After close to twenty years of buying comic it pains me to say this…I think the print industry is dead.
71k for the highest selling book is beyond depressing. How long can this be sustained when kids don't buy comics anymore (or couldn't even if they wanted to)? I recently moved to a major US city and you'd think finding a comic shop would be easy. Nope, had to start preordering everything I buy from an online retailer. The barrier for entry to this hobby requires much more effort than it used to, and no young person in this day and age is going to put up with that.
Something big needs to happen soon or we'll all be buying Ipads in three years.
While 71k is low for the top selling book, aggregate numbers are actually the same or higher. Many of the lower ranked titles are selling significantly more copies (upwards of 300% increase for similar ranking titles in the 300+ range). It's more of a diversification of sales than a top heavy chart than it was 10 years ago, despite relatively same volume and not accounting for any digital sales, as meager as they may be. Comparing it to a year ago, comics out did the previous Feb in dollar value as well and this Feb had the $2.99 as the most common cover price for the first time since Marvel started the $3.99 trend. So doing more dollar share year over year is still a great performance despite a lower top sales volume.
Just looking at the top 10 is not indicative of overall comic sales or reason to say print is dying or comics are finished.
Booster Gold's almost certainly due to be canceled, once its Flashpoint crossover ends.
Booster will totally make it to an Issue 50 Super-Finale with short farewell bits from the main writers; Johns, Jurgens, and Giffen/DeMaties.
And I think for the print market to ever return, we'll need either a huge push for flagship mainline books or a really, really strong emphasis on trades to a point beyond what I can comprehend at this point. I was at Toys R Us today, and they actually had an up-to-date comic rack, although I believe it was pretty small. I wish that kind of thing was more prevalent. Borders and other bookstores have spinners for floppies, but recently they're hardly ever updated.
Maybe another idea, to sort of steal one from Marvel Adventures, would be to do all these stories in digital one month and then pack them into a $10 or so character digest the next month for print, like the Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine magazines do with the Adventures stories.
Thanks, its good to be back. I've been in and out of the hospital the last couple months. Been pretty rough. Just starting to get back on my feet again.
Booster Gold's almost certainly due to be canceled, once its Flashpoint crossover ends.
Booster will totally make it to an Issue 50 Super-Finale with short farewell bits from the main writers; Johns, Jurgens, and Giffen/DeMaties.
And I think for the print market to ever return, we'll need either a huge push for flagship mainline books or a really, really strong emphasis on trades to a point beyond what I can comprehend at this point. I was at Toys R Us today, and they actually had an up-to-date comic rack, although I believe it was pretty small. I wish that kind of thing was more prevalent. Borders and other bookstores have spinners for floppies, but recently they're hardly ever updated.
Maybe another idea, to sort of steal one from Marvel Adventures, would be to do all these stories in digital one month and then pack them into a $10 or so character digest the next month for print, like the Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine magazines do with the Adventures stories.
I think we're past the point of hoping for greater representation in chain bookstores, since even their business model has proven to be unsustainable.
Incidentally, I'm so disappointed in the deals on comics available at Borders. I was hoping to get a cheap copy of Wednesday Comics or something like that, but their liquidation prices aren't even comparable to Amazon's normal prices.
Plus, since they give out 40%-50% off coupons during the holidays, their 20% discounts on trades are actually higher than what I'd had to pay a few months ago
It's pretty great to see a guy that's known purely for webcomics, get a crack at writing something for the Big 2. Something pretty major, no less. I'm not sure that's ever happened before, outside of small anthology books.
It's pretty great to see a guy that's known purely for webcomics, get a crack at writing something for the Big 2. Something pretty major, no less. I'm not sure that's ever happened before, outside of small anthology books.
The 8-bit Theater guy would have, but he got completely screwed over.
Also, I guess he is known for Atomic Robo.
Fencingsax on
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CorporateLogoThe toilet knowshow I feelRegistered Userregular
edited March 2011
What are the odds that he'll follow with the Way characterization
Also Clevinger is still doing some stuff for Marvel, it's just now a double-sized one shot and a comic that will be included in Taco Bell meals
Seems reasonable that you have to be able to make comic books before one of the Big Two hires you.
Dr. McNinja is an exception, but the problem with most ongoing series is one of pacing. This is why I assume Marvel has had no problem hiring novelists to write scripts because they have an entire story arc contained and have to deal with editors and word counts and such.
Brian Clevinger does 8-Bit Theater? Atomic Robo has been one of my favorite new-er comics, and I never realized why his name sounded so familiar before. I haven't read 8-Bit in a long time, but used to be a really big.
And after Googling it looks like he's written a pretty cool prose book, Nuklear Age. And so Amazon takes more of money.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
If you care about the Marvel vs. Kirby family lawsuit, the depositions have come out and this blog has most of them from comic creators. They are long and lengthy, but fascinating in how everything went through Stan Lee at the time. There's also some bits in the Roy Thomas and John Romita depositions that kind of destroy the case for the Kirby family, but even aside from the way the questions are centered on work for hire and the creators perceived lack of knowledge about the rules (at least what Kirby's family is saying), here is a nice quote from Romita about Stan's lack of attention to what Romita sees as the simple things:
On the habit of artists writing dialog or notes in the margins of the original art for Marvel books:
JOHN ROMITA: The only thing we used to do, because we worked from a plot, we used to write notes above and below the artwork and sometimes in the margins to — we would make notes and say — to remind him what we had talked about in the plot and this is my response to it and this is how I’m building up to it. So yes, remember that this is — we are now going into the fight phase and such and such, on the next page we would go to — so there were instructions by the artists as a reminder to the writer what we plotted, or if we were deviating from it slightly. Say I needed to add a panel here because we forgot how he was going to get from the east side to the west side in thirty seconds. You know, that kind of stuff. So a lot of writers disregarded those things, and when you do the artwork, you are faced with the reality of actual bridges and connections.
You can’t just make believe –Spider-Man used to swing to Manhattan from Queens, go on the rooftop, take an elevator down and come out as Peter Parker, and I used to tell Stan — and I was such a fanatic for believability and sense, common sense, I said, “Stan, what did he do, how did he — where is his costume?” He said, “its underneath.” And then he would forget. Sometimes he would have him go into a doctor’s office and take off his shirt and be examined and I would say, “Stan, he has got the costume on underneath.” He never thought of those things. I had him so browbeat with my reality check that he once made me for a year take off Peter Parker’s shoes and I had to put them on — tie the shoelaces and put them around his neck so that as Peter Parker he could walk up a wall, because somebody told him — after all the times I had tried to make him think realistically, somebody told him, “well, how can he walk up the walls when he has got shoes on?” His spider abilities doesn’t — he should have even taken his socks off. The point is I had to do the damn shoes for at least a year or six months. That’s the — I also created a web pack where Peter Parker would take his clothes and put them in a web sack and put them around on his back like a knapsack so that when he got to New York he could take his clothes out of the web sack, put them on and leave his — and go downstairs, you know. In other words, now at least you know he could put his clothes on. Where the hell were his clothes all the time? You know. So I was a realist and Stan was always — “it’s not important. The reader doesn’t think of those things.” Well, I think of them. I can’t stand it that way. So that’s the kind of stuff we used to have. That’s where all of the changes come from.
And some Lee and Romita fighting about page rates
Q: “Around 1957 was when Stan and I were at our lowest ebb in our relationship. In the last year, he cut my rate every time I turned in a story. He was not even talking to me then. He was embarrassed, because he had given me raises for two years every time I went in, and then he took it all away. I went from $44 a page to $24 a page in a year.”
Then Roy Thomas says: “As Gil was fond of saying, “comics giveth and comics taketh away.”
And then Romita, that’s you, says: “Virginia kept saying, “well, how long are you going to take the cuts until you go somewhere else?” And I told her, “I’ll hang on, I’ll hang on.” Then, when it came time that he ran out of money and had to shut down, or cut down to the bone, I had done two or three days’ work, ruling up the pages, lettering the balloons, and blocking in the figures on a story — and here comes a call from his assistant — she had beautiful bangs, beautiful brown hair, I forget her name, but she was adorable — and she says, “John, I have to tell you that Stan says to stop work on the Western book because we’re going to cut down on a lot of titles.” I said to her, “well, I spent three days on it. I’d like to get $100 for the work, to tide me over.” She said, “okay, I’ll mention it to Stan.” I never heard another word about the money, and I told Virginia, “if Stan Lee ever calls, tell him to go to hell.” And that was the last work I did for him until 1965.”
Do you see that?
JOHN ROMITA: Yes.
Q: Is that consistent with your recollection?
JOHN ROMITA: That’s exactly my recollection. I would never forget that.
One: It is great to see Chris Hastings doing some Big 2 work, i've read Dr McNinja for years now and loved every minute of it.
Two: I like that Romita was a stickler for consistancy, even in the early days.
Three: Flipping through the $1 Bin at my LCS I discovered that everyones 2nd favourite Chris, Chris Giarrusso, may have predicted Fear Itself over ten years ago...
Eh? EH?
Gank on
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
It's a shame we can't get any more Mini Marvel stories. It would have been the Thor version of the Iron Avengers.
I read that article the other day and actually learned a whole heap. Didn't know about Bob Kane and the rights to Batman and I only had an inkling of how messed up the whole rights to Superman thing was. An interesting read.
Intellectual property law is fraught with so many pitfalls and nonsense, especially since it applies to damn near everyone and entire industries, that I am amazed that any creative content ever gets sold.
More than that, fandom -- especially deep fandom -- really only exists on the magnanimity of rights holders.
I'm excited to see how Hastings does on faster paced, 22 page stories. I don't buy a lot of Marvel books (it's an investment in the universe kind of thing) but I will definitely be getting that Deadpool mini.
I read that article the other day and actually learned a whole heap. Didn't know about Bob Kane and the rights to Batman and I only had an inkling of how messed up the whole rights to Superman thing was. An interesting read.
I burst out laughing when I realised the implication of the shepherding implements that the publisher's avatars are holding.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
This is a pretty neat idea:
Steve Rude doing a raffle for a custom commission piece. 5 bucks a ticket, and what you get for a "marker sketch" is pretty ballin'. It ends March 31 and a winner will be picked April 1st, no foolies. 4 tickets means four times the chance of winning!
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
5" x 8" is a pretty nice companion size. Maybe a Blazing Skull....
As for C2E2, I didn't know it's a big convention now. I'm gonna guess a Batman Earth One release date, a new Superman and WW creative team (hopefully), some clarification on Batman & Robin creative teams.
With Marvel probably some X-Men Schism stuff, and release dates for Captain America: White (ha!).
edit: here's what looks like a Ghost Rider relaunch (maybe Aaron's secret project?)
very good Cinderella song, too.
TexiKen on
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
Just ordered a Blazing Skull commission from Dunlavey, should have gotten one of the hundred slots I hope.
If any of you guys have wondered what Gredavin (aka Kurtis Wiebe, the writer of The Intrepids) looks like, here he is at Emerald City Comic Con:
He's the second from the left. Next to him is Jay Faerber (on the left) and Scott Kowalchuk (artist on the Intrepids) and Riley Rossmo (artist on Green Wake). These guys seem to be getting good buzz for both projects.
ECCC was awesome. If you haven't gone, definitely try next year. It's one convention that is strongly rooted in comic love, whereas a lot of others have turned into celebrity and Hollywood showcases.
David Brothers wrote a post on his blog about Grodd of War, and it's great watching the inevitable replies that he's being an angry, black PC thug for noticing that comics its still treating Africa as the Dark Continent in 2011.
Crimsondude on
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
But.....Grodd's secret gorilla society is based in Africa. World domination doesn't happen overnight.
I think Brothers is overreacting on this one, at least going by the one-line blurb in the solicit.
Diversity isn't really something that mainstream comics does well. Given that it's primarily the domain of white males (both creators and consumers), it's not exactly surprising.
Posts
Logic and sensibility?!
Dear God
Booster will totally make it to an Issue 50 Super-Finale with short farewell bits from the main writers; Johns, Jurgens, and Giffen/DeMaties.
And I think for the print market to ever return, we'll need either a huge push for flagship mainline books or a really, really strong emphasis on trades to a point beyond what I can comprehend at this point. I was at Toys R Us today, and they actually had an up-to-date comic rack, although I believe it was pretty small. I wish that kind of thing was more prevalent. Borders and other bookstores have spinners for floppies, but recently they're hardly ever updated.
Maybe another idea, to sort of steal one from Marvel Adventures, would be to do all these stories in digital one month and then pack them into a $10 or so character digest the next month for print, like the Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Wolverine magazines do with the Adventures stories.
Thanks, its good to be back. I've been in and out of the hospital the last couple months. Been pretty rough. Just starting to get back on my feet again.
I think we're past the point of hoping for greater representation in chain bookstores, since even their business model has proven to be unsustainable.
Incidentally, I'm so disappointed in the deals on comics available at Borders. I was hoping to get a cheap copy of Wednesday Comics or something like that, but their liquidation prices aren't even comparable to Amazon's normal prices.
Plus, since they give out 40%-50% off coupons during the holidays, their 20% discounts on trades are actually higher than what I'd had to pay a few months ago
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
http://marvel.com/news/story/15347/fear_itself_deadpool
It's pretty great to see a guy that's known purely for webcomics, get a crack at writing something for the Big 2. Something pretty major, no less. I'm not sure that's ever happened before, outside of small anthology books.
Tumblr Twitter
The 8-bit Theater guy would have, but he got completely screwed over.
Also, I guess he is known for Atomic Robo.
Also Clevinger is still doing some stuff for Marvel, it's just now a double-sized one shot and a comic that will be included in Taco Bell meals
Tumblr Twitter
Dr. McNinja is an exception, but the problem with most ongoing series is one of pacing. This is why I assume Marvel has had no problem hiring novelists to write scripts because they have an entire story arc contained and have to deal with editors and word counts and such.
And after Googling it looks like he's written a pretty cool prose book, Nuklear Age. And so Amazon takes more of money.
And some Lee and Romita fighting about page rates
Two: I like that Romita was a stickler for consistancy, even in the early days.
Three: Flipping through the $1 Bin at my LCS I discovered that everyones 2nd favourite Chris, Chris Giarrusso, may have predicted Fear Itself over ten years ago...
Eh? EH?
I read that article the other day and actually learned a whole heap. Didn't know about Bob Kane and the rights to Batman and I only had an inkling of how messed up the whole rights to Superman thing was. An interesting read.
More than that, fandom -- especially deep fandom -- really only exists on the magnanimity of rights holders.
-Endless Nights
-Sandman Midnight Theatre
-The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (the novella AND the comic adaptation!)
I burst out laughing when I realised the implication of the shepherding implements that the publisher's avatars are holding.
Hawkeye firing a mjolnir from a bow, or Thor looking so un-amused at the ball peen hammer, so I won't decide!
Steve Rude doing a raffle for a custom commission piece. 5 bucks a ticket, and what you get for a "marker sketch" is pretty ballin'. It ends March 31 and a winner will be picked April 1st, no foolies. 4 tickets means four times the chance of winning!
His blog where he takes requests can be found here, and previous $10 commissions can be found here.
I'm a bit tempted to order another one. I think he'd draw an awesome Ralph and Sue Dibny.
Tumblr Twitter
As for C2E2, I didn't know it's a big convention now. I'm gonna guess a Batman Earth One release date, a new Superman and WW creative team (hopefully), some clarification on Batman & Robin creative teams.
With Marvel probably some X-Men Schism stuff, and release dates for Captain America: White (ha!).
edit: here's what looks like a Ghost Rider relaunch (maybe Aaron's secret project?)
very good Cinderella song, too.
After seeing his Biff Tannen commission, I went for Doctor Emmett Brown.
He's the second from the left. Next to him is Jay Faerber (on the left) and Scott Kowalchuk (artist on the Intrepids) and Riley Rossmo (artist on Green Wake). These guys seem to be getting good buzz for both projects.
ECCC was awesome. If you haven't gone, definitely try next year. It's one convention that is strongly rooted in comic love, whereas a lot of others have turned into celebrity and Hollywood showcases.
Definite recommend.
I think Brothers is overreacting on this one, at least going by the one-line blurb in the solicit.