Heidi MacDonald sheds more light on the Virgin Birth and it’s recent premature passing (I told you I’d be here all week, and we really have a lot of veal in the freezer.) The “go us, we were a great company” comment by Mark Frangos is to be expected, but it really doesn’t get interesting until Heidi gets to an ex-employee with a bit more… openness about how Virgin worked. Or rather, didn’t.
[CMO Larry Lieberman]subsequently drew a picture for me to explain ourbusiness model wherein Dynamite and Virgin Comics were both rocket ships, and the Virgin rocketship soared ahead of the Dynamite rocket. The parabolic arcs of both rockets ended with them crashing into the ground, though the implications of that escaped him. Sequential art wasn’t really his strong suit.
Virgin’s business model was a direct opposite of the CrossGen model; where CrossGen set out to create a complex, varied universe of comics and tried to make a buck in that field, Virgin was trying to pop out as many little potential movie options as possible. Interestingly, neither of these extremes got a solid foothold in the market, with CrossGen (2000) ceasing operations in 2004, while Virgin was barely going on two (2006-2008) before it’s demise. (Funny coincidence: both Virgin and CrossGen were founded by millionaires.)
Other models than these absolutes are no guarantee for success either; SpeakEasy closed shop after two years of aggressively marketing a small stable of SpeakEasy-owned titles along with a slew of creator-owned properties. Dreamwave tried to create a foundation for itself with the highly popular Transformers license and still failed in the long run.
Granted, there is a lot we don’t know about the demise of each of these companies. (hey, this is the Internet. That won’t stop speculation.) But the bottom line is — in a world market where people read less and less, where video games and movies rule the entertainment industry, it’s getting harder and harder for companies to find their niche — or to even get a chance to mine it.