Not that I’m saying that we should all be afraid of Marvel Comics or anything, but this line really stood out for me in a recent ICv2 report about comic sales in April:
Civil War and Civil War: Initiative account for a major percentage of sales of both comic periodicals and graphic novels this month. By our estimate, Civil War (including Fallen Son) and Civil War: Initiative titles totaled 13% of periodical comic sales in May, and 22% of sales on the Top 100 Graphic Novels.
Now I get why Marvel is determined to keep that branding going forever…
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:15 am
Yeah, but isn’t this high percentage simply because Marvel has put the “Initiative” banner on so many of their titles?
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
Niels - I was about to say the exact same thing.
It accounts for 22% of sales, but its branded on 90% of their product.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:58 am
Kevin - Yeah, but it’s 22% of all graphic novel and trade sales for the month, and a fifth of all GNs and trades published in April didn’t have Civil War branding…
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Now I get why “fun” is such a sales-killer in the modern market. For the most part, Civil War has been synonymous with crap storytelling, but crap storytelling is what most readers seem to want. Bendis and Millar should publish a multi-issue crossover titled “Idiotic Characterizations, Nonsensical Plotting and Gratuitously Grim-and-Gritty Posturing That Was Trite and Dated a Decade Ago.” Between their name brands and the title description, I’d bet it would be the best seller Quesada’s Marvel has seen yet.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:43 pm
“Now I get why “fun” is such a sales-killer in the modern market. For the most part, Civil War has been synonymous with crap storytelling, but crap storytelling is what most readers seem to want. Bendis and Millar should publish a multi-issue crossover titled “Idiotic Characterizations, Nonsensical Plotting and Gratuitously Grim-and-Gritty Posturing That Was Trite and Dated a Decade Ago.” Between their name brands and the title description, I’d bet it would be the best seller Quesada’s Marvel has seen yet.”
They’re just following DC’s lead since Identity Crisis (“Idiotic Characterizations, Nonsensical Plotting and Gratuitously Grim-and-Gritty Posturing That Was Trite and Dated a Decade Ago.”). It’s a shame, a total case of the blind leading the sighted.
Of course, bad as it was, it still wasn’t as bad as the Identity/Infinite Crisis dreck we’ve seen in recent years.
Side note: why is Marvel’s victory being downplayed due to Civil War branding. When DC was gaining ground due to crossovers like Infinite Crisis where everything was made into a marginal tie-in, these criticisms were somewhat absent. This is simply a case of Marvel beating DC at its own game and Marvel haters crying foul. Even now most of DC’s top positions are occupied by issues of 52 or OYL (which branded just as high a percentage of DC books as Civil War did of Marvel’s books). I wouldn’t be surprised if in the coming year most of DC’s top positions are occupied by issues of Countdown and Countdown tie-ins across the line.
Let’s just face it, the overall buying public outside of the internet just prefers Marvel.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Clearly, that’s the case right now. But things change, and nothing lasts forever. Which is why the market should be more balanced in its choices, to cushion the shock of transition periods.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:21 pm
You can’t really blame either company when they learned their lessons based on the success of Avengers: Disassembled. We’re just letting ourselves get played into the market by their exploitation. Even when we hate a book, we usually wind up buying it. How else can we complain to all our friends about the sucky quality of the crap we’re reading. How many people bought All-Star Batman last week despite hating it? All the big two are doing right now is making money.
The real test will be next year win DC unveils FINAL CRISIS. We’ll see if Marvel’s Initiative holds up to the challenge and how the market handles it. I see a lot of unhealthy growth taking place at the moment and the big two look like they could choke of the event feast.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Sucky crossover exploitations did not start with the success of Avengers Dissassembled. That was Marvels first linewide crossover since what, Maximum Security. And before that, Onslaught. Then we have to go all the way back to Galactic Storm in the 90s.
Meanwhile DC has hit us with Identity Crisis, Jokers Last Laugh, Our Worlds at War, Day of Judgment, DC One Million, Genesis, Final Night and Underworld Unleashed. I know its fashionable to blame Marvel for every bad trend in comics, but DC has much more responsibilty for sucky crossover reliance than Marvel, theyve gone back to that well nonstop over the years.