Lots of sales today… gotta list a copy tonight
This week’s Covrprice top 20 has Absolute Batman related books on 16 of the top 20 spots, 1 Batman Beyond book and 3 other DC books rounding the top 20. Zero Marvel books.
Marvel doesn’t even try anymore. Mostly cause Disney interferes with the creative process and doesn’t want give marvel the budget to keep top talent around. Spending more doesn’t guarantee them more profit
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CB Celbuski needs to go, I think he’s terrible. Marvel is all about flooding the market with junk titles that nobody wants to farm new IPs. The market has shifted, people don’t care about terrible new characters anymore. They want good stories that keeps readers coming back. Saga from Image comics proved that long ago until they shit the bed by taking a 3 year break and thus destroying their series. Absolute Batman is the best thing that has happened to comics in a long time.
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He’s probably just a yes man to the corporate executives
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It’s all about the writing… and as long as the art isn’t complete shit. But the writing with stories that draw you in is key to retaining consumers to keep buying your stuff. Sure there’s the people who are just collectors, buy the cover art and likely never even open the books but the comic industry needs to focus on writing to draw in more consumers who stick around.
And yes, Saga was great. I know these creators need to take breaks but too long of a break can kill your story. I never came back to Saga after the break, I just planned to wait for the next omnibus or whatever. BKV is so talented too and usually tries to focus on one project at a time for the most part. Writers who are trying to do a half dozen to dozen stories seem overwhelmed and their stories display it usually.
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Also, when reading through marvel solicitations, I’ve never heard of like 80% of the writers. That’s a problem
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Well, one should consider that everyone needs to start somewhere and a lot of star writers got their break getting hired at the bigger publishers.
Saga was the title that got me back into comics. I left comics for a while as there were big changes in my life at that time. Came across a comic book shop one day strolling along my neighborhood on a hot summer day. I was absolutely delighted that there was a comic shop within a block from where I lived and felt the love of comics coming back to me as I walked in.
Looked online to see what I should be reading as a new or relapsed reader and everyone suggested Saga as the best title going on at that time. I took a peek at the first 5 or so issues at some nefarious online sites and I was absolutely hooked. I went back to my shop and told them to put Saga on my pull list.
It was up to issue 19 at that point and I needed a way to get the first 18 issues. I thus created my ebay account and went and bought the first 18 issues.
What BKV did by taking a 3 year break I thought was so disrespectful to the fans it really turned me off to the series. It was already 3 years and there were no indications to when it will actually come back. 5 years? 10 years? I got so upset I sold off the entire 54 issues that I had at the time.
When Saga announced their return I kid you not, my LCS ordered about 1K copies. They had it everywhere in the store. It is now a dead series at my shop. There’s maybe 3 or 4 copies of new issues on release day. It’s crazy to think what this series has become when it was such a monster. I will never support any series that BKV will ever do in the future.
Here’s a few examples I can recall myself…
Rick Remender started out at Marvel as an inker, moved up to writer and then moved on to Image comics…
I believe Geoff Johns started at Marvel as a relatively unknown writer before moving on to DC where he really took off with his writing.
I’m sure there are others. One could also say McFarlane who was rejected over 700 times before DC gave him a chance but then went over to Marvel on ASM, of course he started out as an artist and yearned to be a writer, his writing still kind of sucks to this day, feels like a 10 year old narrating most of the time for me. I’ve tried and tried to give him a chance and I just can’t read his stuff…
I look at Image and these Ghost Machine books…success is possible.
I look forward to every single issue of Hyde Street, Geiger, Redcoat, and Rook.
The creative talents and ideas are out there.
Maybe those books aren’t profitable or selling that much but it seems like they are
I look at Marvel and see them relaunching Iron Man? Daredevil? …just so boring.
I think the last Marvel character or “new” thing I enjoyed was Hallows Eve.
Still putting out all these Star Wars books too…that ship sailed imo.
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I just wish they would do what it takes to keep top writers like Brubaker, Tynion, etc instead of alienating them
These can be exciting if the writing is good. I was never a Thor fan and then came along Jason Aaron with his God Butcher and Godbomb story arcs… what I consider the best writing out of Marvel in the past 30+ years…
Ed Brubaker and Remender made me Captain America fan as well… with good writing.
But yeah… it’s not exciting when the stories are blah.
The only non-Ultimate Marvel books I’ve been digging much is Moon Knight and the ones where Predator aliens fight Marvel heroes.
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A couple of the Ultimate books have been pretty consistently good, but yeah even as a Marvel fan I find it hard to recommend a series to people when they ask what I should read from them. There are a few gems like the current Captain America and Mortal Thor, but most of the series feel pretty uninspired.
I’m watching the Covrprice NCBD show right now and they’re talking about the exact same thing what we’re talking about now. They’re saying that DC announced all the top talents that they’re bringing in for 2026 and they’re blown away by the names announced.
Seems like they’re letting the creators do what they want and there’s no editorial mandates. The new Vertigo solicitations look amazing. They’re going to be eating Marvel’s lunch in 2026.
Chip Z is an amazing writer now and he started out as artist. He’s one of the few talents that can both write and draw. I wish he drew more though… I really liked his art but I think I like his writing even more.
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At this point, the people they choose to write Spider-Man could be replaced by AI
It’s been said many times, and maybe new #1 sales say otherwise, but the constant relaunches are such a turn off. I know people want “jump on points” but these just as easily become jump off points, too. Finding back issues for volume after volume is a hassle at best. How many times have you seen issues from the wrong volume filed incorrectly at a comic shop or convention?
Maybe Marvel doesn’t care about ease of finding physical back issues, since they make no money off that, but they should. Make collecting easier, not more difficult. Finding older stories is what helps readers bond with characters and build interest in future stories.
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So what you’re saying is that it’s a top 20 dollar bin list …
