There is a nice little blog that I found the other day, courtesy of one of the other blogs that found it first (there were so many). It's called the Absorbascon after a device in the older Hawkman comics that contained all of the knowledge on Earth. The Absorbascon blog is a wonderful fan-blog oriented towards the DC comics universe (among other things). He's only been at it for a month or so apparently, but he's got a ton of posts there already.
I wish that I'd found it earlier, though, because there are some great posts on a model for DC's heroes that he calls the "Dynastic Centerpiece" model, involving basically a central character as the centerpiece of a dynasty with other characters filling in roles around the central character (like the Kid Sidekick, the Female Version, the Super Pet, etc.)
It's a great little model, but its hard to make it work in the general case. I think that the author is conflating two different types of breakdowns for superheroes into one model, and I think that's where the difficulty lies. I've thought before that DC has two different types of models for their superheroes. The first is the "Family" model - the hero at the center with all of the various different heroes of the same type surrounding him. Batman and Superman are the classic examples of this, with their various younger versions, female versions, pets and whatnot. The Marvel Family is another good example of this phenomenon.
But, when you look at some of the other heroes, it gets tougher. The Flash barely fits the model at all, and others like Green Lantern or Hawkman really have to be stretched to fit it. These heroes follow more of a "Legacy" model - the hero as the most recent bearer of the standard for a particular costumed identity. This is the model that really comes from the Julie Schwartz-style of superhero revamps that occurred in the 60s, along with the merger of Earths 1 and 2 post-Crisis.
Flash fits the "Family" model better than many others because of the Waid expansion of the Flash Family during his tenure on the book in the early 90s. I would guess that Waid is a fan of the "Family"-style of DC heroes and (consciously or not) saw a way to fill out the Flash pantheon a bit by expanding on the idea of a Flash Family.
Marvel has never really played their heroes in this manner - there are no Legacy heroes at Marvel, for example. Captain America is the same Captain America who fought in WWII, not a new one. Namor is the same Sub-mariner from the Golden Age. The Human Torch is different, but its not like there's a Human Torch legacy that gets explored in the Marvel books. Any "families" that exist are more like the Fantastic Four or Power Pack - constructed as a specific superteam and not spun off from a central, popular hero.
Marvel has been branching into the ideas of Legacies and Families, however. In the last few months, Marvel has introduced (another) female Spider-man and a female Wolverine - possibly giving the start of a Spider-man Family or a Wolverine Family. Spider-man has a Legacy on the Marvel version of "Earth-2" also[1], with the ongoing Spider-girl comic book. The Hulk has had a female version of himself running around for a while, though they are rarely played up like a "Family" style book. And now they have a whole group of "Kid Sidekick" versions of Avengers characters in their own book. All-in-all its looking like Marvel is considering the Legacy and Family ideas more and more. I suspect its for the same reason they grew at DC - spin-offs of popular characters can be great money-makers if they are done right.
[1] The MC-2 Earth maps well as Marvel's version of "Earth-2", a world where their prime superheroes aged in near "real time" and have passed on their legacies to their children. Its also the private playground of Tom Defalco, much as Earth-2 was often the private playground of Roy Thomas back in the day. I always consider the "Ultimate Earth" to be Marvel's version of "Earth-3" - the world where the heroes are villains. In Marvel's case, its more like a world where the heroes are jerks, but a strong case can be made that Millar's Ultimates could be considered more villanous than heroic.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Comics: Legion of Super-Heroes #5 - SPOILERS
Waid and Kitson continue to impress me with their take on the Legion this week in LoSH #5. I think what I continue to be most impressed by is the storytelling style that is being used on this book. Waid and Kitson dragged me in with the "done-in-one" main stories while building my interest in the background plot of the upcoming Galactic War. Five issues in and the next issue box make it look like the Galactic War plot will be ramping up to the fore in the next few issues - that's incredibly fast for plot development in this day and age. I'm fairly confident that Waid will have another set of "B-plots" on the burner while the Galactic War one plays out, but I hope he doesn't try to drag the War story out for too long.
I think that the thing that I love the most about LoSH is the illusion of backstory that pervades the book. It really feels like there are possibly hundreds of issues of stories that have already happened with these characters - they all have a history together and that comes across through their actions and their interactions. I realize that a large chunk of that is because there are hundreds of issues of backstory with characters that are very much like these characters, but this is really an interesting choice for a reboot. Reboots usually end up ditching the backstory and starting from scratch - eventually coming back around to telling the new versions of the same stories that were ditched before because of some desire to see those stories back "in continuity". This is often because the reboot mentality takes a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" approach that eliminates many of the things that make a concept or a character enjoyable to the readers and then a push gets made to get it back.
I like how "new" characters get introduced into this series too. I know who some of these folks were in previous versions of the Legion, but Waid and Kitson have been doing very well at getting us introduced to the "new" versions of these characters. I was also amused by Waid not calling Brin Londo by the name Timber Wolf in this new issue, since it deviates from the naming convention that he has setup for the series.
As for this month's story - its a model of what I like in comics. The bad guys are suitably bad. The good guys are obviously good guys, but they aren't perfect. Saturn Girl's willingness to manipulate the minds of the teenagers that they were protecting just to keep them calm is one example of this that particularly stuck out with me, but there have been others in the series so far. Waid is doing a good job of keeping that delicate balancing act of making the characters human but still heroes - something that many writers can't seem to do very well.
All in all, another impressive issue of this incarnation of the Legion. Waid and Kitson have me anxiously awaiting the next issue once again.
I think that the thing that I love the most about LoSH is the illusion of backstory that pervades the book. It really feels like there are possibly hundreds of issues of stories that have already happened with these characters - they all have a history together and that comes across through their actions and their interactions. I realize that a large chunk of that is because there are hundreds of issues of backstory with characters that are very much like these characters, but this is really an interesting choice for a reboot. Reboots usually end up ditching the backstory and starting from scratch - eventually coming back around to telling the new versions of the same stories that were ditched before because of some desire to see those stories back "in continuity". This is often because the reboot mentality takes a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" approach that eliminates many of the things that make a concept or a character enjoyable to the readers and then a push gets made to get it back.
I like how "new" characters get introduced into this series too. I know who some of these folks were in previous versions of the Legion, but Waid and Kitson have been doing very well at getting us introduced to the "new" versions of these characters. I was also amused by Waid not calling Brin Londo by the name Timber Wolf in this new issue, since it deviates from the naming convention that he has setup for the series.
As for this month's story - its a model of what I like in comics. The bad guys are suitably bad. The good guys are obviously good guys, but they aren't perfect. Saturn Girl's willingness to manipulate the minds of the teenagers that they were protecting just to keep them calm is one example of this that particularly stuck out with me, but there have been others in the series so far. Waid is doing a good job of keeping that delicate balancing act of making the characters human but still heroes - something that many writers can't seem to do very well.
All in all, another impressive issue of this incarnation of the Legion. Waid and Kitson have me anxiously awaiting the next issue once again.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Comics: Klarion #1 - SPOILERS
Well, the grand blogging experiment isn't working out as well as I had hoped. I'm making a new resolution to try and post something once per week. Today it's thoughts about Klarion - the new Seven Soldiers book from Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving.
Before I get into that, though, I'm making another resolution. I'm planning on concentrating on the things I like about comics for the near future. No rants about Infinite Crisis or who died this week or whatever. If I can't find something good to say about comics, I'll stop buying them again.
But, for now, I have Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project to keep me happy. So far, only Zatanna has been even slightly disappointing to me, due to what I see as unecessary deaths of 3rd-tier characters. I'll put up a discussion on Zatanna sometime when I have nothing to talk about, but for now - Klarion!
I just finished a second read-through of the first issue of Klarion, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. This felt less hyper-kinetic than the other Seven Soliders books have been so far, and Morrison spent more time world-building with this than he has in all three of the prior 7S books put together. I'm impressed that Morrison has been able to give each book a fairly unique "voice" and that so far I've liked something about each of the books (even if I enjoy some more than others).
I was very impressed with the art on this book. I don't think I've seen anything by Frazer Irving before - does anyone have any recommendations for other things he's worked on in the past?
I especially liked the atmosphere of Limbo Town. The coloring was especially moody and atmospheric. I liked how everything was done in various dark shades, except for the cat Teekl and a few other things (like the candy bar wrapper).
As for the story itself, I thought it was very well done. Morrison definitely drew me into the underground world of Limbo Town and made me want to know more about it. Obviously we're at least meant to believe that its in an area deep underground and that the people there are
descended from folks from the surface. The next issue blurb seems to confirm that, so I'll take it at face value for now.
The religion of the witch-folk seems very interesting too. I'd like to know more about the witch-god Croatoan. At times they talk about him like he's alive and nearby ("How long until you are baptized and they take you to Croatoan?"), and yet the head of the Submissionary Order
needs to perform a divination with his own blood to figure out what their god wants them to do.
I like what I've seen of Klarion's character so far too. Within just the one issue Morrison gives a good introduction to not just Klarion's world, but also Klarion's mindset in that world. The short-hand is that he's a rebel, a young man chafing under the system he was born in. He has a father who has gone missing that he idolizes, and a curiosity about the world beyond the gates to Limbo Town that most of his fellow "witches" do not share.
With all that packed into a single issue, I was actually suprised that Morrison was able to give us some plot as well - tieing into the ongoing Seven Soldiers event. We learn that Limbo Town is tied to the Sheeda in some way, with prophecies indicating an upcoming Sheeda invasion and their own immunity to the Sheeda's assault. This makes me think that Croatoan will be linked to the Sheeda in some way, but who knows.
In all, this was probably my second favorite of the Seven Soldiers "first issues" so far, coming in right after The Guardian's first issue. Morrison and Irving definitely have me hooked for this one.
Before I get into that, though, I'm making another resolution. I'm planning on concentrating on the things I like about comics for the near future. No rants about Infinite Crisis or who died this week or whatever. If I can't find something good to say about comics, I'll stop buying them again.
But, for now, I have Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project to keep me happy. So far, only Zatanna has been even slightly disappointing to me, due to what I see as unecessary deaths of 3rd-tier characters. I'll put up a discussion on Zatanna sometime when I have nothing to talk about, but for now - Klarion!
I just finished a second read-through of the first issue of Klarion, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. This felt less hyper-kinetic than the other Seven Soliders books have been so far, and Morrison spent more time world-building with this than he has in all three of the prior 7S books put together. I'm impressed that Morrison has been able to give each book a fairly unique "voice" and that so far I've liked something about each of the books (even if I enjoy some more than others).
I was very impressed with the art on this book. I don't think I've seen anything by Frazer Irving before - does anyone have any recommendations for other things he's worked on in the past?
I especially liked the atmosphere of Limbo Town. The coloring was especially moody and atmospheric. I liked how everything was done in various dark shades, except for the cat Teekl and a few other things (like the candy bar wrapper).
As for the story itself, I thought it was very well done. Morrison definitely drew me into the underground world of Limbo Town and made me want to know more about it. Obviously we're at least meant to believe that its in an area deep underground and that the people there are
descended from folks from the surface. The next issue blurb seems to confirm that, so I'll take it at face value for now.
The religion of the witch-folk seems very interesting too. I'd like to know more about the witch-god Croatoan. At times they talk about him like he's alive and nearby ("How long until you are baptized and they take you to Croatoan?"), and yet the head of the Submissionary Order
needs to perform a divination with his own blood to figure out what their god wants them to do.
I like what I've seen of Klarion's character so far too. Within just the one issue Morrison gives a good introduction to not just Klarion's world, but also Klarion's mindset in that world. The short-hand is that he's a rebel, a young man chafing under the system he was born in. He has a father who has gone missing that he idolizes, and a curiosity about the world beyond the gates to Limbo Town that most of his fellow "witches" do not share.
With all that packed into a single issue, I was actually suprised that Morrison was able to give us some plot as well - tieing into the ongoing Seven Soldiers event. We learn that Limbo Town is tied to the Sheeda in some way, with prophecies indicating an upcoming Sheeda invasion and their own immunity to the Sheeda's assault. This makes me think that Croatoan will be linked to the Sheeda in some way, but who knows.
In all, this was probably my second favorite of the Seven Soldiers "first issues" so far, coming in right after The Guardian's first issue. Morrison and Irving definitely have me hooked for this one.
Friday, March 04, 2005
Tales from the Ninth Week...
And once again, the quarter heats up and my posting drops to nothing. No worries, though, its the end of the ninth week and so far, so good. I finished up my last lab assignment for one class, will be finishing up my last homework for another sometime in the next few days, and finishing up both a research paper and a final project next week. Good thing I only have two finals this quarter...
You know, I gave up on Newsarama a long time ago - It annoys me that most of their "news" is either hype that is almost as bad as you find in Wizard or press releases (mostly from the Big Two, with others mixed it). And, when they had the recent Joe Quesada/Brian Bendis takeover for a week, I thought that pretty much justified my attitude.
But, then, they go and post a story like this story about the Superman copyright (helpfully pointed out by Mark Evanier at his website) and now I think I need to be reading the site regularly again. This was a good, informative article. I remember reading Newsarama regularly years ago when Matt Brady and Mike Sangiacomo regularly seemed to have actual newsworthy items to post and it was a great site to visit. Of course, the front page still looks more like crud, hype and press releases than anything else, so I don't know.
Am I asking for too much? Is it just that there isn't enough comic book news to put together a site devoted to it without the site degenerating? Maybe - it could be like with 24 hour news channels where there really isn't enough news to fill the network so hype, melodrama, editorial and combativ "debate" has filled in to fill up the space. Or maybe folks just want to read press releases from Marvel and DC and have a place to spout off about them. Maybe I'm just a crotchety old dingbat. I think that last premise is the most likely.
Anyway, back to the grind. A few more weeks until this quarter ends, which of course means only a few more weeks until the new one begins. Woo!
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Taking a break from the workload...
I probably won't get around to making any more long-winded posts for a while, since I'm in the middle of the "7th week sprint" here in school. With only 3 more weeks left in the quarter, time management becomes the key to getting all of the projects, homework, and tests done while still making time to see my beautiful wife and keeping my sanity.
A few random thoughts, though, before I dive back into my work:
That's it for now. Back to the grind.
A few random thoughts, though, before I dive back into my work:
- LISP really is an elegant language. I've done a bit of dabbling with it in the past, but never really hammered on it before. With my Programming Languages class this quarter, though, we have a project to write a scaled down LISP interpreter. It wasn't until I really got to work with the inner guts of the language that I began to see how beautiful it really is. I can understand what the few LISP-heads I've known see in the language now, and I hope that I get to work with it more in the future.
- My manga adventure continues in fits and starts. I've gotten a number of different volumes from the library in the last couple of weeks and I've been reading them when I've needed some kind of break from CS texts and programming. So far, a few gems and a few that have made me want to, as my brother Ed once put it, "invent a time machine to go back and stop myself from wasting my time with them". I'd especially like to get back the time I spent reading the first volume of "Fairie's Landing" - a book that I just didn't like at all. I'm glad it was free - I don't have to rant about how I'd like my money back.
- On the other hand, the good ones have been REALLY good. The best of the bunch so far, in my opinion, is "Hikaru no Go", a book that has me wanting to learn how to play Go. It's funny, dramatic, and definitely different from a lot of other stuff I've read. This was probably the best comic book I've read in a long while. I suppose I'm getting cynical in my old age.
- Mister Miracle and the New Gods animated on Cartoon Network last week made my night. I'm not a big fan of the Virman Vunderbar character - I would have liked to see a different villain there as a foil against Granny - maybe Dr. Bedlam or Tigra or something - but I loved the episode anyway.
That's it for now. Back to the grind.
Friday, February 11, 2005
Comics: Runaways v.1 and v.2
So, as I posted before, I picked up copies of Runaways v.1 and v.2 from my local library branch. Now I can see what the hype was all about. I had picked up an issue of Runaways after hearing some good things about it (I think it was issue 8), but it didn't grab me at all. I couldn't figure out what was happening and I didn't feel compelled to go back and get more issues.
But, whoa, after reading the first volume "Pride & Joy" all the way through I can definitely see what people like about this book. The characterization is great, the premise is quite original, and the story is genuinely fun. I grabbed the second volume as well, and while it isn't quite as good as the first one, it continues to be a fun ride.
A spoiler-ish summary for those who haven't read these books:
Summary
"Pride & Joy" is the first volume of the series. We are introduced to the six kids who are the cast of the book, along with their parents. In the first chapter we see snippets of their normal home lives, only to have the rug pulled out from under us when the kids discover that their parents are actually a group of super-villains called the Pride. They see their parents kill a young woman in a secret ceremony and decide that they need to turn their parents into the police. Of course, it turns out that the police are corrupt and in the back pocket of the parents, and the parents use the cops to frame one of their own kids for the murder that the Pride committed, so the rest of the first volume involves the kids getting away from their parents, keeping ahead of the cops, and finding a place to stake themselves out while the figure out what to do next. We also discover that one of the kids is actually sympathetic to his parents and is working as a "mole" for the Pride within the group.
"Teenage Wasteland" is the second volume, and its not as cohesive as the first. Its made up of two story arcs - "Teenage Wasteland" and "Lost and Found". The first arc involves the kids finding another super-powered youth with criminal parents and the repercussions of inviting him into their circle. "Lost and Found" is a guest appearance by Cloak and Dagger, as they are brought into town by one of the Pride's minions to hunt down the kids.
Commentary
I wasn't expecting to like this book nearly as much as I did. Like I said, I'd picked up an issue before to try it, and had been underwhelmed. Nothing much seemed to happen in it, and the characters were not developed enough in the one issue for me to really care to seek it out again.
But, reading it in its collected form, I can really see where the appeal is. The introductory chapters in "Pride & Joy" are must-reads for the kids character development. And while the plot in the issue of "Teenage Wasteland" that I read moved slow in single issue form, the pacing in the collection is perfect.
This is the type of book that really should have a broad appeal outside of superhero fans. While it may be a little cliche to talk about kids wanting to read about kids, conversations with my wife (the children's librarian) have convinced me that this is true. The kids in this book feel like real teenagers with real problems, and not just like what some middle-aged guy thinks a teenager's problems would be. [1]
The only issue that I have with the book, and its a minor one really, is the Cloak and Dagger appearance. Now, I love Cloak and Dagger - I think they're an underrated concept and they've been poorly used over the years - and by bringing them in Vaughn establishes a larger tie to the whole "shared universe". This shouldn't bug me, but it does. With the first volume, even though the kids are obviously in the Marvel Universe, you never feel like that's going to help them. Wolverine isn't going to show up and stop the Pride, Captain America isn't going to swoop in and rescue the kids, these kids are on their own.
By introducing Cloak and Dagger, Vaughn introduces a messy element into the mix. Now, with this kind of "in-your-face" example, we have to wonder - how is this city cut off from the rest of the Marvel Universe? Does anyone know that the Pride exists (villains must - the Pride talks about how no villains operate in their city without permission)? If so, why hasn't anyone stepped forward before to stop them? By keeping the Marvel Universe offstage for the first volume, Vaughn sidestepped most of these issues. But, buy pushing Cloak and Dagger into the second volume, these issues become front and center and intrude on my reading of the book.
But, really, its a minor thing [2]. Overall, these are some great books and I cannot wait to pick up volume 3. I'll probably even end up buying it in my February comics purchases, since I think I'll have some room in the budget and I probably won't want to wait for the library to get a copy. I hope that the second series for this title continues to be as fun as this first series has been.
[1] Ah yes, it is ironic isn't it that I, being a middle-age guy, get to comment on what I think "feels" like what a teenager's real problems are. They seem like real kids - okay? I mean, I could see some of them being freshmen in my College Algebra classes. It's more than just the speech patterns (though that helps) - there's something about them that Vaughn captures that just feels right.
[2] And a geeky, fanboy thing at that. I admit it.
But, whoa, after reading the first volume "Pride & Joy" all the way through I can definitely see what people like about this book. The characterization is great, the premise is quite original, and the story is genuinely fun. I grabbed the second volume as well, and while it isn't quite as good as the first one, it continues to be a fun ride.
A spoiler-ish summary for those who haven't read these books:
Summary
"Pride & Joy" is the first volume of the series. We are introduced to the six kids who are the cast of the book, along with their parents. In the first chapter we see snippets of their normal home lives, only to have the rug pulled out from under us when the kids discover that their parents are actually a group of super-villains called the Pride. They see their parents kill a young woman in a secret ceremony and decide that they need to turn their parents into the police. Of course, it turns out that the police are corrupt and in the back pocket of the parents, and the parents use the cops to frame one of their own kids for the murder that the Pride committed, so the rest of the first volume involves the kids getting away from their parents, keeping ahead of the cops, and finding a place to stake themselves out while the figure out what to do next. We also discover that one of the kids is actually sympathetic to his parents and is working as a "mole" for the Pride within the group.
"Teenage Wasteland" is the second volume, and its not as cohesive as the first. Its made up of two story arcs - "Teenage Wasteland" and "Lost and Found". The first arc involves the kids finding another super-powered youth with criminal parents and the repercussions of inviting him into their circle. "Lost and Found" is a guest appearance by Cloak and Dagger, as they are brought into town by one of the Pride's minions to hunt down the kids.
Commentary
I wasn't expecting to like this book nearly as much as I did. Like I said, I'd picked up an issue before to try it, and had been underwhelmed. Nothing much seemed to happen in it, and the characters were not developed enough in the one issue for me to really care to seek it out again.
But, reading it in its collected form, I can really see where the appeal is. The introductory chapters in "Pride & Joy" are must-reads for the kids character development. And while the plot in the issue of "Teenage Wasteland" that I read moved slow in single issue form, the pacing in the collection is perfect.
This is the type of book that really should have a broad appeal outside of superhero fans. While it may be a little cliche to talk about kids wanting to read about kids, conversations with my wife (the children's librarian) have convinced me that this is true. The kids in this book feel like real teenagers with real problems, and not just like what some middle-aged guy thinks a teenager's problems would be. [1]
The only issue that I have with the book, and its a minor one really, is the Cloak and Dagger appearance. Now, I love Cloak and Dagger - I think they're an underrated concept and they've been poorly used over the years - and by bringing them in Vaughn establishes a larger tie to the whole "shared universe". This shouldn't bug me, but it does. With the first volume, even though the kids are obviously in the Marvel Universe, you never feel like that's going to help them. Wolverine isn't going to show up and stop the Pride, Captain America isn't going to swoop in and rescue the kids, these kids are on their own.
By introducing Cloak and Dagger, Vaughn introduces a messy element into the mix. Now, with this kind of "in-your-face" example, we have to wonder - how is this city cut off from the rest of the Marvel Universe? Does anyone know that the Pride exists (villains must - the Pride talks about how no villains operate in their city without permission)? If so, why hasn't anyone stepped forward before to stop them? By keeping the Marvel Universe offstage for the first volume, Vaughn sidestepped most of these issues. But, buy pushing Cloak and Dagger into the second volume, these issues become front and center and intrude on my reading of the book.
But, really, its a minor thing [2]. Overall, these are some great books and I cannot wait to pick up volume 3. I'll probably even end up buying it in my February comics purchases, since I think I'll have some room in the budget and I probably won't want to wait for the library to get a copy. I hope that the second series for this title continues to be as fun as this first series has been.
[1] Ah yes, it is ironic isn't it that I, being a middle-age guy, get to comment on what I think "feels" like what a teenager's real problems are. They seem like real kids - okay? I mean, I could see some of them being freshmen in my College Algebra classes. It's more than just the speech patterns (though that helps) - there's something about them that Vaughn captures that just feels right.
[2] And a geeky, fanboy thing at that. I admit it.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Comics Industry: Pamphlets, Digests, and Magazines - Oh My!
Allright, so this is a bit of an essay/rant/diatribe that I've been wanting to write for a while. Over at Fanboy Rampage there was recently a post about cheaper comics. The gist of the post was that comics companies (meaning DC and Marvel here) should put their products out on cheap newsprint and price them close to $1, instead of the $3 price-point with superior paper that comics have now. The upshot of the whole thing seeming to be that if the comics cost less, more would be purchased, and the comics industry would be SAVED!
Now, let's leave aside the whole thought about whether the "comics industry" needs saving. Johanna had a good post the other day about why the "comics industry" is actually doing quite fine, if you include manga in that description. I'm going to assume here that "comics industry" means "direct market and the big two publishers", though I agree with Johanna that the actual state of the market as a whole for comics is much better than it has been in years.
So, what about the "big two" then? Would making $1 comics bring them back the fans who had left, drag in new young readers, and generally get the superhero comics back into the limelight that they held in the mythical "golden age" of comics? IMHO, eh - not so much. And it has less to do with whether you could get more people to read comics at that price point (an argument I'm willing to have, but not here), and more to do with how retail works.
The standard retail model works (in a simplistic fashion) like this: Producer of goods sells goods to distributor for a set price. Distributor marks that price up by a percentage, and sells it to a retailer. The retailer then marks that price up again by a percentage to sell to a customer. Everyone along the chain gets a cut of the action.
So, why should Diamond carry and distribute a line of $1 books when they could be distributing a line of $3 books instead? They get more money per book, the retailer gets more money per book, the publisher gets more money per book, everyone in the chain is happier in general. And, since the purpose of this exercise is for each of these companies to make money, you can see which direction things are going to trend.
What about a selection of loss-leader books? Remember, the sales of the books have to support their weight in overhead costs for the publisher, the distributor and the retailer. If a retailer has shelf space for a number of books, and he has to choose between selling 100 copies of a $3 book and 100 copies of a $1 book, you can see what he's going to choose.
And, when we get outside of comic book stores, it gets worse. Look over the magazines at your local newsstand or Barnes and Noble. Check out those cover prices. Do you think with the selection of magazines available, the Barnes and Noble wants to take up precious shelf space with a bunch of $1 comics? That's the whole reason comics got pushed off the newsstand in the first place - magazines were going up in price and the comics companies refused to change their format to allow them to stay in the newsstand market (see "DC Comics Implosion")[1].
So, if I don't think that you can get comics to the masses by making them cheaper, how do I think you can get them out? Simple, make them more expensive. I'm serious. Look again at that newsstand example - the average price of a magazine right now is in the $5-$6 range, with many of them running into the $10-$15 range for some "specialty" areas. How can you get newsstand vendors to put your product on their racks? Make sure that your product is giving them a chance to make at least as much as their average mags are getting them.
Now, the other thing that you have to do is make sure that folks don't look at your magazine and laugh. If you tried to charge $5 for your average 32-page pamphlet, most folks would laugh in your face (or punch you, maybe)[2]. Look at the page counts of those $5-$6 magazines again - they've usually got over a hundred pages, even if they have a lot of ads. People expect VALUE for their dollars, which includes more than page count, but page count is a part of it.
So, what do I suggest doing then? Lets take Marvel as an example. Currently, Marvel puts out some ungodly number of Spider-man comic books and X-Men comic books. Marvel also has two of the most recognizable comic-book movie properties right now with Spider-man and the X-Men. These are the names that COULD be bringing folks into reading Marvel's superhero comics IF they could get them.
I contend that Marvel could easily combine two of their monthly Spider-man books into a single magazine - "Amazing Spider-Man magazine." Charge $5-$6 bucks for it, make it actually magazine sized, and fill out the back half of the magazine with reprints. Fans would still be getting their $6 for two stories, while the format would be more conducive to people picking it up from their local grocery or bookstore newsstand. I would also have some editorial changes to make one of the new stories in the book a "stand-alone" story with the second new story an on-going one, but that's less of a format decision than a "marketing" one.
They could do something similar with their X-Men books - pick two to combine together into one book (say Uncanny and X-Men) and name it "Uncanny X-Men magazine". Charge $5-$6 bucks for it and put reprints in the back.
As time passes and readership builds, Marvel should be able to add more advertising, and maybe offset the costs of replacing the reprints with new material. Spin-off characters like Arana could be tried in the back of an Amazing Spider-Man magazine, instead of giving them a six issue limited series. Stories that really only work well in collected form could be used as backup material with an eye towards getting them into digests, etc.
A similar case could be made for DC. In fact, with DC, Superman and Batman books suggest themselves right away, and with the number of Superman and Batman books on the shelves, consolodating two into a monthly magazine should be even easier than with Spider-man.
The objection that will come to the front is that Marvel tried this just a few years ago - with their Ultimate and Marvel Knights magazine. This plan would be different from that one because this one leverages the existing readership of Amazing Spider-man into the readership of the magazine. You may lose a few, but with format chages you might actually get some back (especially if you combine a serial with a "done-in-one" story). You can then use that readership to grow out to newsstands and subscribers.
Now, I really think that branching out into non-superhero properties is how the big two will survive in the future. But, if they're serious about being in the monthly serial business, the time has come to really re-examine what they are doing and what formats they are using. The direct market is suffering, and without an injection of new readers, bad things are going to happen to it.
[1] Newsstands also have a whole 'returnability' issue that is another reason comics left the newsstand, I know. That's another aspect of the magazine publishing business that the direct market has allowed the comics companies to avoid for a long time.
[2] I could be wrong about this. I never thought we'd see comics get above $2, but here we are. Of course, there's also been a steady drain of readers, so maybe we are approaching some kind of equilibrium point or something.
Now, let's leave aside the whole thought about whether the "comics industry" needs saving. Johanna had a good post the other day about why the "comics industry" is actually doing quite fine, if you include manga in that description. I'm going to assume here that "comics industry" means "direct market and the big two publishers", though I agree with Johanna that the actual state of the market as a whole for comics is much better than it has been in years.
So, what about the "big two" then? Would making $1 comics bring them back the fans who had left, drag in new young readers, and generally get the superhero comics back into the limelight that they held in the mythical "golden age" of comics? IMHO, eh - not so much. And it has less to do with whether you could get more people to read comics at that price point (an argument I'm willing to have, but not here), and more to do with how retail works.
The standard retail model works (in a simplistic fashion) like this: Producer of goods sells goods to distributor for a set price. Distributor marks that price up by a percentage, and sells it to a retailer. The retailer then marks that price up again by a percentage to sell to a customer. Everyone along the chain gets a cut of the action.
So, why should Diamond carry and distribute a line of $1 books when they could be distributing a line of $3 books instead? They get more money per book, the retailer gets more money per book, the publisher gets more money per book, everyone in the chain is happier in general. And, since the purpose of this exercise is for each of these companies to make money, you can see which direction things are going to trend.
What about a selection of loss-leader books? Remember, the sales of the books have to support their weight in overhead costs for the publisher, the distributor and the retailer. If a retailer has shelf space for a number of books, and he has to choose between selling 100 copies of a $3 book and 100 copies of a $1 book, you can see what he's going to choose.
And, when we get outside of comic book stores, it gets worse. Look over the magazines at your local newsstand or Barnes and Noble. Check out those cover prices. Do you think with the selection of magazines available, the Barnes and Noble wants to take up precious shelf space with a bunch of $1 comics? That's the whole reason comics got pushed off the newsstand in the first place - magazines were going up in price and the comics companies refused to change their format to allow them to stay in the newsstand market (see "DC Comics Implosion")[1].
So, if I don't think that you can get comics to the masses by making them cheaper, how do I think you can get them out? Simple, make them more expensive. I'm serious. Look again at that newsstand example - the average price of a magazine right now is in the $5-$6 range, with many of them running into the $10-$15 range for some "specialty" areas. How can you get newsstand vendors to put your product on their racks? Make sure that your product is giving them a chance to make at least as much as their average mags are getting them.
Now, the other thing that you have to do is make sure that folks don't look at your magazine and laugh. If you tried to charge $5 for your average 32-page pamphlet, most folks would laugh in your face (or punch you, maybe)[2]. Look at the page counts of those $5-$6 magazines again - they've usually got over a hundred pages, even if they have a lot of ads. People expect VALUE for their dollars, which includes more than page count, but page count is a part of it.
So, what do I suggest doing then? Lets take Marvel as an example. Currently, Marvel puts out some ungodly number of Spider-man comic books and X-Men comic books. Marvel also has two of the most recognizable comic-book movie properties right now with Spider-man and the X-Men. These are the names that COULD be bringing folks into reading Marvel's superhero comics IF they could get them.
I contend that Marvel could easily combine two of their monthly Spider-man books into a single magazine - "Amazing Spider-Man magazine." Charge $5-$6 bucks for it, make it actually magazine sized, and fill out the back half of the magazine with reprints. Fans would still be getting their $6 for two stories, while the format would be more conducive to people picking it up from their local grocery or bookstore newsstand. I would also have some editorial changes to make one of the new stories in the book a "stand-alone" story with the second new story an on-going one, but that's less of a format decision than a "marketing" one.
They could do something similar with their X-Men books - pick two to combine together into one book (say Uncanny and X-Men) and name it "Uncanny X-Men magazine". Charge $5-$6 bucks for it and put reprints in the back.
As time passes and readership builds, Marvel should be able to add more advertising, and maybe offset the costs of replacing the reprints with new material. Spin-off characters like Arana could be tried in the back of an Amazing Spider-Man magazine, instead of giving them a six issue limited series. Stories that really only work well in collected form could be used as backup material with an eye towards getting them into digests, etc.
A similar case could be made for DC. In fact, with DC, Superman and Batman books suggest themselves right away, and with the number of Superman and Batman books on the shelves, consolodating two into a monthly magazine should be even easier than with Spider-man.
The objection that will come to the front is that Marvel tried this just a few years ago - with their Ultimate and Marvel Knights magazine. This plan would be different from that one because this one leverages the existing readership of Amazing Spider-man into the readership of the magazine. You may lose a few, but with format chages you might actually get some back (especially if you combine a serial with a "done-in-one" story). You can then use that readership to grow out to newsstands and subscribers.
Now, I really think that branching out into non-superhero properties is how the big two will survive in the future. But, if they're serious about being in the monthly serial business, the time has come to really re-examine what they are doing and what formats they are using. The direct market is suffering, and without an injection of new readers, bad things are going to happen to it.
[1] Newsstands also have a whole 'returnability' issue that is another reason comics left the newsstand, I know. That's another aspect of the magazine publishing business that the direct market has allowed the comics companies to avoid for a long time.
[2] I could be wrong about this. I never thought we'd see comics get above $2, but here we are. Of course, there's also been a steady drain of readers, so maybe we are approaching some kind of equilibrium point or something.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)