1950's war comics Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 6 hours ago, kav said: Me too. It would require someone who wanted to try something new, who didnt care if it worked or not because they are cancelling everything anyway. It would be some nobody with more talent than the pros, of which there are quite a few of, BTW, who will never ever manage to break into comics. yep ... just like Stan Lee FoggyNelson and kav 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coverless 9.8 Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 I hereby proclaim all users of free comic internet sites to also be free of blame in the demise of comics! Corporation bad, pirates good! ttfitz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the blob Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 2 hours ago, Coverless 9.8 said: I hereby proclaim all users of free comic internet sites to also be free of blame in the demise of comics! Corporation bad, pirates good! My illiterate children watch the youtube videos where folks read the comics. they really do have a better grasp of recent comicdom that I do. my 9 year old has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of star wars comics cannon, but I think he has read about 2 of them in his life in hand. tvindy and awakeintheashes 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cms1 Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 If there is money to be made a company would buy them and after seeing the success of Marvel with Disney I am sure other companies would be eager to pick DC comics up if not for the movie and tv right alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awakeintheashes Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, the blob said: My illiterate children watch the youtube videos where folks read the comics. they really do have a better grasp of recent comicdom that I do. my 9 year old has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of star wars comics cannon, but I think he has read about 2 of them in his life in hand. On the Marvel HQ channel? My son loves those same videos. It’s the fact that these people are READING the comics that give me hope for the industry. After watching these, he was thrilled to go to the comic book store and loves to pick out stories from my Marvel Unlimited account. Edited November 25, 2020 by awakeintheashes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the blob Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 (edited) 16 minutes ago, awakeintheashes said: On the Marvel HQ channel? My son loves those same videos. It’s the fact that these people are READING the comics that give me hope for the industry. After watching these, he was thrilled to go to the comic book store and loves to pick out stories from my Marvel Unlimited account. I'll ask them where they get them. It is better than watching some insufficiently_thoughtful_persons playing video games and saying dumb stuff, which they also watch. too much of. With remote school they are in front of the screen all day. it is really bad. Edited November 25, 2020 by the blob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvindy Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 1 hour ago, the blob said: I'll ask them where they get them. Please do. I'd love to check out that YouTube channel. I looked up awakeintheashes' suggestion that it was the Marvel HQ channel and found this playlist. But it only has 12 videos, and they are only of very recent comics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the blob Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 5 hours ago, cms1 said: If there is money to be made a company would buy them and after seeing the success of Marvel with Disney I am sure other companies would be eager to pick DC comics up if not for the movie and tv right alone. Is Time Warner about to go bankrupt? I didn't read the article, but are they thinking of unloading the DC properties or just scaling back on publishing? I don't think this is a Marvel firesale in the 1990s situation. Time Warner just wants to lose less money in publishing. I am not sure that, other than maybe during some period in the 90s, they ever really made money in publishing. Maybe they can no longer justify the losses in publishing used to generate IP as they have a huge quantity of character and story lines and other stuff already they can utilize for TV and movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookery Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 23 minutes ago, the blob said: Is Time Warner about to go bankrupt? I didn't read the article, but are they thinking of unloading the DC properties or just scaling back on publishing? I don't think this is a Marvel firesale in the 1990s situation. Time Warner just wants to lose less money in publishing. I am not sure that, other than maybe during some period in the 90s, they ever really made money in publishing. Maybe they can no longer justify the losses in publishing used to generate IP as they have a huge quantity of character and story lines and other stuff already they can utilize for TV and movies. There is no Time Warner anymore. AT&T bought out everything in 2018. They now call the entertainment subdivision WarnerMedia, but it's still part of AT&T. AT&T has $150 billion in debt. But it also has $500 billion in assets. At some point, it will likely need to shed some of those assets to cover long-term debt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookery Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 17 hours ago, kav said: Remember when Marvel was getting out of comics and they put Stan lee in charge? Hey maybe something like that will happen! Totally different situation. Had Marvel gone out of business in 1961, the comic industry would still have been successful. At the time, DC, Dell, ACG, Charlton, Harvey, Archie, Pines, were still going. A popular title was likely to sell 200,000 - 300,000 copies per month. There was still lots of demand for comic books in 1961. Instead of giving up, Marvel ended up rising to meet that demand with a more popular line-up of titles. Today popular titles sell one-tenth of what they did then, with a population nearly double the America of '61. You can come up with great material, but if people no longer enjoy the format, it won't matter. Comic characters are still very popular... but in movies, games, digital storytelling... just not in paper. ttfitz, Larryw7 and kav 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the blob Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 5 minutes ago, Bookery said: There is no Time Warner anymore. AT&T bought out everything in 2018. They now call the entertainment subdivision WarnerMedia, but it's still part of AT&T. AT&T has $150 billion in debt. But it also has $500 billion in assets. At some point, it will likely need to shed some of those assets to cover long-term debt. I could never keep it all straight. I actually used to represent them occasionally, albeit in the pre-AOL merger days. I see AT&T bought it for half as much as AOL "bought" it for 18 years earlier! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the blob Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Bookery said: Totally different situation. Had Marvel gone out of business in 1961, the comic industry would still have been successful. At the time, DC, Dell, ACG, Charlton, Harvey, Archie, Pines, were still going. A popular title was likely to sell 200,000 - 300,000 copies per month. There was still lots of demand for comic books in 1961. Instead of giving up, Marvel ended up rising to meet that demand with a more popular line-up of titles. Today popular titles sell one-tenth of what they did then, with a population nearly double the America of '61. You can come up with great material, but if people no longer enjoy the format, it won't matter. Comic characters are still very popular... but in movies, games, digital storytelling... just not in paper. Perhaps $4 for a fragile paper pamphlet someone can read in 5 minutes does not help matters. The average minimum wage in the U.S. is about $12 an hour, with some states at $7.25. So 2-3 comics an hour. In 1967 the national minimum wage was $1.60, 13 comics an hour. Your grocery store clerk could work one or two hours and take home practically every new comic that week. I know we can't have an inflation adjusted equivalent of 12 cent comics now, but if we did comics would be about $1 a pop. At $1 a pop I would (and do) buy stacks of comics every week and I suspect a lot of people would, but that price isn't feasible I guess. I do think kids of today are still cool with reading TPBs/GNs. They want the story all there in one big read. They (or they ask their parents) to buy diary of a wimpy kid, captain underpants etc, en masse. (hundreds of millions copies thus far...) and that is basically a comic book (more or less) Edited November 25, 2020 by the blob Ken Aldred and ttfitz 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tec-Tac-Toe Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 14 minutes ago, the blob said: Perhaps $4 for a fragile paper pamphlet someone can read in 5 minutes does not help matters. The average minimum wage in the U.S. is about $12 an hour, with some states at $7.25. So 2-3 comics an hour. In 1967 the national minimum wage was $1.60, 13 comics an hour. Your grocery store clerk could work one or two hours and take home practically every new comic that week. I know we can't have an inflation adjusted equivalent of 12 cent comics now, but if we did comics would be about $1 a pop. At $1 a pop I would (and do) buy stacks of comics every week and I suspect a lot of people would, but that price isn't feasible I guess. I do think kids of today are still cool with reading TPBs/GNs. They want the story all there in one big read. They (or they ask their parents) to buy diary of a wimpy kid, captain underpants etc, en masse. (hundreds of millions copies thus far...) and that is basically a comic book (more or less) Yes, new comic books are, generally, too expensive. Still, I continue to purchase a few of them every week as I hope to one day corner a part of the "market" with all my comic books when the world, or at least the USA, runs out of toilet paper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookery Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 21 minutes ago, the blob said: Perhaps $4 for a fragile paper pamphlet someone can read in 5 minutes does not help matters. The average minimum wage in the U.S. is about $12 an hour, with some states at $7.25. So 2-3 comics an hour. In 1967 the national minimum wage was $1.60, 13 comics an hour. Your grocery store clerk could work one or two hours and take home practically every new comic that week. I know we can't have an inflation adjusted equivalent of 12 cent comics now, but if we did comics would be about $1 a pop. At $1 a pop I would (and do) buy stacks of comics every week and I suspect a lot of people would, but that price isn't feasible I guess. I do think kids of today are still cool with reading TPBs/GNs. They want the story all there in one big read. They (or they ask their parents) to buy diary of a wimpy kid, captain underpants etc, en masse. (hundreds of millions copies thus far...) and that is basically a comic book (more or less) Yes... I think the cost-per-hour of entertainment is one of the biggest factors. Even if you took your time at 10 minutes per comic, that's $24+ per hour. At $10, a paperback novel may take a number of hours to read. A video game may cost $50, but might take many hours to complete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC Star&Bar Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 "Pair down" -- ? "Paired down" -- ? I wonder what pare down or pared down mean. Oh well, back to eating my pear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Get Marwood & I Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 8 minutes ago, EC Star&Bar said: "Pair down" -- ? "Paired down" -- ? I wonder what pare down or pared down mean. Oh well, back to eating my pear. Hear, hare, here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyweaknesskryptonite Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 48 minutes ago, EC Star&Bar said: "Pair down" -- ? "Paired down" -- ? I wonder what pare down or pared down mean. Oh well, back to eating my pear. 39 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said: Hear, hare, here: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Aldred Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 1 hour ago, Bookery said: A video game may cost $50, but might take many hours to complete. Easy to pick up great games for £10 to £15 which can give you hundreds of hours of play per campaign, particularly RPGs. F For Fake 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F For Fake Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 32 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said: Easy to pick up great games for £10 to £15 which can give you hundreds of hours of play per campaign, particularly RPGs. Yeah, and even console games, if you don't have to have them right away, usually drop dramatically even within a year of release. They're kinda like new cars, they start depreciating as soon as you drive them off the lot/open them. I take so long to finish games (if I finish them at all) I can usually get whatever I want for $15 or so by the time I'm ready to play it. Heck, right now I'm replaying all of the old Halo games, it's been a lot of fun! Ken Aldred 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoWitHurts Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 (edited) They should cease comic books and simply license the characters out. A smaller more nimble publisher could make it profitable. The last time I was at the DC offices was in 96. The chairs in the reception room were actually art pieces by Shiro Kuramata (How High the Moon chair). Manhattan real estate Is ridiculous expensive. I can get Batman made from my shed and the end user would not see a difference in quality. Their overhead is stupid high for them. Edited November 25, 2020 by WoWitHurts kav 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
