How to Save a Comic Series
You can spend hours snooping around on Amazon listings to get up to date release information about comics. Often much more up to date information than what Diamond, the sole comics distributor, or any publisher will be willing to constantly update with solicitation corrections. You may find "Volume 1" now missing from listings, volume 2's disappearing altogether or the odd couple of issues added to the volume. A six issue reprint volume book would then be stretched to an 8 issue book because a second volume may no longer be possible. These are all signs that your favourite book may not be selling as well as the publisher wants and that it's about to get cancelled. But why hide it? Just to trick readers into continuing to buy it? Pretty much!
What prompted me to write this post is the recent announcement that the Marvel series Black Knight, originally intended as an ongoing series, with an undefined end point, was to stop at #5. You know he's not going to be a big seller why not have it as a mini series from the start? They simply don't sell as well. To some a definite beginning middle and end point is a good thing, but sales figures don't lie. I'm wondering if more could have been done to have kept it in print. The character Black Knight hasn't regularly featured in a book since he was an Avenger or as a regular in the She Hulk, Dan Slott written title (which I loved). So giving him an ongoing without phasing him back into the zeitgeist was poor planning on Marvel's part. Maybe have him feature heavily as a regular or team character in other books first? Before you slap him on the shelves. He clearly has a fan base out there else he wouldn't have the longevity to have lasted this long. Why put it out at all? Do they have to do it every now and then to keep copyright ownership or something?
Late last year DC went on a culling of it's series, Justice League United, Gotham by Midnight, Batman 66 and Sensational Comics featuring Wonder Woman among others all got the chop. Omega Men was advertised as a 12 issue maxi series, yet was going to be cancelled at #8. Fan uproar and complaints were the only reason it kept on going for the amount of issues advertised. So that goes to show that the publishers do listen to fans. The only reason we got the most recent Poison Ivy series is because of fans constantly requesting more of the character. So it goes to show, simply being vocal to the right outlets will get your voice heard.
Where as series such as Harley Quinn/ Power Girl, Bizarro, and All Star Section Eight were all advertised as short mini series and had a beginning middle and end. Some series like Black Knight must have known their time was short from the get go. How deep, and immersive can you get with a story if you know every 5-6 issues you have to leave yourself with an open end point in case you get cancelled and so as not to upset your readership. Sales of mini series are simply less than ongoings. People want comics to go on indefinitely.
Sometimes the choice of character for a series must make them obvious cannon fodder for cuts. Series such as Vision, Scarlet Witch, Starbrand, Hellcat, Howard the Duck, Squirrel Girl and others must know that they won't be running into the 50+ issue regions. Not many series do these days. DC announced recently that the New52 rebranding is to end soon and a soft reboot and renumbering will start under a "rebirth" banner. #52 is quite a high number to reach for the few series that made it from the start. It's no secret that #1's sell well. There's an element of ooh this could be the next big hit, and could be worth something, as well as a jumping on point, regardless of how many issues a character has featured in before that, hey this is the start of a new story. There's always a sales boost for the first 2-3 issues of each series. There is just this sheer volume of good books out there and people only have a set budget to spend or so much time to read. So people move between books. Books that "matter more" like Avengers, Justice League or Batman will have higher reader and sales figures than say, Howard the Duck. Personally I read the smaller character books for fun, they are often more enjoyable, but to truly know what is going on in these fictional worlds as a whole you simply have to read the bigger books and the event books, to get the next big driving force. The whole way they tell stories collapses their words in on themselves. Kinda shooting themselves in the foot.
What are publishers doing to boost sales? Crossovers. If a DC book like Gotham Academy isn't selling very well. It's a great book by the way, fun characters and just gorgeous art. People aren't buying it though, not the same amount as say Batman. So what happens? Batman pays them a visit, he's on the cover, readers of the actual book get annoyed as the story they are trying to tell gets interrupted and some may stop reading it altogether. Some people see Batman on the cover and think okay i'll try it. The Robin War event is going on currently and crosses over into it too. People reading a book like Grayson or Titans will have to buy it and increase sales of the lesser book momentarily. It's extra sales. Personally if I'm reading a book that crosses over into a book I'm not reading, then I'm more likely to stop reading the one I already am doing, than to start reading a second book. If I'm on the other end of that and see my story getting disrupted again, ditto, that book is gone.
Why not advertise more? Sure comics don't exactly advertise to mainstream audiences. I do still have sleepless nights about that DC New52 TV advert with the awful guitar music over it. They advertise their own books IN their own books, or on comics news websites. A none comic reader isn't going to stumble across that. We have giant blockbusters 5-6 times a year about our favourite comics characters. I told a work colleague that if he enjoyed the movie he could borrow some of my books to read. He was shocked when he found out that it wasn't just something that happened in the 60's and died out and couldn't comprehend that comics are still going monthly. He's now reading Batman all by himself after I lent him the Court of Owls story and blew his mind. The products speak for themselves, but why not put a brief advert saying that comics are still going before the movies? Not just a "based on material by whoever publisher" in the end credits. Why not have graphic novels sold in movie theatres? We have Arrow and Flash TV show each week, with no adds for their comic counterpart. Plus Supergirl doesn't have an ongoing to even attempt to get some new readership over from her own TV series, which is a huge failing as far as I'm concerned. Is that ad space that expensive and valuable that you can't give it to another arm of your own company? It would pay back with more sales though so surely..?
There was recent talk of Diamond Distribution putting comics in Walmart stores. This already happened with Archie Comics and they want to put a bit of everything in there now. Not much was disclosed about what? A few graphic novels would just be a start muddled in with books, but could you seriously accept such an incompetent man handling company not to damage books? To put them out on the right day each week? This isn't like Midtown Comics getting a little booth in a department store where you know it will run smoothly but just have less than the usual choice. This would be an absolute let down. Not to mention the amount of financial damage it did when Borders book stores went under while using a similar deal. When you deal with a giant conglomerate like that it's on there terms and a lot of life long retailers and local comic shop owners will not be happy about a store with a track record like that getting better discounts than those who work hard and care about the product.
Now I don't understand why series are expected to debut to equal sales to that of a character that recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. It's the equivalent of Fox cancelling every animated show it debuts because it's not as big a hit as the Simpsons which has been on for 3 decades. I vividly remember when DC cancelled Amethyst Sword of Sorcery as it's first issue hit the stands. That series didn't stand a chance. It was needed yes, more genre exploration and more female leads is all great. They sort of didn't give away any premise, added a back up story to up the price, it came out during a gimmick month where issue #0's where a thing for established series, so it's issue 1 was actually it's issue 2, it had no clear story and a larger price tag, paired with a lesser known creative team. It got cancelled as issue 1 started. Who in their right mind would rush out to buy it, you won't even get the curious #1 buyers trying it, what's the point when it won't last, and it's already had the chop.
Can they give more wiggle room? Yes certainly a book like Black Knight selling less than x amount of copies is seen as bad at Marvel whereas at Boom studios publishing x amount of Back to the Future sales is a huge hit and recently pushed what was a 4 issue mini series into an ongoing series. Marvel could simply have kept it going. It has it's deep, deep Disney pockets to dip into now.
Simply put comics are more fleeting these days. Sure there's the cyclical nature: when one creator is done having killed off Steve Rogers and made Bucky Cap instead, for a while, before he finishes and leaves the title, the status quo is returned (This is why continuity can get a bit screwed up and should be only loosely followed). After all your reading for a story or two and shouldn't pick holes when unnecessary. Don't be that guy!
Marvel has tried double shipping it's better sellers, there was a time when Spider-man was three issues per month with rotating artists and writers for each arc. A model I quite enjoyed myself. I feel like treating these things as TV shows is just better, you have a writing TEAM instead of one individual. One of my 1st series was 52 the DC weekly and that was solid story telling, and also featured none of DC's big hitters, so it goes to show really. Marvel's current better sellers, like Avengers and X-men have been shipping 18 issues a year rather than the usual 12. Hickman Avengers runs were barely three years long yet got into the 40's of its numbering. It does get more sales but wouldn't work for every title. Sometimes the first two or three issues are rushed out in quick succession so as to not have readers forget about a book that's just started out. You'll notice that with the Star Wars anthology title, Chewbacca, Leia and Lando all had the first two issues come out if not the week after but the fortnight after rather than monthly. I guess it's to force the emotional attachment instead?
Why not fully embrace this way of selling books then? Instead of mini series, continue as you are doing and give them TV like series. Distinct start and end points for particular stories. Don't do an event and renumber, be candid and up front, it's going to renumber again at some point so why adrvetise it as an ongoing. Push the whole Volume nature of comics rather than just writing for the trade paperback collection, which again can put people off. Dragging out a story over 6 issues because you want a book to sell in stores after when the story could be a two parter is unnecessary. Embrace the style that has worked for Buffy and Smallville's continuation from TV to comic series. Just have set 12-24 issue series then rotate your writers. Don't have a couple of issues think it's not selling well, and switch creative people mid story arc. Sell it as a larger series with an end point. It's the best of both worlds. Jumping on and off points, with whole complete stories. Nothing suffers.
Comics do need to change but your voice is heard. Either buy the little books that may get cancelled and essentially vote with you money, or if you already are already, why not send a letter or email or tweet those that can change things. They have listened in the past. While the companies aren't into advertising to the masses why not share comics with others. Try your best to get all your friends and family reading comics. It's a medium not a genre, there's something for everyone there. Don't be ashamed of your hobbies and hide your nerdy-ness, fully embrace it!
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| Bogged down in a Weird World setting, lapsed readers and older fans wouldn't understand. |
Late last year DC went on a culling of it's series, Justice League United, Gotham by Midnight, Batman 66 and Sensational Comics featuring Wonder Woman among others all got the chop. Omega Men was advertised as a 12 issue maxi series, yet was going to be cancelled at #8. Fan uproar and complaints were the only reason it kept on going for the amount of issues advertised. So that goes to show that the publishers do listen to fans. The only reason we got the most recent Poison Ivy series is because of fans constantly requesting more of the character. So it goes to show, simply being vocal to the right outlets will get your voice heard.
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| The New52 had A LOT of casualties. So many DC series were cancelled and needlessly (if accidentally) sabotaged. |
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| Two #1's in a year? Howard's creative team used it for plenty of joke fodder in the book itself. It's a really funny read that I heartily endorse. |
Sometimes the choice of character for a series must make them obvious cannon fodder for cuts. Series such as Vision, Scarlet Witch, Starbrand, Hellcat, Howard the Duck, Squirrel Girl and others must know that they won't be running into the 50+ issue regions. Not many series do these days. DC announced recently that the New52 rebranding is to end soon and a soft reboot and renumbering will start under a "rebirth" banner. #52 is quite a high number to reach for the few series that made it from the start. It's no secret that #1's sell well. There's an element of ooh this could be the next big hit, and could be worth something, as well as a jumping on point, regardless of how many issues a character has featured in before that, hey this is the start of a new story. There's always a sales boost for the first 2-3 issues of each series. There is just this sheer volume of good books out there and people only have a set budget to spend or so much time to read. So people move between books. Books that "matter more" like Avengers, Justice League or Batman will have higher reader and sales figures than say, Howard the Duck. Personally I read the smaller character books for fun, they are often more enjoyable, but to truly know what is going on in these fictional worlds as a whole you simply have to read the bigger books and the event books, to get the next big driving force. The whole way they tell stories collapses their words in on themselves. Kinda shooting themselves in the foot.
 |
| A typical crossover list. across 8 series! |
What are publishers doing to boost sales? Crossovers. If a DC book like Gotham Academy isn't selling very well. It's a great book by the way, fun characters and just gorgeous art. People aren't buying it though, not the same amount as say Batman. So what happens? Batman pays them a visit, he's on the cover, readers of the actual book get annoyed as the story they are trying to tell gets interrupted and some may stop reading it altogether. Some people see Batman on the cover and think okay i'll try it. The Robin War event is going on currently and crosses over into it too. People reading a book like Grayson or Titans will have to buy it and increase sales of the lesser book momentarily. It's extra sales. Personally if I'm reading a book that crosses over into a book I'm not reading, then I'm more likely to stop reading the one I already am doing, than to start reading a second book. If I'm on the other end of that and see my story getting disrupted again, ditto, that book is gone.
Why not advertise more? Sure comics don't exactly advertise to mainstream audiences. I do still have sleepless nights about that DC New52 TV advert with the awful guitar music over it. They advertise their own books IN their own books, or on comics news websites. A none comic reader isn't going to stumble across that. We have giant blockbusters 5-6 times a year about our favourite comics characters. I told a work colleague that if he enjoyed the movie he could borrow some of my books to read. He was shocked when he found out that it wasn't just something that happened in the 60's and died out and couldn't comprehend that comics are still going monthly. He's now reading Batman all by himself after I lent him the Court of Owls story and blew his mind. The products speak for themselves, but why not put a brief advert saying that comics are still going before the movies? Not just a "based on material by whoever publisher" in the end credits. Why not have graphic novels sold in movie theatres? We have Arrow and Flash TV show each week, with no adds for their comic counterpart. Plus Supergirl doesn't have an ongoing to even attempt to get some new readership over from her own TV series, which is a huge failing as far as I'm concerned. Is that ad space that expensive and valuable that you can't give it to another arm of your own company? It would pay back with more sales though so surely..?
There was recent talk of Diamond Distribution putting comics in Walmart stores. This already happened with Archie Comics and they want to put a bit of everything in there now. Not much was disclosed about what? A few graphic novels would just be a start muddled in with books, but could you seriously accept such an incompetent man handling company not to damage books? To put them out on the right day each week? This isn't like Midtown Comics getting a little booth in a department store where you know it will run smoothly but just have less than the usual choice. This would be an absolute let down. Not to mention the amount of financial damage it did when Borders book stores went under while using a similar deal. When you deal with a giant conglomerate like that it's on there terms and a lot of life long retailers and local comic shop owners will not be happy about a store with a track record like that getting better discounts than those who work hard and care about the product.
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| A female role model- yet no book on the stands even if you wanted into, this comic elite fandom... sigh! |
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| Poor thing didn't stand a chance. |
Can they give more wiggle room? Yes certainly a book like Black Knight selling less than x amount of copies is seen as bad at Marvel whereas at Boom studios publishing x amount of Back to the Future sales is a huge hit and recently pushed what was a 4 issue mini series into an ongoing series. Marvel could simply have kept it going. It has it's deep, deep Disney pockets to dip into now.
 |
| Oh by the way if you want more before next week, we've got years worth of back issues, k thanks bye. |
Marvel has tried double shipping it's better sellers, there was a time when Spider-man was three issues per month with rotating artists and writers for each arc. A model I quite enjoyed myself. I feel like treating these things as TV shows is just better, you have a writing TEAM instead of one individual. One of my 1st series was 52 the DC weekly and that was solid story telling, and also featured none of DC's big hitters, so it goes to show really. Marvel's current better sellers, like Avengers and X-men have been shipping 18 issues a year rather than the usual 12. Hickman Avengers runs were barely three years long yet got into the 40's of its numbering. It does get more sales but wouldn't work for every title. Sometimes the first two or three issues are rushed out in quick succession so as to not have readers forget about a book that's just started out. You'll notice that with the Star Wars anthology title, Chewbacca, Leia and Lando all had the first two issues come out if not the week after but the fortnight after rather than monthly. I guess it's to force the emotional attachment instead?
Why not fully embrace this way of selling books then? Instead of mini series, continue as you are doing and give them TV like series. Distinct start and end points for particular stories. Don't do an event and renumber, be candid and up front, it's going to renumber again at some point so why adrvetise it as an ongoing. Push the whole Volume nature of comics rather than just writing for the trade paperback collection, which again can put people off. Dragging out a story over 6 issues because you want a book to sell in stores after when the story could be a two parter is unnecessary. Embrace the style that has worked for Buffy and Smallville's continuation from TV to comic series. Just have set 12-24 issue series then rotate your writers. Don't have a couple of issues think it's not selling well, and switch creative people mid story arc. Sell it as a larger series with an end point. It's the best of both worlds. Jumping on and off points, with whole complete stories. Nothing suffers.
 |
| The only reason the Poison Ivy mini is happening is because of constant fan OUTRAGE! What series do you want making? Well it's time to start pestering too! |
Comics do need to change but your voice is heard. Either buy the little books that may get cancelled and essentially vote with you money, or if you already are already, why not send a letter or email or tweet those that can change things. They have listened in the past. While the companies aren't into advertising to the masses why not share comics with others. Try your best to get all your friends and family reading comics. It's a medium not a genre, there's something for everyone there. Don't be ashamed of your hobbies and hide your nerdy-ness, fully embrace it!
How to Save a Comic Series
Reviewed by Matt
on
06:17:00
Rating:
Reviewed by Matt
on
06:17:00
Rating:
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