How do we save the Comic Industry

[glennsim]

Another update, as I was reminded of something (affects #4)

DC
1. Less respectful of something like Alan Moore's wishes to have no more Watchmen; but as I understand it, a better policy for creators on reprints and other media
2. More inclined to reboots and massive continuity changes
3. Sticks to single-issues per month
4. More $2.99 books; $3.99 books have additional print content; higher prices for digital combo packs.
5. Fewer female creators
6. Experiments with war, horror, western, sword-and-sorcery books
7. Bad at movies; good at direct-to-video animation
8. Keep their schedule pretty tight - books generally out the month they are supposed to (and almost always the correct week).
9. Editorial appears to make a lot of changes to writers' stories

Marvel
1. Does less to keep older creators happy
2. Keeps their continuity changes minor and covert
3. Uses double-shipping
4. More $3.99 books without additional print content but generally with free digital download and sometimes with AR content.
5. More female creators
6. Sticks more to just super-hero books
7. Good at movies; not much for direct-to-video animation
8. More flexible schedules - books can run late.
9. Writers appear to be given more freedom from editorial direction

[Mr. Holmes]

Marvel also has more diverse set of creators. With DC, you have Johns, Lemire, and Snyder stretched across their JL, Batman, GL, and Dark lines. The result is a decent flagship in each line, followed by a sea of mediocrity.

[Rafa-Rivas-2099]

Marvel also has more diverse set of creators. With DC, you have Johns, Lemire, and Snyder stretched across their JL, Batman, GL, and Dark lines. The result is a decent flagship in each line, followed by a sea of mediocrity.

Well, Johns can be mediocre in his own way. He has a knack for delivering great punches with every issue, but it's not like there's much to his storytelling and he abuses decompression.

[Rafa-Rivas-2099]

This is what I'm talking about. This way you don't overrun your comics. I mean even thing will get reboot sooner if they can't keep things clean.

Meanwhile, DC can wrap the previous continuity and explore the later generations. Two birds one stone, fans would not complain about +10 years without Steph, Damian, Bart or any of the later heroes if they are currently in charge of the old continuity:

Year 1: Dr. Ocult, Slam, Superman, Batman, Ultra-humanite, Strange, Falcone, Dent, Gordon, the Cat.
>Year 25 OC: Crisis event. Death of Darkseid and Luthor.
Year 2 (Golden): Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Luthor, Joker, Penguin, Scarecrow, Ares, Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, Vigilante, Shining Knight, Zatara, the Spirit; Black Mask, the Ventriloquist, the Question, Icon.
>Year 26 OC: The last days of the Secret Society. Green Arrow, Aquaman and Black Canary retire.
Year 3 (Atomic): Tommy Tomorow, Phantom Stranger, King Faraday, Detective Chimp, Killer Moth, Dead Shot, Rex, Martian Manhunter, Mr. Freeze, Dr. 13; Challengers, Doom Patrol, Metamorpho, Batmite, Ace, Batwoman (and other characters with the same vibe, although achronological), Rocket Red.
>Year 27 OC: Dick, Donna, Supergirl, Oracle, Red Arrow, J'Onn, Plas, Wally, Jade, Cyborg, Starfire and Aquaman are the JLA. Red Robin, Spoiler, Kid Flash, Superboy, Wondergirl, Miss Martian, Blue Beetle, Static and Squire join the Young Justice program.
Year 4 (silver I): Flash, Supergirl, Adam Strange, Rip Hunter, Green Lantern, Elongated Man, The Rogues Gallery, Hawkman, Atom, Justice League, Zatanna, Poison Ivy, Black Canary II, Metal Men; Harley Quinn.
Year 5 (silver II): Robin, Batgirl, Speedy, JLA vs. JSA, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Red Tornado, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Animal Man, Enchantress, Dolphin, Deadman, Creeper, 5th World, Teen Titans; Booster Gold, Fire, Ice, Guy.
Year 6 (bronze): The Demon, Black Lightning, Swamp Thing, Satellite era, Cyborg, Stargirl, Ra's Al Ghul, Rupert Thorne, Vixen, Man Bat, Parasite, Firestorm.
>Year 28 OC: Big final of the JLA
Year 7 (Iron-dark): Lobo, Mongul, Nightwing, Killer Croc, Constantine, JLI, Maxwell | Doomsday, Bane, Steel.
Year 8: Now. The Justice League becomes the Justice League Unlimited, with a Young Justice program.
Year 10: The villains from the Legion of Doom in rection to the JLU.

[Rafa-Rivas-2099]

I already posted something like this elsewhere online, but may as well recycle it here...

Assuming "how do we save the industry" is mainly applying toward superhero comics (DC and Marvel):

* Get rid of decompressed storytelling and/or rethink the single-issues-for-$4 sales model. $4 for a 10-minute read is in no way feasible long-term IMO for anyone but the hardest-core fans, and even *that* seems a stretch given the economy/other things to spend $4 on (smartphone apps, 1/2 of a month's worth of Netflix, renting a movie featuring the same characters in the comic...). Possible tactics: go back to a Golden Age style model of thicker books (even if it means fewer books total on stands), or the magazine-size format I see for some comics (such as one of the Simpsons' comics being magazine format) to make them more appealing to newsstands. Digests (like manga/Archie/the above mentioned ones overseas) and/or more emphasis on trade paperbacks might also help.

* Bring in a more diverse staff (i.e. more women, minorities, gays and lesbians) on both the writing/art side *and* in who's in charge, which might help with some of their diversity problems/negative treatments and depictions of women and minorities in stories. It'd also help attract a more diverse (and *more*) readership.

* Better handling or rethinking of their digital comics sales model. DRMed proprietary single-issue comics tied to a particular app for the same price as paper single-issue ones is a ripoff IMO.

* More diversity in what's published in terms of genres (DC and Marvel used to print stuff besides superheroes/"mature readers" stories), which might help boost sales... if someone doesn't like Batman (or other superheroes), they might still give DC/Marvel their money (and DC/Marvel would still make money) for a copy of a (modernized) "Young Romance" or "Funny Stuff" instead of making *zero* money. (And no, trying to force/cross over superhero elements into said other genres also isn't the way to go...) It also might help with attracting younger audiences (i.e. kids), without whom there's not much of a future business-wise.

* More aimed at DC than Marvel, but lose the constant "grim and gritty" tone and snuff film-esque storytelling. An emphasis on that as the *only* type of storytelling does't make you look "mature" or "realistic," just desperate (among other things).

For comic books as a whole (i.e. not just Marvel/DC), a rethinking of digital comics and $4-for-a-single-issue-model might be the main factors to grapple with, but smaller companies/independents seem to be doing a decent job with diversity of material/creators' background...

And yes, the above are all largely not related to the actual stories themselves. They can reboot their continuity to a degree that'd confuse even soap opera writers (and make Clark's costume red-trunk-less all they want), but it doesn't fix what IMO is fundamentally wrong with Marvel/DC.

This.

10 char

[glennsim]

Marvel also has more diverse set of creators. With DC, you have Johns, Lemire, and Snyder stretched across their JL, Batman, GL, and Dark lines. The result is a decent flagship in each line, followed by a sea of mediocrity.

Well, I realize you probably diverse in style, but I was rather fascinated by the idea of determining which company had the wider variety of writers, and after sitting down and spending way too much time, it turns out the winner is DC.

Here were the rules:
1. Using books listed on one of these pages:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/marv...citations.html
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dc-c...citations.html
2. Did not include trades or other reprints - only new "floppy" material, but did include digital-first that was coming out in print.
3. One point for writing a book. For books with leads and backups, only 1/2 point for the backup. Writing an extra long 3.99 DC book gets you 1.5 points. Half points for being a co-writer.
4. I did Marvel both in terms of per series, and then also did it where they got double points for double shipping.

The average writer at DC in the month being measured does 1.22 books.
The average writer at Marvel in the month being measured, taking twice-a-month as a single entity, does 1.5 books.
The average writer at Marvel in the month being measured, taking twice-a-month as two books, does 1.71 books.

I can post out the whole thing but here are the big numbers:

DC
Johns: 4.5
Lemire: 3
Derek Fridolfs: 2.5
11 writers have 2 points each
Snyder and Tynion have 1.75 each
BQMiller, Diggle, and Kreisberg have 1.5 each (Miller got 1.5 for doing everything in Smallville Season 11 which is 40 pages or so, but I don't know for sure if that's fair or not)
28 different writers get 1 point each.
12 writers get .5 points each (are co-writers with each other or other people)
Beechen and Krull got .33 each for writing what seems to be roughly a third of a digital-first book.

Marvel, twice-a-month counts as 1:
Bendis: 5.5
Bunn: 4
Aaron: 3
Fraction: 3
David and Yost: 2.5 each
10 people 2 each
19 people 1 each
7 people .5 each

Marvel, double-shipping counts as 2:

Bendis: 7.5!
Bunn: 5
Fraction: 4
Aaron, Hickman, Hopeless: 3
David & Yost: 2.5
10 people with 2
19 people with 1
5 people with .5

[UsagiTsukino]

Should some writers still on comic books stay on longer.

[Jadenewt]

Interesting article by Bleeding Cool about retailers reaction regarding DC moving up the time of their Digital releases. And the move DC had to make regarding returnablity of some issues.

DC Makes Hundreds Of Comics Returnable

[UsagiTsukino]

You think Dc should have storylines dealing with what's happening in the real world like do more with gay marriage or racist

[infinitEEntropy]

Check out my new article on the pros and cons of reading digital and print Here!

[gujju_wolf]

As someone who is fairly new to comics the things which are putting me off are:

-Cost - graphic novels for what you get seem quite expensive even second hand, compared to a book for example.
-Size - they need to be bigger and have more pages to writing, i finished volumes of Y The last Man in 30minutes.
-More elseworld books - these standalone books are much bigger and good for new people to get into it without buying a comic every month and it lasting about 5 minutes.