Something has to change: Views on Comic stores viability. 0

[Bronty]

1) There's never been fewer readers of new monthly comic books.

2) Costs of reading new monthly comics have never been higher.

3) There have never been more alternatives to read the same stories (floppies, digital, TPB, etc).

4) There have never been more alternatives to read similar stories (mountains of back issues and endless streams of reprints).

5) There have never been more entertainment alternatives for those who might consider reading.

6) For retailers of monthly comics, the costs of running a brick and mortar store, generally speaking, have never been higher

7) For retailers of monthly comics, they have never faced fiercer competition (an entire online world of choices from where to buy your comics).

 

Add it all up and you're better off selling MTG cards, by a landslide.  

[thehumantorch]

2 minutes ago, Bronty said:

1) There's never been fewer readers of new monthly comic books.

2) Costs of reading new monthly comics have never been higher.

3) There have never been more alternatives to read the same stories (floppies, digital, TPB, etc).

4) There have never been more alternatives to read similar stories (mountains of back issues and endless streams of reprints).

5) There have never been more entertainment alternatives for those who might consider reading.

6) For retailers of monthly comics, the costs of running a brick and mortar store, generally speaking, have never been higher

7) For retailers of monthly comics, they have never faced fiercer competition (an entire online world of choices from where to buy your comics).

 

Add it all up and you're better off selling MTG cards, by a landslide.  

Great post    There's a reason most comic shops sell MTG or other non comic items.

[Bronty]

Hi Dave 

[SteppinRazor]

18 hours ago, Park said:

I there needs to be some reorganization in the next few years with both DC and Marvel. The question is do they actually care if the floppy market goes away?.

Not DC and Marvel, their parent companies - do their parent companies care?  Pretty clearly no, IMO.

[batman_fan]

I look at myself as part of the problem.  I had a hold box since about 1986 through 2010.  During that time, I slowly reduced my hold back to the point where I picked up Batman, Detective, and any Batman the Animated titles.  When I moved, I had to find a new place to do setback but I found I really didn't have a desire to read the new stuff and actually hadn't for quite a while.  In general, I don't care for the artwork and the stories are pretty poor based on my preferences.  Now I only read the new stuff in trades and I don't read much of it.  Similarly I have a friend who is younger that had a huge hold box and he just cancelled it.  They bought some property and he has been doing a house on it and he found he didn't really care for the new stuff that much and the $200 to $400 he saved each month help out with getting his property set up quite a bit. 

[Bronty]

21 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

I look at myself as part of the problem.  I had a hold box since about 1986 through 2010.  During that time, I slowly reduced my hold back to the point where I picked up Batman, Detective, and any Batman the Animated titles.  When I moved, I had to find a new place to do setback but I found I really didn't have a desire to read the new stuff and actually hadn't for quite a while.  In general, I don't care for the artwork and the stories are pretty poor based on my preferences.  Now I only read the new stuff in trades and I don't read much of it.  Similarly I have a friend who is younger that had a huge hold box and he just cancelled it.  They bought some property and he has been doing a house on it and he found he didn't really care for the new stuff that much and the $200 to $400 he saved each month help out with getting his property set up quite a bit. 

I can relate to that, I think a lot of us have a similar story.    Bought new books out of inertia/ habit for a long time and then didn't miss it in the least when we stopped.    Some did it for longer than others, but the point is, many of us enjoy collecting more than reading at this point.    So... buying worthless books to read for a monthly bill makes zero sense.

Truth is the older stories aren't really any better.   So much garbage from 1940-1980 too.    I see the 80s as the best time to have been a reader, with endless amounts of great stories coming out, but I'm sure that's colored by the fact I was a kid then.

At any rate, one can really only read so many comic books before one would rather do something else.     Its on the comic companies to hook new readers, but with the trends in society going 180 degrees AWAY from this sort of thing, I don't really see how they can.     They've already lost a generation, and its not going to get better.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Bronty

[the blob]

I think we may be underestimating how many people view digital comics. My son multitasks. He will be pretending to do his homework while playing fortnight/call of duty/whatever while playing music on his phone and having a comic READ TO HIM on his iPad. There is a guy who does voice overs on comics. Each one I saw had 150k+++ views. 150,000+++ people have had some issue of deadpool read to them while 35,000 people bought the comic. I assume marvel gets nothing from the guy doing story time on YouTube.

Edited January 6, 2019 by the blob

[Bronty]

5 minutes ago, the blob said:

I think we may be underestimating how many people view digital comics. My son multitask. He will be pretending to do his homework while playing fortnight/call of duty/whatever while playing music on his phone and having a comic READ TO HIM on his iPad. There is a guy who does voice overs on comics. Each one I saw had 150k+++ views. 150,000+++ people have had some issue of deadpool read to them while 35,000 people bought the comic. I assume marvel gets nothing from the guy doing story time on YouTube.

You and I drew different conclusions from your facts:

- If marvel makes $1 per copy on the comic.  

That's 35k a month, for the flagship title for one of their biggest characters?    The print division is literally a waste of time for them except as an IP generator.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Bronty

[Bomber-Bob]

The selection of Back issues at most LCS are miserable. I used to buy new comics to have a 'shot' at some newly arriving back issues but it never happens anymore. I quit and I could honestly care less if they all close up their doors. It was nice while it lasted but the LCS is just another relic of the past.

[the blob]

2 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

Not DC and Marvel, their parent companies - do their parent companies care?  Pretty clearly no, IMO.

Only to the extent that it is a good way to generate new stories, characters, etc. that may be used elsewhere. If it can pay for itself, even turn a profit (my understanding is that publishing still makes nmoney right? And did even when marvel went bankrupt. Of course, arguably 55+ years of publishing for marvel, etc has generated plenty of stories and characters, but heck, some of the recent movies (and future ones) and shows have new characters..  Miles Morales, Ronin, etc

Edited January 6, 2019 by the blob

[batman_fan]

8 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I can relate to that, I think a lot of us have a similar story.    Bought new books out of inertia/ habit for a long time and then didn't miss it in the least when we stopped.    Some did it for longer than others, but the point is, many of us enjoy collecting more than reading at this point.    So... buying worthless books to read for a monthly bill makes zero sense.

Truth is the older stories aren't really any better.   So much garbage from 1940-1980 too.    I see the 80s as the best time to have been a reader, with endless amounts of great stories coming out, but I'm sure that's colored by the fact I was a kid then.

At any rate, one can really only read so many comic books before one would rather do something else.     Its on the comic companies to hook new readers, but with the trends in society going 180 degrees AWAY from this sort of thing, I don't really see how they can.     They've already lost a generation, and its not going to get better.

I really tried to get my son into it.  He went to the comic stores and I would buy him anything he wanted, starting going to shows before he could walk.  The only think he was ever interested in was the Star Wars merchandise and maybe the medieval weapons.  Never interested in comics.  That said, he loves the marvel and DC movies.

I agree on the material quality.  The 1940s stories are pretty horrendous and many books with great covers have really low quality artwork on the interior.  My favorite stuff is probably the 1960s, 70s and a little into the 80s.  I think the Ditko Spiderman stories are still really good.  Some of the Fantastic Four stuff is great to as is the early Daredevil stuff.  Neal Adams batman stuff is great too.

[the blob]

2 minutes ago, Bronty said:

You and I drew different conclusions from your facts:

- If marvel makes $1 per copy on the comic.  

That's 35k a month, for the flagship title for one of their biggest characters?    The print division is literally a waste of time for them except as an IP generator.

Not at all. See my next post. IP generation is huge. It is why Time Warner kept DC comics alive. (although during the death of superman/Batman broken back period I assume publishing made decent money). 

[the blob]

7 minutes ago, Bronty said:

You and I drew different conclusions from your facts:

- If marvel makes $1 per copy on the comic.  

That's 35k a month, for the flagship title for one of their biggest characters?    The print division is literally a waste of time for them except as an IP generator.

Also, is there any data on regular digital downloads? A few of my coworkers who would not go in a shop read digitally and I see a lot of people on the subway reading comics on tablets. Anecdotal, I know. I even see people reading floppies on the subway. How many subscribers does the marvel thing that has everything have? I assume new stuff is not uploaded there for a while?

[Bronty]

9 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

I really tried to get my son into it.  He went to the comic stores and I would buy him anything he wanted, starting going to shows before he could walk.  The only think he was ever interested in was the Star Wars merchandise and maybe the medieval weapons.  Never interested in comics.  That said, he loves the marvel and DC movies.

I agree on the material quality.  The 1940s stories are pretty horrendous and many books with great covers have really low quality artwork on the interior.  My favorite stuff is probably the 1960s, 70s and a little into the 80s.  I think the Ditko Spiderman stories are still really good.  Some of the Fantastic Four stuff is great to as is the early Daredevil stuff.  Neal Adams batman stuff is great too.

There's lots of fabulous arcs, of course.    But pick a random comic from a random month, from 1939 to 2019, chances are you aren't enjoying the story much, at least at our age.    So a monthly subscription is asking for punishment.

[Bronty]

7 minutes ago, the blob said:

Also, is there any data on regular digital downloads? A few of my coworkers who would not go in a shop read digitally and I see a lot of people on the subway reading comics on tablets. Anecdotal, I know. I even see people reading floppies on the subway. How many subscribers does the marvel thing that has everything have? I assume new stuff is not uploaded there for a while?

I understand there to be a six month blackout digitally.

I'm not sure the digital stuff amounts to a hill of beans other than to help plug a hole or two on the sinking ship.

Without the movies, this goose would already be cooked.

So if this whole industry is just there to hatch movie ideas, is it any wonder that brick and mortar stores for readers are failing?

[batman_fan]

2 minutes ago, Bronty said:

There's lots of fabulous arcs, of course.    But pick a random comic from a random month, from 1939 to 2019, chances are you aren't enjoying the story much, at least at our age.    So a monthly subscription is asking for punishment.

Yep, so much of it is pretty goofy best case and a lot of the titles are just really repetitive like most DC titles form beginning to end.  I love the GA Batman's but try reading that stuff 

[Bronty]

Just now, batman_fan said:

Yep, so much of it is pretty goofy best case and a lot of the titles are just really repetitive like most DC titles form beginning to end.  I love the GA Batman's but try reading that stuff 

Yeah I hear that.   Sometimes you wonder how they got so popular, but then you just have to put yourself back in that time.    Kids didn't need much, and had few choices.    

That's just not true anymore.

Can't fault the publishers or creators either.   WTF can come up with Illustrated works of Shakespeare month to month ?  Not going to happen.

[the blob]

5 minutes ago, Bronty said:

There's lots of fabulous arcs, of course.    But pick a random comic from a random month, from 1939 to 2019, chances are you aren't enjoying the story much, at least at our age.    So a monthly subscription is asking for punishment.

My son likes comics, but he needs to have the whole story arc, so he will only read an unbroken run on a title. And multi title cross overs? Forget it. At the end of the day he prefers reading 4-8 issues at once in a tpb. Hard to get him to try something new though. Handed him a stack of goon tpbs, he said he would read them, but they gathered dust. Handed him a stack of dark horse star wars tpbs and he gobbled them up and asked me if I could get more (of course I could, but not at $3 a pop like I paid for the stack)

[the blob]

8 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I understand there to be a six month blackout digitally.

I'm not sure the digital stuff amounts to a hill of beans other than to help plug a hole or two on the sinking ship.

Without the movies, this goose would already be cooked.

So if this whole industry is just there to hatch movie ideas, is it any wonder that brick and mortar stores for readers are failing?

Do you have access to Marvel's books? Like I said, I understood publishing to turn a profit, albeit a small one relative to other aspects of the business. I suspect sales could triple and get you into the respectability zone (frankly, not far from "better times" in terms of circulation) and Marvel's publishing profits would still only be a small fraction of the profits from antman and the wasp, which I am guessing was the least profitable one recently?

[Bronty]

20 minutes ago, the blob said:

Do you have access to Marvel's books? Like I said, I understood publishing to turn a profit, albeit a small one relative to other aspects of the business. I suspect sales could triple and get you into the respectability zone (frankly, not far from "better times" in terms of circulation) and Marvel's publishing profits would still only be a small fraction of the profits from antman and the wasp, which I am guessing was the least profitable one recently?

agreed,

And no I don't have access to and didn't look up, if its public, the divisional profits.

But the point is, when guys like batman fan and I stop reading comics, I find it hard to believe those readers are being replaced (circulation numbers would suggest that).

Out of that 35,000, how many are middle age guys that are probably going to stop reading at some point, and not be replaced?    If its half, can the print division survive in a world where one of their IP superstars sells 17,500 a month?  Seems shaky (again, unless they just keep it around as an idea factory).

Anyways.   I think we're all mostly in agreement on the big picture concerns.   The publishing side seems shaky.   The brick and mortar side seems like suicide.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Bronty