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Who can afford comics that cost five dollars???!!!!

Four dollars!!!! Still,…..

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A naive question:
What if a publisher launched a new title every month, instead of one big blast?
The publisher concentrates on promoting the new title, while maintaining some buzz from last month’s launch.

I don’t think that would be a sustainable model for the big two. Heck, Boom! does roughly 2-3 a month at a minimum. I honestly do like Marvel’s method – a cycle of “seasons”, like television, before tapering off, but they need to figure out a way to space out the end of one series and the start of the next to create a gap where people are champing at the bit to get what’s next.

I’ve pondered Torsten’s question too. Not necessarily for a big relaunch but for after that. In any given month, there must surely be a title that is worthy of cancellation and they could always have something on deck.

I know why they don’t – promotional dollars are more effective to use to sell multiple series rather than just one – but still, the most interesting thing about the solicits (to me anyway) is what is being cancelled and what new book(s) are coming out. I wouldn’t mind having that be something I could see every month.

@Torsten – this is without knowing the economics of the publishers, but it seems like the companies, at this point, have adapted to selling a few copies of a lot of books, and have allocated resources for staffing to meet that demand. If you staggered relaunches, I presume you’d run into the problem of having a lot of superfluous staff that you’re paying salary/benefits/etc for who are now suddenly doing a lot less work. Granted I’d be in favor of drastically reducing the number of titles published at both Marvel and DC, but I can see why if you’re Dan Didio, you’re not keen to suddenly have a bunch of workers sitting around or, on the flip side, to fire a bunch of people you probably rather like.

‘I maintain that the bulk of the titles in the DC You launch were exactly what the company needed to help diversify their line, but produced and marketed at the exact wrong time to have any kind of positive impact. ‘

Gotta love it , the hip internet crowd for years have been saying books arent selling due to lack of diversity, when they’re given diverse books and they flop they come up with all sorts of excuses.

I think a lot of your ideas for the relaunch is spot-on. But, like yourself, I doubt they will happen.
And what’s with Vertigo? The numbers for their last “offensive” have been depressingly low (and in most cases rightly so). So is the idea of having a non-superhero-line quasi-dead soon?

Well davebean, I’d actually give a good hard look at the wider industry and the kinds of books that are having success there. DC is woefully behind the curve on diversifying their line, and stumbled out of the gate with a myriad of poor marketing practices. It’s hard to succeed when you’re so hell bent on putting more bullets into your foot, even if you have the best of intensions.

I really loved Marvels double shipping policy in the 80’s (maybe only one or two years?), they double shipped the top titles in the summer. I was thrilled, but not burnt out, and I really anticipated it, since it was fun to read X-Men outside on a sunny day.

This was a great article Mr. Lu! Thank you! And thanks to Marc Tyler Nobleman for a great book!

I do have one question though- I had read about and seen the red costume Kane did for Batman and the profound contributions of Bill Finger waaaaaaaay back in 1999 in an article by Arlen Schumer:

http://www.arlenschumer.com/images/stories/history_pdfs/BATMAN_coverstory.pdf

As far as I know that article was the very first mention of just how significant Bill Finger’s contribution had been to the very look and feel of Batman- and it had this great cover clearly illustrating what Batman would have looked like if not for Bill Finger, and an analysis of the whole thing.

In your article you write as if Mr. Nobleman’s book is the first mention of this in 2012- yet if you read Mr. Nobleman’s book it’s clear he took at least some inspiration from this article; most significantly in the red costume design- indeed it seems like Mr. Schumer’s article served as inspiration for Mr. Nobleman’s book.

So I’m curious why there is no mention of this cover image of the red Batman and this article from 1999? You talk about “Bill the Boy Wonder” as if that was the first mention of this in 2012- but I’d been aware of it more than 12 years prior to that book being published?

I’m curious because…in an odd way…it seems like Mr. Schumer got a bit of the “Bill Finger treatment”- no acknowledgment for a significant contribution to the fact that Bill Finger is now getting a credit in the movies and TV…

So my question is: does Mr. Nobleman have any documentation of the Bill Finger contributions to Batman that pre-date Mr. Schumer’s article from 1999?

If not, then doesn’t Mr. Schumer deserve at least a little credit for bringing the significance of Bill Finger’s contributions, and that illustration and analysis of a red Batman, to light for the public to see leading to the Bill Finger credits in other media?

I”m just curious.

Thanks again- it was a fantastic article!

I suspect that Waller’s death was management-mandated: there was a rumor, when Deadshot was killed off last season, that DC/Warner was clearing the decks and didn’t want any of the cast of the Suicide Squad movie appearing in Arrow anymore. I dismissed the theory at the time but Waller’s sudden and anticlimactic death leaves me much more inclined to believe it.

That doesn’t mean your premise isn’t valid, though; the pattern you’re describing is real, regardless of how any individual example originated or was executed. Hell, your list isn’t even exhaustive; what about last season when Oliver kidnapped Lyla, and the betrayal was explored entirely in terms of how it affected his relationship with Dig?

I think the show’s gotten better in its portrayal of its female cast, by leaps and bounds (look at where Thea and Laurel are now, for example, compared to early in the series where they were addicts and their lives were a mess), but it’s still got a long way to go.

The Suicide Squad killing rumor is interesting. If so, it’s curious they would bother to bring Katana back this week. And if so, what her fate may be in the next few episodes.

A major difference between the Barbara and Felicity comparison: after being shot, Barbara wasn’t able to be Batgirl and sought out a new manner in which to fight crime, reinventing herself as Oracle. Felicity was already in that role, so the shooting is a personal struggle. Finally giving her the title “Overwatch” could have (and should have) come at anytime beforehand.

I read your piece with great interest, particularly given the headline. You actually forgot a few instances, like when Slade Wilson killed Shado or when Sara Lance was murdered.

You also might have forgotten when Robert Queen killed his (male) aide before committing suicide. Or when Tommy Merlyn died. Or all the times Diggle has been in jeopardy. Or the two times Roy was kidnapped. Or, y’know, when Oliver was stabbed through the chest and kicked off a mountaintop.

To date, we’ve removed the eyeballs of two characters on Arrow — both male.

To date, we’ve tortured scores of people — especially Oliver — all male.

It’s hard to escape the reality that Arrow is a dark show where bad things happen — often to good people.

But your focus on what’s happened to our female characters is selective to say the least. Your ignorance of convenience also extends to turning a blind eye to the strength of Laurel Lance, Felicity Smoak, Sara Lance, Thea Queen, Helena Berinelli and Nyssa al Ghu — four of them costumed super-heroes in their own right. And we haven’t even debuted Vixen on the show.

I appreciate you watching the show. I just wish that you weren’t being so selective about it.

Interesting read. While I agree with some aspects I also disagree with others. Don’t feel like debating it though. Also, maybe it doesn’t bother me as much b/c while I love the Flash I feel like their female characters are reduced to solely love interest roles. So, I often find myself enjoying the females on Arrow more because we see them in the action. They are all strong on their own right. Arrow is also female heavy so yes the females are in danger more often thus damsel in distress feeling but men have often needed rescued as well. Roy particularly this episode. Ray an episode. And how often in the flashbacks has often been rescued by a women often Shado whether hallucinating or not. It goes both ways.

This reads to me as not coming from a place of “female characters should be treated better”, but more from “female characters should not be harmed at all–i.e., since women in real life have been legitimately treated poorly in a myriad number of ways over the centuries of human history, we should completely eliminate the suffering of women in our fiction”. The former can be a valid point; the latter is an utterly unrealistic expectation–good and bad things happen to women and men all the time, and any character, of any gender, who doesn’t experience strife of some kind in their story is, quite frankly, so uninteresting as to be pointless.

Furthermore, this particular assertion baffles me:

“….’Arrow’ isn’t interested in exploring storylines that divert attention from Oliver Queen’s journey.”

Next, I suppose you’re going to complain about how “The Flash” mistreats Caitlin Snow and Iris West because it focuses too much “attention” on *the character whose name happens to be the title of the series*. We can argue all day about how there should be more examples in TV, and particularly those adapted from comics, of shows with a female central character, but it’s, again, unrealistic to expect that any series will spend any great length of time on storylines that don’t in some way involve and draw focus to the main character. The show’s still called “Arrow”, not “Team Arrom”, and it’s still Ollie’s story at the end of the day.

1. Waller clearly sacrificed herself to save Lyla.
2. Nobody on Team Arrow actually liked Waller. She committed (or ordered) five horrible acts for every one grey/good action on this show. Giving her a big touching send off would have been very, very out of place. Diggle and Lyla may have had some respect for her, but for everyone else she was only tolerated when it was absolutely necessary. Frankly, I was surprised that they gave her a solemn toast instead of saying ‘good riddance’ and throwing a party.
3. Every male character has played damsel in distress as well. Roy much more than the rest, but Diggle, Tommy, Maseo, Ray Palmer, Yao Fei, Detective Lance, Curtis, and Oliver have all had turns. Acting like this is only a problem for the women on Arrow is hilarious.
4. Sara has died countless times? You can’t count to two? Once on the boat (she didn’t actually die then, but whatever) and once by Merlyn via Thea.
5. I felt they spent an adequate amount of time with Felicity’s feelings in last week’s episode, but the little inspirational speech Curtis gave last night rang hollow to me as well. I don’t think the narrative should revolve around her injury given this is an action-oriented superhero show, but you’re right in that it’s being glossed over and tidied up a bit too quickly.
6. That last paragraph is mostly speculation, so I’m going to leave it alone.

“At least The Killing Joke, the Batman story that crippled Barbara Gordon and inspired Felicity’s story, was willing to delve into some of the horrific emotional baggage from Barbara’s injury. ”

What? No it didn’t. The biggest flaw in The Killing Joke, that it’s roundly criticized for nowadays, is that it doesn’t deal at all with the impact it had on Barbara at all, only on the impact it had on her father (and to some degree on Batman).

Alan Moore had her crippled and sexually assaulted only to motivate the male characters. It was Kim Yale and John Ostrander who explored how Barbara felt about it.

LOLOLOL pwned by Guggenheim.

Writing a poorly researched article is NOT okay.

Comicbeat’s Alexander Jones does selective research, and it’s NOT okay.

Tried to score points with the “look at me I’m an ‘in-tune to women’s issues’ male” but was shot down with facts.

Step 1) Modernize distribution so that data flows bottom up across the vertical from store to publisher and back to store
Step 2) Publishers realize that their audience is now the readers, not the stores, which means reworking their advertising/marketing
Step 3) Actually use the data from step 1 to help with step 2
Step 4) Profit

From the data I see Loot Create (all the geek boxes) provide no long term lift, there’s a next issue crash. The digital redemptions from the boxes I’m told is worse.

Walmart is horrible, best the industry stay away. They leave nothing but damage in everything they touch.

Reboots have become the crack cocaine of the comic book industry. When you have to relaunch your entire line every few years, something is wrong. Namely, the people in charge don’t know what they’re doing.

A. Make comics affordable. Go old school and do cheaper print runs on cheaper stock. Drop the price to 3 bucks or less.
B. Sell through Walmart and other mass market retailers. Sell them anywhere a retailer wants to put them on display.
C. Stop it with the endless variant covers. It does nothing to grow your market beyond the die hard fans.
D. Wipe the collectible mind set from your brain-this is for everyone: the artists, the writers, the publishers and the retailers. That is THEE WORST freaking thing to infect the entire industry.
E. Stop trying to impress the other publishers and start publishing stories that people want to read.
F. Remember how old you were when you started reading comics and publish more stories for the next gen readers.

Catwoman getting a new creative team due to low sales, and immediately losing ~30% of sales seems like some weird karma thing. I assume it’ll be cancelled at Rebirth.

Man, those are some ugly numbers on some of these books. The trend towards a 20% loss without a freely order variant is pretty distressing also. Really hope DC can turn this around….

I always feel weird, asking myself who are those people buying comics only for their cover? Are they aliens? What do they do with it? Do they eat food? Do they ever read the comics they purchased?

This might be more work than you want to do, but, damn, I’m starting to itch for asterixes next to books with FOVs so that you cn glance at the list and understand the context….

I wish you hadn’t written all of that nuts pre-speculation — it was really unfocused and almost certainly wrong in many many ways.

-B

“I always feel weird, asking myself who are those people buying comics only for their cover?”

It’s more likely that some people are buying more than one copy.

Like in the 90’s? Yuk! It would be really interesting to know the proportion beetween one and the other. I do think there is probably actual readers buying multiple issues -if so, why do they prefer to buy a copy with a different cover of a comics they already pruchased instead of somethign else to read, when the current market is offering so many nice differents reading experience?. But I’m pretty sure there is also a proportion of people buying an issue only for the variant, which would explian how very low selling titles see sometimes such a big jump whenever they play the variant card. It seems that there is a core number of buyers buying variant, no matter the title, but depending on the variant subject popularity.

Contrarily to the 90’s ugly trends, current variants seem to rely solely on art, no gimmicky shenanigans, therefore rest of the shoulders of the artist’s fame and the low print run. I’d be curious to see how the back issue market treats those. Might be a decent investment, in our uncertain times. I think Bleeding Cool has some kind of column tracking that kind or bargain/profit opportunity, every now and then for hot items. Does someone know if one ever provided some kind of statistics on recent variants?

Couple things on the FOV:

I haven’t historically gotten variants, but about a year ago Discount Comic Book Service began offering a package where if you bought all of the FOV for a given month you got them at a bigger discount. Since I was getting most of the titles anyway, I started getting those. Thus I discovered a couple things.

One is that owning the variant is great an all, but there’s this bit of weirdness of having this book and not having any way to know, from the book itself, what the “real” cover looks like. I’m actually kinda happy that the coloring-book covers are just on top of the regular covers, rather than replacing them. So in that context, I can kinda see someone buying both versions, to be able to own both covers.

Also, while I don’t follow it closely, it does seem that the FOV are increasing in value. I use ComicBase, which has its own price guide-type info, and I run a little report regularly to see which books are currently valued over cover price. The FOVs generally end up on that list. So despite the fact that they are as available as the regular books, there’s still some sort of aftermarket demand.

Worth noting I am not comparing the FOV guide value to the non-FOV version of the same books, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the FOV’s that are going up.

Is that for freely orderable ones, or all variants?

Why do people buy variants? I’ve never understood it. Do they actually appreciate in value?

I can’t speak for much, but I wrote the script for the Dark Knight game in 2008. I was brought out to Australia several times to work with Pandemic. The guys there were wonderful and were definitely working to make the best Batman game ever.

The only correction to your piece that I know about is the game did not hone to the Dark Knight movie script. By design we took place during it but we had a very different story. We did however, end up at the same place. I was extremely proud of the script and was told it was accepted without any changes called for by the movie folk. It’s a shame it never came out.

“45:22– What really made All-New All-Different Marvel the success that it was?”

It seems like the jury’s still out on whether ANAD was a success or not. I’ve not actually seen anyone try and prove it mathematically one way or the other but it seems the general mood is that ANAD is arriving with a thud.

For the first time since the Silver Age (when there were still many more mainstream publishers) DC & Marvel could go bust as comic publishers and the comic industry would do just fine. Graphic novels, alternative comics and the internet would continue to deliver the goods

For the first time since the Silver Age (when there were still many other mainstream publishers doing well) DC & Marvel could go bust as comic publishers and the industry would survive just fine.

With graphic novels, alternative publishers, the Image Comics partnership model and the internet there is no doubt comics would continue as entertainment and as an art form.

Is there an echo in here. If you so choose delete the first comment.

That industry would be hard to recognize. Most comics shops are operating on slim margins, and losing the weekly churn of spandex floppies would be fatal. Big cities and college towns might each have a single bookstore-style shop that could stay afloat, and maybe megacities would have a few, but that’s it. It’s conceivable that Diamond could downsize enough to keep at it, but doubtful, so any survivors would need to use book-trade distributors (whose returnability terms are not small-press-friendly).

That leaves digital delivery for single issues, and online-ordering for paperbacks. Amazon would control the lion’s share of this business, at both the distributor and retail levels (the same thing, for them). Digital delivery is growing, but it’s still a niche. The disappearance of paper monthlies would push some of that business to digital, but it would push a lot of paper-lovers to trade-waiting. However, Image creators often depend on those monthly sales to pay the rent, because it can take years after starting a project for income from paperback sales to reach them.

So, yes: there would still be an industry, and certainly an art form. But we’d lose more than just Marvel and DC if they imploded.

I tend to think the artform and industry would be in a much healthier place right now if Marvel and DC shut down in the late 70s.

Imagine the work the “class of 84” could have done if they weren’t tethered to mainstream superheroes.

84? 86?
You know what I mean.

My question:

A Multiversity Universe

Or

A Convergence Universe?

“After the DCYou proved to be a bust…” Yeah because they stuck awful creative teams on all the books, talked down to their viewership, infantilized the female characters, generally had mediocre to awful characterization and writing, and generally ignored what their readers actually wanted DC to do, which was create quality storylines with decent characterization for their established characters.

As long as DC keeps prioritizing short-term readers over creating long-term readers and keeping their existent fanbase, we’re going to keep seeing these gimmicks of the year and the majority of the reader base unhappy with the way DC is handling their books.

I wouldn’t mind going back to pre New 52 continuity, especially since they still can’t seem to keep current continuity straight anymore, but it seems like that would be a bad financial decision too, wouldn’t it? Throwing away all the money and energy spent trying to establish this new continuity? We’ll see I guess, but it’s been awhile since Didio and Lee made a decent decision so I’m not expecting much.

As i recall, GL:Rebirth was 6 issues not 8, And that was the first of 2 Rebirths: Flash: Rebirth brought back Barry Allen. Plus we have no clue if Rebirth Will be an event or more of an umbrella for the relaunch, like New 52 or All-new, all-different Marvel.

“Bloodlines” was close to the nadir of 90s DC output (probably the one with the international heroes what’s name I have blanked on was the worst, but this is close), so it’s hard for me to see how the market orders the first issue much over 20k without some sort of amazing full court press of marketing, promotion, and getting retailers genuinely excited about the specific content.

Because my very first thought upon reading that solicit was “Uh, ‘Subs +1′”. And my second thought was “Which will be two copies total at each store”

I would *adore* being convinced that said initial flash-perception is wildly, crazily wrong…. but I don’t think so?

-B

Who is the audience for this? I mean for fack’s sake, DC.

I would really like to know who was the brilliant mind who thought that reviving BLOODLINES was the best way to take DC out of the sales slump.

Blooodlines, dammit. It was the butt of jokes even at the time! Who thought it was a goood idea?!?

The original Bloodlines spawned the abomination of a character known as ‘Jamm’. Like I’m going to bother with Bloodlines again!

It sounds more like a stand-alone story than the first one was, at least.

As for why they’re bringing back the concept and name….the trademark is probably coming up for expiration. DC really doesn’t like to let go of trademarks,

Brian, the international heroes thing you are trying to recall wasn’t a crossover event. It was a theme for the Annuals in 2000 titled “Planet DC”

It was similar to Bloodlines in that it was an attempt to create a batch of new characters. It however, didn’t have a common storyline, just a mandate for each annual to introduce a new character based outside the U.S.

I’m just counting the days before we see the return of Chris Claremont’s Sovereign Seven.

“As for why they’re bringing back the concept and name….the trademark is probably coming up for expiration.”

“Once a trademark is registered the mark must be displayed with the letter R in a small circle. The registration must be renewed every ten years.”

They’d be 13 years late.

Great piece, I really liked what you said about the live action tv dc stuff. But then I thought about that Arrow comic with the show runners, and how that didn’t really work. Maybe the talent just wasn’t right. If they were up for it, sticking Valentine and some of those other creators you mentioned and getting cohesion ‘like Marvel Star Wars cohesion’ for that line would be a thing of beauty. But, if you were to do that, would you detach it from continuity?

Another issue, especially when it comes to initiatives and new readers, is the delivery system/venue/format. Some people just don’t want monthly drips of a story or to collect comics they just want to read stories. There are a whole world of publishers and creators making those connections now. D

These are all great ideas but I’m particularly interested in the Vertigo one. I think the push they made at the end of 2015 is falling pretty flat and I’m guessing only two of those books will have any sort of lasting traction (Sheriff of Babylon and Unfollow). It’s really hard to see what kind of identity Vertigo can have now that Image is drinking their milkshake. I mean, I’m all for them putting out original, mature-reader works – especially if there is something in it for the creators – but going back to being a place for edgy, sophisticated mature-readers stories about weird DCU characters might be an ultimately more successful and brandable route for them to go.

DC needs to create some new characters, and not just superheroes., instead of reviving old series. I assume this is supposed to appeal to readers’ nostalgia, but there aren’t enough 50-something Baby Boomers and 40-something Gen X’ers still reading their comics to make this work. Create some new characters for the new readers.

“Steal a big name”: DC surged in the ’80s by “stealing” Frank Miller, John Byrne and other popular Marvel creators. Of course, they were helped by Jim Shooter’s management style, which led so many writers and artists to flee Marvel.

Question was the goal of this article how DC could sell more comics?

Because of it was only DC Unlimited is the only idea that fits that idea.

Tie in books to tv shows and cartoons don’t sell.

Vertigo comics featuring Constantine don’t sell.

Books written by minority writers like Orlando, Valentine, Tynion, Doyle don’t sell.

Diverse types of books like Omega Men, Black Canary, Midnighter, Prez don’t sell.

Short of WB magically getting the rights to Star Wars DC isn’t going to be selling comics.

I agree with Robert Mayland above. I’m not saying that DC couldn’t use a pretty hefty dose of diversity I think that the idea that somehow hiring someone of color will produce a comic book that is not only a) great and innovative and b) everyone of color will automatically read it..It’s not only demonstrably wrong (see the rest of the Top 10 comics on the list) but it’s also mildly condescending tbh.

“At the same time, it’s possible that they misjudged how big the market actually is for this kind of approach to their heroes.”

THIS. I’m sorry but it’s quite clear that Tumblr and its ilk are basically the very vocal minority (no pun intended). I agree with you that Batgirling isn’t bad but, as you said, you can’t try to build the undercard with it simply because there isn’t that much of a demand for it and no amount of promotion would help that. Also, while I’m spouting anecdotes I have a sinking suspicion that this same demographic they’re so desperately trying to court is of the same generational mindset that most of their media should be free or illegally downloaded. Obviously this is unprovable conjecture but we’re all just spitballing here anyway.

The rest is SPOT. ON. Especially the DC Unlimited idea. I’m sorry but who on Earth would pay $3.99 a pop for a DRM digital copy of a comic that costs the company next to nothing to produce?

Finally, before I step off my soapbox I’d like to add the idea that perhaps DC should shift into more of a manga approach and begin selling longer books at more affordable prices. No matter how you cut it, 4 bucks for an 8 minute read that won’t be continued for 30 more days just isn’t a good bargain. Especially in these days of super decompressed storytelling.

Everything having to do with sales, or (perhaps more importantly with the nature of a non-returnable Direct Market) the *perception* of sales really actually at the end of the day comes down to “is it any good?”

So any essay that doesn’t begin with editorial (and/or institutional) direction is, probably, missing the point.

-B

Hi Brian,

Maybe, but I’m not privy to actual conversations that occur regarding creative directions for DC’s various lines other than hearsay. Frankly, as of right now, I don’t know what DC’s editorial direction even is, if you were to really ask me. Perhaps you have better insight?

I sure hope no one ever actually makes the argument that good sales = good comics, cause there’s a whole lotta not very strong (IMO) X-Men comics that would disprove that thesis right quick.

But Brian – some of the DC You books are amazingly good and yet don’t sell. So material being “good” is not the answer. If they’re producing good material but it isn’t what the comics fans who walk into the store every week want, then their marketshare will continue to drop. And if they’re producing good material but the retailers and/or regular subscribers don’t have any faith in it then it won’t get on the shelves anyway and the people walking in to try it out won’t see it.

DC needs to decide if they want to be a comic book company anymore or not. If they don’t, then their dwindling marketshare in the comics market doesn’t matter at all and they can just continue to do what they’re doing until they reach the point where they’re not making enough money on the comics publishing to cover the overhead. At which point they can shut it down or license their characters out to another company to publish. But if DCE doesn’t really care one way or the other about publishing comics anymore and really want to be a brand management company, then maybe they just get as much money as they can out of the market for the next few years and shut it down when the profits start to being too small to care about.

If they want to be a comics company then they need to start sucking up to the retailers again. DC only gets their stuff on the shelves when they stroke the retailers a lot because the retailers in the business continue to view Marvel as their cash cow and DC as the also-ran. So if they want to be a comics publisher they should be bribing the retailers more heavily than Marvel does – do things like make more books returnable for longer to get retailers to stock more on the shelves and take more chances, or create some incentives for retailers to stock a diverse selection of titles rather than incentivizing buying dozens (or more) of extra copies of a single title to get those variant covers they sell on eBay. It may not be “fair” that they need to suck up to retailers more than Marvel does to get their books promoted, but business ain’t fair and if Marvel is doing that much better sales wise then its time to make some drastic interventions.

If they can’t afford to do that, and still want to publish something like “comics” in house then the other choice would be to give up on the month-to-month Direct Market and push heavily into the digital realm. Cut their printing costs dramatically by giving up on floppies entirely and switching to a digital to collection pipeline that would get their books on the bookshelves faster and forget about the monthly magazine format entirely. it would mean essentially giving up on the direct market, but with their marketshare dwindling as rapidly as it has this year the DM might just give up on them if they don’t do something drastic.

But they need to do something dramatic to convince readers and retailers that they’re not in a death spiral at this point. The reboot and the jump back to 90s style comics goosed their sales for a while on the nostalgia wave, but it didn’t work for long and its not going to work again. They need to do some more fundamental things than just make “good comics” to get back where they need to be or else they’re going to leave the market one way or another.

Robert,

“Tie in books to tv shows and cartoons don’t sell”

Maybe, maybe not. The current set of books DC releases are never adequately promoted for the tv viewer, or given creative teams that general interest the LCS customer. But, do both of those things and perhaps they will move units. They just announced a “Dark Archer” comic co-written by John Barrowman. But it’s probably going to be so underpromoted and hidden in their Comixology lineup, it’ll barely make a blip on the radar.

I know Buffy tie-in comics really aren’t all that comparable given that it was considered the “official continuation of the show”, but that first issue sold 90k copies. There’s an audience out there for this kind of stuff provided you hit the right buttons.

“Vertigo comics featuring Constantine don’t sell.”

Certainly not issue 200-300 something, which is how Hellblazer was basically left for the entrenched reader. But I think it’s hard to argue that an IP that a reader recognizes, starting at issue 1, wouldn’t sell better than a creator owned one that they don’t, barring there being a superstar creative team in question (and even then, it might not sell all that well, again see: Twilight Children).

I’m surprised by Unfollow. Immediately picked up for TV, no one seems to even know it exists. In fact, I was looking for a copy of the second issue (as my store had only copies that literally had split open on all the bottom seams, part of that whole “We print crappier comics today than we did in the 60’s!” mentality the Big Two are using today, but I digress… ) and comic shop owners were all like “Unfollow? I’ve never heard of that title.” Boom.

And can ANYONE tell me what Survivors’ Club is actually about? I mean, I read the first issue and it made 99.8% no sense. Honestly, I pick up each issue that comes out, look over it in the shop and go “Nope, still making NO sense!” ;) I wanted to like it, too.

I thought creators were ditching Vertigo for Image because its page rates had gotten worse (see: Snyder, Morrison, Lemire). Something must have changed to spark all these launches.

Based on Diane Nelson’s description of Vertigo as reported by Variety at the Variety Summit in September 2015 it sounded like the creator-owned aspect is all but gone.

“Vertigo, which focuses on stand-alone fantasy stories, is an engine “for getting original IP into the company and feeding other businesses as well as our publishing business.”

http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/dc-diane-nelson-batman-vs-superman-marvel-flash-arrow-1201595124/

Superman Lois & Clark turns out to be an 8-issue miniseries in a tweet posted before the publication of this article.

Wow at Omega Men doing the usual Vertigo numbers.

“In DKIII’s case, even if you are very generous and assume that up to 200K of those copies went to customers who actually read them (and frankly I think that the number is likely closer to 150K), that means that over half of the total copies sold of DKIII #1 are either sitting unread in a bag and board somewhere or just taking up space on a retailer’s rack (and before too long in a retailer’s quarter box…)”

Dave, maybe don’t confuse sell-through with profit?

My basic line is that you can’t succeed in retail if you’re not keystoning cost-of-goods (doubling your whole cost), but the nature of Variants, both limited by number (1:25, 1:50 and so on) as well as retailer-exclusive covers (where the large majority of DK3’s 440k is going to *actually* come from) means that you might very well be keystoning COGs and yet still be liquidating the majority of your sell-in number.

I also suspect there’s a WIDE swath of retailers who are “just” breaking even on store-exclusives, but they view it as a marketing expense, and therefore are revenue neutral in their heads.

If someone has been selling comics for six years or more, and is still in business, and doesn’t show any signs of imminent closure… well, it’s probably safe to assume that their business model is absolutely no worse than break-even at which point the market needs to say “Sure, OK” — it’s only cases in which retailers are actively losing money that we should have the slightest concerns about their viability — and the impact on the greater market in the sense of “collapse”

*just because you don’t like how someone conducts commerce does not, a priori, make it a poor model*

(All said with the understanding that I personally believe variants, and marketing in that direction to be the equivalent to a disease: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=41000)

-B

@Brian: I understand fully well that retailers can be breaking even or coming out ahead on incentive variants even while leaving a large amount of the stock unsold. That was kind of my point. It may be good in the term for retailers and publishers, but long term it is bad for everyone.

I mentioned my August 2015 column with my variants rant, but neglected to link to it; it’s here http://www.comicsbeat.com/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-august-2015-bombshells-return/

I suspect you and I agree far more than disagree on this.

@axspo This column was submitted several days before it was published on the site.

Nathan AAron–

I’m with you. I haven’t bought a book from ‘the big 2’ for years, but the premise (as advertised) for Survivor’s Club intrigued me.

I read the first issue, scratched my head, and never went back.

“Based on Diane Nelson’s description of Vertigo as reported by Variety at the Variety Summit in September 2015 it sounded like the creator-owned aspect is all but gone.”

But if it’s all about IPs for other media, I wonder if that’s the lure, and if there’s a major incentive if they get bought up.

I’m not gonna cry for vertigo as they launched al those new titles with a 3.99$ cover price and apparently stopped their 9.99$ pricing, and did not bother to communicate at all on what their new offer will be to promote this new line of titles.

And yes, I was quite early this month with my column, as I was the last one last month. :p

“This is not the way readers consume content anymore….. comics do it for no other apparent reason besides inertia.”

Seriously? Are you nuts?

For stories and genres that are well suited for serialization, periodical releases will always always always always sell more copies than an OGN (or whatever). Just look at the sales charts. It’s *obvious*.

If it wasn’t true, then publishers would have switched away from serialization a long long time ago. Have Snyder and Capulo do a BATMAN OGN, and I *guarantee you* it will not sell 100k copies in month #1 — but as a serialization it absolutely will AND THEN ALSO SELL AGAIN in trade later.

I also wish you two would stop pretending that Digital is at all a thing for the *overwhelming* majority of comics.

-B

That was Alex. He says crazy things. There are two of us, you know. And we don’t always agree.

So I don’t want to speak for him: but part of his point is that even serialized storytelling is more and more being dropped in bulk for a binging audience.

And you’re totally missing my larger point. Of course periodical Batman outsells OGN Batman in the world DC has built! Publishing, editorial, creative, production, marketing, DM sales, 3rd-party distribution, 3rd-party retailers ARE ALL GEARED TOWARD the periodical. You don’t need to be a genius to clock periodical dominance.

If you think the traditional means of production and distribution are down to the READER and not, well, tradition, I think you’re crazy.

And I mean two kinds of readers:

1) any potenial customer in the whole world–but especially audience exposed to our characters and our kind of stories in other media.

2) the core audience. They are conditioned to buy periodicals every Wednesday. Publishers are so close to readers. Retailers are even CLOSER. Of course we influence their buying habits; moreover, our effective marketing can influence their hearts and minds.

And I think we see eye-to-eye on things like variant covers and relaunches… why doesn’t M/DC clock the longterm diminishing returns? Can it be anything other than a bad habit, and a gun-shyness regarding course changes?

And you’ll have to take my word: no one loves the DM more than me. But I think we’re too afraid to conclude periodical format SHOULDN’T work. Or at least shouldn’t be dominant. Yes, “SHOULDN’T” prompts questioning what changes could be made to make things better…

But it should also prompt questions as to why it works! There’s a lot we could mine from our own successes for a better understanding of our business. But if you want instead to shrug your shoulders and say ‘Whelp! It works because it works!’ then you are in plentiful company–but unfortunately your net result is ‘standard’ attrition.

Well, we’re more than halfway through an odd-numbered decade; if the twenty-year boom-bust cycle is going to hold it had better hurry up.

The publishers have made a LOT of decisions over the past few years that have led me to think “This is unsustainable; it’ll lead to short-term gains but then things are going to collapse, just like the 1990’s.” It could still happen, of course, but I’m a lot less sure that it will than I was when, say, the New 52 launched.

I definitely think the Big Two are being too conservative, still catering too much to a niche audience, still putting out books that are far too samey (and even the ones that are different still follow the six-issue-arc format and all the plot beats that entails), focusing too much on the *illusion* of change (new #1’s every six months!) and not enough on *actual* change. But, on the other hand, it seems to be working out for them.

Meanwhile, Image is putting out a wide variety of great books; I don’t know if any have been breakout hits beyond the Wednesday crowd (except for Walking Dead and Saga), but I like to think what they’re doing is good for the future of the industry.

Here’s the thing: media is currently changing in a huge way. You cannot deny this. I used to follow weekly television viewer data, and just eight years ago heavily serialized shows like LOST pulled an average of 18 million viewers a week. Nowadays, Supergirl pulls around 7.5 million or so per week and is heralded as a breakout hit. On the largest traditional TV broadcast station. Television executives no longer talk about how well the show holds its audience, but rather how likely it might develop one.

Digital comics have an audience, particularly if you’re Ms. Marvel. Why is that? Why do so many people read this one particular comic digitally, and how can we develop more comics that this new audience might be interested in? I agree, digital comics are not a thing for most DM books right now. Personally, even I don’t read anything digitally. However, clearly, somebody is! Those somebodies may not be your typical Wednesday Warrior, and that is who comics publishers NEED to appeal to to bolster sales.

In all media, you have your entrenched audience. In theory, you have to worry less about appealing to them than you do about pissing them off. As long as you produce the type of story that they like, they’ll keep buying. This is why many mainstream bands and singers will produce stylistically similar records five times and still break sales records. Just look at Adele’s 25. However, you can’t only appeal to those people, because then you end up with a closed ecosystem like the one comics has! You’re draining your limited sphere of influence dry of cash while ignoring the fact that there are billions of fish with currency just as valid as your current catches’.

I have nothing against the Direct Market, or comic book shops. I LOVE comic book shops because they provide a gathering place for a community that rarely has one. However, I also feel like many of these shops have rarely been curated for people like me. I was SHOCKED to read your article, Brian, and find that there are still shops that only sell DC and Marvel. That’s honestly absurd to me. I haven’t been reading comics seriously for that long, but I can safely say that if it weren’t for Image books, I would have never picked up the lifestyle.

The reason why I’m so critical of the way things are done, and so geared towards looking for alternatives, is because I AM a member of that alternative audience. I can count the number of floppies I am actively excited to read month to month on my hands. Yet, that doesn’t mean I don’t like the other dozens of titles I read each month. When I pick them up in trade, I love them. They’re fluid and contain interesting character arcs and stories. I feel like I got a full experience by reading one arc at a time rather than one chapter at a time. I’m not alone. On my Twitter feed, more people are touting the merits of trade waiting. Yes, industry patterns dictate that you /should/ be able to double dip on your single and trade sales, but that’s an inherently parasitic business practice and may well not continue to succeed in the long term.

Why do we think that comics can function differently than all other media forever? Why do we think the same-old, redone, will attract new audiences forever? I’m not saying that history will be on anyone’s side. I’m simply interested in looking for alternatives to what presently exists, because I don’t think comics’ current economic structure is capturing all the potential customers it could be.

Brandon:

” the core audience. They are conditioned to buy periodicals every Wednesday. ”

No. They are conditioned (sort of) to buy COMICS every Wednesday.

The REASON that FAR FAR more buy periodicals than OGNs is the cost factor — $2.99 is an easier bite than $24.99

OGNs are *inherently* more expensive than periodicals, because they have nothing to amortize their costs against.

Things that are more expensive has smaller audiences. It’s a rule, like gravity.

Alexander:

“You cannot deny this. I used to follow weekly television viewer data, and just eight years ago heavily serialized shows like LOST pulled an average of 18 million viewers a week. Nowadays, Supergirl pulls around 7.5 million or so per week and is heralded as a breakout hit. ”

When LOST was on the air, how many scripted television shows were broadcast? How many today? Because, as a viewer, it sure feels like it has trebled..

However, any comparison of a media that costs money for individual purchases vs a media that is either “free” (or is bundled in such a way that any individual component at least *feels* free) is going to be a skewed and flawed one, because getting people to reach into their pocket and take out hard earned cash in exchange for art is always an uphill struggle!

“Digital comics have an audience, particularly if you’re Ms. Marvel.”

I’d personally like something a little more significant than unsourced 2-year old anecdotes, and I’d very much want a relationship for that to *recent* issues of that book (as opposed to when it was a “hot” media story back in 2014) to actually base any analysis on digital velocity around that title, but even if that IS the case for that individual title, that still doesn’t mean that digital is particularly significant for the OVERWHELMING majority of titles. I keep hearing “8-15% of print on average” from source after source after source.

What I DO know is that a reasonably significant number of 20-something new readers have walked in to MY store in 2015 and said things like “Yeah, I was checking out digital, but I wanted to come and get the ‘real’ version” (like, without any prompting!) — given that print in comics is growing, in direct opposition to trends in other media (both of my stores are up double digits), I feel safe in positing that comics are different and that when something is working, changing it just to change it is probably not the wisest of course.

My suggestion is this: stop making the mistake that armchair pundits have been making literally as long as I’ve been in comics (just passed 30 years now), and stop being disdainful of the product (“floppies”) or the customers (“Wednesday Warriors”) and thinking that just because things aren’t CRAZY AMAZEBALLS PERFECT (as *you* specifically envision it) that there’s something fundamentally broken or screwed up about the market. The market has become what it is over time as and in a direct response to the inputs that are applied to it. I certainly think comics are a lot more smart, sane, and straight-forward than the bizarre and corrupt ways that television shows are made, for example; hell, or even prose which seems custom-designed to make sure that the overwhelming number of authors can’t possible make more than minimum wage writing….

I’d encourage you maybe to even have some actual working today store-owners on the show, maybe get a better idea of how things DO work, because, honest to god, if I went through your 1:15 picking out every “well that’s not actually true” statement from the Podcast, I’d probably have a 2000 word essay….

-B

If you’re saying that dominance of the monthly format has more to do with someting discretely inherent in cover price than it has to do with 30+ years of publishers and distributors directing their business efforts in that specific direction, I can’t disagree more. I don’t even know what counter argument I can make… except that I’ve never met a professional in any aspect of the business that puts cover price–absenst buyer habits–in the ultimate position. To be fair: that’s monthly vs everything (OGN, TPB, Digital… library sales, whatever other little stuff).

And I hope I’m not reacting defensively to the “armchair pundit” comment, but rather you assertion that I disdain the DM. When I say “Wednesday Warriors” it’s with brotherly love as well as a bit of self-effacement. Same with Retailers. I’m a member of the tribe. Related: I don’t favor the term floppies… I usually default to calling them “monthlies”–but the context of this episode might have sometimes blocked my brain to that term. And in general: for any time I’m critical of this business, there’s at least five where I publicly cheerlead for it; moreover, I don’t think I’ve ever critiqued retailers or fans without explaining how publishers and creators are also a part of any given problem or lost opportunity.

As for the armchair stuff–we’ll, aren’t we all when it comes to systemic discussions? By your metrics, you’re not qualified to talk about publisher motivations for relaunches or incentive covers or anything else. In case some of the audience doesn’t know, I was a full-time retailer for 10 years. Granted, that ended 10 years ago. But as a 19-year-old I bought a dying store where the only alternative was Chapter 7. The store became one of Diamond’s top 100 accounts, and I left it in great condition. FWIW: from 1995-2005 Alternate Realities in Scarsdale NY sold a lot more comics than Comix Experience in San Francisco (having always read and noted your sales numbers posts).

You’ve got an open invitation to come on Podcorn. And to be more forward, I’ll suggest Alex reach out with an official invite. FWIW: Podcorn’s about discussion; it doesn’t attempt to tell people what to do.

Yo guys, you know about this group. Yes?
https://plus.google.com/communities/107257763192976411126

“Unlike most DC digital-only series thus far, Adventures of Supergirl will not be physically printed in single issue format.” I have no idea what DC’s marketing strategy is — which, I’m assuming, puts me up there with DC’s marketers. NO single-issue format? At a time when books like Ms. Marvel, Batgirl, etc. are bringing in young female fans — and the TV series has a great following — DC is opting for a digital- and trade-only approach? Why? Even if the single issues aren’t huge sellers, they can serve as physical marketing devices to lure people into comic stores, so retailers can show off their various Supergirl product (from whatever era). Has DC just lost it’s will to even compete in the face of a Disney/Star Wars-backed Marvel?

I’m guessing “supergirl” will be back before too long on CBS. I really like the show!

Bruce Lather

I’m guessing “supergirl will be back on CBS before too long? I really like the show!

Bruce

That is a beautiful page! I was really hoping that my daughter would like Supergirl, but so far she deems it “too scary.” Go figure. I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen.

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Greatest immigration story ever told? Someone hasn’t read Angela’s Ashes….

…Or in comics Persepolis, or in children’s books The Arrival, or in movies… Ugh! I won’t go on.

…or, y’know, Maus.

Sorry, but looking at the drawings, I’m drawn away from it…

Dietitians ought to work to ensure their shoppers and sufferers perceive
the dangers related to dietary weight-loss supplements.

Does he actually wear a lot of literal hats? If so, what are they? Pictures available?

REally excited to see Taylor work on the GL Corps!

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Those are some rough looking numbers for the second biggest company. Hopefully, the indies get to pick up the slack. DC’s June new books seem like a distant memory already…

“Was this ever announced as being cancelled?”

It starts its next arc in 2016 according to the last story page of Suiciders #6.

I’m curious to see some books like Batgirl and Justice League United lost about a quarter of their sales across the Convergence break. Did the fans who drifted away while the books were on hiatus simply outnumber new readers willing to give those continuing titles a try with the DCYou promotion? One presumes there were some new readers, with sales on titles from Justice League and Superman to Gotham Academy being up significantly the first month after Convergence.

@Carl: Both Batgirl & JLU had freely-orderable variants before the Convergence break, but when they resumed they lost their f.o.v.s.

I sincerely hope they don’t bring Nightwing back. Grayson is the first time I’ve read a Dick Grayson-solo book (where he wasn’t Batman) that I thought was actively very good. As a matter of fact, it might be DC’s best standard superhero book currently.

Returning to status quo here seems like a bad move, I mean, does Nightwing really move units either? The numbers you have are for #1 and #0, but what was the end of the Higgins run doing?

@Kyle: The lowest that the New 52 Nightwing series ever sold was 36,814 (the penultimate issue, #29), and that was without the benefit of a freely-orderable variant. Near the end of its run it appeared to be stabilizing in the mid- to upper-30K range.

The pre-New 52 Nightwing series generally sold around 30K in the latter part of its run, more (sometimes much more) when it was part of a Batman crossover. The lowest figure that I have for it was 28,363 for issue #137 in Oct 2007 (my sales data only goes back to 2001).

“Perhaps it is time to bring Nightwing back?”

Dear comicbook Godz, please! I dig Dick Grayson but, I’m pretty sick of super-spy Agent 37. I read about Dick Grayson because he’s Batman’s sidekick that grew into his own heroic identity, not because he’s some lame 007/Tom Cruise rip-off.
Also the fanservice on this book is ridiculous. I can’t imagine if this was a book with a female protagonist.

@rikk Odinson – why try to imagine? There have been tons of books that treated its female characters like Grayson does its male. The fact that its actually doing it with a male character is what is novel. And that’s OK – men have had it good for a while, we can take it.

Regarding low sales on Harley Quinn and Power Girl compared to the regular Harley series – perhaps this can be taken as a statement of the power of “ongoing” vs. “mini series” – ?

Glenn Simpson—Uh, because it’s still wrong? I thought comics were trying to be more inclusive and respectful but because it’s a male character that makes it okay? I’m not some whiny butt-hurt fan that can’t handle it but I am a comics fan that thinks it’s highly hypocritical to call out sexism on female characters while praising the same behavior on male characters. That’s not progress. It’s just shifting the paradigm to another sex.