Marvel Movies are a Success why can't Comics do the Same? 0

[Shawnismaximus]

2 hours ago, october said:

It doesn't take a big stretch of the imagination to see people offering 50 cents apiece for 12 cent Thors or Hulk in the near future....or eventually throwing in the towel while simultaneously throwing them in the dumpster out back. 

Oh god my soul died a little hearing that. I'll take them! Just point me in the direction of this dumpster. 

[kav]

mostly I stopped buying new comics because I got tired of being preached to.  It wasnt interesting preaching like GL/GA but regurgitated bumper sticker type preaching.  Nope.

[jools&jim]

4 hours ago, Shawnismaximus said:

The only reason I started reading Spidey was because my mom bought me a comic to keep me busy while she was grocery shopping.

Fast-forward 20+ years (i.e., a generation): now that same fidgety kid in the grocery store (or doctor's office, or in a grown-up restaurant, etc.) is handed his mother's phone or tablet, or (more likely than not) has a device of his own, and is mindlessly swiping through screen after screen, level after level, of animated dayglo electronic daydreams, absorbed directly into his cerebral cortex, which--terrible master that it is--demands more and more immediate stimulation, instant gratification, which the device readily supplies, and all often without the messy, boring, and time-consuming process of actually having to read and comprehend a single written word...

Edited June 27, 2018 by jools&jim

[Lazyboy]

On 5/13/2018 at 8:24 AM, SuperZar said:

There are some inflation online calculators you can check out.   When I started collecting, comics were $0.20-0.25.  They should be $0.90-0.95 today - still pocket change.  It's true that energy/paper inflation costs have probably been higher than the average.  But I believe there are two main factors.  Same reason cost of going to see a movie or your favourite sports team has gone up so drastically. Arnold wants 50 million per movie, and my favourite hockey player wants 20 million a season.  We all pay for their ridicules salaries. Also, since new comic sales continue to drop (thanks to direct distribution), the price per comic needs to go up to maintain profit. Anyways, my $0.02.

Sales were dropping before the publishers fully embraced direct distribution, which they did not create. Without the direct market, comics likely wouldn't even exist anymore. What happened to all of the other publishers from the newsstand-only days?

9 hours ago, Chuck Gower said:

They've made it (publishing) as profitable as they can - destroying the newsstand market which dictated to THEM the terms of how business is done - by then turning the tables on the fans who created the direct market by giving them the worst terms possible - no RETURNS.

Again, publishers did not create the direct market. By definition, issues distributed through the direct market are not, and never were, returnable. The exceptions only being more recently when the publishers have offered the ability to return specific issues to incentivize larger orders, but only when they expected the books would not end up being returned.

The newsstand system abandoned comics before comics abandoned the newsstand system.

3 hours ago, Shawnismaximus said:

The point of that story is there is no entry point for kids nowadays. There are no comics at 7-11 or the grocery store. I think the solution is simple. Produce a weekly comic with multiple stories (For Marvel maybe an Avengers story, Spidey story, rotating story featuring a different hero every issue). Price it as cheaply as possible, and stock it in every grocery store, pharmacy and convenience store you can. 

They may not make a profit off that comic but they will be grabbing a whole new generation of readers.

And the retailers won't sell enough units or make enough money per unit to justify the space used, so they won't even carry them.

[Shawnismaximus]

1 hour ago, jools&jim said:

Fast-forward 20+ years (i.e., a generation): now that same fidgety kid in the grocery store (or doctor's office, or in a grown-up restaurant, etc.) is handed his mother's phone or tablet, or (more likely than not) has a device of his own, and is mindlessly swiping through screen after screen, level after level, of animated dayglo electronic daydreams, absorbed directly into his cerebral cortex, which--terrible master that it is--demands more and more immediate stimulation, instant gratification, which the device readily supplies, and all often without the messy, boring, and time-consuming process of actually having to read and comprehend a single written word...

Man that was poetry. But maybe therein lies the answer. Marvel/DC need an app that kids will engage with that encourages reading. I'm picturing a Pokemon go style app where kids track down Superheroes in the real world and have them fight each other. Finding new super-heroes unlocks motion comics, old animation episodes, behind the scenes movie footage ect. Support comic stores by having the app populate collectible characters around stores that sell comic books. 

Damn, not to toot my own horn but I love that idea. 

EDIT: to piggyback onto that, have certain characters or abilities that are only accessible through scanning a real life comic book, or puchasing a digital one.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Shawnismaximus

[Prince Namor]

13 hours ago, Chuck Gower said:

They've made it (publishing) as profitable as they can - destroying the newsstand market which dictated to THEM the terms of how business is done - by then turning the tables on the fans who created the direct market by giving them the worst terms possible - no RETURNS.

 

 

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Sales were dropping before the publishers fully embraced direct distribution,

 

Wasn't talking sales, was talking profit. Sales of comics overall had dropped for the last three decades with a moderate spike in the 60's, but certainly, nothing to compare with million copy sales of the Golden age. 

This was about PROFIT.

Print 500,000 copies, sell 250,000 through the newsstand, lose on half the print run OR

Get an order in for 350,000 copies, print 375,000 copies, and have no returns.

To the publisher's it became a no brainer ONCE the DM was strong enough to support it.

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which they did not create.

 

Right there IN my quote, I say "on the FANS who created the direct market".

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Without the direct market, comics likely wouldn't even exist anymore.

 

OR, without the flow of comics to younger readers through the newsstand, comics just kept getting more and more marginalized to one type of collector.

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What happened to all of the other publishers from the newsstand-only days?

 

Archie continued to use it for years. Mad Magazine existed in it for years. The adapted how they needed to in order to exist in it.

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Again, publishers did not create the direct market.

 

Never said they did.

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By definition, issues distributed through the direct market are not, and never were, returnable.

 

Yes...that's the point I made. 

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The newsstand system abandoned comics before comics abandoned the newsstand system.

 

You are incorrect. 

Talk to the people who planned it. They straight out SAID they planned to abandon the newsstand system because the profits were higher in the direct market.

I didn't make this up. Carol Kalish wanted to abandon the newsstand for the profit of the Direct Market. Jim Shooter wanted to abandon the newsstand for the profit of the Direct Market. Chuck Rozanski was in on the talks and even wrote about it in his news letter.

The information is out there.

Keep raising the price of comics - lose money in the newsstand system.

Keep raising the price of comics - keep more profit in the direct market.

To them it was a no brainer.

But cutting off the flow of new comics to young readers has had a long term negative effect, that because of changing reading habits, is too late to fix.

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And the retailers won't sell enough units or make enough money per unit to justify the space used, so they won't even carry them.

They DID. It was why comics kept raising the price. To keep that space. 

Keep raising the price of comics - lose money in the newsstand system.

Keep raising the price of comics - keep more profit in the direct market.

They could've kept that space, they just had to keep raising the price (or come up with a new format), something they continued to do anyways in the direct market.

The newsstand wasn't turning their money away. 

 

Here's some direct quotes from people on it:

who-killed-the-newsstand-comics-market

Newsstand Editions History and Newsstand Pricing Policies

 

Edited June 27, 2018 by Chuck Gower

[Lazyboy]

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

Wasn't talking sales, was talking profit. Sales of comics overall had dropped for the last three decades with a moderate spike in the 60's, but certainly, nothing to compare with million copy sales of the Golden age. 

This was about PROFIT.

Print 500,000 copies, sell 250,000 through the newsstand, lose on half the print run OR

Get an order in for 350,000 copies, print 375,000 copies, and have no returns.

Total sales are a major factor in profit and sustainability, because the (newsstand) system only works with large quantities. Printing 500,000 and selling 250,000 is hardly ideal, but it's still profitable. Printing 50,000 and selling only 25,000 does not work.

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

To the publisher's it became a no brainer ONCE the DM was strong enough to support it.

Except that they didn't completely abandon newsstand distribution until very recently.

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

Right there IN my quote, I say "on the FANS who created the direct market".

 The whole idea of the direct market was for the distributor to get comics cheaper in exchange for the publishers getting a guaranteed sale. Tables can't be turned if nothing changes. 

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

OR, without the flow of comics to younger readers through the newsstand, comics just kept getting more and more marginalized to one type of collector.

Archie continued to use it for years. Mad Magazine existed in it for years. The adapted how they needed to in order to exist in it.

MAD, like most magazines, has lots of subscriptions. For whatever reason, subscriptions have never been a huge thing in comics. Regardless, magazines are not on topic.

Archie also used direct distribution. The way you say it makes it seem like you think Archie continued distributing only through the newsstand system, while Marvel and DC instantly quit newsstands and sold only through the direct system.

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

You are incorrect. 

Talk to the people who planned it. They straight out SAID they planned to abandon the newsstand system because the profits were higher in the direct market.

Some may have wanted to, but they did not actually do it (until very recently).

Before publishers embraced the direct market, they had to deal with fraud, indifference, and inconsistency in the distribution system. The distributors did not care about comics. If you just take issue with my phrasing that "the newsstand system abandoned comics" that's fine, but within that system, comics were on a one-way trip to oblivion with no support.

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

But cutting off the flow of new comics to young readers has had a long term negative effect, that because of changing reading habits, is too late to fix.

I didn't say there weren't repercussions to embracing the direct market but, again, most Marvel and DC comics were also available through the newsstand system until very recently, when the publishers decided that the math no longer made sense.

6 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

Here's some direct quotes from people on it:

who-killed-the-newsstand-comics-market

I like the ending of that article:

"The funny thing is, everyone used to just agree that the newsstand was in a lot of trouble at the time.  Has it now been long enough for hindsight and blamestorming to kick in?"

 Yup, newsstand distribution must have been the answer all along, even when it very obviously wasn't.

Comics may follow the general downward trend of print media, but no distribution system could ever have stopped that from happening.

[Prince Namor]

1 hour ago, Lazyboy said:

Total sales are a major factor in profit and sustainability, because the (newsstand) system only works with large quantities. Printing 500,000 and selling 250,000 is hardly ideal, but it's still profitable. Printing 50,000 and selling only 25,000 does not work.

1

What are you talking about?

The Direct Market was more profitable. If they shifted ALL of their sales to it (or at least 90%), they'd be MORE profitable than in the newsstand.

That's what they did. Period. 

It's that simple. That was their plan. That's what they did.

Quote

Except that they didn't completely abandon newsstand distribution until very recently.

Yeah, ok. Switching from 94% of their business in 1979 to 10% in 1996 sounds like an abandonment to me.

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 The whole idea of the direct market was for the distributor to get comics cheaper in exchange for the publishers getting a guaranteed sale. Tables can't be turned if nothing changes. 

 

What are you talking about?

You claimed I said the publisher's created the direct market.

I didn't.

I said the FANS created the Direct Market. Phil Seuling was a FAN of comic books. 

And according to those who were there, the goal was for comic book FANS to get their books a week earlier, in better condition from the newsstand. 

Did the Direct Market get those books CHEAPER? I don't know if that's true or not. Prove it.

Quote

MAD, like most magazines, has lots of subscriptions. For whatever reason, subscriptions have never been a huge thing in comics. Regardless, magazines are not on topic.

Archie also used direct distribution. The way you say it makes it seem like you think Archie continued distributing only through the newsstand system,

 

Never said that. Never inferred it. You're making stuff up just to argue.

Quote

while Marvel and DC instantly quit newsstands and sold only through the direct system.

 

Never said that. Never inferred that. More making stuff up.

Quote

Some may have wanted to, but they did not actually do it (until very recently).

Before publishers embraced the direct market, they had to deal with fraud, indifference, and inconsistency in the distribution system. The distributors did not care about comics. If you just take issue with my phrasing that "the newsstand system abandoned comics" that's fine, but within that system, comics were on a one-way trip to oblivion with no support.

 

That's ALL I took issue with. You have yet to prove it.

And publisher's didn't switch from the newsstand to the DM because the newsstand didn't care about the product. That's silly.

It was done for PROFIT.

Quote

I didn't say there weren't repercussions to embracing the direct market but, again, most Marvel and DC comics were also available through the newsstand system until very recently, when the publishers decided that the math no longer made sense.

I like the ending of that article:

"The funny thing is, everyone used to just agree that the newsstand was in a lot of trouble at the time.  Has it now been long enough for hindsight and blamestorming to kick in?"

 Yup, newsstand distribution must have been the answer all along, even when it very obviously wasn't.

Comics may follow the general downward trend of print media, but no distribution system could ever have stopped that from happening.

I never said newsstand was the answer. More making stuff up. 

Try reading what is actually written and respond to that instead of whatever idea you have in your own head that I must be trying to say.

I took issue with "the newsstand system abandoned comics". Plain and simple as that.

And in everything you added to this discussion, you did nothing to prove that.

[Lazyboy]

21 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

What are you talking about?

The Direct Market was more profitable. If they shifted ALL of their sales to it (or at least 90%), they'd be MORE profitable than in the newsstand.

That's what they did. Period. 

It's that simple. That was their plan. That's what they did.

They didn't shift their sales, they simply filled the orders of direct buyers while continuing to allocate shipments to IDs based on their previous (reported) sales.

I'm not going to argue against the DM being more profitable because that's a simple, obvious fact and I'm not a insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

21 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

Yeah, ok. Switching from 94% of their business in 1979 to 10% in 1996 sounds like an abandonment to me.

1. Those numbers are 100% pure bull

2. Even if they were accurate, they would mean only that newsstand retailers increasingly failed to sell their copies or direct retailers kept buying more.

If a manufacturer has filled Company A's orders of 10,000 units per week for 50 years and Company B comes along and orders 100,000 units per week and the manufacturer fills both orders going forward, is that an abandonment or just basic business? Company A is still getting their product and if somebody else buys more, so what?

However, distributors sometimes not bothering to get bundles of comics to retailers - when that's the only way the publisher will get paid for them - seems like an abandonment to me.

32 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

What are you talking about?

You claimed I said the publisher's created the direct market.

I didn't.

I said the FANS created the Direct Market. Phil Seuling was a FAN of comic books. 

And according to those who were there, the goal was for comic book FANS to get their books a week earlier, in better condition from the newsstand. 

Did the Direct Market get those books CHEAPER? I don't know if that's true or not. Prove it.

I didn't claim you said that. I reiterated that when responding to your post because you said "then turning the tables on the fans who created the direct market by giving them the worst terms possible - no RETURNS"

I meant Seuling got the books cheaper than he could have if not dealing directly with the publishers. He asked for the same discount as the IDs but without the risk and extra work involved with returns.

21 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

Never said that. Never inferred it. You're making stuff up just to argue.

Never said that. Never inferred that. More making stuff up.

"Archie continued to use it for years. The adapted how they needed to in order to exist in it."

That seems to imply that Archie didn't use direct distributors and/or DC and Marvel didn't continue to use newsstand distribution for decades. Archie has their digest line, which probably works better for them than others because of the simplistic art style translating better to a smaller size. Seeing the digests at supermarket checkouts is the only time I've seen a new Archie not alongside a new Marvel or DC in many, many years.

21 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

That's ALL I took issue with. You have yet to prove it.

And publisher's didn't switch from the newsstand to the DM because the newsstand didn't care about the product. That's silly.

It was done for PROFIT.

You're right. They didn't embrace the direct market because newsstand distributors didn't care about the product, they did it because of how newsstand distributors not caring about the product affected them. But they didn't switch, they simply added new distributors.

Direct distributors and retailers promoted the comics. Guess how often the newsstand channel put any effort into helping the publishers sell their product.

21 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

I never said newsstand was the answer. More making stuff up. 

That was not a direct response to you.

21 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

I took issue with "the newsstand system abandoned comics". Plain and simple as that.

Like I said, that's fine. But comics were slowly dying because of that system and everything that came with it.

 

http://classic.tcj.com/history/a-comics-journal-history-of-the-direct-market-part-one/

[catman76]

Comic books as a popular form of entertainment is dead, the "mainstream" or whatever you want to call it, Marvel and DC, are just superhero inbred stuff, no one can just pick up a comic for simple entertainment any more, not for 30 plus years at least. The mainstream comics just need to die already, theses two companies will drive the same characters into the ground forever, it's boring. The only interesting comics now are self published stuff, mini comics, stuff published by fantagraphics, drawn and quarterly etc. They may be a very niche thing and a small audience, but at least there's a HUGE variety of different stuff to choose from and it's interesting, not just old, tired, serious superhero .

[Prince Namor]

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

They didn't shift their sales, they simply filled the orders of direct buyers while continuing to allocate shipments to IDs based on their previous (reported) sales.

 

Good Lord. Call it what you want. The comics they had been selling to the newsstand became comics they sold to DM distributors. Prove otherwise. You can't.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

I'm not going to argue against the DM being more profitable because that's a simple, obvious fact and I'm not a insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

1

Right. I've shown it (proven it) in very simple terms. 

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

1. Those numbers are 100% pure bull

 

Maybe. But they shifted the sales emphasis to the DM. It's a fact. 

If they DIDN'T, they would've been the dumbest business men in history.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

2. Even if they were accurate, they would mean only that newsstand retailers increasingly failed to sell their copies or direct retailers kept buying more.

 

That is incorrect, you're looking at the numbers backward. It's not who was buying, it was who the publisher is selling to.

If the newsstand was continuing to take space away from the publishers, and the publishers were making more money selling to the DM, how could sales to the newsstands NOT go down? Who increases sales to the less profitable buyer? 

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

If a manufacturer has filled Company A's orders of 10,000 units per week for 50 years and Company B comes along and orders 100,000 units per week and the manufacturer fills both orders going forward, is that an abandonment or just basic business? Company A is still getting their product and if somebody else buys more, so what?

 

I thought you said the newsstand turned it's back on comics? If they turned their back, and they gave them less space, how were they buying the same amount of comics? And why would they buy the same amount of comics if the margins weren't as good as the magazines, which saw a boom during this period?

From 1975 to 1985, the statement of ownership for Batman went from 359,000 printed to 195,000 printed (Comichron). How could they be selling the same amount?

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

However, distributors sometimes not bothering to get bundles of comics to retailers - when that's the only way the publisher will get paid for them - seems like an abandonment to me.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

I didn't claim you said that. I reiterated that when responding to your post because you said "then turning the tables on the fans who created the direct market by giving them the worst terms possible - no RETURNS"

I meant Seuling got the books cheaper than he could have if not dealing directly with the publishers. He asked for the same discount as the IDs but without the risk and extra work involved with returns.

 

Ok, follow along closely: Which, in the publishing world, for a distributor, are the WORST TERMS POSSIBLE. 

You're arguing the semantics of WHO made the deal. Which you haven't proven, incidentally.

My point is that it's a chitty deal for the distributor.

I can't think of any other distributors of printed reading that have this deal.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

"Archie continued to use it for years. The adapted how they needed to in order to exist in it."

That seems to imply that Archie didn't use direct distributors and/or DC and Marvel didn't continue to use newsstand distribution for decades. Archie has their digest line, which probably works better for them than others because of the simplistic art style translating better to a smaller size. Seeing the digests at supermarket checkouts is the only time I've seen a new Archie not alongside a new Marvel or DC in many, many years.

 

Blah, blah, blah. You ASKED who was still in the newsstand. I gave you an example.

You expounding upon some imaginary thought process of mine is just bluster. You asked for an example, I gave you one. Simple as that.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

You're right. They didn't embrace the direct market because newsstand distributors didn't care about the product, they did it because of how newsstand distributors not caring about the product affected them. But they didn't switch, they simply added new distributors.

 

The emphasis of their business SWITCHED to the Direct Market.

The majority of their business SWITCHED to the Direct Market.

The new ideas and new books and energy went into the Direct Market.

Their growth, and print increases, and success in the 90's came from the Direct Market.

Some of that success may have spilled back INTO the newsstand sales... but the publishers had turned the corner.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Direct distributors and retailers promoted the comics. Guess how often the newsstand channel put any effort into helping the publishers sell their product.

 

Right. Another reason for publishers to use to abandon the newsstand.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

That was not a direct response to you.

Like I said, that's fine. But comics were slowly dying because of that system and everything that came with it.

 

And the Direct Market, which they soon pumped all their energy into, gave them the greatest sales spike in the last 60 years.

Of course they turned their back on the newsstands at the time - they'd have been fools not too.

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

 

http://classic.tcj.com/history/a-comics-journal-history-of-the-direct-market-part-one/

That pretty much says what I've been saying.

Comics were sold through the newsstand. Publishers got a better deal through the DM. They shifted the business emphasis to that. Did it save it or doom it?

That's... that's what I said.

Somehow you turned YOUR arguing point of "the newsstand system abandoned comics" (which I took issue with and you conceded) into all of THIS other stuff.

 

 

[Prince Namor]

5 hours ago, catman76 said:

Comic books as a popular form of entertainment is dead, the "mainstream" or whatever you want to call it, Marvel and DC, are just superhero inbred stuff, no one can just pick up a comic for simple entertainment any more, not for 30 plus years at least. The mainstream comics just need to die already, theses two companies will drive the same characters into the ground forever, it's boring. The only interesting comics now are self published stuff, mini comics, stuff published by fantagraphics, drawn and quarterly etc. They may be a very niche thing and a small audience, but at least there's a HUGE variety of different stuff to choose from and it's interesting, not just old, tired, serious superhero .

Right. The independent stuff has all the emphasis on the art of telling a story through drawings. Which is what it's all about. 

If we'd spent the last 80 years promoting THIS instead of selling a collectible, maybe comics would actually be seen as an art form, instead of a weird nerd party.

[Lazyboy]

1 hour ago, Chuck Gower said:

Quote

http://classic.tcj.com/history/a-comics-journal-history-of-the-direct-market-part-one/

That pretty much says what I've been saying.

Of course it does , because the following quotes certainly don't suggest that the newsstand system abandoned comics:

"With their low cover price and tiny profit margin, comics had become more of a nuisance than a moneymaker for distributors. Delivery of comics to magazine racks across the country had become a haphazard afterthought. If distributors paid any special attention at all to comics, it was to defraud publishers with falsified reports of unsold returns. Some comics would be reported as returns without ever having reached a store rack or newsstand."

"The low-priced comic books were held in low regard by their handlers, and if a delivery truck ran out of room, piles of comics would simply be set aside in the warehouse for next week’s delivery — or worse, to be reported as unsold returns for publisher reimbursement."

If publishers focusing on the DM (while distributing through both channels) is abandonment of the newsstand system, then the IDs focusing on their other products (to the detriment of comic sales) is abandonment of comics.

Your original wording was actually the publishers "destroying the newsstand market" but the point remains that, regardless of the specific words used, the newsstand system hurt comics first. The publishers only reacted to that and, despite a steady decline in sales, they kept using the newsstand system for decades before finally literally abandoning it.

14 hours ago, Chuck Gower said:

Somehow you turned YOUR arguing point of "the newsstand system abandoned comics" (which I took issue with and you conceded) into all of THIS other stuff.

I conceded only the wording, not the point. The point being accurate and what actually matters.

[Prince Namor]

12 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Of course it does , because the following quotes certainly don't suggest that the newsstand system abandoned comics:

"With their low cover price and tiny profit margin, comics had become more of a nuisance than a moneymaker for distributors. Delivery of comics to magazine racks across the country had become a haphazard afterthought. If distributors paid any special attention at all to comics, it was to defraud publishers with falsified reports of unsold returns. Some comics would be reported as returns without ever having reached a store rack or newsstand."

"The low-priced comic books were held in low regard by their handlers, and if a delivery truck ran out of room, piles of comics would simply be set aside in the warehouse for next week’s delivery — or worse, to be reported as unsold returns for publisher reimbursement."

If publishers focusing on the DM (while distributing through both channels) is abandonment of the newsstand system, then the IDs focusing on their other products (to the detriment of comic sales) is abandonment of comics.

Your original wording was actually the publishers "destroying the newsstand market" but the point remains that, regardless of the specific words used, the newsstand system hurt comics first. The publishers only reacted to that and, despite a steady decline in sales, they kept using the newsstand system for decades before finally literally abandoning it.

I conceded only the wording, not the point. The point being accurate and what actually matters.

So, in your world: what you BELIEVE to be true, regardless that you have NO proof of the newsstand saying any such thing or planning for it - simply that because they saw lower priced product as unattractive - that your view must be right. 

Did they abandon Juicy Fruit Gum? Or did they just marginalize their space and continue to take their money with a cold indifference to their profitability?

Meanwhile, I show you PROOF of the comics industry straight out SAYING in print, that they want to abandon the newsstand in favor of the DM, and we can literally SEE the difference in how much is on the racks vs DM stores, but that means nothing. 

Pretty much par for the course of the internet. People make up want they want to be true and then create a path of illusion to it to claim validity. 

None of your examples are necessarily wrong. I’m sure those things happened. It doesn’t mean the newsstand abandoned the comics publishers. They took their money right up to the end. 

Did they HURT the comics market? Maybe. Or maybe the publishers just put out crappy books. Either way, it wasn’t the newsstand abandoning the comics publishers. 

[Lazyboy]

2 hours ago, Chuck Gower said:

So, in your world: what you BELIEVE to be true, regardless that you have NO proof of the newsstand saying any such thing or planning for it - simply that because they saw lower priced product as unattractive - that your view must be right. 

I don't care about what they might have said. I don't care about what they planned. I care about what they did.

You said the publishers destroyed the newsstand market. They didn't. The distributors and retailers did that. The publishers only reacted to their actions.

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Meanwhile, I show you PROOF of the comics industry straight out SAYING in print, that they want to abandon the newsstand in favor of the DM,

You can claim and even prove all the examples you want of (people working for) publishers saying they should or wanted to abandon the newsstands. It's all irrelevant because they didn't actually do it (until very recently). THEY. DID. NOT. DO. IT.

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and we can literally SEE the difference in how much is on the racks vs DM stores, but that means nothing. 

We can see what's there now, and there's no argument about that, but were talking about what happened decades ago.

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None of your examples are necessarily wrong. I’m sure those things happened. It doesn’t mean the newsstand abandoned the comics publishers. They took their money right up to the end. 

And the publishers continued to take the money from the newsstand sales, but they didn't count on it because they knew they couldn't.

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Did they HURT the comics market? Maybe. Or maybe the publishers just put out crappy books. Either way, it wasn’t the newsstand abandoning the comics publishers. 

If the problem wasn't the distribution system, there must have been some publisher or at least some title that was doing well, right? They couldn't all have been total garbage, could they?

If the problem wasn't the distribution system, how could sales possibly be higher in a new distribution system?

 

Since you seem to like Jim Shooter and Chuck Rozanski so much, maybe you should read these:

http://jimshooter.com/2011/11/comic-book-distribution.html/

http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg95.html

Edited June 29, 2018 by Lazyboy

[Prince Namor]

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

I don't care about what they might have said. I don't care about what they planned. I care about what they did.

 

And what they did was shift their focus more and more to the Direct Market.

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

You said the publishers destroyed the newsstand market. They didn't. The distributors and retailers did that. The publishers only reacted to their actions.

They all had a hand in it, but once they went primarily with the Direct Market, they didn't have to rely upon it.

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

You can claim and even prove all the examples you want of (people working for) publishers saying they should or wanted to abandon the newsstands. It's all irrelevant because they didn't actually do it (until very recently). THEY. DID. NOT. DO. IT.

 

In other words... they did it. I didn't say they did it overnight, just that the plan was in place to phase it out.

Avengers from Comichron:

1980 - 440,819 total copies printed - 235,791 paid circulation

1989 - 330,300 total copies printed - 201,600 paid circulation

1994 - 253,950 total copies printed - 165,408 paid circulation

1999 - 175,250 total copies printed - 123,078 paid circulation

2003 -   69,749 total copies printed -   73,362 paid circulation

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

We can see what's there now, and there's no argument about that, but were talking about what happened decades ago.

1

There were less comics on the newsstands in the 70's than there were in the 60's.

There were less comics on the newsstand in the 80's than there were in the 90's.

If the 90's saw any spike in newsstand copies, it was because of the success of the DM.

There were less comics on the newsstand in the 00's than the 90's.

Etc.

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

And the publishers continued to take the money from the newsstand sales, but they didn't count on it because they knew they couldn't.

If the problem wasn't the distribution system, there must have been some publisher or at least some title that was doing well, right? They couldn't all have been total garbage, could they?

 

The distribution system WAS a problem. That's one of the reason's they shifted their focus to a distribution system that better benefitted them.

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

If the problem wasn't the distribution system, how could sales possibly be higher in a new distribution system?

NOWHERE did I say, the newsstand distribution system was GOOD.

Once again, this is some type of weird internet thing where, because I DIDN'T say how I specifically saw the newsstand distribution system, instead of ask, you automatically assumed I was championing its existence. No.

Sales reached the highest point they'd been in decades thanks to the Direct Market boom of the 90's. That wouldn't have happened in the newsstand system.

3 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

 

Since you seem to like Jim Shooter and Chuck Rozanski so much, maybe you should read these:

http://jimshooter.com/2011/11/comic-book-distribution.html/

http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg95.html

Comics shifted their focus to the Direct Market. It was more profitable, and the suckers would buy anything they printed, and they didn't have to worry about returns.

They SLOWLY phased out the reliance upon an antiquated newsstand system that didn't benefit them, and that sucked.

[Lazyboy]

30 minutes ago, Chuck Gower said:

The distribution system WAS a problem. That's one of the reason's they shifted their focus to a distribution system that better benefitted them.

 

Once again, this is some type of weird internet thing where, because I DIDN'T say how I specifically saw the newsstand distribution system, instead of ask, you automatically assumed I was championing its existence. No.

Have you forgotten that this argument started when you took exception to my posting "The newsstand system abandoned comics before comics abandoned the newsstand system."?

You started defending the system and saying it was all the doing of the publishers. You even did it again in your previous post: "Or maybe the publishers just put out crappy books. Either way, it wasn’t the newsstand abandoning the comics publishers."

The actions of the participants in newsstand system nearly killed the comics industry before people like Shooter (BTW, he says he was against abandoning the newsstand market, contrary to your earlier assertion) or Kalish had any power to even suggest abandoning the system and before there was another realistic option.

[Prince Namor]

On 6/29/2018 at 5:03 PM, Lazyboy said:

Have you forgotten that this argument started when you took exception to my posting "The newsstand system abandoned comics before comics abandoned the newsstand system."?

 

The newsstand DIDN'T abandon comics. They continued to carry them. Up until comics stopped sending them.

Sure, they may not have spotlighted the lower yielding profit item as much as comics wanted - they may have played loose with the returns (was that JUST for comics, or did they do that with magazines as well? Seems there'd be bigger profit in ripping off magazines, since the price was higher) - but they continued to carry them.

They never did abandon them.

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You started defending the system and saying it was all the doing of the publishers. You even did it again in your previous post: "Or maybe the publishers just put out crappy books. Either way, it wasn’t the newsstand abandoning the comics publishers."

 

It WASN'T the newsstand abandoning publishers. They still accepted the product.

That's not defending them. It's fact.

And I never said it was ALL the doing of the publishers. 

Because there MAY have been more reasons to lesser sales at the newsstand than it being JUST the newsstands fault as YOU say. That's' NOT ME saying the newsstand didn't have any fault. Just that there MAY have been other reasons that added to declining sales.

REMEMBER: comics DOUBLED in price by 1975 from 12 cents to 25 cents and were up to 40 cents by the end of the decade (that's 3 1/2 times the price in 10 years). Marvel and DC played price games with expanded sized comics, going back and forth. We had an economic recession in 73-75 and in early 80-83 - Jack Kirby left Marvel in early 1970 and Stan Lee wasn't too far from leaving after that (that's 2/3rds of what made Marvel popular in the 60's now gone) - Marvel had an atrociously inconsistent publishing schedule in the 70's up until Shooter took over in the late 70's and got it on track by the end of the decade... AND Marvel during the 70's DID put out a lot of stuff that just didn't work - call it crappy or call it a miss, call it whatever you want - but Captain Savage, Homer, the Happy Ghost, Petey, Harvey, Lil Kids, Spoof, reprint titles, horror reprint titles, western reprint titles (this is all just the YEAR 1970), glutted the stands and maybe even pushed their own premium titles out of the way.

And what was DC glutting the market with in 1970? Binky, Binky's Buddies, Date with Debbi, Debbie's Dates, Jerry Lewis, Hot Wheels, Swing with Scooter, Sugar and Spike, Three Mousketeers, Wonder Woman in street clothes, a ton of romance, a ton of war....

Is it the newsstands fault if they want to cut back on the amount of space a lesser profit item has and that publisher keeps sending them more and more books? Who's really at fault there?

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The actions of the participants in newsstand system nearly killed the comics industry

 

Killing it? Marvel went from 24 titles a month in the early 70's to 40+ by the middle of the decade. 

DC consistently did 35-36 a month through the same period.

They may not have been as healthy as they wanted - they may not have had the terms and the situation they wanted - but both publishers grew during this period and Marvel even went into better offices... I don't see any signs they were being 'killed'. 

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before people like Shooter (BTW, he says he was against abandoning the newsstand market, contrary to your earlier assertion)

 

Shooter is infamous for rewriting HIS part in the history of comics.

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or Kalish had any power to even suggest abandoning the system and before there was another realistic option.

Well of course. How could they abandon it before there was an alternative?

Edited July 2, 2018 by Chuck Gower

[ComicConnoisseur]

On 6/28/2018 at 6:24 AM, Chuck Gower said:

Right. The independent stuff has all the emphasis on the art of telling a story through drawings. Which is what it's all about. 

If we'd spent the last 80 years promoting THIS instead of selling a collectible, maybe comics would actually be seen as an art form, instead of a weird nerd party.

Agreed.

Everytime I tell non-comic book people I collect comics the first thing they say is I hear comic books are worth a lot of money, then they ask if their junk generic pile of comic books they got are valuable.

Never have they asked me what is a good comic book to read.

It is all about if the comics have money value, and never if the stories are worth reading to them. 

Kind of sad if you think about it.

Edited July 1, 2018 by ComicConnoisseur