Thursday, August 25, 2011

Comics are dying, let's start over

oh Stephanie Brown, I'll miss you most of all.

HeroComplex (which has an awful looking website, btw) has a very good article on the DC reboot, or the "New 52", as they're calling it. It's has a lot of quotes from Co-Publisher and fan-least-favorite Dan Didio plus other creative types that are working on the relaunch. It's probably the best article I've read on the subject since it was first announced. It has a some info and opinions that I think DC should have focused on sooner rather than later. As it is, it feels like they had this big idea and ran with it before they got their ducks in a row. Anyhoo, Here's the money quote.

"The truth is people are leaving anyway, they’re just doing it quietly, and we have been papering it over with increased prices,” DiDio said. “We didn’t want to wake up one day and find we had a bunch of $20 books that 10,000 people are buying.”

Amen brother. As a comic fan it sucks to admit this but comic books have become an ultra niche market and so far no crossover success (like the Dark Knight) has changed that. One look at the sales charts and you'll see the pattern, every book is down. All the time. Publishers have tried to fight the momentum by constant renumbering, but for every #1 that sells say 20,000 more copies than the previous Vol, they're stealing 1,000 readers from every other book they publish.

A lot of people think Digital comics will save the day and I hope they're right. The only way for Comic books to recapture the success they had just 15 years ago is to get books, digital or otherwise, into new readers hands. It's clear they've given up on traditional distribution methods, hopefully they can find a way to crack the digital code (which is much harder than say the konami code).

0 comments:

 

Tags

90210 advertising wizards alien amazon anne hathaway arkham city art awesome parenting awesome tv shows bad ideas bad ideas? batman battlefield 3 Beastie Boys bioshock boobs books call of duty captain america cars cartoons cats catwoman cheerleaders christmas colbert report comic-con comics commercials community computer games computers conan o'brien cosplay crazy people cute animals cute kids deadpool diablo III dinosaurs diora baird disney doctor who dogs dungeons and dragons e3 espn failure fake trailers food funny things futurama game of thrones george lucas gi joe google gratuitous use of babes guns half life 2 halloween hard ticket to hawaii harry potter hbo hip-hop horrible tv shows I'm out of ideas idiots internet meme iron man it's always sunny in philadelphia japan is awesome jersey shore Jimmy Fallon justified kevin smith legos lingerie football links lists local news lord of the rings lost marvel math mc chris megan fox michael Bay michael jackson monkeys movies music nbc nerdcore nerdery nerds nfl ninjas nintendo obama old computers olivia munn parks and rec people that need to shut it pin-ups piranha 3d pirates planet of the apes playboy playstaytion politics poor decisions porn prometheus prostitution? protesters random picture random simpsons reference red dead redemption robots ron swanson rumors sad nerds science seattle seinfeld sharks snow soccer spider-man star blazers star trek star wars super mario bros superman the apocalypse the avengers the blurst of times the daily show the future the interwebs the muppet show the simpsons the walking dead thor tmnt top gear total recall transformers tron tumblr tv shows twitter usmnt video games wags watchmen wish list wolverine wonder woman world cup wrestling x-box x-men xbox live zombies

DevilDinosaur: classic geek Copyright © 2012 Community is Designed by Sacha Blogger Template

CSS done by Link building