What happened to DC Comics?

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Vertigo titles - which do most of their business in TPB form - have also been important in improving the industry in getting a wider variety of genres into the marketplace.

Dark Horse Comics is a good publisher in this regard, too. Many their titles are media tie-ins, but at least they're getting a variety of genres out. Image started off focused on superheroes, but has got better with time in the variety of what they offer.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's all of the out-sourced artists.

 

[firehawk12]

Oh not that thread.

And, Vertigo is "adult", but I would still argue that it's targeting the same men that buy superhero stuff.
Dark Horse is nice, and they're the one "big" company that went after Manga... and I respect Image as a big publisher that has creator rights, but still, they are just dwarfed by Marvel/DC.

I just wonder if cutting back those Spider-man books and using that money and marketing in say, a slice of life type of book, maybe things would be different.

B. Clay Moore was just on the iFanboy.com podcast talking about this in a small way... although he was criticising online fanboys that love Marvel/DC and hate indie books more than anything else.

 

[Thrall]

In a nutshell?

Making a Silver Age Nazi the head hancho who then let that K-Mart Warren Ellis Grant"THE GREATEST COMIC BOOK WRITER OF ALL TIMES!! BOW BEFORE HIS GLORY!! BOW I SAID!!" Morrison play creative hackysack with their continuity. Not to say it wasn't fucked up before though. But unleashing Morrison on it is like trying to fix a broken watch with a sledge hammer. The guy lives to put his name on books and doesn't care who has to suffer for it. And then they made him an editor and let him write Infinite Crisis. So now that watch is now smashed into pulp. I don't care how many internet fan boys masterbate to issues of All-Star Superman, even Stan Lee and Chris Claermont had editors that had the balls to tell them "NO!".

 

[Captain Craig]

However, the flagship title Amazing Spider-man has lost 42% of its readership since the thrice monthly Brand New Day story began 5 months and 15 issues ago.

ASM#546 = 127,958 1/08
ASM#560 = 74,012 5/08

Hey guess what Joey Q, the fans liked the marriage and your vision of this single Spidey in this situation as best has been rejected.

FAIL.

Not really. You aren't thinking fourth dimensionally, Marty.

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/09/25/marvel-month-to-month-sales-august-2007/

For all practical purposes, this was the last month of the three separate Spider-Man titles. AMAZING, SENSATIONAL and FRIENDLY all tied up their storylines, leaving the way clear for “One More Day.”

...

Now, as we all know, AMAZING sells a lot better than its two siblings. Plainly, the hope is that Spider-Man fans will buy every issue of the merged title, while before they just bought AMAZING nine times a year, and ignored the two satellite books.

...

Well, the short answer is that Marvel will come out ahead if the merged title shifts more copies than AMAZING, FRIENDLY and SENSATIONAL are presently managing between them. But then, AMAZING doesn’t ship twelve times a year - it misses issues all over the place and never catches them up. So let’s take the whole last year as our comparison. Between September 2006 and August 2007, the three existing Spider-Man titles sold an estimated total of 2,284,676 copies in the direct market. At 36 issues a year, the new AMAZING can equal total by selling an average of 63,463 copies per issue. Which isn’t really that much. It can do that without making the top 30. I’d be very surprised if the merged book fails to beat that target.

In the grand sum of things, Spider-man is currently selling better than it did before Brand New Day.

While I don't dispute that its still spin. Losing 42% of your readers should be an important factor. Having your flagship character fall out of the top 20 in sales should be seen as important. Amazing should be in the top 30, heck top 20 most of the year.
Its May average is 74K so currently its not far of from this 63K figure. I wouldn't be surprised to see June's average fall some more, every month has since BND started. Should the 63K mark be where Marvel/Joey Q is keeping an eye then I think that his pride is clouding his judgement on what his consumers really want.

 

[TheArsenal]

Sales of the Top 300 titles through the direct market went from 76.13 million comics in 2005 to 81.85 million in 2006 to 85.27 million in 2007. So there has been success in boosting overall sales in recent years. But, yes, comics are still very much a niche market in the US. Publishers haven't come up with a way to use the popularity of comic book movies to bring in new readers in the kind of numbers required to get back to the levels of decades past.

By comparison, Manga sales in Japan are about 2 billion books a year. The Japanese sure do like their comics!

Interesting. Thanks.

 

[TemporalFlux]

While I don't dispute that its still spin. Losing 42% of your readers should be an important factor.

Let's not be under illusions, though. The high sales on Amazing directly preceding Brand New Day were event driven. The One More Day event had big sales because it was the much touted "everything changes" story that you "must read". Before that, we had the sales spike in Amazing because it was the only Spidey title tied heavily into Civil War; and Civil War was bumping up any title that had the brand name on top of it (even She-Hulk got a big boost). Before that, there was "The Other" event that abnormally boosted sales across all three Spidey titles.

The best, most recent gauge we have of honest, non-event influenced sales was Amazing Spider-man #508 (the issue before Sins Past began). That issue sold 82,268. After Sins Past, non-event issues of Amazing dropped as low as 71,065 (Amazing Spider-man #524 back in 2005). That's the range Spidey lives in when there isn't some big hullabaloo going on, and Brand New Day is 6 months stale now.

The truth is that stores order more of something that's easy to promote. It's easy to promote, "You must read this to understand Civil War!"; it's not as easy to promote, "Read this regular adventure of Spider-man!" You can call that spin if you want, but it's just the facts of the matter.

As it is, most believe that the next big Marvel event will be Mephisto related and could fix everything you're griping about with Spider-man; Marvel has been quietly building up a big, mystical Mephisto event for years now. The most dead on example was during Roberto Aguierre-Sacasa's 2005 story, "The Winding Way" (found in the Nightcrawler series from issues 7 to 11). During that story, Mephisto approaches Nightcrawler with a deal nearly identical to the one he offered Spider-man; Nightcrawler's response was to immediately punch Mephisto in the jaw.

 

[Captain Craig]

^^^
Well if we have to comparmentalize things as such and go back as far as issue #508 then yeah I see spin. I'd disagree about "The Other" as that was a self contained character growth tale but the others are event heavy.
Therein lies a big part of the problem, imo, too many "big" events and not enough character development.
I don't read across the board everything, money will not let me(I need milk, eggs and bread you know), so this buildup to a Mephisto thing is news to me. Your the first I've seen to allude to it.

The goal is for these events to attract and maintain "x" amount of readers. Spidey was doing that on some level and then *bam* an uncharacteristic deal with a devil. Like "The Other" Joey hopes that 'New Ways to Die' brings people in, and it will. I just wonder by how much. Too little too late?

42% drop, event or not says alot about what people think of your book. You don't have to go to one Con or read any blogs the bottom line of a 42% should say it loud and clear.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I used to be a BIG DC fan, however within the past 5 years the comics have become...LAME. Superman and Batman are both nearly impossible to get through. Additionally the Countdown series as well as Final Crisis have been complete crap thus far. Oh well, maybe in a few more years..........

Well... I actually think the JSA title is the best thing DC has going. It is well written and aimed right at my generation: Those of us who liked Earth Two dynamics....I also like the Brave and Bold team-ups....

Rob
Scorpio

 

[sidious618]

I've been enjoying DC's output more than ever.

 

[TheArsenal]

Well... I actually think the JSA title is the best thing DC has going. It is well written and aimed right at my generation: Those of us who liked Earth Two dynamics.

Justice Society has been my favorite book since the relaunch in 1999 or so. I am finding the current story line to be the strongest from this book yet. Unfortunately, Geoff Johns is leaving and Willingham and Sturges are taking over. I like Willingham's Fables work, don't know anything about Sturges, so we'll see how this goes.

 

[Captain Craig]

^^^
It means in about 6-9 issues they will cancel the book and 6 months after that restart it with a new #1. Cause afterall stopping and renumbering is the industry cureall standard now.

 

[Misfit Toy]

I used to be a BIG DC fan, however within the past 5 years the comics have become...LAME. Superman and Batman are both nearly impossible to get through. Additionally the Countdown series as well as Final Crisis have been complete crap thus far. Oh well, maybe in a few more years..........

Well... I actually think the JSA title is the best thing DC has going. It is well written and aimed right at my generation: Those of us who liked Earth Two dynamics....I also like the Brave and Bold team-ups....

Rob
Scorpio

Was that really worth digging up a six month old thread?

 

[RobertScorpio]

I used to be a BIG DC fan, however within the past 5 years the comics have become...LAME. Superman and Batman are both nearly impossible to get through. Additionally the Countdown series as well as Final Crisis have been complete crap thus far. Oh well, maybe in a few more years..........

Well... I actually think the JSA title is the best thing DC has going. It is well written and aimed right at my generation: Those of us who liked Earth Two dynamics....I also like the Brave and Bold team-ups....

Rob
Scorpio

Was that really worth digging up a six month old thread?

I thought so..and hey, we are talking Superman from Earth Two, well earth 22

Rob

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

I absolutely love the tone of the Green Lantern books...soooo good.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I absolutely love the tone of the Green Lantern books...soooo good.

Yeah..they have been dong GL real good for nearly a year or so....I think, after Infinite Crisis, GL has carried the company...

Rob

 

[Captain Craig]

^^^^
All they've done with GL is give themselves another half a dozen ways to reframe and retell GL-esque stories.

Trips to see the Blue Lantern world and central battery. We'll get that for each color I suppose. Stories about the most passive and/or aggressive lantern among each color. What these other Lanterns have quietly been doing in the background for so long. *YAWN*

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

^^^^
All they've done with GL is give themselves another half a dozen ways to reframe and retell GL-esque stories.

Trips to see the Blue Lantern world and central battery. We'll get that for each color I suppose. Stories about the most passive and/or aggressive lantern among each color. What these other Lanterns have quietly been doing in the background for so long. *YAWN*

*sighs* You haven't even read one have you? Oh right, I forgot you're illiterate and all you can do is watch movies.

Maybe try reading a few of these books, including the entire Sinestro Corp War books before judging it.

 

[TheArsenal]

Maybe try reading a few of these books, including the entire Sinestro Corp War books before judging it.

IMO, one of the strongest books to come out of DC in some time.

 

[Captain Craig]

^^^^
All they've done with GL is give themselves another half a dozen ways to reframe and retell GL-esque stories.

Trips to see the Blue Lantern world and central battery. We'll get that for each color I suppose. Stories about the most passive and/or aggressive lantern among each color. What these other Lanterns have quietly been doing in the background for so long. *YAWN*

*sighs* You haven't even read one have you? Oh right, I forgot you're illiterate and all you can do is watch movies.

Maybe try reading a few of these books, including the entire Sinestro Corp War books before judging it.

So because I'm not impressed with it I get needlessly and childishly insulted? I mean really where do you get off with the illiterate crap?
Because I find it less impressive than you I "must not have read them".