Pipeline #513 - 12 April 2007

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

It's the AUGIE RANTS edition of Pipeline this week, as a reaction to the poor sales showing of DC in February leads me to question everything we believe in comics.

For starters, why publish them? We're clearly just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Second, the pirates are a bunch of self-righteous jerks who deserve to be taken down a notch. Yet they might just be what comics needs to survive. Scary, eh?

-Augie

[torippu]

Sounds interesting. Is this a continuation of the podcast last week (didn't you rant about something as well?)?

[Deathstroke]

Sounds like this could be very interesting.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Trip - Yup, this is the print edition of last Tuesday's podcast rant. I didn't transcribe it, though you'll see the commonalities. I think it went off into a couple of new directions, too. I'm sure I'll get stuck in the middle of one of those never-ending on-line wars thanks to this, too. Can't wait! ;-)

-Augie

[pmpknface]

Augie - What set you off on the d-loaders? Not that I disagree w/ you, I agree w/ you 100%, but what prompted it? Just curious...

[nightwing8782]

Augie-

Great posting today. But I wanted to add my two cents and see what you think.

First, the part about bleeding sales was right on point. It's incredibly sad that no matter what the comic, how good or how bad, it seems to lose readers. In most cases, there does not seem to be any correlation with the quality of the book and the sales. However, one thing that I feel that does bear mentioning, is that I believe it is easier for a book like Y:The Last Man or The Walking Dead to have a steady or even an increasing set of figures. With a book like Green Lantern or Fantastic Four (good books that have been around a long time in different formats), gimmicks seem to be the only way to hold a store's attention. If a new team comes onboard or a guest star appears or it crosses over into Crisis/War, a store will purchase more copies. The numbers become very fluid.

But with Y or WD, the title has a consistent team, nothing to pull it into other storylines, and, eventually, good buzz. So why do these titles seem to hold water? I think two reasons: they start lower and word of mouth. When a title starts selling at 15,000, we know that number is low. We see "superhero" books cancelled for 20,000. We also know that that audience of 15,000 has a greater possibility to grow. More than 15,000 people, I imagine, check out Newsarama or CBR or at least one review site each week. More than 15,000 people walk into direct market stores each week. And with no strings attached, someone who doesn't want to know why Wolverine is talking with whomever, can pick up a non-continuity book and not worry about Crisis/War. For some reason, I think it is easier to tell someone to pick up Y or The Walking Dead than Superman. People have preconceived notions of Superman or any of the superheroes. But they may be drawn into a fresh new world and completely ignorant to a "fresh, new take" on an old world.

Then there is the problem of the completist. For some, it is harder to jump onto issue 78 of a title than issue 15, especially when you can get the first two trades and be caught up. The casual reader, rightly or wrongly (I believe wrongly) will see issue 78, or issue 440, and think they can't catch up. In addition, if issue 78 had the Incredible Hulk, your favorite character in it, you'll pick that up and then never return to the title. So, it may be easier to slowly grow an audience through trades and word of mouth on Vertigo/Image imprinted book.

Overall, your take on digital comics, especially pirating is right on. For whatever reason, I feel guilty even borrowing a comic. I know the importance of purchasing an issue or trade to the continuation of the story. And Mr. Slott has a true right to be angry. All you hear is good reviews of She-Hulk, yet it was cancelled once and who knows how it will go again. The same for The Thing. I know I would be incredibly upset if someone stole my work in similar fashion.

Again, great blog today.
Dan

[Justin D.]

I read your column, and then read The Beat's breakdown of DC's sales month-to-month. After that, I cried quietly, expecting DC to announce cancellation of all my favorite series within the next couple of months.

Fight on, Jonah Hex, Blue Beetle, Shadowpact, and Green Lantern Corps! Fight on!

[pmpknface]

For some reason, DC has a much lower tolerance for "low sales" than Marvel does. For Marvel, 20k is death. However for DC the bar is much lower.

I've got the SHADOWPACT tpb here waiting to be read!

[Justin D.]

For some reason, DC has a much lower tolerance for "low sales" than Marvel does. For Marvel, 20k is death. However for DC the bar is much lower.

I've got the SHADOWPACT tpb here waiting to be read!

I think you mean they have a higher tolerance for low sales. Out of the books I listed, Green Lantern Corps and Jonah Hex were strong from the beginning. It took a while, maybe half a year, for Shadowpact and Blue Beetle to really solidify their places.

[moebius]

Continuing to publish comics might feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but blaming downloaders for the decline of the direct market smacks of looking for a convenient scapegoat to cover up the industry's structural deficiencies.

How long has downloading comics been a viable alternative in terms of quality to reading them? Two years? Four? How long has the direct market been declining?

Why not focus on the real problems, which Augie did point out in his column:

1) Comics haven't overcome the social stigma they've accquired, as they retreated off the newsstands and into the basement storefront of the LCS. The comics clientele has become ever more insular, even as the comic properties ironically become more popular through the movie and video game industries.

2) There are more sources of entertainment competing for the attention of the 8-17 demographic, and those sources of entertainment have become more attractive and advanced with time (specifically, video games).

3) Dollar for dollar, comics are probably one of the worst ways to entertain yourself. $3 for 10 minutes reading? When I can go watch the X-Men movie and spend $10 for two hours of entertainment? Or buy a CD for $15? Or play a 50-hour videogame for $50? I don't know what the average "re-play" value is for comics, but I can't believe it's more than 4 or 5 times a year even for the best.

Does downloading hurt comic sales? Maybe. Like MP3s, there's no real empirical work on the positive, negative, or neutral effects of downloading. At this point it's just a hypothesis. A good one, but not one that's been proven.

But Dan Slott is missing the point in his criticism. She-Hulk isn't selling poorly because of piracy. It's selling poorly because it's not X-Men or JLA or Transformers, Slott hasn't earned the same cache as a Bendis or Kirkman or Miller and the direct market in general sucks.

Will a fully digital, ITunes-like system help comic sales and increase profit margins for companies? Yes. Will it bring new readers or win back readers who switch to pirating? Maybe.

The most likely outcome is that the same readers will just spend the same amount of money each month buying more comics, taking more chances on comics that were on the bubble, and the extra profitability to companies will come through cutting costs. Additionally, an ITunes system will probably draw back some pirates who weren't willing to pay $3 but are willing to pay $1 or $1.50, or those (like Slott and his DVDs, according to LITG) who pirate out of "necessity" (in a foreign country with no access to supply).

But a digital system won't win back the people who decided they just want to read the comic without paying, and the bigger problem will remain that the comics crowd is aging and new readers aren't being drawn in (and an all-digital system probably won't be the best way to accomplish that without a paper lead-in or a strong TPB system).

[pmpknface]

Continuing to publish comics might feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but blaming downloaders for the decline of the direct market smacks of looking for a convenient scapegoat to cover up the industry's structural deficiencies.


moebius, I don't think he, or anyone, is blaming down loaders on the downfall of the market. Especially as you have some valid points. More like the market is down and then the d-loaders are a separate issue. Instead, Augie was,


ticked off by the self-righteous "The World Owes Me" type of fan who wants to give Dan Slott a hard time because he dares to ask his fans to buy his books legally

I think he went on to point out that these folks aren't a big deal because if you actually stopped these people sales wouldn't increase at all.

Oh - Justin Davis
I think you mean they have a higher tolerance for low sales.

Yes, thanks! ;)

[MatthewDiCarlo]

Continuing to publish comics might feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but blaming downloaders for the decline of the direct market smacks of looking for a convenient scapegoat to cover up the industry's structural deficiencies.


The rant, while pretty harsh, was certainly fair and well thought out in that regard. He didn't blame the downloaders.

If anything he blamed the prices, and said that they needed to go to digital distribution, which is something I'd certainly welcome.

The only victims, then, are the retailers, and given the completionist argument, who knows?

[kertap]

I'm not justifying downloading I just want to say that an illegal download doesn't equal a sale.

I think that where digital comics could really shine is in back issues. Take Top Cow's stuff for example with the release of the first 50 issues of a couple of their titles on IGN's direct to download service. If you wanted to start reading Witchblade here is a perfect opportunity to check out the previous issues with out having to worry about getting GN's or back issues online is all you want is to read the back story. Of course these particular comics have been crippled with DRM. I'm not sure exactly how bad it is. I'll be investigating that later.

I'd also love to know what is causing this slow steady decline. Who buys comics these days? Why do people stop buying stuff they are reading? What would it take for them to not stop?

[MatthewDiCarlo]

And while it certainly frustrates me to see DC struggling(in that their sales go down between big events), because they have a lot of comics I enjoy, is the industry(genre?) in general on the rise or decline? I thought the numbers in general pointed to one year of increased sales after the next over the last few years. I'd love to see something definitive there so we knew one or another.

[Hoss]

I see way too many books and way too many events whic is making the talent pool very shallow.

Marvel and DC need to stick to what works and put the best creators on the best characters and not try so hard to have a million books. Really, outside of Wolverine and the Punisher what new Marvel Character have been a consistent top seller since the 1960's books? How many failed Heroes for Hire, She-Hulk or MS Marvel series do we really need to have? Maybe then they would not have to kill their icons just to make a momentary sales splash.

I also think that having multiple titles of the same character kills alot of the excitement and impact. There is something exciting and alluring about having to wait a month before learning what is going to happen to your favorite folks.

Marvel is definitely suffering from brand and event overload. Seriously, did we need Marvel Romance Redux? Nick Fury's Howling Commados? Do we need 3 different Punisher books in one month?

Now, I think the changes in the status quo that came from Avengers Assembled, House of M and Civil War can create an interesting new dynamic. But seriously, Stan Lee could have handled all of those within the pages of X-Men, Avengers and Captain America and still made them rock.

[MichaelMogg]

I also think that having multiple titles of the same character kills alot of the excitement and impact. There is something exciting and alluring about having to wait a month before learning what is going to happen to your favorite folks.

I agree with you, but I think it's unrealistic in this day and age. "A month" back in the 20th century is not the same as "a month" in this century. People have increasingly short attention spans, and to be honest, I don't think DC or Marvel care so much about making their characters sacred (by releasing one Supes/Spidey comic each month) as much as keeping Spidey's/Supes' face in the "New Arrival" section each week. It's about perpetual exposure more than anything else; you and I think it's bad, but the companies beg to differ. :(

[dancj]

Whether you like it or not, from a marketing or a moral point of view, it's wrong. Until such a time comes as someone finally steps up to the plate and creates the comics equivalent of iTunes, it's not legal. So quit it. At the very least, don't act like an immature know-it-all and try to make the case that what you're doing isn't wrong.

Augie

I don't fully disagree with you (and I don't download comics - though I have downloaded music and telly in the past) but there is a bit of a flaw in your argument, in that it seems to equate legality with morality.

If I feel that something is not immoral and I'm unlikely to get caught, I personally wouldn't let a little thing like the law stop me. Civil disobedience is one of the many ways of getting stupid laws changed.

I'm not saying these laws are wrong mind you - it was just that aspect of your argument that didn't sit well with me.

[JohnMayo]

Great column, Augie.