 Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) # 15 So why not go read it now. |
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Publisher-readers relationships |
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Cultar 
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Joined: 01-Jun-2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 151 |
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 Topic: Publisher-readers relationshipsPosted: 14-Mar-2011 at 12:59pm |
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After Spider-Man joins F4 we have some discussion about Marvel as publisher: ME: American readers really does love two characters in almost every series and with many own series? GRIEF: @Cultar - You say that like American reader have a say in the matter. I wasn't consulted on this change at all. ME: I mean no offence with it. But american readers are majority which has influence on Marvel comics. They buy it, Marvel publish it. They don´t buy it, marvel don´t publish it. It is simple question of offer and demand. Customer is always the boss which affect released goods form companies. Or at least he should be. Chrisstopher: I agree... Marvel sees "hey people love Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Deadpool" so they put them EVERYWHERE! But they do go overboard. GRIEF: Oh, I took no offense. That's what I made my joke back - I totally see your point. I don't really think it's valid, but I see your point. ME: So we are beyond times "This is solo series of "putaname" because you demand it!"? This is probably why they don´t listen to readers requests. They buy most books as a habit. But it is understandable, people like comics and they don´t stopped buy everything so they never changed thinks like "no continuity mystakes", more development of characters, no deaths and ressurections, etc - all thins which readers don´t like. And people don´t buy enough minority books (like Cap But I must ask, how it is possible, that readers still buy several solo series of spider-man. They simply said with their act that they agree with his restart. Are they really that shallow that they buy it just because it is spider-man and they don´t care what marvel do with him? They don´t want read about character who they know and follow his development (as little as it is), but just about anyone who wears red mask, shoot webs and make jokes and have name Peter Parker? There is no power of customers like they stop buying it and demand backrestart? They really don´t care? Because if they don´t care, marvel coud do it with any character. It is as with laws, or government - when people don´t care, they could do anything they want. BLACKCYCLOPS: Some people buy what they like, some people buy out of habit. Either way its what people choose to do with their money. If you don't like an idea or story, I say don't buy it. ****************************************************** ************** So I have one question (and one supplementary question) on which I would like to know your opinions. 1. Have readers some influence on stories, or titles? I know that for low sales some series were cancelled, but most of you on forum agree that people buy mainly flagship titles (X-Men, Avengers, F4, etc.). Some cancelled titles were really great, some were boring. But this is mainly question of finance, not interest (IMHO), when people buy many things from habit (as Grief pointed) and can´t afford buy everything. But do we really need so many Captain Amaricas, Deadpools, Wolverines, Thors, Spideys? And for stories, there are many things which we don´t like: deaths and resurrections (just stopped killing them when they can´t stand death and frankly we don´t want loose many of our favorite characters), off characters behavior (sometimes we just don´t like it and if it is off character is mood point, sometimes is undisputed and behavior is just for some things which writers want to do in series), relationships (nothing lasts with so many characters), ignoring of continuity and/ or work of previous writers, forgetting of less known characters, slow or none development of characters, etc, etc, etc. How much want writers made compromise of what they want and what fans want and what Marvel want; or how much have them creative freedom from their bosses of Marvel? Have editors still meaning when there is so many mistakes and contradictory things? 2. My second question is more concrete. I don´t want to discuss about spider-man story, if it was good, or bad, how could it be done and why. This was discussed many times. Fact is that this was really dirty from marvel. I read marvel about ten years and I am still mad at it. If I read spider-man from his beginning I will probably have a heart attack from OMD. I can accept that some readers want difference, but they have Ultimate Spider-Man. If he and MJ divorce, I could accept it, but such forcing restart, change of continuity and everything is absurd. I think that people want some development of characters and after so long time of publishing series, they also deserve it. So my question is How is it possible, that people still buy it? And in such large quantity, that there are so many series/ issues per month? People really don´t care, or is their habit so strong, or they just want funny guy with webs no matter who he is, or they don´t have the will to do something like stop buying it to force publisher for backchange? Blackcyclops: You said “don’t like it, don´t buy it”. I don´t buy it, I don´t read it, I don´t care about anything with spider-man after OMD. Point is, that it isn´t just one series which I don´t like due to bad art, or boring writing, or irritating side characters or something like that which is most often the reason with many other series. I would like to read about Spider-Man, but about Spider-Man which I know for so long, about which I read many issues and many information from internet about older issues and stories. But I can’t because he is no longer here. I don´t care if there are good new stories. There could be best stories ever from whole comics on the world, but it isn´t Peter Parkers which I know so I don´t read it, because they give me no choice. Merried spider-man and ultimate single spider-man – it will be a choice. |
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das_boot
THOIN Editor 
Joined: 07-Apr-2007 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 1722 |
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Posted: 14-Mar-2011 at 6:21pm |
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Okay, let's have a go at this...
1) At the end of the day, Marvel and DC are businesses. If a successful car manufacturer was to produce a model that was selling poorly in comparison to other models, they would cease production. It's the same principle. As much as readers may moan about a series being cancelled or not made into a full series after a successful mini, you have to understand it from a business point of view-- Are you REALLY going to pay someone to write, someone to draw, and the myriad other people that work on a book if that book isn't generating the sales to pay for itself? No, no you're not. When Marvel want to push a title, we get 'Superstar' writers/artists on the book in order to try to boost sales, but this is usually only in the instance that a long-running book needs a revamp to keep from getting stale. Take New Mutants/New X-Men as an example. Not only did DeFillipis and Weir's initial vision of the School not fit with the status quo post M-Day, but bringing in K+Y, with a proven track record of working on similar titles (albeit in different media), worked in terms of generating interest for the title, as well as hearing how differently they were treating the title. Ditto Fraction taking over Uncanny. Granted, with the latter example, we haven't seen as much of the 'rotating cast' as we first thought we might, but it's a very different take from Brubaker's year long run where we only saw a handful of characters interacting in an environment light years (literally) from the rest of the team. I guess my main point is that to make a mini sell well, it needs a good art/writing team to solidify sales in the market , and for an ongoing to work, that counts double, but to make sure that an ongoing can remain an ongoing, often new writers or artists are brought in to freshen things up. Take PAD's X-Factor for example, I can't think of another recent book that has had the same writer for so long, and yet such a wide variety of artists, all of which brought something different in terms of the feel of the book. The basic point is this though; if something is selling well, it can stay. If it's selling moderately well to a niche market, then chances are, it's going to remain a mini/limited series. If it's selling poorly, it makes no business sense for Marvel to keep producing the book, no matter that there are a few hundred die-hard fans who find the book a must-read, there are other titles with potential for this art/writing team to bring in thousands of readers, in comparison. 2)Okay, so keeping Spider-Man as an example, I think the main problem is this. A divorce would have been too slow in terms of story pacing. Spider-Man is a solo title, with the main focus being on the titular star and his interactions with his supporting cast. So there's point number one-- the supporting cast are JUST THAT. There to support the star and to provide interaction and conflict. Whilst a divorce would be a great source of conflict, it would also change Spider-Man, and would offer him options-- Would MJ stay with him if he hung up the tights? Would he be able to live with himself if he did? Would they be able to work things out? If they still ended up getting a divorce, would he then become Spider-Man again? There are too many variables to consider when a character like Spider-Man is such a lynchpin of the MU. If he quit heroics, that would mean that he's not just out of his own title, but also the Avengers and anywhere else he may have made a guest appearance. Not only that, but even if he quit, he still has his powers, his identity was still public knowledge... it helps nothing. The whole retcon, (whilst I disliked it because I think it sends the wrong message to readers... i.e.; if we decide we need to shake things up, we can always send in the retcon fairies, and we've done it to Spider-Man, so realisitically, if we have the balls to do it to a character as important to the MU as him, do you really think we'd bat an eyelid at making Dragonness' wings real?... anyway...) was just an easier and less drawn out and protracted way of separating the two, and yet whilst Spider-Man and MJ may not have PERSONALLY felt any drama from it, the READER certainly did. It makes the title more accessible to new readers (which is ALWAYS going to be a concern with a big company like Marvel for one of it's flagship heroes), generates publicity and therefore interest. Even people who were only casual followers of Spider-Man may have had their interest piqued enough by the big change to pick up the next few arcs to see how things panned out, and then the teases with Jackpot... I suppose a bigger question to ask, Cultarr, is how we, as X-Readers are any different, ESPECIALLY the Jean fans. She dies as Phoenix, is reborn and has her past as a sun-eater and Brocolli-person murderer explained away as having been REPLACED by Phoenix, dies at the hands of Magneto and we've been teased.... how many times about her return? Whedon did it in Astonishing, and for the past three-four years, everyone has speculated that Hope is Jean. Hell, there were even some posters that thought Maddy might have been Jean in Fraction's Sisterhood arc. They will change and they will tease and yes, even issue MASSIVE retcons, because, tying in with your first question, even if readers HATE it, there will be people drawn to the title to see what the hell is going on. After all, it works, doesn't it? |
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The Bub
Member
Joined: 05-Jun-2009 Location: IL Online Status: Offline Posts: 459 |
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Posted: 15-Mar-2011 at 1:57am |
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Part of the problem is that the business model is selling to an increasingly insular, ever-aging market: pre-existing super hero fans. What sells is what the direct market can handle, and as comic book stores close up and fans age, the problem will get worse and worse, and there will be even less experimental concepts in both writing and art explored in books by the Big Two. Disney needs to use their market penetration to push comics like they do the rest of their merchandise. X-Men needs to be in Costco. Avengers needs to be in Wal-mart. New characters and different ideas need to be bounced around instead of the necrophilic nostalgia currently being strip mined. Any fan of Claremont's first run on this board has to acknowledge the quality of stories that were able to be published under the restrictive (and stupid) Comics Code Authority, so the fear of dumbing books down for kids should not be an issue. The comic movie fad won't sell cinema seats like this indefinately, so by beefing up distribution of Marvel comics, Disney can nab that 6-13 year old male market they want so badly (You know, the reason they went after Marvel in the first place).
It should go without mentioning that Marvel is not overly in touch with the readership. A great many of these interactive interviews and podcasts and what have you that Marvel does are loaded with softball questions from collector-mentality fans who are prone to buying things no matter what. It's just another form of advertising. Jim Shooter was able to build Marvel up in the 80's by actually taking readership into account; he even went so far as to force every creator to read their own fan mail. The letters pages were often filled with fluff, but even if they weren't printed, writers and artists knew what fans thought (I understand the fans who bothered to write in 1984 are not necessarily representative of the fanbase of a given book at large, but there is something to be said about requiring your employees to review their own consumer feedback).
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Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
Walter: No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of. |
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