Outspoken, controversial, charismatic—pick
any one of those words and it describes Mark Alessi.
Over the first three years of his emergence
in comics, the multi-millionaire and CrossGen founder has
become just as known for his jabs at the competition and polemical
statements as he has for producing comics. And that’s
just the way Alessi wants it.
But for a man who’s worked so hard to
engage his competition in debates on subjects ranging from
how best to break into the mainstream to getting the video
game generation back into comic books, it seems strange that
when asked what he’s most excited about at CrossGen,
Alessi doesn’t talk about his new creator-owned imprint
Code 6 or even the fact that George
Pérez has a new book coming from the
publisher in 2003—it’s a program to help kids
read that excites CrossGen’s main man.
“Our education initiative is probably
the thing I’m most personally excited about,”
says Alessi from his Tampa office. “We’ve
spent about the last six months developing curriculum for
grammar schools, middle schools and high schools. We even
hired five teachers, who have over a 100 years of combined
experience teaching slow readers, attention deficit kids and
foreign language students, to make sure we’re building
activities and courses that won’t just get kids to read
comics but that will help kids read period.”
According to Alessi, the program will be available
to schools for a nominal fee through CD-ROMs and via the Internet,
and will use CrossGen titles like Meridian,
Sojourn and Ruse
to help students learn to read or improve their reading skills.
But just because Alessi’s focused on
helping kids doesn’t mean he’s lost any of his
drive to dominate the comic book field and even move into
Hollywood and video games. In fact, in its relatively short
existence, CrossGen’s already scored some major cache
in Tinseltown, where it has a number of film, television and
video game properties set up.
“We have a great team that knows
who to talk to and which doors to knock on,” boasts
Alessi. “We’re crossing so many different
genres; there’s no ‘superhero’
limit. And we create things that are female friendly and you
don’t see many companies in our industry doing that.”
And when it comes to talking about the industry
as a whole, Alessi doesn’t hold back. The publisher
says the comic book industry’s designed to crush small
upstart publishers like CrossGen and even points to the recent
bankruptcy of Brian Pulido’s
Chaos! Comics
as an example. But according to Alessi, who made his fortune
running a multi-million dollar software company, he’s
got a plan to crack the glass ceiling he sees set by Marvel
and DC.
“This industry is set up to make
everyone fail except the Big Two,” says Alessi.
“[Smaller companies] fail because
the current system doesn’t allow them entry. I think
the big companies are destroying the business. I want to see
comic books advance into the 21st century and if you’re
making and delivering comics the same way you did in the 1960s,
then somewhere along the line you missed 40 or 50 years.”
Alessi, who’s publicly tried to goad
both Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe
Quesada and Marvel President Bill
Jemas into public debates, holds the House
of Ideas up as a prime example of everything he thinks is
wrong with comics today. But with Marvel’s success under
Quesada and Jemas, can they really be what’s wrong with
comics? According to Alessi, even if Marvel dominates the
Top 25 books in the country, it doesn’t mean the publisher’s
helping the industry.
“I commend DC on how they handle
themselves,” says Alessi. “I think Marvel
is not the House of Ideas but the House of Gimmicks. I think
they want to pick your pocket. And I think comic books fans
are catching on.”
Alessi has particular ire for Marvel’s
recent U-Decide event, which saw Jemas, Quesada and Captain
Marvel writer Peter
David square off in a competition to see whose
book could sell the most copies over the next six weeks. [see
that story here]
“I think the outcome of Marvel’s
U-Decide event will be very simple,” chuckles Alessi.
“Fans will decide on CrossGen.”
One of the ways Alessi hopes to lure more
fans to the CrossGen camp is with the company’s two
new imprints, Code 6 and CG Entertainment. Both imprints allow
creators lacking major financial clout to publish projects
under the CrossGen umbrella while maintaining part ownership
in their properties.
“There’s some great work out
there that doesn’t map itself directly to the CrossGen
Universe,” explains Alessi. “So we started
the affiliate program to help the smaller publishers who were
going out of business because they didn’t have the personnel
to develop the revenue sources to survive. Now we can give
people like the Red Star crew
or the Snake Plissken comic a
chance and a fair deal. And it helps us expand our line of
products. This helps everyone.”
According to Alessi, the affiliate program
has already received over 90,000 applications and that only
marks the beginning of CrossGen’s expansion. While still
grooming colorists, pencilers and inkers in-house, Alessi
admits he also wanted to begin grooming young writers for
his company as well. But with a full schedule of books to
script themselves, none of his current writers had time to
take on a protégé—that’s a problem
Alessi says he’d like to solve soon.
“I have every intention of bringing
in a junior writer this year,” claims Alessi. “But
I want to make sure we can do a good job of educating this
person. We won’t just do it to do it. Like everything,
we’ll do it right or not at all. There’s a lot
of garbage out there and I don’t think any of it has
the CrossGen name on it.”
And Alessi doesn’t plan putting out
any garbage in the future, either. In fact, according to the
publisher, in the next few years, CrossGen’s going to
go from the little company that could to the giant that can.
“I think in one year we’ll
be a solid number three,” admits Alessi, who wants
to set realistic goals for his company. “But I hope
in two years to be number one. I think DC has a strong business
plan but I think the House of Ideas is tottering and crumbling.
I think we’ll grow stronger each year and anyone who
doesn’t believe that is in for a rude awakening.”