In regards to the last several comments, I'll just say that for me personally, the shared universe stuff is pretty off putting. There are certain individual marvel and DC characters that I have an interest in. But I'm not a fan of either "universe" in general. I might want to read a Batman story, but that doesn't mean I'm interested n The Flash or Green Lantern.
Unfortunately, with modern comics you pretty much have to be a fan of the whole universe or you probably aren't going to enjoy any of the individual titles, since they all tie into the shared universe. A good example is the recent Batman story Last Knight on Earth. I thought it had an interesting premise, and I was pretty curious about it, and how it would play out. It started off good... But then, as soon as Green Lanterns and other DC Universe stuff came into the picture, I quickly lost interest and stopped reading. I just wanted a Batman story, not the shared universe stuff.
Between the enforced shared universe, and the Status Quo Is God* nature of many titles, it just feels like, as others have said, these comics are only aimed at a specific group of fans who only want certain things, and nothing else.
- An example of maintaining the status quo is Superman. I have not generally been a fan of Superman. But several years ago they not only had Superman married to Lois Lane, but even gave him a son, putting him in the role of husband and father. This actually got me interested in this character that I hadn't really cared much about before. I liked seeing the changes, and Superman taking on new roles, and his relationship with his son. But then they got rid of all of that, broke up his marriage, and aged up his son to a seventeen year old. I stopped reading.
Edited by Neveratall on Sep 13th 2019 at 8:55:38 AM
Apologies for double posting, but there is something else I wanted to mention, and I felt is should be a separate post.
Another series that I was interested in was Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. This was an alternate universe series where One More Day didn't happen, and Spider-Man and MJ were still married, and they had a daughter. Mary Jane became a superhero alongside Peter (not everyone was a fan of this, but I liked it), and even their 8 year old daughter was a costumed hero. Again, not everyone liked the idea of Annie May (the kid) being a hero, but I thought it was something unique and interesting. Teenage superheros are very common, but little kid heroes are rare. Which was also part of why I liked Superman's kid as a hero too. It was something you wouldn't normally see. I also liked the initially lighter tone of the series(as opposed to the typically grim tone of hero comics these days) and the fact that it was an alternate reality, which meant it didn't have to tie into any events going on in the marvel universe. Plus, it was written by Gerry Conway
. I liked this series.
But then, Marvel editorial decided that they knew better. They forced Conway off the book (they wanted him to take the book in directions he didn't agree with), did a time skip where Annie was aged up to a teenager, and took the story in a darker and edgier direction. Making it more like a standard Marvel comic. In other words, they took away most of the things I liked about it. I stopped reading this too. Apparently, other people felt the same way, since the sales for the series plummeted, and it was cancelled less than a dozen issues after the time skip. This is just an example of why I ( and I suspect many others) have trouble getting into modern comics.
Here's an article linked from the tv tropes page on status quo is god: https://www.peterdavid.net/2012/12/24/the-illusion-of-change/
Anyway, the point is that there are multiple reasons why comic book sales might be declining, instead of one specific thing. Didn't mean to write an essay here, this is just some stuff I wanted to say for a while, and this seemed like a good place to say it.
Edited by Neveratall on Sep 13th 2019 at 8:55:14 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I don't really read marvel or DC comics for that reason.
Everyone has horror stories about how bad the Executive Meddling is on movies, shows and video games but they don't hold a candle to the exects of marvel and DC.
Comichron has confirmed that Marvel Comics got 46.15% of the market share in August, which is the highest since Diamond began reporting shares of final orders 22 years ago. Of course, this comes with a few caveats, including the fact that "both DC and Image have published around 100 fewer new comics year-to-date versus last year, while Marvel has published 120 more. DC's per-title dollars have improved (which is the point of publishing less), so market-share effects may not be as important."
The top-selling comics by units:
- Absolute Carnage #1 ($7.99) Marvel
- Marvel Comics #1000 ($9.99) Marvel
- Batman/Superman #1* ($3.99) DC
- House of X #3 ($4.99) Marvel
- Powers of X #2 ($4.99) Marvel
- House of X #2 ($4.99) Marvel
- Powers of X #3 ($4.99) Marvel
- Absolute Carnage #2 ($4.99) Marvel
- Batman #77 ($3.99) DC
- Batman: Curse of The White Knight #2 ($4.99) DC
The top-selling comics by dollars:
- Marvel Comics #1000 ($9.99) Marvel
- Absolute Carnage #1 ($7.99) Marvel
- Batman/Superman #1* ($3.99) DC
- Superman: Year One #2* ($7.99) DC
- Powers of X #2 ($4.99) Marvel
- House of X #3 ($4.99) Marvel
- House of X #2 ($4.99) Marvel
- Powers of X #3 ($4.99) Marvel
- Absolute Carnage #2 ($4.99) Marvel
- Batman: Curse of The White Knight #2 ($4.99) DC
I said this on another thread, but I've heard it said that superhero comics are in a "post-superhero" state. The focus isnt on stopping villains or even cool powers, but the relationships between the characters. While this isnt a new thing (The Fantastic Four was about this from day 1), it has become more and more prominent now. Ironically, the MCU has a better balance about this, yeah, they focus on the friendships and rivalries of the characters, but at the end of the day it's all about stopping the bad guy.
So, can there be a consensus on what the biggest problem is? Comic books have become incredibly niche, even though comic book characters are more popular than ever these past several years. So, what's the problem?
Is it the pricing? The lack of physical stores to buy them? The writing? The shared universe? The frequent retcons and resurrections? Too much executive meddling? Or is the medium just outdated now?
I think beginner unfriendliness is the biggest problem. Then when you actually get past that you have to wade through other problems like event comics, cost, bad comics. Means even if new fans do want to come along most won’t stay for long.
Edited by Bec66 on Sep 19th 2019 at 7:25:18 AM
don’t forget about bad editorial decisions, nonsensical numbering note and constant relaunches.
Edited by megaeliz on Sep 19th 2019 at 8:09:20 AM
The! Big! Two! Are! Not! The! Whole! Industry!
As a medium, comics are doing fine. Comics are doing great. You can't look at how Raina Telgemeier sells and claim comics are struggling. Major prose publishers are moving into selling comics, because they see the audience is there, they see the money to be made. Most of it is kids' and YA, which is frankly a great sign for the future of comics.
I know I keep harping on this, and I know it seems nitpicky, but it's so frustrating when people talk about comics when what they really mean is Marvel and DC. People talk about the problems with the medium, when what they really mean is problems with the specific business practices of two publishers.
And shit, even Marvel and DC are still doing fine for now. You know what the biggest threat to the direct market is? Rent increases. More shops go out of business because their rents increased than due to any decrease in sales. Comic shops are having problems increasing their customer bases, and a lot of that comes down to the practices of Marvel and DC. And Marvel, in particular, is really good at making sure some of their books don't sell. But the problem faced by comic shops is landlords wanting to get rid of them by jacking up rents.
But the direct market is not the comics industry. It is one part, but only a part, and frankly, one that's getting less and less important all the time, as major prose publishers move into the medium, and as existing comic publishers continue shifting to digital shops.
So the medium is fine. The medium is large and diverse and healthy. And it is crucial that we not mistake Marvel and DC for the medium as a whole.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
I guess with DC and Marvel being the face of the medium it’s a bit easy to associate them with the entire market. Sorry about that.
Maybe stuff aimed specifically at children is doing fine. But it seems like stuff aimed at older readers is still niche at this point. Superhero stuff especially. At any rate, people tend to mention Marvel and DC since they usually seem to be the top sellers in the industry. https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2019/2019-08.html
I’ve heard that site only tracks sales for comics in comic stores and doesn’t account for digital, online, or bookstore sales.
Edited by Bec66 on Sep 20th 2019 at 3:43:38 PM
Comichron is solely for sales on the Direct Market, i.e. sales to comic book stores. It doesn't list sales in bookstores, Scholastic, or digital sales. That's why Marvel and DC are always the best-sellers on Comichron, even though they are probably vastly outsold by Raina Telgemeier's new comic.
Edited by alliterator on Sep 20th 2019 at 12:48:10 PM
So, what exactly are the best selling comics right now then? How are the digital sales? Is it mostly stuff aimed at school children, or more mature stuff too?
, but it has no numbers about how much are sold.
Kinda hard to comment on this without specific numbers. Without having at least a general idea of how much these books are selling, it all just seems rather vague and based in conjecture. Comic shop sales don't account for all comic sales. That's fine, but it still doesn't say how much these titles are selling.
The general vibe I’ve gotten is graphic novels for kids and manga wipe the floor with your average floppy.
IDW's Marilyn Manor has been canceled after only one issue, and their Black Crown imprint seems to be ending. Issues #2-4 will not be released by the publisher, nor will the planned collected edition. https://www.cbr.com/idw-marilyn-manor-canceled-black-crown-imprint-ending-reports/
Edited by lalalei2001 on Sep 22nd 2019 at 9:11:43 AM
The Protomen enhanced my life.
God, IDW drives me nuts. They can have good comics, but their lack of clear release schedules, Schedule Slip, and unreliability of their website makes it really frustrating to try to keep up with what they are actually putting out.
I hadn't heard anything about it since, and when I checked the website, the release date is listed as August 2020.
Stuff like this also happened with the Duck-Tales tie in comic as well, where the release date kept getting pushed back, but when it was actually going to drop was not updated.
Edited by megaeliz on Sep 23rd 2019 at 4:48:23 AM
IDW has had a bunch of changes in upper management over the past few years and then hired JP Morgan Chase because of their financial difficulties. Basically, they might not have enough money to continue publishing a lot of their stuff.
Dynamite's Rainbow Brite comic was also canceled after only 5 issues. According to rainbowbrite.net it was written for the trade as a miniseries, with further adventures dependent on trade sales, though given the cliffhanger ending I'm not entirely sure about that.
Edited by lalalei2001 on Sep 23rd 2019 at 1:38:39 AM
The Protomen enhanced my life.
. I was actually really looking forward for the HM graphic Novel too. The promotional Art they released looks adorable, and it already looks better than the movie and the Marvel Miniseries.
It’s really a shame that it got pushed back so far, especially since it was supposed celebrate it’s 50th anniversary, which was this year.
Edited by megaeliz on Sep 24th 2019 at 3:26:43 PM
For every bit of initial optimism towards the industry, that they may overhaul the outdated system, that they may produce things that people want to seed you get news like this and it hurts. It’s hard to be optimistic when labels close left and right. Di Dio has noted there is a massive problem. The question is what if anything they plan to do about it. Abandon the floppy market, throw their current crop of writers out on their butts for making stuff no one wants to read, making material that people want to read and embracing means to allow them to read it without price or access walls, etc. There are options, the question is if they want to implement them.
So if IDW does end up going under what would happen to it's licensed properties like Godzilla, Tmnt, Transformers and Ghostbusters?
Actually, that’s not a terrible idea. Using a mini-series format to push boundaries in what types of stories can be told in a superhero universe, but not going on long enough to devolve into superhero shenanigans.
Edited by megaeliz on Sep 12th 2019 at 8:58:33 AM