The Real Reasons for Marvel Comics’ Woes

theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/the-real-reasons-for-marvel-comics-woes/527127/

A pretty insightful article detailing what the fuck is going with Marvel.

>The uncertainties of the direct market are something all comics companies have to navigate, and sales gimmicks like collectible “variant” covers and special, higher-priced issues are common. Big publishers like DC and Image enthusiastically take part in these gimmicks. But Marvel pursues them at a level that puts other publishers to shame. Their primary trick is the consistent (and damaging) strategy of relaunching books with #1 issues or titles.

>In 2013, for example, the writer Al Ewing began working on Mighty Avengers, focusing on a team of community-oriented superheroes led by Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Fourteen issues later, Marvel relaunched it with a new #1 as Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, then canceled it nine issues in. In 2015, Ewing began writing both New Avengers and Ultimates, which followed characters from Mighty Avengers. Marvel relaunched both a year later—again with new #1s—as Ultimates 2 and USAvengers. Sound complicated? It gets worse: The 2013 Mighty Avengers was the third series to use the title; the 2015 Ultimates was the seventh. Both are unrelated to previous series. Such a publishing scheme is convoluted even for a committed fan; for a new reader, it’s nearly impenetrable.

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This isn't news to anyone on this board.

But it's good that normie media start talking about the matter.

True.

devastating takedown. really lays it all out, simply, clearly, with citations and evidence. should be required reading for all Marvel staff.

we all know that's not going to happen. The leadership at Marvel is dug in like a tick, and is even less flexible. removing them will be painful and result in blood loss (blood in this case meaning money). The only hope for Marvel to improve is for the Mouse Overlord to get tired of their shit and send in a corporate strike team to fix it.

I'm not going to read another captain obvious article, but here is the real reason for marvel woes:
bad comic book stories
they are cheap, underpaid and without effort

Ironically, Marvel has come full circle. In the late 90s the company was nearly bankrupt and was stuck in an ever-dwindling spiral, until they hired fresh-faced indie self-publisher Joe Quesada as their new Editor in chief. By attracting hot talent from across the board and radical new ideas for publishing Quesada saved the company from the brink and made it an industry powerhouse again.

Ironically, now the Quesada administration, currently managed by his underling Alonso, has become as moribund and stuck in their ways as the old Marvel administration was before them. They have made overabused quesada's ideas and made them into a dull, formulaic tradition which has robbed them of the impact they once had. They have become exactly the same thing they replaced.

It's time to fire them all.

>Chelsea Cain’s canceled (and very witty) Mockingbird
>very witty

>Ryan North and Erica Henderson’s Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is an unalloyed delight

It's almost like Sup Forums's opinion of those is v. wrong.

Yeah, the article makes a tons of good point but it's written by the kind of retardes that genuinely think Nick Spencer was being insensitive for mocking SJW in FalconCap ongoing.

>bad comic book stories
Quality has almost never had any correlation to sales.

Hi tumblr.

Hi user! How's it going?

Honestly, even as a pirate who hasn't bought a single comic in over a decade, I'm increasingly uninterested in following even books I get for free because they have no lifespan. Creative teams and storylines shifting like sand.

Ironically, as the stories become more and more decompressed they're an even poorer fit for these rapid turnovers. It wouldn't be so jarring if each issue was a self-contained story like they used to be

You know the old saying: You either die as a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a monster.

it's worth reading the article. TL:DR their publishing practices have a lot to do with it.

>Is there really any more harm in publishing a comic where Captain America has a romantic cup of coffee with his boyfriend Bucky than one where he’s a Nazi?

Eh, most of Sup Forums enjoyed Mockingbird except for #3 and the murderBobbi recon.

not really. I sure didn't

Yep this article definitely convinced me of their argument.

The real problem that we're gonna have in the future is that comic books are niche and really just aren't that profitable and Marvel is now owned by an international mega-conglomerate who cares only about the bottom line. Completely restructuring the publisher form the bottom up and forcing out the old cancer that's been there too long may prove to be much more difficult than just shutting them down when looking at exactly how little profit comics bring in.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Marvel reduced to a skeleton staff releasing half a dozen low effort entirely meaningless comics a month just to advertise for the next movies or series or cash in on recognizable cover heroes.

Early 2000s Marvel was fantastic. Every title had it's own, different identity and tone. It was almost as good as the pre-vertigo period Karen Berger's DC titles, only on a wider scale.

>that image

....What the fuck is that?

>In 2013, for example, the writer Al Ewing began working on Mighty Avengers, focusing on a team of community-oriented superheroes led by Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Fourteen issues later, Marvel relaunched it with a new #1 as Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, then canceled it nine issues in. In 2015, Ewing began writing both New Avengers and Ultimates, which followed characters from Mighty Avengers. Marvel relaunched both a year later—again with new #1s—as Ultimates 2 and USAvengers. Sound complicated? It gets worse: The 2013 Mighty Avengers was the third series to use the title; the 2015 Ultimates was the seventh. Both are unrelated to previous series. Such a publishing scheme is convoluted even for a committed fan; for a new reader, it’s nearly impenetrable.

How can a single Marvel employee read this paragraph and then look at themselves in the mirror with a straight face?

The sooner people realize Marvel and DC are worthless and move on, the better. Unfortunately, right now we need them to exist, they are the entry point to the medium whether we like it or not.

I dream of a future where they are not needed.

>We want comics where Captain America fucks teenage boys

I remember back in I wanna say 2010 they had Johnny Storm of F4 get killed off in a heroic fashion. It boost the sales for F4 temporary, and I read after it that Marvel had planned to schedule a character be killed off every 3-4 months or something. Always someone big enough or recognized enough that it would guarantee boost sales (like Wolverine, Deadpool, or Spiderman).
And pretty much every character had come back in an asspull way about 2 or so years later.


That reminds me, is Bruce Banner still dead?

>Willow Wilson’s excellent Ms. Marvel, a series starring a young Muslim heroine from Jersey City, debuted at a circulation of roughly 50,000 before holding steady at 32,000; the relaunched version a year later began at around 79,000 before dropping sharply to a current circulation of around 20,000. “Marvel’s constant relaunching ... has been harmful to direct market sales overall,” Spacetwinks writes, “as well as harmful to building new, long-term readers.” With every relaunch, it becomes easier to jump off a title.

Marvel's relaunch strategy made sense when they assumed there was an audience of movie fans just waiting for a jumping on point. They made their bet, lost it, and now they need to live with the consequences.

Who gives a shit

Marvel makes $750,000,000 a year

They're never dying no Matter how shit they become

He might be back with Legacy, but at this very moment he is still feeding the worms yeah

>Why does a board about comics gives a shut that a company is making terrible comics for shitty gimmick reasons

Besides issues 3 and 8 it was pretty good. It was like those two issues were written by someone else.

Because he's a Sup Forums poster

Marvel Entertainment or Marvel Studios?
Don't confuse the two, they are very separate entities

>Marvel reduced to a skeleton staff releasing half a dozen comics a month
that's better than what we have now. imagine 4-5 writers who actually give a damn about the characters, some decent artists, no crossovers, no events, no bullshit.

someone's a troll and also very stupid.
Marvel Studios and Marvel comics are different companies. the movies are doing great. The comics, not so much.

Reminder that Mockinbird cheated on her husband with an insane man, caused the death of said insane man and let anyone think she was raped by him, and the book treated this as a funny thing.

>That reminds me, is Bruce Banner still dead?
yes, but he will be appearing again soon because of time travel.

>Is there really any more harm in publishing a comic where Captain America has a romantic cup of coffee with his boyfriend Bucky than one where he’s a Nazi?
Yes, because Bucky is an anti-draw

War Machine 2.0 MAX by Chuck 'The Fuck' Austen

keeping marvel comics running is good for now because it's a place for the mouse to market test and refine ideas to use in the movies. The problem with articles like the OP, is that while they've correctly identified the problem they haven't bothered to explore the root cause beyond "it bumps sales, that must be it." The true answer here is that Disney is ordering to Marvel Comics to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. E.g: "RDJ is gonna retire in the coming few years, test some iron man replacements and see how people react." Hence we get black girl iron man, evil iron man, pepper iron man, etc. You can apply this to all of their movie characters and see the pattern emerging. New hulk? Yep. New Thor? Yep. New Hawkeye? Yep. New Cap? We've got a couple for you to pick from!

Disney is not concerned overly much with the specific stories aside from the broad strokes and the characters involved. Do you think Disney is gonna adapt some stupid femthor storyline? Of course not, they're gonna hire an actual writer to write a new one for them however they're going to take the characters and maybe the name of an arc and use that to make it seem like they're not making things up whole cloth.

Its "artist" is never heard of again Satan

no there main problem is no one likes there caricatures or authors.
some blame to publisher, but they cancel books that don't sell.
they should fire authors that cant archetype.

What.

I think he means, if you can't reach glossy, beautiful house-style, don't draw. No one wants indie/quirky/ugly squirrel girl and friends shit.

Ms. Marvel, a series starring a young Muslim heroine from Jersey City, debuted at a circulation of roughly 50,000 before holding steady at 32,000; the relaunched version a year later began at around 79,000 before dropping sharply to a current circulation of around 20,000.
HOLD THE FUCK ON!

This is the "incredibly successful" Ms. Marvel? Because these numbers aren't impressive at all.

Yeah. I know. That retcon happened in #8.

That's fine in thought, but what really happens is that the idea of the comic gets condensed into a one sentence blurb, and then the Hollywood writing committee comes in and goes, "step aside comic nerds, let the REAL writers take over!" and then we get shit movies 5hat only vaguely resemble the comics, or only in a superficial way.

>The problem with articles like the OP, is that while they've correctly identified the problem they haven't bothered to explore the root cause

The article is reporting the facts on why Marvel is where it is. You're engaging in speculation. Speculation is fine too but that would be a different article.

The 'artist' is a program called Poser. Ol' Chuck is working on some cartoon network shit now, I don't know it's a punishment enough....

user, she was a brand new diversity character, Marlel didn't expect that book to last 12 issues.

Impressive compared to most Marvel books I guess. On the other hand they gotta further the agenda.

Despite marvel pussy footing around with the actual numbers, I do believe that she sells well digitally, which has a higher margin because it's just bandwidth, not printed paper.

>no mention of Nova
I will die on this hill if I have to

user she sells best in trade form

And for a new character 32k is very, very, very good.

As someone who is not a pirate, I have the same issue. I've stopped caring about Marvel for this reason, and have been focusing on independent comics.

It is strange because Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz numbers are better than that and no one raves about how success they are.
"Ms. Marvel" is never in the top 10 of Comixology.

DC and Marvel have their place, but the two of them make up 65%+ of weekly sales on average. People need to prop up the smaller companies, and give creator owned books a chance.

>No one wants indie/quirky/ugly squirrel girl and friends shit
Not true, and frankly it's bad business not to have some books like this. Keyword: some.

In this case, the poor quality of stories that cater to the wrong readers are what's causing all their books to lose sales so abruptly, leading to more frequent relaunches.

Not anymore, but her books and treatment have been shit for a while.

Yeah they're riding the Green Lantern juice my man.

For one thing, Ms Marvel is a worthless moniker nobody cares about.

Green Lantern used to be the best selling comic when under Johns.

Colin Spacetwinks is the best name I ever heard.

Bucky kills books. It's been proven over and over again.

The only "fanbase" Bucky has is... whatever the Western equivalent of a fujoshit is who all want him and Rogers to just endlessly fuck. Specifically the MCU versions because those people don't read comics.

>only passingly mentions the direct market and it being a decades-old thing

bleh

The direct market is *literally* the cause of all this. It's the entire reason Marvel, et al, can get away their terrible sales practices: all they have to do is convince comic shops to buy their crap, and then they're in the clear.

If you want to unfuck the comic industry, get rid of this crutch. Otherwise, there should be no shame in not supporting any of these companies: it's on them to get with the times and learn to meet the demands of their customers. Every other industry has had to do it -- movies, TV, music, video games, food, shopping -- so why are comics allowed to stick to the past?

>I do believe that she sells well digitally
Marvel never releases digital sales numbers. I'm not sure why the defense force continues to use this point.

>passing
Th...The entire middle half is about the direct market, dude.

Nobody does, it would embarrass the comic shops. Digital is so much bigger than they are now.

The thing is, marvel didn't have quality in a long time
>inb4 King's vision
it was only okay

That and the fact that they have so few decent writers barely anything looks worth reading.

The second run tanked because of the editorially-mandated CW2 tie-in arc, which turned a bunch of people off. If not for that, the current run would probably be sitting at about the same place as the first go.

It's not even defense force, man. I don't even read Kamala, I'm just not some conspiracy theorist. The book sells and has fans. Or at least, it used to.

Said it before, bring back Jim Shooter and start cracking some skulls and put people in Marvel ed in check.

It's not "about" the direct market. The article is oriented more about Marvel not performing well/acceptably within the purview of the direct market, in comparison to DC/Image who behave well within the direct market.

Rather than blaming Marvel for being too profit-oriented even as they head toward a bust, the entire focus of the blame should be Diamond and the direct market.

Yes, please.

Shooter did a lot of good but he also chased the majority of the best talent of the Bronze Age away from the company by being a complete asshole. His continuity hard on, numbers first attitude, and penchant for shuffling the creative talent are still practiced at Marvel and they're still shit.

Marvel needs a Roy Thomas. Someone who enjoys comics and is hands off. Let the writers write and let the artists draw and let the individual books find their way as long as they meet the deadlines. Make a good 22 page comic before worrying about how to cram it into a UNIVERSE CHANGING EVENT.

>this pasta again

>Marvel still trying to blame the readers
Gabriel, please...

Shooter almost killed Marvel at the time with his bullshits. Just like Jemas or Quesada, he had a good start but by the end of his run, he was just another nutcase.

Howe pls

Not one of these sites call out the shitty writers and Bendis. Really activates my almonds.

Bendis?

>theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/the-real-reasons-for-marvel-comics-woes/527127/


pastebin.com/y0Gx3XiE
Giving views to the atlantic, I can't believe they're doing pieces on comics but then again their agenda is clear and user shame on you for not pastebinning.


pastebin.com/y0Gx3XiE

>keeping marvel comics running is good for now because it's a place for the mouse to market test and refine ideas to use in the movies.
Except that's false. The only thing the movies have in relation to the comics like Age of Ultron or Civil War is the titles. Otherwise they're completely unlike the comics. If anything Marvel is trying their hardest to ape the movies. And if reports are to believed, the movie side doesn't even talk about the comic side and actively tries to shit on them to their superiors at Disney because of the way they've been treated in the past before they broke off. Additionally, it's pretty easy to see that the segment that actually reads the comics has a completely different outlook for what they want in their product as opposed to the broader segment that just watches the movies and doesn't buy the comics.

>pastebinning
>autism

>Allowing corporate interns to get clicks on your behalf like a shill retard.

Fuck you.

That's assuming they won't just start recasting them at some point, which is a pretty viable alternative too.

Spacetwinks?

Bendis doesn't write bad comics in the eyes of the casuals. The stories are short like they like it and Bendis speak only gets bad when you've consumed every Bendis media the Bendis has put out (like all of Sup Forums does). There's also the fact his continuity problems are only a problem for those who care about continuity, something casuals can't give less of a shit about.

That's pretty fucking good for a brand new character (and it's not like the Ms Marvel name was a big seller before that).

During the first year there were reports her book sold phenomenally well digitally, like as well as it did in floppies. But I don't think that's true anymore.

>le evul clicks

Is this still a meme? Jesus, Sup Forums really needs new material.

>DEY'S SEPERIT COMPANIES GAIZ
>DISNEY AIN'T THEIR BENEFACTOR OR NUTHIN
Okay faggot

God damn it, Ewing. You dirty SJWhore.

>Said the sweating shill

Its just how things go.

You always become the next out-of-touch establishment, no matter how cool you used to be.

Haha! It's like I'm really in 2014.

If you didn't care you wouldn't be whining. I'm eating clicks as we speak.

You're eating dicks as we speak? Are they tasty?

It sounds like digital as a whole is fairly stagnant, and I think relaunches and tie ins hurt Kamala more than helped