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

[justafan]

1 minute 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.

With the exception of reading to my children I have to agree.  I cringe at some of the dialog and plots in SA ASM's I'm reading right now.  However, I do relish the tactile and olfactory stimulus I receive and share with the kids in holding these 80 year old comics that just happen to be worth $200+ currently.  Certain back issues will be in demand for while to come.  However, with the modern stuff, I get none of that enjoyment.  Some of the stories are too mature for my kids and most are drivel.  The comics neither feel, look, or smell the same as my SA/BA/CA or mid modern issues.  The art also sucks.  I feel like I'm in the same boat as a lot of you on here who've realized they are just buying comics for the sake of their collections but not actually enjoying or reading them. 

When you step back and look at the whole purpose of comics and why comics ever existed you realize the medium has already long been surpassed and Marvel and DC have already moved into their future replacement.

Comics used to be the only medium for portraying the most fantastic, outlandish, exaggerated stories that could be printed.  Kids and adults could immerse themselves in brilliant fantasy for only a few cents.  Radio was the primary medium at the time that could spur the imagination with special effects that were not seen but only heard and allowed our imaginations to produce imagery for.  However, radio was eventually was replaced by TV but special effects could never match what could come to life in comics back then.  Gradually and eventually animation on television started to catch up and somewhat replace what existed in comics.  I for one preferred the Transformers and GI Joe as well as TNMT and He-man cartoons to those in comics.  But Spider-man, Superman, and Batman comics couldn't be beat by the cartoons and live action shows from the 70's and 80's.  Though I did really like Spidey and his amazing friends.  Then came the special effects of the 80's and 90's with CGI and better anime.  Suddenly there was hope and possibility with well written Batman and X-men cartoon TV series and movies but with only rare exception were any big screen adaptations able to be produced so most of us fans still had to rely on comics to quench our thirst for out of this world superhero action. 

And then came the break through blockbuster movies and animated TV series of the 2000's.  Of course this did wonders for back issue sales but the primary driver for moderns was the hope that a future story arc or character would cross over or appear in the next big Marvel/DC movie.  However, that just never panned out and there seems to be such a big disconnect between the movies and comics that you don't need to read them to enjoy the movies which are now providing a far better product and medium for telling those fantastic, outlandish, and exaggerated stories that we yearn for.  Instead of paying $5-6 a month for 1 comic, I can now get a whole netflix series (or soon to be Disney series) of animated spider-man, Batman, or live-action MCU and DCU movies for just $9.99/month. 

Not sure when print comics will die out but I for one would rather watch 30min - 5hours of my comics for $10/month vs read them 1 comic/month at $5/month for only 10 min of entertainment.  In fact I would prefer if the comics would simply morph into an animated series for all current moderns but hopefully with better writing and stories.

[Mercury Man]

I keep going back to this, but I think Marvel and DC should scale back to about 10 total titles.  Marvel for example should have the following 9 flagship titles monthly:

Amazing Spiderman

Avengers

Black Panther

Captain America & The Falcon

Daredevil

Fantastic Four

Hulk

Iron Man

X-Men

Then the other 1 title  should be 6 issue mini-series (this would allow them to showcase 2 more heroes or teams per year).  Here they can rotate in and out whoever they want- Thor, Deadpool, Punisher, Defenders, Silver Surfer, Ms. Marvel, Inhumans etc. etc.  When I look at the weekly release schedule right now, it's really hard to get excited about 75% of what they are offering. 

Lean and mean would help their readership and bottom line. 

[Bronty]

1 minute ago, Mercury Man said:

I keep going back to this, but I think Marvel and DC should scale back to about 10 total titles.  Marvel for example should have the following 9 flagship titles monthly:

Amazing Spiderman

Avengers

Black Panther

Captain America & The Falcon

Daredevil

Fantastic Four

Hulk

Iron Man

X-Men

Then the other 1 title  should be 6 issue mini-series (this would allow them to showcase 2 more heroes or teams per year).  Here they can rotate in and out whoever they want- Thor, Deadpool, Punisher, Defenders, Silver Surfer, Ms. Marvel, Inhumans etc. etc.  When I look at the weekly release schedule right now, it's really hard to get excited about 75% of what they are offering. 

Lean and mean would help their readership and bottom line. 

For the print division, I'm sure lean and mean would be great.   But if the whole point of your print division is to generate ideas for the places where you actually make money, you want to have more going on.

[the blob]

My main shop also sells sports cards, comics. Pokemon, majik, toys, pops, statues... Whatever he can squeeze a buck out of. Retail seems a brute unless you own the property.

[Ken Aldred]

1 hour ago, Bronty said:

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.

I feel that modern comics get too much criticism for being generally inferior to product from decades past.  There are still some very high quality titles, hidden amongst mediocrity and garbage.  In other words, exactly the same as it's always been.

An interesting game that supports this is to pick a month from the GA or SA or BA in the Newsstand section of dcindexes.com and be surprised at how little of outstanding, lasting quality was actually published during these fondly-remembered olden days.  

Edited January 6, 2019 by Ken Aldred

[Krydel4]

11 hours ago, Mercury Man said:

I keep going back to this, but I think Marvel and DC should scale back to about 10 total titles.  Marvel for example should have the following 9 flagship titles monthly:

Amazing Spiderman

Avengers

Black Panther

Captain America & The Falcon

Daredevil

Fantastic Four

Hulk

Iron Man

X-Men

Then the other 1 title  should be 6 issue mini-series (this would allow them to showcase 2 more heroes or teams per year).  Here they can rotate in and out whoever they want- Thor, Deadpool, Punisher, Defenders, Silver Surfer, Ms. Marvel, Inhumans etc. etc.  When I look at the weekly release schedule right now, it's really hard to get excited about 75% of what they are offering. 

Lean and mean would help their readership and bottom line. 

I agree with this, however, it probably should be 12 to 15 titles with an anthology series included to try out new characters and ideas ( like the old Marvel Premiere, Showcase, B & B etc.) and 1 team up title. I feel if each book has a different look and feel with the big guns (Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, X-Men etc.) they could support 2 books. But no variants. As they are sucking dry the industry. But I doubt the publishers would ever go for anything close to this.

[the blob]

11 hours ago, Bronty said:

For the print division, I'm sure lean and mean would be great.   But if the whole point of your print division is to generate ideas for the places where you actually make money, you want to have more going on.

So you (not you bring) would cut deadpool and wolverine, 2 of their biggest sellers? You are going to a late 60s selection. I don't think they need anything this dramatic even if arguably they have 2x as many titles as they should. Not to mention, that is putting a lot of people out of work.  Spiderman had 4 titles going in 1984. It does not need to be that limited. 2-3 new releases a week is silly. Readership is not going to suddenly jump to 500k on these remaining titles just because of fewer options. There are probably only 100-150,000 people out there who would even think about buying marvel comics monthly. 

Edited January 7, 2019 by the blob

[Bronty]

5 hours ago, the blob said:

So you (not you bring) would cut deadpool and wolverine, 2 of their biggest sellers? You are going to a late 60s selection. I don't think they need anything this dramatic even if arguably they have 2x as many titles as they should. Not to mention, that is putting a lot of people out of work.  Spiderman had 4 titles going in 1984. It does not need to be that limited. 2-3 new releases a week is silly. Readership is not going to suddenly jump to 500k on these remaining titles just because of fewer options. There are probably only 100-150,000 people out there who would even think about buying marvel comics monthly. 

Wasn't my list!   I agree that that you need to keep deadpool and wolverine

[Bronty]

16 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

I feel that modern comics get too much criticism for being generally inferior to product from decades past.  There are still some very high quality titles, hidden amongst mediocrity and garbage.  In other words, exactly the same as it's always been.

An interesting game that supports this is to pick a month from the GA or SA or BA in the Newsstand section of dcindexes.com and be surprised at how little of outstanding, lasting quality was actually published during these fondly-remembered olden days.  

Oh totally.   90% was drivel.   We only remember the best.

[the blob]

34 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Wasn't my list!   I agree that that you need to keep deadpool and wolverine

"Bronty" turned into "bring" via autocorrect. I am so sick of having to fix autocorrect.

[Bronty]

3 hours ago, the blob said:

"Bronty" turned into "bring" via autocorrect. I am so sick of having to fix autocorrect.

I hear that!

[Park]

Just now, Bronty said:

I hear that!

Pipe down, bring.

[Bronty]

Just now, Park said:

Pipe down, bring.

Not your best effort, Parkie.

[Park]

3 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Not your best effort, Parkie.

Oh, I had others but I didn’t want the strike that badly.

Also, bite me.

[mrwoogieman]

I'm going to stick with wagon wheel repairs and ice deliveries.

Tried and true!

[Bronty]

17 minutes ago, Park said:

Oh, I had others but I didn’t want the strike that badly.

Also, bite me.

I almost called you "eyebrows" and then remembered I have to save that for someone else

[Park]

21 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I almost called you "eyebrows" and then remembered I have to save that for someone else

Yeah, we have to play nice out here.

Except for Eyebrows. Screw that guy.

[Bookery]

I think the whole "the industry needs comics to generate IP" is probably a myth.  If a title is only being read by 35,000 people or so (the population of one small municipality), why would creating a character there make any difference to the 99% of the populace that will never have heard of said character come movie time?  Besides, new characters can be introduced in video games, on YouTube, even in TV commercials.  But with likely over 10,000 trademarked characters out there already, do you even need to ever invent a new one?  There's enough heroes and villains out there already to populate the movies for the next 100 years, and fans will tire of the genre long before that.  Besides, it makes more sense to intro a character in a movie itself, where it can be seen by millions and judged solo-sequel worthy in and of itself.  I suspect print comics exist as much through corporate inertia at this point as anything.  But I predict, in the next 2-5 years, one of the Big Two (probably Disney) will announce, with little warning, that they are ceasing print publication save for select trades and expensive limited editions.

[chrisco37]

36 minutes ago, Park said:

Yeah, we have to play nice out here.

Except for Eyebrows. Screw that guy.

[batman_fan]

1 hour ago, Bookery said:

I think the whole "the industry needs comics to generate IP" is probably a myth.  If a title is only being read by 35,000 people or so (the population of one small municipality), why would creating a character there make any difference to the 99% of the populace that will never have heard of said character come movie time?  Besides, new characters can be introduced in video games, on YouTube, even in TV commercials.  But with likely over 10,000 trademarked characters out there already, do you even need to ever invent a new one?  There's enough heroes and villains out there already to populate the movies for the next 100 years, and fans will tire of the genre long before that.  Besides, it makes more sense to intro a character in a movie itself, where it can be seen by millions and judged solo-sequel worthy in and of itself.  I suspect print comics exist as much through corporate inertia at this point as anything.  But I predict, in the next 2-5 years, one of the Big Two (probably Disney) will announce, with little warning, that they are ceasing print publication save for select trades and expensive limited editions.

A lot of good points in your post.  Using the movies to introduce new characters is a way to reach a wider audience and test drive them.  Similar, you have the animated stuff to do similar.  I can't imagine it is real profitable doing the comic books for the publishers but when you are responsible for publishing comics that is what you do.  It is a very rare individual that would go to their management and say "we have tried to make this work but it isn't and we so no way of changing it". It more goes the path of coming up with some big idea that will take it to the next level and then when that fails, on to the next big idea.