Personally, I think the collapse in Marvel sales is directly attributably to the collapse of the speculative bubble.

A large number of people were buying Marvel solely because they thought htey were looking at a guaranteed profit.

Once it became obvious this wasn't the case what was there to keep people around? The hot artists had all decamped to Image taking the younger readers with them.

The quality writers and artists had given up on the company in disgust and moved on to DC or Dark Horse or elsewhere and taken another chink of the reader base with them.

And as jack says, the dumping of the old numbering (a minor matter on its own but the last straw for many after fiascoes like "The Crossing" and the Spider-clone story) was the last straw for many long-time loyal readers.

The really annoying thing about this is that most of the editorial geniuses behind this crap are still working for the company. Macchio and De Falco (to pick two examples) are still working for Marvel. Many of the freelancers and shop-owners who suffered as a result of their poor judgement probably aren't working period.

yup

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Well, then, going back to Jim's original title for this thread:

What's the future for Marvel, given the current reality, as far as the retail community is concerned -- and perhaps more relevant, what's the future WITHOUT Marvel as the lead player, if that transition has indeed already occured?

The future for Marvel - the corporate shell - seems pretty clear acquisition by a media or toy conglomerate - probably Hasbro or Fox, possibly Sony, Mattel or a dark horse (no pun intended) like Bertelsmann or Egmont.

Marvel is basicly two businesses - magazine publishing and exploiting the intellectual property they "acquired" from Stan, Jack and Steve (to name only the most obvious of the company's "benefactors").

An independent Marvel is simply too small either to play on an equal footing in magazine publishing (a shrinking market anyway) or to fully exploit the intellectual properties they control. Unlike DC which can run first-run animation on WB or TNT, followed by syndication as part of a package with other WB shows and can get movies made that don't suck. .
There are another couple of possibilities: Marvel could become a "virtual" company like Harvey, licensing out their library of characters but not publishing them any more.

Or DC could buy them. A few years that might have caused major anti-trust problems (although the lawyers would no doubt have argued that comics were simply part of a larger "youth entertainment" industry that competes with computer games, music, movies, Tv, Pokemon cards etc). However now the combined Marvel and DC Marvel share probably wouldn't be that much greater than the near 50% Marvel captured by itself in the early nineties.

Where will this leave the industry? floundering.

I don't think e-books will be a significant factor for 5-10 years (and even then they'll be competing with shockwave-animated cartoons). Publishers somehow need to survive until that market matures. Retailers (like me) need to convert their shops into places that can offer things the internet and e-books can't - crack, heroin, prostitutes.

Hang on that's plan B. Plan A is to have helpful,knowledgeable staff, carry a good range, encourage browsing, and provide a venue for people to meet and interact .

For creators, the real challenge is what its always been - to produce great work. (Although that sounds like ridiculous advice to direct to the creator of work like Tyrant. Some times great obviously isn't all it takes.)

Comics are going through possibly their worst time since the 1950's. But other genres have proven that a single break-through work or a single creator (or a small group of creators)is all that it takes. The most obvious recent example of this is the Blair Witch Project. But there are plenty of others.

And if none of that works - there's always Plan B. .

Steve:

I've been meaning to get back here for a while. The question of the future was weighing heavily on my mind when I started the thread. I had a number of exchanges on other threads with thoughtful commentators where I poured water over their opinions regarding bookstore, newsstand, and supermarket distribution.

On one thread, Gary Colabuono brought up a generational phenomenon. There just aren't many young entrepeneurs opening comics stores these days.

After a while, I began to feel I was painting myself into a corner (or sawing off the tree limb I was sitting on.) I know enough about the real world to know that the tree doesn't really fall over, but I was hoping that someone would suggest a way to paint a new doorway onto the wall, so I could escape.

Maybe Chuck Rozanski really has done that. Or maybe it's the consignment model that Ward Batty is setting up.

I'm still on the lookout for the killer idea for getting comics out among the masses. Any suggestions?

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"I love him like a brother. David Greenglas." -- Woody Allen - Crimes & Misdemeanors

>>I'm still on the lookout for the killer idea for getting comics out among the masses. Any suggestions?<<

First you have to put them where the masses can find them...and, despite recent news reports, the web still isn't that place.

Yes, web retailing is growing exponentially, but there's no indication that web shoppers are buying stuff there they wouldn't have bought in a brick-and-mortar environment. IOW, people go to the web to buy the same stuff they'd buy in a store, but without the hassles of driving, parking, walking, etc.

Comics have to get back into the general retailing environment for the masses to have any interest in them.

Best, Pat

Jim and Pat,

Yes, the future weighs on my mind, too. Though I've abandoned the market and industry as it currently exists, I do so in hopes of building an alternative for my work and that of my children (and their generation) elsewhere.

One of the core dilemmas is the lack of comic venues, and the lack of recognition as a result. Most people simply don't know comics exist anymore.

For four years now, I've been a guest of the Vermont Pavilion at the "Big E" New England State Exposition in Springfield, MA in late Sept. - early Oct. It's a three week long "state fair" writ large, open every day of that three week spread, drawing literally hundreds of thousands of people. As a guest in the VT state building, I'm showing and selling my wares to literally THOUSANDS of people in a single busy weekend day. I do very well there with the TYRANT Paleo-Paks and 1963 Six-Paks -- I've sold hundreds of them in that venue... TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO IDEA THEY EXIST until they see them there.

In fact, two sobering anecdotes:

* A comment I oft heard repeated: "I didn't know they still made comics."

* It's telling to me that parents, not kids, are attracted to the comics. In the fall of 1997, I spent five full days hustling books at the "E", and that was the most educational comics retail experience of my life. I did VERY well, but the pattern was that parents would see my books, bring their kids over, and were unable to interest the kids (!). More often than not, the parents would buy a pack for their children (I'm a good flea marketer). That particular fall, two of these kids (different families, different days) later sought me out. Both were 12-13 year old boys, and neither had EVER READ A COMIC BEFORE. They liked what they'd read, and wanted to know where they could find more comics.

Being in Springfield, I was able to direct them to a number of comic shops still open in the area... which isn't the case in other parts of the country.

Comics are NOT a readily visible or available commodity in the lives of most young people today. When I speak in college venues, I find audiences eager for comics, but with little exposure to them, little immediately available or in reach to them, and little inclination for them to search too hard. They like 'em, they're hungry for 'em, but out of sight (and reach), out of mind much of the time.

This is a major obstacle, and one having a devastating impact on the industry.

On the other hand, I must say I do find it heartening when my childrens' friends are swapping reading copies of (ahem) the hardcover CAGES. Not MY kids, mind you -- they're surrounded by comics -- their friends, who've grown up in "normal" households. When I was at their age, the highest level of work we had on hand to loan interested friends was NICK FURY or ENEMY ACE -- the medium has progressed so much, but the availability of the excellent work is so narrow and regionalized.

The quality work IS out there, but there are so few venues exposing potential audiences to this fine work.

What to do?????

[This message has been edited by Stephen R Bissette (edited 12-22-1999).]

Stephen:

What to do?

Indeed.

Jim, Pat and you have all pointed out major problems with the current marketing of comics.

Put simply they're dying as a mass medium. Your experience with the kids who had no initial interest in comics becasue they barely knew what they were gels with my own retailing experience.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's one single action anyone can do to address the problem.

We need to find new formats and new marketing outlets for comics - mainstream bookshops, newsstands, the internet.

We need to exploit new media like e-books and cd-rom.

We need the major companies to start investing in the future (Hey DC - how about donating copies of the Batman Adventures books to schools and children's hospitals?)

But at the same time I'm cautiously optimistic. The quality of art and writing on display in the ABC line, much of DC's Vertigo line and some Dark Horse and even Marvel comics is as high now as it's ever been.

I think that if something happened to attract media attention now (like the Batman movie or the death of Superman), there would actually be signficant corpus of work to point to that would keep the interest of reasonably intelligent adults engaged.

The work I've done with libraries, Boys & Girls Club and literacy organizations shows me that they are looking for something that helps them with boys 8-14, who arn't interested in reading. That group is termed "reluctent readers" and they will read comic related products. Almost to the exclusion of anything else.

So, have we milked this cluster of topics dry?

I'd love to hear some historical background on the early days of the direct market from people in regions not covered above. Except for the Northeast and the Great Lakes states, we're still pretty blank.

Anybody from the West Coast, the Southwest or the South out there? Wasn't there a lot of early activity in Texas, for instance?