Superman Through the Ages! Forum

http://www.newsarama.com/marketreport/may07sales.html

I believe this sales trend will continue. Marvel has generated high numbers due to high profile minis with monthly title integration. As an example, I just read World War Hulk #1. Marvel lists a checklist of all titles relevant to WWH in sequential order with previews. On the other hand, DC's Countdown is all over the place in monthly titles. Time is broken is no longer an excuse. DC should start numbering the order of this series a la Superman triangle titles.

Another glaring quirk with Countdown is the History of the Multiverse backup. DC would benefit from adding annotations. When E-1 Barry Allen crosses paths with E-2 Jay Garrick, the annotation should tell the reader they first met in Flash v1 #123. What issue did the Anti-Matter Man battle the Justice League and Justice Society? DC is not telling. Plus, DC should include a reading list of Crisis collected trades. Get readers interested in past writings as well as new.

I'm surprised Buffy's out of the top 10.

Good point, Michel. Marvel seems to be delivering their attention-getters in quick, sharp jabs - Civil War hotly followed by the Death of Captain America hotly followed by World War Hulk and now a bunch of Skrulls - while DC gets mired in these long, meandering tirades that are only confusing. Crisis, 52 and Countdown are a bit like watching an elderly relative getting tipsy at a family gathering and embarking on his recollections of the war. Dramatically, Marvel has brought it off a lot smoother.

I still think both companies are biting off more than they can chew with all this. They're glutting the market again, and it will end up in readers losing interest. A lot of people simply can't afford to buy all these titles, so they'll figure that they might as well drop the whole business. (It's a complicated enterprise too: in the comics shop I go to, I've seen more and more customers walking around with spreadsheets while making their purchases, what's up with that?)

Yup, at this point comics are nothing more than a niche market with a limited fanbase. One thing the two companies need to do (and this has been said before) is look at why Manga is so bloody popular.

I'm not surprised.

Though I thought CIVIL WAR's execution was very, very off (would Hank Pym, considering his chequered record, REALLY agree to help clone his friend Thor?) in concept it was actually very exciting because there was a sense that as a consequence of this miniseries, the Marvel Universe would be very different as a result. And there is something undeniably exciting about this.

Ideally, every story should have the sense that things can shift at a moment's notice that CIVIL WAR had.


Teenaged girls that seldom bathe?

More of the format, marketing, and sales approach. Given that the comic audience has shrunk from what used to be millions to the pathetic figure of a few hundred thousand today.

Manga also appeals to a younger audience and a relatively female one. When was the last time you could say that about Marvel or DC? No offense to the 30+ crowd, I believe a younger audience is a necessity to continue comics into the 21st century. For that to occur, one company is going to have to take a chance.

In regards to DC, are current inconsistencies due to poor editorial decisions or a changing market? 

These sales figures are due to Marvel's current crossover-related series. Previous months (and years) have largely had Marvel with a 40% market share and DC with a 30% share. Even so, the overall readership has largely remained the same with little or no increase.

However, there was a significant event a month or so ago when trade sales exceeded single issue sales.

This will continue as long as the direct market, the slavish devotion to the outdated 22-page format, and the complete ignorance towards intraweb e-comics remains in place.

DC is currently developing a massive project of new online comics:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=26

Just remember, we were first folks!

Based on the job listings linked to from this article, it looks like DC might also be developing an MMORPG.

They are; it's been in development with Sony for about two years now. Not to be outdone, Marvel are doing one too. Bizarrely enough, Marvel chose Cryptic Studios, the team that came up with the entertaining City of Heroes, to develop theirs, just a couple of years after unsuccessfully trying to sue them.

I was thinking along the lines of an Itunes-like service where one could conviently download the latest offerings as well as complete runs of past series for a small fee.

And offer DVDs of past series to supplement the archive editions like Marvel has done with Spiderman.

And in other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!  ::)

Honestly, I've been reading comics since around 1971 and in all that time was there one year Marvel *didn't* beat DC in sales?

Michel Weisnor writes:


According to the Wall Street Journal, DC is working on attracting the female audience:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118126827149628679-7S4L__238c2krRS0yXKnxMo5tiE_20070707.html (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118126827149628679-7S4L__238c2krRS0yXKnxMo5tiE_20070707.html)

Most of the stuff mentioned in that article sounds more interesting to me than anything superhero-related DC's doing or has done.  Maybe if they end up being a hit with girls, it will inspire them to produce something fit for boys.

Believe it or not DC overtook Marvel in October 2005 on the strength of :drum roll please: Infinite Crisis #1. DC's kept it close, 3% - 6%, through 52 and relaunches but now Marvel's really hitting on all cylinders. 

Publisher Comics, Magazines, & GNs Dollar Share Comics, Magazines, & GNs Unit Share
MARVEL COMICS                  42.80%                                        46.60% 
DC COMICS                         27.66%                                        30.81% 

On the web, most readers display dissatisfaction with DC's current direction. Core monthly readers are burned out from 52 and "Infinite Crossovers" and started checking out Marvel's tight integrated storylines.


In regards to Plain Janes, check out this link

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=103509

Minx is doomed to failure if distributed through comic shops, just my opinion.


DBN, I hope DC uses an iTunes service. Most disagree webcomics are the wave of the future. With the ever changing computer technology, sooner than later, grade schoolers will read books on computer tablets. It's a good idea to start e-comics now and streamline as time progresses....

Speaking of online comics, I recently started using cbr/z (I know I am about 6+ years late). While this media may not replace handheld comics (yet), I see why many find it an addiction.  ;D

I don't believe that the handheld comic is outdated quite yet, just the 22-page "monthly" format (for $3 and 15 minutes of entertainment). Comics need to be liberated from the specialized shops so they can have a wider audience. Let's say we take the 3-4 current Super-related montlies, combine them into one Super Family title (with backup stories as well to drive up the page count a bit) with standard magazine size, and sell that one title monthly instead of wasting resources on printing 3-4 different books.

And yes, it would be quite nice of them to get a head start instead of playing catch up as they normally do. I like .cbr/z because I was able to dl every issue that I have ever owned and rid myself of 15 longboxes in the process.

Okay, so one more time for this brain-damaged old-timer:

You're saying that people are "burned-out" on DC's massive crossovers, but happy with Marvel's?  Because it looks like both companies have the exact same strategy: keep the company-wide x-overs going 12 months a year and tie every book in the line to that story. 

So it seems to me that if one company is faring better than the other, it's not because they offer any real alternative from the competition in terms of storytelling but because (a) readers happen to just like prefer seeing tons of Marvel characters locked in perpetual crossovers as opposed to DC ones doing same, (b) Marvel's stories, while equally byzantine and never-ending, are when you get down to it, quantifiably better told or drawn, or (c) since most Americans make less than $200K a year, readers are having to choose one company's entire line over the other company's, where in past ages they could manage to cherry-pick a few titles from each.

Any way you slice it, it seems to me an "everything or nothing" kind of all-out war for readers that's going to leave the industry overall in worse shape once the dust settles.  It's hard to imagine any new readers drawn in by, say, a Spider-Man movie being willing to take the plunge and shell out 50 bucks or more each month to buy every single title Marvel puts out.  Ultimately it just forces the last few holdout to finally declare their allegiance to one company or the other.


I don't know, somehow both articles leave me with the impression DC is targeting Minx to major bookstores.  I agree it's stupid to launch anything new in comics and limit distribution to comic book stores.  That's like inventing bubble-gum and telling kids, "Hey, I think you'll like this new treat.  Just tell your parents to check the phone book for a bubblegum specialty shop in your town, have them drive you there, buy a pack and try it out." 

For some reason the moderator shut down the "new continuity" thread (the most popular on the Superman board) before Nightwing could respond again to my startlingly eloquent defence of the old "Amazing Spider-Man" comic, but it appears any mention of the B. word -- rhymes with urn -- is enough to get a thread closed, which I think is barmy. Yes, I know we go off on tangents, but even so...

Who wants to buy 50 titles to follow a story? Not me. I can hardly follow the arguments against it on these boards. Why can't we still have a great comic like 1960s "Amazing" that is byzantine (at times) and never-ending (it's true) but which nevertheless draws in a reader quickly and easily, a reader who can hardly wait another month to see what happens next in the life (super-heroic or otherwise) of the hero; a comic that sells a few million copies a month? Are all the good stories now told? Have all the good ideas been used (much like the view of the 60s music nut who believes all the good songs have been written)?

If customers feel obligated to buy issues to keep up, if they feel they must own this and that because of a collecting cult, well... you will only get a small percentage of the potential readership. If customers cannot wait to get the next issue because the art (eg. Romita) is so good, and the story (eg. Lee) is so captivating... you will get a huge percentage of the potential readership. Nobody changed those rules.

I agree the monthly hand-held comic is not outdated, any more than the weekly women's magazine is outdated, or any more than a book with covers and the printed page is outdated. I doubt if it's the format which is at fault.

All this talk about duplicating the Manga model is something I just don't get.

Superhero Comics are a niche audience, and Manga is a niche audience too. They are nowhere near "all-audiences" in appeal, but appeal to a popular subculture of manga devotees, one larger than superhero comics currently, but still as much a niche audience.

I've never seen a person over 25 in my life buying or reading Manga. Granted, this is my anecdotal experience and thus impeachable, but all the same, I bought my Dad coffee table books about the history of Jazz for Father's Day, not Yaoi, boy pilot, Samurai, or magical girl comics.

Yes, I'm being a wiseacre here, and I do know there is some Manga with a non-teenaged girl in mind. But the point here is, following the Manga model isn't a magic bullet to a bigger readership. If you replace one niche audience with a slightly larger niche audience...you're still a niche audience.

And think superhero comics have too much sex and violence? Hoooo boy, just WAIT 'till you read Manga!

In all honesty, these discussions on how to "save" comics bore me. Not just because they smack of armchair quarterbacking, and further, cravenly scapegoat comics's greatest allies, the traditional fan audience (who have zero reason to be penitent)...but mainly because I simply don't care.

I just don't care.

I care slightly less about the health and vitality of the "comics industry" than I do about the box office grosses of movies.

A lot of writers (Warren Ellis) say we have an "obligation" to "support" the comics industry. But I, as a consumer and a taxes-paying American adult, have no obligations, except to read and buy the books I want to read and buy. And if that's exclusively "fanboy" comics like Geoff John's JSA and Dan Slott's SHE-HULK, that's my decision to make with my money.

And frankly, I don't think comics are in trouble at all. Various Chicken Littles have been saying the sky is falling for decades now. In 1982, Roger Stern said that he didn't think comics would last two more years. He was off by a quarter-century. Comics outlived the radio show and the pulp novel. They're not going anywhere.

All the same, there is something of a truth to what is being said here: teenaged girls that buy Manga look at superhero comics for something to read and find nothing. This is the portion of the audience that enjoys Gaiman's SANDMAN, UNCANNY X-MEN, or BIRDS OF PREY.

My first, callous instinct is to say, "so what?" The reality of the situation is that superhero comics are to men what romance novels are to women. They're written by boys for boys and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. There's little that appeals to the Sailor Moon and Inuyasha crowd? Gee, no kidding.

Then again, there's the example of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. The fandom had a big female component. Why? LEGION had an emphasis on romances as well as adventure, on interpersonal dynamics and long term soap-style subplots; and finally, the book had a great many badass babes in the days when most teams had just a token girl.

So, maybe writing something for the goth girl crowd benefits everybody. It didn't hurt the Legion, that's for sure.

You doth protest too much. Or, like, you wrote the biggest post on the subject by far.



Thus speaks the parochial American. Cast your sights a bit wider. And this argument echoes the recent "I never saw such-and-such at the spinner rack" evidence regarding Marvel's supposed lack of popularity at colleges.

Julian writes:


I have to agree with you there.  I know someone must be buying manga, because there's so darn much of it (it's taken over a whole row of shelves in a local Barnes and Noble, for instance).  But whoever they are, I don't know any of them.  Same with anime DVDs; I "know" people love them, but I've never seen any of those people actually making a purchase, let alone known them well enough to quiz them on it.

But yes, all this talk of aping manga is silliness.  It's as wrong-headed as making comics more like action films, or more like video games, or more like raunchy HBO shows, or any of the other dumb tactics they've adopted over the years.  Comics work best when they are true to themselves, because they do what they do better than any other medium.  Or they used to, anyway.  And just as, for my money, a comic-based movie can never be as satisfying as the comic it was based on, a comic that tries to be something else is doomed to fail, too.

I think what some people may mean is that the future of comics lies in mega-sized trades as opposed to monthly floppies, and there may be something to that.  Certainly the Essential and Showcase volumes owe a debt to the manga format (it's hard to imagine Marvel and DC offering so many pages for so cheap without something to inspire them), and if not for them I wouldn't be buying anything.


At last something we agree on.  :)  I really don't care if comics go away tomorrow, except that whatever production and distribution infrastructure they've established is presumably also producing those Showcases, Archives and trades of vintage material, and I'm partial to those.  

I'm glad so many people are happy with the way the Super-books are going now with Busiek and other talents on board, but I finally realized this year that I've turned a corner and I can't go back.  I spent long enough away from comics, and still have enough sticker shock over their prices, that I don't think anything could get me to buy monthlies again.  If Cooke's "Spirit" couldn't do it, it's unlikely anything will.

That WSJ article on DC's girl-friendly line said comics are doing better now than they have in years, sales-wise.  So I don't feel bad not "supporting" them, any more than I feel bad about not supporting a politician who represents beliefs counter to my own, or a restaurant that sells food I find unpalatable.  Comics are doing fine without me, and good luck to them.

I wish that thread wasn't shut down as well.  8)  I still strongly believe that letters to letter columns are a terrible way to gauge readership demographics or numbers.  Much as I hate anecdotal evidence, observations at spinner racks beat self-selected letters published by a comic book company.

I actually agree with much of what Julian said, the health or demise of particular media have so many variables that its often difficult to unravel them with the best of statistics.  Very few people 100 years ago would have predicted that we would have stayed with the internal combustion engine so long.

Yeah, despite my dire predictions of another glut in the market, I don't really think comics per se are in any danger, just Marvel and DC sales figures. (Here in Europe, comics are doing just fine, thanks, and indeed I shall be off to Paris in a couple of weeks to restock on some of our home-grown stuff.)

The talk of emulating the Manga model in order to boost sales is obviously a bit of a fallacy, because it's comparing apples and carrots. Comics aren't going to do better just because everyone starts doing things the Japanese way (and like Julian and Nightwing, I am completely baffled by Manga), any more than I am going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature by ripping off Derek Walcott.

There is, in comics lore, the great myth of the "comics industry", as if all cartoonists were somehow working in the same factory, and it is our sacred duty to keep buying comics in order to put food on their tables. In the 1980s, it was very much a brand thing: you liked Marvel Comics or DC comics, you couldn't just like comics. This is of course a patently ridiculous state of affairs: I didn't just buy The Incidental Man by Iris Murdoch because it was published by Vintage Press.

Oh, and Julian, I read She-Hulk too. Only I read it for the complex storyline, intriguing characters and beautiful artwork, not like you, you filthy, nasty boy.

Watch it bud ;)


There are a few Anime and Manga fans at this very site, I believe that their avatars reflect it.


I believe that TPBs and OGNs are the way to go, the only reason why monthlies are still around is because enough people still buy them to worth making them, and many of those same people then turn around and buy the trade, then the hardcover trade and then the super mega deluxe over-sized hardcover trade, then the B&W cheap trade and then...( it goes on for a while).

Well, if there weren't monthlies, there wouldn't be trades; not unless American comics began to appear like in Europe, with albums that appear whenever the creators are finished with them.

That something could be the Aussie reprint books, which have been around since the 40s, and were repackaging DC comics in cheap B&W albums till the 80s, sometimes with pages running to 300 plus. When I saw my first Essentials book, I recognised the Australian template.


Exactly what my thoughts were when I said "cast your sights a bit wider".

And millions of adults read Manga.


They sure do.