skillzdadirecta Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 Take this with a grain of salt Quote The comic book industry is presently said to be in a state of collapse, and following the recent news of troubles within DC Comics, now it is being speculated Disney may actually be considering shutting down Marvel Comics. Speculation about problems within Marvel Comics comes from a press release issued by the company where Marvel Comics Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada and Editor-In-Chief C.B. Cebulski are attending the upcoming SXSW where the pair will be hosting a panel and putting it forth how Marvel Comics is responsible for the success in other markets, such as film, TV, video games and merchandise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 I don't really follow comics. But weren't you guys saying in another thread that Marvel has a stupidly large volume of comics? If so, couldn't they try just cutting back and focusing on quality over quantity? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted March 2, 2019 Author Share Posted March 2, 2019 The comics industry is on horrible shape right now which is ironic... but yeah DC is cutting back on a ton of books and a lot blame Marvel for the state if the industry. Myself included to be honest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricofoley Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 I dunno if I buy this. It seems like they're going entirely off of the Bleeding Cool story that they link to, and that story is just them spitballing reasons why Marvel would host a panel like that. I definitely believe the news about the store closures because my LCS is definitely a wasteland whenever I'm in there, but I don't buy into the idea that the fate of the industry hinges on whether people respond to a South by Southwest panel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bacon Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 Comics are great. But the money vs the time you are engaged with the comic is not. Comics are more worth with a digital subscription service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 Why read when you can watch the movie? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdeaOfEvil Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 Disney has made a lot of all-out insane decisions with a lot of their properties, so I could definitely see them licensing out their comics to other publishers rather than doing it in house anymore. But I doubt they'd let their Marvel properties in illustrated form die out completely. And I say "illustrated" cuz I can totally see them eliminating print media and going all digital in the future someday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaysWho? Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 20 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said: The comics industry is on horrible shape right now which is ironic... but yeah DC is cutting back on a ton of books and a lot blame Marvel for the state if the industry. Myself included to be honest. I know little about the industry. Why are some saying this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 21 minutes ago, SaysWho? said: I know little about the industry. Why are some saying this? Because they continue to flood the market with more books it can sustain. Also they keep renumbering and relaunching their series making it hard to keep up. Also with annual emphasis on events and they way they force retailers to order their books make it hard on an industry with an ever decreasing audience. I buy less books now than I ever have and I'm a lifelong collector. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pikachu Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 They definitely need to scale down, but I can't see the whole division closing completely. They could curb the number of books to just a few core titles like DC is doing. They can even limit some of the smaller titles to digital only distribution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurdyb1 Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 Supposedly, Marvel debunked this and Bleeding Cool is the worst at putting out news. I'd be lying to you if I did not think this holds some weight. One Marvel movie has to bring in what the comics does in what a few decades? I do believe Marvel to be putting out a book for every idea they have and stretching out stories which results in too many books. I don't think the comics will go away but I could see a serious reduction coming to just have flag ship characters just be produced. I could even see a digital only distribution here sooner than later for comics. I know digital has been my go to comfortably for years now and I seriously have loved my Marvel Unlimited service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emblazon Posted March 4, 2019 Share Posted March 4, 2019 Well, the sports card collecting industry has gone down the shitter, and with the implementation of digital, the only real reason for comics to continue to exist (in physical form) is for collectors. Yes, there is the argument for having paper in your hands, but as someone else said above, the actual time you spend with a single comic is mere minutes, which negates the book argument of reading physical paper (novels take hours to get through). I'm curious about a couple of things: 1. How many comics today are still being hand drawn as opposed to being drawn digitally with a Wacom or similar. 2. What is the cost differential between printing novels and printing comics--one prints full page color over a smaller number of pages, while the other prints only black text over a larger number of pages. I'd think comics cost a bit more to print. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JVC920 Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 After collecting comics (mostly Marvel) and dealing with the horrible 90's (thanks again Marvel) I stopped getting books this year. Between the prices and quality of stores I just couldn't convince myself to keep getting them. I still get one or two but I can go 2 months or so before needing to hit up my LCS. As for Marvel they came out and of course are saying this is BS and just internet talk. Even if so they are still to blame for most of their and the industries problem. Consistently pushing out way too many books along with large event books with so many add on books and tie ins. They said a year or so ago they would take a year off but that really didn't happen or help. There is no need to go with 3 Spider-Man books, 4 plus X-Men books and keep rebooting everything else every couple of months. Personally I am having a better time re-reading stories from the 70's and 80's right now. Thanks to Amazon and their huge digital sales last fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 I’d be interested in getting into a couple comics but I have no idea where to start Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdeaOfEvil Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 On 3/3/2019 at 4:44 PM, Emblazon said: I'm curious about a couple of things: 1. How many comics today are still being hand drawn as opposed to being drawn digitally with a Wacom or similar. 2. What is the cost differential between printing novels and printing comics--one prints full page color over a smaller number of pages, while the other prints only black text over a larger number of pages. I'd think comics cost a bit more to print. 1. All comics are still being hand drawn because there's too much money to be made from them. The artist almost always wants to sell the original pencils after they've drawn it, the inker would want to do the same, and depending on the colorist they might do marker proofs before digitally coloring a piece. Each process would get its own physical creation (pencils are usually blue-line copied for the inker to go over, and then the colorist would create a marker sample to test out colors before scanning in the inks to digitally color it). Plus, original art sells for waaay more than just the comic itself over time. I believe the first cover appearance of Gambit by Andy Kubert went for something around $135k last year (ballpark figure) while even private commissions from pin up artists like J Scott Campbell are fetching around $10k. Artists could do all digital works, but they're more happy doing physical stuff just because it equals extra income for them. 2. You can't really compare the two. Once a novel or a comic goes to the printers, they're both pumped out in mass quantity in a printing machine. Like, whenever I had to print out a novel for class a few years back the local printer store would charge maybe $15-$25 for a 200-page book. So in comparison maybe a comic book might only cost $5 to print? But you'd have to go to the creation of the source itself to really understand the difference. For comics, you have about 5 steps: Writer, then story boards that have minimal pencil outlines, then pencils, then inks, then coloring. Each step is a paid for process, most often done by different people for each step (and varying degrees of talent). A novel is generally a flat sum paid up front, and then whatever the writer comes up with is sent for proof reading, editing, proofing again, and then final publication. An unknown novelist might get $20k for their work, while a veteran comic artist might get $4k a page for a 15-20 page comic book. Conversely, Stephen King might get $1mil bucks for a novel while a novice comic artist is only paid $50 a page. It just all depends... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted March 5, 2019 Author Share Posted March 5, 2019 2 hours ago, JVC920 said: After collecting comics (mostly Marvel) and dealing with the horrible 90's (thanks again Marvel) I stopped getting books this year. Between the prices and quality of stores I just couldn't convince myself to keep getting them. I still get one or two but I can go 2 months or so before needing to hit up my LCS. As for Marvel they came out and of course are saying this is BS and just internet talk. Even if so they are still to blame for most of their and the industries problem. Consistently pushing out way too many books along with large event books with so many add on books and tie ins. They said a year or so ago they would take a year off but that really didn't happen or help. There is no need to go with 3 Spider-Man books, 4 plus X-Men books and keep rebooting everything else every couple of months. Personally I am having a better time re-reading stories from the 70's and 80's right now. Thanks to Amazon and their huge digital sales last fall. I think Image was more at fault for the 90's sucking than Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JVC920 Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 8 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said: I think Image was more at fault for the 90's sucking than Marvel Yeah some of the stuff Image put out wasn't the best but they also had some killer comics. So with the 90's Marvel you don't remember the awful cover gimmics and non stop #1's? **cough** clone sage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emblazon Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 I have so many worthless #1s from the early 90s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted March 5, 2019 Author Share Posted March 5, 2019 1 hour ago, JVC920 said: Yeah some of the stuff Image put out wasn't the best but they also had some killer comics. So with the 90's Marvel you don't remember the awful cover gimmics and non stop #1's? **cough** clone sage I remember all that stuff. I just remember that for the most part, everything Marvel and DC was doing in the 90's was a response to Image. Image came in and disrupted the whole industry and MOST of their books at that time were pretty pictures with very weak stories and characters that were basically junior high versions of Marvel and DC characters. They had a Namor rip-off named ROMAN for god's sake (Namor spelled backwards) The comic's industry exploded in the 90's and EVERYONE had a super hero line... besides Marvel, DC and Image, you had Defiant, Valiant, Malibu (which Marvel later bought), Milestone (Put out by DC), Dark Horse (which started expanded from Movie comics to Super-heros) Archie Super Hero Comics, First Comics, Innovation and more. Marvel played a part for sure in the comic implosion of the 90's but they weren't nearly as responsible for what happened then as they are now. The Clone Saga did suck though 1 hour ago, Emblazon said: I have so many worthless #1s from the early 90s. You and me both bro... I remember dudes at my comic store telling me at the time that NONE of these books were gonna be worth anything because there were just too many being printed. I do know there were a few gems that came out that were under printed or sold out very quickly that became worth money later. The first appearance of Bane for instance, sold out shortly after it came out and shot up in price very quickly at the time because nobody knew who the character was and what he would mean to the book later. But yeah the 90's were the last time I was so apathetic about comics and I stopped collecting for a bit towards the end there... Didn't really start again until Grant Morrison's Justice League and Kurt Busiek's Avengers along with The Ultimate line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emblazon Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 I still have my pristine copy of the most overprinted "limited" comic, possibly in history... The Death of Superman in the sealed black bag. It might now actually be worth more than the price on the cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdeaOfEvil Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 7 minutes ago, Emblazon said: I still have my pristine copy of the most overprinted "limited" comic, possibly in history... The Death of Superman in the sealed black bag. It might now actually be worth more than the price on the cover. Considering that to get any polybagged comic cgc'd they have to remove the comic from the bag, your pristine copy might actually be worth less unopened, lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted March 5, 2019 Author Share Posted March 5, 2019 31 minutes ago, Emblazon said: I still have my pristine copy of the most overprinted "limited" comic, possibly in history... The Death of Superman in the sealed black bag. It might now actually be worth more than the price on the cover. Shit I have the Black sealed cover for when he died and the White sealed cover for when he came back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emblazon Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 3 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said: Shit I have the Black sealed cover for when he died and the White sealed cover for when he came back Fool me once... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdeaOfEvil Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 On 3/5/2019 at 1:44 PM, Emblazon said: Fool me once... Don't forget about the overpriced platinum editions that were the exact same polybags, except they were silver 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.