The current state of the comic book market 0

[fastballspecial]

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/02/28/blame-falling-comics-sales-brian-hibbs-comicspro/?fbclid=IwAR0unpAMffYO-1Yldp_GuWe5QEcA9xGjeBdhd2T8rqWHS4u-cnvdZpdkkyE

 

[fastballspecial]

Read the whole article before commenting.

[1Cool]

Wow - that is a lot of info he is pumping out.  I've never owned a store so I don't understand most of his gripes but I think it sums down to way too many books and way too many variants.  From what I saw the last time I was in a LCS I'd agree with both points.

[newshane]

"Be clear: I am not arguing for the abolition of Variants altogether; they have a great deal of value and of worth when used intelligently, strategically and with restraint, but putting five covers on some mediocre comic that you’re not even expecting to get over 10k in the national market on the main cover is a path that is leading us straight to doom."

I think this man's assessment is spot-on. 

The ridiculous variant chase is the reason why I left modern collecting around a year ago. I will never return. The game has ruined the comic industry. 

 

[SuperBird]

I agree with the speaker: I find the constant reboots and variant covers a huge impediment to me wanting to collect new comics. 

But having said that, I am totally open to buying collected formats. 

Edited March 1, 2019 by SuperBird

[mattn792]

Great read, and fantastic conclusion -- "The potential future for comics is insanely bright if we can navigate this moment of greed and darkness within the Direct Market.  What will we do?  And how will we be remembered?"

 

[Lazyboy]

Quote

10. Finally, I call for the first THREE issues of any new series to be fully, no fee, no hoop, returnable from ALL publishers.  This includes one-shots and mini-series.  The only way I see to encourage publishers to be cautious and sober about what they put on to the market (and how they promote it) is to make sure there is a financial incentive to do so, and I think that returns are the mechanism with which to do that – where we are all sharing skin in the game

AKA the end of Marvel.

[mattn792]

6 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

AKA the end of Marvel.

Wait, re-booting a series every 6 months is a BAD idea?  The hell you say!

[Ride the Tiger]

If they are going to try and narrow down the reasons why the industry is suffering then I think they're just wasting their time. We have seen our world change big time over the past decades. If you had told me in the 1980s that Toys R Us was going out of business I'd have asked for some of what you were smoking. Bowling alleys and roller rinks used to be everywhere. And those places were packed. Now the remaining few are struggling to stay open. Why? Change of times. Remember when you could go to a Stereo store and have dozens of components to choose from? Tape decks, turntables, CD players, amplifiers (I bet most teens of today know what a stereo amplifier is) graphic equalizers,  speakers.... the list goes on and on. Now we stream music from a site thru bluetooth technology and listen to these little bluetooth speakers. They don't even come close to sounding as good as the old component systems. Change of the times. Amusement parks everywhere back in the day. Now I know of a few and they are always talking about closing up.Again... change. We buy everything thru the internet these days. Clothes. Food. All stuff people use to go out and shop at stores for. Not anymore. So why is the comic industry struggling? Because it's the same as any other type of entertainment. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Nobody learns...anything from history....

 

[Ride the Tiger]

5 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Nobody learns...anything from history....

 

Not true. I was walking thru the forest at night once and saw a guy with a hockey mask and chainsaw running around. An old movie told me to avoid this guy and not have sex if I wanted to live.

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 minutes ago, Ride the Tiger said:

Not true. I was walking thru the forest at night once and saw a guy with a hockey mask and chainsaw running around. An old movie told me to avoid this guy and not have sex if I wanted to live.

Good call. Having sex with guys with hockey masks and chainsaws could get complicated...

[dupont2005]

I don’t see any way to fix the direct market as we know it. Comic shops and monthly floppy 22 page pamphlets are doomed. It might take several decades but it’s not coming back. That does not mean that sequential art as a storytelling medium or that the IP we love is doomed. There will be Superman comics 100 years from now. We will probably consume them digitally for the most part much sooner than that though 

[Aweandlorder]

I'm waiting for someone to say it and no one ever will

the state of the current publishing market relies on the secondary market. Period

that has been going on for decades but the differences now are:

up till early 00s printed matter reigned supreme

also up till early 00s comic book properties weren't a huge deal as they are now. 

The only reason why comic book publishers are around now is because of collectors. Not readers  

so the publishers will do anything in their power to feed that hunger and publish more "perceived low print" variants, push harder to option more properties.

where will the publishers be today without movies and variant?

nowehere  

 

[1Cool]

25 minutes ago, Ride the Tiger said:

If they are going to try and narrow down the reasons why the industry is suffering then I think they're just wasting their time. We have seen our world change big time over the past decades. If you had told me in the 1980s that Toys R Us was going out of business I'd have asked for some of what you were smoking. Bowling alleys and roller rinks used to be everywhere. And those places were packed. Now the remaining few are struggling to stay open. Why? Change of times. Remember when you could go to a Stereo store and have dozens of components to choose from? Tape decks, turntables, CD players, amplifiers (I bet most teens of today know what a stereo amplifier is) graphic equalizers,  speakers.... the list goes on and on. Now we stream music from a site thru bluetooth technology and listen to these little bluetooth speakers. They don't even come close to sounding as good as the old component systems. Change of the times. Amusement parks everywhere back in the day. Now I know of a few and they are always talking about closing up.Again... change. We buy everything thru the internet these days. Clothes. Food. All stuff people use to go out and shop at stores for. Not anymore. So why is the comic industry struggling? Because it's the same as any other type of entertainment. 

I agree change and technology is at the root of the decline in a lot of things we use to take for granted.  But comics as a whole should still be in its hayday since there is a couple generations who grew up on comics and are now reaching middle age and have some cash to buy stuff they use to enjoy.  But comic sales numbers seem to be dropping year after year and the only thing propping them up is people chasing variants (the article mentions almost half of all products are variants).  If comics were reasonably priced and produced to keep their core buyers happy (middle aged men primarily) wouldn't you think comics would be one of the success stories in the sea of change?

[Ken Aldred]

It's a good, summarising article, but, as far as the strategies used by publishers to market their product go, there's nothing new or insightful offered and his conclusions have been discussed and generally agreed on many times here on the boards, for years now.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Ken Aldred

[dupont2005]

19 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I agree change and technology is at the root of the decline in a lot of things we use to take for granted.  But comics as a whole should still be in its hayday since there is a couple generations who grew up on comics and are now reaching middle age and have some cash to buy stuff they use to enjoy.  But comic sales numbers seem to be dropping year after year and the only thing propping them up is people chasing variants (the article mentions almost half of all products are variants).  If comics were reasonably priced and produced to keep their core buyers happy (middle aged men primarily) wouldn't you think comics would be one of the success stories in the sea of change?

Key back issue prices seem to be in their heyday. Modern books cater to a different demographic entirely, but they do have a following themselves. 

[1Cool]

14 minutes ago, dupont2005 said:

Key back issue prices seem to be in their heyday. Modern books cater to a different demographic entirely, but they do have a following themselves. 

Who are modern books catering to?  I honestly don't know at this point.  The constant reboots has made most old time run collectors forget about keeping up and we know kids (teens) are not the primary readers so who are they catering to?

[dupont2005]

27 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Who are modern books catering to?  I honestly don't know at this point.  The constant reboots has made most old time run collectors forget about keeping up and we know kids (teens) are not the primary readers so who are they catering to?

Just a different generation of reader. Golden Age comics are very different from Bronze Age comics which are very different from 90’s comics. The way the stories are presented to us evolves. From the art style to the number of pages to the amount of dialogue and narration per issue to the length of a single story arc to the level of sex and violence and the emphasis put on them, the books are constantly changing. As far as mainstream super hero stuff goes I for the most part haven’t been interested since the early 90’s, not anything in continuity anyway. I remember the Marvel Noir books caught my attention at first but even then, trying to create a whole Marvel Noir universe with multiple titles in it threw me off, the obsession with continuity turns me away from any book. I remember when you could read Amazing Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men and nothing else. It’s not like that today. That and the pictures look like they’ve been traced out of porn magazines and the comics don’t have hardly any words in them anymore.

[Badger]

The constant reboots killed my interest in moderns from the Big 2. I know as a 50 year old white male schizophrenic martial arts expert that I am not the target of Marvel's marketing but I am the one with the disposable income that can help prop up current comics. You would think that this economic power would translate at least into maybe one or two classic titles not being rebooted every other year. I now only buy those series that I have complete runs in like Daredevil, ASM, and Uncle Scrooge. If I want to read anything else I wait until it is released through Marvel Unlimited or Comixology Unlimited. The odds of me being disappointed with the story-line or art is too great to justify paying full cover price on the vast majority of new books. Three words of dialog and art that looks like it was drawn and colored by an Anime enamored, 12 year old, glue sniffer using Daddy's Surface Pro just does not cut it for me when comic prices are hitting $7 an issue for some of these things. 

Thank you but, no. I will spend $69 on Marvel Unlimited, read what pops up and enjoy the fact that by the time a year has passed I will have read hundreds of new and old comics. The sweeter part is that every book I read out of Marvel Unlimited makes the per book cost even cheaper! If I want the smell of genuine newsprint I'll go riffle through one of the thousands of comics I've carted around with me over the last 40 years (Lord, I have a patient and wonderful wife.  ).

It makes me a sad Badger that the odds of me going into a comic book store and finding anything worth the money being charged by the big two are vanishingly small.  Can it happen? Sure, Darth Vader is great. I read every 6 month old issue of it on Marvel Unlimited as its released to the platform. Then again, I got sucked into buying the Red Goblin story-line in ASM only to see it fizzle out and then reboot. I doubt I will be sucked in again but the fanboy personality of mine is a tough one to repress.