neil

Yes, the lack of income from TPB's has been cited as a GIGANTIC nail in the economic coffin for CG.

Lightning Strike · Post by **Lightning Strike** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:39 pm

xodacia81 wrote:
ncameron wrote:My understanding of the final straw for Crossgen was that things were going okay, they were cutting back some of the line and with the negation war hoping to relaunch the most succesful titles and no longer worry about sigil continuity. Shades of U2k...

But then Borders or Barnes and Nobel returned all of their overstock and since book stores sales were returnable, they no longer had the cash reserves to operate.

-neil
Yes, the lack of income from TPB's has been cited as a GIGANTIC nail in the economic coffin for CG.

Yeah, but the company was going under even before that. Alessi was running out of money like a sucker in Vegas

xodacia81 · Post by **xodacia81** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:41 pm

Lightning Strike wrote:
xodacia81 wrote:
ncameron wrote:My understanding of the final straw for Crossgen was that things were going okay, they were cutting back some of the line and with the negation war hoping to relaunch the most succesful titles and no longer worry about sigil continuity. Shades of U2k...

But then Borders or Barnes and Nobel returned all of their overstock and since book stores sales were returnable, they no longer had the cash reserves to operate.

-neil
Yes, the lack of income from TPB's has been cited as a GIGANTIC nail in the economic coffin for CG.
Yeah, but the company was going under even before that. Alessi was running out of money like a sucker in Vegas

Thus the end of an easy outlet to make more money was a HUGE blow.

Triumphant Serial Number · Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:46 pm

I know I'm late to the party, but I would guess that a big reason in the ultimate failure would be that it wasn't a superhero universe on modern earth. Would that be fair?

I've never read them, but remember when they were out being surprised at so much money being pumped into a slew of books that took place on different planets/dimensions and were basically fantasy books.

Lightning Strike · Post by **Lightning Strike** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 7:51 pm

Triumphant Serial Number wrote:I know I'm late to the party, but I would guess that a big reason in the ultimate failure would be that it wasn't a superhero universe on modern earth. Would that be fair?

No, not really. The books really sold well, it was just that Alessi didn't think things through properly when starting up the company. He spent money like crazy. For one example, instead of having the creators working from their homes like they do with the other companies (like Marvel and DC, etc.), Alessi actually had them relocate to Florida and work in an office 9-5 and payed very high salaries to big name creators like Mark Waid. This was a bold move and I have to give Alessi props for trying something like this, but it was one of several bad financial decisions.

From the fans I talked to, the Sigilverse thing did not put them off, it was quite creative and their books did not suffer from lack of talent. They had some of the best creators ever assembled, and I for one loved their books (or most of them). It was ultimately the lack of money that killed the company.

chesscub · Post by **chesscub** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:07 pm

cinlach@aol.com wrote: I know Steve McNiven started there, but he got fired for talking smack about the company on the companies own message boards...obviously not a bright fella.

I hadn't heard about talent being driven away, my understanding was that he couldn't turn anything down.

Actually it was Josh Middleton that did that. Steve McNiven took over the book from Josh Middleton.