Marvel's Falling Sales 6 6

[kav]

Plus once you got a diverse character if you try to go back to original character- RACISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lazyboy]

4 hours ago, nWo_22 said:

I personally agree.  Honestly for the most part I feel if you were born after 1980 (aka you read comics mainly from 1990-current) you really never got to see got see amazing comics book in general.

Like what?

4 hours ago, nWo_22 said:

90's-now were and are a joke, and besides Pre-Unity Valiant, DC Vertigo (Preacher, Y:Last Man, Sandman) and Image/Skybound (WD, Saga, EastofWest etc...) titles most comics are mindless stories of talentless garbage.

Just because Marvel has almost completely sucked for the last two decades doesn't mean the same is true of everybody else.

The worst of the 90s no doubt matches the worst of any other decade, but the best of the 90s slaughters the best of any previous decade other than the 80s.

[Get Marwood & I]

6 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

The worst of the 90s no doubt matches the worst of any other decade, but the best of the 90s slaughters the best of any previous decade other than the 80s.

Says who?

[ComicConnoisseur]

5 hours ago, ParamagicFF said:

It really is a shame to see what Marvel has become. I feel like they've been chasing the original Civil War for almost a decade now. As a modern reader I think the era of the Civil War, The Initiative, and even Secret Invasion was the best Marvel had been in a LONG time. Each individual title was able to do it's own thing, but there were great overarching themes. It all seemed somewhat natural. Now I feel like everything is shoehorned into trying to be something it's not.  

Really, I got to agree with you. Those were awesome stories and those with Walking Dead brought me back to comics.

Marvel was kicking it 10 years ago. Now that I think of it Joe Q did a good job as editor in chief.

Edited April 9, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[Ken Aldred]

1 hour ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

 

Marvel was kicking it 10 years ago. Now that I think of it Joe Q did a good job as editor in chief.

+1

Marvel’s comics improved considerably under Joe Quesada in the early 2000s.  A pity it didn’t last and soon we were back to being overloaded with variant covers, and then far too many additional titles being published with subsequent dilution of the talent pool and declining quality.

[ComicConnoisseur]

19 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

+1

Marvel’s comics improved considerably under Joe Quesada in the early 2000s.  A pity it didn’t last and soon we were back to being overloaded with variant covers, and then far too many additional titles being published with subsequent dilution of the talent pool and declining quality.

Why did Marvel replace Joe Q with Axel Alonso? It seems like Marvel was way better under Joe Q than Alonso.

[Ken Aldred]

Just now, ComicConnoisseur said:

Why did Marvel replace Joe Q with Axel Alonso? It seems like Marvel was way better under Joe Q than Alonso.

I don't know.  But, for me, it was a very poor decision.

[FineCollector]

I'm sorry... I thought I saw someone say Civil War was a great story.  Time to get my eyes checked!

[kav]

What you like rocks what others like sucks.

[oakman29]

6 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

It's funny, we've spent years supporting comic publishers, consuming their product, arguing over who's stronger, who's most powerful, who we love the most.  Yet they seem to consider us racist or sexist when we don't support bastardized versions of characters we've known most of our lives.  Is it any wonder that some long time readers quit in frustration?  Don't ask for our loyalty and then throw away everything we've been loyal to.

And it would make sense that digital issues of these new characters are doing better, they're likely selling to new readers who don't know the original characters like we do

Amen!  

[Doktor]

1 hour ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Why did Marvel replace Joe Q with Axel Alonso? It seems like Marvel was way better under Joe Q than Alonso.

He got a promotion so that he could do some actual comics work again (tho he really hasn't), and so that he could be more involved in the Marvel Studios side (back when there was a creative committee) and pushing/creating a lot of the non-Marvel Universe work that they were doing at the time. Axel was JoeQ's right hand man at the time, and he got the first call-up when Joe got promoted out of the day-to-day comics operations. 

And yes, it was a poor decision. 

[Doktor]

1 hour ago, Ken Aldred said:

+1

Marvel’s comics improved considerably under Joe Quesada in the early 2000s.  A pity it didn’t last and soon we were back to being overloaded with variant covers, and then far too many additional titles being published with subsequent dilution of the talent pool and declining quality.

One other thing to actually keep in mind that was a 1-step-removed change in the industry was the end of the Wildstorm division at DC. Keep in mind where pretty much ALL of the big Marvel creators of 00's came from: They all got their big breaks working on the Wildstorm stuff.

Ellis became the "guy that could reinvigorate a flagging title/idea" for Marvel because of his work on Stormwatch/Authority/Planetary.

Millar went from being "Morrison's assistant writer" to the guy that could generate big sales when he took over the Authority.

Joe Casey showed he could explore totally different ideas of an existing property with what he did on Wildcats.

Brubaker got his big break on Point Blank/Sleeper/Authority: Revolutions. Bendis was the only one without a Wildstorm connection.

After that, Hickman & Fraction & some of the others came in from Image & shadowed those guys, but the big guns of Marvel's writing staff were all guys that got their big breaks & made their names on Wildstorm stuff. Or they came over from Vertigo (BKV & Jason Aaron). But they all got their big breaks working on non-mainstream or non-big-2 titles. 

But most of the problem these days is that all of those writers have left mainstream superhero books OR they've decided to work on their own stuff exclusively or they've moved on to hollywood work

[rjrjr]

On 4/4/2017 at 8:47 PM, brer247 said:

Disney owns Marvel. Disney owns Star Wars. So they do have 6 books in the top 25. 

I concur.  Star Wars was licensed by Dark Horse.  Marvel isn't licensing Star Wars.

[Prince Namor]

I'm not sure how many times I have to repeat this but:

The number of NEW characters at Marvel Comics is always going to be minuscule. If, as a writer or artist, you create a character for Marvel, you don't own it. So you don't reap the benefits that could come along, should it be made into a movie. 

You save that idea for your self published or creator owned published comic. 

So no one wants to create NEW characters for Marvel. Get it?

So the majority of the time, 'new' characters in the Marvel Universe are re-hashes of the old. 

This isn't something NEW, nor is the use of non-white replacements - Captain Marvel was a Black female in 1989, SHE-Hulk came along in 1980, Spider-GIRL, Spider-WOMAN, Bishop, Storm, etc., geez Black Panther came along in 1966.

That was an attempt to be DIVERSE. We're Stan and Jack SJW's?

Marvel's current diversity has nothing to do with 'Social Justice' or whatever code words you political dorks want to mask with - it has to do with an ageing audience of collectors who aren't buying the product anyway. Marvel's trying to sell to everyone they can, because their superhero comics have been declining for years. 

Take away the Star Wars sales of 2015, before this current 'diversity' really began and the decline was there. 

BEFORE that the decline was there.

It's been in decline for 20 years. Really, it hasn't been a 'House of Ideas' since Jack Kirby left.

It's had it's moments... a run here, a run there, but even some of those runs were simply rehashing of old stories told in a slightly different way - the Green Goblin is now the deceased (who'll later be resurrected of course) father's son's psychologist! Yawn. 

Yeah...for those wanting 'new ideas' who continue to read and support Marvel or who only recently quit, I have news for you - you're sending mixed messages to the publisher.  

Marvel has been regurgitating the same stories for 50+ years, and you've kept buying it. The SAME stories. 

Turn Thor into a frog and shake things up - people complain - it still sells x copies - bring back regular Thor - get a sales spike - rinse and repeat. 

Except NOW, if you have a woman holding the hammer, it must be because they're a 'progressive', or whatever political masked curse word they use... when in reality it's simply Marvel running out of ideas to regurgitate, and trying to sell into as many foreign markets as possible, so they can sell more movie tickets - because YOU aren't as loyal as you used to be. 

A whole legion of fans aren't as loyal as they used to be. The numbers have dwindled for decades now. That spike in the 90's was an illusion. It wasn't satisfied readers. 

So blame the decline on 'diversity' if you want, it's an easy target. But really, you're missing the big picture. Marvel has been on the decline for 20+ years. 

 

[rjrjr]

On 4/7/2017 at 4:39 PM, NP_Gresham said:

The distribution Marvel and all the publishers use now, greatly limits exposure and this ensures a shrinking fan base. It will eventually come home to roost in movie revenue if they don't expand their fan base.

It similar to boxing vs the NFL. In it's hey day boxing had greater fan interest than the NFL. But the NFL made the decision to keep its product available to all audiences, while boxing tried to squeeze every dollar from every fight by going closed circuit and small venue instead of large capacity stadiums they also cut off free events like the "Friday Night fights".

The exposure the publishers got from all the mom and pop stores having spinner racks fed an ever growing audience. They should put spinner racks in Walmarts and such and increase the audience.

This wasn't the comic publishers decision to not sell comics in those places, it was the stores themselves that made the decision to quit carrying comics.  And since nothing has changed about comics to make them reconsider ...

[rjrjr]

On 4/8/2017 at 7:59 AM, ComicConnoisseur said:

If you are a parent though what are you going to do spend $8.00 cover price for 1 DC and 1 Marvel Comic for your kid to read or spend $4.99 a month for Comixology Unlimited where your kid can read unlimited Archie Comic books a month or $9.99 a month for Marvel Unlimited to read unlimited amounts of Amazing Spider-Man on their iPADS and tablets? The kids who grew up with Netflix,Spotify and You-Tube are going to want something similar. I am the same way now. Hard to spend about $16.00 cover price for 4 comics, when I know for that $16.00 bucks it gets me unlimited comics to read on Marvel Unlimited and Comixology Unlimited.

The game really has changed,and will continue to change. If I was Marvel and DC I would look to social media to expand my audience. Facebook,Twitter,Pinterest,Instagram and YouTube.  If I was Marvel I would actually try to put comics on these sites for free. That would broaden their audience tremendously.  

Yes,I wish we could all go back to the spinner racks,but those days are sadly gone. The genie is out of the bottle now with digital unlimited comic subscriptions.

 

 

Marvel and DC comics are available for free on several websites.  That is probably a huge part of the problem.

[rjrjr]

7 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Why did Marvel replace Joe Q with Axel Alonso? It seems like Marvel was way better under Joe Q than Alonso.

Joe Quesada was promoted.

[rjrjr]

42 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

I'm not sure how many times I have to repeat this but:

The number of NEW characters at Marvel Comics is always going to be minuscule. If, as a writer or artist, you create a character for Marvel, you don't own it. So you don't reap the benefits that could come along, should it be made into a movie. 

You save that idea for your self published or creator owned published comic. 

So no one wants to create NEW characters for Marvel. Get it?

So the majority of the time, 'new' characters in the Marvel Universe are re-hashes of the old. 

This isn't something NEW, nor is the use of non-white replacements - Captain Marvel was a Black female in 1989, SHE-Hulk came along in 1980, Spider-GIRL, Spider-WOMAN, Bishop, Storm, etc., geez Black Panther came along in 1966.

That was an attempt to be DIVERSE. We're Stan and Jack SJW's?

Marvel's current diversity has nothing to do with 'Social Justice' or whatever code words you political dorks want to mask with - it has to do with an ageing audience of collectors who aren't buying the product anyway. Marvel's trying to sell to everyone they can, because their superhero comics have been declining for years. 

Take away the Star Wars sales of 2015, before this current 'diversity' really began and the decline was there. 

BEFORE that the decline was there.

It's been in decline for 20 years. Really, it hasn't been a 'House of Ideas' since Jack Kirby left.

It's had it's moments... a run here, a run there, but even some of those runs were simply rehashing of old stories told in a slightly different way - the Green Goblin is now the deceased (who'll later be resurrected of course) father's son's psychologist! Yawn. 

Yeah...for those wanting 'new ideas' who continue to read and support Marvel or who only recently quit, I have news for you - you're sending mixed messages to the publisher.  

Marvel has been regurgitating the same stories for 50+ years, and you've kept buying it. The SAME stories. 

Turn Thor into a frog and shake things up - people complain - it still sells x copies - bring back regular Thor - get a sales spike - rinse and repeat. 

Except NOW, if you have a woman holding the hammer, it must be because they're a 'progressive', or whatever political masked curse word they use... when in reality it's simply Marvel running out of ideas to regurgitate, and trying to sell into as many foreign markets as possible, so they can sell more movie tickets - because YOU aren't as loyal as you used to be. 

A whole legion of fans aren't as loyal as they used to be. The numbers have dwindled for decades now. That spike in the 90's was an illusion. It wasn't satisfied readers. 

So blame the decline on 'diversity' if you want, it's an easy target. But really, you're missing the big picture. Marvel has been on the decline for 20+ years. 

 

Chuck, I agree with all of what you wrote here.  Only a vocal few are complaining about diversity.

I still believe the big problem is Marvel has conditioned their readers to not collect comics anymore.  (They killed off any loyalty their fans use to have.)  There are a ton of comic collectors who collect nothing but key comics or hot variant covers, etc. but very, very few are invested anymore into collecting a title or a character.  It makes sense why this happened, Marvel kept renumbering titles (making it easy for collectors to jump off a title) and introducing umpteen variants, making it impossible to actually collect a title unless you are wealthy.  They've brought this on themselves.  If you like reading comics and collecting them and Marvel has made it impossible to collect a title, what do you do?

Those who have been disenfranchised from collecting them but still like to read them have instead turned to reading them on the internet.  And, there are about half a dozen websites where you can read the new comics on Wednesday for free without having to deal with Marvel's shenanigan or pay them a dime.  They don't require any special software, just a browser.  So, you can read comics for free, not bother with buying the mass of variants Marvel is publishing, and spend the money you save on new issues to buy keys if you are spending money at all.  It is not a coincidence that several popular, free websites have popped up (no doubt in foreign countries, otherwise they would have been shutdown by now) that have the comics posted the same day they go on sale at stores and at the same time Marvel's sales are declining.  And we are seeing a spike in the value of keys.  IMHO, all these events are interrelated.

I still feel this is going to end badly for comic publishers.  I think DC has realized this and have stopped with the bazillion variants.  They are less likely to reboot titles.  It feels like they are trying to recapture the loyalty they once had with fans.  I'm not sure Marvel has learned any lessons from the interviews I've been reading.  

And it will be interesting to see how those website are dealt with.  Disney and Warner Bros. have to know about these sites, yet they continue to grow and publish more and more comics over time.  I remember the few websites that tried this a few years ago were shut down pretty quickly.  These new sites have figured a way around this.

Edited April 10, 2017 by rjrjr

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Chuck Gower said:

I'm not sure how many times I have to repeat this but:

The number of NEW characters at Marvel Comics is always going to be minuscule. If, as a writer or artist, you create a character for Marvel, you don't own it. So you don't reap the benefits that could come along, should it be made into a movie. 

You save that idea for your self published or creator owned published comic. 

So no one wants to create NEW characters for Marvel. Get it?

So the majority of the time, 'new' characters in the Marvel Universe are re-hashes of the old. 

This isn't something NEW, nor is the use of non-white replacements - Captain Marvel was a Black female in 1989, SHE-Hulk came along in 1980, Spider-GIRL, Spider-WOMAN, Bishop, Storm, etc., geez Black Panther came along in 1966.

That was an attempt to be DIVERSE. We're Stan and Jack SJW's?

Marvel's current diversity has nothing to do with 'Social Justice' or whatever code words you political dorks want to mask with - it has to do with an ageing audience of collectors who aren't buying the product anyway. Marvel's trying to sell to everyone they can, because their superhero comics have been declining for years. 

Take away the Star Wars sales of 2015, before this current 'diversity' really began and the decline was there. 

BEFORE that the decline was there.

It's been in decline for 20 years. Really, it hasn't been a 'House of Ideas' since Jack Kirby left.

It's had it's moments... a run here, a run there, but even some of those runs were simply rehashing of old stories told in a slightly different way - the Green Goblin is now the deceased (who'll later be resurrected of course) father's son's psychologist! Yawn. 

Yeah...for those wanting 'new ideas' who continue to read and support Marvel or who only recently quit, I have news for you - you're sending mixed messages to the publisher.  

Marvel has been regurgitating the same stories for 50+ years, and you've kept buying it. The SAME stories. 

Turn Thor into a frog and shake things up - people complain - it still sells x copies - bring back regular Thor - get a sales spike - rinse and repeat. 

Except NOW, if you have a woman holding the hammer, it must be because they're a 'progressive', or whatever political masked curse word they use... when in reality it's simply Marvel running out of ideas to regurgitate, and trying to sell into as many foreign markets as possible, so they can sell more movie tickets - because YOU aren't as loyal as you used to be. 

A whole legion of fans aren't as loyal as they used to be. The numbers have dwindled for decades now. That spike in the 90's was an illusion. It wasn't satisfied readers. 

So blame the decline on 'diversity' if you want, it's an easy target. But really, you're missing the big picture. Marvel has been on the decline for 20+ years. 

 

 

...as has life...

[lizards2]

10 hours ago, oakman29 said:

17 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

It's funny, we've spent years supporting comic publishers, consuming their product, arguing over who's stronger, who's most powerful, who we love the most.  Yet they seem to consider us racist or sexist when we don't support bastardized versions of characters we've known most of our lives.  Is it any wonder that some long time readers quit in frustration?  Don't ask for our loyalty and then throw away everything we've been loyal to.

And it would make sense that digital issues of these new characters are doing better, they're likely selling to new readers who don't know the original characters like we do

Amen!  

Racist, sexist pigs.