Marvel's Retailer Breakfast falls off the rails 0

[JTLarsen]

13 hours ago, 1p36DSA said:

well said my friend. The diversity for the sake of diversity has just gotten out of hand, just like the media and Hollywood they need to go back to their roots and figure a way out to create new characters here and there versus making thor a girl and captain America black. I have many friends and family now from various backgrounds and heritages and can't seem one to find that agrees with how Marvel is approaching their current !

Diversity isn't for the sake of diversity. It's for the sake of people.

[F For Fake]

Also (and we've beaten this horse to death, but why not bring it up again) Marvel wouldn't force any sort of diversity if they didn't think they could make money off of it. They are a huge business, owned by another huge business (one of the hugest, no doubt), and they don't make any decisions simply for altruistic purposes. They thought they could expand their demo, appealing to different and more diverse audiences, and increase sales. If they managed to get some positive headlines along the way, and actually make some under-represented minorities happy along the way, all the better. Makes sense, but it doesn't seem to have really played out in sales, because at the core, the average comic buyer is a middle aged white dude who is resistant to any sort of change in his nostalgia hobby. 

[___]

10 hours ago, JTLarsen said:

Diversity isn't for the sake of diversity. It's for the sake of people.

what's your point??? Marvel isn't doing it for the sake of people, they are doing it just to diversify and are loosing business over it, and that is very clear.

[JTLarsen]

13 minutes ago, 1p36DSA said:

what's your point??? Marvel isn't doing it for the sake of people, they are doing it just to diversify and are loosing business over it, and that is very clear.

Saying someone is doing X just for the sake of doing X is tacitly admitting you don't know why they're doing it. So I told you.

[___]

54 minutes ago, JTLarsen said:

Saying someone is doing X just for the sake of doing X is tacitly admitting you don't know why they're doing it. So I told you.

They (Marvel) doesn't have a clue, they are doing it just to do it. Doesn't make business sense when they have a library of great characters to use or can create new characters versus having a girl thor and black captain America which makes no sense

[revat]

3 hours ago, F For Fake said:

Also (and we've beaten this horse to death, but why not bring it up again) Marvel wouldn't force any sort of diversity if they didn't think they could make money off of it. They are a huge business, owned by another huge business (one of the hugest, no doubt), and they don't make any decisions simply for altruistic purposes. They thought they could expand their demo, appealing to different and more diverse audiences, and increase sales. If they managed to get some positive headlines along the way, and actually make some under-represented minorities happy along the way, all the better. Makes sense, but it doesn't seem to have really played out in sales, because at the core, the average comic buyer is a middle aged white dude who is resistant to any sort of change in his nostalgia hobby. 

Yes, I believe someone somewhere higher up genuinely (possibly influenced by their own views on diversity) believed that diversity reboots would result in positive, profitable results.  They did it for the money.  Just because the results were not profitable does not mean that they did it for reasons other than profit.  People make unsuccessful business decisions all the time, not for any other agenda other than trying (unsuccessfully) to make money.  And yes, of course sometimes your worldview influences what you THINK will be profitable, but that doesn't mean you didn't do it for the money, regardless of profitability.  I don't give Disney/Marvel any credit (or blame) for trying to push a specific social agenda because of altruism or progressiveness (although a less progressive company may not have even considered diversity reboots), but rather they thought they could capture an untapped younger market with diversity reboots while not alienating their core (but aging) fanbase. 

Simply put, they were wrong.

Now whether that has to do with the perception of forced diversity or lack originality, bad execution, exponentially increasing competition from non-comic sources, price points, bad writing or art, an over-estimation of the receptiveness of the untapped market, or a combination of all those things and more, I'm sure they have zillions of staffers paid to figure it out.  We will continue to speculate on chat boards, as we do.

 

My point is, some things are in fact liberal or conservative conspiracies or agenda driven.  I don't think this was one of them.  They saw the writing on the wall as far as comic readership and future profits is concerned (most likely sinking either way), made a calculated risk and took a big swing....and they missed (although more of a foul tip IMO).  I'm not sure 'generations' is a way to fix it, but then I haven't read any of it.

And for those wondering, the best diversity reboots are All New Wolverine (more mature) and Ms Marvel (more teen) and Nova (for kids), not sure if Nova counts as he's white too.  Hulk was awful (haven't followed Weapon H, maybe that's better?), and Captain America just feels suuuuupppperrrr forced in terms of 'blackness', even though there's some good social commentary and cool ideas, they're just hitting you over the head (but maybe they feel like there won't be that many opportunities for this type of spotlight?) constantly, making it a tough read. 

Or if you're not about any of that, just read Daredevil, still the most consistently good art/writing of any marvel comic since the 80's, regardless of team (mid 90's was questionable, but all of Marvel was questionable at that time).  Seriously, pick up any modern TPB of DD, they're all pretty good.

 

 

[aerischan]

4 hours ago, JTLarsen said:

Saying someone is doing X just for the sake of doing X is tacitly admitting you don't know why they're doing it. So I told you.

I expect the big diversity push is because Ms. Marvel sold unexpectedly well and managed to reach new audiences. Marvel went all in on diversity trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Same reason they've been doing events, variants and renumberings to distraction. If something sells, they'll reuse the concept over and over and over again until it stops selling.

One caveat with diversity is Marvel expects the books to sell as single issue floppies and immediately cancels underperforming titles before they can even make their way into book channel where the new audience consumes their comics.

[ygogolak]

1 hour ago, aerischan said:

I expect the big diversity push is because Ms. Marvel sold unexpectedly well and managed to reach new audiences. Marvel went all in on diversity trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Same reason they've been doing events, variants and renumberings to distraction. If something sells, they'll reuse the concept over and over and over again until it stops selling.

One caveat with diversity is Marvel expects the books to sell as single issue floppies and immediately cancels underperforming titles before they can even make their way into book channel where the new audience consumes their comics.

Ms. Marvel is currently only shipping about 17k a month.
But....this is interesting looking back now:

The market has grown larger. Is it because of demographic changes (as the graphic-novel chart-topping title this month, Ms. Marvel, might suggest),

http://blog.comichron.com/2014/11/october-comics-shop-orders-best-in-17.html

[SquareChaos]

Maybe Ms. Marvel did so well because it was well executed by competent creators?  

[aerischan]

4 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Ms. Marvel is currently only shipping about 17k a month.
But....this is interesting looking back now:

The market has grown larger. Is it because of demographic changes (as the graphic-novel chart-topping title this month, Ms. Marvel, might suggest),

http://blog.comichron.com/2014/11/october-comics-shop-orders-best-in-17.html

Wasn't 2014-15 also when Image speculation was rampant? I think the breadth of offerings did attract some new blood. However, I do wonder if the increase in direct market floppy sales is a result of new readers or is it primarily thanks to variant collectors. I counted at least 120K worth of store exclusive variant orders each for Batman #1 and Harley Quinn #1 (Rebirth).

[aerischan]

10 hours ago, F For Fake said:

Also (and we've beaten this horse to death, but why not bring it up again) Marvel wouldn't force any sort of diversity if they didn't think they could make money off of it. They are a huge business, owned by another huge business (one of the hugest, no doubt), and they don't make any decisions simply for altruistic purposes. They thought they could expand their demo, appealing to different and more diverse audiences, and increase sales. If they managed to get some positive headlines along the way, and actually make some under-represented minorities happy along the way, all the better. Makes sense, but it doesn't seem to have really played out in sales, because at the core, the average comic buyer is a middle aged white dude who is resistant to any sort of change in his nostalgia hobby. 

The stupid thing there is pricing and distribution. Who else but the already addicted/dedicated would bother buying 20-page floppies at $3-4 a pop? Comics getting caught up in events and crossovers makes the pricing problem even worse.

DC Super Hero Girls was an unexpected hit for DC. What DC did right is they made it very affordable ($0.99 digital first chapters and $9.99 trade once or twice a year) and distribution that actually reached the target demo.

[SteppinRazor]

14 hours ago, F For Fake said:

Makes sense, but it doesn't seem to have really played out in sales, because at the core, the average comic buyer is a middle aged white dude who is resistant to any sort of change in his nostalgia hobby. 

Therein lies the problem.  This demographic isn't growing.

Quality will drive sales, but it is the least important to the suits (Disney).  The business model doesn't create an environment where quality workers want to produce there.  Those that were smart enough to try and slow down the phase out of the old for new (a concept I think is wise), if they existed, weren't listened to.  Seems like those above directed a change for new characters to draw in new readers, and weren't interested in waiting for a logical transition.

[RockMyAmadeus]

I was there. And yes, it was awesome from the beginning. The crowd was hostile from the start. It was spectacular.

[aerischan]

2 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

Therein lies the problem.  This demographic isn't growing.

Quality will drive sales, but it is the least important to the suits (Disney).  The business model doesn't create an environment where quality workers want to produce there.  Those that were smart enough to try and slow down the phase out of the old for new (a concept I think is wise), if they existed, weren't listened to.  Seems like those above directed a change for new characters to draw in new readers, and weren't interested in waiting for a logical transition.

Netflix - $10.99/mo for hours of entertainment

YouTube - free

smartphone apps/games - around $0.99-$9.99 for hours of entertainment

manga - around $9.99-12.99 for around 200 pages, or $15 for a 600-page omnibus

Single issue comics have priced themselves out of the casual market. No doubt part of the appeal of buying graphic novels through mass market are the hefty discounts lowering the cost per issue to $2 or so. The Walking Dead Compendiums are an easy way to catch up with the series and comes out to less than $1/issue with discounted pricing. Even at full MSRP, it's just $1.25/issue.

Quality drives sales to a point. However, the quick turnaround for single issues doesn't really allow time for word of mouth to help. Hot/buzzed about books getting cleaned out from store shelves the day of release (for a quick flip on ebay at more than double the cover price) makes floppies even less attractive for someone who just wants to read. Needing to put comics on a pull list just so you're guaranteed a copy sucks.

[ygogolak]

7 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I was there. And yes, it was awesome from the beginning. The crowd was hostile from the start. It was spectacular.

The part where people started using slurs over a comic book was spectacular?

[RockMyAmadeus]

14 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

7 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I was there. And yes, it was awesome from the beginning. The crowd was hostile from the start. It was spectacular.

The part where people started using slurs over a comic book was spectacular?

That's not what I said, but sure, go with that. It was a fascinating experience. 

[ygogolak]

Just now, RockMyAmadeus said:

That's not what I said, but sure, go with that. It was a fascinating experience. 

No, you didn't. But that was the click bait title of the BC article and you condoned it with "spectacular".

[RockMyAmadeus]

Just now, ygogolak said:

4 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

That's not what I said, but sure, go with that. It was a fascinating experience. 

No, you didn't. But that was the click bait title of the BC article and you condoned it with "spectacular".

I did? Wow. I didn't even mention the article, but you came to that conclusion? Neat!

[ygogolak]

2 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I did? Wow. I didn't even mention the article, but you came to that conclusion? Neat!

Yes, that's what this thread is about.

[RockMyAmadeus]

5 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

2 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I did? Wow. I didn't even mention the article, but you came to that conclusion? Neat!

Yes, that's what this thread is about.

This thread is about a lot of things, but the title is "Marvel Retailer breakfast falls off the rails"...so you concluded that my general comment about the meeting being spectacular was specifically referring to "people using slurs over a comic book" (which is a little garbled, but I understand what you meant)...?  Without any further context in my post, in a thread filled with multiple different facets of the situation, you decided that's what I was specifically referring to...?

Think about that for a moment.

The leaps required to come to that conclusion are manifold.