I really appreciate Valerie Gallaher’s post on MTV Geek about the low chart placings for both Katana and Justice League of America’s Vibe:
As a person who has been in this business for a good long while, I expected from the moment I heard these two books were announced for them to have short runs. I expected this based on a mix of all the factors discussed in this post — the unwillingness of readers to read comics featuring diverse characters, the insular nature of mainstream superhero comics culture, and a generic look to the first preview material of said comics.
But DC Comics did try — as they have done many times before — to increase the diversity of their heroes. And they did promote the titles, not leaving them to die in the cradle unloved. So in the quest to have a more inclusive slate of superheroes and comic creators, what is the next step for them here?
It’s worth pointing out that DC has been continually trying when it comes to the New 52 and diversity: With books like Mister Terrific, Static Shock, Blue Beetle and Voodoo, it feels as if DC has been attempting to create new, non-straight-white-male leads with little-to-no response from the audience for months now. Both Katana and Vibe may have seemed like they’d have more success with the Justice League connection, but perhaps the only franchise at DC that is truly bulletproof right now is the Batman family – Batwing is still around, this far into the New 52, after all…
Gallaher’s point is well-made, too; if we want to have a more diverse slate of superheroic characters, and publishers are trying to provide it but the market doesn’t support it, what is to be done?
March 11th, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Nothing. You can’t change hearts and minds. All you can do is support what you can and keep trying to promote diverse material in mainstream comics.
March 11th, 2013 at 3:38 pm
If the fish around your boat aren’t biting, you might have to cast a wider net. There are people out there who would like to read a new story with a new hero in it.
March 11th, 2013 at 3:47 pm
One stars a character that is a bigger punchline than Aquaman at the height of the Superfriends era.
The other is written by a woman who just made the retarded origin of Catwoman from Batman Returns canon and whose work gets worse every month. She would gotten Green Arrow canceled if not for the popularity of the TV show.
But you think that they didn’t sell because of racism?
Bad writers. Bad characters that no one asked for. That’s worse than racism to those always looking to be offended. It’s capitalism. No demand = no sales.
March 11th, 2013 at 3:59 pm
“Bad writers. Bad characters that no one asked for. That’s worse than racism to those always looking to be offended. It’s capitalism. No demand = no sales.”
respectfully i disagree with you michael…geoff johns is listed as the co-writer on the first issue of vibe and did a series of interviews promoting the book…and your point about aquaman shows that ANY character can be poorly written, and then redeemed with the right storyline…the book wasn’t well ordered…that’s a failing of retailers, not the audience
also: missed in this coverage is the nu52 launch of black lightning also bombed
so i’m curious… what non-white characters ARE people begging to see in solo comics again? cyborg? bumblebee? vixen?
March 11th, 2013 at 4:38 pm
If everyone agrees that it’s an uphill battle to get minority characters to become fan favorites, then the solution seems to be to introduce them more slowly than they’ve been doing.
Make them part of a team, and have the audience get to know them and want to see more of them — then give them a solo book. Just dropping a lot of books featuring unknowns onto the marketplace will never work no matter what color they are.
DC should select a half-dozen minority characters that they want to push as up and coming stars. Say, Black Lightning, Vixen, John Stewart, Katana, Cyborg, and Static for example. Three of these have already been introduced in team books, but really haven’t been given too much of a spotlight within said books outside of maybe John Stewart. That would need to be addressed first. Otherwise, it would be like giving Element Lad his own comic — who cares?
Spend a couple of years really developing these six characters in their team books and also have them pop up as guest stars throughout the line. THEN try them out in a solo. Then pick another six characters and repeat. It’ll take years of effort, but new fan favorites can be created.
Quite frankly, this advice could also apply to characters of ANY shape, size, gender, or color.
March 11th, 2013 at 5:20 pm
“Welp, folks aren’t Vibe and Katana, SO I GUESS THAT MEANS THEY ONLY WANY WHITE CHARACTERS!!!”
March 11th, 2013 at 6:16 pm
What is to be done? Sell the books elsewhere. The direct market is mostly happy with what it has. Diversity requires outreach — similar to what DC was planning with the Minx line. Go where the new readers might be.
March 11th, 2013 at 6:54 pm
When you force it down people throat and get ride of good characters it doesn’t work. Ted Kord should have been blue beetle not jamie. You mention batwing don’t mention that seems that only reason isn’t canceling cause it’s last diversity book. It sales aren’t keeping from being canceled.
March 11th, 2013 at 7:32 pm
i recall an interview from years ago in some fan magazine….terry austin talked about how he worked in a comic store (upstate ny? i’m old) across the street from a school…he said (or someone said he said) that the biggest selling comics for the black students were the hulk and richie rich…his theory was that they wanted to be rich and be powerful (again, its been years so i may be misremembering)…but i guess the bigger question is for the retailers: what percentage of your customers are non-white and what are they reading?
granted i live in nyc, but when i go into a comic store the majority of the customers on wednesdays are non-white
March 11th, 2013 at 7:51 pm
@Johanna,
No one at DC or marvel is going to spend the money to do the necessary PR outreach outside of the direct market. If they wanted to, they would have done it already. they stuck their toe in it with the New 52 and dropped it like a hot rock after the launch. no follow up, no continued interest.
March 11th, 2013 at 8:33 pm
I agree, it would take a lot of effort (and money) and be hard work, and it’s unlikely to happen. Plus, it would probably annoy the direct market, which sometimes takes “I’m making comics for someone other than you” as an insult, as though all the comics should be only for them.
March 11th, 2013 at 8:59 pm
but the question really is what percentage of current comic readers (and hell, recently lapsed readers) are non-white
i think another, better initiative would be to launch another gay lead character…alan scott certainly hasn’t hurt earth 2, and batwoman does solid numbers….perhaps canceling stormwatch and only focusing on midnighter and apollo in a series?
diversity is more than skin color
March 11th, 2013 at 10:14 pm
[But DC Comics did try — as they have done many times before — to increase the diversity of their heroes. And they did promote the titles, not leaving them to die in the cradle unloved.]
Yes, they did. The exact SAME way they promoted all of their other titles. Isn’t it time for a DIFFERENT approach? Isn’t it a time for a laser pin-pointed niche marketing campaign? DC and Marvel may very well be devoid of African-American writers, but there are plenty of high level respected Black comic artists [whether they're working for either DC/Marvel or not] and they have followers. Their followers are on FACEBOOK, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. Many of these fans have formed groups on FB. Many of these fans support African-American comic cons. DC and Marvel do themselves and their products a disservice by not reaching out to these fledgling expos. The attendants of these expos are STARVING for professional caliber product that reflects THEM. Obviously, the return wouldn’t be extraordinary, but on the flip side simply promoting a specific book[s] along with that creative team wouldn’t cost a lot of money, and would go a long way to fostering good will with a community within a community. Online it would be even easier. Simply follow the bread crumbs and see where it it leads you. A savvy editor could do it in a day, perhaps two tops. Once you found where the specific fans hung out, devise promotions and incentives directed towards them that celebrate their diversity. What have you got to lose?
March 11th, 2013 at 11:10 pm
The fact that people expected a title for Vibe to sell well is shocking. The dude could be white and that title still would suck.
March 12th, 2013 at 3:58 am
I think the idea that “diversity” means marketing black characters at black readers that some of you have is a bit discriminatory itself.
March 12th, 2013 at 5:38 am
I can only speak for myself, not for “fandom as a whole”. The issue for me isn’t diversity, it’s money. There’s only a certain amount of disposable cash that can be spent on comics. When DC or Marvel (or anyone else for that matter) introduces a new comic, I’d have to give up something I’m buying and enjoying to free up the cash to buy the new title. If I’m going to do that, then that new title had better be great from the very first issue. SAGA is an example. I took a chance on it and look forward to the next issue every month. SAGA came out of the gate like gangbusters and has continued a consistent level of entertainment and quality with each issue.
With DC and Marvel, first issues are more often presented as “This is going to be really good and you’ll really enjoy it after you’ve read six or seven issues that we’ve written for the trade.” I’m just not interested in spending $18 to $28 to see if I’m going to like something, regardless of the race or gender of the characters.
March 12th, 2013 at 5:44 am
targeting readers is fine, but the initial numbers commented upon here come from retailer orders on issue #1.
this is as much an issue about retailers as it is about consumers.
March 12th, 2013 at 6:29 am
I think the lesson of the Vibe thing is that the market doesn’t want lame-looking superheroes.
March 12th, 2013 at 9:32 am
Diverse the genres of your books. Then you’ll have a better chance of your books looking more appealing to larger number of people who, for a variety of reasons, don’t buy you books. Can’t sell the same superhero story with writing from 1980′s, art from the 1990′s and a cast that looks like one from a show in the 1950′s with one great exception.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:06 am
My problem with Vibe is they’re trying to make him important before we even read the comic, let’s face it no one wants to be told that this is something you need to care about. I think Blue Beetle would’ve sold better had they not jut rehashed his origin which was by no means old and anyone who knew the character didn’t need to be brought up to speed. Frankly I’ve been disappointed with most of the new52 writing no matter what colour or creed the character is. The bat and lantern books are good as a whole, animal man and swamp thing have been good. They need good writers on these books who care, not jusy geoff kohns writing an issue then leaving it.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:27 am
threadkiller nailed this one.
personally i don’t care about the color of the skin of the people involved or the characters, but if a character’s background dictates a different kind of story, well, I’m into that.
Batwoman sells well because it’s really good, and it doesn’t force the issue of diversity down your throat. Mister Terrific sold poorly because he was an untested character, and there was no reason that he would be having wacky Remender/Aaron-esque adventures full of high sci-fi.
Jaime Reyes on the other hand sold well in his first series because of the really interesting family dynamic. Miles Morales is doing the same, there’s no “This is for you, comic fan of a minority demographic!” going on in those books.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:39 am
If we’re gonna complain about books starring minorities not selling can’t we at least complain about GOOD books starring minorities? You know what I’d like to see crack 15k? Shadowman (I’d also like to see that for the rest of the Valiant line for that matter, even though those books star stupid ol’ white people).
Katana and Vibe shouldn’t have had solo titles. They’re D-list character. In a line of over 50 titles no D-list character is gonna sell well.
You can’t have diversity without quality. Of all the New52 titles starring minorities that were canceled, was a single one of them critically acclaimed? No. Sure there are plenty of fans of Jaime as a character, but I don’t recall anyone being overly impressed with the series. Same for Mr. Terrific, Voodoo or Static Shock. In fact, most reviews had them at being pretty terrible.
To make terrible comics, then blame their failure on diversity is pretty silly.
March 12th, 2013 at 11:26 pm
i’ll but 20 books of each diverse character if gramecracker stops writing articles
March 13th, 2013 at 9:11 am
First I think that they need to get writers who can handle writing these characters. Static Shock wasn’t handled well from jump. The reason why Batwing has held on is because of his connection with Batman. Also writers need to think of these characters as not a African-Amer., Latino, Gay, etc. superheroes. But as a superhero who happens to be African-Amer., Latino, Gay, etc.
March 18th, 2013 at 10:00 pm
Then the market isn’t worth shit.
April 3rd, 2013 at 1:13 pm
You can’t have diversity without quality. Of all the New52 titles starring minorities that were canceled, was a single one of them critically acclaimed? No. Sure there are plenty of fans of Jaime as a character, but I don’t recall anyone being overly impressed with the series
Hm, maybe, but I just think a large portions of fans won’t accept a non-white hero no matter what. Despite the quality of the first Blue Beetle series, there constant whines of diversity being forced down their throats, even though John Rogers did very little that was “ethnic” and was particularly subtle about the feel around the Reyes family (they were indisputibly Hispanic, but it sure as hell wasn’t their defining characteristic).
April 4th, 2013 at 12:22 am
This isn’t just about ethnic minorities; great books like Amethyst, I, Vampire and Frankenstein are going to be/have been cancelled just because there are too many books, and the majority of fans are generally just too closed-minded to support anything that isn’t Bat/Super/Spider/X/Avengers/Lantern titles.
April 4th, 2013 at 8:52 am
Yep. That’s why these companies have to reach out to audiences who otherwise would gobble up a story with a female lead or stories with supernatural characters who aren’t the typical superhero.