Tilting at Windmills - Jul 27, 2012

[Brian Hibbs]

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.

From Marc-Oliver's data at the Beat:

*******
Average Periodical Sales (not counting reprints, reorders shipping after the initial month of release, Johnny DC titles and magazines)

DC COMICS
05/2007: 35,656
05/2008: 27,075
05/2009: 24,386
05/2010: 27,785**
---------------
05/2011: 24,561 (- 4.3%)**
06/2011: 25,814 (+ 5.1%)**
07/2011: 26,138 (+ 1.3%)**
08/2011: 25,632 (- 1.9%)**
09/2011: 57,224 (+123.3%)
10/2011: 51,280 (- 10.4%)**
11/2011: 41,414 (- 19.2%)**
12/2011: 35,397 (- 14.5%)**
01/2012: 33,887 (- 4.3%)**
02/2012: 31,535 (- 6.9%)**
03/2012: 29,679 (- 5.9%)
04/2012: 31,319 (+ 5.5%)
05/2012: 39,179 (+ 25.1%)
-----------------
6 months: - 5.4%
1 year : + 59.5%
2 years : + 41.0%
5 years : + 9.9%
***************************


I think it is very difficult to look at those numbers and not conclude that the reboot was a good move for DC.

-B

[normanosborn21]

... Of course you can't do that, otherwise it renders your point completely moot.

i think you ment to say completely moo. thank you must see tv thursdays 1995 on.

[lazlo_toth]

Maybe it's just me, but when I try to take in the sad mess that Marvel has degenerated into, I look back at some of the conversations I've had about Marvel over the last couple of years with other fans, when they started transitioning from the exciting, innovative material of Quesada's early years as EIC into the sad caricature they've become. We would make jokes about what kind of lame, hackneyed "event" comics they might conceivably come up with. We would come up with dozens of ridiculous spin-offs on Wolverine, including "Son of Wolverine" "Wolverina" and "Wolverine Academy." We imagined a bunch of different-colored hulks. A dozen Avengers teams. Endless numbers of teams with an "X" in the front of the title, including "X-Avengers." We imagined a huge crossover where, instead of bothering to come up with some cosmic Big Bad, the heroes of the Marvel U would just make up some excuse to beat the shit out of each other endlessly, with giant splash pages and little dialogue. And of course all of it to be written by the same four or five writers marvel keeps treading out there as their "architects" or whatever, and drawn by the same four or five "superstar" artists. All of this stuff was conceived as a joke, a satire of how uninventive and predictable marvel was becoming.

And then cut to three or four years later, we've had a book about Wolverine's son, a female clone of Wolverine, Wolverine now essentially the headmaster of his own superhero academy, lots of spin-offs of Avengers and the X-books. a mega-event where basically the entire Marvel U splits into two factions and beats the shit out of each other (something that's NEVER happened before), with a companion title whose only purpose for existing is to produce extended fight scenes free of unnecessary distractions like plot and character development. Oh, yeah, and the hot new title coming up this fall is the X-Avengers. Well, "Uncanny" Avengers, anyway, close enough...

I could go on for hours about what DC is doing wrong with the New 52, but one thing they're doing right is trying out new ideas. Or at least, if not new ideas, making an honest attempt to take something different than the same old same old and make it viable. I can't imagine something like Animal Man or Dial H (or Swamp Thing, or World's Finest, or Batwoman, or Azzarello's take on Wonder Woman) coming out of the House of Ideas.

[destro]

Marvel's top titles are selling = to about the population of one smallish city. Anybody who thinks there isn't something horribly wrong with that is just hiding from the truth.

The "hot" writers at the House of Ideas have done nothing but put band-aids on a severe bleeding wound through gimmicks.

The fact that Marvel has completely failed to take advantage of huge super hero movies, the rise of nerd culture and the giant highly publicized comic-cons to sell more comics or revitalize the industry in any way shows that the top management, writers and editors at Marvel are completely clueless.

[supamike]

Movies and nerd culture is one thing.Going to your local LCS is something totally different.When i went to see Avengers i went with a very random group of ppl. All who are into the marvel movies.Couple who are into old school Voltron and Transformers.Everybody loved Avengers and went to see it 3 times in 3 days. But none of them go to the comic shop or buy comics. Its one thing to go Target and buy a X-men Tshirt or pick up Batman:Year one at Barnes &Nobel. It takes something totally different to go weekly to your LCS and spend money on something that doesn't look like what you saw on the movie screen or on the cartoon.

[kelly_warrior_princess]

I think it is very difficult to look at those numbers and not conclude that the reboot was a good move for DC.

Its only very difficult if you can't read the data & i'm going to conclude that you can't if you think this data is all that positive.

[kelly_warrior_princess]

i think you ment to say completely moo. thank you must see tv thursdays 1995 on.

um, no i meant moot. I'm sorry i'm not American so i don't get the reference.

[destro]

Movies and nerd culture is one thing.Going to your local LCS is something totally different.When i went to see Avengers i went with a very random group of ppl. All who are into the marvel movies.Couple who are into old school Voltron and Transformers.Everybody loved Avengers and went to see it 3 times in 3 days. But none of them go to the comic shop or buy comics. Its one thing to go Target and buy a X-men Tshirt or pick up Batman:Year one at Barnes &Nobel. It takes something totally different to go weekly to your LCS and spend money on something that doesn't look like what you saw on the movie screen or on the cartoon.

It does take something different to do that. But can you think of any other industry that would make such a small attempt to cash in on these HUGE publicity opportunities? Marvel has been making changes in their comics to make the characters reflect the movie versions more. Which does absolutely nothing to attract anybody to a comic book store and generally irritates the fans that are already there. And that is all they have done. What a complete waste of several huge opportunities.

There are two options here, find a better method of distribution or get really creative and serious about attracting new people to comic book shops. Marvel isn't doing either.

I've often wondered why Marvel doesn't attempt to hand out free comics, or even small Archie Digest sized pamphlets at showings of movies like Spider-Man or the Avengers. Have the back cover show a list of every comic shop in the state they are handed out in. Yes that would cost money, but something has to be done to get more people into the shops and I don't see any better opportunity than a big superhero movie event.

[USERNAME TAKEN]

Movies and nerd culture is one thing.Going to your local LCS is something totally different.When i went to see Avengers i went with a very random group of ppl. All who are into the marvel movies.Couple who are into old school Voltron and Transformers.Everybody loved Avengers and went to see it 3 times in 3 days. But none of them go to the comic shop or buy comics. Its one thing to go Target and buy a X-men Tshirt or pick up Batman:Year one at Barnes &Nobel. It takes something totally different to go weekly to your LCS and spend money on something that doesn't look like what you saw on the movie screen or on the cartoon.

Exactly.

People saying that Marvel have "failed" to capitalize on their film success are simply not being realistic. Outside of the 89 Batman movie, superhero movie adaptions have never increased floppy sales. Millions of people saw the Superman movie in 78 but even with newstands, the Superman titles weren't selling millions back then. It's just never worked like that. For collected completed works like Watchmen, the dynamic is very different. Those books have a definitive start and end point unlike the on-going superhero series. However, it must be said that collected editions almost always receive strong spikes in sales after movies. My understanding is that sales of the Infinity Gauntlet skyrocketed after the Avengers movie and the Thanos cameo at the end.

On the topic at hand, I don't think Marvel re-booting their entire line is a good idea. While retailers will be very excited that some of their DC titles have sky rocketed in sales, a closer look at these figures will suggest that the luster of the reboot is wearing off at this point. Titles like The Flash, Superman and even Aquman were thought to have stabilized but last month's sales data suggests otherwise. Their lower selling titles have fallen off a cliff (Rob Liefeld's words) and the second wave didn't really make much of an impact (that shiny new 52 logo doesn't carry the same weight anymore). This isnt to say DC haven't done a good job (I've personally doubled my DC pulls since the new 52) their re-boot is just not the deal breaker that a lot of people on-line are making it out to be. Both Marvel and DC are operating in a very reactive manner which doesn't exactly bring out the best in them at all times.

There isn't much to go on regarding Marvel NOW because Marvel hasn't said exactly what it's going to be. Apart from X-men and Avengers, we don't really have ANY confirmation on the other creative teams and why exactly whatever is happening is actually happening (in-story). All we know at this point is that AVX causes massive changes to the Marvel universe. Personally, I prefer Marvel's approach as it doesn't alienate current fans and is an entry point for new and lapsed readers. For all the talk of a re-boot, there is no title with zero history/continuity. Every character has a backstory but what's important is the story being told now and how to use continuity properly. A total reboot is simply throwing out the baby with the bath water.

What I hope and pray Marvel NOW is(which Axel Alonso suggests it will be) is a return to the early 2000s level of creativity that Marvel experienced. At that point, Marvel allowed their writers to go bat shit crazy on most of their titles and it often produced wonderful results (it wasn't all perfect though as a lot of creators NEED firm editorial control). If Marvel NOW is as good as anything from that time period, I will be a happy man.

[Wolf_Leader]

Personally, I prefer Marvel's approach as it doesn't alienate current fans and is an entry point for new and lapsed readers.

I'm not saying which is better, but DC needed something big and I don't think doing that would work for Marvel because it would be seen as copying and I don't think Marvel is as interested in trying to broaden their offerings (would Animal Man or Swamp Thing have caught on with one new title a week for a year approach?)

I will say that it will still alienate current fans though as it is just more of the same practice of cancel and relaunch. Whether it brings in more readers than it loses, well hopefully, but it will still cause people to say they've had enough of that. I do think it will be interesting to see how it may attract new readers, with a trickle of new relaunches but as you point out even the New 52 logo isn't pushing Wave 2 and Wave 3 titles to the top of the charts, will NOW! mean anything 4 months in?

What I am a little curious about, and here is where a total reboot (at least numbering wise) served DC, is that look at Avengers Assemble, Gambit, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel; do all these books take place post AvX? Are they putting these books at a disadvantage by putting them ahead of NOW!?

[USERNAME TAKEN]

I'm not saying which is better, but DC needed something big and I don't think doing that would work for Marvel because it would be seen as copying and I don't think Marvel is as interested in trying to broaden their offerings (would Animal Man or Swamp Thing have caught on with one new title a week for a year approach?)

I will say that it will still alienate current fans though as it is just more of the same practice of cancel and relaunch. Whether it brings in more readers than it loses, well hopefully, but it will still cause people to say they've had enough of that. I do think it will be interesting to see how it may attract new readers, with a trickle of new relaunches but as you point out even the New 52 logo isn't pushing Wave 2 and Wave 3 titles to the top of the charts, will NOW! mean anything 4 months in?

What I am a little curious about, and here is where a total reboot (at least numbering wise) served DC, is that look at Avengers Assemble, Gambit, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel; do all these books take place post AvX? Are they putting these books at a disadvantage by putting them ahead of NOW!?

Good question.

Marvel NOW should have included those titles as it would have probably given them a better chance of survival.

It's also extremely confusing as to when these titles take place because Captain Marvel is wearing her old outfit in AVX.

[QCCBob]

It is fair to say that DC 52 was a success, but I'm finding it much harder to say 'IS' a success. The Action numbers bear out my point. They got tons of people to check out the books, they've not kept that many. Unless we're just going to settle for one off sales spikes to prop up the industry and, in truth, that's seems to be Marvel's plan, something needs to done about who they're aiming for. Marvel benefited greatly going into AVX because they gave the 52 refugees a place to go, sadly, many of them discovered it wasn't a better place. Marvel NOW is just Marvel SOS, relaunch, swap creative teams, YAWN... Worse yet, that Before Watchmen spike shows the way to win is $3.99 and incentive variants, in other words, the Marvel Play Book.

[Tachyon217]

I really enjoyed this article. I too think that Marvel is demonstrating that they are bereft of ideas in terms of how to sustainably grow the industry and improve the quality of their line. The continued overuse of characters like Wolverine, the relatively high cover price ($3.99), the shipping of multiple issues in a month all suggest that they're strategy is to maximize profit from what may be a shrinking audience.

I'm not excited about Marvel Now. I'm concerned about some of the creative changes (Iron Man for example), I think that some of the series are questionable (All New X-Men and Uncanny Avengers), and I'm not yet certain that this really expands the scope of Marvel's stories (which are basically all X-Men/Avengers all the time, with a few other things, but nothing really daring). I will likely read some of the new titles, but I simply can't afford to buy many Marvel books in stores because of the price and frequency of shipping (I've actually resorted to getting nearly all of my Marvel books via subscription). That said, I may sit on the sidelines for Marvel Now, trying out a few things here and there. Sadly I'd rather buy independent titles and DC stuff (which is mostly $2.99 and ships once a month) and read the rest in the trades.