Click.
Journey back with us for a moment, back through the decades, to February 2020. A young coronavirus had just notched its first recorded U.S. death. The Senate voted against impeaching President Donald Trump. Kansas City won its first Super Bowl since 1970. Sonic the Hedgehog whizzed into theaters, those places we used to go to watch movies and shush each other as if it were ever realistic to share a space with dozens of strangers in complete silence.
And a nascent comics publisher named Bad Idea, founded by a gang of Valiant expatriates, generated buzz and think pieces by saying it was going to distribute a limited number of comics to a limited number of comic shops, with no plans for bookstore or digital sales.
Click.
Months pass. The coronavirus shuts down the nation and, for nearly two months, most of the comics industry. Bad Idea rightly pauses its roll-out, which was to start May 6 with Matt Kindt and Doug Braithwaite’s ENIAC, about a World War II-era supercomputer that gains sentience and goes rogue, eventually threatening to blow up the planet.
And then for a while, nothing happened. Other publishers grabbed headlines, either by terminating their relationship with comics’ biggest distributor; unceremoniously retiring low-selling books to digital only, then walking it back; cutting ties with Scott Allie, again, for real this time; or opening themselves up to being brutally assailed online by openly supporting the work of ComicsGate creators.
Bad Idea seemed like a distant memory, like that time Bill Jemas published an entire line of comics inspired by Night of the Living Dead. Or that time the House tried to impeach the president.
Click.
Until this week.
Click.
Until the Button.
Click. Click.
On Tuesday, Bad Idea returned and reminded us of one of its greatest strengths — social media gimmickry — unveiling servethebutton.com, a one-page website featuring a giant, red, somewhat weathered-looking button, with a digital hit counter above it. If the button gets 1 billion clicks, it tells us, Bad Idea will begin publishing comics.
As of Saturday night, the Button had received nearly 38 million clicks.
Click. Click. Click.
Not satisfied to sit back and watch the clicks drift in, Bad Idea has created an entire microtransaction economy around the Button, “challenging” its followers to reach certain daily thresholds with the promise of art reveals and sharing videos of Bad Idea founders and creators pledging their devotion to the Button.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Look, you point out. Bad Idea still hasn’t published a single comic, you say. This is all just to distract from that and to buy them time to get their act together, you proclaim. We still don’t know whether its comics are going to be any good, you remind.
DUH.
We know that, you great, big negative nelly.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
But if Bad Idea is toying with us again, playfully trolling the internet with Buttons and silly videos, it means it hasn’t given up. It means another publisher – and specifically one looking to do something different – is still with us in these hell times. Did I agree with every aspect of Bad Idea’s previously stated business model? I sure didn’t! I still think there are access issues with its initial roll-out plan.
Click. Click.
But it’s a plan, something more and different from, “Hey, Diamond, here are some more books to jam into comic shops that can’t afford to stock randos right now.”
Besides, who doesn’t love clicking buttons?
Click.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
