Micha Hershman Leaves Borders for Dark Horse

NOVEMBER 13, MILWAUKIE, OR—It was announced today that Micha Hershman has joined the Dark Horse marketing department. In his 13-year tenure with Borders Group, Hershman developed an extensive professional experience with comics, graphic novels, science fiction, horror, and related merchandise. After handling the buyer duties for the chain's rapidly growing graphic-novel section, he became the category director for the company’s pop-culture section. Having engineered highly successful retail and online marketing campaigns for such recognizable brands as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Twilight, and managed the children's and fiction marketing teams, Micha comes to Dark Horse armed with both the experience and the passion needed to grow the brand’s presence in all markets.

"Dark Horse is a world-class organization, unmatched in its dedication to comics, their creators, and their fans," said Hershman. "I couldn’t be more excited to join Mike Richardson and his team."

"We are extremely happy to have Micha here at Dark Horse," said President Mike Richardson. "The experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm he brings to our marketing team will be a huge resource as we look to grow Dark Horse over the coming years."

Micha Hershman arrives in his new position at Dark Horse later this month.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Marketing Yourself in Comics

Most people enjoy comic books. They might not admit it and they might not read them in public or where someone they know might see them, but most everyone enjoys comics from time to time. Of course, enjoying them and wanting to build a profession out of that are two different things. While most people enjoy comics from time to time, it takes a specific personality type to pursue that line of work.

That being said, you'd think that breaking into the business wouldn't be too hard. After all, if there aren't a lot of people who want to pursue it, so you wouldn't think there'd be much competition. It's true that the talent pool in the comics industry is pretty small, but that's precisely why the competition is so fierce. In days past, there may have been plenty of work for everyone; nowadays, the field is just recovering from a terrible slump which lasted almost 10 years! Some of the newer companies may be willing to take a chance on an unknown, but not if they have a chance at securing a Name (like a Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, and so on).

The key is in learning to market yourself. Enter: Beau Smith. A self-made comics writer, he is known for his self-marketing. It landed him a regular column on the subject in Sketch magazine and now he's collected those articles into a book entitled No Guts, No Glory: How To Market Yourself In Comics.

If you are interested in breaking into the comics field in any capacity, you owe it to yourself to check out this book. The Scoop interviewed Mr. Smith about it this month.