Then there’s Dan the Unharmable, Dark Horse Presents, Hero Worship, Saga, Epic Kill, Mind the Gap, and the ever interesting Invincible. I even tried Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s creator owned anthology series. (Sorry guys but I grew tired of Jonah Hex traipsing around Gotham City with Dr. Arkham. I was with you at the outset and I stayed until issue 13 but now I’m done.)

First, if you think naming a book X-Men or Avengers isn’t part of a marketing strategy, then you’re just naive. Why do you think X-Treme X-Men isn’t called eXiles even though they have a similar concept?

Gouging your customer base? How so? How is including the name X-Men on x-related books gouging anybody? You are aware that nobody is forced to buy any comic books, right? Is there a bully who beats you up if you don’t buy all the X-Men books? A title including the name x-men will likely do better (look at generation hope) but, as Graeme himself points out, even books that have the name in their titles struggle (like Xtreme Xmen).

I don’t know what you’re talking about with Disney and WB, that’s irrelevant to this discussion.

And as to your comment regarding the health of the industry, I don’t see why the big two publishing super hero books is a bad thing. I’m not sure if you’ve seen sales estimates, but they sell very well. Since these are companies who want to make money, that’s what they publish. And, using the x-books as the example, these aren’t “all the same”, as you say. If you read the x-titles, you can easily see that each of them occupy a different niche in the large x-world.

I get it, you’re probably friends or partners with Graeme, but refuting people who critique his posts with inferred information and subjective facts isn’t the way to go.

It’s an issue of the long term health of the industry — you can only count on gouging your customer base for so long until they stop buying your books. Both Marvel and DC are putting all their eggs into just a few baskets.

That said, it’s ultimately irrelevant at this point, as the characters at Marvel and DC are IPs for licensing and other media. The comics are an after thought for Warner Brothers and Disney.

That doesn’t speak highly for the health of the medium, though, when the two largest publishers are not only just publishing superhero comics (or 90%), but when the majority of even those are all the same.

Damn, just write good comics and let people figure out what they want to buy. Oh by the way, no one’s forcing anyone to buy anything, and don’t try to convince yourself otherwise. Believe me, you’ll live if you don’t find out why Cable has an eyepatch now.

There’s a few different brand of Oreo’s out now, too. Peanut butter, chocolate dipped, chewy cookies, vanilla cookies with chocolate creme, mint Oreo’s, mini Oreo’s, double stuffed, and regular. I don’t like Oreo’s. I’m a Nutter Butter man. But every time I see all those Oreo’s I lose it, ya know? I mean I really just go red and run to the Internet as fast as I can and just EMOTE. I mean, seriously. I can’t even. Really. Just…ugh. Like, come on. Wait, wha? And even though I hate Oreo’s, I make sure to spend a lot of time talking about them online. Cause COMICSINTERNETFANZZZ!!!

I just skips all books with Wolverine in them. Not much left after that!