Why bother? 1 1

[kav]

One of the screenplay books I read stated do not I repeat do not preach to your audience.  You are entertaining them, not preaching to them. Save that for church. Also, the GL issue wasn't really preaching-everyone knew drugs were bad.  It was just a story about how it impacted a superhero personally.  Not so the current Marvel stuff-that is 100% preach city. 

[Califelix]

18 hours ago, natevegas said:

The simplest answer usually is the correct one.  So in my opinion I think the sales are suffering is because of a lack of alignment. 

Go see Thor in latest Avengers / Thor movies - go pick up a current Thor title its not him its Lady Thor.

Go see Hulk in Avengers / Hulk / Thor movies - go pick up a current Hulk title its not him its totally awesome hulk.

Go see Captain America  in Avenger / Captain America movies - go pick up a Cap current title its not really him, its Sam Wilson, well he's kinda there but always was a Hydra agent.

Go see Wolverine in the latest X-men / Logan movies - go pick up a current Wolverine title its not him its X-23, he's dead but there is a old man Logan around that is kinda him from another universe.

IP's I agree are the darlings and as far as I see things Marvel has their heads up you know where because nothing you see on or in the MCU even remotely tie into current books. 

Plus what they did to the X-men last few years I'm out Marvel.  Like the authority said I'm out.....hello Indies

I think they're starting to see this now...

http://www.newsarama.com/33843-late-16-sales-downturn-told-marvel-people-didn-t-want-any-more-diversity.html

[rjrjr]

25 minutes ago, Califelix said:

I think they're starting to see this now...

http://www.newsarama.com/33843-late-16-sales-downturn-told-marvel-people-didn-t-want-any-more-diversity.html

So, what is their excuse for why Star Wars comic sales are down?  I'm being serious here as I've been tracking those sales on my website since the beginning.  Even new Star Wars #1s are nowhere near what they were at the beginning of 2016.  (It would be unfair to compare sales to early 2015.)  Yes, they are some of Marvel's best selling titles, but that isn't saying much these days.  Replacing Darth Vader (a consistent top Marvel title for a long while, even at the end) with Doctor Aphra, which is down at Poe Dameron numbers already has to be a clue that you messed up.

How about Marvel quit the gimmicks, umpteen variant covers, replacement heroes, events, constant re-numbering, and get back to telling good stories.  They have conditioned their buyers to not collect runs or invest in the longevity of titles and now they are wondering why sales are down?  Keep appealing to speculators and watch the bottom fall out more...

Edited March 31, 2017 by rjrjr

[aerischan]

I'm reading the interview with Axel Alonso and David Gabriel on ICv2 and thus far, it seems to me that Marvel just keeps shooting down and dismissing retailer suggestions and concerns while making excuses for Marvel. That doesn't make me hopeful at all.

And hey, looks like Marvel's planning on $10 comics being the norm. 

Edited April 1, 2017 by aerischan

[Mercury Man]

"Fawstin pointed out the irony in Marvel's transfiguration, noting that in their attempt to tell politically relevant stories, Marvel completely ignored the most politically relevant villains of the real world--jihadists. Instead, they choose to virtue signal by having Muslim superheroes talk about peace and 'get out the vote.'"

That's a really interesting quote taken from the first article link by Kav.   Captain America, Superman etc. were punching the Japanese & Germans in the 1940's.  Hell, Cap is still punching Nazi's in 2017.  But we haven't been given the stories of them fighting jihadists.  Is it a fear thing, or a SJW thing, or a Liberal thing, or do they feel these would just not make good comic stories? 

Edited April 1, 2017 by Mercury Man

[Lonzilla]

2 hours ago, Mercury Man said:

"Fawstin pointed out the irony in Marvel's transfiguration, noting that in their attempt to tell politically relevant stories, Marvel completely ignored the most politically relevant villains of the real world--jihadists. Instead, they choose to virtue signal by having Muslim superheroes talk about peace and 'get out the vote.'"

That's a really interesting quote taken from the first article link by Kav.   Captain America, Superman etc. were punching the Japanese & Germans in the 1940's.  Hell, Cap is still punching Nazi's in 2017.  But we haven't been given the stories of them fighting jihadists.  Is it a fear thing, or a SJW thing, or a Liberal thing, or do they feel these would just not make good comic stories? 

Remember that great Captain America run immediately post-9-11 with the ultra patriotic covers? Cap was fighting Muslim terrorists, it may as well have been Bin Laden the way he was portrayed. Some tiny speck of a grievance group whined and they got cold feet and went in a different direction

[Lonzilla]

12 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

They are finding out two things about that crowd that they don't like business-wise.

1. They don't spend money like the old time steady customers did.

2. They are not loyal like their long-time fans were, as in they are fickle and will jump to the next thing.

So now Marvel is trying to win back all its old fans because the SJW's don't support comics like the old customers did.

Great article here how Marvel is going to cancel tons of new titles and try to fix the ship.

http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/marvel-comics-cancels-ghost-rider-possibly-dozens-more

 

Which titles does that leave? Looks like almost everything is being cancelled. Wait for "Marvel Rebirth" with 50 all-new #1's

Yawn

[Lonzilla]

If Marvel would continue to do "outside the box" titles like The Vision and Moon Knight, then I'll buy them, but those are few and far between. It seems like those recent gems only work because they're not intertwined with the current marvel Universe in the way of crossovers and event tie ins.

Foolkiller and Man-Thing are 2 of my all-time favorite characters but both new series are so wretched that I didn't get through the 1st issue of either. It's like whoever is doing the books never bothered to read any of the classics to get an idea of what makes Foolkiller and Man-Thing who they are

[Gunnz]

My biggest gripe, and the reason I say its laziness is because instead of creating new characters to pursue current/political trends, they just half it and swap characters. What? Captain america sounds really white? BAM! Sam Wilson! OMG Iron mans a misogynistic ? WHAM! Pepper. "Very smooth Marvel." That was a quote from my all time fav hero. SARCASM MAN. He has the power to belittle criminals into submission. Then his side kick "Mockingbird" (Who is an actual literal mockingbird) repeats his brutal quips. 

God i'm a genius. 

[1950's war comics]

23 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

True I hate ESPN now. I wont even watch it anymore. Why couldn't they just do it gradually instead all at once.

Disney really doesn't care about the comics. They don't make much revenue its the movies they want.

100% agree, instead of just reporting on sports and scores ESPN now has an agenda it is pushing on the world and it has alienated half of this country

couldn't sports reporting just be primarily about the games themselves?

[ComicConnoisseur]

17 hours ago, Califelix said:

I think they're starting to see this now...

http://www.newsarama.com/33843-late-16-sales-downturn-told-marvel-people-didn-t-want-any-more-diversity.html

Thanks for the article.

Kind of ballsy what the Marvel Executive Gabriel said in that article. I bet he gets backlash from SJW`'s on Facebook,Twitter and Tumblr for what he states.

 

Gabriel told ICv2 that "What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity. They didn't want female characters out there. That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not.  I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales."

Gabriel described what was no longer viable as "things that we had been doing successfully for the past three years..."

 

"We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against," he explained. " That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked."

 

Gabriel cited other factors for the market shift, including the economy, specifically events occurring in October/November that affected how consumers wanted to spend their money, unease and lack of cash flow due to returns to Diamond Comic Distributors from DC's "Rebirth" initiative, a glut of product, and just a general sense of anger over all these issues.

 

"There was anger because of story reasons for all of us."

 

"It was the old things coming back in that time period, three books in particular, Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, that had Spider-Man and Mary Jane married, that worked," he further explained. "The Venom book worked and the Thanos book worked. You can take what you want out of who might be enjoying those three books, but it is definitely a specific type of comic book reader, comic book collector that really liked those three series."

Edited April 1, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[fastballspecial]

Why can't they just understand that new characters spin out of stories and take time to develop. You can't just introduce a character one month and then launch a new no 1 two months later and expect the character to suceed. Develop them for awhile in an established book then launch them it works better.

[aerischan]

2 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

Why can't they just understand that new characters spin out of stories and take time to develop. You can't just introduce a character one month and then launch a new no 1 two months later and expect the character to suceed. Develop them for awhile in an established book then launch them it works better.

In fairness, even developed characters would have problems succeeding when Marvel has something like 70+ "ongoing" series already.

[SquareChaos]

6 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Thanks for the article.

Kind of ballsy what the Marvel Executive Gabriel said in that article. I bet he gets backlash from SJW`'s on Facebook,Twitter and Tumblr for what he states.

 

Gabriel told ICv2 that "What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity. They didn't want female characters out there. That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not.  I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales."

Gabriel described what was no longer viable as "things that we had been doing successfully for the past three years..."

 

"We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against," he explained. " That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked."

 

Gabriel cited other factors for the market shift, including the economy, specifically events occurring in October/November that affected how consumers wanted to spend their money, unease and lack of cash flow due to returns to Diamond Comic Distributors from DC's "Rebirth" initiative, a glut of product, and just a general sense of anger over all these issues.

 

"There was anger because of story reasons for all of us."

 

"It was the old things coming back in that time period, three books in particular, Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, that had Spider-Man and Mary Jane married, that worked," he further explained. "The Venom book worked and the Thanos book worked. You can take what you want out of who might be enjoying those three books, but it is definitely a specific type of comic book reader, comic book collector that really liked those three series."

Going back to the status quo isn't the answer either. They really have no idea what they're doing, no one seems to have much of a vision as best I can tell, they're just trying to go where the money is. Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't, but it doesn't interest me too much.

[Gunnz]

3 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

Going back to the status quo isn't the answer either. They really have no idea what they're doing, no one seems to have much of a vision as best I can tell, they're just trying to go where the money is. Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't, but it doesn't interest me too much.

Like a bag full of squirrels. lots of action, no actual progress.