The story
Founded by Bob Layton in 2000.1
Pre-formation
Having achieved great success by relaunching Marvel Comics's Iron Man in the 1970s (with co-writer David Michelinie), Bob Layton had gone on to considerable acclaim in the early to mid-1990s at Valiant Comics, where he worked "first as co-architect of the Valiant Universe, and then, as Editor-in-Chief and Senior Vice President." Layton left Valiant, his home in New York City and the comics industry itself in 1996, and moved to Florida for a short retirement.
Layton returned to comics in 1998, working on a couple of Elseworlds for DC Comics with Dick Giordano, before returning to Marvel (and Iron Man) for a mini-series with frequent collaborator David Michelinie. His experiences at Marvel, however, left him disillusioned with mainstream comics and its post-slump "glut of inferior products," caused in large part by an inability in publishers to focus on "quality content," rather than "superficial elements and ancillary products development."
Realizing that "as much as people love the 21-page monthly comics," an over-reliance on "product [which] is being written exclusively for a niche audience... [means that] comics are not attractive to a mass market readership," Layton joined with Giordano (who also lived in Florida) and Michelinie to create a company which would produce "more mainstream—stuff that could be read by the 'Average Joe'."
Formation
The formation of Future Entertainment (or "Future Comics") was announced by Bob Layton and Dick Giordano "at a press conference on Saturday, June 9th, 2000," during Charlotte, North Carolina's Heroes Convention.
In addition to wanting to produce comics for the 'Average Joe', Layton and Giordano had heard numerous retailers decry "the callous way they were being treated by Diamond," so Future intended to revolutionize comics distribution by directly selling to readers and retailers alike via the Internet. For two years after the initial launch, Layton and Giordano "mapped out a daring, but sound, business plan that would allow an independent publisher to be profitable in a market dominated by Marvel, DC and Diamond." Realizing that the workings of the direct market ultimately played a large factor in the survival of the smaller publishers, they decided that the best way forward was to circumvent the distribution network offered by Diamond (and therefore the steep discounts at which Diamond buys from publishers), cut out the middleman and distribute Future's titles through the Internet, through the "Future Comics Retailers' Club". In addition, Future's "sales department [ran] a toll-free 1-800 number," and sold direct to fans.
Future Comics debuted its first title - Freemind #0 - in August 2002. Co-written, edited and inked by Layton, with Michelinie as co-writer, Giordano penciling and colors and letters by Miguel Insignares and Albert T. DeGuzman respectively, Future Comics was soon being praised critically as a new Valiant or Marvel. Future's second title (Metallix) followed a few months later, and their best-seller Deathmask launched in March 2003, by which time "almost half of 1,100 comic retail shops in America were signed up" to buy direct from Future.
Before Deathmask would reach shops, however, Future's distribution system underwent a radical shift.
Recent history
Future announced in April 2003 that it had hired Jason Hughes as Sales and Marketing Manager, but despite this, and continual but slow-moving interest from Hollywood, after seven issues each of Metallix and Freemind, three of Deathmask and zero of Future's fourth-title (The Peacekeeper) having seen print, the company decided it had to "redirect [its] efforts into a more profitable market," and stopped soliciting individual issues.
Read the full text
Citing "rising art & editorial costs," Layton notes that such "costs are simply not aligned to the percentage of sales in the comics industry." Therefore, in August 2003 (after a brief hiatus - Deathmask and Freemind's last issues were dated May; Metallix #6 was June), Future Comics announced that it would be concentrating not on the declining direct (comics) market, but on the mass (books) market, and following publishers such as CrossGen in focusing its efforts on trade paperbacks and graphic novel-releases.
"In a statement posted on the Comics Continuum website, Future Comics president and Editor-in-Chief Bob Layton said, "It has become rather obvious that consumer tastes are gravitating towards the trade paperback format. While the direct market continues to decline, mass market interest in the genre is on the increase. Europe and Japan have embraced this format for decades and statistics clearly show that the U.S. is heading in the same direction." " Layton cited "statistics clearly show[ing] the U.S. is now heading in the same direction" with a predicted sales growth of 30% in 2004, and noting that in contrast, the costs of producing a monthly comic continued to rise.
Presciently, in light of subsequent more numerous shifts away from monthly comics towards collections, Philip Schweier, writing at ComicBookBin noted in September that Future's move was a bold one, but that a move away from comics one-time "cousins" (magazines)' monthly periodicity, "at this time may be only a quick-fix for current problems within the comics industry." Writing that "such a move would seem more viable since... a trade paperback has a much longer shelf life [than a monthly comic issue]," mass market and bookselling logic seemed to also (as did Schweier) tacitly supports Future's move, but it was not to be. Ironically paralleling the similarly timed arc of equally short-lived publisher CrossGen towards "a mass market format", Future's move came "far too late in the game to prevent the company from drowning in debt," with new investors and funding unavailable to back up the decision to produce a mass market product.
Cessation of monthly titles and move to digital
Future Comics cancelled its monthly titles in 2004. In 2012 the company released its entire catalog digitally. In addition to the books that had been published in print, several other stories that had never been printed were included. One of these titles was Peacekeeper #1. Later in 2012, Future partnered with publisher IDW Publishing to publish the graphic novel Colony. Colony was marketed as Dick Giordano's last work.
Critiquing the collapse
Commenting somewhat wryly on Layton's description of events, ComicBookGalaxy's Christopher Allen casts doubt on some of Layton's pronouncements about the restructuring and ultimate failure of Future Comics. He notes, in particular that Layton's critique of Diamond's "monopoly" and alleged concern over the perceived "threat" of Future Comics is hardly likely to be more than sour grapes, if for no other reason than that Future's small number of titles were hardly in a position to threaten Diamond's thousands of other titles. Moreover, Allen sees more than a little hyperbole in Layton's reiteration that, prior to Diamond's involvement, Future's solo distribution system was "successful," and that the burden of blame in Future's demise thus lay (as Layton seems to imply) with Diamond. Allen also wonders why Layton's dissection of the flagging comics industry didn't play more of a part before Future ran into difficulties, and notes that Future did itself no favors in the move from monthly comics to collections. Allen recalls:
"that trade paperbacks of the first story arcs of all four series were in fact solicited... the prices being $16-$17 each, meaning for a four issue arc, each $2.99-$3.50 issue was now, sans individual cover, priced at $4.00 and up."
Which, Allen suggests, is not an ideal way to address a lack of sales.
From Wikipedia’s article on Future Comics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3