Marvel Comics are an absolute disaster right now. Zero creativity, as all new characters are just versions of existing characters. And if they do stumble upon something that resonates (Spider-Boy), they take that idea and drive it immediately into the ground. “Hey, people liked this side-kick thing for Spider-Man. So, let’s immediately make 18 more side-kicks so that no one gives a shit about any of them.” “People buy #1 issues. What if we constantly just kick out #1 issues?!”
Marvel is doing all they can to make me simply not care at all about their product.
Who’s to really blame though? Honestly it kind of falls upon the buyers of the product as well. We got a whole market of consumers who chase first appearances so can you really blame the publishers for boosting their publishing numbers with half ass creations just to see what eventually sticks? It’s complicated but I wouldn’t go and blame the publishers entirely…
Look at DC, they rarely did more than 2-3 covers for the longest time, with all variants cover price. Now they’re in the habit of doing ratio variants and even doing the 2nd print ratios it seems. They’re following the success of Marvel’s marketing because we got a bunch of asshats out there ruining this industry by pumping any and everything to make a quick secondary market buck on zero organic growth or interest…
100% agree. But, I think it’s starting to catch up with them. I forget who posted it, but there was an article from a shop owner on how all of this stuff is now hurting sales. Totally paraphrasing here, but they talked about how even #1 issues are now sitting on shelves because the novelty of a new #1 is gone.
It seems like they leaned heavily into what historically has sold, but didn’t really think through the ramifications of those moves. And you’re right, DC is on the same path, although I do think the DC product is still just better.
Boom and Image seem to do this the best. Yes, they have gimmicks and are trying to sell as many books as they can (as they should). But, I think they are doing it in a better way. Sure, SIKTC takes 3 months off every 5 issues to build up interest. But, they aren’t coming back after 3 months and calling it a new #1. Daredevil basically continued the storyline, didn’t take any time off, but suddenly it’s a new #1 again.
I’m buying FAR less new Marvel stuff than in the past, and I’ve heard the same from others.
True, also tack on the amount of retailers now who act like consumers chasing ratio variants, buying up more shelf copies than they should.
We also saw an abundance of online shops explode right before COVID because anyone now can become a retailer with relative ease… I could probably have a website, a Diamond, Penguin and Lunar account in a day… and a lot of these were just speculators playing retailer.
Maybe a few, most have already moved onto the next project long ago since there’s such a big gap from production to editing to release. It’s just a paycheck for most. From some of the people I’ve met that work behind the scenes, they don’t care if it ever gets released or not, they still got paid.
Does anybody know if there is a reliable way to check what upcoming issues are offered to stores for exclusives? Trying to avoid ordering ratio incentives for issues where stores will be sitting on piles of them.
