Marvel's Falling Sales 6 6

[lou_fine]

Arty;

I believe you've nailed it on the head with your 6 point here. 

Somebody should send this up to David Gabriel, instead of having him make a sad and incorrect attempt at blaming the customers and fan base for their falling sales.   

 

[Ken Aldred]

49 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Arty;

I believe you've nailed it on the head with your 6 point here. 

Somebody should send this up to David Gabriel, instead of having him make a sad and incorrect attempt at blaming the customers and fan base for their falling sales.   

 

He sounds like a bit of an egotist.  Everyone else is to blame, everyone should just blindly, sheepishly go along with a flawed strategy which is just recycling their 90s marketing tactics that never worked back then and eventually resulted in poorer quality and declining sales, and that eventually the very rapid overuse of diversification becomes another tactic that readers aren't perceptive and intelligent enough to see through?  

Somewhat condescending.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[kav]

Sorry Marvel people don't want to read virtue signalling stories.

[Mercury Man]

1. Culture
2. Books
3. News

Marvel VP of Sales blames diversity for falling comic book sales

'People didn’t want any more diversity, they didn't want female characters out there'

====================================================================

The title says it all, and is another reason the current people at Marvel need to go away!   Diversity is not killing sales, FORCED DIVERSITY is.   Why the white man genocide?  How many characters that have been around for 50 + years do we have to sit here and see written out, all in the name of a social agenda?  The demographics of the country may be changing, and the demographics of comic book readers may be changing, but where is the study that shows that the new generation of readers demanded more females, more minorities, and more 'insert sexual preference here' characters?!?!   Evidently they didn't if the books aren't selling.    Do this:

 

1) Less titles.   You don't need multiple Avengers, & X-Men titles.  

2) Develop the great minority/female characters you have.  Cage, Ms. Marvel (white, muslim pick one), Black Panther, Storm, Sam Wilson.   What about Sunfire?  He has history in the Marvel Universe, write him to relevance, get rid of Cho.  Why did they kill Rhodey Rhodes?   These are just examples. The list is pretty large. 

3) Bring back the real Cap, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk.  Bring back the Fantastic Four.  

4) Get some better writers, and restore the order.  Marvel is so convoluted right now.   Keep the talented artists you have, and bring back some of the heavy hitters you haven't had for awhile. 

5) Be accountable, and admit you made mistakes, not the consumer.  Maybe even drop the price from $3.99 back to $2.99 (DC can do it) or even $3.50.  A small gesture, but maybe former fans will take notice. 

 

End Rant

[Ken Aldred]

Unsurprisingly, I agree with the point about forced diversity. 

Edited April 2, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[kav]

Marvel: you can write about a black muslim female handicapped transgender character-if the story is interesting.  You cannot substitute interesting story for black muslim female handicapped transgender character, however and hit the audience over the head with 2 dimensional moral fables and cardboard dialogue.  Diversity does not substitute for interesting.  If your current writers are incapable of writing interesting stories, fire em.  

[Ken Aldred]

15 minutes ago, kav said:

 If your current writers are incapable of writing interesting stories, fire em.  

One of the best-written series of recent years was about a red-skinned android and his family living in suburbia.  But, that's a brilliant anomaly, though the standard which should be aspired to.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[paul747]

6 hours ago, romanheart said:

Marvel's Falling Sales

Marvel VP blames diversity for falling sales

Personally, I think hollow stories and never-ending series renumbering is killing them.

The VP is out of touch.  Its the reboots and the Bendis "seasons" approach.  Marvel should have kept the ultimate universe and developed all of these NEW or recon characters there.  They should leave the 616 with legacy numbering and limit the crossovers events and variants.  They could keep old collectors and gain new ones.  (like a boulder rolling down a hill)  They should start new story lines with a 1st--- attached to it and only do variants on the beginning of a new story line issue.  Every now and then, themed variants across the line would be ok.   Every time Marvel reboots or switches it up they use "we need new readers" as their reason why, but every time they fail to see that they are losing the readers and collectors they have already established!   Marvels new slogan should be "HOUSE OF TOO MANY IDEAS" that don't work!

 

Please also tell me why they do not push the comic books as the originator of all of this movie success. Good writing and better PR or pre-movie commercial screen placement would boost their sales as well.

Edited April 2, 2017 by paul747

[batman_fan]

I quit buying new comics when I just couldn't get past the artwork let alone the poor writing, high prices, endless reboots, etc.

[exitmusicblue]

Thankfully the health of our hobby doesn't depend on Marvel's dumbarse Modern crock of stinkin' BS games with numbering and variants.

They'll right the ship eventually.  Alternative is to lose a generation of fans.

Afterlife got me back into Modern... most of today's Marvel is like a serialized mass of bad Hollywood movies.

[exitmusicblue]

Also, wish it were back in the day and Stan could just fire all the rotten apples.  For all his own flaws, he wouldn't have stood for this.

[Aweandlorder]

I think that Marvel is actually making a profit out of this. If their ideas translate to the big & silver screens (as they have both in movies & TV shows), then they lose with one demographic in publishing and make a whopping with another demographic in the media. Let's face it, the lib's own Hollywood and the media, and every PC stunt that Marvel does translates to a bigger buzz, wider audience recognition and eventually ticket sales. 

They could care 2 sh**s about writing good stories. But they care a whole lot about stories written about them

[Ken Aldred]

10 minutes ago, MarvelBlows said:

I dunno, he let Herb Timpe draw Hulk. Trimpe was the Liefeld of his day.

No. That was Frank Robbins, who's been given much the same level of critical ridicule down the years.

[VegasJeff]

I think we need to realize the Marvel we grew up with as a kid is dead. This is now Marvel owned by Disney. So I personally think a lot of these changes are being forced by above.

When the race of a lead character in a movie such as Star Wars is more important than their acting ability, it is a sad day. Diversity is the new racism.

[exitmusicblue]

32 minutes ago, MarvelBlows said:

I dunno, he let Herb Timpe draw Hulk. Trimpe was the Liefeld of his day.

Talking about the business model.

[lizards2]

2 hours ago, MarvelBlows said:

2 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

Also, wish it were back in the day and Stan could just fire all the rotten apples.  For all his own flaws, he wouldn't have stood for this.

I dunno, he let Herb Timpe draw Hulk. Trimpe was the Liefeld of his day.

I actually liked the Trimpe, but your post made me laugh pretty hard

[Logan510]

2 hours ago, MarvelBlows said:

I dunno, he let Herb Timpe draw Hulk. Trimpe was the Liefeld of his day.

Trimpe could draw feet and a normal amount of teeth.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Logan510

[nepatkm]

9 hours ago, FineCollector said:

I know a guy who's a huge Punisher fan... survived the skin graft storyline, stuck with it through the avenging angel storyline... what killed him was Frankencastle.  After reading years and years of the stuff, that was the storyline that he couldn't justify.

I don't think replacing the established character is necessarily the jumping off point.  I dropped Captain America when they brought Bucky back, but Brubaker make Cap a strong seller without his title character.  I was willing to give Sam Wilson Captain America a shot, but the hack writer had Sam proclaim that he didn't realize hard it would be to be Captain America.  For real?!

Marvel flushed the old readers when Joe Quesada started Ultimate Spider-Man.  Their focus was on the new line, and they thought people would keep picking up the classic title, even if they didn't put a lick of work into it.  What Marvel still fails to understand is that comics are not merchandise.  People aren't buying a brand, they're reading the stories critically, and basing their purchases on recent performance.

Yep, all the reboots are frustrating...Along with all the (multiple x multiple) variant covers.

[thehumantorch]

I feel betrayed by Marvel.  

I've read and supported the Marvel Universe for 40 years.  Spider-man, FF, Iron Man, on and on, I've bought and read the comics since I was a kid.  Does Marvel really think long term fans will enjoy them ripping up years of continuity and drastically changing characters for a quick, short term, pop in sales?  Write more stories like Old Man Logan, Planet Hulk, etc rather than cheap gimmicks, character assassination, reboots, variants, and diversity.

If Marvel wants more women, more racial diversity, why not create new, relevant characters rather than gender reassignment or color touching established characters with loyal fans.

[Ken Aldred]

 

It's far riskier to start from the ground upwards while the publisher can hopefully get a pat on the back for appearing to be PC by taking an easier, safer path instead ; tagging diversity onto existing characters with established sales.  Except that when the tactic's used so very frequently it quickly ends up looking obviously manipulative rather than genuinely inclusive and respectful.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Ken Aldred