If Bleeding Cool is to be believed, Marvel Comics is planning on returning to the newsstands in a big way – but, this time, it’s the newsstands of stores like Barnes and Nobles and Hastings:
I understand that they are launching a massive amount of new ongoing titles for this market, that will anthologize existing material and flood the growing market. The titles I have so far are Marvel Adventures, Marvel Chronicles, Marvel Classics, Marvel Essentials, Marvel Family, Marvel Heroes, Marvel Icons, Marvel Initiative, Marvel Knights, Marvel Legends, Marvel Milestones, Marvel Power, Marvel Redux, Marvel Select, Marvel Silver, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Techno and Marvel Wonders.
Firstly: That has to be a list of potential titles, right? That’s eighteen different titles, and no matter how many comics bookstores can shift, I doubt the market is really ready for eighteen different reprint series, especially ones with such similar names (Am I the only person that thinks that “Marvel Classics,” “Marvel Essentials” and “Marvel Milestones” all pretty much sound like three different titles for the same idea?).
Secondly: Rich suggests that each series will cost around $3.99 and reprint two “regular” issues, which seems like good value for money, but does make me wonder what issues will be reprinted, and how far behind the regular books they’ll run – Because, at what point is something close enough to the “new” stuff and cheap enough that readers upset about the $3.99 price point per regular issue make the jump to waiting 6 months, say, for the half-price reprints?
Thirdly: Marvel Techno is a terrible, terrible title, and I really hope that someone makes them realize that before it launches, if it ever launches.
It’s an interesting idea, though, and it’ll be fascinating to see if this attempt to grow the industry is as successful, more successful, or completely separated from DC’s attempt to use digital as the new newsstand. Here’s hoping for an official announcement soon, and a fun few months as all of these new programs get started…
June 20th, 2011 at 11:22 am
If Marvel Techno is a P. Norbert Ebersol ongoing series, no complaints here.
June 20th, 2011 at 11:36 am
I’m not likely in the target group as I already have so many back issues that I doubt there will be much reprinted I don’t already have.
Having said that, I could see it as a way of trying out new titles of books that maybe in the past didn’t interest me.
June 20th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
I’m right with you there, especially with the naming of the titles. Unless it’s something along the lines of say Marvel Classics not being Marvel superhero stories but actually reprints of the classic works they’ve been releasing such as The Wizard of Oz.
June 20th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
And Marvel is doing this because … it worked so well for CrossGen?
June 20th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
I’m surprised Marvel is bothering with this, since major bookchains and the small mom-and-pop operations are by-and-large closing numerous stores because of digital.
June 21st, 2011 at 2:54 am
This isn’t news or revolutionary, or even a good idea. It’s not even new. What it is is incredibly antiquated and backward-thinking, especially compared to the gauntlet-throwing “Here’s what progress looks like” philosophy that DC just unleashed.
M. – I agree. You hit the nail on the head. You can do whatever you want in print media, it’s just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
June 21st, 2011 at 3:18 am
Ummm… Really D. Peace? You see DC flooding the market with disposable titles that won’t live out the year as progress? I don’t think either of the big two have learned anything from the 90s and are going to bring the industry crashing down with them.
What they should be focusing on is a smaller stable of titles, with tight continuity but not great interdependency, just like the original Marvel Universe. With characters that are never allowed to grow and evolve and the constant jettisoning and rewriting of their increasingly complicated continuity, as well as the frequency of MEGA-CROSSOVER-EARTH-SHATTERING events DC and Marvel are doomed to fail.
June 21st, 2011 at 6:59 am
Seems a lot of Graeme’s articles are reports of what Rich is reporting. No problem, so why the snippy intro “If Bleeding Cool is to be believed…”?
Some love lost here, I think?
June 21st, 2011 at 9:39 am
@ D. Peace
You think Marvel is the Titanic? Pray tell how you came to this conclusion?
Aside from Batman and Superman, do you really think people will care for most of the throway books which DC are producing? Because you know, there is a such a demand for a new Titans book with (circa image in the 1990s). DC rather resemble an up and coming organisation who are throwing shit at the wall to see what will stick and calling this is a strategy.
‘Here’s what progress looks like’ is not a philosophy which DC have. Not unless you think progress looks like:
- Retconning their entire history.
- Removing a great deal of their lead female characters, and
- Removing their people of colour (diversity indeed).
Any way Bob/Paul/Geoff/D. Peace, I look forward to your explanation as to how Marvel is the Titanc.
Yours sincerely,
von Slaich.
June 21st, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Here’s an idea: put CURRENT issues into bookstores, rather than all these half-ass reprints, “anthologies” and mini-trades.
June 21st, 2011 at 5:03 pm
“wtf is a bookstore lol” – seriously, that’s a “growing market”?