CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Sep 9, 2010

[CBR News]

Brian Hibbs is back this month with some potentially dire observations regarding comic book sales numbers based on data culled from his San Francisco-based store, years of experience and his personal observations.


Full article here.

[Lackshmana]

I am definitely among the lost.

I stopped picking up individual issues in favor of trades because of the value offered for my dollar. TPBs mean less expensive, more complete stories, and better mobility.

Also, I loved reading Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen's Detective Comics.
I don't like Grant Morrison's work, but I was fine with him writing Batman because it didn't interrupt the regular flow of excellent, mostly self-contained, work of Dini/Nguyen.

Now however, all Batman books are essentially just side stories to whatever Morrison is doing in his Bat-book, which is by default the MAIN book.

I am contemplating getting the Streets of Gotham trades, but half of the story isn't even written by Paul Dini, and Nguyen's art is wasted on bad stories from fill-in writers.

So, I no longer read any Batman titles.

I even stopped reading GL books because with GL, GLC, GLEW, and Brightest Day twice a month it was just too much back and forth.

Really all I read now is Birds of Prey, Secret Six and Steve Rogers-Super Soldier. All of which are almost entirely self-contained titles that askew the crossover heavy tendencies of other Marvel and DC books. (hopefully Gail keeps the Brightest Day stuff to a minimum).

[DavidWright]

As Busiek put it, maybe they're not meant for me. So great to hear I'm not alone in my disaffection for what's going on. I just assumed that sales were justifying the increased output, but now that I'm hearing this, well what the heck is going on?

For me it's not the cost, though that doesn't help, but the sheer enjoyment of many books was drained out of me and when I went away, I didn't feel the need to try again. From the endless, and strangely unfulfilling ending to Secret Invasion which made me drop out of the habit of picking up core Marvel U books, to Ultimatum, which made me turn my back on the Ultimate Universe, which I had loved. At DC, the endless relaunches and incredibly poor storytelling in JLA, culminating in the objectively awful Cry for Justice, Countdown, the bizarre relaunch of JSA into Magog Central leading to two meh books, well, I just finally asked myself, why am I still supporting this? I assumed everyone else must like it, so maybe we just grew apart. But the kicker is, I don't miss them. I went into the comic shop yesterday, saw my old titles, and didn't want to buy them.

I'm reduced to finishing Morrison's Batman, which I like, Secret Six, and GL which I'm sticking with, but would love to see an actual GL story arc again without all the muppets. Finally, I'm sticking with Brightest Day out of what feels like my completist streak combined with the need not to "miss" anything, but enjoyment, well, I guess they're just not meant for me.

[Graaspurv]

I usually quite enjoy events (and interconnected stories), especially when the individual titles are relevant to the larger story AND work as a seperate story (like DnA's cosmic stories like War Of Kings).

Lately I am buying fewer and fewer of the titles in for example Shadowland, and I might have even passed entirely if it was not basically an extra Daredevil book.

[lazlo_toth]

Starting with the easier one to discuss, I strongly believe that $3.99 for a standard format Marvel or DC comic is just absurd. Especially with the growing prevalence of "decompressed" storytelling that is "written for the trade (paperback)" where there just isn't enough "density" in the published work for the prices that are being asked.

This seems to be the proverbial 800-lb. gorilla in the room whenever you go to a DC or Marvel panel. They (in this instance "they" being the guys like Brevoort, Quesada, Didio, etc., that are in charge) talk about "event fatigue" and whatever other terms they can think of to explain the growing ambivalence (if not outright antipathy) for the product, but they avoid the simple, obvious issue of fans not getting their money's worth.

The pricing issue is simple gauging, at least on Marvel's part, and I am not going to be convinced otherwise. People from Marvel essentially admitted as much (as in, "we feel these titles are popular enough to support a higher price point, but I hope you don't feel like we're gauging you," while Quesada had been saying that it was simply a matter of rising costs forcing the matter) when they first started upping their prices to $3.99 (somebody asked Quesada about this, and I believe his response was "well, he didn't say costs [I]weren't[I] going up," which is kind of a cop-out). Marvel's trades are spectacularly over-priced. And while people don't seem to have a problem kvetching about the storylines and the tone of the books (which suck, don't get me wrong), nobody seems to want to confront the creators and editors with the fact that it takes them six issues at $4 a pop to tell a story that Chris Claremont or Roger Stern would have done in one or two issues (and at 75 cents a pop).

[Arvandor]

You discuss cutting the surplus crap from your shelves, with the possibility of making room for comics that people might actually want to buy.


And you talk like this is a bad thing? Stop dithering and just do it.

[burrell]

One problem hurting the industry is something that the companies think that they are taking advantage of: completists. They think that this mentality will force their customers to buy all these extra titles. But what is really happening is that its forcing these people to finally cut the strings. And once you finally break that long run of titles, its easier to break another, and finally drop comics altogether.

[Phoenixmhb]

After reading Mr. Hibbs column I can't help thinking that Marvel and DC are using the trade paperbacks and hardcover sales to subsidize the low monthly sales on many of the comics.

This sort of model is essentially being employed by the television industry wherein ratings on their weekly shows are much lower (and thus the amount they can charge advertisers for a 30 second spot is lower) so to make up the revenue many shows are reliant on DVD sales. I've noticed oblate that we're seeing DVD box sets of a television series' season almost as soon as that season is over. It used to be months before we would see the DVD box set for most series. Now it's a matter of weeks.

The same pattern seems to be happening with the comic industry wherein the trade or hardcover is being released more and more quickly in order to recoup revenue that has been lost from low sales on the monthly comics.

[Paul Nolan]

Brian Hibbs has absolutely hit the nail on the head.

I'm currently down to my lowest monthly pull of comics in 18 years, due to a/ high prices b/ lack of interest in getting ties in with overarching stories.

My Marvel pull list is now down to 4 $2.99 titles (Avengers Academy, Young Allies, Thunderbolts and Hawkeye and Mockingbird) and yes, the main thing that kept me back on those books tracks was the price point.

Knight and Squire will be my first DC Universe book in the second half of 2010.

DC and Marvel could help themselves by realizing that their are 99 price points between $2.99 and $3.99 that can at least be experimented with. And the other thing is to realize that they are just diluting their brand by churning out so many related titles.

and one other thing thats worth remembering. By renumbering and relaunching books you not only make excellent jumping on points. but you also make excellent jumping OFF points.

To coin a phase, we're in an age of austerity, it's about time the big 2 publishers figured this out too.

[Jerry Smith]

The finest "Tilting" ever.

I've bought comics weekly since the early '80s, and sporadically long before that. I'm down to only a few books I really enjoy after buying a huge stack for 30 years. I've recently dropped all X-books, Superman, Detective, Spider-Man and tens of B-level characters. Mostly because of dark, nihilist storylines and the overwhelming sense of "been there, done that."

$3.99 prices don't help either. There a ton of books and miniseries I would try, and some I know I would enjoy reading that I leave on the shelf at $3.99. The value is just not there for a 22-page comic. Four bucks for a book about supporting characters from a Hercules comic? Or a thirteenth Thor series done by the B-team? Who is buying these books?

Winnowing down purchases leaves me more time and money. I am not the audience for these books, but you're right that readers like me can come back to the fold. Good comics, under $3.50, about heroes I can believe in will do it. No anal rape, no arms ripped off and eaten, no alternative lifestyles. That stuff is fine for adult or creator-owned books. Not for mainstream superheroes. Things won't change, though. Marvel and DC don't care about the opinions of long-time fans like me, Waid or Busick. They obviously have their own audience in mind, I'm just not sure who it is.

[Brandon Yates]

Well said, Brian. I thought it was just me. "These comics aren't aimed at me anymore." I've thought that so many times in the last couple of years as a way to justify my leaving the world of superhero comics.

I currently pick and choose only books that are outside of the shared universe because I am so tired of all the killing and explicit gore and grimness. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy grim comics but not as a general direction for a line of comics (X-Men, for example. I mean is that not the most depressing line of comics?).

So I currently read Thor: For Asgard so I don't have to deal with "Dark Reign" which I didn't read. I finished up Huston's Deathlok a couple of months ago. I enjoy Rawhide Kid. I need to keep an eye out for books like this because I love Marvel (the kid in me) and I don't want to leave completely and only read Fables and BPRD and Unknown Soldier and Walking Dead and anything by Jason or Daniel Clowes. I want to enjoy superhero comics again. But if I can't, and I am all but content with that notion now, then there are plenty of other books and graphic novels I can't spend my time reading. As I've been doing, as I'll keep doing. But maybe you're wrong, Hibbs. Until we see the national sales decline sharply, I still have reason to believe that this is what completionists want (and I have no doubt that the current output of comics is supported heavily by completionists). Let them have it. Nothing lasts forever.

[johnnyrocket]

As a comic buyer for over 25 years (more if you count my childhood pre college) I can absolutely tell you, you are spot on. The $3.99 price is a line in the sand, crossed only rarely if the content is considered above average. The only $3.99 'new' title I've picked up with Marvel is Avengers Academy. Which got me looking with McKone's art in issue #2 and kept me around with a cool story. Other than that I dropped all the Avengers title save the relaunched flagship. Secret, New, and the rest don't go home anymore. I dropped Thor COMPLETELY with the price hike... Let alone buy ten other comics about him. .And I LOVE Thor. At DC I'm buying only one Batman series regularly (B&R). When Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent left their two respective flagship titles last year.. I stopped buying them. Action's been relaunched now at $3.99. The Luthor story is novel, but the price point is too much for me to invest in Luthor Comics. JLA and All Stars has been dropped and JSA has been downgraded to a month to month 'maybe.' Mostly due to content and story. I could go on and on.

Why are people skittish about the relaunches? I think the fault really rests on Marvel's shoulders. X-Men is the poster child for what's happening in the industry. X-Men series have been relaunched so often its become a matter of 'fool me once, shame on you.. Fool me twice?...' No relaunch was necessary for this vampire story line.. Seriously. And the entire franchise has become so dystopian and absent of real hope or triumph over adversity that we now have Murder and Mayhem comics coming out like Uncanny X-Force. Flipped through that yesterday.. they might as well call it X-Wetworks.

And then there's Spiderman. The biggest rug pull of all. Punctuated by the EiC himself writing a story that re-affrims and tries to fix the hole dug by potentially the biggest reboot screw up in comic history.

So yeah, my monthly purchases have been reduced at least by 1/3 if not nearing 1/2 since a year ago. And if I do pick up an extra $3.99 comic in the future it will mean something else will get left on the stands... I'm leaving at least 6-10 titles on the shelf a month that otherwise I might have taken a chance on. The math adds up.

[AvengerG]

I can understand the reasoning for not ordering shelf copies of low selling comics but at the same time, I think you have to be careful not to slit your own throat. I used to buy comics at a local shop in my town. It was very convenient for me to go on my lunch break and pick up the new comics and get everything I wanted. However, I was later moved to a place further away from the store where it became very hard for me to get to the shop over lunch. It worked okay until one day, I couldn’t make it. I got to the shop around 5pm and guess what; the store was sold out of about half the comics I wanted. I found this to be pretty much the norm for this store and most of the others in my city. If it sold out by 3pm in one store, it was sold out in all of them. As it became harder for me to make it to the shop at lunch, I finally had to make a tough decision. If I wanted to be able to get what I wanted, I had to go mail order. I’ve been with DCBS over 5 years now and have never missed an issue of what I wanted.

Having a pull service doesn’t help in my town. They’ll gladly cannibalize your pull box to satisfy the customer standing in front of them and have no problem telling you they ran out of copies or that it didn’t ship when Diamond and online sources clearly say it did. I’ve lived in 3 different states with the 3 different groups of stores in each town and they were all like this. And to be honest, why should you have to advance order everything you want without a huge discount? If I’m going to cart myself to a shop shouldn’t they have stock to sell me without me having to order it 3 months in advance. And if I do order it 3 months in advance, don’t you think I should get a copy when it actually ships? I understand the realities of store ownership but if I come into your shop on a Saturday and you have a fraction of the new weekly comics available, maybe you should close and let someone who is more competent take your place.

How are companies like Marvel and DC supposed to launch new titles when the stores themselves under order every new book unless it’s Batman or Wolverine? When I see there’s been a second printing of a new #1 like say Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Young Allies, Green Arrow or Birds of Prey, that tells me that the idiot retailers under ordered it and there are people out there that wanted it but couldn’t get it. Therefore sales on #2 suffer because people couldn’t get #1. Then Brian gets online and writes a diatribe about how DC and Marvel titles aren’t selling anymore. IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT!!! Most retailers stand around their stores and bad mouth the comics they don’t like which are apparently most of them. I’ve been in numerous stores where this happens. They’re either a Marvel or DC store and they bad mouth whichever they don’t like to their customers. These idiots even get online and post pictures of comics they ripped up because they don’t like the writer. It’s crazy.

Marvel and DC need to get to day and date release of digital comics as quickly as possible or the only comics left for us to buy will be Batman and Wolverine. They’ve proven that’s the only thing they will order in sufficient quantity to fill demand. The direct market has really become an albatross around the neck of all comic companies (it used to be just the smaller publishers they were killing).

As far as cover prices are concerned, I hear a lot of bitching about the $3.99 price point by retailers but I see few of them willing to give up their share of that extra $1 to help out their customers. Marvel and DC are only getting about $.38-.40 of that extra dollar. The retailer gets at least 50-57 cents of it. Are all the retailers that are so up in arms over the price increase selling these books to people at 50 cents off? I doubt it. And to be honest, none of these comics are actually costing you $3.99. Anyone can go online and get comics for at least 35% off. The sales tax you save will even offset any shipping charges. Retailers are going the way of the dinosaur and record/CD shop anyway. That change is coming whether you like it or not…

[Gambit266]

Wow, couldn't of put it better myself.

I also work at a comic shop and I can at least give you my POV, and the simple fact is that Marvel & DC, coupled with companies like IDW & Dynamite, are exploiting the completionist to such a degree that even the most stubborn are falling by the wayside.

The only way to counter this is for A) the retailers to not order the 3rd tier comics or trades except when specially ordered and B) for readers to not try the 1st Avengers arc when a new series starts, but instead to try 1 issue, maybe 2 and cut it off if it is garbage right away.

Marvel throw as many titles against the wall to see what sticks, whereas DC tricks you with a good team for 3-10 issues and pulls the old creative team switcheroo. IDW & Dynamite overwhelm the completionist with a property until they drain the life out of it, then they move on to a new property, then rinse, repeat.

On a side note I would love to know if anyone could tell me whether it was officially annouced by DC that Quitely would be doing more than 3 issues on Baman & Robin, because there is another title that is dropping readers at a staggering rate. I say this because I clearly remember dozens of people telling me there were taking issue because Quitely would be back soon, and they didn't want holes in their collection. Only to discover now no Morrison soon and no Quitely return.

[JRBirkhead]

I would consider myself a completionist in the comic community. However, I think even completionists are getting tired. The pricing of comics has definitely started to affect how I purchase books. Even to the point where I will start to buy them second hand from places such as Half Price Books. But I digress.

My habits have changed in the sense that I will get issues that are only absolutely ESSENTIAL to a storyline. One example is the Batman universe. I only get Batman and Robin (I love Morrison anyway and will purchase most anything with his name on it) and Tony Daniel's Batman. That's it. No Streets of Gotham, no Gotham City Sirens. Not even Detective Comics. I kind of went the opposite path that some of you guys went. Instead of finding the issues that didn't connect to the overall mythos, I cut out everything that doesn't.

This still means that I buy only one Thor title. I agree with the article and I have no idea who is buying all of the other ones. Thor's great, but he's not that great. Same thing with Iron Man. I was puzzled why they were adding another Iron Man title. One was plenty with me, especially with Fraction writing it. Just dumb. Dumb Dumb Dumb.

No one bought the new X-Men because no one wants to read a vampire centric storyline. I immediately saw that and had no desire whatsoever to read the series and unless there is a direct crossover with Uncanny or New Mutants, I will not buy this new X-Men series. I might be tempted if it's in the quarter bin, but not otherwise.

What cracks me up is why the companies are so shocked that people are pirating their comics. I personally don't, I like print way to much and I get eyestrain from staring at a computer for too long, but it is a subtle way of sticking it to the company. No one wants to read 10 Deadpool titles (still trying to figure out who reads those) or the crazy 12 one shots of Bruce Wayne, the Return that's coming up. I don't mind decompressed storytelling, but it's gotten waaay out of control.

If they had Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and the new X-Force title as the only three X-Men books, I guarantee sales would go back up. I think Amazing Spider-Man dropping back to two issues a month is a great idea. But that should be the only Spidey book.

Ok, enough ranting, but I'm a completist and fed up and dealing with it in my own way.