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COMICS! |OT| February 2016. World of love and strangeness and charm.
- Thread starter Tyrant Rave
- Start date
Megatron
Member
I don't think that will be a problem.
It's crazy, bimonthly, everything was bimonthly. Now granted I have personal issues, I won't deny that, but I wonder if at one point you don't harm yourself by pushing this angle.
I stumbled upon the speech Stephenson (?) gave a few days ago and yeah, he seems to make some points (and confirm my fear, some books are cratering hard it seems).
Alternate cover up the wazoo, bimonthly books galore, publishing a ton a things and risk saturating the market...
I'm not well versed in the business side of things, but is the current market really healthy ? I know movies are a huge money maker but is the comic book audience really big enough for all these things ?
I stumbled upon the speech Stephenson (?) gave a few days ago and yeah, he seems to make some points (and confirm my fear, some books are cratering hard it seems).
Alternate cover up the wazoo, bimonthly books galore, publishing a ton a things and risk saturating the market...
I'm not well versed in the business side of things, but is the current market really healthy ? I know movies are a huge money maker but is the comic book audience really big enough for all these things ?
Freezasaurus
Member
Just buy digital, you don't even have to worry about trades.
my name is ed
Banned
Comics market continues to grow. Its growing in a number of ways. Regular book market, digital sales, webcomics, subscription services like Marvel Unlimited or Scribd, and regular old comic shops. Its difficult to tell by how much because we only get numbers for the direct market (comic shops) and nothing from book stores (until at the end of the year I think), amazon, comixology, websites like Instocktrades or even purchases from libraries.
And yes, double/triple shipping titles is ultimately a bad idea. You need a really good editor per title to make it work and there arent gonna be enough to go around. Also, comic shops have to order books with some time before theyre actually released so the shops are forced to buy 3 issues in to a title before they can even gage reader interest. If a title is a dud. its the comic shop that suffers.
Marvel is much worse than DC in that regard. They create some very difficult benchmarks that shops have to hit in order for them to get specific variants. Ex: In order to qualify for a lot of the hip hop variants, shops had to order x2.5 of their previous order numbers of some title in order to be eligible to buy some of the variants.
Also, double and triple shipping tends to crunch deadlines and strain your talent. Simply put, artists are gonna get burned through no matter how many 'regular' rotating artists you have. Marvel and DC are kind of just squeezing the direct market for everything they can right now and shops are stuck in the middle.
Its pretty hard to tell what will happen next but a lot of people think Marvel and DC are in for a couple of rough seasons.
Yeah, cant wait when I cant log into my account again for more than one week and not given any reason why,
Freezasaurus
Member
Remember when Marvel was triple-shipping Amazing Spider-Man? I thought it was pretty cool at first, but I got tired of that book a lot faster than I would have if they stuck with a monthly schedule.
Wait, what?
I got burned out on Superman books since you needed to read all the books to get a complete story. Really liked H'el on Earth and Doomed but damn I was exhausted afterward.
Freezasaurus
Member
Yeah, it happens. The idea of getting what you want several times a month sounds great, but it can get old really quickly.
I couldnt log into my Marvel Account for more then a week. I always just got some shittY Tony Stark is fixing this site message. I got no reason what the problem actually is,
The all digital Future is shit, has no real advantages for me and I cant wait until Amazon starts to restrict the access from countries from outside of the US for some stupid reason. Or when they start to remove books when they sell a character or lose rights or something like this.
my name is ed
Banned
The Brand New Era was pretty great imo It was pretty uneven in the beginning (Bob Gale comics...) but it got better later. We had Waid, Slott, Wells, Kelly, Van Lente, Stern rotating as writers with Rivera, Marcos Martin, Bachalo, Fiumara and Canete drawing the thing.
However, the book got an identity once Slott took over the book *and* its an example of what a strong editor can do. Stephen Wacker doesnt edit at Marvel any more. He also edited 52 iirc
I think DC drops the price on their digital titles a month after publishing. Not sure about Marvel. Some Image titles have a digital discount from the off. You get regular new sales with a site like comixology, pretty analogous to Steam sales. I forget the exact schedule for when these change. Wait long enough and you can pick up recent issues for 99 cents. You also have Humble Bundle deals
Honestly I feel like there should be more Weekly Comics. It's probably a bad idea sales wise but I'd imagine that Weekly Comics is where the weird crazy ideas live. Take DC while I liked Batman Eternal I enjoyed Futures End and World's End moreso.
If it were up to me DC and Marvel would launch 2 or 3 weekly series focusing on side or parts of the universes that don't get much play.
If it were up to me DC and Marvel would launch 2 or 3 weekly series focusing on side or parts of the universes that don't get much play.
Poodlestrike
Banned
You reading Bombshells or Legend of Wonder Woman?
Nope reading Supergirl, trade waiting the other two.
Yeah, don't want to complain about good things but that's part of the problem. All is so confusing now. Nice to understand that the DC drop is one month though, that's one thing.
Anecdotal but on another topic I can't resist sharing this :
Batman: Harley and Ivy: The Deluxe Edition = 16.99$
Batman: Harley and Ivy issues #1-3 = 5.97$
Need I say anything ? ( ' T_T)
choaffable
Member
The whole variants thing reminds me of F2P on mobile. F2P only works when you've hooked a few whales (i.e., those users willing to spend massive amounts of money for your microtransactions). The problem, though, there are only so many whales to go around and there weren't that many of them in the first place.
The idea of comic shops trying to grab variant covers to sell to just a small niche group of collectors as part of their business plan sounds insane. It's this tiny group of collectors driving the whole variant push and changing the way an entire retail business operates.
Marvel has been the worst offender for this, but it sounds like DC is trying to replicate some of the more aggressive business practices Marvel has been using. When the big two getting reckless like that, I'm sure some shops aren't going to be able to keep up.
Freezasaurus
Member
Yeah, money-traps.
Freezasaurus
Member
Forgot to post this the other day... Diamond Select's Marvel showing from Toy Fair.
Dat Captain Marvel looking good. And she's $460 cheaper than the Sideshow statue. And is that... Medusa I see!?
Damn, Diamond is going all-in with these Marvel toys. Someone has to, since Marvel refuses to set up their own in-house statue maker like DC. Man, I would be ecstatic if Marvel adopted that model.
Dat Captain Marvel looking good. And she's $460 cheaper than the Sideshow statue. And is that... Medusa I see!?
Damn, Diamond is going all-in with these Marvel toys. Someone has to, since Marvel refuses to set up their own in-house statue maker like DC. Man, I would be ecstatic if Marvel adopted that model.
I'm curious whether Disney and WB have started to change their thoughts on the comics business model at all. If, let's say, the BvS movie succeeds and DC has its own DCU that prints money, as Marvel does, then it seems like the amount of profit made by the movies would justify the comics businesses breaking even or even losing money. The comics maintain interest in the characters, serve as a cultivator for new storylines the movies can use, etc...
I'm not sure they think that way yet, but I would imagine that they would be.
Do we even know what the profit is on a comic? For a $2.99 book I can't imagine that DC earns more than $1 in profit after paying to print, ship, the stores take their cut, etc... If a book sells 60k copies a month it's a mild success, so that's what about $700,000 per year for a successful title. It seems so minor compared to the movies which can make many millions (if not hundreds of millions) in profit 2-3 times per year.
Medusa? Sweet.
Geoff Johns tweeted yesterday that James Tynion has plans for Batwoman, so I expect she'll be in whatever he's writing.
Oh I hand seen that. Well that's good news then.
Freezasaurus
Member
Would still rather have the XM Studios one.... but LOL at the price.
And for reference as to scale:
batwoman with the same artist would be amazing.
bat woman art despite the weird panel layouts was awesome.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
Are you getting that from Stephenson saying he's rejecting pitches for new books in relatively saturated genres? I'm not sure I'd make the same conclusion.
Some people were talking about how it doesn't seem like she's a priority for DC anymore and he jumped in out of nowhere and told them they wrong and that Tynion has something in mind for her. He also said Steve Orlando has a new book as well, which makes me very happy.
Freezasaurus
Member
I'm hopeful. I'm still sore that DiDio killed the marriage idea, because that book was on a roll.
dukeoflegs
Member
Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this but does anyone know any comics in the style of Tales From the Crypt? I'm looking for something that has a single or multiple stories in one book and that's it. The next book would have different stories and so on.
I went to 3 different comic book stores today and only the last one sold Tales from the Crypt (it was hard cover with multiple comics in it which is fine) but the dude there told me no one writes or publishes one and done kind of stuff. I was hoping someone on here might be able to hook me up with similar stuff. It doesn't need to be horror but something in the line of Twilight Zone would suffice.
I went to 3 different comic book stores today and only the last one sold Tales from the Crypt (it was hard cover with multiple comics in it which is fine) but the dude there told me no one writes or publishes one and done kind of stuff. I was hoping someone on here might be able to hook me up with similar stuff. It doesn't need to be horror but something in the line of Twilight Zone would suffice.
Oh, I'm simply believing this line :
"Stephenson says this puts publishers at risk of crowding out their own books in the marketplace, which can be seen in action with books like Marvel’s Starbrand & Nightmask, or DC’s Telos, currently selling well below 10,000 copies."
Less than 10k for a title spun out of your latest event seems bleak.
http://comicsalliance.com/image-eric-stephenson-comics-pro-speech/?trackback=tsmclip
Are you looking for modern or golden age stuff? Either way, Creepy is the comic for you:
Dark Horse revived the old Horror mag and it's really fun. You can also go back and read the archives of all old issues.
There's a ton of pre-code horror goodness out there. Haunted Horrors, Chanbers of Chills, Chilling Tales...this stuff is golden.
Steve Gerber's Man-Thing is one of the finest written comics of all time if you want something superhero-y.
There is Eerie at Dark Horse too. I have a strong urge to read them.
Wasn't there a sort of IDW anthology with guys like Steve Niles ? I seem to remember a western horror story.
dukeoflegs
Member
Thanks for the suggestions. Creepy sounds really interesting (that cover is rad as hell) and I'll definitely check that out.
Yeah, Stephenson didn't name names, that's Comics Alliance editorializing.
FWIW, I don't think I'd equate "they are getting lost" to cratering sales.Stephenson's words said:
Sure, I guess books like those that CA named are technically getting lost in the shuffle of tons of books, but they also seem like things their corporate overlords are conceiving of without any evidence of a demand. I think if Stephenson were to aim is sights explicitly at DC/Marvel, he'd think these arbitrary books spinning out of events, probably planned before readers even had a chance to respond in the first place, should be the first to get axed rather than saved.
That's where events and spinoffs are born.
I wonder what book Tynion is on. Maybe Detective?
whatsinaname
Member
I really want a Big Barda series by Rucka/Chiang/Vicente.
Oh excuse me I just skimmed though your post the first time : there are Twilight Zone comics published by Boom if memory serves. The first ones are written by Straczynski but there are a couple one shot published.
You've evidently got the reprint course too, with CREEPY (or EERIE) ARCHIVES at 50$ and EC Comics publishes reprints too.
Brian Fellows
Pete Carroll Owns Me
I keep seeing Tynion as Tyrion.
