The Energon Pub

I love the marvel characters. But, then that was back in the 90's, when Jim Lee was drawing, and Todd McFarlane was there. And the retcons only happened in rare circumstances and not just for the hell of it.

The only Marvel comics I even read anymore are Ultimate Spider-man, U-Xmen, U-F4, and good ol' Cable & Deadpool.

Just because those are the last good marvel comics to come out in a few years.

Thats why I gravitated over to DC, the retcons may be there, but they got a good number of stories running through.

Thenedain wrote:

Supreme Convoy wrote::BOT: That's definitely a tough situation for me.

I was recently listening to a podcast with Allan Heinberg and his late conclusion to Wonder Woman. I really dig Heinberg's stuff (Young Avengers, Gilmore Girls, The OC, Grey's Anatomy, and his quick run on Justice League). Waiting for his comics to come out is painfully long but I really do enjoy them when they hit shelves.

I think Ultimates is one of the best books of recent years. But the wait was killer!

Kevin Smith rules and will always be one of my favorite writers/directors. But I don't even know if he'll ever finish Daredevil/Bullseye: Target

I suppose this is the reason why I love guys like Brian Michael Bendis and Robert Kirkman. These guys have like 6 books a month and they come out on a regular basis. Ultimate Spidey use to come out twice a month! And I think Ultimate Spidey was late about 1 week due to a printing error.

And then there are guys like Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, and Brian K. Vaughan who are writing tons of comics and writing TV shows or movies. I would love to be that creative.

By no means am I knocking on writers with late books. Finding time to write can be tough. It comes down to "Do I want the book now or do I want it to be good?" I go with the latter since I want a quality read instead of rushed.

But hopefully publishers understand that I would like a reasonably timely book. Get scripts in the can before even soliciting or drawing the book.

Loeb and Johns are perhaps two of the best writers in comics these days, especially considering the sheer amount of work load they give themselves. And best yet, they rarely run late. Johns, especially, has been a shining light in DC since Pre-Crisis.

The whole thing with the Ultimates just drove me nuts. What was even worse was when Marvel announced that the creative team for Ultimates 3 already had the first few issues done but were STILL waiting for Ultimates 2 to be completed! Yet another reason I disliked the whole Civil War thing: it threw a massive wrench into the gears of one of my favorite books.

don't forget ed brubaker and brian k. vaughn! and to be honest, "marvel loeb" has kind of sucked. don't get me wrong, i LOVED his DC works (long halloween, hush) but i am really nervous about him being on the ultimates.

If I was still reading comics, I'd definitely have switched to trades by now. Marvel has made them FAR more appealing than single issues. This is coming from a guy who's been collecting comic books RELIGIOUSLY for over 15 years. But look at what you get with trades. All six (or 8. or twelve) issues in one volume. Better paper. Better cover. No ads. No unbaggin/rebagging each issue. No searching out each part of a crossover from a dozen different longboxes. Lower cost (most online retailers sell them at least 20% off of cover price). The only reasons that are left to buy monthly single issues are habit and impatience. That's it. Either you just really like going to the comic shop every week and reading the stories as they happen, or you simply can not wait six months in between stories. Those are perfectly legitimate reasons to do so. I fault nobody for sticking with single issues. Read your books the way you want. But from a purely objective standpoint, trades are the obvious way to go.

What can be done about this? Simple. Online comics. To quote Priest, "out there is a fortune waiting to be had." Bear with me for a sec. With a three pronged marketing strategy, Marvel (and DC) can get their stuff out to the most people.

Trades/Hardcovers: It's evolution. This is the wave of the future. This how comics are intended to be read. There's no going back. Keep these the same. Sell them at 15, 20, 30, or 50 (for the huge ones) and have them available at Borders, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc. These are the big money makers now. They can be marketed to comic book readers as well as readers of pure text-fiction.

Comic books: There will, for the next decade or so, still be a market for single issues. I can't see it lasting much longer. Keep selling the 1/6th of a story books, but also offer up a lot of individual story type issues. One shots, perhaps. Obviously, these will be collected in trades later, but they give casual readers a reason to go into a comic book store.

Online comics: The same day that new 1/6th of a story books are released to retailers, put 'em online for 99 cents or a dollar. This won't cut into the profits of the comic book stores because the guy who is willing to read a story online for 99 cents is not the same guy who is willing pay 3 dollars for a text copy. They're also not the same people who want a trade paperback or hardcover on their bookshelf. Online comics will milk an extra 6 bucks out of the "gotta know what happens as soon as it happens" people who will buy the trade (or hardcover) when it's released.

There you have it. Three pronged attack on the wallets of comic book buyers. Anyone with any interest in graphic fiction has something for them. Casual readers, regular readers, and collectors. This seems, to me at least, the obvious way to go.

I can't see trades as the salvation of comics. In fact, I have seen more than one good series (like, for example, Dan Slott's The Thing) that gets critical and popular acclaim... that has to be cancelled due to people waiting for the TPB and not getting enough single issue sales to keep the book running.

It would take a longer time to make trades-only series profitable (as compared to single + trades) than any company is willing to endure (not as much in the case of Marvel, since they're kinda on their own, but DC has to answer to their owners, and they wouldn't like it).

As in most cases, I would recommend "do what the japanese do", and keep both running.

At this point, I probably buy more trades than actual comics, though that really depends on the publisher. With Marvel, I pretty much stick to trades, unless it's Ultimate U or a character I really like ( which is almost none right now ) then I buy monthly. DC, I buy a whole slew of books but not many of the trades unless it's something I really want, or one of the older trades. I feel that's a big nod to the level of storywriting I've been seeing between the Big Two. DC's just been more compelling and 'must have' than Marvel.

Online comics are an interesting idea, one that's been floating around for awhile now. I think it's a great idea. You know those CDs that compile whole runs of one title, like Ultimate X-Men, Uncanny X-Men and the like? I buy those all the time ( most recently the Fantastic Four ) because the price tends to be really good, and I get to read the stories I want to read at my leisure, without having to dig through stacks of comic boxes. Online comics would be very much like that: I could load up the story I want to read, without having to worry about messing up my papercopy. I'd definitely take advantage of it for many of my monthlies, and , even better, it'd be a great way for me to check out a new comic without making a huge investment in something that turns out to be total crap ( read: Civil War ).

OmegaDenmad wrote:As in most cases, I would recommend "do what the japanese do", and keep both running.

Yeah, we've got it down to an artform. Weekly comics containing dozens of titles, in disposable, telephone sized volumes (hours of reading for about 3 USD). Then, after there are enough chapters available, they're reprinted in single-series paperbacks for about 5 or 6 USD. It's a perfect system.

PLUS, since you're getting a dozen series in one volume, you're always being exposed to the latest new series. There's none of this "Do I want to buy this new series, eh, it's an extra three bucks...". You buy your choice of Bible-Sized manga and you get all the stories contained inside. It is amazing!

Quesada sucks. He should never have gotten to be editor and chief. Any idiot could write better stories them him.

Cliff Jumper wrote:Quesada sucks. He should never have gotten to be editor and chief. Any idiot could write better stories them him.

I like most of editorial decisions. His Marvel Knights days were awesome and made lots of B-list characters were lame into entertaining top sellers. Then the Ultimate Universe is great.

But every once in awhile I'm scratching my head and say "WHAT?" Case in point: Decimation.

Can't really say anything about One More Day since it's not finished but I'm not liking the possible spoilers.