Bad news for The Spider :(

[DonEMC]

That's a matter of opinion, myself and many others are enjoying these books and feel completely different on this subject. The opinion of one does not speak for the masses.



I would love sine original stories from Dynamite!

So, what part of my fact-filled paragraph was an opinion that you and many others disagree with? There can't be THAT many others to disagree with me knowing what the sales are...
And you're right that the opinion of one does not speak for the masses, but, obviously, those masses must be agreeing with some - or all - of my statements or else they'd still be reading The Spider or at least trying it.
But, I understand you are reacting because you love the pulp heroes and write a blog on the Dynamite Pulp Heroes, so you're looking at this through pulp-colored glasses and are biased. I don't have that same bias because while I want these books to succeed, I know the publishing industry and know that bringing in characters that are 60 years old or older to an audience of 20-30-year-olds can't generate enough sales to keep these books going -- unless you put top quality writers and artists on the books. Mark Waid might bring in a bunch of new readers to Green Hornet (a much more marketable character having had a TV show, two previous comic series and a movie), but you'd have to put Frank Miller on The Spider to even get most comic readers to care.
There's just too much out there demanding the comic reader's bucks for this to make it big unless it has something else BIG going for it.

[Manga4life]

The part about the stories being decompressed, some may find it that way while others don't. Also, sales are fine considering the massive amount of books Marvel, DC, and Image produce along with the fact that very few comic book fans are open to purchase anything outside of the big 2, especially since some double ship at $4 a pop. Dynamite is doing quite well.

Again, you have a right to your opinion, but you don't speak for everyone.

[DonEMC]

For the record: Green Hornet, Flash Gordon and The Phantom are NOT pulp heroes. The Green Hornet was a radio character, while FG and the Phantom were both comic strip characters.

If you want to read a GOOD version of The Green Hornet, check out the old NOW Comics series that ran from the late 1980s into the 1990s. That series sold hundreds of thousands of copies a month, made NOW a fortune and was The series from which Kevin Smith drew his inspiration for his aborted movie script-turned Dynamite comic series.
The NOW version had great stories and art and was very popular with the comics-collecting crowd.

[DonEMC]

The part about the stories being decompressed, some may find it that way while others don't. Also, sales are fine considering the massive amount of books Marvel, DC, and Image produce along with the fact that very few comic book fans are open to purchase anything outside of the big 2, especially since some double ship at $4 a pop. Dynamite is doing quite well.

Again, you have a right to your opinion, but you don't speak for everyone.

If sales were "fine", we wouldn't be having this discussion.
And I never said I was speaking for everyone, but, for some reason, MY OPINION being offered has offended you. I'm merely voicing that opinion on a thread. What, are we all supposed to be of the same opinion as you that these books are fantastic and that sales are "fine"?

[Manga4life]

I checked into the NOW version a while ago, it was okay but nothing I would personally collect. I much preferred the Year One version presented by Dynamite a couple of years ago and the first 20+ issues of the current GH title. But again, that's just a matter of preference.

Also, sales of comics as a whole were much better in the 80's and 90's than they are today,

[Parch]

So this pulp crossover isn't doing so good?

I don't think it's a good idea for indie books to have crossovers. Despite the success the big two have with crossovers and events, I still think it's a big reason why indie fans have ventured away from the big two.
If sales of Dynamite crossovers are struggling, that should be a big hint that they shouldn't be doing them.

[Bruce Kent]

So this pulp crossover isn't doing so good?

I don't think it's a good idea for indie books to have crossovers. Despite the success the big two have with crossovers and events, I still think it's a big reason why indie fans have ventured away from the big two.
If sales of Dynamite crossovers are struggling, that should be a big hint that they shouldn't be doing them.

The crossover is doing great. People are talking about the Spider book, that is still selling 7K. Dynamite simply warned that they may not be able to keep it going past #12 if sales don't maintain or increase. And even then they may simply relaunch, as they've done before.

[MajorHoy]

Does anyone know when Dynamite have to renew the payments to license the character? That could be a main factor in the decision.

[regnak]

Probably annually which would explain them saying sales need to go up by #12.

[Manga4life]

Still, 7K isn't a terrible number when you take into consideration that Marvel and DC publishes a crapload of comics every month with Marvel DOUBLE SHIPPING titles like they're bottled water during a blizzard. Also, Image publishes a ton of books every month as well, so Dynamite grabbing 7K in orders isn't that bad at all. Also, The Spider was not as widely known as a character like The Shadow and the fact that The Spider has never garnered much mainstream attention since it's pulp stories or previous to the release of this book tells me that 7k in sales is perfectly fine. The only thing holding them back is that they probably pay a pretty penny for the license and if the profit isn't there than it's all for not.

[BugsySig]

Still, 7K isn't a terrible number when you take into consideration that Marvel and DC publishes a crapload of comics every month with Marvel DOUBLE SHIPPING titles like they're bottled water during a blizzard. Also, Image publishes a ton of books every month as well, so Dynamite grabbing 7K in orders isn't that bad at all. Also, The Spider was not as widely known as a character like The Shadow and the fact that The Spider has never garnered much mainstream attention since it's pulp stories or previous to the release of this book tells me that 7k in sales is perfectly fine. The only thing holding them back is that they probably pay a pretty penny for the license and if the profit isn't there than it's all for not.

7k is fine for a creator owned or publisher owned property, but its not gonna cut it for a licensed property. I don't know if they could have done any better than that given the factors you mentioned, so it was probably a losing proposition from the start.

[Manga4life]

7k is fine for a creator owned or publisher owned property, but its not gonna cut it for a licensed property. I don't know if they could have done any better than that given the factors you mentioned, so it was probably a losing proposition from the start.

Well, over at the Dynamite boards Nick did mention that the book will continue at it's current pace but if sales dipped than it wouldn't be solicited past issue #12. It's doing fine where it is but Dynamite doesn't want the sales to dip to probably about below 6,000 or so (I'd imagine).

[regnak]

I mentioned earlier that I wouldn't shed any tears if the book was cancelled even though I buy it. A pulp I just finished rereading today gives a good reason why. In Hordes of the Red Butcher

http://www.radioarchives.com/The_Spi...er_p/re021.htm

Nita Van Sloane shows why she was the greatest of the pulp heroines. With the Spider framed for murder and on Sing Sing's death row What does she do?

First she has Jackson kill a murderer and put the Spider seal on his forehead to get the villains to come after her, Jackson and Ram Singh. When they do the trio kill all but 1 thug who Nita turns over to Ram to torture for info on the real murderer. He succeeds but the man dies. Nita feels terrible about it but thinks she would do worse.

Unfortunately the real murderer is killed before he can be delivered to the police and Ram Singh is critically wounded. So she goes to now Governor Kirkpatrick to ask for a pardon. She threatens to kill him and would have done so except Kirkpatrick is feeling so guilty he tells her it would be a favor if she did so.


So all she has left is to break the Spider out of Sing Sing's death row. And she does! Incidentally the whole sequence is far better than I could ever describe it.

Now instead of being a heroine and deep character in her own right, Nita is just the ex girlfriend married to Kirk. It is a huge step down for her.

[emb021]

The Spider may have started as a Shadow knock-off by Popular Publications back in the day, but Norvell Page actually gave the series a soft reboot when he started writing the books with #5. Instead of the friendly-for-grannies gentleman detective blech that audiences could expect from the Shadow (esp the bland radio show), the Spider was like a dozen Rambo movies filmed by Michael Bay after drinking a gallon of Red Bull with a mile-long line of coke for a chaser. The books were so over-the-top insane that Page actually went a little off his own nut while writing them. Compared to Page's Spider novels, the Shadow is the pulp hero for your wheelchair bound 'nana who thinks that Billy Graham is a bit smutty. He's a great big floppy t#@t that would shriek away in terror of the Easter bunny compared to the Spider.

Norvell Page starting writing the Spider with #3. The first 2 were written by RTM Scott, were the Spider was more of the 'gentlemen detective' type.

As I seem to recall (been awhile since I read the early Spiders or Robert Sampson's excellent work on the Spider, was that Page's 'revamp' of the Spider occurred over several issues.

[emb021]

These Pulp characters have lost a lot of fans to old age and dying. While there are SOME younger fans, the biggest portion of their fan base would have to be of an accelerated age. I know that these are existing properties with at least a tiny fan base, but Dynamite's expectations had to be low from the start, so licensing fees must be high for the company to cancel it.

Puhleeze.

You're buying into the cr*p that Azzarello was trying to shovel.

While there are a lot of older fans, most are NOT of advanced age and dying off. A lot of pulp fans got into the pulps as kids when the reprints of Doc Savage et al started in the 60s. While there may not be a lot of pulp fans in their teens or 20s, please don't try to claim they are mainly geriatrics.