Comments on: The Big Two “Need to Stop Launching Books Which Are Clearly Losers-on-Paper”

By: ThePlainTruth

ThePlainTruth — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 04:13:06 +0000

with this attitude…there would never have been a Watchmen or The Sandman or Morison’s Doom Patrol…..

shut up Hibbs…and graeme you dont know what side of you arse you are farting out of when you post your sheeeat

By: matches

matches — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 15:07:40 +0000

Always suspicious when folks make sweeping pronouncements about how businesses need to change their business models without having any knowledge of said businesses’ financials.

Obviously I would defer to Hibbs as to HIS business, and if he says it’s tough for him to make any money on mid-list or low-end books, so be it. I’m sure he knows his stuff.

It’s a giant, and unsupported, leap from there to “This stuff shouldn’t exist”, though.

By: RES

RES — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 21:05:42 +0000

Honestly, both of the big two appear to be drifting with no direction. When one company makes a major change, the other follows, and who suffers the most the reading public. Too many titles published by both, with no real quality. Some say that the top talent should be on the godd and bad books, but honestly, some of their work has suffered recently. If you want the top talent to work onthe books, then should be committed to doing quality work.

I agrre there are too many books on the market that are crap and should be canceled, but store owners still order the books that not be ordered hoping that their customers will be “suckers” and purchase them. This reminds me of the 90′s all over again. When will they learn. Has anyone noticed that the other good talent that has left Marvel & DC have gone to the independents, and have been producing great books to read, not like the same old “re-hashed” stuff from the big two.

In the past, I used to buy thse titles over the decades and since then have walked away from the books that look like crap, and in fact have walked away from the big two recently due to the New 52 & Marvel Now due to the lack of quality stories and are. In fact I’m glad to leave Bendis behind and his predictable story telling. Others should really take a good look at the books from the big two and decide to not purchase what is crap and leave those books to fall be the wayside. Appears society is dumber than we think and continue to waste money on the substandard books the big two are forcing us to buy and hate later.

By: Middenface McNulty

Middenface McNulty — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 20:43:44 +0000

Smax Says:
“If they stick with the safe old popular characters they get called racist/sexist because those characters are mostly white and male. If they try new diverse characters then they don’t sell and people question their business strategy.”

Don’t forget the third option: create minority legacy characters based off existing personas(like Miles Morales) and listen to endless complaints about “tokenism” and political correctness being “shoved down throats”

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 14:47:11 +0000

So Graeme throws a pouty fit when Marvel has 8 X-Men books, but then calls a blog advocating only printing sure-thing books a worthwhile read. Gotcha. Makes total sense.

I love how non-career publishers know everything about publishing! Clearly the published titles are of some value to their line, otherwise they wouldn’t get published. Simple as that.

By: Smax

Smax — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 08:52:34 +0000

Don’t they have to publish titles with the name of a character every so often if they want to retain the copyright or trademark? Not to mention the big two are damned if they do and damned if they don’t when it comes to new characters. If they stick with the safe old popular characters they get called racist/sexist because those characters are mostly white and male. If they try new diverse characters then they don’t sell and people question their business strategy.

By: Molnek

Molnek — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 06:38:49 +0000

I think the big two really need to focus on getting their top talent on writing these hard to sell books. No matter what it’ll take 5 straight shitty issues of Batman or Avengers for someone to drop off. Unfortunately I say Geoff Johns has long since gone to the mid ground and yes should be on Aquaman and JLA, two titles that have history and a fan base.
If you want a new title to sell put a hungry writer and artist on it. Look at Hickman, some image titles and collaborations under his belt then given free reign on Fantastic Four making me read it for the first time in years. You aren’t going to gain an audience for something odd with a writer who’s comfortable. Let someone succeed with insanity or blow up in a blaze of glory.

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:27:33 +0000

Hibbs really is the Comic Shop Guy from the Simpsons. The perpetual curmudgeon who would cry if DC and Marvel offered free gold and blow jobs with each comic.

By: Corey Scott

Corey Scott — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:39:33 +0000

I’m pretty sure we have an understanding that Marvel and DC feel they need to oversaturate the market with their books so that it’s more difficult for an independent publisher to get their books noticed. Haven’t we all (well, mostly all of us) been saying this for a few years now?

Now, the Vibe book, to me, seems to get an upper-hand because it’s got JLA in the title, and it’s got Johns as a creator. Katana seems a much harder sell, since it’s missing the tie-in to the flagship title and its writer hasn’t been as big a draw at DC (up till now, at least). Between the two, I have a feeling Vibe is going to get more attention, for good or bad. But it means we’re only supporting books with a known brand of success, be it Justice League (with Vibe, that’s four titles), Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern. Just like Marvel gives us nearly all Avengers or X-Men (and a smidge of FF).

Expecting these two powerhouse companies to back off of low-selling books for you is just ridiculous though. If you honestly don’t feel like these books should be supported, stop ordering them. If your complaint is that you can’t strictly not order them because some people will want them, then you have to decide if your view of how comics should be is more important than your customers. Order to subscription only then (and if you’re saying that’s too much work, you need to get out of the business at this point). The dead titles will dry up, new ones will come in. It’s a lousy process, but it’s been the reality for as long as I can remember.

Here’s the real thing you need to do, though… You need to find books from someone (ANYONE!) else that you can sell. That you can get behind, and get other people behind (your customers, your fellow retailers, etc), and turn into your three digit sales. Up the excitement level so much that people realize they can find better alternatives to DC and Marvel, and then maybe the big two will finally feel the pinch.

I agree, some titles that are coming out feel like a waste right off the bat. But they can surprise you. Stephanie Brown’s Batgirl title didn’t sound like a winner when it was first pitched (by a relatively unknown writer at that), and it certainly didn’t do great numbers, but it has such a vocal following to this day, it’s hard to ignore. It’s like the Firefly of comic books. And I’d rather have a DC that can support some smaller books like that, things that stand out and are different from the rest of the line (yes, still a Bat book, I know) than one that strictly tries to do the same thing over and over again.

By: Sallyp

Sallyp — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:12:12 +0000

I can understand this from a marketing point of view of course. And yet…some of those poorly selling titles have been some of my favorites, such as the Blue Beetle book from John Rogers, and JLI, and heck, even Nextwave.

By: Kelson

Kelson — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:06:54 +0000

The problem is that this is asking DC and Marvel to *only* take the safe bets, which leads over time to them being all Batman, Superman, X-Men and Avengers. (The way DC keeps replacing borderline books with Batman spinoffs, I feel like this is already happening.) And that leads to the publishing lines getting more and more homogenized and insular. Goodbye to the niche books, goodbye to the readers who follow them, goodbye to the possibility of a breakout hit. And they keep chasing the same shrinking chunk of the same audience without appealing to anyone who might want to give something else a try.

By: Chris B

Chris B — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:43:41 +0000

This plan makes business sense, but it chokes the life from giving books a chance to earn an audience, as well as diminishes the ability for creators to find opportunity. Vibe will probably be gone soon, but I’m sure the creative team is happy to be working on a book that has ‘Justice League of America’ on the top. Also, I doubt my local store orders 10 copies of anything that’s not a major event or top 10 seller. His customer base just isn’t that big.

By: Simon DelMonte

Simon DelMonte — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:12:11 +0000

No one thinks there is a market for Vibe. Clearly, 52 books a month is not a great idea.

But there will always be low selling but high quality books, things you want a publisher to take a chance on, in hopes that they find an audience. Say no to Vibe, but yes to Demon Knights and I Vampire.

By: Kyle Garret

Kyle Garret — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:07:10 +0000

I agree with this — particularly with regards to DC’s insane obsession with always having 52 titles each month — but this type of thing would definitely cut down on any kind of diversity we’d ever see from the Big Two, and I mean that with regards to characters (like Vibe) and genre (like All Star Western).

By: Matt Spatola

Matt Spatola — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:03:49 +0000

Well actually what Graeme reprinted here are the last two paragraphs and the most interesting.