Broken Frontier

One of the most exciting independent companies to burst on to the scene in the last few years is Alias Enterprises. The company launched in early 2005, kicking off with a broad line-up, comprised of mainly all-ages material. 

Despite a few hiccups with its launch, Alias Enterprises was well received by fans and the company delivered a number of hits, including Lions, Tigers and Bears (in TPB-form, ed.); The Legend of Isis; and Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker.  However, it is fair to say that the company’s first year also saw a number of bumps, including missed ship dates and the departure of DB Pro, Monkey Pharmacy Productions and Runemaster Studios.

Through it all, the company has remained focused on putting out comics for all ages. New studios like Kevin Grevioux’s Astounding Studios have since come on board, and the company has continued to make inroads with successful books, including 10th Muse and Hyper-Actives.

Jason: Mike S. Miller, welcome to Industrial Evolution! I am already picking up Twin Blades, The Legend Of Isis, Judo Girl, Victoria’s Secret Service and The Hammer Kid. What’s the big idea behind launching titles like Revere, The Odyssey, Orion The Hunter, The Vindicators, Alius Rex and Darkstorm?  You are putting out too many great books!

Mike: [Laughs] We’re trying to keep it down to a smaller number of books, but we’ve been getting some really top-notch submissions in and we just can’t turn them out into the cold! 

Revere we think will be one of Alias’ big hits for 2006. It’s got everything you can think of, great story, great art, awesome concept, etc. And everyone who has caught a glimpse of it so far has been clamoring for it to come out! 

The Blue Water books are always a solid bunch of titles, but The Odyssey and Orion are really some of the best books we’ve seen coming out of the studio. And what needs to be said about Kevin Grevioux’s line-up?  All of his books are superb!  How could we say no to them?

Jason: In launching Alias Enterprises in early 2005, you took a big bang approach, releasing numerous titles in one hit and quickly building a presence for Alias on the spinner racks. Why did you decide to launch with such a broad range of books, as opposed to a more tightly focused line?

Mike: We wanted to be noticed.  We came out of the gate at full gallop, launching 12 books, and we WERE noticed.  Comparisons to bigger publishers started popping up, and we were automatically a top-20 publisher, gaining the regard of our distributor right off the bat. For that purpose, I think we did well.

Now it’s time to settle down a bit and,, as you say concentrate our efforts more tightly.  

Jason: The company’s launch grabbed a lot of attention. What have been some of the ways that you have worked to keep the momentum building in the year or so since?

Mike: It’s been a learning experience, we’ve been at the forefront of marketing experiments, with the original Comic Book Digest, the 75 cent titles, the new CBD, and now with the Alias Bonus Books and low-price graphic novels (Armor Quest, 160 pages for $3.50, and Alivs Rex, 64 pages for $3.50)… 

We’ve been hard at work trying to find new ways to market our properties. We’re doing everything we can to keep our presence out there, and brand our name.  Heck, we've even jumped on the Myspace bandwagon! www.myspace.com/alias_comics We want people to know that Alias will be around for a long time to come.

Jason: Can I ask you about the departure of a number of studios from Alias in late 2005? How much of an impact did that have on the company and the momentum you had worked so hard to build?

Mike: Honestly, it’s kind of a misnomer that studios ‘leave’. Books leave. We don’t sign studios to exclusive contracts; our studios are free to, and often do publish books with other publishers. A great example of that is Blue Water, they have several books coming out through Avatar and Angel Gate press. If for some reason we didn’t want to publish one of their books, or conversely they felt more comfortable publishing it with someone else, the 'book' leaves, but not necessarily the studio.  

With most of the studios, they had specific books leaving, or at least ceasing to be published with Alias, for example, Runemaster Studios’ ‘Lions, Tigers and Bears’.  We published the first mini-series TPB, but we never contracted to do the second mini-series, so LTB volume 2 never ‘left’ because it was never ‘here’. Elsinore, from Monkey Pharmacy, moved to Devil’s Due, which I think is a much better fit as a publisher, and Ken Lillie-Paetz, Brett Burner and I are all still friends who don’t have a single harsh thing to say about one another. That the book left so soon after we had to stop publishing Runemaster’s Gimoles seemed like some sort of exodus, but it really wasn’t anything like that.  

Then, of course, there was DB Pro. After months and months of non-delivery on several promised titles, we just had to pull the plug on that relationship.

Of course, we wish everyone the best of luck with their titles wherever they publish them, but the timing of the books being cancelled at Alias and ‘leaving’ to go to other publishers did appear to be worse than it was. Obviously, since we’re still here a year later, it hasn’t been too detrimental to our continuation as a publisher.

Jason: I thought you might want to share a celebratory laugh with me, because a lot of armchair commentators wrote you off when those studios left, but it is more than six months later and, as you said, you are still here. Care to comment?

Mike: Nah. We’re just here because I’m tenacious. Alias isn’t making money hand-over-fist. We’re surviving as a company off of generated revenue (which is actually no small feat for ANY company that is only a year old), but no one is getting rich. The extra money that does come in, we keep pouring into new marketing ideas to try to generate a greater awareness of our books. 

I think the reason we’re still here, the reason we will be here for the long haul, is a realistic expectation of the marketplace. Our freshman year has been a great learning experience. We’ve learned a lot about what NOT to do. [Laughs] But we’ve got some insight now that will help us build and grow our long-term plans as well.  

Jason: Alias Enterprises has won a lot of praise and support for its focus on all-ages titles. How important is this for the company and how important are all-ages books for the industry?

Mike: I think they’re very important. We’re actually curbing back our rating to ‘PG’ across the board back from our initial concept of ‘PG-13’. We want ANY book we produce to be available to any age group. Or at the very least, we don’t want a parent to be worried about leaving an Alias book out on their coffee table so that their kids can read it. As a brand, I want Alias to be seen that way.  

Our motto is ‘Comics for Every Age’, which isn’t necessarily that we produce a bunch of ‘all ages’ titles in the sense that most people think of ‘all ages’: in other words, dumbed-down kiddie books. We want to produce thoughtful, intelligent books that can be read and enjoyed by every age group. I do think that’s important to the industry as a whole, because without a new generation of kids getting hooked on comics, this industry will die out when this 30-something generation dies out. That, or the kids will all be reading manga.

Jason: How are the conventions going for Alias? What is the reaction of the fans, both on the show floor and on the message boards?

Mike: Alias is primarily keeping to the West Coast conventions as a company. We’ve seen some very positive responses from the fans, mostly fans who have become parents, and can’t find anything else at the convention that they feel safe giving their kids. 

It’s a great feeling to share comics with the younger generation! I had one kid come up to me at Wonder Con and he was in slack-jawed-awe of meeting the guy who created the IMAGINARIES!  It was like I was Walt Disney or something. [Laughs] I was humbled that my work could affect a child that way, and I hope and pray that more of what we do can have that same effect on the youth, as well as entertain our adult fans. 

On our message board, the fans are awesome. It’s really great to be able to interact with the people who are reading our books, and get their feedback on what they think is good and what works and what doesn’t.

Jason: I’d like to change tack for a moment and ask about Comic Book Digest. What is the status of that project?

Mike: Issue #02, the April issue, is out in stores now. I think it looks really sharp, and orders have increased from issue #01, so that’s a definite plus! We’re hoping to grow the CBD as advertising dollars come in, so that we can turn it into something even better than it is, something with perhaps more original exclusive content—like issue #02 has the Zero issue of Super Teen*Topia in it, which can’t be seen anywhere else. Also, we may open it up to advertising other publishers books, for a nominal fee of course. Getting 25,000 copies of your project out there can’t do anything but help!

Jason: What are some of the challenges Alias faces as an independent publisher?

Mike: Well, first and foremost, I’d say exposure. We’re always trying to find new ways to get our books INTO people’s hands, so that they can decide whether they want to invest their time and treasure into our product. That’s difficult when you’re an independent publisher without a major financial backer paying your bills.  

Second, I would say dealing with creative types. [Laughs] Being the creative type, I can say that. Artists are notorious for being unable to keep a schedule. It’s why we’ve had to create our new policy of having two books finished and on our server ready to go to print before we will solicit the first issue of a series. If we had that policy in place when we first began, rather than the ‘have two books penciled’ policy, sure we would have only had about half as many books to run, but we would never have been late on any of them either. 

Third, I would say standing out from the crowd. I walk into my LCS, and look on the wall, and there are HUNDREDS of books out there. It’s hard to find Alias books among the crowd, because it’s hard to delineate ANY specific publisher’s books. It’s hard to touch the heart and mind of a reader if they can’t pick you out of the forest to begin with.

Those basic publishing challenges aside, I think our specific challenge that we face is regaining retailer and fan confidence. The last year has been a great learning experience, and now that we’ve managed to get all our ducks in a row, and have policies and partnerships in line that will insure timely product for the future, we hope that after several months of on-time shipping and high quality comic books those who are still skeptical about Alias will be convinced that we’ll be here for a long time to come, and that when an Alias book is solicited, they can be sure it will hit the stands in short order.

Jason: Alias has dozens of success stories with a number of high profile books. What is The Next Big Thing (or Things) coming in 2006 from Alias?

Mike: I think Revere is really going to be the big hit of the summer. Paul Revere as not only an American revolutionary, but as a werewolf hunter as well? Who wouldn’t want to read that? Super Teen*Topia I think will really hit home with audiences as well, with its original take on a world where being ‘super’ doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ‘popular’.  

Kevin Grevioux has a great line-up of books coming out this summer, from his Asguardian tales like Hammer Kid and Valkyries to very original takes on super-heroics like Vanguards and Darkstorm. Those are all top-notch books with great stories, writing and artwork! We’ve got a slew of trades coming out this summer as well, including Deal With The Devil, The Imaginaries, and Lullaby Vol. 2… 

I’d ask your readers to keep checking out the Alias site for updates at www.aliascomics.net!