Heavy Ink Retailer Displays Callousness in Face of Criticism
By now, you’ve likely heard about the incredibly insensitive, and downright disgusting comments made over the weekend by Travis Corcoran, president of online comic book retailer, Heavy Ink. If you’re not familiar with the story, click here, but the long and the short of it is that Concoran has not only condoned the shooting of congress woman Gabrielle Giffords, but has applauded it! His excuse for this behaviour is that he is apparently a libertarian, but frankly that’s a load of bullshit. I don’t care what your political views are, there is no excuse for wishing a stranger dead!
In the wake of this news, many comic creators have condemned this behaviour, and have been urging fans to buy their comics either from a different online retailer, or at their local comic store. Several creators who own their projects, have even asked for Heavy Ink to stop stocking their products. The biggest hit to Heavy Ink was likely the fact that Brian Clevinger, of Atomic Robo fame, said that he was severing all ties to the company. This was particularly interesting, because Clevinger had been a big supporter of Heavy Ink since it’s very early days, and would often urge fans to but Atomic Robo from their website.
Now, in the face of such criticism, any half-intelligent person would probably issue some sort of retraction, but not Concoran. No, he instead went on to Heavy Ink’s forums, and posted the following:
Atomic Robo and all other comics sourced through Diamond (99.9% of them) will continue to be available here at HeavyInk.
The only thing that Brian’s “severing ties” means is that instead of buying Atomic Robo from the publisher, at 50% of list price, we’ll buy it from Diamond at 50% of list price. In turn, the Atomic Robo guys will sell their comics to Diamond at something far lower than 50% of list.
It cuts into their profit margins noticeably, but doesn’t affect us at all.
http://heavyink.com/forum/forums/1/topics/2043?page=6#post_41538
Wow! Now that is callous! Is it me. or is this guy completely nuts? I mean, bearing in mind how close-knit the comic community is, you really want to try your best not to alienate buyers and creators. He’s saying that it’s not going to cut into his profits, but I think he is really underestimating how many users his service is going to lose through word of mouth from creators and fans.
Now, Warren Ellis has added his voice to the chorus of creators asking fans to boycott the service:
“Obviously, I’d rather Heavy Ink didn’t sell my work, but I don’t have a choice about which stores order my books. However, if you do buy my work from Heavy Ink, would you please consider buying it from someone else instead?”
There’s a good reason they call Warren The Internet Jesus - he has tons of loyal fans, who post frequently on his forums, and are incredibly loyal. He’s not the kind of person you want to get on the bad side of! Travis Corcoran, I think you just fucked yourself!
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