Over at Comic Book Resources’ message board, there’s an example of the touchiness of comic fans:
“So what percentage of the comic reading population ISN’T reading Civil War? I think that’s a fair question. I had a friend ask me the other day if I was reading Civil War (he isn’t a comic reader) so I said ‘Of course, who isn’t?’ So after that conversation and after doing very little research, I’ve come to ask fellow comic readers themselves if they know other readers who aren’t reading CW. There isn’t a single pull list in my local shop that doesn’t pull CW.”
My favorite response:
“No, it really isn’t [a fair question]. First off, you are posing the question as a negative, which in itself is not fair. The question, properly phrased, would be what percentage of the comic reading population is reading Civil War.”
Sometimes I just want to give the internet a big hug. Meanwhile, other people have a go at answering the question:
“Even though it’s clearly a big seller, I suspect there’s still a large percentage of comic book readers who aren’t reading CW, for various reasons: 1) Comic book readers who aren’t really interested in superhero titles. 2) Comic book readers who read superhero titles, but don’t usually read Marvel titles. 3) Comic book readers who read Marvel’s superhero titles, but don’t like reading company-wide crossovers. (this is the category I fall under, BTW) 4) Comic book readers who don’t mind reading company-wide crossovers, but dislike Mark Millar’s writing. 5) Comic book readers who were reading CW, but got disgusted with the multiple delays, and dropped the title from their pull lists. 6) Comic book readers who aren’t reading CW yet, but are instead waiting for the TPB(s). Category #6 may not count for your purposes, and perhaps #5 doesn’t, as well, but #1-4 surely do, and those aren’t insignificant percentages of the comic book reading populace. While clearly CW is read by a large number of fans, I think there are large chunks of the comic book demographic that aren’t reading it.”
“I’m reading and buying it. I’d say maybe about 25 % are not reading it…just a guess.”
It is an interesting question considering Civil War’s sales figures, even if it’s apparently not fair, and kind of ties in with a discussion I was part of, yesterday…
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:06 am
I hate crossovers and refuse to read them. For said reason I am not buying or reading CW. I don’t read a whole lot of Marvel anyway. I buy lots of comics, read lots of comics, but I read mostly indies.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:21 am
I guess I’m a combination of 3 and 4. I gave it a chance but by the 4th issue, was done with it, not because of delays but because Millar’s a terrible writer.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 am
What do you have to be part of the “comics reading population”.
If you only read Robin and maybe a Batman book or two, aren’t you just a Batman reader? Isn’t there a chance that you’d have no interest at all in Civil War?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:49 am
I don’t read it, but I may pick up a TPB at some point.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:56 am
The comics reading community is so inward looking that I think a lot of people don’t count those folks that don’t read superhero comics or only read graphic novels as comic readers. I do count them, so I would say there is a huge percentage of comic readers not buying Civil War. Yes, at our store, it is the biggest selling title by far, even bringing in people that had never read, or had quit reading comics, but there are still a lot of people that don’t even look at it twice before buying the next issue of Fables or a copy of Fun Home.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 am
We currently have 45 subscribers for Civil War, out of 120 savers. So, obviously, not everyone is reading it.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 am
What percentage of the comic buying population cares what percentage of the population is reading book X?
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I have read the main book, but just read the tie-ins that were regular reads. I read it, but really dislike it. I have gotten it because of the impact on the future of Marvel’s Comic Universe. Most likely I will be leaving a great many Marvel buys after the end, because of CW.
On the flip side I am buying more DC than ever before.
signed,
A former Marvel Only Reader
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I pretty much only read superhero comics (with a few exceptions, like Thrizzle and Ivan Brunetti). And these days, I mostly read Marvel, esp. She-Hulk and X-Factor. (I’m also reading All-New Atom, Welcome To Tranquility and the new Ostrander Star Wars series, which is much underrated.) It never even occurred to me to want to read Civil War. The last crossover I read was Underworld Unleashed, which a stranger from the Internet mailed to me for free when I was living in Hong Kong. He just wanted to be able to say he hated UU so much he mailed it to Hong Kong.
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Well the intense hype of Civil War and the fact that it is affecting most characters in the Marvel Universe has got most people reading it. It’s got a lot of people talking about Marvel and it has got me interested. So I’m reading it because I’m interested, and yet I think it’s just horrible. It’s absolutely god awful (except for the art of course, I’m a McNiven fan from back in his Meridian days). If Marvel were to try this again any time soon I think it would bomb and fail, but in this instance the time and energy spent on marketing outwieghed the time in energy speant on editing and writing and plotting so as far as their bottom line is concerned it was worth it.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Not to turn this into a piracy thing or any of that, but I think it’s probably a good idea to make the distinction between whether you’re reading Civil War or whether you’re buying Civil War.
I stopped getting Civil War: Frontline after a few issues but I know what’s happened in the others, just like I know what’s happened in Fantastic Four ever since I dropped it in the Hulk story pre-Civil War and I know what happened in Wolverine’s Civil War story.
I know what happened because of the internet.
In my case, I only saw excerpts here and there of the issues in question, but I know that if I wanted to I could go get the whole thing. Which means a lot in a huge crossover like Civil War, when a potential buyer looks at the sheer amount of titles involved and says to themselves, “That is a fuckton of money.”