Tilting at Windmills - Jul 27, 2012

[Blade X]

The major component is that comics are just not attracting new readers. The stereotype exists that comic books are for the "geeks", and no matter how many movies are record-breaking blockbusters, it still doesn't carryover into comic book sales. Children, teenagers, girls just aren't reading them; the stores are filled with 20somethings on up. Until that staple is erased, sales will continue to dwindle....we are literally a dying breed. So first, parents have to get their children/grandchildren interestd in comics. It can't continue to be a "not cool" thing if the industry is going to thrive in any medium.

As for digital vs print argument (completely irrelevant here), I prefer print. I love that tangibility factor, and handing a book to my nephew/nieces, letting them hold it, taking it back home or leaving it with him. Storage, I will worry about that later, but there are always creative ways to store them.

The relaunches are just gimmicks that the Marvel reader is getting tired of. I do agree with keeping a creative team for years to fully develop stories. I am a believer in maintaining continuity, and I believe that the sliding timescale works; especially since they are now into multi-issue story-arcs.

Quoted for the truth.

[Brian Hibbs]

Isnt it being exciting good enough? Ppl that are excited about it will tell other ppl that arent reading it and hopefully that will bring in new readers.

Given the state of Marvel's current sales, it would certainly appear that the answer to that query is "No."

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Yes, it got DC in all the media outlets talking about the reboot, and a huge surge in sales, but that’s declining already. Action comics is down over 100K readers as per http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales.html from its relaunch.

I rather think that the more important point is that ACTION COMICS #11 sold JUST MORE THAN DOUBLE of ACTION COMICS #904 -- 80,751 vs 39,323. It really isn't rational to say that DC didn't make the right call.

-B

[bskell]

I rather think that the more important point is that ACTION COMICS #11 sold JUST MORE THAN DOUBLE of ACTION COMICS #904 -- 80,751 vs 39,323. It really isn't rational to say that DC didn't make the right call.

-B

Fair enough, I might be jumping the gun. My point was there's already a steep decline happening, and isn't this the title that Morrison is on?

[bskell]

2 quick points.

1. When it comes to the MU and DCU characters it's more about the illusion of change and less about actual long lasting permanent change. Any changes made should be superficial or surface changes. By their very nature and marketability, these characters are meant to be timeless and appealing to kids and all ages. In a nutshell, these characters should be treated like James Bond and BEN 10 (the latter which had superficial surface changes).

2. Byrne (and his work) wasn't a huge influence on comics 1978.

I would have sworn that was when he was large as that was around the time where he started working X-men, but I could be mistaken.

[Brian Hibbs]

Fair enough, I might be jumping the gun. My point was there's already a steep decline happening, and isn't this the title that Morrison is on?

Put it this way: The top 12-15 books (or so) have right around doubled sales (after the first year)

The next band of books have increased 30-60% ish.

The reboot brought a LOT of new/lapsed eyes looking at the DC books.

SOME books have already fallen back to "right where they were", but these are generally the books that "aren't working" -- GREEN ARROW and such.

If DC had made the same creative changes/shakeups on the books, WITHOUT doing a #1 reboot, I don't think we'd be looking at as wide of a bump in circulations

-B

[Blade X]

I would have sworn that was when he was large as that was around the time where he started working X-men, but I could be mistaken.

According to Byrne, his entire UXM run was on the cancellation bubble. The book didn't take off in sales until after he left the book and Cockrum returned to it.

[Blade X]

Another possible reason for Marvel's falling sales might be due to the comics either retelling the stories or reflecting the looks/appearance of their movie and TV versions. It's quite possible that many fans are put off by having to read a story that is basically a rehash of stories from their movies and TV series. Fans might also be tired of seeing the costumes being limited to real world live action movie and TV budgets.

[darthjoker]

If Marvel rebooted I would drop every book that I'm reading. I'm interested in the history of the history and the characters. I'm sick to death of reboots.

I am with you, That is why I dont read DC anymore. I got sick of the constant reboots. I stopped reading Spider-man for the same reason, the mephisto reboot. and not I am considering doing the same with Buffy and Angel/Faith. Also the star wars cartoon has this reboot problem now.

[kelly_warrior_princess]

1. Wider digital distribution. Comixology is all well and fine, but it's just the digital version of a direct market LCS. Marvel needs to reach the digital equivalent of the book store & 7-11 crowd. Marvel had success with bringing comics and trades to the likes of Barnes & Noble's brick & mortar shops. Go digital with that thinking. Movies & music get direct sales & promotion in iTunes these days. Get moving on that. Put comics in the same hands as that massive global audience. Move past Comixology and into the hands of the Amazon & BN.com crowd. Marvel needs to stop thinking so small when it comes to digital.

I'm going to correct you on this issue: Digital is a nice idea, but not one that fixes the problem. A digital platform is just a new platform for the same shit people where unwilling to pay for due to its qualities before hand. Having it in a new format doesn't change the fact that its not worth reading.

An as for digital in general its not the way the market needs to be looking at the moment. The inferstructure that is necassary does not exist in about 98% of the inhabited world & yes that includes low & mid income families in America. Last thing you want to do is put more hurdles between the product and the consumer & when you have a buy in of $200 in hardware before you can read a $2.99 funny book, well thats not exactly small hurdles.

[kelly_warrior_princess]

I rather think that the more important point is that ACTION COMICS #11 sold JUST MORE THAN DOUBLE of ACTION COMICS #904 -- 80,751 vs 39,323. It really isn't rational to say that DC didn't make the right call.

-B

wrong... Not ont the sales figures, you are spot on... But thats kind of like pointing out that the love boat sunk at a slower rate then the titanic... Just because one sunk slower then the other, doesn't mean they weren't both sinking. Action comics904 was terrible, the line was flagging since the end of the truly underrated New Krypton arc. Not to mention that people slowed up purchasing with the reboot coming along. If you want to be saying something of worth, try comparing issue 11 to a period where it's opposition was doing well... Of course you can't do that, otherwise it renders your point completely moot.

[supamike]

I dont see the need for all the doom and gloom. Comic book industry has always had highs and lows.Supposedly somethings always coming to replace print comics.I remember Marvel had DVD-ROMs of comics for awhile. Comics will never be for everybody its a niche market like most hobbies are. In Jack Kirby's Spirit World book theres a excerpt by writer Mark Evanier that tells a story of ppl worrying over the industry in 1970!!Describing the same problems that ppl are describing today. I know its fun to say the industry is dying because if it actually does then you can say"See!!See!! I called it!I told you it would happen!!" Lets try and stay positive :)

[kelly_warrior_princess]

I dont see the need for all the doom and gloom. Comic book industry has always had highs and lows.Supposedly somethings always coming to replace print comics.I remember Marvel had DVD-ROMs of comics for awhile. Comics will never be for everybody its a niche market like most hobbies are. In Jack Kirby's Spirit World book theres a excerpt by writer Mark Evanier that tells a story of ppl worrying over the industry in 1970!!Describing the same problems that ppl are describing today. I know its fun to say the industry is dying because if it actually does then you can say"See!!See!! I called it!I told you it would happen!!" Lets try and stay positive :)

Except that it doesn't die, because there are people in that industry who stand there & say "hey guys, this is not good, lets do something so that the industry doesn't duie right now & we don'y all need to go find new jobs." Because comics shouldn't be on this stupid rollercoaster, constantly rushing from success to abject failure & back again.

[DaronK]

wrong... Not ont the sales figures, you are spot on... But thats kind of like pointing out that the love boat sunk at a slower rate then the titanic... Just because one sunk slower then the other, doesn't mean they weren't both sinking. Action comics904 was terrible, the line was flagging since the end of the truly underrated New Krypton arc. Not to mention that people slowed up purchasing with the reboot coming along. If you want to be saying something of worth, try comparing issue 11 to a period where it's opposition was doing well... Of course you can't do that, otherwise it renders your point completely moot.

But when was the book doing well for him to make that comparison? DC's been the underdog for years now. You'd probably have to go back to the 90's to see Action selling near 100k copies, and at the point the whole thing is moot. The point is roughly a year into the relaunch comic sales in general are up, DC is selling more comics than it was, and their regular monthly books have held a good number of top 10 spots while competing against both their own and Marvel's big Summer Event books. I'd say the fact that Action is still selling 80k copies a year in is pretty good...especially since so many people were saying all of the books would be back to their pre-re-launch numbers after a couple months...

[kelly_warrior_princess]

But when was the book doing well for him to make that comparison?

Action Comics is a strange book because its never had any real reason to exist, action Comics was very similiar to Adventure Comics in that way: It became predominately a Superman title, but thats not always been the case. In fact it wasn't until issue 643 of Action Comics in 1990 (since the book was 2 months late) that Superman returned as the main focus of Action Comics (under George Perez).

The other strange factor of the book was that it had no predominate intention as a book: It just didn't have one. Action comics was the arc book, in that it carried one off arcs, or short story progressions that lasted for at most a year before doing something esle entirely new (an usually considerably shorter prior to late 90's). Like wise its numbers have been all over the place for years depending on the popularity of the story at the time, jumping from the low 30,000's upto 70,000.

DC's been the underdog for years now.

Not really in any meaningful way. As my father use to say: "In a two horse race there is no second place." A under dog is the person who is hard done by, by circumstance, the little guy fighting against adversity... This is not now, nor has it ever been an apt description of DC's place when compared to Marvel.

You'd probably have to go back to the 90's to see Action selling near 100k copies, and at the point the whole thing is moot. The point is roughly a year into the relaunch comic sales in general are up

Except that thats not how we plot data. For starters you don't compare across titles because it gives no meaningful data whatsoever, for example the DC reboot is a complete failure because in 2011 Green Lantern corp consitently sold in excess of 52,646 issues (an in specific jan of last year), but this January sold only 48, 679 units. This data does not show even a basic correlation from which i could draw an inference other then this particular title sold less well in the same month the previous year. Data does not exist in a vaccuum.

DC is selling more comics than it was, and their regular monthly books have held a good number of top 10 spots while competing against both their own and Marvel's big Summer Event books. I'd say the fact that Action is still selling 80k copies a year in is pretty good...especially since so many people were saying all of the books would be back to their pre-re-launch numbers after a couple months...

Sure & Walking Dead issue 100 has sold exceddingly well, doesn't mean that its going to contiue to. Sure at this point in time DC is selling slightly better then the previous year, but the previous year sold pretty badly & even now the sales figures on the DC books keep on dropping across the board, with quite a lot of the books being cancelled due to disinterest. The sales drop will have to end eventually, but as it stands at the moment, DC is in the precarious spot of being one news cycle away from crashing and burning, especially if the sales drop continues & the new pitches that are used to hype the lose of olsder books loses its interest (like events have over at marvel).

Likewise holding the top 10 spots means nothing, you can hold the top 10 spots & still not sell as much overall as marvel, because the top 10 slots are statistically moot as far as analysis purposes goes (only the sales figures matter). Top 10 is nothing more then a fanboy pissing contest: always has been, always will be.

In this industry longevity is much more important then flash in the pan marketing techniques, something marvel has found out in recent years & something that was raised in this very article.