>No one, not even DC Comics, wants Marvel’s comic sales to crash and burn. The direct-market comic industry, comprised of specialty shops that carry monthly print comics, is too small, and too dominated by the Big Two publishers of Marvel and DC, to absorb the hit of a Marvel implosion. And while it’s difficult to determine hard monthly numbers in the comics industry, observers of ICv2 and ComicChron sales estimates recognize Marvel’s destructive trend in recent years: heavily inflated launches followed by near-immediate plummets. And their next attempt at repeating that algorithm with the upcoming “Legacy” initiative isn’t going to work.
>Sales attrition is a constant in comics. First issues almost always sell much better than subsequent installments, and so publishers aim for steady, sustainable numbers following debuts. DC Comics isn’t immune to low-selling titles, but most of their marquee titles, now more than 24 issues into their “Rebirth” era, have maintained consistent sales above the 30,000-copy mark, with books like Batman, Flash, Justice League and Superman holding well above that. Marvel’s attrition pattern has been much more dramatic.
>X-Men Blue, one of the flagship X-books, launched in April to over 108,000 copies sold. By July, the title was hovering just over 40,000. Captain America: Steve Rogers, a key tie-in title to this summer’s mega-event Secret Empire, rests around 37,000 copies. Venom and Thanos, which were cited by Marvel VP of Sales David Gabriel in his controversial remarks about how “core” titles are working better than “diverse” titles, are currently selling about 34,000 and 28,000 copies, respectively. And while Gabriel’s remarks were poorly worded, he’s not totally wrong: America #5, a series starring and written by a queer Latinx, sold just over 11,000 copies, and Luke Cage, despite a Netflix series and a spot in its semi-sequel, The Defenders, dipped below 15,000 copies by its third issue. The “diversity” of these titles can hardly be blamed for their poor sales when even All-New Guardians of the Galaxy has fallen below 30,000 copies an issue within the same summer that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 stormed theaters.
>Monthly print comic sales don’t tell the whole story; publishers are notoriously dodgy about stating digital sales, and books like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl survive low monthly numbers because of consistent success in trade collections. But these numbers tell us enough to understand that Legacy, Marvel’s upcoming not-quite-a-relaunch that aims to bring back “classic” elements of the Marvel universe without jettisoning recent character additions, addresses few—if any—of Marvel’s current issues.
>After five years of “All-New, All-Different, Now!” publishing pushes and rebrandings, Marvel has ground down fan expectation while straining retailer budgets. The last issue of 2007’s original Civil War event sold over 265,000 copies; the finale to last year’s Civil War II finished with less than half of that, and current event Secret Empire’s latest numbers are about 20,000 below that. But beyond quantifiable data, readers no longer seem to trust the publisher.
Camden Brown
>Announcements of titles outside of Marvel’s most prominent characters, like Black Panther & The Crew or Nighthawk, are met with the resignation that they’re likely not long for this world, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when low first-issue orders all-but-guarantee cancellation within one arc. Some observers have taken to calling these titles “stealth mini-series”: books announced as ongoing series yet expected to conclude after one arc, which prompt many readers to wait for the trade collection or avoid investing in the series altogether. New writers, some of whom come to Marvel from successful backgrounds in prose publishing, must plead with their existing fans not just to buy their comics, but to buy their comics the way the direct market wants them to: preordering them sight-unseen from brick-and-mortar specialty shops. Failure to do so results in MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipients and New York Times bestselling authors having their series cancelled with just two issues on stands.
>Meanwhile, Marvel continues to inflate sales on first-issue numbers by encouraging retailers to participate in variant-cover schemes, as explained in this tweet thread from popular Dublin retailer Big Bang Comics. The shop, which garners international followers through its honest accounting of which titles do and don’t succeed in their store, announced that the requirements to buy Marvel’s much-hyped upcoming lenticular covers, designed to literalize Legacy’s stated goal of merging the new with the old, were simply too cumbersome. As reported at The Beat, other shops have followed suit and opted out of the “promotion,” which tasks retailers with ordering outsized amounts of regular covers to be “allowed” to order the lenticular covers, which would likely saddle shops with dozens of non-returnable regular covers that few customers want.
Luis Rivera
>With the shiny covers taken away, what does Legacy offer beleaguered or lapsed Marvel fans? Unlike Rebirth, the 2016 publishing initiative that saw DC Comics reduce its title count, shift popular series to twice-monthly schedules and restart the entire line with fresh first issues (save for Action Comics and Detective Comics), Legacy maintains nearly all current ongoing titles, keeps most current creative teams intact and returns books like Iron Fist and Luke Cage—not known for long runs—to cumulative numbering, adding together the issue numbers from all or most previous volumes of the books. Iron Fist currently sells about 22,000 copies—are there readers out there more willing to try Iron Fist #73, by the same creative team, than Iron Fist #8? And how many new or casual readers will be dismayed to suddenly see Captain Marvel #125 and wonder if they need to read 124 preceding issues to understand the story in advance of her film debut? Even diehard “Wednesday warriors” are confused at Marvel’s inconsistent application of legacy numbering, which counts the issues of Tales to Astonish before the Hulk was created, yet leaves out the issues of Tales of Suspense in which Iron Man did appear.
>The few new launches are a similarly mixed bag. A brand-new Falcon #1 may entice fans who disliked seeing Sam Wilson’s identity subsumed by the red-white-and-blue of Captain America, but who’s clamoring for a Spirits of Vengeance book drawn in an unremarkable superhero style, absent of the newest Ghost Rider? Or one-shot continuations of Silver Sable & The Wild Pack and Not Brand Ecch? The arrival of the God Country team of Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw on Thanos is inspired, but will they reverse that title’s entropy that persisted under even popular writers like Jason Aaron and Jeff Lemire? Does Mark Waid, following low-selling runs on Avengers and Champions, still possess the fan goodwill needed to resuscitate Captain America?
Cameron Wright
>The impression that one gets is that Legacy is neither an organic extension of Marvel’s publishing plans nor a Rebirth-style rejuvenation of the line, but yet another marketing gimmick that relies on forcing retailers to over-order first issues and “milestone” issues, buying Marvel more time between failures. As reported at The Beat, Marvel has all but “bottomed out” its sales, with non-event, non-Star Wars titles most likely to settle into the sub-20,000 monthly sales range, which is typically cancellation territory at the Big Two. Simply put, Marvel is the publisher that cried wolf, and both fans and retailers have reached their gullibility limits.
>Marvel, and anyone who cares about a robust direct market, should hope that Legacy is merely a stopgap on the way to a more substantial publishing overhaul—one that more meaningfully addresses Marvel’s downturn in recent years—not the goal in and of itself. The publisher of Spider-Man, Captain America and the X-Men shouldn’t need to rely on variant covers and the Star Wars license to stay afloat. If and when Marvel does take a deeper look at the practices that have driven down its sales and crumbled its trust among fans and retailers, one looming question will remain: will anyone still be around to care?
>America #5, a series starring and written by a queer Latinx, sold just over 11,000 copies It's still too high. >BTW America #6 comes out tomorrow.
Isaac Thomas
>absent of the newest Ghost Rider Nice. Bring back the GR for real men.
Colton Jones
>Latinx Does she come from the Humanx Commonwealth?
Brayden Roberts
La tinks? What the hell is that?!
Levi Collins
Although it would explain a lot, she's just some white girl playing like she's latino.
Chase Anderson
>LA twinks BUENO...
Nicholas Harris
Big Carol has literally no female features.
Jaxon Martin
>written by a queer Latinx Oh for fuck's sake.
Owen Stewart
What even is paste magazine?
Eli Young
>Catalog So since they already took the movie studios for themselves, when is Disney going to reduce Marvel to a file cabinet of paperwork and just license out everything (comics, merchandise, shows, etc.) to other companies to make?
Brody Anderson
Marvel, on the other hand, wouldn't mind DC crash. That's why marvel deserves no sympathy, and that's why the crash must happen. You can prolong the agony, but it will happen. It must happen.
Brody Phillips
If Marvel comics crash and burn would Disney takeover?
Zachary Peterson
>>The impression that one gets is that Legacy is neither an organic extension of Marvel’s publishing plans nor a Rebirth-style rejuvenation of the line, but yet another marketing gimmick that relies on forcing retailers to over-order first issues and “milestone” issues, buying Marvel more time between failures. As reported at The Beat, Marvel has all but “bottomed out” its sales, with non-event, non-Star Wars titles most likely to settle into the sub-20,000 monthly sales range, which is typically cancellation territory at the Big Two. Simply put, Marvel is the publisher that cried wolf, and both fans and retailers have reached their gullibility limits. Savage yet true.
Brandon Gutierrez
HOURLY MARVEL HATE THREAD YAY
Adrian Morris
No. If Marvel Comics crash and burn then the American comics industry collapses with it. There would be nothing to takeover.
Leo Jenkins
>reduce Marvel to a file cabinet of paperwork and just license out everything (comics, merchandise, shows, etc.) to other companies to make This is what Ike wanted Marvel to be, actually.
Samuel Cook
They have decades worth of stories to pull from. Plus they can always reboot when things get stale as well. Disney is pretty self sufficient at this point.
Matthew Flores
I for one will not ever read anything from Marvel with the current publisher and editorial staff ate still employed at Marvel. No shiny covers can wow me enough to bother.
Ryan Ward
>Marvel >reboot
Lucas Watson
If you dislike these threads, blame the cause of these threads.
Isaac Green
Autistic anons? Will do!
Owen Powell
>This is what Ike wanted Marvel to be, actually. With Disney making the movies, Perlmutter's initial plan sadly looks pretty attractive at this point.
Jacob Young
>Marvel's customers are upset at their current output?! >Let me just plug my ears because I know BASED MARVEL can do no wrong! >LALALALALALALALALALALALA! Drone, please. Some of us lapsed fans would like having something good for a change.
Kayden Ward
Not Marvel, dummy. Disney. The MCU.
Zachary Fisher
Marvel isn't "crashing and burning", their sales are down, but that's far from an industry crash. People on the internet like to make everything into a disaster for some reason.
Marvel are soulless marketing whores. Their push for young adult/female readers was a gimmick that didn't work, so now they're seeing that Rebirth is the hot new thing and copying them. It might succeed in stabilizing their sales, but it won't get people into the comic shops, so you can expect next spring to see a new gimmick to bring in new readers, most likely an event to cash-in on Infinity War and some kind of headline-grabber like a character death.
Charles Robinson
This thread is about the comics, Sup Forums.
Joseph Rodriguez
>blaming the victim never change marvel shills
Landon Parker
Yes, user. Marlel did nothing wrong.
Hudson Wilson
>It might succeed in stabilizing their sales lol
Nathaniel Sullivan
Stop pissing on my dreams. The industry will crash, and fuck off
>The important consideration on this column is that even though Marvel sets a target based on sell-in, sell-through doesn’t necessarily have much relationship. For example, “Deadpool” sales have been crashing – we sold just fifty-five percent of what we ordered of #34 – but Marvel wants me to order 175% of that number for “Despicable Deadpool” #287. Or what translates as 318% of what I sold of that issue.
>We also had to really carefully assess our numbers – I started off by pulling what we received of each of these books, but halfway through the process, I realized that wasn’t quite correct. We had titles like “Cable” and “Defenders” (with the asterisks) where Marvel overshipped copies. It is very easy to overlook those kinds of data points in this kind of data pile.
Grayson Perez
See
Leo Butler
Friendly reminder, people who say "Marvel Comics" and "DC Comics" are casuals. It's probably the easiest way to spot them.
Jonathan Thomas
In before that that image of Marvel's unit and dollar shares is posted, "proving" that everything's fine.
Jaxson Rivera
>so now they're seeing that Rebirth is the hot new thing and copying them. Legacy isn't copying Rebirth. Legacy is more of the same bullshit they've been doing the past 10 years.
Daniel Mitchell
Key word is "might".
It's copying the rhetoric, which is the only part that businessmen understand.
Luke Ramirez
latinx has been a common descriptor for over a decade, why do people still get upset about it? (especially when it doesn't apply to them)
Daniel Foster
>autists are the victims Back to tumblr with you!
I'll tell you what they didn't do, pollute my board with the HOURLY MARVEL HATE THREAD.
Mason Fisher
That's now how Spanish works.
Easton Bennett
ha-ha, you just said it yourself. I guess you're a casual then.
Ayden Clark
languages change my man
Camden Morris
back to /oven/ shill
Christian Ward
Some stores are sadly complicit because they can't do anything else:
>I may not like what Marvel is doing, but this latest order is one of the highest Marvel orders I have done in the years we have been open. Right now, DC is only up by less than 50 cents over Marvel on my ordering for October — which changed a lot over the days, debating how much to order. It could increase or decrease still, because I am still debating.
>The greed button has been hit hard. My store is along for the ride. I was tempted to not order Marvel’s lenticular covers. But the dice have been rolled, and come October, we will see Marvel celebrate. And months after October, we will see the true effects of what Marvel has done.
>Did anyone think this would be possible a year or more ago? Stores that do not order Marvel’s lenticular covers are indeed sending a message to Marvel that they will not play this game. So why am I playing their game? Not having these covers on hand means sending customers elsewhere. Turning customers away is not ideal. But spending money on product that will not sell is not ideal, either. Simply marking up comics right after they come out runs the risk of looking like the price gouger of comic stores — especially if other local comic stores do not do the same. Marvel is making this a tough situation for a lot of stores.
>An open plea to Marvel: please don’t do this to the stores again unless you make your product returnable. If this is to make sure stores have enough of your product on hand to meet what you believe will be the demand, then put your money where your mouth is instead of forcing stores into such an unwanted position. The odds of Marvel offering returns is about the same as me hitting a lotto jackpot, but I have to put it out there.
No it hasnt and from a latino to probably a first worlder, stop ruining our language with your made up words.
Joshua Wright
Manga
Jeremiah Martin
That's not a comeback OP. Why don't you just go make another punisher or deadpool thread? Casuals like you seem to enjoy those.
Michael Scott
The change is coming from english speaking countries, not from actual spanish speaking people.
Liam Torres
Good. Let the fucktard bankrupts, when no one will buy this shit
Kayden Reed
It's English speaking people grafting some awkward bullshit on a language that isn't theirs.
Parker Adams
those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it
Isaiah Smith
latino/latina describes a person's ethnic make-up, not the language that they speak.
latinx is just an attempt to have a gender neutral version of that descriptor.
it has nothing to do with language
Julian Cooper
We should invoke the meme magic to crash the industry in 2018
Joshua Barnes
Ketch isn't in it either, though.
David Roberts
no they don't, literal faggot
Jaxson Lopez
Native spanish-speaker here. I have no idea how I would pronounce "latinx" and I'm rather hazy on its meaning too.
Josiah Anderson
and people who nitpick over nomenclature are pedants whose opinion can be safely disregarded
unless it's about graphic novels because I will slap a ho
Levi Perez
>Not having these covers on hand means sending customers elsewhere. Turning customers away is not ideal.
so they're just hoping that people want them? their customers aren't asking for them, they're ordering them "just in case"? thats some stupid fucking reasoning
Nolan Howard
...
Camden Reyes
She's a latina who identifies as a Shinx
Austin Lee
I still can't believe the lenticular cover thing is that big of a deal, are there that many non collectors that care that much? If I want to read Spider-Man I buy it, I can look at the other covers online.
> why do people still get upset about it? It doesn't stop being retarded
Jonathan Reed
>can't tell the difference between hate and obvious, extreme concern see also If Marvel collapses, there won't be anyone stepping in to save them; nobody that could will care, and nobody that cares possibly could.
Brayden Sanchez
>save Marvel >implying Marvel needs saving >implying they haven been dominating the market in both units sold and dollars generated for the past few months >implying they're not dominating the movie market aka where the big bucks are >implying they're not doing very well with television
Juan Roberts
>Some observers have taken to calling these titles “stealth mini-series” hey, that's Sup Forums!
Blake Perry
When people talk about the American Comics Industry, they mean the direct market part of it. Y'know, Local Comic Shops and the like. Otherwise, we'd be talking about how Scholastic-published comics for tween girls make up the majority of the comics industry. Among the Direct Market, Viz Media who publish the majority of American manga, makes up like 1.5% of the market share.
Brandon Bell
Then just call them a Latin American. Latinx is something triggered keyboard warriors came up with. It makes no sense when you say it out loud.
Michael Edwards
>written by a queer Latinx
Kayden Kelly
Good. This industry doesn't deserve to live.
Jaxon Murphy
>latino/latina describes a person's ethnic make-up It also describe where that person is from, that why we have Latino America which is use to refer to people who are from Mexico to Argentina.
>latinx is just an attempt to have a gender neutral version of that descriptor.
A miserable attempt at adding a neutral substantive to a language that does not has any neutral form.
Grayson Ramirez
Is Carol just Miracleman now?
Jayden Gonzalez
"First as tragedy, then as farce" is pretty accurate given the sales of the 90s compared to the sales of today.
Wyatt Collins
>Failure to do so results in MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipients and New York Times bestselling authors having their series cancelled with just two issues on stands.
Who is this referring to?
Cameron Hill
"Latin-ex." It's a "gender neutral" version of latino/latina (ignoring the fact that latino is itself gender-neutral in the same way that "he" can be used for both masculine and genderless) created by english-speaking tumblrites. Don't worry about it.
Christopher Hernandez
This, the US comics industry is terrible and deserves a brutal and humiliating death
Owen Smith
might be World of Wakanda
Noah Sanders
>X-Men Blue, one of the flagship X-books, launched in April to over 108,000 copies sold. By July, the title was hovering just over 40,000.
In case you're wondering what those estimated numbers were:
04/17 X-Men Blue # 1 - 119,565 04/17 X-Men Blue # 2 - 54,074 (-54.8%) 05/17 X-Men Blue # 3 - 48,354 (-10.6%) 05/17 X-Men Blue # 4 - 44,576 (- 7.8%) 06/17 X-Men Blue # 5 - 50,374 (+13.0%) 06/17 X-Men Blue # 6 - 43,337 (-14.0%) 07/17 X-Men Blue # 7 - 48,481 07/17 X-Men Blue # 8 - 41,411
>America #5, a series starring and written by a queer Latinx I like how they had to specify that she's queer and brown. Because they know that her appeal comes solely from those traits.
Angel Peterson
>The arrival of the God Country team of Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw on Thanos
I thought he was doing Doctor Strange?
Michael Clark
They'll get upset when people point out the overshipping.
Jason Stewart
Jesus, those are doing worse than Superman and even Wonder Woman, and those are on their 27th issues into the relaunch
David Mitchell
He's doing both, Marvel putting that exclusive to good use.
Ethan Roberts
Comics suck now especially at marvel for two reasons: They are just a place to source movie scripts now they also pander to an sjw audience that doesn't buy enough comic books
Eli Carter
>and brown Ah, see that's the magic of the whole thing, user. She's white as all get out. She calls herself latinx and peppers spanish words she doesn't understand into her speech to trick people into thinking she's brown. She's a white skinned, half-puerto rican New Yorker who doesn't know Spanish but desperately wants to avoid people thinking she's just yet another white girl appropriating culture she has next to know business in since being a "queer latinx" is her entire selling point as an author.
Aaron Evans
welcome to modern Sup Forums, enjoy your stay
Landon Howard
It's a poetic justice. Marvel butchered their golden franchise, and ruined it to elevate substitute franchise, and now neither are doing well.
Anthony Lopez
Haven't bought contemporary comics since 2010. I've just been buying up old stuff from the bargain bins. How bad is the state of Marvel and DC now?
Anthony Barnes
[spreading arms] Thaaaaaat bad.
Gabriel Morgan
He signed an exclusive. He's doing Thanos, Dr. Strange, and a third book that I'm not sure has been announced yet or not.
Luke Watson
Donny "kino" Cates is Marvel exclusive.
Jaxon Hill
The other big relaunch, Guardians of the Galaxy, also tanked hard when the overshipping (see ) stopped:
05/17 Guardians of Galaxy # 1 - 82,439 05/17 Guardians of Galaxy # 2 – 51,830 (-37.1%) 06/17 Guardians of Galaxy # 3 - 49.907 (- 3.7%) 06/17 Guardians of Galaxy # 4 - 47,385 (- 5.0%) 07/17 Guardians of Galaxy # 5 - 28,488 07/17 Guardians of Galaxy # 6 - 23,277
Guess when the overshipping stopped.
Easton King
I stopped buying comics after what DC did with Cass Cain
Camden Jones
if American comics die, Sup Forums the shitpost playground dies with them. See all you movie faggots back in Sup Forums.
Alexander King
desu Bunneto and the Forced Memes are doing as well as they usually do. Guggenheim on Gold was a mistake.
Carter Watson
There is something sad about a franchise that used to excite me in an uncanny way, and these days, I don't even bother to pirate them
Julian Jackson
>if American comics die, Sup Forums the shitpost playground dies with them And nothing of value would be lost. Though the truth is that the board would become slower and have more cartoons discussion, that's it.
