Posted on May 21, 2024

Malibu and Me, Part 3: 1993-1994

Back up to Part 1 | Part 2

The Big Picture

1993 was the year everything hit the fan. Not just for Malibu, but for all comic publishers. The previous year was marked by the rise of Image Comics (see Part 1 for the details if you forgot) and something else I didn’t mention, the distributor wars. The two biggest distribution companies for comics, Diamond and Capital City, pushed aggressively to expand their turf. Part of their strategy was to encourage more comic shops into opening for business, and they were suddenly popping up like weeds. Their pitch was that comics were “hot” (thanks to Image), and if you opened a store either Diamond or Capital City would be there to help you stock it. You couldn’t lose!

Publishers responded to this trend by expanding their lines or starting up new ones. Malibu and Dark Horse, for example, built entirely new superhero universes. Malibu called theirs The Ultraverse. They were banking on the exploding sales of superhero comics and the expanding number of stores to sell them. The whole thing made me nervous. It was happening too fast. It felt shaky and fragile. But the staff job offer from Malibu got me to California for a new life, and I was obligated to play my part.

The plan was to premiere no less than ten titles that summer, starting in June. The way it works is, you list your comics in a distributor’s catalog that goes out to stores three months in advance. The store owners try to predict how many copies they can sell, and they send their order back to the publisher via the distributor. The publisher gets those numbers a month later. At that moment, they know if they’ve got enough orders to go forward. If so, they set up a print order and get the wheels turning. (Take note: your comic actually needs to be done at this stage. Put a pin in that.)

As I recall, the initial orders for Ultraverse comics were pretty good. But there’s a certain element of gambling in all this. It comes down to whether or not the store owners guessed correctly. If they underestimated, they might sell out and need more (high demand). If they overestimated, they might be left with a lot of unsold copies (low demand). Guessing correctly is, like everything else, a skill you gain with experience. And, precisely because of the distributor push I mentioned above, there was a HUUUGE number of inexperienced store owners in the mix. In the summer of ’93, the entire industry was balanced on that one keystone.

We’ll leave it there for the moment and check in later.

Encounters with upper management

The president of Malibu Comics was a guy we didn’t actually see very often: Scott Rosenberg. He’d built up the company over several years as an independent distributor who got into the game by buying up smaller publishers. That’s how Malibu ended up with so many imprints (Aircel, Eternity, Adventure, Platinum, etc.). Eternity, which became the imprint for anime/manga style projects, was the one that gave me my shot.

Scott kept on getting lucky throughout his upward climb, gambling here and there to stay ahead of debts and hiring people who weren’t antsy about appearances. If a sneaky move pushed things forward, the sneaky move was taken. Two VERY lucky choices on Scott’s part were landing ownership of Cowboys and Aliens and Men in Black, both of which went on to become feature films. MiB alone probably gave Scott his off-ramp from the world of comics.

As I say, though, those of us parked at desks in the office didn’t see Scott very often. I remember taking exactly one meeting with him where I tried to pitch a news magazine for anime and manga. He liked the idea (it appealed to his fanboy side) but proceeded to do nothing with it. Then there were occasional all-staff meetings where Scott would make a big announcement (like the time they gave us all shares in case Malibu ever went public). Other than that, he was kind of a ghost.

Imagine our amusement in the art department, then, when he took some fellow exec on a tour of the building (no idea who it was, maybe a potential licensor) and stopped in to watch us work. We were drawing, lettering, and doing color design, which is a better visual than typing into a word processor. We were all listening when these words came out of Scott’s mouth: “I love it in here. I hang out here all the time.”

If I’d wanted that to be my last day with the company, I would have turned around and said, “No, you effing don’t.” Based on the looks we traded with each other after he left, I wasn’t the only one.

This account represents the sum total of my encounters with upper management.

Road tripping

After the Ultraverse debuted in the summer of ’93, some of suddenly had busy convention schedules. Malibu’s presence on the stage increased rapidly when Ultraverse sales threatened to dethrone DC as the second biggest comic publisher in America. It was still a long way from Marvel, but nothing to sneeze at. Malibu had to put up a big booth at the big conventions, and I was one of those who would help to run it. It marked the first time I got to travel on a company dime.

As the head of the art department, it became my job to review portfolios from prospective comic book artists, which I did at both the San Diego Comic Con (August) and the Philadelphia Comic Con (October). It was my first time on that side of the table, and it was just as educational for me as it was for the young’uns who lined up to have their work appraised by a “seasoned pro.” After four years of drawing comics for a living, I had the right amount of “seasoning” to pull it off, and it gave me a perspective I didn’t have before then.

At least 90% of what I saw wasn’t even close to “ready.” But the beginners were the ones I felt the most empathy for. Meeting a pro was a big moment for them (as it was for me), and I tried to give them the most input. I could still remember how crushing it was to find out I wasn’t ready yet, and how desperately I needed encouragement. Some pros only offered criticism. The ones who emphasized my positives and gave specific suggestions helped me to move forward. I remembered every word they told me.

When I started in on someone’s not-there-yet samples, I’d let them know right away that they weren’t ready and then shift into teaching mode, giving advice on how they could improve. I made sure everyone left my table with knowledge they didn’t have before and ideas to put into practice. If they just nodded and stayed quiet and walked away, they probably weren’t going to get very far. But when they asked me questions and turned it into a dialogue, I knew they were in it to win it. The last thing I wanted to do was crush their dreams.

After the impact of Image Comics, at least half of what I saw consisted of misguided attempts to copy the Image style. I did everything I could to stop the poison in its tracks, pointing out that nobody should willingly give up their freedom of expression before their career even started. Having your own style is what gets you noticed, not copying someone else’s. Then I’d start talking about fundamentals they hadn’t considered. I found that a “house” allegory worked well: before you can put paint on a house, you have to build the house. In order to build a house, you need a blueprint. In order to make a blueprint, you have to learn about X, Y, Z. That’s where your style will come from.

I don’t know how many people I actually helped, but I do know this: when I started working at Sony Animation in late 1996, another storyboard artist came up to me and said that I’d reviewed his portfolio at a comic convention and it was the most helpful review he’d ever gotten. And he couldn’t have been the only one.

My most memorable convention as a Malibu staffer was the Philadelphia Comic Con, held in mid October 1993. Everything was in high gear, and every moment felt important. The “road crew” was a big group that included some writers and artists, and we felt like a unified front. Among other things, I got myself into a 2nd row seat for the infamous debate between Peter David and Todd McFarlane about Image’s treatment by the press. It was like a high-stakes sporting event where you could feel the energy of the opposing teams tilting the room back and forth. Naturally, Peter was the surgical wordsmith and Todd was the bumbling buffoon. About the only thing he did right was admit defeat at the end. It made me SO happy to not be Todd McFarlane.

Amazingly, you can watch the whole thing on Youtube here.

Read Peter David’s postgame analysis here.

When the con was over, we flew back to L.A. feeling like kings. As soon as we walked back into the office, the bubble popped and we dug back into the work. Despite the momentary morale boost, all was not well in camp.

Black October

Getting back to the “big picture” stuff I started with, October 1993 was when the comic industry took its biggest downturn since I’d started keeping track.

Summer was over. The retailer time lag was over. Now the orders that were coming in actually reflected sales instead of guesswork. And the numbers were devastating. Remember what I said about all those new, inexperienced store owners? They thought they could sell zillions of copies, so they pre-ordered zillions of copies. When the dust settled, they could actually count how many of their comics were still unsold, and reduce future orders based on those numbers.

Another contributing factor came from Image Comics, specifically from Image creators who made promises they couldn’t keep. They’d promise an issue for month X, fail to produce it for month X, and leave the store owners empty-handed. You’d think that would only reflect badly on Image, but it had a ripple effect that damaged everyone else. After all, if a store owner pre-ordered a zillion copies of that Image comic, they had to decrease or drop other comics that actually DID get done on time. This is why some of us developed so much contempt for Image back then. We suspected they were amateurs masquerading as professionals, and they kept on proving it to us.

Then there was the “speculator bubble,” as it came to be called later. So many people invested in extra copies of first issues that it defeated the purpose of investing. Everyone sort of forgot that buying extra copies of a first issue artificially inflates the numbers. Your average store owner will see how many they sold and order later issues based on that. When those later issues sit there on the rack not being bought by anyone, your average store owner is on the fast track to becoming a below-average store owner. It’s just math.

When all these factors combined, stores that were buried in unsold comics and unfilled pre-orders couldn’t stay afloat and had to close their doors. By some calculations, a whopping 90% did exactly that, creating a catastrophic backlash that would kill no less than seven publishers.

Malibu wasn’t one of them. Not yet. But it was obvious that this market wasn’t healthy. Some Ultraverse comics got cancelled. Some budgets got reduced. Cheaper artists were sought. With that, quality started to drop. We in the art department saw it close up, and confidence in our employer dropped with it.

Read more about the ’93 crash here: Washington Examiner | Hollywood Reporter

The winter of our discontent

Throughout 1993 and into 1994, friction with the Malibu editors increased and intensified.

I’ve already described a few of my clashes with Chris Ulm, but they didn’t stop there. Another one that really scraped off some skin took place when I was assigned (as a department head) to write employee reviews for everyone who reported to me. This was a new experience, and one that I wanted to do with honesty and integrity. My team and I were close friends by now. I knew all their strengths and wanted to make sure Chris knew them, too.

Everyone got a positive review. I didn’t have a bad word to say about any of them. (There were other Malibu employees I could have roasted, but none of them reported to me.) The review I felt most strongly about was for Jason Levine. We called him our assistant, but in reality he was much more than that. He would do all the thankless grunt work that kept us lettering the comics at maximum speed. He took an incredible amount of good-natured abuse on top of that, becoming our mascot and little brother and bop bag. He did have a fuse and let us know when we were approaching the end of it, and we always stopped before things went too far. In this way, he also became our entertainment.

That was a skill of his that couldn’t really be quantified, so when I had to write something on his employee review, it was this: “Jason is the glue that holds the department together.” I meant every word of it.

When I sat down with Chris Ulm to go over the reviews, he pointed to that line and said he wanted me to strike it. When I asked why, he gave me the shittiest answer possible. “Anyone would sell their soul for a review like that, but it gives him nothing to strive for.” If I could have written Chris’ employee review, it would have said, “Reads all the wrong management books.”

Chris himself wrote my employee review and evidently thought it would give me something to strive for. After complimenting me on what I did well, he noted that I “repeatedly involved myself in matters outside my purview.” Damn right I did. I felt no shame in that. I took the initiative to solve problems wherever I saw them. That skill later qualified me (in very short order) to direct episodes of TV cartoons, and I wore it as a badge of honor. So I listened quietly, got my raise, and went back to business as usual.

When I had my sit-down with Jason Levine afterward, I told him exactly what went down and that he could do what I did. I made sure he knew exactly how valuable he was to us, and he stayed that way. For the sake of whoever Chris is managing these days, I really hope he’s reading better management books.

Then there was that other editor. The one I haven’t talked about at all yet. I don’t want to give his name in case he’s reformed himself in the 30 years since. But back then, he was insufferable. What we now refer to as a “Bro.”

Before I joined the staff, he was my most common point of contact as a freelancer and our relationship was cordial. When I got there, it changed dramatically. I’d never met anyone more insecure or desperate for attention. His form of humor was sarcastic trash talk, designed to appear aloof and cool when it actually just makes it harder for others to trust you. He wormed his way into creating Ultraverse comics that were, by far, the worst of the bunch. (Remember, we lettered them. We knew.)

Walking past his desk one day, I heard him say “F**k the artists” out loud with no sign of self-awareness. I wrote it down with a date and showed it to him. To make sure he knew artists were listening.

Then there was the time he asked me for an intro page to my strip in Eternity Triple Action and I said I could have it to him the next day. He marched away saying, “Tim, you’re only hurting yourself” for some damn reason. No explanation or preamble.

On another occasion, I was arguing for a style of comics that wasn’t “in your face” all the time (which to me is a sign of immaturity), and he accused me of wanting comics with condoms on them. That was the closest I ever came to punching someone in my adult life.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed this behavior, and it eventually caught up with him in the same employee review I described above. The tables turned when Chris opened up the floor for everyone to give anonymous reviews of the editors. I know for a fact (because I saw the evidence) that our favorite “Bro” got swamped. I heard (second hand) what happened as a result. Chris basically told him, “people hate you.” And Bro’s response was, “They just don’t get me.”

Of course. It was our fault all along. Every one of us.

We were revolting

There was only so much we could take. We watched editorial make one bonkers decision after another and we all felt like we were trapped on the Titanic.

I offered various ideas for new projects, some of which I later saw from other publishers, but never got one of them through the barrier. Then there was the day they proposed that we all provide complete alphabets of our lettering that could be digitized and turned into fonts. Knowing full well that it would become company IP, we explicitly refused.

We had a dawning realization that, if pressed, we could also run a company badly. Each self-sabotaging stunt pushed us closer to the door.

At one point, we decided it was time to explore other opportunities. We could have gone our separate ways, but our brotherhood was stronger than that, so we decided to forge ahead as a unit. If we could find another publisher interested in taking us on, we’d abandon the Titanic without regret.

Unfortunately, nobody else was in expansion mode at the time due to the ongoing market crash. The competitors were either reducing staff or outsourcing all their work to freelancers or both. When word got back to Malibu management that we were looking, it rattled them quite a bit. We were told (as a group) that if we wanted to leave we should negotiate our way out.

That’s eventually what happened, with me being the first one to go.

So long, suckers

Declining trust in editorial was part of it. But also, I wasn’t getting to do what I wanted.

This was made most obvious to me one day when comics legend Barry Windsor-Smith visited the office and spent some time commiserating with us in the art department. I showed him my portfolio and he looked me in the eye and said, “…and you’re LETTERING?”

He was exactly right. If I stayed there, I’d be stuck in first gear forever. Among other things, Bruce Lewis and I would never get our hands on Star Blazers. Staying at Malibu would become a barrier.

In a conversation with the head of the sales department, I went on in detail about decisions I would make regarding certain projects and he asked me honestly why I wasn’t working in editorial. Because they’d never let me in their club, that’s why.

By the summer of 1994, all my faith was gone. The only editor whose opinion still mattered to me was Mark Paniccia, because of the personal friendship we had forged through this rollercoaster ride. The others were drunk-driving this Titanic through a forest of icebergs.

When I moved to California, I left my friends and hometown behind. Malibu had to replace that. It had to become my home. The more uncomfortable it became, the more I resented those who made it that way. Would it be fairer of me to describe them as fallible human beings under an incredible amount of pressure in unpredictable circumstances? Maybe. But they held our livelihood in their hands, and our families by extension. The way I saw it, they didn’t have the luxury of being fallible. And I no longer had the luxury of trusting them.

I worked things out to ease back into a freelance relationship with two comics on my docket. Mark landed me penciling assignments on both Battletech and Star Trek/Deep Space Nine while I investigated other opportunities. This opened up the most intense and productive two years of my entire comics career, which will be the subject going forward from here.

Where are they now

After a period of courtship, Malibu was bought out by another publisher in 1994. For a while, it looked like that publisher might be DC, which would have been a good thing. If it had gone that way, Malibu might still be around. But it ended up being Marvel, in a preventative move to stop DC from claiming more market share. When Marvel later declared bankruptcy in 1996, no trace of Malibu survived.

My brothers in ink are still out there making stuff. Dave Lanphear has his own lettering company, Art Monkeys. Larry Welch, Scott Reed, and Patrick Owsley are freelancing to this day. Albert Deschesne went on to letter for Comicraft and pursue other avenues before we lost him in 2017. Mark Paniccia, Robert Conte, and Jason Levine went off to live their own lives, but I still consider them friends. I occasionally bump into others on social media, and a handful have turned up in the TV animation industry. Bruce Lewis and I became studio partners after we both left Malibu, so I’ll have more to say about him later.

But I’ve always kept a lot of sunlight between me and the editors, and see no reason to change that. The last time I saw Chris Ulm was an accidental sighting one day when my family and I were walking through Santa Barbara. I saw him ahead on the sidewalk. He saw us coming. The recognition was there. He could have kept his cool and strolled past us without a word. Maybe even got off with a silent wave. Instead, he froze, wiggled helplessly, glanced around in a panic, and turned to the wall as we passed by.

That’s how I’ll always remember him. Face to face with a dead end.